My hands ache

and it's a quarter past 11, so I should probably get to bed soon. My fingers, especially, ache. I'm not sure why - I haven't done much stitching compared to the usual, it's weird that they would be aching this quickly when I can often stitch for a whole day. Maybe it's the weather. It's supposed to rain a bit tomorrow, maybe that constitutes a change in the weather? I don't know.

Peaceful Paradise is coming together beautifully. I realised about half an hour ago that an awful lot of page 8 is done, which is the page that has text on it. So I'm alternating a length of thread on page 8 (or if a word/ornament/phrase goes over the page in the same colour I go over the page too) and then a length on the green of the grass. I am pretty sure that the grass is going to drive me crazy just as much as the sky did, but I'll cope. At least there's more than just two shades of yellow to break up the monotony! I've mostly been using up the bits and pieces I have left of different colours from ornaments further up as I come to parts of the scene at the bottom that use them - the red I used in the lettering and still had half a length of in my needle/knotted in the fabric near the edge (where I keep such things, it's ok when there are so few, uneasily confusable colours in a project) got used for the dress of a little angel, the mouth of the shepherd and the outline of big rose type flowers down on the 'grass'. Ditto the lettering yellow, which became the angel's halo and wings, and the brown from the ornaments got used for her hair. About then she was almost finished so I cheated, and filled in the pink for the face and gave her eyes. She's adorable! I cheated a bit actually, it was just such a nice change of page to stitch up bits and pieces of the picture. My focus is still finishing page 8 though. I have four pages overlapping on my chart holder at the moment and it's a bit nuts! I hope to finish page 8, then finish page 12 while working on page 7. Then I'll have reached the bottom edge, and I can move my frame over because everything on the far right will be done. That's the plan, anyway. I have a feeling a lot of green will be filled in during s.o.s. lessons though, we spend about half the lesson with the teacher trying to coax answers out of everyone else or explaining to a kid what the assignment actually was. There's something nice about the teacher not being able to see what your hands are doing while you're on the phone - I keep mine busy, stitching. Green does not involve thinking, which is why I've picked it for this. I did the same thing with the blue for the sky. Boring, but not as boring as my class! Well...maybe it's a tie...

Speaking of which, I have demographics homework for that class that needs doing tomorrow. It'll get done.

I would show you a picture of PP but my sister has the camera still from her formal and she's asleep so I can't steal it back. I think this piece will get scavenged for motifs though - the angels would make cute christmas ornaments, and there are some lovely floral motifs. Not to mention the alphabet...

Every now and then I look at the piece and realise just how big it is. And stop myself passing out. When I get my current two pages done I'll be half done, and that's something definitely worth celebrating.

Anyway. I should go, I've set up a reading schedule for myself at nights which I'm really enjoying but takes a while - at minimum, four chapters from completely different parts of the Bible. Reading the Old Testament from the Septuagint is fascinating, it's like reading it again for the first time, and some of it really is for the first time, like the books that the Protestants would call the Apocrypha - the story of Daniel and Susannah (though I read that story years ago and fell in love with it), the Wisdom of Sirach, the song of the Three Holy Children (the boys in the fiery furnace), 1,2,3 Maccabees, etc.

Hey...if you read this, would you do me a favour and leave a comment? Sometimes it feels like I'm writing to thin air :) I don't mean to comment-beg, it's just nice to know if anyone reads this.