Randomosity

The last few days have been...well, different. Saturday I spent in bed, Sunday was long and exhausting but wonderful - Judgement Sunday, the second Sunday before Lent. It was also the last day we got to eat meat before Pascha - Easter, on April 27th. I love the icons for this feast:


Everything there should make sense to most people - it's the icon for the story of the Last Judgement in Matthew 25. To those not used to Orthodox iconography, the two people with Christ (closest to Him) are the Theotokos (Mary) and St John the Baptist. I remember the first time I saw an icon of St John and wondered who it was - it seemed logically to be St John the Baptist, but he had wings! Why was he an angel? It turns out, it's a pun of sorts. Angelos means 'messenger' so it can mean angel, but it can mean another messenger too. No wings in this icon though. The men on thrones either side are Ss Peter and Paul representing the apostles, and the people bowing at His feet are Adam and Eve representing the human race.

Jeremy, Daniel and I went for lunch after Church (and we all had meat, naturally - Jeremy asked for the biggest schnitzel they had, and when the lady figured out we were Orthodox - she was married to a Greek guy - she put ham on it too) and sitting down with a bottle of red Jeremy made a toast to 'a good defence before the dread judgement seat of Christ' - a phrase from the Liturgy, one of the things we ask God for at least once every service. It was an odd toast, but a good one - and thoroughly memorable.

We had a quiz night that night at Church, and my table won, which was fun. I like quiz nights, they're a fun kind of crazy.

I've spent the last few days recovering though. Just settling and stitching. My sister bought her formal dress (formal = prom, minus the politics) yesterday and it's so sweet, rosebud pink. She looks lovely in it.

Here's my weekly update on Peaceful Paradise, anyway. Less got done this week - last week's seems to have been a marathon update!


The first two rows of lettering are totally done now, and I'm working on the rest. Again, I'm getting bogged down in the sky, but I'm alternating a length of thread in that with a length of thread on anything else and that's helping. When I'm not sick of blue I'll often do two lengths. It's worth it, I love the effect that it has with the stars - and the stars are wonderful, so much fun to stitch! The moon is new this week too. And I've just reached a point where I need to stitch an ornament amongst the text, which is nice - always good to stitch on something different. I'm not sure what I'll do if I finish everything else before I finish the sky - I think I'll just start the next page down, while finishing the sky. I learned from last time not to try and just stitch sky, I got so sick of this piece I couldn't look at it for a while!