tangled threads

A meme because I haven't done one in a few months

2008-08-03T22:41:00.001+09:30

Random Questions. (:

What time do you go to bed?: very, very late
Do you drink coffee?: if it's good. ie espresso, or lebanese/greek
What was the last song you listened to?: Grace Kelly - Mika
How old were you when you got/gave your first kiss?: 15
What kind of ice cream is your favorite?: homemade macadamia
Have you ever met an internet friend in real life?: yeah, ages ago
Are you/have you ever been anorexic?: nope
Do you know which US states don't use Daylight Saving Time?: no! why would i care?
What size shoe do you wear?: 5.5 ish (australian)
Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?: My mum
Which is more important in your life, TV or Internet?: INTERNET
Do you have an iPod?: yes, a silver nano, my birthday present to myself
Have you ever been fired from a job?: nope
Have you ever taken something you knew belonged to someone else?: not that i can remember. probably when i was three or something.
Do you overuse smileys?: oh, probably
Who is better; Madonna or Blondie?: UNGH gnawing my fingers off
Who is better; Elton John or Billy Joel?: Elton John has a better voice
Do you know the song Total Eclipse Of The Heart?: I've heard it, couldn't sing it
When was the last time you ate something?: dinner - tomato soup
Name three website you visit every day:: desert calling, theologyweb, the ancient way
Have you seen all of the Jaws movies?: no, none!
Do you have Entomophobia?: what is that?
Do you know what Entomophobia is?: no.
Have you ever worn black eyeliner?: yeah, a few times. goth makeup ftw
Have you ever worn blue mascara?: NO.
Ever spiked your hair?: haha, yes. when i could still sit on it!
How long have you had a computer?: since I was 11
Have you ever written something, and published it on the internet?: does a blog count?
Do you have a crush on anyone at the moment?: no
Do you like Starbucks?: no! there are much better aussie coffee chains
Have you ever owned a kitten?: i own one now
Is it raining where you are?: not that i know, but it's supposed to tomorrow
When was the last time you played cards? (not on the computer): probably last summer
Can you play chess?: yes, but I haven't in ages
Ever owned a pair of the original Nikes? (white, with only a single swoosh): I think so? Don't remember.
Ever worn leg warmers?: no
When was the last time you read a book over 700 pages long?: Les Miserables...a few months ago
How many people are on your IM friends list?: hahahaha a few hundred probably. Im an internet tragic
How many hours of sleep do you usually get?: 9 or so, often more
Have you ever drank cherry coke?: yeah, i liked it
Do you prefer using pens or pencils?: pens unless i'm doing shorthand
Have you ever skipped for a long distance?: a lot, i used to skip everywhere just for fun
Have you ever had a black eye?: not that I remember
The torture is over, you may now leave. (:

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Because some things are just cute

2008-08-03T14:42:00.001+09:30

no comment necessary

A bit o'this'n'that

2008-08-02T20:09:00.004+09:30

I've always struggled with depression, when I care to admit it. I spent half my childhood in a fantasy world talking to the invisible people who weren't there, telling stories, dressing myself in words to make myself someone who I'm not. I never fit in, really, and I still find it hard to believe that I've found somewhere where I'm accepted, for better or worse.

And, especially when I'm home alone, I end up in this weird funk again. I've been feeling out of sorts all day, possibly because I haven't done anything. I know it's not good for me to stay in bed all day but I do it, and then I end up feeling out of it and moping. It's too easy to be lonely, especially when my sister is out working or with her boyfriend or something. My parents are away for the weekend, and I'm trying to be positive but not always successful at that. Add to that that someone had left a door open and the room was cold, making me more achy and miserable than usual...yeah.

If it wasn't a fast I'd be curled up eating cookies or chocolate, but I've eaten the last of my dark chocolate and don't have a car to get more! Oh well, it's not good for me anyway.

I can write stuff like I did the other night, but when it comes down to it I'm just me and I don't write stuff like that often. That post came from about a month or so of trying to wrestle out some stuff I still haven't got a handle on. And I still struggle with stuff even though cognitively I know what the truth it. Writing something and believing it all the time are two different things.

But that's ok.

Before I started work tonight I took photos of Mystery X, which I've put a few stitches in recently. Here you go:

The East house:

The South house:

The east house now has the pink chimneys done, and just needs the central chimney and the backstitching done :)

It's coming together quicker than before this time, or at least that's how it seems.

Would you think I was nuts

2008-08-02T18:43:00.002+09:30

If I bought one of these?

It's an abaya, the outer dress/coat/mixture of both worn by Islamic women - but this one has a hood. I reckon they're awesome, especially in a dark chocolate brown or something. I'd wear that all the time - better than a hoodie anyday, much more elegant! I love abayas, but I don't have the guts to buy one - yet. They're not beyond my means price-wise either, most places sell them for quite reasonable prices especially with the current exchange rate.

Here is the link to that one, anyway.

It's interesting

2008-08-01T22:47:00.005+09:30

I spent so long trying to figure out how to 'do this Orthodox thing' properly, and it's just starting to sink in that maybe I'm not doing as badly as I thought I was. Oh, I've got a loooong way to go - who doesn't? But most of the stuff you associate with Orthodoxy isn't really that big a deal, and it's taken me three and a bit months baptised plus nine months as a catechumen to start to realise that I was being an idiot. Joy. I have been assured that I will do this for the rest of my life, which is such a hopeful prospect, right? The funny thing is that I say that sarcastically but I know people who would seriously agree with it. I want to be them when I grow up! Unfortunately I know that they got to where they are through some pretty hard stuff, and hard work. That bit I don't like, but I'll keep walking, because there's nothing else I can do :)

You see people who can quote the Fathers on any subject, cook brilliant food for the fasts, have glorious icon corners, you get women for whom wearing scarves and long skirts is what they do evvery day, you get monks and nuns (though even I am not so much an idiot to expect myself to measure up to THEM in daily life), you get people that know how all this stuff works while I'm still learning on my feet. And what's got to me recently is that that's ok. In the meantime I am me. I light a fistful of candles every time I go to Church, for other people, because that's just what I do. I talk to people, and I pray that I help them not hinder them. These things are all good, but partly some of them take time, and partly they're different walks. I have my own strengths, and my weaknesses which I am all too aware of. As with my approach to daily life with my illnesses, all I can do is take things day by day and not expect too much of myself. I have my own joys, and I must not be totally useless or people wouldn't want to hang around with me, much less go out of their way to pick me up for something, or take me home, or go for coffee, or ring me up for my name day and have their family yell Χρονια πολλά to me over the phone. Nothing is overnight, just like my stitching. I pick big projects for my stitching, and work a little at a time. This is no different.

Figuring that out, and figuring out that the best way to fix my flaws is to simply live the Orthodox life - to say my prayers, even if all I can manage is the morning and evening ones...to keep the fasts (or NOT, depending on the guidance of my priest - my friend pointed out, laughing, that when I was eating normally during Lent on the orders of my priest, in that way I kept the fast), to go to Church when I can, to sit with my prayer rope in my hands and pray for myself or others, to give as I can, to help as I can, to offer what kindness I am able and bring what beauty I can to the world - that is all that is asked of me, and that is acheiveable. As a convert in a country where Orthodoxy is still largely within certain ethnic groups - people who have grown up with the customs and beliefs of the Church as daily life, I've always felt somewhat behind the 8-ball, trying to catch up. And that's stupid, and I don't know why it's taken me so long to figure it out. I am not Greek. I am not Russian. I am not Lebanese. I am Australian, the descendent of German peasants and Cornish miners, among others. I am small and slight with recessive gene brown eyes, and golden toned skin, a throwback to my great-grandparents from the mining country of Cornwall, who would be horrified at my being Orthodox but I can't help that :) So I'm learning to cook to fit the fasts with Greek and Lebanese food, yes, but also Australian - the mixture of world cuisines that we steal and adapt. Authentic Indian curries, not so authentic British style curries, ANZAC biscuits. Hippie healthy lentil and pumpkin soup, Italian pasta sauces, tomato or vegemite sandwiches. I say my prayers in English, not Greek or Arabic - most of the time! I celebrate my own culture while happily joining the cultures of my parishes. I danced for years in a classical style, and now I am learning on my feet (literally) how to dance a completely different way. And this is all okay. This is just me.

So I'll stay me, wearing old fashioned clothes one day and dresses and skirts over jeans the next. I'll wear a mixture of beautiful, fashionable, or just fun hats everywhere I go, and sometimes to Church. I'll wear my scarves in Church even if I get funny looks from some people - this is me, and its something I was convicted over long before I ever 'turned Orthodox'. I'll have mad fits of baking and make food for everyone at my fellowship group and anyone else that will eat them. I'll talk to strangers on trains, and listen to their life stories and their problems and whatever else they tell me. I'll stay Kyri, having to pronounce Kyriaki sloooowly whenever I encounter non-Greeks (including one ROCOR priest, much to my amusement). I'll listen to a mixture of ABBA, Jars of Clay, Orthodox Chant done by monks and the radio. I'll be satisfied with the icons I have, and lighting candles before them as I say my prayers, because I'm blessed to have what I have, each one a gift. And when I do get more, I'll love them too, because I choose them for reasons, not just because I long to have the beautiful walls of icons that some of my friends have. I'll read recipe magazines for fun and attempt to feed myself and my family with the concoctions found therein. I'll happily stitch on whatever's 'calling' and know that I will finish something, one day.

I'll be myself. I'll just live life as I am now, and know that it is by prayer and the life of the Church that God changes us, not our trying to change ourselves. At least, that is my prayer.

I didn't start out trying to write this. I meant to write a short paragraph then write about all sorts of other things...but I am glad I did. I don't usually write long pieces about my faith, but try as I might it will escape into my blog like this, and I'm glad it does. It's as much my life as anything else - more than most things, really. So there you go - that's me.

The end of the month, and new month goals

2008-08-01T00:36:00.004+09:30

Ages ago I used to set goals every month. I don't tend to stick with a piece for too long, but they're not bad for guidance to keep me sorta on track. So I'll post them in a minute...but first - haikus!

Ok, what do haikus have to do with anything? Well, not much. But a bunch of us on one of my Orthodox forums started writing haiku (is that the plural?) about the forum named Desert Calling, or about anything really.

Here are a few of mine:

a home for oddballs
who live, love, laugh, sharing life
the aim: theosis

this is addictive
writing these important things
in a few short lines

trying to do math
to make silliness seem like
most profound wisdom

my priest says desert
is where a monk is praying
so in my church then?

monks are nice people
but they challenge us young ones
to do harder things

desert on the net
a place to come relax and
to find my soul food

my kitten Koukla
is an Orthodox kitten
she likes lentil soup

the aim - theosis
but the journey is harder
than i ever thought.

dormition fast now
eat a lot of chilli beans
and ignore the steak

(for us, the fast for the Dormition of the Theotokos begins today, August 1, and goes until the 15th, the feast of the Dormition)

One poster, Reader John, made me laugh:

I thought to myself
I forgot my umbrella
I'm Friedrich Nietzsche

God is dead, said I
Then, Nietzsche is dead, said God
I guess I was wrong

The desert is a
Really, really big sandbox
With cacti and snakes

The days are quite hot
The nights are so cold and dark
At least it's quiet

--

That was wonderfully off topic. Tonight's study was beautiful - on Mark 9, how good is that for Father matching the text with the feasts (next Wednesday is the feast of the Transfiguration, and that's the topic of the first section of Mark 9) without meaning to - he comments that we are probably doing the slowest study of a Gospel ever since we started it in February, though we've had a few weeks off for other topics (Lent will do that, as will the Great Feasts). We did Compline after and I was felt...peaceful. Light. Joyful, I suppose. As I joined the line to kiss Father's hand and say goodnight Dmitri said to me that he always wanted to see the smile on my face that I had then. And then we went home...and Troy and I really shouldn't be put in the same car without Jeremy to keep an eye on us. Even then I hate it, but without Jeremy we end up like cat and dog and it's not good. I didn't kill him, or tip something over him. I am somewhat proud of this. *sighs* I'm feeling...uncomfortable because of that I suppose. Life is still good and without struggle we wouldn't grow but some things are avoidable. This is. It won't happen again soon if I can help it.

I'm home now, with a bright candle lit in front of the icons and I'm going to take some solace in the Psalms, God-willing. They help, a lot - the prayers are universal, yet they fit my life. Doxa to Theo.

So, goals?

Apparently I totally forgot to make them last month. So, as usual, I'll start the month with the new ones, under headings.

Stitching

finish row 15 of A Restful Night
reach 7.5% on St Nicholas
enjoy stitching
work on something else at least once

Other craft

get the dress that's half-made finished
do a row on Moonshadow quilt

Religious stuff

get my icons in the mail and set them up by my bed
fix my memorisation of Psalm 50/51 (is memorising it in OSB text too much to ask of myself? hmm)
memorise at least one other Psalm
get to the Paraklesis service at least twice during the Dormition fast
learn to cook something new during the fast
try to remember to thank God for good and bad alike

School stuff

finish and send in assignment 3 for S.o.s. by the end of week 4 (15th)
get something done on assignment 2 or figure out a way to make it not have to be done
at least one open book one closed book summative for History
get my history notes up to date and keep them up to date for Comparative Study
try and do some noting for Depth Study (good revision for ^)
maths DI by the end of week 3 (8th)
maths test sometime soon after

Hoo boy. To meet these, I think these are this week's goals (week end 8th August):

Maths DI
KAI 2 notes
closed book essay on KAI 2
write the survey for S3 and send it out
write history notes for week 1, and this week
work on Psalm 50/51
attend the Paraklesis on Thursday and maybe Wednesday if I'm hanging around after the DL long enough (and I go)
finish row 14 of ARN during the the UFO SAL and Wednesday
stitch on St Nicholas on other days
attempt some work on the dress

Trying to take my own advice

2008-07-30T23:08:00.006+09:30

I stitched this afternoon but two of the family are coming down with something like the flu that comes with aches - and I think I might have it too. It's always hard to tell since I feel like I have the flu permanently but my hands don't usually ache this much for no reason. I finally took a couple painkillers tonight with dinner but I think they're wearing off.

When in frustration with the universe (and my brain not working - my eyes aren't focussing properly and I'm finding it hard to think) I gave up working on froggy today here is where I got to:

Two complete eyes now, roughly 20150 stitches. Not a bad stint, not as good as last week but then my eyes were focussing and my hands weren't killing me last week! I was sick, just differently. I watched tv without anything in my hands except Koukla for a couple hours (a few of you will probably die of shock at hearing that), enjoying a This is Your Life about Shannon Noll, Spics&Specs (a sort of musical game show half comedy show that is really hard to explain), bits and pieces of US So You Think You Can Dance and the Gruen Transfer, which I love. Finally, I settled down on the couch again, picking up Mystery X. I've got a length and a half of thread in but I'm just struggling with my hands not wanting to work so I've given up for the night.

I cooked dinner tonight - I often do on Wednesday or Friday since I'm the weirdo that eats vegan twice a week (and for an entire fortnight, come this Friday, hooray for the Dormition Fast!) but I was not in the mood for anything fancy. Instead of buying normal magazines I buy recipe magazines, and not the fancy ones - the excellent budget yummy ones. I get sooo many recipes from there, and it saves me from meat&three veg every night (which, incidentally, I hate if it's done the traditional way, bland and boring. My parents disagree) because Mum likes them too. So, with 'not fancy' in mind, I pulled this chilli recipe out of July's Recipes+ magazine.

Chilli Beans with Wedges
Serves 4, prep 10minutes cook20minutes
900g frozen potato wedges (we did not eat anywhere near the whole packet and we used 750g! Also, we did tater-tots or their equivalent for my coeliac sister who can't eat wedges, and I prefer them)
1tbs olive oil (Don't bother measuring. Just plonk a bunch in, enough to fry an onion)
1 brown onion, chopped
400g can red kidney beans, rinsed
400g can borlotti beans, rinsed
425g can sweet corn kernels, drained
375g jar enchilada sauce (or chunky salsa if you are like me and can't find enchilada sauce!)
1 avocado, diced (in season here at the moment, YUM)
1/2 cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped
light sour cream, to serve (or use hummous if you are being vegan)

1. Put the wedges/tater tots in to cook. The magazines had instructions but they're on the packet anyway.
2. While that's cooking, heat oil in a large saucepan over moderate heat. Cook and stir onion for five minutes or until soft. Add beans (BOTH CANS, I forgot one and had to add it and reheat), corn and sauce and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for five minutes.
3. Spoon chilli into serving bowls. Top with avocado, coriander and a dollop of sour cream/hummous. Serve with whatever potato you cooked.

This is incrediby easy, quick, and really really yummy. My sister likes it, and she hates basically anything vegan I cook, though it doesn't help that I like spicy curries and she is of the view that food should not make you cry. It's also good cold as leftovers, if you have any left! I am so going to make this again, possibly in the next week or so given I'll be cooking up all my easy vegan recipes again - for 1, generally, since my family is not Orthodox and they cope with being vegan twice a week but more than that is kinda pushing it. This is quicker than almost anything else I have cooked that fits the rules for nestia, the fasts. It does have oil in it, which breaks the rules for people who keep the fasts strictly but my priest would have my head if I tried to do that...

As to the post title? I kinda...decided that I'd do something about the well known fact that everyone comes to me for advice but I can't take it myself. So I dug out the box of index cards that I use for everything from memorising Greek or Arabic vocab to test preparation to writing out prayers and Bible verses to read or memorise or both. And blu-tak (stuff you stick posters up with ) And coloured markers. And attacked the wall next to my bed :)

The top three cards are a summary of Orthodoxy quoted by Fr Thomas Hopko, I can't remember who he was quoting though. "Go to Church. Say your prayers. Remember God." I have yet to find better *grins* The others are all common sense stuff:

"Do an hour's schoolwork every day as well as lessons. Saves stress later!"

"Say morning and evening prayers regardless of the time of day" - I have a tendency to wake up at 3 and feel ridiculous saying morning prayers, especially the ones that say that say greeting the dawn etc

"Go to bed before midnight. The internet will not explode without you!"

"Get up in the morning. The sooner you're up, the better you'll feel

"Take your meds. Forgetting just makes you feel worse" (marginally, my meds make me feel sick too!)

"If you feel tired at night, sleep. Don't you think your body knows what you need?"

The final few cards are one with my schedule of medications, and two that have the prayer for an ill person (or one of them) on them. It's readable from my bed, but not really in the photo unless you go to the full size view.

I have a confession to make though - my bed doesn't usually get made (getting out of it is usually effort enough) but I wasn't going to take a photo without it made, so it got made....and i'll be in bed sleeping soon enough!

Anyway, enough. I'll ramble if I'm not careful!

You know it's time to put the stitching down

2008-07-30T00:18:00.003+09:30

when as you sign into blogger and click on your blog name you notice that you have 336 posts...and automatically think of the DMC thread with that number. Incidentally, there's a lot of 336 in A Restful Night, so I have been around it a lot recently, if that's any defence!

It really hit me the other day that it is week 2 of term 3. I only have this 10 week term and 3 weeks of next term to get all my work done, and some of it the deadlines really can't be extended. Course-work wise I am up to date, for which I am thankful. But I have a math test and an assignment overdue, and at least two more tests by the end of the year as well as a trial exam - they don't stress me too much. I have a history essay I should really get around to doing, since it was due in March (!!!) if I can find the assignment sheet for it, or else email the teacher, and I need to catch up some of the timed essays now that I know I can do them at home. I have a major essay to research and write by the end of the year too, but I know my topic (roughly) so if I narrow it down really soon I should be able to get it done provided I'm reasonably disciplined. I have a trial exam for that too.

But oh goodness. Studies of Societies...as much as I like the course, I have a mostly AWOL class that I have to try and do group work with, and the assignments make me groan and not want to work on them. The latest one isn't too bad and I just need to grit my teeth and do it, but I'm not feeling inspired. The class drives me nuts, which is a shame - I like the teacher, and the course itself is good.

But I am one and a half assignments behind, and am about to start my major research essay (and don't have any inspiration for a topic) and a major group task...sigh. And there are 8 and a half weeks left of this term. It will happen. That is time enough. But time seems to stand still for me until I have none left.

I need to find a way of motivating myself, especially when I'm feeling this miserable.

A wordle

2008-07-29T17:36:00.000+09:30

Here's a wordle of my blog:

Just thought id post it 'cause it made me smile. It looks cool, doesn't it?

A grey day

2008-07-29T15:59:00.003+09:30

I've been tempted to write something as an entry for ages, but not sure what.

I'm very tired, my everything aches and my brain feels foggy, which makes things hard. Its UFO night, so froggy is out to play - I've got about 60 stitches done so far but it's all confetti and I'm finding it hard to concentrate.

As far as math is concerned I am up to date, thankfully. So now I need to get this assignment done, mailed, and do the test. Then all will be well. S.o.s. is...*sigh*. I don't even know where to begin.

I'm weak, and sick, and my sleep cycle is out of whack. I had a lot of fun on the weekend, but now I'm paying for it. So, I stay here at home. I got asked to show and tell my work last when company came calling so I had froggy, St Nicholas, Mystery X and Peaceful Paradise out. That was nice, except it's making me have itchy feet again. I'm going to be good and keep working here on froggy, or go back to St Nicholas of I get sick of frog. To do something else is tempting, but not going to happen, if I can help it!

Kitty has discovered the wonders of 'outside' and has been pouncing on bugs, sticks and whatever moves, and playing with our oldest cat. I approve of this, especially since it means she isn't destroying floss this way (her other favourite pastime).

Its Tuesday night, tv night. Its windy, and my family are coming home later. It's been very cold and overcast all day, and I have the heating on but I'm still cold. But this too will pass. For now, I'll go back to my embroidery. At least it's raining, and when I'm home indoors I am thankful for that - we need rain desperately.

So close...

2008-07-26T02:39:00.001+09:30

Just before I go to bed, I thought I'd post this. This is where froggy is at after a night on the couch watching movies on tv:

About 150 stitches shy of the end of the row. So close... And look at that EYE! It's all done now, and the detail around it...wow. You don't see these things when you're stitching them.

Up again, sort of

2008-07-25T17:06:00.004+09:30

Thankyou Gayle and Rosko/Harry, very much. By the prayers of the Saints...

Today is a little easier, mostly because someone who probably doesn't want me to name him here smacked some sense into me. Thankyou, S. Again I'm listening to Jars of Clay, and listening to this bit in "Oh My God" made me laugh, its me.

Sometimes I can not forgive, and these days mercy cuts so deep,
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep.
While I lay, I'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter,
When we wake we hate our brother, we still move to hurt each other,
Sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear that keeps me silent,
Falls below my heavy breathing, what makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder, we all have the need for wonder.
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder.

Amen. I finally got to sleep around 4am last night, after chatting to the aforementioned friend and realising a few home truths, none of which were nice but all were true. And we fall down, and we get back up again. I have that quote by St John Climacus on the whiteboard that our former tenants put on the pantry/larder (you can walk in, it's awesome!) door -

"Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly, the angel who guards you will honour your patience."

I was driving with my dad in the country today, we have a place we like to go and eat at when he's home during the day, and we tend to chat along the way. I mentioned that last night's study had been on the Sermon on the Mount, holiness, fools for Christ and relics. Dad asked me if the Orthodox take was that the SotM was hyperbole, or what? I said it's a beautiful thing to strive to attain to. Just most of us fail. But that doesn't make it hyperbole, because there are people who live it. He commented that it sounded like an 'impossible possibility' (which is a good thing in my dad's language) and asked if it was connected with the above quote. Which totally made my day, because it's been there for months and noone's commented on it except my sister to say that I wrote weird things everywhere. I love that quote, its actually part of a longer section but there's only so much you can fit on a whiteboard! It's also my signature on one of my internet forums. I was told a while ago that I wasn't allowed to argue theology with my dad, so I keep things general. To not talk about what we studied in some way would be totally unnatural, so I just say things and avoid arguments, biting my tongue which is harder than words can say sometimes. And do stuff like writing quotes on the whiteboard, and showing the icons I plan to buy, and stuff.

Last night was fun, even though I ended up in a black mood when I got home. We had a bit of a chatter through it all, and when talking about fools for Christ (Saints who did crazy seeming things to cover their holiness, or to make a point, or both - its a calling, and RARE) Father informed us that we weren't allowed to go home and decide to be fools for Christ in the morning and throw rocks at the bishop. Someone was heard to murmer 'but that would be fun!' which produced giggles from the surrounding people at that section of the table. I love the stories of fools for Christ, and my sister's favourite Saint was/is one, St Maximos the Hut Burner. You can always tell when I've been sick for days, I make an effort when I get dressed to go somewhere. See?

You can't see in the photo, but I had my wonderful black beat up doc martens on, which I discovered are wonderful Church shoes because they support my ankles which makes it easier to stand. Who knew? I got home, took my coat off, and my sister (who despairs of my lack of fashion sense) squealed 'you are so CUTE! I want to keep you!' hence the photos got taken. Church clothes - please note I am wearing a *skirt* over my jeans (ok a dress) - my friend did the same last night as it was cold and we couldn't be bothered wearing a normal skirt and freezing our legs. I'm wearing a hat too - for one thing I need it in this weather for two it works instead of a scarf and is less dorky. Much as I like scarves...

I woke up a bit after 10 today after dozing for a couple hours - someone fed kitten red bull again or something and she decided to come bouncing in, bounce-thud on my legs, back and head then run away again, before repeating the process a few times. I think this is Koukla-speak for WAKE UP SILLY! I duly ignored her. I had to get up though, because my lesson yesterday had to be rescheduled. I got a 1:1 lesson with my teacher which was good - apparently I am more caught up than most of my class with the course work (YES!!) and my Mum is now allowed to supervise my timed essays and tests which she wasn't before (no immediate family) which makes life a lot easier since whenever I had to sit a test before I had to go to school with her which really knocked me around. And I might get to drop one or two of the outstanding timed essays and maybe one of the untimed, which would make life a LOT easier...we'll see. Now to get caught up with my studies of societies and all will be well :)

Lesson over, Dad and I drove out to get lunch, and sat in a park nearby to eat it, which was lovely, and then drove back to go down and pick up my sister to take her to the airport. Got there, all well...and she realised that her luggage was in the car my mum had taken to work. 40 minutes from where we were. ACK! Dad took the wheel then, and a few frantic phone calls later we got to where she works, grabbed the luggage, and drove as fast as legally possible to the airport. We made it in time, thankfully, saw her off (she's visiting a friend in Melbourne for the friend's 18th birthday and coming home Sunday), and drove home. The vigil is on tonight, but logistically it was just going to be bad, and I'm tired, and sick. Eventually I told Jeremy I'd stay home tonight and rest since we have the dance tomorrow night! So I get a quiet night in, which is fine.

I forgot to post this the other day - on the Stitch&Stash forum they run a 'UFO night' where you designate a piece fitting that description and work on it every Tuesday night (or whenever). Mine ended up being Wednesday, because I was a zombie Tuesday, and I got a lot done - here is QS A Restful Night after my work that day:

Froggy is appearing! I'd put this down in disgust in about April, because I'd gone cross country and my tension was a little off. I wasn't sure if I'd have to frog, so I figured better to put it down before I threatened to cut it up! So I picked it up, ironed it (it needed it) and put it on my tightest q-snaps, and it's being quite happy now. I'm working roughly the way I used to (before I deviated into cross country) but much faster - apparently I've got quicker, which is nice! 600+ stitches the other day, woohoo! She's still on the frame, I'd like to finish off this row before I put her down and go back to St Nicholas. Or else I'll just work on her until I get sick of her, which is what often happens with me and projects - I can't rotate on a system to save my life. If I pick up a project, it gets worked on for the forseeable future.

So now I am tired, and thinking of throwing some pasta in a pot and heating up a jar of mushroom and tomato pasta sauce for dinner. Mushroom+tomato pasta sauce is yummmy, one of my favourite Friday foods.

Glory to God for all things!

Bittersweet

2008-07-25T00:40:00.004+09:30

You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
On a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to you

I will sing of Your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

When death like a gypsy
Comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face

But I fear you aren't listening
Because there are no words
Just the stillness and the hunger
For a faith that assures

Alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia, alleluia

While we wait for rescue
With our eyes tightly shut
Face to the ground using our hands
To cover the fatal cut

And though the pain is an ocean
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
Higher mountains have come down

Alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia, alleluia

Oh, Lord sing of Your mercy,
Mercy
Your mercy

- "The Valley Song", Jars of Clay

JoC write a lot of bittersweet stuff that is actually theologically pretty good. I've been listening to a lot recently, needing something new to listen to. Insomnia when you're not allowed on the internet (which I define as anything unnecessary - forums, surfing etc fall under this category - priests homily type blogs are grey area, blogs of my own don't count as I could do that on my computer, responding to comments DO...) is hard. Stupid Friday.

I have a vigil tomorrow night. I am looking forward to it...and yet not. Which is a weird feeling. And I'm sick, and its cold, and life is not fun...but God is good.

