So now again we begin to pray

I saw my doctor yesterday and he has a new idea for treatment. So now I have a list of medications to take twice a day...and another to take three times a day, at least an hour apart from the others...and we pray that this helps. The theory is that there is too much copper in my body and that's killing things and not allowing me to access nutrients. Who knows? At this point, I'm willing to try just about anything ethical.

The winter cold saps my strength. I am living day to day on painkillers at the moment, just biding my time until winter passes. I hate that I say that - but I know it's true. In the meantime I do what I can - I'm stitching a lot, I drove a little bit tonight (another 50 minutes logged), and reading books. I received the sparkly threads in the mail today for the icon, so it's beginning to glitter which is a lot of fun even though they are a nightmare to stitch with! Two shades of gold, one bright and one antique. Koukla does an admirable job of keeping me company, but you know I'm sick when I don't take my hats off - my arms ache so much that the thought of washing my hair makes me wince. I haven't washed my hair since...I know it's been about two weeks. I've had a bath since then, just not washed my hair. Tomorrow maybe I will bite the bullet and ask my Mum to do it for me...I haven't had to do that in ages though and I hate that I'm that sick again.

I talked to Father last night and sorted a few things through which was wonderful...even just to talk about these things lightens the load and clears my mind a little. It doesn't matter if he has answers to my problems - heh, I have a couple chronic illnesses, and unless he can work miracles there's not a lot he can do about those. But there are a lot of other things which there are solutions to, and I can seek guidance for. And I do. It's funny, I often resist it not knowing what he will say...and afterwards kick myself, HARD, for not going earlier. Confession is the same way. In the usual Orthodox way I'm not going to say what we talked about or his advice, except a few things which aren't personal, or at least aren't without a long explanation - the thing that made me laugh the most was his telling me I had to get my drivers license. I'm happily working towards it (almost there...please God soon!) but the fact that my priest was telling me I had to get it seemed so...practical, which amuses me. Jeremy would look at me strangely for saying that I know, and it's probably a sign I've yet a while to go in acquiring an Orthodox mind that I see things like that as funny (and notice them as out of the ordinary at all), but hey. This is my blog, and I'll say what I want to (and am allowed to) and will probably laugh at myself in time to come.

It's not yet 11 and I'm already contemplating putting my stitching down for the night, which is out of character for this girl who usually stays up past midnight working, though I think I'll finish the thread I'm using first - when I do I will have the red section of Christ's robe finished which is a happy dance of a small kind :) Getting this mini-icon done will be a happy dance all its own, it's about 40x600. There's still quite a bit of blue to do yet, and two more colours left in the cloud, but it will all happen. Adding the gold to the halo was so much fun because it completed the top section of the mini icon. The border is coming together reasonably now that I've finally figured out how to 'attack' it, and that's nice. It was a shock to look at the pattern and realise that this page (the chart only has four A3 pages) only has one and a half more repeats of the design once I finish the one I'm currently working on, which is nice! I'll finish any leftover threads into the next page down, but when I get the border done down the side I think I'll go sideways borderwise, and finish it across the top and start down the other side. I'd like to get the top of the icon done before I start going into the bottom pages too much.

Last night we had a visiting heiromonk (priest-monk) from Greece come to visit our study group too which was wonderful, and he stayed with us as we said Compline in the Church before we went home for the night. With him he brought a treasure - a relic of St Pachomios, and it would be interesting for skeptics to have observed us last night. We were our usual chatty, silly selves before walking into the Church... and Compline usually makes us calmer but not like that! It was wonderful.

And now this baby-Orthodox girl has sore...well, just about everything. So I'm going to finish up what I'm working on and take a photo before putting it all down for the night.

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I finished that section, and quickly filled in a small space in the side of the background which had been annoying me. It looks much smoother now which pleases me greatly. So, wanna see?


The photo doesn't show the sparkly properly - they never do, but it does show it sorta and give an idea of where I've got to :)

Tally of finished 10x10 squares - 42/768. That's 5.4% - I have enough for a progress marker!

On top of that I have a *lot* which only need a few stitches to be finished, too, so expect to see that number grow sharply soon! It's fun to see my pattern shrink - when I finish a 10x10 square I cut it from the pattern, if I can reach it directly from the sides, otherwise I X it out until I fill in the squares around it. Cutting out and throwing away squares is so satisfying!