Have mercy Lord and heal your suffering servants.

I love...

2008-07-23T23:23:00.001+09:30

my priest, email, and the internet.

Just thought I'd tell you all.

Photos again

2008-07-23T15:23:00.002+09:30

I have a bit of everything photowise today.

First, I made the pastitsio last night. It turned out that sister-creature WAS home for dinner, so I did end up making it gluten free. Thankfully it turned out alright. Gluten free pasta is a bit more 'squishy' than normal pasta, but it worked well enough. I burnt the bechamel sauce once because I got distracted making the mince...d'oh! Thankfully it wasn't too badly burned so I quickly scrubbed the pot and started again. It worked the second time. I got a photo of it on the table with the salad - we forgot to buy lettuce, but noone minded. The salad had olives, cucumber, onion, tomato and fetta - yum.

Second, Saturday night was Great Vespers for the feast of St Elias and the Greek Archbishop was in town for it and the Divine Liturgy the next day. So there wasn't Vespers at any of the normal parish churches...there was just one incredible one at St Elias, with about ten priests, the bishop, the archbishop....a bunch of altar boys too, and at least one deacon but I don't remember exactly. Beautiful, and nuts! I *didnt'* get photos of that though I probably should have, but I dressed up a bit more than usual to go and decided to put my hair up properly. I didn't think to get photos before I left, but I decided that given my good skirt is an edwardian design, and the blouse I was wearing was too...I'd do my hair edwardian style. It's long enough, so why not? Mum gave me a hand though, I'm not well enough to have my hands above my head much. It was really windy so its seriously flyaway by the time I got photos but you can sorta see:

The second one is probably clearer. The front parts are parted on the side, then twisted and pinned back, and then the rest is twisted up into a bun and pinned above where the twists meet. It's a lot of fun (once you get the hang of it) and it looks really nice when it's not had a windy night attack it. You can sorta see the embroidery on the collar of my blouse in the first photo - I should get a picture of this blouse, I found it in a store I'd never have expected to sell such things, it's fitted with a high neck, "mother of pearl" buttons all down the front, a tiny waist and pintucks, cutwork and white on white embroidery everywhere. It's my best blouse and I love it to pieces.

And...'cause she likes to be in these things, here is Koukla being...herself.

I think she was eyeing off my shoelaces at the time :)

With aching hands

2008-07-22T02:27:00.002+09:30

I have spent all of today, except about two hours, in bed. Those two hours were sitting on the couch because my laptop battery had died...and then deciding it was a smarter idea to bring the cable up here. Thankyou so much to those who commented with well wishes - Gayle, Cathy and Karan, and any of you who just thought it or said a prayer for me. Doxa to Theo, all will be well.

My hands ache, especially the joints, and I am weak as a kitten. Best of all, I got dobbed in to cook dinner tomorrow night...and then my Mum invited company...and I'm sick! I'm going to make Pastitio anyway, since I've found a not-authentic-but-still-yummy-looking recipe, and hopefully it will work out. I'll start cooking soon after I get up and God willing that will mean it will all happen. I'm making lemon butter&cream croissants for dessert - heh, buy it all, spread stuff on cut croissants, dust with icing sugar, serve. My idea of a company dessert when I'm sick! I forgot about salad when I gave mum a list tonight but I'll just call her and ask her to get stuff on her way home. I'd intended to make it gluten free but I dont actually need to since sister-creature will not be home for dinner, which will make life easier for me since bechamel sauce is interesting with gluten free flour - meaning it doesn't always want to work. This is pastitsio:

Yum.

I am frustrated by being sick, but resigned to it. I started my medication Friday night, it is now Monday night (or Tuesday morning). I feel sicker...but I don't know if that's the weather or the meds. And I'm not even taking them right, I don't tend to get up early enough in the morning to take them...bad Kyri. I need to fix that.

I have a class tomorrow. Oh joy. That is not going to be fun. I don't want to face my teachers having done none of the catchup over the holidays that I'd planned - I've just been too sick.

*sigh*

Doxa to Theo, all will be well...

And as we pray...

2008-07-19T02:18:00.004+09:30

It's times like these that I try not to be bitter, and try to wait on God. Much easier said than done, but I find comfort in the prayers of the Church...

O Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, Physician of souls and bodies, who didst become man and suffer death on the Cross for our salvation, and through thy tender love and compassion didst heal all manner of sickness and affliction; do thou O Lord, visit me in my suffering, and grant me grace and strength to bear this sickness with which I am afflicted, with Christian patience and submission to thy will, trusting in thy loving kindness and tender mercy. Bless, I pray thee, the means used for my recovery, and those who administer them. I know O Lord, that I justly deserve any punishment inflicted upon me for I have so often offended thee and sinned against thee, in thought, word, and deed. Therefore, I humbly pray thee, look upon my weakness, and deal not with me after my sins, but according to the multitude of thy mercies. Have compassion on me, and let mercy and justice meet; and deliver me from this sickness and suffering I am undergoing. Grant that my sickness may be the means of my true repentance and amendment of my life according to thy will, that I may spend the rest of my days in thy love and fear: that my soul, being helped by thy grace and sanctified by thy Holy Mysteries, may be prepared for its passage to the Eternal Life, and there, in the company of thy blessed Saints, may praise and glorify thee with thy Eternal Father and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.

O lord Jesus, Physician of souls and bodies, may Thy presence ever be with me to hallow and bless this my sickness to Thy praise and glory, and to the salvation of my soul. Forgive me all my many sins and want of love for Thee. May I ever fix my thoughts upon Thy great sufferings upon the Cross, that I may learn from Thee courage and patience, humility and love; and above all, true submission to the Father's will, that, being restored to health in Thine own good time I may show forth Thy praise by giving up myself to Thy service. And grant that when this life is ended, I may be found worthy through my merits to inherit eternal life. Amen.

Lord God of Hosts be with us, for we have no other hope in times of sorrow but Thee...Lord God of Hosts have mercy on us.

Almighty God, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, come to my help and deliver me from this difficulty that besets me. I believe Lord, that all trials of life are under Your care and that all things work for the good of those who love You. Take away from me fear, anxiety and distress. Help me to face and endure my difficulty with faith, courage and wisdom. Grant that this trial may bring me closer to You for You are my rock and refuge, my comfort and hope, my delight and joy. I trust in Your love and compassion. Blessed is Your name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

O God, our help in time of need, Who are just and merciful, and Who inclines to the supplications of His people. Look down upon me and have mercy on me and deliver me from the trouble that now besets me. Deal with us not according to our iniquities, but according to Your manifold mercies, for we are the works of Your hands, and You know our weaknesses. I pray to you to grant me Your divine helping grace, and endow me with patience and strength to endure my hardships with complete submission to Your Will. Only You know our misery and sufferings, and to You, our only hope and refuge, I flee for relief and comfort, trusting in Your infinite love and compassion, that in due time, when You know best, You will deliver me from this trouble, and turn my distress into comfort. We then shall rejoice in Your mercy, and exalt and praise Your Holy Name, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit, both now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen

----

As well as these, the wonderful prayers of the Church for illnesses and times of trouble, I also ask the prayers of others...and of my patron Saint, St Kyriaki, my guardian angel, and St Nektarios who is especially loved by those suffering from chronic illnesses.

Saint Kyriaki, Holy Mother of God and all the saints, who have pleased God in Your lives; pray to Christ my Lord that I might live this day in peace love and humility.
Pray unto God for me, O Holy Saint Kyriaki, well-pleasing to God: for I turn to you, who are a speedy helper and intercessor for my soul.

O angel of God, my holy guardian, given to me from heaven, enlighten me this day, and save me from all evil. Instruct me in doing good deeds, and set me on the path of salvation. Amen.

O angel of Christ, holy guardian and protector of my soul and body, forgive me everything wherein I have offended you every day of my life, and protect me from all influence and temptation of the Evil One. May I never again anger God by my sins. Pray for me to the Lord, that He may make me worthy of the grace of the All-Holy Trinity, and of the blessed Mother of God, and of all the saints. Amen.

You lived your life in a holy way, O St. Nectarios; being a Bishop rich in wisdom, you have glorified the Lord with your life of virtue; being strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit, you drive out evil spirits and heal the sick. Intercede for those who come to you in faith.

O faithful, let us honor Nectarios, divine servant of Christ, offspring of Silivria and guardian of Aegina, who in these latter years was manifested as the true friend of virtue. All manner of healing wells forth for those who in piety cry out, "Glory to Christ who glorified you; glory to Him who, through you, wrought wonders; glory to Him who, through you, works healing for all."

Lord, have mercy.

So now again we begin to pray

2008-07-18T23:45:00.000+09:30

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.

--- x ----

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!

And now my eyes won't focus

2008-07-16T00:00:00.002+09:30

...plus it's midnight so I better knock off for the night. I wondered about taking a photo since I hadn't done as much as I had hoped but my friend who I am stitching it for asked for one, so...

I took two. One's with my stitching lamp on and the colours aren't true, but it glows more - the colours in this really do glow and the stark photos don't capture that, and we're not going to have decent sunlight for a daylight picture for AGES. So...

I got seriously stuck into the cloud tonight, adding the second dominant colour to the top section of it. Two shades of white on white! UGH. But the effect is fantastic. I've only got a few more stitches left to do of the bright white now, which is nice, though the other white is used in the lower section of the icon too mixed with a grey. It actually looks fluffy which is really cool! The book Christ is holding is finished now except one confetti stitch of gold and the 'jewel' which is green, and I hope to get stuck into His robes next time I work on this because I want to get this section done, a mini-finish. There's a bunch of thread in three colours put into the border but it's hard to notice as any work in the border blends seamlessly in. As wonderful as that is, its' aggravating! If I didn't mark my work I'd feel like I was never getting anywhere on it. I used up some leftover thread in the places it's called for in the background, and added a second colour to St Nicholas' halo (the arc in the centre) and otherwise did a bit of this and that. I hadn't been able to find the metallics when I've gone looking for them (theres a border of gold around Christ's halo, and two golds mixed braid together in St Nicholas' halo) but upon googling them I found the designer had a conversion page since they are the old DMC metallics colours and there is a conversion to light effects - thankfully, because light effects can be *washed*. I was thinking I'd have to stitch the whole thing, and then wash it if needed, and then add all the metallic at once. Ugh. I couldn't think of better penance, better not suggest it to Father! So I duly ordered them (I'm not going to be near spotlight anytime soon) and I should get them in the mail soon and be able to start adding them :) I don't like working with sparklies much, but they do look good and it's annoying me not to be able to use them especially since the outer part of the Saint's halo is practically all sparkly. Which will look fantastic, I keep telling myself!

Best of all - look at this!

The first picture is from only five weeks ago. I am *very* pleased with how much has happened in the last month!

Doxa to Theo...it is coming together well.

Now I am seriously going to go SLEEP.

A little better

2008-07-15T18:53:00.003+09:30

Evening always makes things easy, I'm not really sure why.

So I'm now sitting up watching tv and stitching a bit. I've got a few photos for you too :)

Here is what St Nicholas looks like as of the 12th - I took the photos but didn't get around to posting them up!

The icon of Christ is almost done, except the cloud. The cloud is kind of scaring me because there are so many shades of white and grey! I did enough of the background to get across, and now I've started the halo. I need to get some DMC 5284 though, which I haven't been able to find in a store yet and I think I need to buy some online - as far as I can tell its a metallic. There's a gold metallic, too, and Christ's halo gets a border of it as well but I'm not sure whether to add it yet just in case I want to wash the piece when it's done. I'm going to wait until all of the stitches in an area where the metallic is are done first so that the metallic doesn't warp things, I'm somewhat wary of metallics!

And here is the cafe where I had dinner with Troy last night:

That's Troy at the counter, ordering :)

And here's the poster for the deal we got last night:

I had the orientale which was absolutely delicious.

Anyway, back to my stitching now. I'll hopefully get enough for a new photo soon :)

I am...

2008-07-15T15:22:00.004+09:30

flat, exhausted, weak, tired.

I'm misspelling a lot. I'm sick, and I really need to just admit that. I walked home last night in the drizzle and the cold, for 40 minutes, up a steep hill. With fibromyalgia. Yes, I deserve to be beaten over the head with something, but I'd missed my bus and didn't have a choice really.

The curtains are open and I can see outside even though it is a grey day and that's nice. My dresser is basically clean and I like that, too. It's nice not to have clutter right next to my bed.

But my brain feels like I am thinking through fog and as long as I don't move, nothing hurts. I struggle in this weather because the cold and damp makes me ill. I am tired but not sleepy, and to lie down makes me bored but I am lying propped up on pillows so that I can type this and use the internet.

I need to go talk to my priest about a number of things again it's just a case of managing to do that. It will happen. Perhaps I should call him tonight?

I saw Prince Caspian last night again and enjoyed it the second time, even if every bus that I tried to catch to get there went weird...and I left my umbrella on one of them... c'est la vie. Not having a car or parents to come rescue me kinda sucks. I bought the tickets, Troy bought dinner. Not a bad deal. I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that we broke up about two months ago... long story but it wasnt working and probably never will. We went to the movies so we could catch us since we hadnt really seen each other in a month. It left me kind of confused though.

The holidays (winter break) coincided with a bunch of very wintery weather, much to my delight (not). I was going to get a lot of schoolwork caught up but mostly I've been sick instead! I plan to do something about it all soon, I'm just giving it time.

My hands ache now too and I'm hungry but everythin in the house would involve me making something, and I can't. So I'll probably grab a handful of something and curl up in bed listening to my new audiobook.

Usually I'm reasonably upbeat in my blog but today I am just too tired.

Edited to add: Totally off topic, but this is hilarious. It's a summary commentary version of Prince Caspian (the movie) and sooo so funny. Quick to read (in script form) and funfun.

The great room makeover

2008-07-11T17:24:00.000+09:30

Or cleanup, anyway. My room has a tendency to be somewhat of a mess, always has been. Having very little energy or motivation to spend on it thanks to my illnesses has led to it being worse than usual, especially since my family (who share my system of organisation) decided to clear the piles out of a few room of the house. Which meant all my stuff got dumped in my room. And it looked...like this.

- Just behind my door (at the foot of my bed)

- straight across from the door

- my bed

- diagonally across the room

- the window wall

Ugh. So... I decided, after taking all those photos, to work on it in 1/2 hour stints with breaks in between (or my body would mutiny more than usual) and take progress photos. Hey, it works for stitching!

So after the first half hour:

- the window wall, straight from the door

- diagonally across (look, some of the drawers actually close now!)

My bed - this is more of a mess than when I started, but that's because I use it to organise things before they get put away. The doritos were from lunch, leftover from my sister making nachos last night. My laptop has my timer on it, and music :)

Here's the middle of the room, too, which I didn't get a photo of before.

I won't post this 'til I'm done, I'll just add updates to it until either I stop for the day or I finish up. Fingers crossed for the second one. *clicks save now*

Update #1 (1hr total)
It's starting to look reasonably livable now. Partly that's because there's a lot that's been sorted into piles of 'this does not belong in my room' in the hall outside (neatly!) but there's a lot been put away too. I'm attempting to be ruthless - I am a notorious packrat, and I want to change that because having 'stuff' tends to make me feel like I'm choking.

Koukla wanted to 'help', but ended up being more underfoot than anything. She kept attacking the clothes basket...so I put her in it. She didn't like that much, but at least it stopped her...

after I let her out she helped me clean out and organise the big drawers in my dresser...

and then ran away when I started the vacuum cleaner :)

So, wanna see progress?

- across from the door. You can actually see my desk now (at least the front of it) and those horrible drawers...they're a stopgap, currently holding my patterns and charts that I'm not using. They're ugly, big, and falling apart. I don't want to keep them, and if I can find something else to take their place (maybe the brightly coloured ones that are currently holding 10yr old junk?) they will be out on the curb with the next rubbish collection. For now they're under my desk.

- diagonally across. You can see the middle of the room is basically clear now, yay, and vacuumed - I managed to vacuum a boot lace and the charger for my phone in the process (doh!) but I rescued both and all's good now. The bookshelves don't have my normal books on them (I've been boxing them up over the last few months - there is a plan to move the furniture out of my room at some point soon when it's clean so we can tear up the carpet and replace it with floorboards. They're in another room) but they have a few books I have been using, books that haven't been boxed yet (mostly the bottom two shelves) and my school things (all those folders) Oh, and my arabic stuff.

- my bed. This only seems to get worse! There's a lot there in terms of clothes that need sorting, or to be hung up/put away when I can get to my closet again. There's too much stuff in the way at the moment!

As I end and go in search of food before starting work again, it's 4pm :) *clicks save*

Update #2 (1.5hrs total)
This will be the last one, I think. I happily pretended there was nothing wrong with me for a few hours while I worked, but my body is now laughing at that, so enough's enough. I have a few last photos for you though before I end and go see if my hands can cope with stitching in front of the tv for a few hours.

I took the first photo not long after I started work again because I wanted a picture while it was still reasonably light outside.

It's winter here, and at half past four it was already starting to dim. We got the curtain tiebacks when we bought my bedspread and curtains ten years ago (I had good taste, if I say so myself - I was ten when I picked out the colours and things for my room, and I still love them!) but have never put up the hooks to use them. I got sick of them hanging around and finally decided to do something about them. So I just knotted them around the curtains, and it made a difference :) So nice to have all the light in my room, and besides me liking the look of them like this it's also easier on my arms to tie them back than to pull the cords.

- the window wall. I cleared the desk, but it's got stuff on it again that was on the floor in the corner and needs sorting. The fabric-y thing is actually my oldest likely-to-be-finished UFO - it's on 14 or 16 ct Aida (I forget which!) and it's a band sampler, sorta, all with Australian birds and flowers etc. Really quite pretty, and it only needs the backstitched border finished and the beak and legs given to the birds. If I can dig up the chart sometime soon and find the DMC it calls for in my stash I might finish it up soon, I wouldn't even need a frame to do what's left, especially given it's Aida. It really needs a wash though! This is the project that actually got me back into stitching after getting incredibly sick of kits and not being able to find charts I liked. I started the mate to it, but it's less interesting and I don't think I'll ever finish it. It looks fine on its own :) It would/will be nice to get it finished and framed.

- diagonally across. You can basically see the floor in that corner now. The baskets are full of fabric scraps, a UFO quilt that I've been hunting for a while (and really needs finishing up already - the blocks are all pieced it just needs sewing, it's been in that state for two years...) and a doll whose dress I've never made (again, just get some fabric and do it already Kyri!) The cords etc are a mess but I'm not really sure what to do with them, I can't really hide them easily.

- my bed. Which is still a mess, and I'm sitting on it at the moment. None of the stuff on it is heavy though so it will probably just be shoved to the end for the night and I'll deal with it tomorrow. Too tired to do much more than that.

-- so that's the end for today. It's still a lot better than it started off being, even if I haven't got finished yet. I wish my body hadn't conked out on me, I'd still be working if I wasn't sick. Oh well. TV it is now.

Because I haven't done a meme in ages...

2008-07-10T22:31:00.002+09:30

I got this from Emma.

Here are the rules :
- Link to the person who tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Write six random things about yourself.
- Tag six people at the end of your post.
- Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
- Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. I really really hate the cold. It makes me feel down, and makes me lethargic and achy. So much hate for winter, seriously.

2. I adore rich, deep hues. Deep reds, blues, greens, purples, pinks...

3. I have handwritten lists of vocabulary and alphabets for Greek and Arabic stuck to my wall by my bed, desperately trying to memorise stuff!

4. I love vigils - the long service after service nights at Church which start around 7 and finish after midnight with the Divine Liturgy...and then we all go eat a few bowls of soup and talk for hours.

5. I can't draw to save my life but have a love of all things to do with fabric or thread. If I don't know how to do it, I want to learn.

6. My clothes tend to have very simple lines, deep colours, and be quite plain. They can stand out, but I'm not fond of large prints most of the time, preferring simple things. And long skirts. And scarves. And get compared to nuns. Sigh. *giggle*

Tag, You're it!

My name day and other things

2008-07-09T23:32:00.002+09:30

I've been somewhat caught up with other things recently and haven't done much in the way of blogging, so I figured it was about time I wrote again.

Sunday was Liturgy in the morning, of course, but this time it had been promised in english - or more than usual, so I brought my family including my grandmother who has been staying with us. My parents have been before so knew the drill, though they'd never been since I was baptised (ie when I could receive Communion) which I thought might be a problem given the debates I have with my Dad about closed Communion but it wasn't, doxa to Theo. My grandmother is anglican/church of england/episcopalian (we say anglican in Australia) so it wasn't all that foreign to her, all she commented was that it was a very high service but she quite enjoyed it. I was glad, I wanted her to see what it was that I'm always talking about and that it's not totally nuts or weird. My sister didn't come. She doesn't really like Orthodox churches/services for varying reasons, plus she ate a bunch of stuff she was allergic to the day before, so I wasn't surprised by that.

Father made me laugh because just about every time he had a chance to on Sunday he said 'tomorrow, the feast day of St Kyriaki! Your name day!' and I just laughed and said yes. I learned how to write Kyriaki in Arabic too while we introduced my grandmother to lebanese coffee (which she liked, though I made hers up as sweet as I drink mine - which is very!) and my family chatted to people after the service. We have a lot of new icons in frames along the walls of the Church too so we went to have a look and I explained who everyone was in the icons to my Mum (who knew the ones on the iconostasis but not the new ones) and my grandmother. Who was supremely unpeturbed by all this, much to my delight - she's actually quite happy I've gone back to the liturgical churches, it was my Mum who moved away from anglicanism.

We went home to roast lamb for dinner and cheesecake for my nameday - I like chocolate mud cake but noone else does so I compromised with a half caramel half lemon cheesecake which everyone liked :) Nona (my godmother) came as well, and after a long meal and chat I quickly packed a few things and I went with her to stay at her house, since she lives within walking distance of the Church and I like 40min by car...2 hours (ish) by public transport... I did NOT feel like getting up at 5am on a Monday to get to Church for my name day. No thankyou. So she had things to do that night and I curled up on the couch in front of the tv and was a vegetable, and about 9:30ish she made up my bed on a futon on the floor and I fell asleep watching tv. I woke up in the morning not feeling at all cooperative towards getting up (having set my alarm so I could get to the service before the Liturgy itself, which you don't have to go to but I like to) but after resetting my alarm to get me up for Liturgy I was awake enough and finally dragged myself out of bed - to discover that the forecasters were right, and it was about 3*C! I grabbed my clothes and dressed as much as I could under the blankets, but thankfully I had enough layers to stay reasonably warm once I was dressed. Nona lent me a shawl which I could use as a scarf because in a fit of being brain-dead I'd forgotten one for Church, and she dropped me at the Church on the way to work.

The service was as beautiful as ever, all in Greek as is normal for this particular parish. The Gospel was read twice though, once in Greek once in English, because the priest usually does and I was thankful for that. I know the service, more or less, so language barriers don't really bother me these days - I went to the Russian Church sorta near me after Vespers on Saturday night for Vespers again (theirs goes much longer) and it was all in Russian - and it didn't matter :) As I went up to get Father's blessing and some bread at the end (antidoron - blessed bread, not Communion...hard to explain) he commented that he'd never seen so many Κυριακήs on a Monday before. Heh, heh. For those who don't get it, Kyriaki is also the Greek name for Sunday. (So Nicole Kidman's baby and I share a name, cool! Even better, she was born on her feast day...)

I was wished happy name day a thousand times in varying languages, and stayed for coffee and food after, chatting to Nikos and Daniel and then to other friends who were around helping with things or just wanting to chat. After a bit of that it was decided that we needed to have coffee so Eleni and I were sent (with her baby girl who is adorable) to the nearby mall with a list of coffee requests, and picked up donuts and some cake, too. Carrying seven full coffees, in the rain, trying not to get your touch-the-floor-when-not-wearing-heels skirts wet, is not easy. We spilled some, yup. But the important thing was that we got there (and got rescued because trying to get out of the car with those coffees was going to be even harder than getting IN) and had a lovely time talking and eating.

Daniel gave me a lift to the city and my Mum and grandmother picked me up, and we had a reasonably quiet afternoon, and the last two days have been equally quiet. I sewed for a lot of yesterday and got a good amount of my new dress done (and woke up with my arms reminding me that I have fibromyalgia, sigh) which was fun, and went out to a lecture at the Russian Church on science/evolution and the Church, which I enjoyed - especially since we did the Akathist first which I happen to love, in both the byzantine and the russian styles - the music is very different.

My parents have gone to take my grandmother home and stay with her for a while, so my sister and I are housesitting. We haven't killed each other yet. We have almost completely different tastes in food though (not to mention dietary requirements for both of us) so we're cooking seperate meals, which is interesting! We don't have a car, which means I'll have to grab some groceries tomorrow night when I'm out with people who do, but other than that things are pretty good. Koukla and I watched about 10 episodes of "Last Exile" which is an anime from a few years ago that Daniel lent me the box set of, and I watched a stupid amount of tv tonight while stitching on St Nicholas. Speaking of which...

Here we are after tonight's work. The mini-icon of Christ is starting to take shape, though it will always be a little blurry since there's only so much detail you can put into the smaller parts of the icon. His plaque is done, there's a lot more progress in the border and the background is starting to get filled in too...and some of the cloud, which is done in about fiftyzillion (ok, i exaggerate) shades of white and grey. Oh joy. White on white! I'm doing small bits on that at a time.

...and I showed this on Monday too, and now another Nikos wants to pay me to do one. I told him to get in line ;) I'll probably do it though if I get this done soon enough. We'll see.

Saint Κυριακή (Kyriaki)

2008-07-07T17:03:00.006+09:30

It's my Name Day today - we who name children and newly baptised converts after Saints all have the feast day of the Saint whose name we bear to celebrate. My patron Saint/namesake Saint (both are true) is St Kyriaki, which means 'belongs to the Lord'. It's also the Greek word for Sunday - the Lord's day - and my priest calls me Sunday a lot. He's the one person in the world who gets away with it. In Latin it's Dominica (where the name Dominique comes from) and in slavic languages it's Nedelja.

I'll post what I did for it later - but here's my post honouring her, anyway, which is what the focus of today should be.

First, here's her story:
During the reign of the adversaries of Christ, Emperor Diocletian and his son-in-law Maximian, there lived in Anatolia two pious and elderly souls, Dorotheus and Eusebia. They were devout Christians, wealthy but childless. Unceasing in prayer they obtained a child from God, this holy Kyriaki. From her childhood, Kyriaki consecrated herself to God restraining from everything that unruly children do. When she matured, beautiful in body and soul, many suitors came to ask for her hand in marriage but she refused them all saying that she betrothed herself to Christ the Lord and that she desires nothing more than to die as a virgin. One of the rejected suitors denounced Kyriaki and her parents to Emperor Diocletian as being Christians. The emperor ordered that Kyriaki's parents be tortured and after torturing them banished them to the town of Melitene where they died enduring much suffering for Christ. Diocletian, however, sent Kyriaki to Maximian to stand trial. As Kyriaki confirmed her faith in Christ before Maximian, he ordered that she be placed on the ground and flogged with oxen whips. After that, the emperor handed her over to the commanders, at first Hilarion and then, after his death, to Apollonius. Both of them tortured Kyriaki in a beastly manner in all possible ways but all was in vain. When St. Kyriaki lay in the prison cell, completely covered with wounds, Christ the Lord appeared to her, healed her and said: "Kyriaki, do not be afraid of torture, My grace is with you." And truly, the Grace of Christ saved this martyr both from fire and from wild beasts from which the godless judges thought that she would certainly meet death. Seeing the miraculous salvation of Kyriaki from so many deaths, many pagans believed in Christ. However, they were all beheaded. Kyriaki said to Apollonius: "In no manner can you turn me away from my Faith. If you throw me into the fire, I have an example in the Three Youths [Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego]; if you throw me before wild beasts, I have an example in Daniel the Prophet; if you toss me into the sea, I have an example in Jonah the Prophet; if you give me over to the sword, I will remember the honorable Forerunner [John the Baptist]; life for me is to die for Christ." Then Apollonius ordered that Kyriaki be beheaded. Kyriaki knelt on her knees, raised her hands to heaven and prayed to God that He would have mercy and save all those who would celebrate her memory and to give rest to her soul together with the souls of her parents. Upon completing her prayer, she rendered her soul to God before the sword was lowered on her head. Kyriaki suffered honorably and was received into eternal joy in the year 289 A.D. in Nicomedia.

The only child, Saint Kyriaki,
Her parents, for the Faith died
Parents; God's saints.
The orphan, Saint Kyriaki,
What she possessed, to the poor she gave,
Only body and garment remained
And that, she sacrificed for Christ,
Kyriaki, as the dew, pure,
To be bribed by anything, did not allow,
To be lured by anyone, did not allow
Neither to be frightened by anything did allow.
But to suffering as to a wedding goes
Severe sufferings and deep wounds,
But sweet is the Name of Jesus!
Bitter pains, harsh humiliations,
But sweet is eternal reigning!
Her entire body, with red blood,
But the joy of Paradise is sweet!
O Kyriaki, God's chosen one,
And for Christ, wonderful martyr,
With a sword from the earth you were driven,
Wedded in glory, in heaven you were
Teach us the Faith to honor,
Encourage us, our life to give for her [the Faith],
By your prayers, help us
Wonderful candle, amidst the candles of Paradise.

(both from the Prologue From Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic - the poem seems a little odd because it was originally written in Serbian. The icon is by the nuns of the convent of St Elizabeth in California)

I have more WIPs than is healthy

2008-07-03T12:40:00.003+09:30

On The Wagon BB there's a 'post your current WIPs and photos' thread.

So I duly posted. And it looks like this. That's...not a good thing.
For those not a member there (I forgot you have to log in):

This thread is awesome, it's great to see all the pictures - there's a bit of everything here. Now to see if I can scrounge up photos of all my WIPs...

First, here's my current WIP:

St Nicholas by Solaria Gallery. A commission for a friend named Nikos (Nikolaos - Nicholas) in Greece, fun!

I have a few HAEDs - this is SK Iris Keeper:

Which I began but haven't got more than about 700 stitches done on. I should fix that, it's a gorgeous chart, but I'm...well I work OAAT until I get sick of a project (usually a few months) then pick up whatever WIP is screaming loudest!

QS A Restful Night:

Which needs a serious press because my tension was funky last time I worked on it and it's...lumpy, and I want to see if I can rescue it without frogging (heh) it.

QS Periwinkle Fae:

Which hasn't been worked on since last May which is a total crime because isn't she sweet? I should work on her again too.

Chatelaines:
Mystery X (Secret Victorian Garden)

This is about half done. And seriously calling, but I'm enjoying my current project too much at the moment. Pity, I miss it!

Japanese Octagon Box which you get two pictures of because I didn't take a picture of the whole thing when I worked on it most recently:

I love this piece and I work madly on it for a while and then stop because it's fiddly to get tension on. Another one that's currently screaming.

Not Chatelaines or HAEDs:
This is Tranquility Mystery Sampler (Von Wiehenburg)

It hasn't been worked on since last July. Feel free to slap me. I miss it, too.

Noon Basking by Dracolair:

This is a restart and I worked madly on it for a month or so but havent picked it up much since. Which is sad, I love this dragon.

Peaceful Paradise by Midsummer Night:

This has been my focus for most of the year so far. It's HUGE. On 40ct linen. And fun!

From The Gift of Stitching:
White Musings by Follow the Leader. Two photos again.

Beautiful but I get really sick of the bands by the time they're done. I might get this out again while watching tv sometime, it's the kind of thing that goes quicker then!

The Historic Countries Mystery Sampler

Thats half of pt 1. I know I've done more than this (on pt 1) but I haven't got a photo. Another one I really miss working on.

...oh goodness. I have issues.

*sighs*

*goes back to working on St Nicholas*

One stitch at a time, one WIP at a time. I really need to stop starting things. Even though I've only started three things this year...

St John of San Francisco and Shanghai

2008-07-02T15:19:00.003+09:30

It's the feast day of this Saint today, and I'm rather fond of him, so I thought I'd post a short version of his life here.

This brightly-shining Saint of our own day was born in Russia in 1896. In 1921 his family fled the Russian Revolution to Serbia, where he became a monk and was ordained a priest. From the time of his entry into monastic life he adopted a severely ascetical way of life: for the rest of his life he never slept in a bed, sleeping only briefly in a chair or prostrated before the icons. He ate one meal a day, in the evening. Teaching seminarians in Serbia, he instructed them each day to devote six hours to divine services, six hours to prayer (not including the divine services!), six hours to good works, and six hours to rest (these six hours obviously included eating and bathing as well as sleeping). Whether his seminarians followed his counsels we do not know, but he himself not only followed but exceeded them.
In 1934 he was made Bishop of Shanghai (in the Russian Church Abroad), where he served not only the Russian emigre community but a number of native Chinese Orthodox; from time to time he served the Divine Liturgy in Chinese. When the Communists took power in China, he labored tirelessly to evacuate his flock to safety, first to the Philippines, then to various western countries including the United States. He served as Bishop in Paris and Brussels, then, in 1962 was made Archbishop of San Francisco. Throughout his life as monk and hierarch he was revered (and sometimes condemned) for his ascetical labors and unceasing intercessions. During his life and ever since, numerous miraculous healings of all manner of afflictions have been accomplished through his prayers. Once, in Shanghai, a caretaker, investigating strange noises in the cathedral after midnight, discovered Bishop John standing in the belltower, looking down on the city and praying for the people. Years later, when he visited Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, the priest responsible for hosting him found the saint walking through the halls of the monastery, standing outside the door of each room and praying for the monk or seminarian sleeping within. When the Archbishop had prayed outside each room, he returned to the beginning of his circuit and began praying again; and so he spent the entire night.
Even as Archbishop, he lived in near-absolute poverty. His appearance was striking: His cassock was made of blue Chinese "peasant cloth," crudely decorated with crosses stitched by orphans who had been in his care in Shanghai. His Bishop's "miter" was often a cloth cap to which he had glued paper icons. Even in the United States, even while serving the Divine Liturgy (which he did every day), he went barefoot in all seasons. (Eventually, after he was hospitalized with an infected foot, his Metropolitan ordered him to wear shoes; thereafter, he wore sandals). Needless to say, he was an embarrassment to those who like their bishops to make a more worldly appearance, but among his various flocks throughout the world, there were always those who recognized him as a Saint in his own lifetime.
Following his repose in 1966, a steady stream of healings and other miracles was accomplished through his intercessions, and in 1996 he was glorified as a Saint of the Church. His incorrupt and wonder-working relics can be venerated at his cathedral in San Francisco. At St John's funeral, the eulogist told his mourners (and all of us): because Archbishop John was able to live the spirituality of the Orthodox Church so fully, even in modern, western, urban society, we are without excuse.
Footnote: An acquaintance of Monk John once met him on a train in Serbia. When asked his destination, Monk John replied, "I'm going to straighten out a mistake. I've gotten a letter meant for some other John whom they intend to make a bishop." The same person met him again on his return journey and asked if he had been able to resolve his problem. John answered, "The mistake is much worse than I thought: they did make me a bishop."

(from here)

St John, please pray for us sinners!

It's been almost a week

2008-07-02T14:16:00.002+09:30

So I figure I should probably blog something. I have photos now too - I lost the camera cable and had to find it but that happened this afternoon so all is well.

First, kitten picture, because everyone likes kittens!

This is Koukla asleep in her favourite spot in the window - in the sun, in a shoebox lid, with stitching stuff around her. This particular part of our living room is in a constant state of organised chaos with my stitching basket and whatever's spilled out of it, so you can see the threads in flossaway bags on a ring for a chatelaine, a bunch of dmc, the dilly bag with the threads for my tranquility sampler (which I should really get back out again), and whatever else... isn't she a cute fuzzball?

She also inexplicably likes the vegan soup I made last week, and trying to play with the prayer rope on my wrist, which led Troy to comment that I have an Orthodox cat! Well, she has a greek name at least...

Today is the feast day of St John Maximovich of San Francisco and Shanghai - yep, modern Saint! He reposed (died) in 1966, so he's a recent Saint, and there are so many miracles that happened during his life, and after. If you go here and scroll down to July 2 (not hard, since we're at the beginning of the month) you can read the story of his life, and some of the miracles :) Its not long, and I might post it in its own entry in a little while.

Someone elsewhere asked me how I dress normally if not in the dress I posted a week or so ago! In winter it's usually, a long skirt either my edwardian one or a semicircle dark blue one, both to my ankles, a shirt or blouse (or both), sometimes my cream turtleneck sweater and my red knit jacket, and my hair up. So, here's me:

I'm wearing my Cross too but its slipped down between the layers of shirts, and on my wrist are a collection of hair ties and a kompoiskini, a prayer rope.

And I have a picture of my stitching too :) Here's the St Nicholas icon - it's been more than a week since I uploaded a photo. Blech.

The initials plaque is being filled in, there's quite a bit more border (but never enough to represent just how much time I spend on it, sigh - this border will be the death of me), more backround and the beginning of the small icon of Christ - you can see part of His halo and his hair, beard and eyes starting to appear. I've divided my threads up into 'colours I am not using at the moment' 'colours for the border', 'colours for the background' and 'colours for the icon' at the moment, and trying to do a length of thread from each. Some colours are used in more than one place, and usually if I do a length of a colour that is used in the border I use it in the background or the icon too, to break up the monotony that is the border. It's beautiful, just makes my brain threaten to explode at times. Mostly I have a lot of the bright golden brown and the palest yellow to do, and they're the colours I'm focussing on when I work on the border. When the gold is in it will be a skeleton to add the other colours, and the pale yellow is the colour there's the most of but stitching with it is kinda boring and takes forever to fill in all the gaps.

I also finished the first sock of my pair, see?

They're small, I know. I have tiny feet! Here's proof that they fit:

Very cute, very fun. The toes are done...interestingly, but it works.

I went to see Get Smart last night which was fantastic - I remember the tv show, the only thing I was disappointed with was that we didn't get a single 'good thinking, 99'. Oh well. Very good movie, and the kind of comedy I actually like which is an achievement since I don't like most american comedies, I just don't find them funny. I went with my parents and we took my grandmother, who really liked it too.

Spotlight had a sale the other day too - 20% off everything, woohoo. So we went...Mum got some sheets, Nana got some sock wool and needles, I got some floss I needed for St Nicholas, and I wanted to make another summer dress - a little more tailored than the usual but still simple and long with sleeves. Do you know how HARD they are to buy??? There was some beautiful fabric that I've looked at several times for other things but not bought, and finally I bit the bullet and bought it. It's lovely stuff. See the little roses?

I got a pattern for it too -

I'm going to make the bottom left one, which is basically the middle one with short sleeves. Looks like exactly what I've been looking for to make :)

I also got this pattern because I couldn't resist:

I want to make the middle on in black velvet (like the picture) and wear it for a winter party dress. It's just gorgeous like that! I'll have a hunt to find a blouse too (they seem to be trendy at the moment) or else I'll find a pattern and make one up.

I *think* that's all I wanted to say! I'm sure if I think of more it'll go in another post :)

Why do I like being Orthodox? And life, too.

2008-06-27T00:02:00.003+09:30

Someone posed this question on The Ancient Way, one of the subforums of christianforums.com where I hang out sometimes.

Here's my response -
I suppose saying 'everything' is cheating?

I love the community that I belong to, that I am never alone. I love priests who are real people, and real fathers, who look after me and put up with an awful lot from this weirdo ex-protestant who asks too many questions. I love that there is an unbroken line in this faith, which remains the same throughout the ages. I love that we can claim history and to be the True Church.

I love the Saints, who pray for me and I know of their prayers. I love calling Mary Theotokos and Panayia and asking her for help. I love the fasts, even though they're hard and I complain about them sometimes when I want to eat cake or mcdonalds I love the feasts that fasts culminate in - and enjoy them all the more for having fasted.

I love my community, the family Christ promised to all who left 'fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters...' I love being on this road to becoming who I was meant to be, no matter how hard.

----

Alright, for those of you who dislike the religion stuff, you can start reading again now :)

Here's just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive, kompoiskini on my wrist and sore feet. I've had an incredibly quiet week, apart from some car trips with my dad and making up an awesome pumpkin and lentil soup recipe - its here for those who want it. Be warned though, it makes a metric ton of the stuff - we're going to freeze a lot of it in serving sizes for peoples' lunches and for starving Kyriaki during the fasts. It's nestissimo - lenten, for anyone who would actually need that information, except it does use some oil to soften the onions etc in the beginning - swap it out for some other oil if it's an 'olive oil free' day, or do whatever your pet trick is if you don't use oil at all.

Today and tomorrow have been/will be field trip days for History, which means I got to meet my teacher - awesomeness, and one of my classmates plus a bunch of others from different classes. Today was the State Museum, especially the two Aboriginal exhibits - the static one and a visiting one on basket weaving in the far north which was COOL. We had half an hour break (I grabbed a prawn salad since I was starving by this point) and went to the art gallery to look at colonial art. We had lunch - a salad and tuna sandwich with avocado on brown bread for me, I took some painkillers and we went back for the final museum of the day at the Migration Museum which is on the site that used to be the Destitute Asylum, which I plan to write my major essay on, God-willing. This was very interesting but I plan to go back sometime soon and revisit it all when I have time, especially the section on the DA itself.

Dismissed for the day I dropped into Dad's office, swapped my laptop/school bag for the tote bag with my Bible etc in it and headed off to the markets and my favourite tea shop for a chai latte made with soy milk...yum. Probably the nicest one I've had, I think. I sat and drank that slowly while reading the paper then walked to Jo's work as she was taking me to study/fellowship tonight. We grabbed hot chips (fries, to you americans) on the way to her place and made chip'n'sauce (ketchup) sandwiches for dinner, and I had a bowl of fasolada as well (vegie and bean soup) but Jo doesnt like most vegies...weirdo. Fellowship was NUTS - we had every chair in the room full plus we went and stole a few more from the hall next door, and we had two priests as Fr John dropped in for the night too which was nice. We hung around for coffee, chatted to the new Serbs who have been coming, and then ran to the Church for Compline. The scarf-wearing-brigade is growing - it used to be just me and Rodika but her daughter Dana had one on tonight too, as did the other Dana who is serbian and new :) It's nice not to be an odd one out sometimes. I need to buy more of the handkercheif style ones, but they're hard to find in non-garish patterns that actually STAY PUT on your head. Not so much an issue now, but lemme tell you in lent with all the metanias and prostrations, having your scarf firmly pinned is a valuable asset. Especially during the bridegroom services of Holy Week where you find yourself juggling candle and prayer book while doing prostrations and trying to keep your scarf on your head. Fun stuff - and Jo and I added a fan to the mix this year too!

I'm home now, and very happy, and peaceful. I've got a bunch knitted on my sock now, and I may start the next sock tomorrow depending on what happens. I'm going to bed, anyway :)

All Saints Day

2008-06-23T09:51:00.003+09:30

Technically I'm a day late, we're into the Apostles' Fast now (begins after the Sunday after Pentecost each year, ends on the feast day of the Apostles Peter and Paul - ie next Sunday) but yesterday was All Saint's Day. To quote my priest, it's to commemorate all the Saints we know of (so happy name day everyone, heh) and all those we don't because some 'got died' in secret, or under persecution, or were just too humble to show to anyone that they should be a Saint. I included the 'got died' because my priest who natively speaks Arabic said it about ten times during the homily yesterday, and usually his english is very good and I don't pick up on the mistakes but there was something cute about that phrase. The readings yesterday were among my favourites, too - Hebrews 11:33-12:2, and from the Gospel of St Matthew 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30.

Whoever does not leave father, brothers, mother, sisters is not worthy of Me...

...but whoever leaves [these things] will receive a hundred fold and eternal life...

(from the Gospel)

and "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfection of our faith"

(from the Epistle reading)

Beautiful stuff.

I've been meaning to write but haven't got the movivation to do so in the last few days. Friday was quiet - Dad and I went and ran a few errands and got lunch at our favourite bakery (which was wonderful because for once on a Friday I could eat anything I wanted since it was the week after Pentecost - cream buns and a chicken and mushroom pie, YES) and went to IKEA. I needed a lamp for stitching - I've needed one for a long time but we've never gone and got one. It's just a floor standing lamp, and black, with a spotlight globe. Very cool. I also got some hanging shelves and a rack to hang them off to try and organise my closet, which was impossible to find anything in before while it was all hanging up and cluttered. I put the lamp together, and put everything in my closet on my bed while I set up the shelves in there, and then put all the winter clothes back in with a few inter-seasonal things there too, just in case. It's early winter though so I shouldn't need them for a while! I also took out all the things I wasn't sure about which were winter clothes, and gave them to my sister to decide whether she wanted them or to give them away. Summer stuff didn't really get sorted, just all neatly put in piles to put into my drawers until needed in four or five months' time. The piles are still on my desk and kinda scaring me, actually!

Saturday was my sister's birthday party, so we spent the morning cleaning and then the parents and I went to the Apple store to pick me up a new laptop (nameday present, and also because my old one doesnt' really work anymore) except we were using an education discount, but despite being told a thousand times the other day that she needed a payslip to do that my mum hadn't brought one...long story short we went up to her school and got one, and finally picked me up my shiny macbook :) I bought myself an iPod nano too since I spend so much time on public transport and want to be able to listen to podcasts etc. I had a shuffle but...y'know. Her birthday party was fun, and I'll probably share a few photos at some point. We all dressed up as 5 year olds and they watched and analysed disney movies which was thoroughly amusing to listen to.

Yesterday was All Saints, and I drove to Church. We were early, yay, and I settled down in my spot in the second to front pew near the chanters desk. I've always sat there so Jeremy could translate and help me when I got lost in the service books, and now I sit there so I can chant along softly and learn. I was the only one there for all of Orthros (matins, the service before the DL (mass) - think the singing before the main part of the service in a normal church) and for part of the DL too! Very weird. We got a whole tribe that don't normally come though, and Father used a lot of english for their benefit, and the sermon was basically all in english and really good. Usually it's half english (at most) half (or more) arabic.

That over, my godmother was supposed to come get me but forgot so I stayed for coffee hour and talked to people, and then drove Jeremy's car to her house...she wasn't there either. Finally we met at the church, and I went back to her place while she got ready and we went to the church (again) for a quiz night, fun! I was on a table with my friend (and quiz night partner) Andrew - who also made my Cross, and his brother and a few relatives. We came second, a fluke in our opinion because both Andrew and I (who answer most of the questions) were really tired and not at our best. Fun! We won bottles of wine, little books with the Church calendar and addresses of parishes etc in english and greek, and the morning and evening prayers (again two languages), and kompoiskinia - prayer ropes, think a 33knot rosary-type thing made of wool that fits around your wrist. Mine has a bluey-purpley bead on it :)

I fell asleep in Jeremy's car on the way home (at about 9) and collapsed into bed exhausted. A good day, but I am resting very firmly today because I want to be well for Thursday and Friday when I have a history trip with my school in the city.

Edited to add:

Here's our lovely Koukla at 12 weeks old. And that's my shiny new laptop too :)

Thursday of Pentecost

2008-06-20T00:23:00.002+09:30

I had a very full day, out with Nona aka my godmother for those who don't speak Greek. She picked me up from my place, and we headed into the city to the markets to pick up food for dinner - chicken, fish heads and vegies. We also sat down and ate sushi which was delicious. I tried on a pair of pants but didn't buy them, bought a little wooden fan because i've wanted one for forever, and we had a lovely chat to a lady who owned a fruit and veg stall about the fact that Nona is Greek and I'm halfway there! Half in Greek, as usual with these chats. Good fun. Nona also bought a bunch of henna, and 12 bangles from an indian shop for me, they are all different (she got me to pick them out) and they jingle wonderfully. I'll get a photo sometime soon. After doing the shopping we ran a few errands and went back to her house, and I had a history lesson which was good, I'll write more about it later. Lesson over we talked, she made soup, and I paraphrased the book of Job, ate food, and ate the soup. Fishheads make very good soup, it's delicious. And cheap!

We left for the nearby mall because she wanted a massage in the chairs, I got one too, and I got a heatpack that doesn't need heating, which is excellent. We grabbed coffee and headed off to Church for fellowship/study group, which was one less person tonight because apparently we are terrifying and Father ran away interstate, so Jeremy led it and did a very good job. We talked about Pentecost, and I got a bunch of notes which I'll try to type up sometime soon. Good stuff. We got a few extras too which was lovely, all from the Serbian Church, and Dmitri brought me home. Another cool part of today though was that I need a new dress, a winter 'party dress' or gown to go out in since I really don't have one. I mentioned that I wanted to go shopping for one with Jo in passing...and a few hours later, Nona turned up in the kitchen with an armful of chiffon, saying it was from her Aunt's closet and she'd never fit into it. "It" was this:

A 1970's gown, based on the edwardian 'tea gown' (remember Rose's dress from titanic?), just brushes the floor. Not a thread pulled, not a single mark, and it's designer label too and about a thousand yards of chiffon. Beautiful.

It has a double hem, and the overskirt is a full circle skirt. I can't get out of my head that I look like some kind of moth in this photo though! See the roses?

It's a very twirling skirt, and I couldn't help spinning and dipping a curtsey. Mum caught it :)

I also have another photo - St Nicholas.

This is from last night, no work got done on it today. The top left section of border is basically done, now I need to start work on the left side, and the top right bit. I've also started work on the inside of the piece, mostly background so far but I started the plaque with Christ's initials. That's the blue thing. It will say the slavic equivalent of ΙC ΧC, ie Jesus Christ, but I don't know slavonic well enough to type them! The background is lovely, but very shaded and time consuming. As usual.

Anyway, it's late. I'm off to bed :) Goodnight all. Καληνύχτα σας!

Flu and a meme

2008-06-17T23:04:00.002+09:30

Koukla is currently occupied with a ball of scrunched up paper and is tearing around the room chasing it, so I've got a chance to blog :)

She's adorable and settling in well, except for deciding to pounce on my feet at 4am for which she gets locked in the bathroom (with her bed and food dishes) until morning. And I have the flu and have been sneezing madly for a couple days, but oh well. I'm also getting a new laptop, yay, because we can get one for half price if we get it before the end of the month as we can claim it on tax. Awesome. I've been stitching, but there's not much to show for it. Mostly I've had a very lazy day. On the upside, I've been listening to AFR and a few podcasts and am in a much better mood than I have been. Abouna was right - the Gospel and the Church are medicine for the soul.

I haven't much more to say, really. Life is... good :)

What is in the back of your car? Air. I don't have one.
What color is your toothbrush? uh, blue and white
Name one person that made you smile today? does Koukla count? And Isaak
What where you doing at 8am this morning? Sleeping
What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Watching a doco on harlequin ichthyosis (I have a milder form of the same condition ie mine's not likely to kill me)
What is your favorite candy bar? Anything with chocolate and nuts
Have you ever been to a strip club? Nope, and planning on keeping it that way
What is the last thing you said aloud? "please don't knock the bin [trash can] over again Koukla.."
What is the best ice cream flavor? Macadamia and caramel
What was the last thing you had to drink? Orange juice
What are you wearing right now? Pyjamas, senior year hoodie from a couple years ago when i did the first half (it's blue and faded and comfy), white stretchy headband, black kneesocks with flowers and sparkles, komboiskini (prayer rope) on my left wrist, baptismal cross and enamel cross Jo gave me on a single chain around my neck (baptismal cross' chain is being fixed so it's sharing a chain with the other cross, usually i just wear the one)
What was the last thing you ate? rice pudding and apricots, unless butter menthol lozenges count
Have you bought any new clothing items this week? Nope, not yet
When was the last time you ran? A while ago. I don't run much, it's hazardous to my being able to get out of bed the next day.
The last sporting event you watched? Football game i think?
What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? butter
Who is the last person you sent a comment/message on my space? facebook? Tegan.
Ever go camping? Yeah!
Do you take vitamins daily? I'm supposed to
Do you go to church every Sunday? Yes, and Saturday night
Do you have a tan? Not at the moment it's winter!
Do you like Chinese food over pizza? PIZZA! real chinese wins, but I don't think that's what the question is asking.
Do you drink your soda with a straw? Not most of the time...
What did your last text message say? Jeremy asking if I was still awake and telling me if i was going to church he'd meet me at 9:40am and there was a bbq after.
Are you some-one's best friend? I don't know, I don't think so anymore.
What are you doing tomorrow? Sleeping, a s.o.s. class, homework and a lot of sneezing i think! Maybe getting my computer?
Look to your left, what do you see? A wall of bookshelves covered in books (most of which are engineering/maths and i don't understand, they're dad's)
What color is your watch? I think I have one somewhere, it's silver
What do you think of when you think of Australia? Where I live :)
Do you use chap stick? When I have one handy, all the time
What is your birthstone? Diamond
What is your favorite number? 7
Do you have a dog? Nope
Last person you talked to on the phone? Um, my maths teacher I think!
Have you met anyone famous? Define famous? I grew up a diplomat's kid, and I've met the first heirach of ROCOR (the top bishop of one of the Orthodox Churches)
Any plans today? It's 11:40pm. Not really. Keep Koukla from destroying anything else!
How many states have you lived in? 2, one in Australia one in the USA
Ever go to college? Nope
Do you dye your hair? No, tried once and it turned green. Not tried since.
Biggest annoyance in your life right now? This flu!
Last song listened to? Exerciser by Rhubarb (I love this song even though it's kinda old now)
Can you say the alphabet backwards? if i concentrate
Do you have a maid service clean your house? No
Are you jealous of anyone? I try not to be
Is anyone jealous of you? I've been told so. I tell such people they're crazy.
Do you love anyone? I do, but there are four words for love in Greek. Not romantically, no.
Do any of your friends have children? Yeah
Do you eat healthy? Most of the time, when I eat.
What do you usually do during the day? Sleep, stitch, hang out on the net, do schoolwork/class/both, keep kitten out of trouble, go to Church
Do you hate anyone that you know right now? I make a point of not hating people
Do you use the word 'hello' daily? Yeah, in varying languages
What color is your car? I don't have one. Invisible.
Have you ever been to Six Flags? No
Do you like cats? There is a baby one on my lap. Jeremy's answer to that question the other day was 'sometimes, with garlic and onions'
How did you get your worst scar? I don't have any really visible ones. The one on my knee was from hitting the pavement running a few years ago and taking about 2" round off my knee about five layers deep (ow), the one under my lip from being hit by mistake by a softball bat and putting two teeth through my lip, and the one in the middle of my lip from biting my lip in half when I was 2.

Fun meme for a change :)

Κούκλα!

2008-06-14T18:55:00.003+09:30

Ειναι Κούκλα μου. This is my Koukla. She's about 10 weeks old and came home with me this afternoon. She's a pretty little thing, and knows it! She likes to be paid attention to, and is always in the way in adorable ways. Kittens are great. I was forbidden to name any more animals after Saints, so Koukla it was - basically 'sweetheart' in Greek. All the yia yias call me Koukla and my sister thinks it's funny, so the name got given to this little 'doll' - the other meaning of κούκλα.

She likes to be the centre of attention, as you may have noticed...

And she's mostly white except her face and tail, and a black spot under one paw :)

Very cute!

Practicing silence is good...

2008-06-14T01:50:00.002+09:30

...but I am not good at it. Working on it. Kyriaki and silence do not usually find themselves in the same sentences, but oh well.

The last few days have been fairly uneventful, except for cleaning my room up a lot (I'll vacuum tomorrow and hopefully it will be liveable again and my doctor won't yell at me) and knitting a stupid amount. I should get a photo of my sock - it's my first one ever and i'm knitting it top down and have got to just the straight knitting around the foot now, the heel's all done. It's a lot of fun! I get really impressed looks from people for knitting on four double points, very funny.

I sat down and watched a crazy amount of Gankutsuou which I totally fail at spelling and had to look up! It's an anime based on the story of the Count of Monte Cristo, which I loved. The ending's different though - I'm not finished it yet, got one dvd to go, but it's gone beyond the 'canon' novel stuff now. I loooove Haydée, who is much more likeable in this version than in the books. Maybe she's just harder to 'see' in book form. Isn't she cute?

I wanted better photos but they're hard to find :( The 'unchained melody one' is now my desktop, in much bigger form.

While I watched that, the news, an episode of Rosemary and Thyme and part of the first Narnia movie I stitched. Here's my icon:

It's growing! I've filled in most of the holes that were left in the corner now, and I've started work on the inner 'arcs' which form the background, it's just very shaded. Good fun.

Anyway it's freezing cold and 2:23 am so I better go sleep. It's also the Saturday of Souls - may the Lord grant rest to the souls of His servants who lie asleep in all the world.

Yep, it all still aches

2008-06-09T23:26:00.004+09:30

I'm weak today too. My arms were shaking as I was holding the q-snaps but I'm stitching in the top left hand corner so I can't put it on the stand to work on it.

Oh well, I got a bit of work done - see?

Mostly filling in the darker colours in the background though there's some light stuff too. The border edge is getting more and more defined. I'm definitely thinking about starting to fill in the inner shading, at least, ready to start the inside.

I got another 55min towards my driving log tonight too as I went up to get my sister from her boyfriend's place. It was a weird trip - much singing along loudly to Godspell, the car was shaking weirdly but it settled down, we found a bag of oranges on the road in the middle of nowhere (looked like they fell off someone's truck), and we saw a koala who was quite happily sitting next to the road. We stopped to look, and he stayed for a while, then headed for the spindliest tree he could find and climbed it! There were all these big thick ones, but...lol contrary thing.

Other than that, today's been very uninteresting. More like a Saturday than a Monday as it was a public holiday, but Saturdays have Church and today didn't, more's the pity.

Oh, I forgot to add. Last year I made a dress for Caitlin, my godsister. At the time, it didn't fit, which was irritating as I usually try stuff on to check the drape and she and I are a similar size. I borrowed it to check how I'd done the neck (I'm making a copy for my sister) and on a whim tried it on - and it fit! So I've lost a lot of weight. That's not a good thing, but fitting into the dress is fun. See?

And from the back/side:

Yes, my hair is messy. Sorry. How cute are the sleeves? It's meant to be medieval-esque, yes I know full well it isn't period in the slightest!

The table in the back matches - the cloth is made from an offcut from this dress. That's my icon corner, where it is for now. When I get my bigger icons I'll shift it all to my bedroom but it takes rearranging my room and that's not happened yet. I have more wall space in my room :)

On the table are small icons of Christ and the Theotokos (Mary), an angel that Jo gave me for my baptism and a candle in a candleholder with Psalm 117 on it that Troy's brother made me for Christmas a few years ago. There's also a palm cross, and tucked in behind in the lower level is an olive branch from Palm Sunday, holy water, oil from Holy Wednesday, a bowl with incense and more wax in it for the candles, and a box that holds my incense that was a gift from a lady at my parish. On the shelf are varying prayers and small icons that aren't mounted yet. The calendar is my parish calendar - the icon is of the Church's patron Saint, and rather than normal dates each day has the more important few Saints remembered on that day, and the fasting days are highlighted in pink. It's a good reference!

Hmm, everything aches

2008-06-08T23:02:00.002+09:30

Seriously. This is beyond a joke. Everything hurts! It's my own fault, I am beyond exhausted. Given that I am always fatigued, when I get tired I get really tired. And this...this is nuts. I better start looking after myself or I'm going to get stuck in bed and Jeremy and Pater will yell at me. Okay, Pater never yells. I'm sure he'd do something that would have the same effect! Probably be very disappointed in me. That'd be worse than yelling. Anyway, that'd give me incentive to get my room cleaned up - I don't want anyone visiting me sick with my room in its current state.

BAD KYRIE.

*coughs*

Um.

Today was rather lovely, otherwise. I got up, decided that I wasn't going to wear the same thing I've worn to Church for the last two months, and pulled my good black pants and black and white kimono-dress-top-thing out. It's the length a lot of girls wear as a dress with tights, but I wear it over pants! Strictly speaking I should wear a dress or skirt to Church...so, it's just long enough to satisfy me. Probably not the yiayias, but there weren't any at the Church I was at today :) It was nice to wear something different, to be dressed up nice. I put my hair up too, and it stayed up, much to my delight.

I drove to Church and didn't crash into anything, so that was good. I've never driven that route before so it was something different. I dislike changing lanes on the major roads immensely but I'll have to get used to it since there's a lot of it on these roads that I have to take to get to both my Churches. We weren't late, even though we were there late, and I was there with Huwaida and we looked at all the icons which are new around the Church. They're about A3 I think and in frames along the side walls. The ones I remember are Christ giving Communion to the Apostles, the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) with all the Old testament Saints around her (so Jeremy and Daniel are happy), and the Bridegroom icon of Christ. Church started and went by in its usual blur - so quick even though it's quite a long time.

We had coffee afterwards, I talked to Father for a minute or two, and he told me he got an icon of St Kyriaki with all the others that he will show me next week. COOL!

Jeremy got a message on his phone, laughed, and asked me if I wanted to go to lunch somewhere. I asked him if it was my house and he said yup. It was my mum asking, as we were having a roast and needed someone to help eat it! So I drove home, though we stopped at the supermarket for some cream for dessert and Jeremy bought a bottle of wine and we had a lovely lunch and stayed talking for ages, which was nice. Then he left, and Mum watched the football. I came up here and did stuff on the net for a while, then went out to watch the second half of the football and stitch on my icon. Dad came home and there was nothing on tv so we watched another Poirot mystery, and I kept stitching. When I finally put it down a while after the mystery ended this is how it looked:

Steadily the background's being filled in, and the lightest colour is outlining the edge of the border in the top half of what's been done, following the arc. It's hard to see though. The rubies are done, and the sapphire's begun, and there's lots of all the other colours in there too. I'm thinking I'll start filling in the actual picture sometime soon now that I've got a good start on the border. I'm still debating how I'll do that - I think I'll make it up as I go along, like when I started work on the border. Markinch, the icon is St Nicholas, from Solaria Gallery under 'Religious Designs'. I'm loving the designing (the shading is lovely! it almost glows) and the chart is quite easy to follow, though in the border I've traced the lines of the different colours in different coloured coloured pencils to make it easier to plan my stitching. I miss stitches a lot less now!

Now though, I'm tired, and I should go to bed. So you have a picture and an update, and I'm going to rest soon.

Kyrie eleison

2008-06-07T23:35:00.002+09:30

A young seeker approached an elderly monk asking: "What do you do in the monastery?" The old monk replied: "Oh, well, we fall down and we get up. We fall back down again and we get back up. And then we fall down and get up again."

I came across this quote early in my inquiry into Orthodoxy, and it's stayed with me. Of my experience with monastics they'd say that it's true - but also that it applies to the laity as well. And I'd agree. Falling down, getting up again, saying Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy) and moving on. I remarked to someone tonight that I was such a good person before I got into this Orthodoxy stuff, and now look at me! Tongue firmly in cheek, of course. He laughed, too, since he knew what I was getting at. We're not allowed to remain comfortable in the bad habits we've formed and ignored, so we become aware of them, and that's when the quote above comes into play. Here's another brilliant one I found tonight:

No matter how right you may be on various points, you must be diplomatic also. The first and important thing is not rightness at all, but Christian love and harmony. Most crazy converts have been right in the criticisms that led to their downfall; but they were lacking in Christian love and charity and so went off the deep end, needlessly alienating people around them and finally finding themselves all alone in their rightness and self-righteousness. Don't you follow them!
- Fr Seraphim Rose

Yeowch. He's right too. I'm trying to be good.

Okay, enough religion, back to your regularly scheduled stitchyness before I go run off to bed.

I have photos! Okay, one of them is religous...but it's stitching, so that makes it alright ;)

Firstly, here's my St Nicholas icon, as of Thursday and a few hours' work:

And another photo after some serious work last night:

The diagonal you can start to see appearing at the bottom right of the ornament is the edge of the border, which is quite cool. I'm trying to get the border filled in a bit more before I start on the inside though. The shading in this is awesome, seriously. In reality, the threads seem to glow. The red square outlines will be filled in with a couple more shades of red and they're rubies, there'll be a sapphire in the centre. This is a commission for a friend of mine who was named for the Saint, which I figured I'd better get back into working on. So I did. It's fun! Such happy colours.

On the other hand, here's what I worked on the most on Thursday - SK Iris Keeper. Gloomy colours, but pretty.

The holes are more obvious now - I need to get the colours I'm missing. About 300 stitches are left of this row, not counting holes :)

Anyway, I should duck off to bed. It's late. Goodnight!

Tonight's update

2008-06-03T22:40:00.003+09:30

After making that post and pottering around the internet a bit, I decided I'd had enough of wasting time, and my neck muscles were starting to hurt again. So I got up and sat down on the couch with my spare DMC stash, and set about kitting up SK Iris Keeper - JosephineWall (HAED), which Sally had gifted me with a few weeks ago. I had the fabric gridded already from an afternoon at Jeremy's with nothing much to do and no painkillers, but the stitch count and a spare piece of fabric in my project bag. I'm missing a few colours, but I marked them in a different colour as I went, and I'll fill them in when I get the chance to buy them.

Want a photo? You know you do. Here's the fruit of a couple hours' stitching:

which was done during the news, All Saints and a medical reality show thingo that I was only half watching. About 300 stitches, which isn't bad for me - I'm not a fast stitcher at the best of times, and it's a new start on top of everything else. I'm pleased with how it's stitching up, the background is so dark and swirly on the artwork it's hard to predict what it's going to stitch up like. There are some unexpected colour changes, but they look great! It's 1x1 (as usual) on 32ct cream linen. I don't usually stitch HAEDs on linen, but I figured this was a small one so why not try, and I'm really enjoying it. 32ct is even enough that I think it's alright :)

I think I have the flu

2008-06-03T14:10:00.002+09:30

Or something! I'm braindead, achy, and generally miserable. But there have been a few things recently that brightened my day :)

I posted on The Wagon and on the HAED BB about the slump I've found myself in with life, let alone stitching, and got some good advice. On The Wagon, the advice was to knit socks - easy, methodical, can do it in bed with my eyes shut - when Mum gets the chance we'll grab some new DP needles and some sock yarn, just ordinary stuff as I'm not really wanting to get into the whole yarn off the net mayhem, I spend enough on stash as it is. The HAED BB brought advice and comfort of a different kind - I mentioned that I had CFS and FMS, and got some wonderful advice and encouragement that helped me see that how I am at the moment is my illness, not me. Some of the replies came in email and PM, some in public comments, all are valued and treasured. Rachel (rachelsparkles) told me about herself and described ME, and what she wrote helped me so much I wanted to say thankyou...so I did, in a sneaky way, and it was nice to do something to make someone else's day.
Some other sneaky fairy sent me an RAK of CC Kuik's Spring, which is just beautiful, see?

I have absolutely no idea who it was, either. Thankyou, secret fairy.

Among the advice was to sit down and just try to stitch, and to think about starting the SK I've had for a few weeks. A different colour pallet can be very useful.

I did 'just sit down and try to stitch' through Amazing Grace (movie, brilliant, saw it in the theatres and watched it again on DVD last night), the news, an episode of Rosemary and Thyme thanks to my mum borrowing the dvds, and Good News Week. When I got done I realised I hadn't taken a photo in a month, and while I hadn't done much in any one sitting I'd done enough for a new photo. So here you are:

All the new work is in the lower section. The black motif in with the words got most of the background filled in (there was only one row of black before) with leftover black thread from each time I used it in the scene, and most of what's in the scene now is new. Both sheep at the top are now finished, the outline goes to its minimum turning point (heh, too much maths...) and starts going up again, and all those flowers and that nice fat sheep are new. The little orange blob in the sky is another of the little angels, and the brown half-a-thing is a dog. There are two of them, running up the hill. With the exception of the last row of white on the fat sheep and the stems of the orange and yellow flowers all the details of this section of grass are done, so I can just fill in the background now. This page is almost done now, except background, so when I do finish the grass I can move the frame sideways to finish the overlapping parts of pages 7 and 8, and have 'killed' another two pages. It's lovely having the scene there, just makes everything so different.

Goals and stuff

2008-06-02T13:46:00.002+09:30

I don't want to look at these, this month has been weird and I've been in a slump for a couple weeks. Yuck. But lets see...I'm in a down mood and maybe doing something will help.

LAST MONTH:
Stitching:

finish part 3 of JOB Nope, actually haven't touched it
make a good start on part 4 see above
work some more on peaceful paradise This, I achieved.
finish Jeremy's gift, start another one for whoever's next in line nope. sigh.

Church:

enjoy the paschal season very much so :)
attend church whenever i can *nods*
start reading the old testament again, cover to cover this time I've read some, I'm not being very disciplined with such things. Not good.
buy at least an icon of St Kyriaki, and as many others as I want/can afford that are on my list Still haven't done this, I'm not sure why.
try and actually keep my Rule most of the time Heh...um...
drag myself out of bed for morning prayers at least some of the time Some of the time. I usually spend the first few hours of the day adjusting to not being well because my body seems to forget overnight.

Other:

Make biscuits that aren't ANZACs Nope. Again, not sure why not.
Make biscuits that ARE ANZACs see above
Make dinner at least four times in the month I don't remember, but I know I made it at least twice and I think more than that.
Nag Mum to get the magazines photocopied so i can put recipes in binders well, we have a few photocopied, but no binder. it'll happen.
Finish boxing up the bookshelf, box up that side of my room/corner between that and the desk I've made a lot of progress. The boxes are neatly stacked here in the study now.
Put desk drawers contents into boxes after rationalising them no, not that disciplined (as with everything)
Sleep more often! As with all, yes and no. Sometimes I sleep a normal amount, mostly I don't. I don't know why.

THIS MONTH:
Stitching:

Stitch something on any of my projects
Stitch a bit on Peaceful Paradise
Get Nikos' icon back out again and work on it

Dressmaking:

Finish apron (just needs bias binding, pretty much)
Finish Bindi's medieval dress
Work with Nana on my black skirt if she comes

School:

catchup notes for current history topic, others if possible
go on excursion (yay!)
catchup maths homework and stay caught up
do the S.o.S. assignment I've been avoiding
try to get into the discipline of 1hr work/subject/day from M-Th each week
do the History assignment that's hanging over my head

Everything else:

continue cooking
binder-ise recipies
make some sweet things BEFORE the Apostles' fast!
cook dinner a few times
try to keep an easy Rule, at least

I finally have photos!

2008-05-31T18:37:00.003+09:30

My sister's the artistic type, so none of these are normal photos. But they give you the general idea.

First, here's an 'action shot' - my sister walked in while I was sitting at the computer. You can just see the toes of my boots poking out underneath my skirt - it's that long! The boots have 2" heels by the way.

Here's the top of the skirt. This photo makes me look really really skinny. Scary. I am not unhealthily thin, I just look it in photos like this!

Here's from the side with my jacket on, I hadn't realised that it doesn't make for good photos of the skirt with it on!

The side panels of the skirt

The front of the skirt

And the best photo - the back. There's pleats either side of the centre, and it's slightly longer in back to form a kind of train.

Finally, I promised you a picture of the underskirt/petticoat fabric - isn't it pretty? I love the flowers.

Sorry for those of you who are getting this twice - I clicked publish too soon. When my parents get back from elsewhere I'll get a normal photo or two, but for now these will have to do.

Five hours of Church

2008-05-31T16:01:00.000+09:30

is always fun. I love vigils.

I haven't had the chance to blog since Thursday and I STILL don't have photos of my skirt despite having worn it twice - my sister hid the camera, and I'm still in my pjs, not having to go anywhere today. I'll try to get her to take a photo of me wearing it later, she's watching a movie at the moment.

Thursday night was fellowship/Bible study as usual, which was its own wonderful self - the second half of chapter 5 in St Mark's Gospel, and Pater pointed out some things I hadn't noticed before. And we finished early enough to do Compline at 9...on the dot. I love Compline, especially since we do it in English on Thursday nights. I came home, crashed, and then slept a lot of yesterday. I woke up feeling sicker than usual, and was in a bad mood about it, and that bad mood didn't really go away despite my trying. I picked my sister up from school (+40min to my driving log total) and had a long bath to try and soak out the aches before dressing in about a thousand layers (I know how to dress for vigils now) and catching the train to meet Jeremy in the city and go to Church.
We got to Church early as usual, which gave us time to settle ourselves down, light candles and pray, and then we got into the Vigil itself. Vigils are basically a series of the liturgical services - Compline (evening prayer), Vespers (sunset prayers), Matins/Orthros (morning prayers) and finally the Divine Liturgy (mass). In the middle of all of that, Pater read from St John Climacus but it was in Greek so I read my Bible, and I hadn't communed at a Greek parish before so that was different. It was nice though, and he said my name etc all in english which was cool too, sometimes I hear it in english sometimes in arabic.
A month after my baptism I'm still receiving gifts, too. Thursday night I was given a lovely little chest-like box with the Theotokos on it and some incense in it (which is now in my icon corner) and last night a lovely sky blue shawl. People are so lovely :)
After the vigil we went next door and sat down at a very crowded table to eat large quantities of fish and lemon soup, and talk and laugh...I think the meals after might be one of my favourite parts of vigils. It's not just about the liturgy, it's about fellowship too.

Finally I got home at about 3ish, and after checking a few things online I went to bed and sleep. I'm feeling sick again today, but that's not abnormal - and I've lost my voice! Much to the amusement of my family, as I'm famous for how much I talk.

Now I'm just resting, it's a nice day to do so.

Blue sky

2008-05-29T12:47:00.002+09:30

My sky's blue, my hands ache (but in a satifying way) and I'm exhausted. Sounds like life these days. But it's okay.

I cut out and sewed my edwardian skirt yesterday. Dark, soft denim. It came out beautiful! I've just pinned the hem, not sewn it (and it's a deep hem - 5", for weight) but it already looks lovely. Providing the hem gets sewn before I leave tonight (4:25 unless my mum manages to pick me up to take me to the train station a bit later) I'm going to wear it when I go. I also grabbed some flannelette to make a petticoat while I was at the habadashery store (we still have a little, old fashioned one here, I love it and I love the lady who runs it who always helps me out). I looked at the rolls on the wall and thought - I could do boring and plain...but who's going to see it? So I picked this cute fabric, white with blue and purple flowers all over it. Really pretty. I had a petticoat pattern, not that you really need a pattern for petticoats, so I cut it and sewed it up and it took about fifteen minutes from start to finish. Just a bit more warmth under my skirts, and with tights I should stay quite warm. So now I have another good dressy casual skirt. It's cut with pleats at the back - so it trains behind a little. I love it! I cut it 'walking length' though, so it's above my shoes.

I'll take photos of the petticoat fabric (you're not seeing the actual thing - I don't know why it matters but it does!) and my skirt later, when the hem's done. If I can get someone to take a photo of me wearing it I will.

Nothing much interesting is happening, but that's okay. Live one day at a time and enjoy what I have. On the sewing WIP pile is my sister's medieval dress (which really needs finishing), another (much simpler) skirt for me, and the bias binding on my apron.

I'm in a stitching slump at the moment for those who haven't noticed - I put a stitch in occasionally, but I'm just not in the mood at the moment. And that's okay.

...and watch me walk, I can walk...

2008-05-27T23:40:00.000+09:30

I'm exhausted due to yesterday, which isn't suprising but is frustrating.

So, today has just been slow. My back aches, especially, and my wrists again. But this too will pass.

I discovered the joys of the iTunes store today and got Across the Universe's soundtrack, and the oldskool Godspell soundtrack too. Promptly burned copies for inside while I'm stitching/cooking/sewing, and for the car. Both are good singalong cds as evidenced by my family tonight!

I haven't really done anything today, but the fatigue is to blame for that. I really need my mondays, or I get sick. God willing I'll be a bit better tomorrow.

I drove up and back to get my sister tonight, after eating fish and chips and watching Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium (which is just as wonderful as its name - clean, sweet, fun), and when I got home I tallied my driving minutes and found I have 340min of night driving - I need 600, so that's more than half. Woohoo! I also have 2010 all up, and need 3000 all up. I'm doing alright there. I'll get my license soon enough.

I am trying to live day to day again. It doesn't always work, but I try.

Edit:
I forgot to add this photo I took during class (shh!) of my setup for maths by correspondence.

The open book with binder holes is my "study guide", aka the equivalent of my teacher's whiteboard :) Not having to take notes is kind of cool, though we note on the study guide itself, h ence hte pencil. My textbook is just peeking out from under that, though we don't use it much in class, mostly for homework exercises, the green and black book is the graph book I work in, and the red book is a study guide from the previous topic, which we refer to occasionally.
On the screen is the 'whiteboard' for my class - if the teacher wants to work out a different example or do it slowly for the class from what's in the study guide, he does it there. It's through the net and I don't quite get it, but it's fun. My teacher has really messy handwriting!
The view is out the back of our house - that garden bed behind the wall has a lemon and a mandarin tree in it that you can't see, and the blue thing is part of the trampoline. This room has lovely big windows, which is very nice in the sun (they face south, so they get the sun at an angle) but cold at night. The computer is an old, slow, powermac G4, but it does the job while I don't have a computer. It's actually got a better screen for whiteboarding than my laptop.
Weird setup, but it works. I only have one maths lesson a week though, and most of the time I do my homework in bed or at the kitchen table.

"I will call the pebble dare..."

2008-05-26T19:40:00.002+09:30

By Your Side always makes me cry. Beautiful song.

I want to write, but I'm so tired I'm not sure what to write. I have to go and be supervised by someone not family sometimes for school summatives (tests, etc) and I did one yesterday at Jeremy's (as I said last night) and today, after studying madly for a couple hours, sat a maths test. Calculus, and much easier than I expected, which was nice. And I only had to draw one graph, much to my relief! The book tends to love making us draw graphs, and I tend to love NOT doing them. I know how, I just never manage to make the curves look right, and it annoys me. Mostly algebra, which was good.

When I wasn't doing that, I was burying my nose in two books - one about Sydney in 1900 (before Federation which is Australia's official 'birthday' when the colonies were unified), and one which was a collection of rememberances about the Australian Home Front during WWII, as well as the experiences of Australians in the forces. It was cold, and if I'd been doing what's best for my health I would have stayed home and slept, and rested, today. But Mum was not to be argued with (and admittedly I was really behind for doing this one) so I came, but now I'm somewhat zombified. Panadeine Forte is a wonderful thing.

It's raining a lot now too, which is nice. We're learning to treasure rain again.

Today was mostly an 'up' day - the last few days have been some up, some down, some changeable. Mostly due to the thing-that-will-not-be-named (well, not here). Speaking of which - again I am indebted to the wonderful community I belong to. People have taken time out from other things which are arguably more interesting to talk to me about this, recently, and I got a call from one friend (a guy, too, which makes it even more out of the ordinary) randomly from his work today to just check on me, make sure I was okay. Just when I might think about forgetting how wonderful my church is...I get reminded.

Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk (watch me walk)
I can walk and walk!
(I can walk!)

I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will talk, we will talk together
We will talk (chorus) about walking
Dare shall be carried
And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing:
"Meet your new road!"
Then I'll take your hand
Finally glad
Finally glad
That you are here
By my side

(from Godspell)

I've mentioned before that Sundays in my world are mental, right?

2008-05-25T23:50:00.002+09:30

I love Sundays. Heh, my name day once a week. Kyriaki is the Greek word for Sunday, just for those who don't get that pun. It literally means 'belongs to the Lord'. Yup, that's me!

Sunday...hoo boy. I got woken up by my mum cleaning the bathroom noisily at about 9ish, but since I had to get up at 9:20 anyway that wasn't too bad. Got up, got dressed, fed the 'totally starving' cats who had just brought in a (alive) rat, and helped Mum make sandwiches for the people my parents were going to sail with - it was a race today and my Mum's cousin's daughter (whew!) has a yacht that a group of them sail on. Weird to be making food I can't eat, but hey Sundays are like that. At least I wasn't starving hungry today, which I usually am on Sundays despite the fact that I never eat breakfast normally.

Jeremy picked me up and we went to Church. No Troy, as he was at our other Church (not that I knew that), but lots of other people and the generally rowdy fun group :) Sunday of the Samaritan Woman today, which was good. Photini's not!name-day - Photini is the traditional name of the Samaritan Woman in the Orthodox Church. Baby Photini didn't care :) Jeremy's godfather and Jeremy were being sneaky about something that has to do with me in Arabic - talking about me behind my back...in front of me. Sneaky, sneaky. Stupid people who speak Arabic, lol. My spoken Arabic (okay pretty much everything except what I know from Church, and even that is suspect) is appalling, and I don't really mind. It was just funny. We grabbed kransky's from the bakery and I plonked myself down at Jeremy's kitchen table to do a summative for history that I'm way behind on (source analysis on the Whitlam gov't, easy) while he mowed the driveway, because normal people do that... (there's a strip of grass in the middle of their driveway). He went off and did his latin homework (third year Latin at Uni, some people are mental (and speak too many languages)) and I sat on the couch and read a book. Interesting book. I read it years ago (and shouldn't have, I was too young to 'get it' and it gave me weird ideas), then again more recently (and got annoyed by the people who espoused it because they tend to be on the lunatic fringe a bit with relation to this issue) and finally again today. I should give up having opinions - I'd commented on it to Jeremy a few weeks back, and ended up eating my words. Sigh. Again.

Finally, Jeremy dropped me at Jo's before dinner at Church while he went to get Troy and met us there. Jo and I chatted about the latest thing to happen explodey in my life, which she understands but I am not blogging about yet, and we went to dinner...which was in grand modern Greek style. Lots of people, music, food, and friends. And a yiayia sitting next to me determined to make me eat about twice what I would usually. I love yiayias. Lots of random stuff happened tonight, but I think most of it only works if you were there.

Had a really good chat with Jeremy in the car, too, tonight. That helped. I had a lot that needed to be talked out and Jeremy's good for that. More explodey-thing-ness.

And now I'm home. And it's cold. And I think I'm going to go to bed and read some book, and sleep.

best quotes from Jeremy in the car (well that come to mind, and don't specifically address explodey-ness) tonight:

k: most days i'm okay with [my illness, and kind of being in limbo], but sometimes I yell at walls
j: don't yell at walls. They don't talk back. Yell at God, maybe then you'd get an answer.
k: Job did that [Jeremy cuts her off]
j: yep
k: and got YELLED AT.
j: yes. And maybe you'd learn something. [Goes on to paraphrase God's response to Job, somewhat hilariously]
k:....ok, maybe you have a point.

The second one I can't remember exactly so here's the paraphrase:

"you have tomorrow, planned. you're going to get your work done, what you can. and you've got a goal for this year - finish year twelve. stop worrying about the future, and being annoyed that you're in 'limbo', you only feel that way because you're not where you want to be (and you don't even know where that IS) and you don't like it."
[kyriaki bites her lip]
"live tomorrow, live day to day, and trust God. Is that such a radical idea? don't worry about the future, you might die tomorrow. and then it'd all be a waste of time"

I've mentioned before that I love Jeremy, right? I have such a wonderful churchfamily.

Another weekly update, I suppose

2008-05-24T21:38:00.000+09:30

Funny, I used to post every day, sometimes more than once a day. Not living life with a computer constantly next to me now, it's less of a common thing to do. I suppose.

What's happened this week? Mostly life has just pottered on. Tuesday I just about did nothing, aside from having my lesson, I was still feeling sick, and that hung around for most of the week. My sister came home from hospital Wednesday afternoon-ish, and then Mum and I went to Spotlight (think Michaels et al) to get fabric for an apron for me, and a denim skirt. Specifically, this apron:

and this skirt:

The apron is in a light creamy brown with a tiny white design on it, and the skirt is soft, dark denim. The apron is now 95% done with the exception of the bias binding for the back straps and the side belt, and hemming the back and bottom. It's really pretty, and very...well, not girly. Feminine, but no ruffles. I am not into ruffles, except on petticoats :) Skirt is in the process of being marked out on the fabric, haven't cut it out yet. It'll happen, and my hands are aching from sewing the apron up. Self-fabric bias binding is IRRITATING but looks really good.

Thursday...Thursday I spent cutting out patterns and doing schoolwork, and Thursday night was our usual study and fellowship. I got forbidden to be a nun anytime in the next six months by my priest...lol. I was planning on it? At least he was kidding, mostly! Everyone keeps joking (or more weirdly, actually THINKING) that I'm going to be a nun. Orthodox monasticism is mental. Wonderful, but mental. Why does everyone think I'm cut out for it??? I don't see myself, being myself, in the black robes of a nun. But I suppose they're allowed to say it...

Yesterday was quiet again, mostly just sewing and planning next week, and I read the last of the Emily books by LM Montgomery - I read them about once a year, and they're wonderful. I've also rediscovered the prayers of The Hours, and am loving them.

Today was equally quiet (I never have anything interesting to write), and apart from going shopping with my parents for practical things and helping to plant some trees this afternoon (a row of acacias (native ones) in our front yard as a hedge) nothing much happened during the day. Tonight though - Jeremy had to chant for a wedding, so couldn't take us to Vespers, but my parents are sailing tomorrow in a race, so they thought they might come to Vespers with me Saturday night (tonight) so that they got to church once in the weekend...as Jeremy said, "God finds a way". They hadn't been to Vespers with me, though Dad had experienced it once in Greek, in Oxford when he was in England a while back (and loved it). They liked it, a lot. I love Vespers, it's just...oh I can't explain. Just wonderful.

We came home, but somehow started singing the songs from Godspell in the car...so Mum dug out her tape from a 1975 performance and we were happily singing along while we made spaghetti for dinner, and watched the Eurovision semifinal.

Now I'm just waiting out tonight. It's too early to sleep, or I might go to bed. Time passes, it'll change. Tomorrow's Sunday, and I love Sundays - with a name like Kyriaki, how could I not? :)

I should post

2008-05-19T23:29:00.002+09:30

I still don't have my laptop, but there's a computer in our study which I've been borrowing on occasion. I need to start rationing how much I get on here, too though.

I'm basically addicted to the internet, and waste an incredible amount of time on here. That's not a good thing, you might have noticed...so, my laptop's elsewhere until I try and get a handle on this and don't keep staying up until 4am on the net. *nods*

I really haven't had that interesting a week. Here's what *did* happen:

It rained. A lot. This is not normal for my city recently, and a total novelty. Except that the total change in weather conditions made my fibro play up...sigh. It's pretty cool though.
Tuesday night was a lecture at the (lone) russian Church in my city, which happens to be totally beautiful. I wish I could find the website, I know I've seen it, and it had pictures of the inside. Woooowwwww... The outside's gorgeous too, beautiful painted domes above the white church. The priest did a moleben (short prayer service) and then the lecture was on Scripture and Tradition. A lot of fun, and a chance for me to wear the scarf my godmother gave me for my baptism and I keep forgetting to wear!
Thursday night was our usual study group night, and we had a lot of fun - as usual. Pater did Compline at 9 (one of the perks of having a monk-priest is that you get to do the Hours sometimes) and then we got sent home, except a few of us met for a minute or so to plan Sunday
Saturday was boring, but then we had Vespers and I wore a zillion layers and still froze. Tights, leggings, jeans, an underskirt, an overskirt (both full length), an undershirt, long sleeved overshirt, cardigan, jacket, and a double thickness velvet cloak over it all. And I was STILL cold. Thankfully, Presbytera (the priest's wife) was too, so it wasn't just me being crazy. And Jo came, which was awesome. Jo's great.
Sunday. Hoo boy. Early to Church to talk to Abouna before the service, then the service itself - I read the Epistle (eek, but cool!) which was from Acts and among other things detailed raising St Tabitha/Dorcas from the dead. She's the patron Saint of dressmakers and tailors, for those who didn't know, and I like her. We got KFC and manoushi (lebanese bread with zatar (herbs and lemon juice) and sesame seeds on it) for lunch which was an interesting combination, but fun. The afternoon was spent cutting vegies/octopus/squid, talking, cuddling the adorable Photini-baby and being generally mad. And eating far too much food. Jo's mum brought a bunch of homemade buttery, flakey pita bread...oh wow. There should be a law against that stuff, it's so good and I ate so much I felt sick. All that cut up food got cooked, and we served it in the form of baba ghanoush (eggplant dip), laksa, green curry, two other kinds of dip, a LOT of pita bread, rice, salad and goodness knows what else. Niko's wife made the best kataifi I've ever eaten, too, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable dinner when we all got to sit down and eat after feeding our guests. And then we cleaned up. I was so tired that in the car Dmitri (who took us home) commented that I sounded like I had had too much to drink, speaking slow and slurring my words a bit.
My sister is just...not having a good run. She had an endoscopy on Tuesday to see how the coeliac disease is going, then on wednesday she ran into a fence on her horse, friday she had a doc's appt to get the results from tuesday (which were good, praise God), but then made toffee and spilled some on her thumb...third degree burns. She did all the right things with ice water, and we went down to school to get her then back and in the opposite direction to the doctor, who sent us back down the hill again and further to the hospital for the burns unit. Who told her to look after it this weekend and come back Monday morning. She's now in there for a week, having surgery to put a skin graft on it tomorrow. Poor thing! It's weird going to visit her as we have to gown up. We plan to take her some fake flowers to brighten things up, if we're allowed. No real flowers allowed.

And now it's almost midnight and I should go to bed. But I thought I'd let you guys know how I'm going, and update on my life.

Me as a teenager

2008-05-17T15:20:00.003+09:30

There's this meme going around the art/comic/cartoony community where you draw yourself as a teenager. I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but my doodled people are usually reasonably recognisable. So I had a go :)

Here's me:

and 'cause I'm nice, here I am today:

The meme starter and list can be found here.

I'll do a news report sometime, but really I just wanted to post them :) Fun!

I have no computer

2008-05-12T15:59:00.001+09:30

Well, not of my own, for a week. I might be in to update, quickly. Not often. See you next Sunday :)

I got a lot more stitching done

2008-05-11T00:44:00.002+09:30

but you'll have to wait for a photo. I really can't be bothered, it's late and I still haven't said the pre-communion prayers. Bad Kyriaki. Mm, Κυριακή. Much cooler in Greek. Still bad.

I'll make this quick but I wanted to get something down.
Friday was my 'something due' day - I went to school with Mum so I could get a supervisor, and wrote an 'in-class' (ie, unseen paper, write for an hour under supervised conditions, no books) essay for History, which was interesting. In the study for it, I learned that the main square of my city was originally intended to have a cathedral on it! That didn't eventuate though, we have a few cathedrals (including one pseudo-orthodox one) but none of them are there. Essay got written, there was no set word limit so I wrote three and a half pages handwritten. I hope it was enough :) It was on reasons why people came here and continue to come here to live. I had a lovely lady come up to me and inform me that God doesn't want anyone sick and if I just had enough faith... hoo boy. I grew up charismatic, lady, but nope, not buying that line! Been there, done that, God does NOT work like that. Daniel told me I should have just called her a heretic and been done with it, but I'd rather educate people than make them mad. So, very softly, slowly, calmly, I explained to her how soul and faith destroying it can be, and that it's not up to us to decide God's timing. I get very, very quiet when I get mad. I'd forgotten just how much...
Besides that, I got a lot of stitching done on Peaceful Paradise, mostly grass, and read a chunk more of my current theological book and wrote down a bunch of questions. Fun stuff.

Today (Saturday) was slow. We really didn't do anything all day, and then I went out, caught the train and went to meet Jeremy. He was late, but so was my train, and I'd left my phone home. Oops! Kyriaki being neurotic I waited, then rang Troy's mobile to find out Jeremy's mobile number, and called him...just as he turned up there. I felt stupid, but we're all used to Kyri being neurotic so that's nothing new!
We went to this yc meeting, which was as frustrating as usual, and then we had to leave early (also as usual) to run to Vespers. Hopefully what we said had some impact but we're not sure. Ten minutes (officially, only really five) late for Vespers we parked, and pelted along the path and up the steps, Kyri frantically yanking her shawl up from her shoulders to her head. Paused momentarily to genuflect and cross myself (the guys bow but I don't, I know if I did I wouldn't get up again some days), and dashed inside, kissing the icons in the narthex quickly before trying not to run to my pew. Daniel laughed at me. We didn't miss much though, thankfully. I love Vespers. "Now that we have come to the setting of the sun, and seen the evening light..."

We talked to Fr John after, which was fun, then grabbed noodles for dinner, and went to help Jo with something she didn't need our help with. She invited us to her place for coffee, which is never just coffee with the Greeks - we got fed again, and then finally after chatting for ages and watching the football (we lost...sigh...at least it was close) we came home. Jeremy is crazy, and knows the Lord's prayer and half the Creed in Greek, and was reciting it as he drove me home. Translating the copy of the Divine Liturgy that I have in Greek is fun, we pick out the words we know and figure out where we're up to.

Now though it's cold and I'm not feeling well. That's not a good thing. I do not want to get sick again. I really don't.

Oh! Before I go, the lovely RAK Faery gifted me something! Iris Keeper Storykeep (bookmark) from HAED. This particular faery was Sally, who is wonderful.
Here's my pretty:

From here.

It looks like fun. Someone is trying to enable me to start it, but I'm going to be good at least for the time being. We'll see how long that lasts...

Picture and other fun stuff

2008-05-08T02:00:00.003+09:30

Hey look, Kyri has another photo. Maybe it's two in two days to make up for none for a month!

This time I took the photo on the q-snaps. I haven't worked on anything beyond the area of my qsnaps recently, and this saves me having to figure out my tension again, and also means you get closeups. The photos a bit washed out, but it's not bad. Mostly I've got grass done tonight, but I am proud of getting the box around the in-text sheep done and the stems of the flowers down on the grass.

I'm so tired...I need sleep. Before I go, here's a wonderful quote by St John of Kronstadt (lived only a few hundred years ago) on illness:

"Bear any illness bravely, and do not merely not become despondent, but on the contrary, rejoice, if you can, in your illness. You would ask me what there is for you to rejoice at when you are racked all over with pain? Rejoice that the Lord has sent you this temporary chastisement in order to cleanse your soul from sins. 'For whom the Lord loves He chastens' (Heb. 12:6). Rejoice in the fact that now you are not gratifying those passions which you would have gratified had you been in good health; rejoice that you are bearing the cross of sickness, and that therefore you are treading the narrow and sorrowful way leading to the kingdom of heaven. Maladies in our eyes only appear painful, unpleasant and terrible. It is seldom that any one of us during the time of sickness represents to himself the profit which his illness brings to his soul; but in God's all wise and most merciful Providence, not a single malady remains without some profit to our soul. Sicknesses in the hands of Providence are the same as bitter medicines for our soul, curing its passions, its bad habits and inclinations. Not a single malady sent to us shall return void. Therefore, we must keep in view the utility of sicknesses, in order that we may bear them more easily and more calmly."

Just beautiful. Now...try try and live it...

Peaceful Paradise - pic again!

2008-05-07T00:16:00.002+09:30

Here you are, about time I posted a photo. Here's what this beauty is stitching up like. This is the first photo in three or four weeks, which is kind of scary. But I only picked it up after the last photo the other day, so that might have something to do with it...

Here you are :)

(click!)

As you can see, 3/4 of the writing on Psalm 99 (100) is done, including the 'wrought in the year of our LORD 2008', and I've started the bottom scene. This is a joy to work on again, I'm loving it. The white and pale purple blob in the middle will be sheep on a purple background eventually, and that's NOT a dog next to the shepherd down the bottom even though my dad is convinced it is!

Good fun. I finished the first skein of 'raven' (the colour used for the lettering) today, which was an achievement, and started the second. There is a LOT of lettering in this piece! Maybe I should edit May's goals to include some definite page goals on this, I've got back into loving it again.

I don't think the weather is helping

2008-05-06T16:51:00.002+09:30

It's cold and grey, and my mood is kind of reflecting that. I've eaten a lot of chocolate today.

I've got another week behind on my math, now, and I need to sort out this s.o.s. work tonight, especially clearing up what needs doing on an assignment i get to resubmit tomorrow with my mum. I haven't got anything better to be doing, yet I'm staying in bed wasting time. I gave myself a reprieve from the no-internet thing last week, but not tomorrow. I need something to kick me into doing something productive and not letting the internet eat my life.

I am also so tired. But Psalm 67 (68 nonorthodox) will be read tonight, and we'll see how we go. Psalms are good for making me feel better, most of the time! I need a proper rule that says you will go to bed by this time or else. It'll be midnight at the latest that I'll be on the net tonight anyway and that will probably help.

Maybe I should get up and do some stitching, I never have any motivation to do so but once I'm working I'm happier. Maybe :)

My hands ache

2008-05-05T23:15:00.004+09:30

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.

I think the name for this is despondency

2008-05-05T16:10:00.002+09:30

I've spent the day in bed so far. I just...can't get out of bed. Partly it's because my sleepy cycle is messed up, because I've been staying up late for no reason, and who knows what the other part is. I've been eating a lot of chocolate, too.

We had Church yesterday, our last day in white. That was fun...Jeremy got me to read the pre-communion prayers (the short ones that we read in Church) which I started to read softly and got told LOUDER! So praying I wouldn't mess it up I swapped into the voice I've learned through Lent reading psalms and prayers from the chanter's desk, but that was easier as there was noone in the Church when I was reading. I got to the end and just about fell over, my heart was beating so fast. One of these days I'll get over my fear of public speaking, but for now...Pater would say it keeps me humble :) People told me I read well though, which was nice.

Jeremy brought me home and we picked up lebanese pizza on the way, and then he was having dinner with his cousins (who live near me) that night so he hung around and did some latin homework. I helped with vocab, mispronouncing some things but not all, and sat stitching on Peaceful Paradise. I kept working on it through the Logies (tv awards), and have a lot more border done along with more text, most of a tiny flying angel in the scene at the bottom and some more grass, among other things. It's fun, and I'm enjoying working on it again.

Nothing interesting is on tv tonight, so insh'Allah I'll get an early night and see if that helps some. Maths is tomorrow so I might try and catch some up after dinner, and hopefully swing back into doing work properly again tomorrow.

Quiet

2008-05-03T12:10:00.002+09:30

It's the seventh day of wearing white, seventh day after my baptism. And I'm still sitting here muttering Psalm 50. Maybe I thought baptism would change things - and it did, but it hasn't made me perfect by any stretch. It's not that I thought it would, but wishful thinking always comes.

I slept most of yesterday, and the last night set things up as my sister had pre- formal (the big dance of senior year, we only really have one dance a year) drinks at our house, which also served as a gathering point for those riding in the hired limousine. So while she and my mum were out sorting out her hair and makeup, I cut up vegies, tidied the bathroom, and did bits and pieces around the house until they got home, a few minutes before the first guests got there! The girls looked beautiful and the guys sharp, and everyone including their parents drunk champagne/fake champagne with or without orange juice and strawberries :) One of the bottles was Riccadonna which I happen to love and tastes wonderful with orange juice though my mum says that's sacrilege! Yummm...

People gone, we went to feed sister's pony and shared a bowl of pasta at a favourite cafe near our house, bought a tub of chocolate icecream (for me, i've been craving it since Lent began) and rented a Midsummer Night's Dream, which we gave a running commentary on as we watched it. At 11ish we went to rescue cinderella and her prince before they turned into pumpkins, and took them to their friend's house where they watched movies and stayed over. And came home, mum going to bed and me staying up. I seem to have an aversion to going to sleep at the moment which I need to fix because it exhausts me in the morning.

Today should be quiet. I need to get some schoolwork done, we'll see. It's cold, and slow, but I have Vespers tonight and that will be wonderful :)

Goals for May

2008-05-02T02:33:00.002+09:30

Yep, 'bout that time. Speaking of the time, please noone look at the timestamp. I'm avoiding sleep for some reason.

First, here's last month's recap:

Stitchy/Craft:

Finish page 4's sky, and page 8 of Peaceful Paradise. Nope. I got sidetracked when I left the chart in Abouna's office and haven't got back into it since
Make a good start on pgs 7 and 12 See above, though I did start part 12
Get at least 4 10x10 blocks done on A Restful Night Heh. No.
Organise my stash, use the drawers I dug up from our hallway I actually did organise some, and the drawers are now in use. But falling apart. Maybe I'll get some new ones soon?
'kill' at least one clothing WIP Wishful thinking. Nope.

Church stuff:

survive Holy Week ;) Oh yes, wonderfully so.
get baptised! YES!
buy a new prayer rope and use it Yes, and got given one, so there's a black one with a gold bead in my bible case and a black one with a purple bead on my wrist
remember to take scarves with me Yes, most of the time.
keep going to a zillion and one services Oh yes. This week has been 'downtime' a bit, partly because we haven't asked and partly because I don't think anyone would have let me go to anything beyond the normal services. Smart.
eat healthily Trying. Failing. Trying more.

School:

hand in all my assignments Getting there
go to every class Yes
actually do my math homework Catching up!
learn to stop avoiding assignments Or not.

Other:

clean my room! Working on it. Slowly I'm putting things away in boxes to move out of my room when we take the furniture out and rip out the carpet, and that's helping.

So, this month.

Stitching:

finish part 3 of JOB
make a good start on part 4
work some more on peaceful paradise
finish Jeremy's gift, start another one for whoever's next in line

Church:

enjoy the paschal season
attend church whenever i can
start reading the old testament again, cover to cover this time
buy at least an icon of St Kyriaki, and as many others as I want/can afford that are on my list
try and actually keep my Rule most of the time
drag myself out of bed for morning prayers at least some of the time

Other:

Make biscuits that aren't ANZACs
Make biscuits that ARE ANZACs
Make dinner at least four times in the month
Nag Mum to get the magazines photocopied so i can put recipes in binders
Finish boxing up the bookshelf, box up that side of my room/corner between that and the desk
Put desk drawers contents into boxes after rationalising them
Sleep more often!

That'll do, I think.

I've been wearing white since Saturday

2008-05-02T00:14:00.002+09:30

...and I've yet to get really grubby :) I am thoroughly pleased with myself! I know that now I'll end up tipping spaghetti sauce in my lap for saying that tomorrow, but oh well.

It's kind of fun wearing the white. I got over being self conscious, and now it's just - fun! It's saying YES I am wearing white, for a reason! I wore my caramel winter coat over it all tonight because I needed it, but other than and my shoes I'm in white from head to toe - including the wide white bow at the top of my braid, because I felt like wearing one. My shoes are the ones Nona Niki gave me for my baptism and they match my coat.

I had a quiet day. I made butter cream frosting for the cupcakes I made for Jeremy's name day (which was today - Thursday) which means it was the feast of the Saint he was named for, in his case the Prophet Jeremiah. We celebrate them roughly the way other people celebrate birthdays, but often celebrate birthdays in a lower key way. Mine's not until July, but it'll be fun when we get there! I also did some cleaning, some homework (more about that later) and pottered about a bit. Troy came up in the afternoon and that distracted me somewhat, and we went out tonight to grab a few things for Jeremy as a gift, and caught a train to meet Jo.

Jeremy is one of those people who is impossible to buy gifts for, so we took a different tack. What do kids who don't know what to give their [god]father's buy? Socks and hankies and chocolate, right? So, we grabbed a pack of hankies, a pack of socks, a block of nice chocolate and I wrote him a note saying

'Dear Νονός [godfather], in the long honoured tradition of children who do not know what to buy their fathers for gifts, we bought you useful stuff. Χρόνια Πολλά Νονός! [many years godfather] -- Troyadios and Kyriaki. '

I then wrapped it up (badly) in green tissue paper and wrote his name on it in black texta, and we gave it to him at fellowship tonight. He laughed, and so did everyone else :) I'm going to finish his bible case and give it to him when I'm done, I just need to stop being such a perfectionist. I'm looking at it now and it looks fine, I need to calm down and stop worrying about it already! It took me ages of hunting through my DMC to find the shade of red I was looking for, but I did. It glows nicely on the black.

As far as schoolwork is concerned, it has been eating my life. The other day I realised that I had a backlog that looked something like this:

four week's worth of math exercises
two biographies for history
a supervised essay for history
a different essay for history that was due ...a couple months ago...
a stupid amount of history noting from dvds and textbooks
and a bunch of tv watching and noting for studies of societies.

Doesn't look like a big deal. Believe me, it is.

So far though I've got done:

two weeks (ish) of math exercises
the biographies
the tv watching and noting in rough form

This week I need to:

sort out the two history essays ASAP
finish the maths and do this week's work as well
write good copy of the s.o.s. notes
write 500 words on whether they correlate with real world data (hint: they really really don't)
do at least some of the noting for history

As well as that, I have a to do list of other things, like:

finish the stitching on Jeremy's bible case, including his initials
finally get around to finishing part 3 of JOB (I am SOO CLOSE but I didn't touch it today)
make more ANZAC biscuits
smile when they get demolished by the family (I smiled very widely when they got snaffled up by Jo and Jeremy tonight)
start reading the Bible cover to cover now that I have a decent translation of the OT (with all the canonical books)
give Pater my old protestant Bible as he wants the commentary for comparison purposes
try desperately to clean my room!
think about getting a kitten
dress 'Manda up for winter (Felicity and Julie are already rugged up and warm, as well as they can be, Lissie looks so cute in her cloak holding a lantern)
start plotting a new photostory for her either on Orthodox as an intro or more to do with Australia
box up more books to clear them out of my room
get ruthless and get rid of a lot of the junk in my room
get rid of the candles that are in a drawer and make me sick whenever I open the drawer, I don't care how sentimentally attached I am to them
try to sort out ordering my new icons
try to get some work done on Bindi's dress again so it's DONE and out of the way

Hoo boy.

It's the beginning of the month, which is the time I often make goals. I'll do them in another post though. Stay tuned...

Stitching meme

2008-04-30T11:23:00.002+09:30

I ended up not going to bed as my friend Daniel signed on. Was worth it, even if it did mean my head hit the pillow at 2am.

Remember I do that stitching thing? Here's a meme:

1.) How do you hold your fabric? My lowery stand, or I lean the hoop or frame on a table if I'm not at home.
2.) Floss licker? Yep. Occasionally floss will taste TERRIBLE but not often.
3.) How do you thread your needle? Lick the end and thread it.
4.) What needle do you like best? Piecemaker 28s
5.) Are you a needle loser? Not if I can help it!
6.) What fabric do you prefer to stitch on? 32ct or 40ct linen, 32ct jobelan, 30ct linen evenweave
7.) Bobbins or floss bags? Floss bags or stitchbows. Definitely stitchbows for HAEDs
8.) Are you a scissors collector? Nope. I have two pairs, total, and one was a gift, and they're boring ordinary ones!
9.) Do you do your own framing, and if so, do you lace or pin? I finish things?
10.) Are you a floss floozy? Not really, I like having it but I don't squee over it except when it comes in the mail for a new project.
11.) Silk? Love it. HDF, waterlilies, NPI (expensiveness though)...
12.) Railroader? Most definitely.
13.) Are you a pattern or designer snob? No, not really. If I like it, I'll stitch it.
14.) Do you get antsy when you give someone a stitched gift? Again, I finish things?
15.) Have you reached S.A.B.L.E.? Oh, no. I'm not that bad yet!
16.) Do you wash your projects? The usual "I finish?" thing. My HAEDs will definitely get washed, non-colourfast things don't get washed. I tried to rinse the silks for one chatelaine and will never do it again, it's just not worth it. Better to just be very careful with how clean my hands are.

So...more random facts about me :)

I have my S.O.S. stuff more or less up to date I think, the last lesson we had last term confused me immensely and I think it might have confused others so we'll see. I need to sit down and work on my history stuff today, and I'm hoping to get my supervised essay done on Friday. Slowly, surely, we'll kill this backlog.

More photos and stuff

2008-04-29T22:24:00.004+09:30

When Kyrie gets in a funk and it's too early in the night to go to bed, she goes looking for food. And her Dad just brought back a huge bottle of Baileys that needs drinking (it's been opened). So...combining the two...

I made this:

A couple scoops of vanilla icecream, broken oreos in between them, and a bit of Baileys over the top. Yum.

I've been feeling brain-worn-out but not sleepy a lot recently about this time of night. Maybe I should listen to my body and actually sleep when I get like this, I don't know. I'll probably go to bed soon. I mean, normal people go to sleep about 10:30. Staying up until 1 is not normal. I'm just not used to it! I've stayed up late like this for so long I can't remember going to bed at normal hours, except maybe when I was in Tumby and then it was because I had no reason to stay up. Ditto being at Jeremy's - he went to bed, and I simply said my prayers and went to sleep. Maybe there's something in that. Maybe I'm coming back good again? I don't know. I can hope and pray that that is so.

Speaking of prayers, this is what my little bit of sacred space looks like at the moment:

I'm always changing it. The bible that's there is temporary, now that Troy and I have full OSBs he doesn't need his New Testament and Psalms one anymore, and I like having a bible open there and my study bible in a case to actually...study with, radical as that may seem. I want to get back into reading it, and journalling my private thoughts again not just what I've been writing here. I got out of the habit of proper journaling because I just never had anything to write, but now I'm starting to get things that I want to write personally again. Again, maybe I'm coming good. The little angel is a baptismal gift from Jo, she said it reminded her of me. And then Fr John said that it looked like me a few weeks ago when I had my hair braided and in a bun, and that I reminded him of his mother when it was like that. So...maybe there's something in that! I happen to like that style, so it was nice that it was remembered. The card says "Bright Star - reflecting the light within" :)

Soon enough I'm going to have to move this though, I want it in my room when we finally reshuffle the furniture and rip out the carpet. I have bigger icons now, but where my little corner is now hasn't got the wall space to hang them, so they're in my bedroom. The really big one of Panayia and Christ is next to my bed, with a candle in front of it that I light when I'm in there, and I got given money to buy more with, so I'll probably do that sometime soon.

As far as stitching - I am so close to finishing this part of JOB I can taste it, and I've made inroads into the next one at the same time. It's so beautiful, and I should get it finished tomorrow all going well. One more colour and the backstitching in the lantern, the inner backstitching for the irises, the last tiny patch of border and one square of colour
are all that's left now. I'm so glad to see this come together so quickly.

But, I'm tired, and in a weird mood. So I think I'll call it a night even though it's very early for me, and do some more stitching tomorrow.

Epitaphion photos and today

2008-04-29T16:57:00.003+09:30

I promised photos with the last post but forgot them, so you can have some this time :)

To take a break from the baptism photos, here are the pictures of our epitaphion (which symbolises the tomb of Christ) in progress and finished.

First we put in the Crosses, and the filling around them, and added the borders. Here's one short end, all pink and white roses with a red rose Cross

And here's me to prove that this is ours! All in black for Holy Week - red is a concession to warmth, it's *almost* dark! It's been rather cold, end of April so that's not that surprising

Here's one of the long sides. These were pretty much identical, except the background on this side was yellow carnations and white on the other.

Abouna (Father) and Jeremy saw me with the camera and wanted a photo of them 'always arguing' (as if!!), so we staged one:

When the top was done, we added flowers to the posts, and started filling in the edges of the base. The lady in the photo is Khouria - the priest's wife. This is also a good picture of the white side.

And here it is in the Church that night, before the service and procession :)

----

I've had a slow day. I finally decided that freaking out and procrastinating against my backlog of work was not useful, so instead I got up and started work. A few hours later, I was half caught up on my math exercises (three week's worth, so nothing to sneeze at) before my class began, and I've been working on them since, too. I'm planning to get the backlog done and then leave this weeks' work until it has to be done, so I can clear the backlog for my other subjects too. I'm sooo glad I'm not doing five subjects or this would be totally unmanageable!

Tonight is TV night, too. I have to watch neighbours and home and away (seriously!!) for school and take notes, so I'm going to do that, and I'll do it for all saints too which I watch anyway.

It's cold, and slow, but it's progressing. And that's good news.

Being sleepy

2008-04-28T22:55:00.002+09:30

I should post something but I'm just worn out. Now that the adrenaline rush I've been living on for the past week has worn off, I'm just tired. Not sleepy, but tired in other ways.

I drove a bit today, picking up some things for Dad and a new phone for me as the network mine was on (CDMA for the aussies who know what that means) closed tonight. It's PINK! Very cute, a flip phone - I know I swore I'd never get one, but this one looks sturdy and hard to break. Unfortunately it doesn't fit on the older nokia chargers even though it's a nokia, so I have chargers I can't use now :(

We went into the city to Uni and Dad worked in his office, while I put the numbers from my old phone over onto my new one, and did a bit of stitching. We had (yet another) 'discussion' on theology/ecclesiology/all those fun things. No yelling this time, thankyou God. That's okay though. Tonight has just been...slow. We watched a Sir David Attenborough doco on lizards which was actually really cool and featured a couple of the lizards we see around here (I forget that other people find sleepy lizards etc exotic), ate good meat pies with sauce, and then watched Good News Week which I'm terribly fond of. I like the current affairs satire shows - GNW, the Chaser, rove (to a degree), they're fun. At the same time (okay, not while eating meat pie, I do have a brain) I worked on Japanese Octagon Box and got a lot done. The mountain is emerging, and the only things left to do in the 'picture' part of this part are filling in the last of the green in the grass and backstitching the irises. The ornament below is half done, and the frame is done except for the last bit that doesn't really fit on the frame and I'll probably do in hand, and a tiny bit of the black border on the ornament. Only a handful of stitches :)

I'm enjoying working on this piece again, and God-willing I'll get this part done (except maybe the frame, we'll see how I end up working that) soon and can take a photo. When I get this one done I'll be 1/4 done with the embroidery for the whole project, woohoo! The whole project just blows me away, the effects created by the different stitches are great. This lantern ornament is turning out much better too so I might frog the first one and fix it - might. Ripping out PTB that I've backstitched over is not my idea of fun. I suppose it all depends on how perfectionist I'll feel like being when this is done. When I do get this section done (the landscape) though, and add the rhodes stitches and beads, I'm going to hang it up somewhere on display 'til I get the other parts done. It's too pretty to leave in a box to wait!

Tomorrow I have a maths class, so I'm going to get up and get some work done to make sure I'm caught up - I haven't touched my homework all holidays, I didn't realise that the week before Holy Week would get eaten too.

It's 11, I should go sleep. I'm feeling out of sorts though which is making me want to stay up. Sooner or later the sensible part of me will win out :)

A few photos, among other things

2008-04-27T17:12:00.002+09:30

I've still not got dressed today. It just doesn't seem important, and I probably won't.

I really do need to set up a structure though, for my classes. That hit me yesterday. Even if it's just 'for x number of hours, at these times (unless it needs to change), i will work'. I'm sick of falling back into this 'oops, forgot to do it and it's due tomorrow/last week' habit again. Sometime tonight, God-willing. Tonight will be an early night though, I really need it. Sooo tired.

It's been raining today too, very grey, but that's kind of nice. I'm sitting on the couch, the heating's on, and contemplating picking up my stitching (remember I do that??) again. Nuts about autumn is progressing, slowly, but will stay in my bag. I like having the small project easily carry-able in my bag, so I'll keep it there and work on the big ones here at home. Speaking of the big ones (both Peaceful Paradise and JOB are calling so I'm going to use the Random Researcher to decide in a minute), Rebecca has started PP and it's beautiful, go have a look! She seems to be having an easier time of the sky than I did, lucky her :)

It's nice to have downtime for the first time in ages. I'm going to have weeknights again now, weird. I really need to use them to get some homework done!

Okay, I promised photos. Here's a few - I'll post them in small lots so that you dont' get bombarded with them.

Thumbnails, as always click to see the big photo. I figure if I put them in thumbnails it won't kill most people's computers.

This is a good friend of mine, Hannah, and me. Hannah can't hug me without swinging me up into the air, which is what she'd just done here hence the weird angle my head's at. It's fun.

Isn't this temple lovely? I'm particularly fond of their iconostasis, very pretty carvings. This is everything set up beforehand. The icon in the centre of the royal doors is of Christ as the Great High Priest, which is one of my favourites.

Here's some of the people who came, waiting. The girl in pink is my sister, the lady with dark hair in the front is my Mum.

Jeremy! He's Troy's godfather, all dressed up. Andrew's standing next to him but you can only see half of him. The thing behind is St Nectarios' epitaphion - the tomb of Christ. Theirs is less 'busy', only using a few colours, but very pretty. It's also a lot more traditional!

Here is a decent photo of Andrew (a jeweler friend who made our crosses and serves in the Altar) and my godmother, Nikki. Behind Nikki is a shrine with the relics of St Nectarios.

We started off with a few prayers. The priest with blue on his vestments is Fr John, the one in white and gold is Fr Silouan (the parish priest for this Church), and behind Fr John you can just see Fr Nicholas aka Abouna, the priest at not-greek-church.

Then we were asked to pledge ourselves to Christ

and knelt before Him before saying the Creed

About then it hit me that we were really doing this, and we walked into the sanctuary.

*grins*

more next time I post.

Xristos Anesti! (Good Friday, Holy Saturday)

2008-04-27T15:04:00.000+09:30

Alithos anesti!

No more days :) I was baptised yesterday, and my name's officially Kyriaki now. I've been trying to decide what to write for ages and so avoiding making this post.

Partly I'm exhausted but I don't feel that much more sick than I would expect after a week of long services and very little sleep.

Okay, recap.

Friday morning we went to Church...haha...oh Friday was a weird day. We got there - half an hour late - and they still hadn't started doing anything. The schedule had said that we were going to do the Hours (a particular service, we only do it for the greatest feasts) in the morning, but we ended up decorating the Epitaphion instead, which is the...well, the best way to describe it is a 4 poster table! it has a roof, and then we cover the whole thing in a carpet of flowers in different designs. I got a thousand photos, when I drag myself up out of bed and find the camera I'll post them. Somewhere between doing that, cleaning like mad (including the concrete of the carpark!), picking up the font from another church and then eating lunch...it was about 3pm I think when we finally got to church. Jeremy, Father and I read Vespers while everyone else finished up decorating. Basically noone comes to our Good Friday services, unfortunately.
Anyway, after that, Jeremy looked at me and went hmm I think we better go home. So I went back with him to his place and crashed (in my clothes!) in the bed that was still made up on the floor in his living room, until he woke me up about four hours later - he'd done the dishes and had a nap but I was totally unaware of all of that. Sleep was good. I ate a salad sandwich, we picked up Troy, and at 9 we had the Burial Service, matins for Holy Saturday. A long service, with beautiful lamentation hymns, and a procession around the Church a couple times symbolising walking to the tomb. As we left we got flowers, and hung around talking for a while, then went in search of my godmother who was not at other-church so we went to her place and I passed out on the floor.

SATURDAY. Hoo boy. I can try to explain but it's all a bit of a blur so I might wait for a photo recap for most of it.
I got up about 8ish, had a shower and got dressed - bathing suit, baptismal clothes and then a jacket and long black skirt over the top so I didn't look too weird for the hours before the service itself. We got there, early, and I wandered around freaking out. I'd forgotten when we invited the other priests that priests don't *do* just being guests - so we had three priests concelebrate our baptism :) That was wonderful. Father noticed me freaking out though so he said Kyriaki come help me set up. I don't know that I actually did anything, but it kept me sort of busy wandering around and helping people figure out where they were, and finally...we sat down in the front row, Father talked to everyone, and we walked out the back, I shed the top layers, and we started the first part of the service. The Orthodox baptismal service is kind of long, but basically it starts in the foyer, facing away from the altar, renouncing the devil and having prayers read over you. Traditionally you spit on the devil but we just kind of breathed on the ground instead...spitting's messy :P We turned around, pledged ourselves to Christ, knelt, said a few more prayers and got up to say the Creed. That all done, we wandered up to the font at the front of the Church. More prayers were read, and then I sat down because Troy was getting baptised first. When he wandered off dripping to dress again, it was my turn and after a few more prayers I climbed up and down into the tub, and stood there. My godmother rubbed oil on every part of me she could get to, which felt really really weird. Then for each member of the Trinity I knelt down as far as I could without not being able to breathe, and Father threw water and oil over me, then I stood back up again. By the time I got out I may as well have been put fully under, I was that wet! I climbed out into a sheet and towel held by my godmother, and had crosses marked on my face in a cross, my nose, mouth, ears, hands, legs, feet, back...and probably other places that I don't remember! Everything that was done had a prayer that went with it, and everything meant something. The final few things were putting on a new white shirt, and my cross, which is buttery smooth yellow gold and sooo pretty.... anyway, that done, we ran off for me to get dressed, and came back to finish the service. Honestly, after that it's a bit of a blur. I remember the procession around the baptismal font, and standing in front of that altar while the Gospel was read, and Father threatening in a whisper to marry us since we were already there, in white... When I get the photos, my memories will make a bit more sense I think.

Everyone came up to us and wished us kala paradiso (happy paradise, you don't say 'congratulations' because congratulations are only temporary), and kissed both cheeks, and we escaped into the other hall. We just sat around, ate fruit and nuts and nummy pita brought by one of the ladies, drank coffee, and got given presents - we have such generous friends.

After that though, we were exhausted. Everyone went to their respective homes, and we rested for a few hours. I grabbed noodles on the way home and ate them rapidly so I'd get to eat them before I needed to begin the fast for taking communion. Annoyingly, I got really hungry at about 8pm, and couldn't do anything about it! About 9:30 we got a call from Jeremy asking to meet at Troy's place (halfway between) as he was running late. It was bucketing down with rain so Dad and I jumped in the car as fast as we could, and drove through huuuuuge puddles. By the time we got down there it had stopped raining though, so that was good. I went in, grabbed Troy, and then Jeremy got there so we jumped in his car and drove to Church. We were still early - 'arabic time' amuses me. I'd left my candle home (silly kyri) but there was some decorated ones at Church so I picked one up and we started the service, sitting with my godmother and daniel. It was one of those services where not understanding the arabic (and it was mostly in arabic) really didn't matter. Every now and then a hymn or something would be in english (thankyou, Jeremy and Abouna), and I'd catch up to where we were in the service. Wonderfully, it wasn't raining for our procession (though apparently it was for the one at my other church), so we went out to have some more of the service outside...and then back to the Church door, where Abouna took the role of Christ, and banged hard on the doors of the Church telling them to open up. The people inside (the devil and hades, basically) yelled back who is it? "The King of Glory!" "Who is this King of Glory?" "The Lord strong and mighty..." eventually, he 'smashed the doors open' and we all ran in, still chanting, and swung all the chandeliers which was good fun. FUN! The service went from that, and a LOT of chanting of Xristos Anesti/Al'Masih Qam, which is actually a longer hymn:
"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life", to the DL service (ie Mass), except we kept chanting Xristos Anesti instead of other hymns that we would do normally. A very joyous service, good fun. And we got mentioned in the sermon...at which point I promptly turned bright red...and I took Communion for the first time. It's...wow... To hear 'the handmaid of God, Kyriaki...' is...there are no words to describe :) The peanut gallery in the choir applauded as we took Communion, which was weird but nice. As we walked back to our pew the lady that sits in front of us informed me that I could get my own antidoron (blessed bread, we grab it as we come back from Communion and eat it/give it to those who can't take Communion/both), so she didn't need to do it! We'll get some for our friend who usually sits with us though.

After the service was over we collected eggs, kissed a thousand people saying "Al'Masih qam" "Hakan qam", smashed eggs with one another and ate them (they're boiled), ate baklava, talked, and then escaped over to Greekchurch where we had been promised double fried chicken by our friend Nikos. And it was there...and the bishop was there too, so we kissed his hand...and ate food...and there was sushi...and sashimi, which the bishop was trying to get my friend Andrew to eat...and it was so much fun and we were soooo dead by the time we finally escaped at 4am. I got home about 4:45, and fell into bed.

Today has been peaceful but I feel very dehydrated for some reason, and I'm exhausted for obvious reasons. I'm hoping to get a good night's sleep tonight and then we'll see how the week goes :)

1 day - Holy Wednesday + Holy Thursday

2008-04-25T01:11:00.002+09:30

This will be quick. Things have shifted gears to being even more nuts, so I'm grabbing a few minutes to type this at 1:15 in the morning after coming home from Church.

Wednesday. Well... I slept, Wednesday morning rather than going to Progeismena, which I really needed, but I didn't sleep enough. Most of Wednesday I just hung around the house, except for buying a new recipe magazine and making up a bag of dried fruit and nuts to snack on because there's practically nothing else around (that's reasonably healthy) that I can eat. I dozed for an awful lot of it, having lit the candle by my bedside in front of the icons. I've been so tired recently, I could use all the help I can get. That evening I got all dressed up, bought a bottle of olive oil, and caught the train into the city to meet Troy and Jeremy - and went to Church. The service Wednesday night is the sacrament of Holy Unction - healing of both soul and body, and was one of the more beautiful services to just listen to I've been to. Something I've really appreciated during Holy Week is that we have no real need for sermons, there is so much theology in the hymns which elaborate on the Gospel/epistle readings. We sometimes get homilies as well though :) Long story short, it's a very long, beautiful service with several Gospel and epistle readings (after each other), and with each of the sets of readings a new...well, they're like little metal discs with a wick in them that float - a new one got added to the bowl that the priest had poured a little oil from each persons' bottle into. It was a very cool lamp! Eventually there were 7 (I think) and it glowed! At the end, we all lined up, kissed the book of the Gospels and the Cross, and then had a cross marked in oil on our forehead, hands and throat with a blessing from the priest.
We took Troy home, and then I slept at Jeremy's so I could get up in the morning for church, and actually got to sleep quite early.

Church this morning... well, it started at 6. So I got up at 5:30. Ugh. It was worth it though - a weird service, for the Mystical Supper (aka the Lord's/Last Supper), a combination of Vespers (evening service - yes we were doing it in the morning, yes I know that's weird) and the Divine Liturgy (mass). Lots of the once a year people came - just in time for Communion, having stayed home for the rest of the service, and then left as soon as they had taken it. Sigh. If you can't say anything nice.... so I'm not going to say any more about that.
Jeremy had to work, but was working from home, so we went back to his place and he worked while I pulled out my arabic textbook and started trying to learn it a bit. It's not as hard as it looked when I first saw it, but it's not easy either. Writing it is fun! Lots of sweeping curves, like writing cursive. I got a few exercises done - most of the first chapter, and my vocab list now has five words on it. Now to try and LEARN them!
After that though...new experience. Troy met us at the Church and we talked to Father about stuff - mostly, our backgrounds and he asked us a lot of questions to make sure we actually knew stuff before we got baptised. Apparently we answered well enough :) And then... well, it's hard to explain, and I'm not going to go into it because I can't find a way to do it. But we had Confession for the first time (though strictly speaking it's not the sacrament as we're not baptised...complicated) and whatever I thought Confession would be like, it's not. Very hard to explain, but very beautiful, and I felt much lighter. Everyone's told me 'you know, you don't confess to the priest', and I never understood that until now. You don't even look at the priest - you're staring at the carpet or at the icon of Christ that you're kneeling before. He's just a witness. Beyond that, I'll not say more. Some things are just too private to talk about.
We spent the afternoon just being blobs at Troy's house while Jeremy did some more work at his, and we had the usual drama with busses and Troy not having the internet so not being able to check the train timetable and trying to get in contact with his housemate and her not answering her phone and... in the end, we got to Church - we got lost in the process, and we were technically late, but the service started half an hour late anyway so not an issue. Tonight's service was for the Crucifixion and hoo boy. There is no honest way of describing this service.
Twelve Gospel readings, and you stand for all of them - and they're LONG. In between, the hymns explore the themes and events of the Gospel that was just read, and they go from the Mystical Supper all the way to the soldiers guarding the tomb. Very long service, very beautiful one, including a very memorable procession - and an icon...well, it's kind of like a 2D statue. Th Cross is one 'statue', but it's wooden and flat, painted. Hanging on it is a 'statue' of Christ - cut the shape, but flat, and then painted. Hard to explain, but you can't look at it and not be moved. The cross is taller than I am when it's in its stand in the centre of the Church. This was carried out by the priest in procession a couple times, completely in the dark except for candles...haunting.
Again, the 'countdown' - each of the candlestands at the front had the normal candles lit, but around each of them there were 6 tapers, and one was lit after every Gospel until they were all lit. These things are just...wonderful.

Not-Greek-Church ends up finishing early a LOT, so we went from there with Daniel (Jeremy had choir practice) to Greek-Church where it was standing room only so we went into the hall that had a live video screen of inside the Church. We sat with Jo, and stood for the Gospels and anything we understood - and I must confess, we talked a bit during the long hymns and readings that we couldn't understand. Usually on spiritual things...but we were talking. So was everyone else in the hall though, so...

We hung around, talked, laughed, ate bread and oreos (totally vegan and oil free, woohoo) and watched the first part of the Passion of the Christ, which none of us liked. So we turned it off, and came home!

I'm going to go pass out now. I don't think I'll have a chance to write before Sunday - so I'll see you then, if not before.

Holy Tuesday pt 2

2008-04-22T23:57:00.003+09:30

Apparently I'm not the only getting totally confused by what day it is - Jeremy can't remember what day it is either, and we ended up using the tv programs that were on tonight at his house while we were eating dinner to figure it out. You know it's holy week when...

actually, that's a decent idea for a list. Here a few of the things that I've been discovering -

You know it's Holy Week when:

vegetable soup is so totally a food group. ditto rice
pasta tastes perfectly good on its own, thanks
your sister points out that you were reciting the Trisagion prayers and Psalm 50 (51) while you were chopping up vegies for soup
you can't remember what day it is, but you know what time all the services were today and exactly how much sleep you *should* get tonight
you can tell everyone exactly what happened on every day of Holy Week in the Gospels
reading prayer books by candlelight is perfectly normal
you realise you haven't checked your email all day at midnight
you pack clothes for an overnight stay where you're going to be going to Church in the morning, and automatically pack black/navy everything
you've figured out how to do the small prostration (bow from the waist to touch the floor then cross yourself) holding a chunky lighted candle
you've figured out how to do full prostrations with a lighted candle
you've decided that you don't care how silly it looks, scarves tied babushki style (under the chin) don't fall off the way they do practically every other way
there are palm crosses in every room of your house
someone says 'glory...' and you automatically finish it with 'to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and to the ages of ages amen'. bonus points for doing it in a foreign language
you feel out of place when everyone's speaking english
you have hymns stuck in your head and weird people out as you chant 'Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, doxa si O Theos' in the shower
your eyes hurt in bright light at coffee hour
you finish 'forever and ever' with 'and to the ages of ages amen' (though this one's more a 'you know you're Orthodox when' thing)
you are scouring recipe books for Pascha recipes, while observing the strictest form of the fast
nestissmo is an english word, right?
you mark off tomorrow's date by accident on your calendar when you get home
you've discovered the best ways to lean on pews during reeaaaalllyyyy long Gospel readings
you have almost set someone's hair on fire with your candle. Multiple times.
you and your friend try to juggle a heavy prayer book, a fan and a massive lit candle between the two of you and manage to cross yourself multiple times at the same time
four hours sleep is a good night's sleep
you go to a service that begins at 7:30, and get there at 7:20, when you usually don't get up before 10
you start to forget that there is a normal world
your family start wondering if your crazy is contagious
your family start asking when you're going to become a nun
your sister announces that she's sick of vegetable soup, and you say oh good more for me
loukoumia is the best snack ever
you can understand half the gospel when it's read in Greek/Slavonic/Arabic, even though you don't speak much of the language
you can chant hymns you don't chant any other time of the year in several languages
you realise that you've only been home for six hours total today, and you're about to go out again...and not get home until midnight
bus drivers ask why you're so dressed up to go into the city on a Tuesday night, and then you end up telling them a paraphrased version of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins
bread is more of a staple food than ever before
you can't eat eggs, but you handle a zillion of them while dying them red
you wonder where you can find a wooden egg, or egg shaped rock, to paint red and beat everyone in the egg cracking
you plan dishes of sausage with cheese, and LOTS of chocolate, for Pascha
you don't expect to sleep before dawn on Easter Sunday
you've figured out how to do prostrations even when your skirt is long and narrow and you step on the hem
prostrations don't bother you in the slightest anymore, hard work? what do you mean?
you do, however, envy your priests ability to bounce from prostration to standing up again without moving his feet
you find yourself muttering litanies and psalms in foreign languages absent mindedly
you haven't read anything or watched anything fictional in days
you answer every invitation by non-Orthodox friends with 'sorry, it's easter' 'what, all week!?!?!?!' 'yup.'
you never realised how many black skirts and blouses you owned

that's addictive. I better stop and go to bed, I need to survive tomorrow night.

Tonight was beautiful. A lot of the things on that list happened today, including me making 'prayer soup' which is kind of like a minestrone. I call it prayer soup because a) I eat it during fasts (more like, live on it) and b) I basically throw a bunch of vegies, beans, pasta and tomatoes in a pot and pray that it works!

Now I am going to go pass out, and refuse to get up in the morning. Sounds wonderful.

4 days - Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday pt 1

2008-04-22T12:14:00.004+09:30

I was told that Holy Week is nuts. Now I understand!

I had a non-Church day yesterday until the evening, but I was shopping with my mum for the last few things I needed clothes-wise for Saturday. You need sunglasses to look at me all dressed up in bright white! It's good fun. Now that's organised, and I'm a bit more relaxed on that side of things. I got very tired though, and ended up resting lots. I got some other clothes, too - mostly things that I needed, but also a top that I didn't need but is beautiful and we got on sale. Black and white, kimono style, very comfy.

I came home and rested, and then went out again to koorong (protestant bookstore chain here) to get Jeremy's name day present - the new OSB (a version of the Bible mostly based on the NKJV but the Old Testament is translated from older manuscripts in our bibles) has just come out, and he needs a case for it, right? *smile* They have really good ones with plenty of pockets, and hardwearing...and best of all, they're canvas on the outside...now, what's a needlewoman to do with all that blank canvas? I've got a lot of spare moments, just not at home, so I'm going to take my tailor's chalk, needles, and deep reds, greens, blues, golds, whites, purples.... the case is black, so I'll use the liturgical colours. I'm putting his name on it, and a Cross, we'll see what else beyond that. Mine's going to have a peacock, an ancient Christian symbol of eternal life. Troy assumed I was going to x-stitch it, but I don't think so. It doesn't need it, and decorative stitches will work just as well.

After that I met Jeremy in the city at his work, then we went to pick up Troy and get to the bridegroom service, this time in Greek. They messed a few things up, much to our amusement, but most people wouldn't have noticed. Beautiful, beautiful. All the lights were down very low there too, which just added to it... and I get to go again tonight! Everyone is 'dressing dark', in purples, blacks, navy. Technically red isn't a 'dark' colour but it's not mandated that we dress dark, and it's better than wearing my white jacket! The colours match the mood of the services, and the week in general. I've never experienced a religion that acts out the intellectual side of things practically like this before - even the anglicans and catholics always seemed somewhat like they were playing a role. This is just honest - we don't dress dark because we 'should', we do because it's how we feel. How could you not feel sober, dressed like this, holding candles, while the choir chants solemnly:

Behold, the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching; and again unworthy is he whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, lest thou be overcome with sleep, lest thou be given up to death, and be shut out from the Kingdom. But rouse thyself and cry: Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God, through the Mother of God, have mercy on us.

Best of all is that when we sorrow, we sorrow...and when we rejoice, we REALLY rejoice! Pascha is going to be wonderful.

I am getting my days thrown out of whack though - because our liturgical day starts at sundown, and we have been having the services for monday on sunday night, tuesday on monday night, etc, I keep thinking it's wednesday! Not necessarily a bad thing though :)

I slept on Niki's floor last night, on a futon mattress she keeps under the bed. It was just easier than trying to get to a 7:30 service from my house, 45 minutes away. It was hard enough to get up as it was! Service this morning was worth it though - presanctified liturgy, in Greek, and I wasn't chanting! And I got to hold the beautiful Photini after, too - my friend Eleni's little girl who is about 5 months old and very chubby, and adorable.

And now I am home, resting for a while, before I go out again tonight. I really need a nap, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to as it's during the day. Lots of coffee instead maybe :)

5 Days - Palm Sunday

2008-04-20T22:48:00.004+09:30

I've had a full day again, and now I'm tired and thinking about going to bed. Fair warning for those who don't want to read it - the next few days are going to be not about stitching, but about life (as usual) and a LOT about religion, specifically praxis (the living out of) during Holy Week. This week is our high holy days for the year, and I'm in that mindframe - and that's pretty much what I'm doing, too, being at Church. Tune in for your regularly scheduled stitchiness next week (I think.) Please do read though, it's actually interesting, and I'm explaining things as it's all new to me too.

I got up earlyish today to get ready for Church - Palm Sunday! This begins Holy Week, for us. Sober, beautiful...

Palm Sunday is a much bigger deal in the Orthodox Church than it ever was in any of my previous churches. Added to this, Troy's friends Daniel and Connor came and they're not used to Orthodox services...hoo boy :)
We did Orthros (Matins) and Divine Liturgy, as usual - except, being a Great Feast, a bunch of the hymns changed slightly, we skipped some things, and we added others. When you rely on the service book because half of it's in Arabic (as Troy's friends) did, that makes life complicated, and when the girl next to you (me) has the changeable parts all typed out. They didn't seem to mind though. The Church was decorated - I posted a photo of what it looks like a few days ago, and the things used in procession were decorated too which I hadn't seen. The lanterns on poles, crosses, etc, all had flowers and palms tied to them. I didn't get a photo, but you can probably imagine. When the service ended (and I've never seen the temple so full!!) we all headed out in procession - the lantern, cross, etc, bearers at the front, followed by the choir, and Abouna (Father), and then the rest of us carrying blessed palms and olive branches and candles. Around the entire block! It would have been interesting to watch for someone who didn't know, I think! Good fun.

After that we wandered over to greekchurch to see our other priest (who is baptising us), and have lunch, which was....interesting. Church politics are complicated. Anyway, that unhappiness aside, I learned how to make greek coffee, got to look through the new OSB (a Bible with the old testament translated from the Septuagint, which is what we use, rather than the later hebrew texts), decided what to make Jeremy for his name day gift and sorted through some of the formalities of our baptisms. Our names are decided once for all now, including their spelling, and now we just need to survive Holy Week and turn up on Saturday!
I hung out with Jo and a bunch of other friends, and got a new komboiskini - a prayer rope, which is used for counting rote prayers - same principle as a rosary, but less structured and we usually only say one prayer on it (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the/a sinner), mine's 33 knots long and the size of a bracelet - which is why it's currently on my wrist, and going to stay there. I had one, and so did Troy, but I have beaded ones so I gave Troy mine when he lost his. Then he went and lost that one too, and I can't sleep with a beaded one wrapped around my wrist and leave it home a lot. So, I've got a new one now. This one's got a gold coloured diamond bead to join the loop, rather pretty. Prayer ropes are generally knotted, and made out of wool - usually black. They can be anything from 33 knot (the smallest I've seen, and the most common) through 50, 100, more.... I've never seen anything bigger than 100 knot one though!

Jo's mum invited us to their place for a while, so a bunch of us went there and she fed us - fish (it's a great feast, so fish is allowed, YAY), dolmades, coleslaw made without mayonnaise, chips and stuff, and best of all - honeycomb to chew on. YUMMMMM. I also got given a bunch of table covers in red gauze with gold embroidery, which were a gift they don't use and I like, and some greek biscuits (cookies) I forget the name of but have had before.

Finally we had the Bridegroom Service tonight - long story, but it's a solemn service that's held Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights of Holy Week - only about an hour long, and remembering the events of the following days (ie we commemorated Monday's tonight) in the Gospel accounts. Weird, but true - our liturgical day is like the Jewish one, we start the day at sundown, so on the Church calendar it's technically Monday. Just...hauntingly beautiful. And we dropped in to see Niki (my godmother) who bought me some shoes (yay! they're gorgeous) for when I dress up after, and other practical things that I need, and wanted to touch base with me. I'm staying at her place tomorrow night after Church, so I can go to Church again in the morning - 7:30am start, I must be nuts. At least she only lives 5 minutes drive from the Church!

And now I'm home. And tired. And going to bed soon. I need to eat something though, preferably something with meat and dairy in it as I begin a proper fast (vegan) this week as it's Holy Week, even if I've been following a modified Rule before due to being sick. I'm sure I'll find something :) Mac'n'cheese with tuna maybe.

One week

2008-04-19T11:54:00.002+09:30

This time next week, I'll be being baptised. That's a wonderful, if somewhat terrifying, thought. I'm not ready, but Jeremy says he's still not and it's been three years since he was baptised, so I suppose I have to accept that I never will be!

Manda (doll) and I went to the city yesterday and took photos for a photostory, and I was supposed to have a meeting but I didn't as it was cancelled. So, instead, I wandered around Rundle Mall some more before meeting Jeremy.
I've been on the hunt for a new, warm, jacket/cardigan/sweater/something! for winter, as I only have one, and it's cream and shows the dirt really easily. The last bit's not an issue as long as I can wash it, but usually I need to wear it! So I got a new one, it's knitted and a rusty, mottled red. And very very warm. I took a photo, see:

I've got makeup on in that photo too as there was a place that sells professional makeup and they'll do you up for free, and give you a list of what they used. I like it, because I look healthy again (I've got really pale since I got sick), but it's a lot of work and my eyes felt sleepy earlier, maybe because they were sensitive? I'm not sure, still trying to work that out. It's kind of expensive too. I'm thinking about it :) It was nice to feel pretty, though.

Then I wandered down to my spot where I'd arranged to meet Jeremy before Church. I snapped a photo of that view, too, it's lovely at night.

After he picked me we went to greek-church to pick up candles because the priest from the other church had asked us to. So I got to see both priests in a night which was lovely, they're both so beautiful. While we were there, I saw my friend Jo as she'd been to the service there which was much earlier. So we grabbed her, too, and told her she had to come to church with us! So, five minutes later, we were all at not-greek-church. Jo's greek, so she's used to understanding the services...and this was all in arabic, with the odd bit of english or greek thrown in...hehehehehehe.... we got out at the end, and we'd been translating the odd bits and pieces for her, but mostly she didn't understand. She told me 'I'm never going to take you coming to church [and not understanding the language] for granted ever again!' I just laughed. We introduced her to the priest there, and then headed out for coffee. Before we left, though, I got photos of the iconostasis (the wall of icons between the altar and the main part of the temple/church) all decorated up for Palm Sunday which is this weekend.

Please click, and even go to the full size, it's worth it. The two people are Jeremy and a lady from church who chants, often. The big icons are (L->R) St Michael the Archangel, St Elias (patron of the Church), the Theotokos and Christ (Mary), Christ (though the glare obscures this icon), St John the Baptist (yes he's an angel in that photo, angelos means messenger too, so it's a pun), and then finally the St Gabriel the Archangel. The top row are mostly the 12 Apostles, and a couple feasts, too. On the side wall is St John the Baptist baptising Christ.

Well, we said coffee. It ended up being pasta for Jeremy and I, and Jo didn't eat anything. But we sat and talked for a couple hours, and it was nice. Lent can be hard, but it can also be beautiful, and this really was. Fellowship is such a wonderful thing, just to talk, to eat, and to laugh. And be teased a lot!

9 days

2008-04-17T23:11:00.002+09:30

Heh...again, I am a fool.

I keep assuming that my illness is logical, that I can go out, have an exhausting weekend, sleep and rest for a few days and be back to normal. Nope. Does not work like that. I barely did anything yesterday, or today, but by the time I was in the car tonight to come home I could barely walk.

It's irritating, but this is my Stavros - my Cross, to bear. And I'll get there. I just need to stop forgetting important details like those.

Kyrie eleison, Ya Rab raham, Lord have mercy. After six weeks (almost) of Lent, I say these phrases almost as easily as breathing (they all mean the same thing). I know Psalm 50 (51) by heart, prostrations have become second nature, and I'm used to eating calimari for every other meal, and asian for that which isn't calimari! I am sick to death of calimari, give me some KFC already :P I'm not sick of asian yet, thankfully, I think because there's more variety. A week and a bit, and it will be Pascha. Next week is a strict fast for everyone else (no oil, either) but for me I just keep the normal fast (which I haven't been, as I'm sick) when I'm on my own or it's me choosing. Mostly I'll be out with Orthodox people as it's Holy Week though, so I doubt I'll be cooking often enough for it to make a difference - I'll just eat what they eat.

On the topic of things that AREN'T religion, though, I got my chart back for Peaceful Paradise but haven't been home to work on it. Instead, it's been JOB, or when I'm not home (most of the time) I finally got the fabric for Nuts About Autumn so I've been carrying that around, much more practical. No big frame (it's in a hoop), not a big piece of fabric, less floss to worry about. It's nice. A smaller chart, too. My squirrel has a belly, arms, and most of his head, though I haven't filled in the pink for his paws or pink and white for his mouth and teeth yet. He's adorable, I love working on this especially as it stitches up so quickly. I'm not usually fond of small designs as they seem expensive for not much gain, but I might get addicted to these ones I think - maybe enough to do the series, one in each season. No photos, yet. When I get a bit more done, I think :) I've got a meeting tomorrow night to get to in the city though, and then Church after, and helping Father with double sided stickytape (long, sad story), and then Saturday we're going to be out too. So I'll have plenty of spare moments where blocks of colour will be a good option. This stitches up so quickly, I think I'll miss it when it's done. Maybe I should reevaluate my thinking on small pieces, just to carry around - goodness knows I spend enough time on busses and things. I'll have a lot of spare time next week too, out for Holy Week, but I don't know how much of that it'll be appropriate to stitch on. DEFINITELY not Good Friday, it's a Greek tradition that you don't use sharp tools because Christ died due to sharp tools. So no stitching. I don't think I'll have time to do it anyway, between Church services!

I've been reading Les Miserables, slowly, too. I'm almost at the end of volume 1 of my set (of 2) but it's got somewhat slow and background-y again. Some classic novels have so much background you'd never have issues to write fanfic...it's just hard going! And I have no desire to write Les Mis fanfic. The book is really good, I like classic lit, it's just hard. There's a production of the musical at the end of May where I live too, by a decent company, so my friend Andrew and I are planning to try and get a group to go, all in red and black. FUN!

Anyway, this is going to get rambly and make no sense, soon. So I'll stop. But I've had a good last few days, I'm just frustrated by being sick.

At the end of the day

2008-04-15T23:17:00.002+09:30

Here's my work on part 3, and you can see part 2 as well. I didn't take it off the frame because I didn't see the point, and it's fiddly to get on and off.

I think I'm about half done with this part. I've been starting the frame for the next part, too, so I can use up any spare floss, and also so I don't have to do a huge amount of boring work when I start the next part, which is always the deterrent to me when I start a new one.

I love the irises, they're beautiful. The tree is boring, but I know it will look beautiful as I can already see the other half of it in the second part. I stitched the crane, too, but there's no instruction as to what colour floss to stitch the backstitches at the beak, wings and tail with so I left a message for Martina and I'll add them later. I think the irises were my favourite of the work I did today :) Just lovely shades of pink.

11 Days

2008-04-15T17:19:00.002+09:30

I'm taking a break from stitching for a little while as there's only so long you can work on over-one cranes before you start to go nuts. It's worth it, it looks beautiful. There's only one crane in this panel, and it involves three colours. I've done the main one, and I'm working on the secondary one at the moment. The third is just for accents.

Today has been incredibly slow. Yesterday I had the day off because I needed it, today I'm just tired but not in a way that enjoys being in bed, so I'm sitting on the couch but kind of bored. It's Tuesday though, tv night in this house. the news, h&a and neighbours because I have to watch them for school (would you believe!!), it takes two/dancing with the stars and all saints. sometimes I tape NCIS, too. Unlike in america, having a recorder built into your tv/cable thingo isn't that common here, so we still use VCRs. Or download it off the internet.

The frame for this panel is just about done now, and I've been using leftover thread on the next panel's frame. Slowly, surely, I'm getting there.

I just wish it wasn't so cold and quiet today.

JOB returns

2008-04-15T00:10:00.002+09:30

I was brilliant, and left the pattern for Peaceful Paradise in Father's office at Church the other day.

So, I pulled out JOB instead, which I've been wanting to work on for ages. And got pt 2 finished! The parts on this really aren't very big, so it's fun to work them up nice and quick.

Here you are, have a picture:

This main part (the sides of the box) is now 1/4 done, the whole thing is 1/6 done. I'm leaving the rhodes stitches in the border and the beading until the end, because my q-snaps don't like them. The only annoying thing is that I can't really work on all of the border while I'm working on other things, but have to shift my q-snaps...but I'll cope. I'll get the very top parts of this scene done, so I can shift the q-snaps and work on the bottom part of the border for this and the next part soon enough.

The bonsai tree is my favourite, it's just so...cute! the leaves are tiny diamond eyelets, and they are so soft and pretty in reality, but hte photo doesn't capture them as well, sigh.

It's after midnight now but I'm not that tired. I've had too much of a restful day, apparently! So I might do a bit more border, and start the next scene. There are irises and mountain in this one, along with the rest of the winter tree. I can't wait to start the irises, they're so pretty!

Photopost

2008-04-14T17:11:00.004+09:30

Ah yes, the semi-regular photopost of doom.

Firstly, here's Peaceful Paradise as of today - as always, everything here is a clickable thumbnail:

(sorry about the shadow on the side, and the creases!)

I've reached the bottom of the text box, and started working sideways, and dipping into working on the scene down the bottom occasionally. I'm still having so much fun, but I left my pattern at Church yesterday (go me) so I'm working on JOB until Wednesday.

And here you go, here's what I got for my birthday:

Here's the Cross that Pater gave me. It's now hung on the wall in my room, above my bed. Yes, my room is that colour. Yes, it is very pink. I know that :) I've had my room this colour for years and I've yet to go crazy.
Like I said the other day, each of the little 'bubbles' has ground from the Holy Land - rock, chalk, dirt, sand... and yes the sign says INBI not INRI - because is IS the king of the Jews, he didn't just say it! Orthodox crucifixes change that. The budded ends is characteristic of non-Russian Orthodox Crosses, I'm not exactly sure why but I think the three arcs are for the Trinity, which would make sense. Everything is three times for the Trinity with us! The crosses on my Churches all look like this.

These are the cards I've got so far, I always get a few late ones in the post too. From L->R they are from my parents, Troy's parents, my Grandmother and Nona Niki.

My MIL gave me a bunch of fat 1/8th of William Morris fabric. It's lovely stuff, and it's tucked away for something special - and addition to my fabric 'collection' - she says it's a collection, not a stash, stash implies that I have to use it, and I have a lot of fabric that I just like to keep 'cause it's pretty! A lot of it has gold on it too, so nice. And my favourite colours to work with, too - browns and greens!

Nona Niki (my godmother) gave me these - the envelope is from the card, that's my name in Greek on it and I love the clouds! And yay for nummy body scrub that I'm not allergic to.

These are what I also got from Pater - practical gift this time around. Guest bathroom towels for when we get married and they're sooo soft. I love the Greek take on birthday gifts - practical things always win once you get to a certain age. I know that it has its downsides (my friend Jo got pillows for her 18th birthday, lol) but it has a lot of upsides too.

Something completely different, too. I made a quilt for my Personal Project - in the Internation Baccalaureate, when you finish middle school you have to do a PP on something or other. It's often a practical thing, but you have to demonstrate learning. I'd never made a quilt, so a lady from church taught me. This is on our spare bed most of the time, and it's very warm (and got put in pride of place in a bunch of school exhibitions, along with an edwardian costume that another girl made, yay!)

Here's the whole quilt, on a single bed. All done in cotton, and the seams are machine stitched but everything else (applique and embroidery) was done by hand. Anything that's not applique is stitched in a DMC cotton, three strands if I remember right. The embroidery took FOREVER, but is totally worth it!

The first two blocks - the first lines of the poem, and two people, one big one little, holding hands. We deliberately went with a naive style for this, so it's not just that I can't draw (though that's true too!)

These are the 7th and 10th blocks. The dolphin is my favourite of all the embroidered blocks - we photocopies him from a colouring book, enlarged it, and then transferred it onto the design (repeatedly, as it kept wearing off) with dressmaker's chalk and tracing paper. The feet were traced from the feet of a little boy of someone we knew (and he giggled like mad when we did it!)

Finally, these are the last two blocks. That's more or less what my handwriting looks like, though it's a little neater now than it was five years ago. We don't get taught this cursive here, this is american style cursive that I kept from when we lived there (as Australian 'cursive' is really ugly) and still use a lot.

Thanks for looking :)

12 days

2008-04-14T14:06:00.002+09:30

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

No, a different 12 days :P There's 12 days until my baptism. I'm counting down, 'cause I can.

Yesterday was less mental, but I was even more exhausted by last night than I was the night before. I think this is because I had two very full days in a row - not necessarily full for another person, but for me, very.

Yesterday I had DL in the morning, but Jeremy was late so we worried that we'd miss the matins psalms, and so we tried desperately to remember the numbers and I pulled my pocket bible out of my handbag, and read them on the way. Then we got there, and they hadn't even started, despite our being at least 15 minutes late...lol...
After Church they had a felafel lunch, with crunchy pickles in the wrapped up felafel...oh yum. We sat around and talked, and ate, and then there was someone there who doesn't have a car, recently arrived from Lebanon, and he needed to go to the big shopping centre (mall) that is sort of in the direction of my house, so Jeremy and I drove him there. We had a great conversation about history, Islam, whether religion matters in politics or not, Lebanon in general, and varying other things. On the drive back to Jeremy's place for the afternoon he and I talked about the charismatic christian (ie pentecostal, but not necessarily denomination-wise) world that I grew up in, and rules for things like speaking in tongues in Church etc etc. I grew up charismatic, but no longer agree with most of what I grew up with, but Jeremy was lutheran and thoroughly non-charismatic at that, so it was weird to talk about it all.
Back at Jeremy's he went off to read a book, and his sister had members of her netball team there, and they were going to watch a movie so I asked if I could come watch, and being told yes I plonked myself down on the floor. It was "Stomp the Yard" - totally plot-less, really, but awesome dancing, and that's why we were watching it.

Later in the afternoon Jeremy and I left for church again - Vespers at one of the Greek churches we don't usually go to, but is incredibly beautiful inside...I love fully painted Orthodox Temples (strictly speaking, the building is a 'temple', ναός, not a 'church' (ie the body of people), εκκλησία, though the greeks are slack with calling it a church too) and this one is one of the nicer ones I've seen. It was advertised as being in english, but most of the people there were oldies...and the bishop was there..so greek it was. Oh well. I love vespers, especially the Sunday night one during lent when they turn all the lights off after the sunset hymn, and the priest changes his vestments from light (joyful, for Sunday is a feast of the resurrection) to dark (sorrow, for lent), and the altar cloth gets changed too, behind the shut royal doors. Just...beautiful.
After that, there was going to be a lecture in the hall but it was in greek and my little group of friends thought...hmmm....no. Jeremy and I don't speak greek well enough to have understood, and the others expected it to be really academic so Jo, her friend, Illia, Jeremy and I went for coffee nearby, and talked, and ranted, and laughed, and I ate a foccacia with smoked salmon and cream cheese on it because Jeremy told me to, and we left to go get our cars. When we came back, Father was getting in his car - he hadn't been there during the service, presumably because he had Vespers at his own church, and he was about to pull out from the curb when we as a group walked up the the car in his lane. He half pulled out, looked at us...and reversed back in. We all chatted to him through the window, and then he had to go so we got out of the way. We met another priest in the carpark (parking lot) too, but I was totally exhausted and about to fall over so we couldn't stay to talk long...came home...and I crashed.

Today I've basically been sleeping, and lying in bed. I'm trying to rest as much as possible, taking it very easy. I need time to let my body recover. This weekend has been so worth it though, I have the best group of friends, and family, ever.

Happy Day

2008-04-12T22:22:00.002+09:30

Oh, if I was more happy I would pop. I have such wonderful friends!

Today started off a little stressful because we realised that the place we were going for lunch was closed on saturdays...at the last minute...like, half an hour before we had planned to meet there. ARGH! So...we found somewhere else and rang/messaged everyone to let them know. Father had asked me what I was doing for my birthday on Thursday and so I invited him if he was up this way, and so I messaged him with the updated details just in case. So, Troy, his parents, my parents, my sister, me, sister's boyfriend and Jeremy all went for lunch at another place near there, which was lovely, and it was still good food. And my Mum made Troy (whose birthday it was last weekend) and I a very nummy nestissimo (fast friendly - ie no dairy, no eggs) chocolate cake with sultanas in and chocolate icing/frosting... And Father came!! That was wonderful :) he came, which was wonderful enough, and we probably weirded out Troy's family and everyone else in the restaurant because we got up and kissed his hand to say hello, but we didn't think of that at the time. But he brought me a present - classic Greek gift, something for my 'dowry'. Lovely guest towels with gold edging - and something that wasn't the classic gift, a wooden Orthodox crucifix with the budded ends, and on each arm's end is a little glass 'bubble' with ground from the Holy Land in it - soil, dirt, rock, chalk... it's beautiful, and it's now hung up in the living room in my icon corner until I put a hook above my bed to hang it from. It would be perfectly appropriate in the icon corner, but I want it above my bed. And we lit the candles on the cake and sang happy birthday twice, once for me and once for Troy. And gave Father a piece of cake, and told him he had to eat it, and that he wasn't allowed to give it away to anyone else! We know him too well...he never keeps gifts unless you force him to somehow. He sat down, and talked to us, and met my sister, which was fun as she hadn't met him before. He had to go after a while but it meant so much that he came at all.

A lot of bread, and a plate of prawn pasta later, we found ourselves still drinking Jeremy's bottle of wine and talking. Troy and his family had to go as his Mum had to work, but we stayed, drank coffee, and talked some more. His Mum gave me a present too - a bundle of fat 1/8ths of quilting fabric, all William Morris designs. I like the way she thinks...and buys presents...they're wonderful colours and designs. Lots of gold. Eventually we drove my Dad home, and I reminded Jeremy that he had to teach Saturday School (religious lessons at the Church for the kids) so we drove to the Church...and noone came... but the priest (different one, I have three Churches, for those that don't know) was there and he called me birthday girl a thousand times, and it was nice anyway. Jeremy did some typing so that Daniel and I could follow the service tomorrow, and I did some work on Peaceful Paradise, which Father liked, and he made me tea as I was the birthday girl. Eventually we had to leave for Vespers, at yet another Church, and we got there late but they hadn't started as Jeremy is one of the two chanters and the other one doesn't like chanting without him. And my godmother, and my friend Joanna were there, which was wonderful! I like having company, and Saturday evening services are not popular, for reasons you can probably guess. Daniel was there too, as usual, which was nice. So both godparents were there - Jeremy might not officially be one, but he might as well be. He's Troy's godfather, anyway. So...the service was its usual lovely self, and afterwards we stood around to talk, but the priest had to go see someone in hospital, and it was decided that I should be taken out to dinner...so they did! There were five of us so we all fit in Jeremy's car and there was no sense taking four, so we all piled in and went to North Adelaide to get dinner - there's a great asian restaurant up the northern end of O'Connell St, and we went there. My goodness...I wasn't that hungry and neither was Nona (godmother), so we ordered soup, and Jo got fried rice. Heh. The soup bowls were massive! Mine was a prawn laksa, and Nona's Tom Yum, and the two guys got black bean squid and a seafood hotpot. This place has so much good nestissimo food... we were totally stuffed after our couple hours of eating and drinking and talking and laughing. Eventually we couldn't move, went to pay the bill and noone would let me pay... and we went back to the car though Jeremy wouldn't let Jo and I (who both have the same things) walk and ran on to get the car, and we went back to the Church, dropped them off and drove home.

And now I'm home, and happy, and floating on air. No pictures, because I left my camera in Jeremy's car (Kyri is smart, she promises...just forgetful...), but I'll try and get some tomorrow after Church. Tomorrow has two services too - in the morning we have Matins and Divine Liturgy, and in the evening one of the Greek churches is doing Vespers all in english, yay! It's a youth-y thing, so I should see a lot of friends there. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that Nona gave me a lovely card, too, and a tub of yummy bathy stuff that I'm not allergic to (always a bonus).

Now... I think I am going to change into my pyjamas and curl up and sleep. I am so happy I could float away - this has been the best birthday I've had in years. I love my friends, and my family.

Birthday!

2008-04-12T01:26:00.003+09:30

As of an hour and a half ago, I am twenty years old. COOL! No longer a teenager, yay.

I am tired, again, but as it's 1:28am that's kind of my fault. Today's been...long. And not. Hard to explain. I've been working on my sister's dress, mostly, which involved a trip to spotlight to pick up cording and a pattern for something I can make to wear for my baptism - I have pants, I need a top. I found a gorgeous tunic type thing, which will look lovely I think.

Tonight was the Akathist - the whole, massively long thing. It was wonderful, hard to explain exactly why, especially as so much was in Arabic! I stood (Akathist literally means 'not sitting down') happily next to the chanter's desk, holding on for parts of the service - it's perfect height for me to do this - with my service book and enjoyed it, especially once I got the hang of the arabic for "Most holy Theotokos, save us" * and could chant with everyone else. After four weeks, on the fifth one we finally got good at it...and now it's over for the year. Oh well.

Father for some reason I don't know/understand didn't have his car, so Jeremy said he'd take him home - he lives another half hour at least beyond where I live from the Church. He had a lot of fruit and vegetables to put in the car so asked Jeremy for the keys...and then didn't give them back :) He drove us to his house, and that was fun. We spent the hour-long (at least) trip chanting, mostly - in arabic, english and greek. Bits and pieces from Vespers, Compline, the Akathist, resurrection troparia, Agni Parthene (which is a (long) hymn, not technically part of any service but it's well loved and I've heard it done in multiple languages)... good fun! He gave us each an apple and a banana (mows in arabic - much to my amusement, I expect it to squeak!) and Jeremy and I chattered our way home. It seemed much later than it was, I sat and stitched (mostly border, and some text), and then after reading a bit more of Les Mis (he's digressed into describing a really interesting but really totally irrelevant history of an convent at the moment) I jumped on here. And after posting this, I'll probably go to sleep.

Sally and Karan, thanks so much for your lovely comments :) I'll try to have a new photo soon - it's grown MORE would you believe!

* this doesn't actually refer to salvation in the classic western (ie protestant) view of things. It's more save/help us, and as we don't believe that she's dead but rather alive in heaven with Christ, as are all the Saints and departed faithful it's perfectly reasonable by that logic to assume that she can pray for us - seeing Christ himself, no less, and maybe even help more :) She is the King's mother... anyway, thought I'd add that as it's a common misunderstanding when people hear about such things in our Liturgy!

NO MORE SKY!

2008-04-10T11:05:00.002+09:30

Right, it's ALL DONE.

I've got a lot done since I took this photo yesterday, actually, but it'll do - I don't want to take it off the frame until I've got a bit more done.

I debated whether to start the frame below (with the pastoral scene) when I got to the bottom of the text frame and started working the border horizontally. Eventually, curiosity won out! I plan to mostly put in the pale green for the grass though, concentrating on the text, and use up bits and pieces of threads from the text and ornaments. It's cute though - I have the very beginning of the grass' border, and two flower stalks.

The last few days have been a bit odd. Troy's eyes are really playing up, so he's up here and mostly lying down. Poor thing. Presanctified Liturgy was last night, which was beautiful as usual though a little confusing because we did a bunch of it in Arabic too, and the Arabic book is confusing for Arabic speakers! Eventually we sorted it out... Also, the bulletin needed folding and putting in envelopes, so we helped with that, and I've volunteered to help each month - it's not hard, I'm used to the work from when I used to do it for my job, and it's nice to be useful. So we had me, Jeremy, Abouna, Jeremy's godfather and Khouria (the priest's wife) all working away sorting, stapling, folding, putting in envelopes... it was actually a lot of fun. And I learned (a very tiny bit) of arabic, though I get the gist of most of what is said around me - the number 2 is ithnan, though I can't get my tongue around it yet (it's harder than it looks written in text!), and tea is chai, which makes sense to me :) I learned 2 because that's how many spoons of sugar I wanted in my tea! Sweet tea without milk has not tasted that good in ages... Khouria asked if we wanted sugar, or sugar with ants, as there were ants in the sugar bowl...and that led to remembering Jeremy's baptism, when the hose hadn't been used in ages and was full of ants, so they baptised a bunch of ants, too...I can just imagine all the ants with halos turning up to greet Jeremy when he gets to heaven. Shukran is thankyou, too.

Today is a lazy day. My body is in a supremely bad mood, so I'm going to take it easy. Check the mail, maybe make some ANZAC biscuits (not sure, but they're easy and I could probably get Troy to do the stirring), do a lot of stitching, take some more painkillers...*grins*

Oh yes, before I end - I've recently rediscovered this icon-

It's the Theotokos - Mother of God, and this particular icon is called The Joy of all That Sorrow. In San Francisco there's a big Russian cathedral with this name, and I'm rather fond of it. In the icon, she is shown as a flower, and the people around are asking for her intercession, and receiving what it is that they need. I can't find a copy of it as a print though, so I might have to get one written...or ask Pater and see what we can do about a hunt :) It's not a Greek icon though, which makes it harder

Anyway, off to stitch!

Post with no name

2008-04-08T15:18:00.006+09:30

The clutter in my house is starting to get to me again, I might have to do a drastic clean again. Or finish my sewing at least so I can put my sewing machine and cabinet away!

I think I wore myself out over the past few days - I did a lot on Sunday, and then again yesterday (which was supposed to be a downtime day) I was out of the house driving my dad and my grandmother places. Today my head is kind of in a fog, and I'm trying to make myself get the motivation to do some cooking so I can eat a meal for the first time in about 24 hours. Food just seems unimportant while I'm like this, and I know that's not a good thing. I've got the mac'n'cheese packed on the cupboard, give it an hour and I'll probably have made and eaten it.

The weather the last few days has been beautiful - 32 yesterday, supposed to be 29 today. It's nice after the bitter cold of last week! Autumn here in South Australia is a very weird season, it jumps from summer to winter and back again at least once a week it seems.

I have sad news - three of my rats have died recently, very close together. None of them were a total surprise, but it's still sad. Champagne was almost 4, which is OLD for a rat, with smallish tumours...Sofia had large tumors and was six months to a year younger, and Sosspiri was my sister's rat and always sickly. I hadn't been up in a couple days to feed them, and went up to find them gone, and the younger two escaped! I know where they are, they're in a junk room, built a nest, and I put out food and water which they ate when I wasn't there. They let me pat and stroke them, but not catch them (I got bit in the middle of the thumb for my troubles, and let me tell you, rat bites HURT), so we're going to try Bindi's boyfriends' possum trap, and put them in the inescapable cage that Soss was in. We thought Soss was the only escape artist, but apparently not...anyway, they're irritating, but I'm glad they're still alive.

Speaking of pets, my Dad's suggested that I get a kitten last night - longer lasting, and I can have it in the house as my doc won't let me have the rats inside the main house anymore because we're not sure what's making me sick. So...fluffball kitten sometime soon YES! Pet deaths choke me up at the time, but I get over them fairly quickly...I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, a learned thing, or what? It's sad, I'll miss them, but it doesn't make me bawl my eyes out. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to or not. Maybe I'm just being me (ie weird) again.

My arms are killing me, mostly from stitching I think, but I'm stitching because I can't be bothered paying attention to the pain. There's real pain, and there's illness aches. I long ago stopped listening to the latter if I can possibly help it, because they're just a fact of life now. My feet hurt, my neck hurts, my legs ache and so do my hands. And probably other places that I'm ignoring. That's just life now. I'm no less sick than I was a year ago, I just cope with it better now.

Time is a funny thing at the moment. It just...passes. it's like the time of my life and the real world's time are two different things. In my own world, it's like everything lasts forever, and is normal time. But outside, everything moves so quickly! I think it's partly because I spend so much time at home, or at Church, and time doesn't pass that quickly in either place.

I had a math class today, and thankfully I still remember all this work, so this unit should be easy. Oh, and I got my test back for the unit we just finished - 53/60, THANKYOU. I should get the best math grade I've ever had this report card! Now if I can just keep that up...

It's funny how I decide on what I will and won't do now - I sit here on the couch and think hmm, i'd like to sew Bindi's dress, but that means getting on the floor and getting back up again and heavy fabric. I don't think I'm up to that. So I sit and type, or stitch. But other days I'll get it into my head that the house needs cleaning, I want to make muffins, I want to sew, something. And I'll do it. I don't really know what the difference is in the two days, or whether my illness is any different on those days. I just know that mentally I can cope some days, and not others.

So I'll stay here, stitching. I am getting so, so close to finishing the sky - a couple hundred stitches, if that, and only four more rows left of text to start - I am stitching a length of thread into each line at the right side of the piece so that I make sure the border is correct, and also because if I work on this side part of the work, I can shift my q-snaps over the border and get on with everything else once I've made it to the bottom of the piece. Two of those rows aren't actually text, either. One is a strawberry border piece, and one is a rectangular ornament, and then I'm down to the bottom border of the text block, and into the scene at the bottom. I'm hoping to stitch these two rows of pages sort of together, with the different colours in the scene breaking up the monotony of all the black text, and the text breaking up the monotony of the grass which I have a sinking feeling will be like stitching the sky. Long, and boring.

If I finish the sky, I'll take a photo :)

ETA: here's a quote from the shoutbox (like a chatroom) on one of my forum sites:
kyriaki: My family have decided I need a (long lasting) pet that can wander around and keep me company
clementofrome: let's see....."a pet that can wander around and keep me company..." Kyriaki, you already have one.....it is called a LAPTOP!

teehee!

Sleepyness and wordisms

2008-04-06T22:58:00.002+09:30

Well, I survived a church service with my family - barely, but I did. And I met a Greek Orthodox girl who is a member of my church, but got scared off by the yiayias. I told her to come and meet Father on Thursday, who is very unscary and awesome to boot, and he'd fend off the yiayias so she could come to Church again. We'll see :) Her name is Christina.

In stitchy news, I took peaceful paradise with me and I have now got all the way along the straight part of the sky, and am into the tapering part now. YES! SO CLOSE!

and here's a meme that's going around - thought I'd add my South Aussie take on it:

A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks
A creek, or a gutter!

The thing you push around the grocery store
Shopping trolley. And they're evil, and never work, but better than trying to carry everything.

A metal container to carry a meal in
Lunchbox.

The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in
Frying pan.

The piece of furniture that seats three people
Couch. Though, a collection of couches is a lounge suite. Don't ask me why.

The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof
Gutter.

The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening
Verandah .

Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages
Soft drink.

A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup
Pancake!

A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself
A roll? The only place you get them here is subway, they're not really an Australian food entity otherwise except as a roll with salad and meat or whatever, if you order that from a deli.

The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach
Bathers. Whether it's a guy or a girl, we all wear bathers.

Shoes worn for sports
Sandshoes, trackshoes.

A flying insect that glows in the dark
Firefly, I suppose. We don't get them here.

The little insect that curls up into a ball
Slater.

The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goesup while the other sits on the other side and goes down
Basically illegal now, a seesaw.

How you eat pizza
Tip to crust, and I love crusts.

Where private citizens sell their household goods/stuff in their driveway/front yard
Garage sale, regardless of if it's *in* the garage or not.

The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are
Don't have 'em here. The basement though, when we had one in the States.

The thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places
Drinking fountain, but I wouldn't dare try to drink out of one these days!

For all of us with invisible illnesses

2008-04-06T15:21:00.002+09:30

...I came across this phrase ages ago, and it's wonderfully snarky.

So, my sister made me up icon/avatars for it :)

See?

and LJ sized:

Yay!

Sleep, church, oklahoma, results and a photo!

2008-04-06T00:23:00.006+10:30

I'm exhausted, but less than this time last night - I slept until 3pm today! My hands are painful though, so I'll be quick.

Today has seemed short because of that, and I got up, got dressed, and went into the city to meet Jeremy. My train got there early, so I wandered up and got a burrito from the mexican takeaway on Hindley St - they do vegan stuff! YES! I mentioned that, and said something about Lent, and the girl behind the counter asked if I was Orthodox. I said yes, and she told me that she was as well, and proceeded to make me up a burrito with everything on it that we can eat, and charged me the cheapest price. I told her thankyou and that I'd light a candle for her!

Jeremy picked me up along with our priest, who needed to go to a meeting in the city. We were supposed to go, but we couldn't and we'd said about not being able to and been ignored, so we figured we'd make a point and just say NO. So we did, and went to Vespers, which was wonderful, as usual. Then we went on to my sister's school's production of Oklahoma, which was actually really good, and came home.

I got results back too - a history test, and a maths assignment that I spent ages working on last weekend. Here in SA we get marks out of whatever, but they get made out of 20 for comparison purposes, and 20s are the ideal. I got 17 and 19, thankyou very much teachers! I'm out of practice with the history stuff, so I'm pleased with a 17, and with humanities subjects getting 20 is particularly hard. And 19!!!! VERY pleased Kyrie.

Oh yes, and a picture of peaceful paradise:

(click)

That was taken before I started work on Friday, so I've got a bit done since then, but not a lot. My hands are hurting too much tonight to do any more work on it, so I'm off to sleep! DST ends in an hour or so, so I get an extra hour's sleep. YES!

Sleepy

2008-04-05T00:58:00.003+10:30

I'm sick, and just about at breaking point healthwise, but I'm not sure what to do about it. So I'll wait it out and God-willing it will all settle down!

SBQ for this week:

What items do you consider essential to your needlework that you keep in your stitching bag?

Hahaha...anyone that knows me knows how ironic this is. I swap 'stitching bags' and tote bags often, so it's really a case of whatever I packed. I have a good stitching bag, but it's a bit big and bulky to take on busses and trains so I usually just tuck everything in a spare tote bag, or in the one I'm taking wherever! Usually though I will pack:
embroidery snips, my fabric (usually, i have been known to leave this behind!!), chart, highlighters, display folder that holds my working copy, floss. That's it. I don't have many fancy gadgets, I just take that. Oh, and a packet of spare needles tucked in the bag with my floss and embroidery snips. People that are really careful about always wrapping up their stitching and keeping it totally separate would have a heart attack looking at my tote bags, but I've yet to have anything damaged.

Also generally in my bag is:
wallet, phone when i remember it, at least one hairbrush often two because i forgot i'd packed on, at least two books (usually one is classic lit/theology and the other something light), a prayer rope (like a rosary, but a little different), random antidoron (blessed bread from Church, NOT communion) that I forgot to take out (please noone hurt me, it's usually still wrapped up), at least one pen, a pencil with an eraser on the end, and a hardcover notebook. I live for notebooks, I always have one around to write things down in!

Today has been reasonably slow. I worked on my Cross and got the kloster blocks and motifs at the ends finished, now just to fill it in and add the lettering. Pretty! I usually don't stitch small designs, so this is fun. We picked up Dad from the airport, got coffee, came home, received sweatshirt-presents (mine is sooo warm, yum - it's blue, with the oxford logo embroidered), and hung around the house. Nana and I attacked my dressmaking WIP pile, and the blouse I started in Nov/Dec somewhere is now starting to take serious shape - I'd messed up the collar, so it was acting weird. In between working on that, I hemmed my green dress, so that's done now, and I got out all the pieces I'd cut for Bindi's medieval-esque dress, and started sewing that together. The ties at the back are sewn now (made out of black satin, very slippery and very fancy), and one side of the back is sewn together. I forgot how quickly this dress came together once everything was cut! Tomorrow I hope to cut and stitch the cord loops for the bodice, and see how much of the rest I can stitch together. Getting this dress out of the WIP pile would be good - sister would be happy, and it wouldn't be a very expensive pile of damask gathering dust in the corner! I have 4.7m of black shiny bias binding to sew on as trim, too. What am I, nuts? I do know that the dress will look good though, this is my godsister wearing an identical one (I borrowed my sister as a dressmaker's dummy for this one, which is why I got conned into making another one!):

Please forgive the hem, we hadn't stitched it yet, her not smiling (she refused to) and the messy house!

So that was work towards decreasing the WIP pile. On the other hand, I also bought two new patterns for dressmaking - but I actually need these. One is for a gored edwardian skirt, which I have gorgeous black wool with autumn toned embroidery for - DON'T ask how much a metre it cost, I got it on sale and it still cost an arm and a leg, and the other is for an edwardian style apron - full in front and back, covering full skirts more or less, which is important for me - I live in full skirts! Often with jeans under, but I wear skirts a lot. But, they're not here yet. So before they get here, I want to try and get these dressmaking WIPs killed. Also languishing in the pile are a polyester version of the purple/green-dress which I don't really like but just need to hem, and a full skirt in the same fabric as bindi/caitlin's dresses.

We had the Akathist, which was beautiful - the chanting WASN'T, but these things happen... I still have one of the refrains from Compline last night stuck in my head though - this is chanted in between verses from Psalm 149 (150):

Oh Lord of Hosts be with us, for we have no other
Help in times of sorrow but You...
Lord God of Hosts have mercy on us.

Chanted arabic style it's very catchy, but the first few notes sound a lot like hava nagila, and my sister sings that every time she catches me humming it!

I've worked on Peaceful Paradise a little too - more sky, and some more lettering. All of the word "with", half of "gates", and a few coloured letters. Fun. I'll try and get some decent work done on it tomorrow in between dressmaking.

Now though I am so tired...I need my sleep. Goodnight.

Today and a meme

2008-04-03T00:52:00.002+10:30

I spent today doing a lot of stuff with my grandmother, baking a cake (peach butter cake, for those interested) that got demolished by my family very soon after, and doing some schoolwork. Tonight I went to Presanctified Liturgy and then to watch Jeremy play basketball, which was fun, and now I'm plonked down on the couch with my laptop. Yay for it being Thursday morning, early.

The new TGOSM issue had a lovely cross design in no-cut hardanger, which I started on a spare piece of cream linen in DD Ocean Pines, and I have 1/4 of it done for only about half an hour's work. NICE. If I don't get thoroughly sick of this design I might do it in a few colours for Pascha (easter) presents for my godparents, and maybe others :) maybe one each for my priests too. We'll see. I have a tendency to make these plans and nothing come of it, so I'm trying to just finish stitching it once first!

Here's a meme with a difference that I nicked from Emma's blog:

What I was doing 10 years ago:
Ten years ago I was nine years old, almost ten. I'd gone to America with my parents as my Dad had a diplomatic position, was getting used to the American school system (so different to here), a huge house, and weird seasons. My teacher was Ms Skibinski, whose name I struggled to pronounce until the end of the school year when I no longer had to, and I turned 10 on Easter Sunday. I still had a terrible fringe (bangs), and absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever. And I had started a career in winning prizes from Sunday School for knowing all the answers. I was a Sunday school teacher's nightmare...poor things.

Five things on my To Do List today:

1. Studies of Societies assignment, or die
2. History essay, ditto
3. Sew the hem on greendress
4. Redress the dolls for winter
5. Go to Great Compline and Bible Study/Fellowship

Snacks I enjoy:

Sandwiches
Homemade cake
My sister's brownies
My nana's biscuits (cookies)!

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Buy Troy and I a house. Put a stack of it away so that we could afford to eat. Buy one of my Churches a new building, and a stack of icons. Give a bunch to the Church. Give a bunch to charity. Get a cat. Buy stitching supplies, all the Chatelaines, a bunch of icons and BOOKS! Oh yeah, and pay for my wedding.

Five places I have lived:

A falling down farmhouse that my great-grandparents built (South Australia)
Another house on the same property as it was cheaper to build a new one than to fix the old one (ditto)
Fairfax County, VA (USA)
Church (kidding!!)
My own head

Five jobs I have had:

Personal assistant
Unofficial filing officer (same job, I did all the filing for something to do)
Invalid (i should have a master's degree in this by now)
Professional High School Student (hey, I've been one for 7 years and a bit now)
Seamstress to whoever asks me

I hate tagging, so I won't. If you want to steal this, let me know you filled it in :)

April

2008-04-01T01:57:00.002+10:30

Okay, this year is going too fast. Where'd March go?

Goals...ahaha, the moment of truth. Uh...oh...

Stitching:

Peaceful Paradise: finish the final two pages for the first row and make a good start on two from the second. I'll grant this, as I haven't finished the sky on page 4 but got a stupid amount of border done on page 8.
A Restful Night: finish the next row, row 13. Well, I worked on it, but went cross country. So a bit hard to measure this one!
Finish Jo's gift lol, no. haven't picked it up. I'm terrible that way...

Other:

Make Jeremy's present See what i wrote about Jo's.
Learn to cook something nestissimo other than fassolada ANZAC biscuits, and quite a few other things. It's amazing how many decent vegan recipes there are.
Get to as many lenten services as possible Ohhhhh yeah. Five a week minimum for the past few weeks, and last Friday's was a vigil...oh, I love this time of year.
Buy all my chocolate before western Easter yep.
NOT EAT ANY well, I've been eating dark chocolate without milk in it. That's allowed in the fast. I cheated this afternoon, but that was actually necessary - there was chocolate to hand, and medically I was in serious need of a sugar hit or I was going to pass out.
Try not to be put out by not being able to eat chocolate with everyone else not as hard as it seemed, weirdly enough.
Keep up with schoolwork sorta.

This month...I don't really know what to set. So much is happening this month - Troy's birthday, my birthday, our baptism, holy week, pascha, anzac day, goodness knows what else...
I'll set a few, anyway.

Stitchy/Craft:

Finish page 4's sky, and page 8 of Peaceful Paradise.
Make a good start on pgs 7 and 12
Get at least 4 10x10 blocks done on A Restful Night
Organise my stash, use the drawers I dug up from our hallway
'kill' at least one clothing WIP

Church stuff:

survive Holy Week ;)
get baptised!
buy a new prayer rope and use it
remember to take scarves with me
keep going to a zillion and one services
eat healthily

School:

hand in all my assignments
go to every class
actually do my math homework
learn to stop avoiding assignments

Other:

clean my room!

wow, that's a massive list. We'll see how I do.

I sewed Niki's niece's dress tonight, with her, my mum, and my grandmother's help. It STILL took five hours! Cute though, very worth it. My green dress is done too, with the exception of the hem. I'll fix that tomorrow, God-willing.

Dad seems to be enjoying Oxford, I got a very cool email from him tonight.

If I keep writing though, I'll start making less sense than usual. That's a scary thought. So here's an end to this post!

Halfway

2008-03-30T17:56:00.002+10:30

We're now halfway through Lent. WOOHOO!

I have a huge list of things to do, but insh'Allah all will work out. I've got a shortlist of things to do tonight - writing an essay and finishing my green dress, I hope.

I have some really interesting ideas for my baptismal robe - I need a dress to be baptised in, but I'm planning to make it out of plain white cotton, the same style as my purple one. But there's plenty of lovely blank canvas there... I'm thinking some butterflies embroidered, and maybe some drawn thread work? :) We will see. There's just so much space to work on, and I've got plenty of white cotton.

We had Church this morning, and being the third sunday of Lent it was the Adoration of the Holy Cross. So another procession, yay, and then we all filed past to kiss the Cross and accept a blessed flower from the wreath from the priest. I got a carnation, Troy and Jeremy got geranium leaves, and the whole lot makes a pretty posy which is now in a vase on my table.

Jeremy came back here after for lunch, pumpkin and chickpea curry (yummm) and we sat around and talked. Now I'm just killing time and procrastinating, bad Kyriaki. Jeremy's scared me into getting a couple things which were overdue done last night (finished the last one at 3am this morning) and he mailed them today, and insh'Allah I'll get the draft of an essay done tonight. We'll see. I'm not really in a motivated mood with regard to school, but oh well.

Oh, and I have a cute little girl's dress to make as a baptismal robe for my godmother's great niece, too. Who is getting baptised on Tuesday. Oh yay. The dress should be cute though, I've got a lovely soft fabric to use for the overskirt :)

Saturday night

2008-03-29T22:59:00.002+10:30

So, this time tomorrow night I'll have made it through three weeks of Lent. Cool!

Today I'm tired, as usual, but more at peace, thankyou God. I've been furiously lighting candles and asking the help of any Saints I can think of, and it seems to be working - I might be feeling sick, but my soul feels lighter.

I've had plenty of opportunities to light candles and pray, too. Church last night, and then again tonight - the Akathist (hymn to the Theotokos/Virgin Mary), and then a vigil, much to my delight when we found out about it Thursday night - I love vigils! Last night's was amusing though, as the choir got mixed up and they got lost, and Father got lost, and everyone got lost, and it took some serious sorting out. The Greek ladies adopted me again, and I got given little books with the text of Great Compline (evening service that isn't Vespers) and the Divine Liturgy (Mass) - in Greek, but I can figure out what's going on most of the time, with Greek text.

Afterwards, we sat around and talked, ate huge amounts of soup and baba ghanoush, and laughed a lot. There's a new-ish guy that's been there the last few weeks, called Nick, and he and I are apparently a match for each other in the amount we talk, how fast we talk, how much we laugh and they way that we sidetrack even ourselves in our conversations. Yay, someone else like me! The soups were pumpkin, and a tomato one with big noodles in it. Yum. Both were delicious.

I got home at 3am to find Troy sleeping in my bed as my grandmother is sleeping in the spare bed and he doesn't fit in the couch, which was a surprise but was ok, I just slept on the couch in a sleeping bag. I, on the other hand, am 5'0" and fit perfectly on a couch!

Tonight was Vespers, and afterwards we got dinner - felafel for the two guys, and a hamburger for me, which still feels weird, but I am supposed to be getting used to it, so I'm trying. Much laughter in the car too, except I am now supposed to be finding the envelopes to mail in my assignments and they're nowhere to be found. Ugh.

I've been stitching, too, especially on the borders and sky of peaceful paradise as I've had plenty of time. They're getting there. I got sick of blue and black so I filled in the red background on the flower ornament, and added some red letters with the leftover thread. Slowly, surely, it's getting there.

I have so many WIPs to slot into the focus space when I'm done with this one, but I'm trying not to think so much about that as I'm not even half done yet. Maybe when I'm half done I can start to think about it :)

Oh, and I bought a new scarf tonight for Church. I don't really like babushki scarves, and they never stay put, so I am always on the hunt for pretty rectangular ones that aren't too heavy. This one satisfies me on all counts:

And it was cheaper than the yarn would have cost me if I were to make it myself! It reminds me of a very fine, sparkly fishing net. Troy thinks I look like a gypsy. Maybe I need to add nice big earrings, too?

SBQ

2008-03-27T14:10:00.002+10:30

I'm notoriously bad at not doing these, but this week I'll actually do it.

When you stitch a pattern that you have downloaded do you print out the pattern or do you stitch directly from your computer screen?

I always print it, with the exception of Chatelaines. I can't stitch b&w from computer screens, I just can't focus properly, and I like to be able to highlight the symbols as I stitch them. I only print them as I stitch them though, I see no sense in having a massive stash of paper freebies/charts when I don't need them. Chatelaines are the exception because I like having them blown up really big on my computer screen to work on them. They're also the only colour charts I like. It's just much easier to follow a Chatelaine on the screen, I think, and it's easier when it comes to the backstitching, too. But generally I like having the chart on my chart holder, and highlighting as I go. Just easier.

On strike from being sick

2008-03-27T01:05:00.002+10:30

I've been sitting and stitching away, filling in the sky and adding to the border down the right side. I've got far enough down the 'page' now that I have to turn my frame each time I swap from sky to something else, which is interesting. It's nice to work the right way up, at least.

I've decided that I will make my focusses the sky and the border, a length of thread on each to each length of thread on anything else. The sooner I get the sky done the better (I am so sick of it, though it looks good) and if I get the border done I can get down to the scene at the bottom, and start filling in the green when the sky is done. I think I'm going to be as sick of the grass by the end of this as I am of the sky now! It's coming along well though. If I finish the sky I'll take a photo, otherwise expect one on Monday.

I'm tired, but fed up with being sick so I pushed myself through tonight so I could get to Church. I'm glad I did, the minute the priest says "Blessed are you Lord..." (the opening words of most services) I am at home, I am at peace, and all seems right with the world. And most importantly, my focus is off myself, which is the important thing. We had a grand total of two in the congregation tonight, me and Jeremy, without even an altar server this time. Usually there's at least us two and his godfather who is often the altar server! But nope...and Jeremy was getting me to chant, which was interesting. He'd take a line, then make me take the next. Things like the litanies (responses are just "Lord have mercy", though we alternate the languages between english, greek and arabic) are easy, but psalms? Yiiikes. Reading them is fine. Chanting them is something else! We did a few bits line by line that I knew how to chant already, but Jeremy made me chant them in arabic - that was scary, but I did alright, I think. Anything I had no idea how to chant I just left to him :) Abouna (Father) seemed to think it was okay though, so that was nice. We were a bit less lost this time around - by the end of Lent we should be doing things pretty much right, but we won't do this service again for another year!

I have a bit of an interesting 'to do' list - an essay, an article to interview people for tomorrow night, fabric to buy for a dress for my godmother's great niece, that dress and a robe for the same girl to make, homework for all three subjects, and a dress to sew up, among other things. I'll be fine, it's just a bit daunting!

It's funny though, how it'll take me just getting fed up with my illness to get me out of the house and doing things. I just decide to refuse to be sick anymore - it doesn't change me being sick, but I get on with life. It's good.

Bindi's sick, so I asked her if I could light the candles in front of her icon. She laughed and said sure, and I passed her the icon, saying 'humour me?' She smiled, kissed it, and gave it back. I lit the candles, said a prayer, and left it be. It's nice doing the devotional things - we are not simply our minds, and to do things physically helps too, and I think I like the physical things best of all sometimes. Bows, prostrations, lighting candles, kissing the Cross, icons, the priests' hand... everything means so much. I love the Church.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I've started reading Les Miserables. My sister read it a few years ago, I love the story, she acted in the musical, and I've recently got back into reading classic literature. The most recent of those I've read being The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas) and The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky) both of which were fantastic, and recommendations from good friends - well, the Brothers K was recommended by Jeremy who is more than just a friend :) So far I am 35 pages of absolutely tiny text in, and have come across none of the major characters. I do, however, know an awful lot about the bishop...and a lot of random stories about what he did in the years leading up to meeting Valjean... hopefully I'll get to see Valjean soon :) It's good stuff though! But it's classic (heh) classic lit - looong backstories, and that particular style of writing. It's been easier for me to get into it this time than the other two books though, I think because I've had more practice reading this kind of thing recently. Very good stuff.

And it is the 27th. A month 'til Pascha...and a month less a day until something else. Lord have mercy, may I be ready...

Rain!

2008-03-25T18:28:00.003+10:30

This is going to be a photo post a bit. For those that don't know, Australia's in the middle of a crazy drought, especially in my state (South Australia). We haven't really had rain at all in two months!

So imagine how cool it is to see this:

That's my front yard - see, no grass, nothing green except native trees ('cause native trees don't care whether they get watered or not). Rain is good. I love the grey sky, I just wish I could have captured the 'wet'-ness more. If I had a comparison photo it might be more obvious - that was so dry before, it's incredible.

Here's from my back door. You can see the difference where the verandah isn't. The thing in a pot is a geranium (which also doesn't care much about water), the green stuff that's still alive is a weed that refuses to die, and the trees are a lemon and mandarin tree which we've been watering by hand to keep alive (no other forms of watering are permitted). The tank up the hill we used to drink from, until it went way too rusty and we built a new one. I wouldn't be wanting to try drinking from there now! Next to it is the other house on our property, where I lived until we realised that house was falling down around our ears as my great-grandparents hadn't thought that putting foundations in was important - building on clay! It was cheaper just to build a new house, so we keep stuff up there now. Nice big shed.

And this is something else altogether: my sister's icon. She was looking for things to make sure it stayed upright, so picked candles! I found that wonderfully poetic.

Again, something completely different - this made me smile:

Teehee. Tonight, being Annunciation, we are eating fish and chips. 'Cause we can. Whenever a major feast and a fast coincide, the compromise is that we get to eat fish. I might not be following the strict fast anymore, but I'm eating fish in honour of the feast.

To Thee, the Champion Leader, we Thy servants dedicate a feast of victory and of thanksgiving as ones rescued out of sufferings, O Theotokos: but as Thou art one with might which is invincible, from all dangers that can be do Thou deliver us, that we may cry to Thee: Rejoice, Thou Bride Unwedded!
- from the Akathist hymn, also the kontakion (hymn) for the feast of the Annunciation

(I am rather fond of that hymn, actually. Friday is Akathist night, yay!)

My bed is a nice place to be

2008-03-25T13:32:00.002+10:30

My room on the other hand is a tip, and that's bugging me. Maybe later today I'll go around and clean it a bit, if I have the energy.

I woke up today as sick as I expected to be. At 12:30 I finally woke up, got up to grab my laptop cable and came back to bed. I don't plan on moving much for the rest of the day, I'm just so tired. One of these days I will learn humility, I will learn to look after myself. I will! I'd got complacent - because I'd got myself into a good routine, I barely felt like I was sick anymore. I felt like I could do anything.

...ahahahahaha, NO. Now I am sick as a dog because I didn't pay attention to the signs, and made myself this way.

Today is the feast of the Annunciation - the angel Gabriel coming to visit Mary and announcing (hence the name) that she would give birth to Christ. I love the icon for this feast, there is a big copy of it in the narthex of the Church I most often attend, and etiquette says that you reverence (kiss and say hello to, basically) the icons as you walk in. It's always been one of my favourites of those. One of these days I'll remember a camera, and I'll take photos of my Churches!
Here's the icon:

The hymn for today is part of the Akathist hymn, too.

I have a math class today, and I have never been more thankful for having already covered this topic before multiple times (this is my third attempt at the same subject). This way I don't have to try and grasp any new concepts, just remember the old ones. God-willing my teacher will be kind to me, I'm just...ugh, sick.

But it could be worse. And I do have a lovely warm bed to lie in. This too will pass.

Despondency

2008-03-24T22:44:00.000+10:30

A good friend of mine and fellow catechumen gave this quote to me recently:

"Despondency is a paralysis of soul, an enervation of the mind, neglect of asceticism, hatred of the vow made. It calls those who are in the world blessed. It accuses God of being merciless and without love for men. It is being languid in singing psalms, weak in prayer, like iron in service, resolute in manual labor, reliable in obedience. "
- St John Climacus (of the Ladder)

It's kind of a kick in the teeth, but so many things in the writings of the Fathers are. They weren't writing to make us feel good about ourselves, though much in encouraging. If it's not a situation you find yourself in, the challenges would mean nothing to you, just be interesting. But, like scripture, they make you bite your lip and say ouch occasionally when they hit home.

I'm not well again, mostly my own fault, and one of these day I'll learn a bit of humility and learn to look after myself. To quote Father the other night: "Κυριακή [Kyriaki] must look after herself. There might be 52 κυριακήs [Sundays] in a year, but there is only one Κυριακή!" I know what he's saying, and as first glance I would say "well, I am, aren't I?" but when I wake up as exhausted as I have been today, I know that's a lie. Lent is hard on me, not because of food (especially now that I must eat normally, as I'm losing weight for health reasons and everyone's paranoid, probably for good reason - I'm down to 45kg (99lbs)) but because instead of the very sleepy life that I live normally, I've been going out to services. All that really changes is that I must learn to look after myself differently - eating more, going to sleep earlier, etc which is simple enough but I've not been doing it!

Today was a wakeup call - normally Mondays are my day where I get up at a reasonable hour (usually about 10), eat something (maybe!) and get a lot of schoolwork done, with stitching in between and the odd bit on the net. Today I got up at almost 1, finally dragging myself out of bed. I've been lying in bed most of the day, just wandering around the net or staring at the wall. I've wanted to stitch, but not been able to get the motivation to come back out to the living room, settle down and stitch. So it'll be an early night (probably 10:30-11ish) tonight, and taking it easy tomorrow. If I have any sense I'll be good, get some work done, stitch a seam or two if I'm well enough, maybe eat fish and chips (it is Annunciation after all!) and just generally be quiet. If I get to Church tomorrow night that'd be a bonus but I'm not holding my breath.

To those that are interested in these things, the stitching has been on Peaceful Paradise, and I'm so close to finishing this page it's not funny (with the exception of the sky, which I'm still working away at - BORING!) so I'll be definitely taking a photo when I do that. I'm cheating a little and filling things in outside this page, but that's just to break up the monotony. I'll be glad to be finished the sky though and have the piece the right way up - it's too much strain on my arms to reach the top of this frame, so I'm working upside down, and there's not enough spare fabric to put it any further down in the frame. It looks wonderful though, and it's a nice treat to turn it the right way up again and see how much I've got done!

Western Easter

2008-03-23T17:26:00.003+10:30

I am so tired that it is not funny, but that's ok. This too will pass.

I got up this morning, had a shower, got dressed, and went egg hunting with my sister - and then Jeremy came, so he helped out.

We were very tired

but chocolate eggs are fun, and there's plenty of hiding places in our yard (3/4 of an acre).

And we found them!

But there was one more 'egg' to find and open, so we went inside and found it, and my sister couldn't understand why I was giving her a present, or what it was...

but when she opened it she was pleased.

A bit of background - Bindi is 'Belinda', but that's not a Saint's name, and both my parents are named for Saints, as will I be when I'm baptised. She's not, though, but when I was reading the story of St Maximus the Hut Burner ages ago she was intrigued, asked when his feast day was, and marked it on the calendar. While I was at my grandmother's house, she rang me on January the 13th to remind me! I wished her Χρονια Πολλα (many years, ie good luck) and she said 'it's not my name day!' I commented that it might as well be...

Well, a month or so ago her friend and I were talking about name days and Bindi came in. Her friend asked when her name day was, and she said 'January 13th - St Maximus. I'm Maxine.' I just about fell over, but I thought...and bought her an icon. If Maxine she'll be, that's fine with me!

She liked the icon a lot, and it's now pride of place on her dresser.

As to today - it's been uneventful. Just Church (which was wonderful) and a fish BBQ for Annunciation (on Tuesday, but we cheated and celebrated it today instead), and came home to talk with Jeremy and random family. Now I'm just tired, and having a sleepy afternoon/evening. It'll probably stay that way.

Easter Bunny

2008-03-23T00:03:00.002+10:30

Hmm, there's a very odd shaped 'egg' been left at my house. Wonder what it is?

I mean it says it's an easter egg, and it has the stripes...

I'll let you all guess what it is! C'mon, guessssss :)
----

In other news, I've had a reasonably busy day. I got up, threaded new elastic into winter clothes of Dad's for the very cold weather that he hasn't worn in years (so the elastic has perished), and got things sorted out for his trip - off to England, lucky thing. We took him to the airport, and took photos - this is my family:

My sister is odd, and wanted her own photo, so here you are - here's a face to the name 'Bindi' -

We went to the hospital after seeing Dad off, and I tied the blessed cross (knotted in cord, on a long cord for a necklace) I was given a while back to his bag he took on the plane. May God keep him safe! My grandmother is doing well, and I saw my Mum's two brothers and one's wife, and my cousin and her two kids (who are adorable). Her little girl who is almost 2 shares my birthday! There's a beautiful garden, and I liked leaning on the rail along the window-wall looking out into it. Very peaceful. I was tired though, and we came home. I didn't get much done - tired out, took a break for a few minutes then caught the train to the city to meet up for a youth council meeting, met Jeremy there, but we had to leave 30ish minutes after it started, which would have been fine if we'd started on time but these are Lebanese people...start on time? What do you mean!?!? So about ten minutes in (and a soy latte later, much to Jeremy's disgust as he hates soy milk) we left for Vespers, and I yanked my long blue skirt out of my bag, pulled it over my head and walked into Church. I love clothes that I can get away with wearing over jeans! Thea Maria (not my aunt, we all call her that though) was there, with a few other lovely ladies, D, and a few other regulars. I love Vespers.

D, Jeremy and I talked for ages after, sitting, on Jeremy's car, and finally it was too cold and dark so we left, and went in search of dinner. Meantime, everyone's been at me to eat...and Jeremy made me call Father and say about the fact that I've been losing weight (medical, not fasting related). The order was to eat normally again...well, ok. So Jeremy ate his felafel and supervised me eating all of a cheeseburger with pineapple from a fish and chip shop. It tasted wonderful, first meat in three weeks, but it was weird being watched! Eating healthily though, so things like chocolate that I don't need and aren't nistissimo are still out, of course. Right. Now if I can just worry about getting Troy to eat right...

I'm home now, and very tired, so planning on going to sleep in a minute. I have Church in the morning, after an egg hunt with my family.

Before I go, here's one final photo - Bindi got this one while I wasn't looking. She's a good photographer, I think. It's me, by the window to the garden at the hospital.

Middlename Meme

2008-03-22T15:59:00.002+10:30

stolen from someone's blog:

The Rules:
1) You must post the rules on your post before you answer the questions.
2) You need to list one fact about yourself using each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name use your maiden name instead.
3) When you are finished with your answers, you tag one person for each letter of your name.

L is for laughter - I laugh a LOT. Life's too short not to laugh when something's funny, and joy is a blessing, a gift.

O is for oxymoron! I contradict myself in so many ways, ie. I'm disorganised and a mess but I hate clutter. I break most of the rules for what 'person A' is supposed to be like - my labels describe but do not define me. The one time I suppose I do fit it is my Christianity - but that's easy, as in Orthodoxy there's a lot more scope for individuality as the individual person is important, as part of the community. That's a mystery in and of itself - emphasising both the importance of the individual yet it not being about 'me', but about the community. Uhoh, I'm rambling. Which leads to...

R is for ramble. I get sidetracked very easily, and my conversations are often very messy. Most of my friends can keep up with me, but I've learned the ones that I can be myself with and the ones I need to simplify things somewhat with. Confusing people is not usually a good thing.

R is also for romantic. I'm a hopeless romantic, and I've no shame in admitting that. I will forever love being swept up in the moment, and it's the little things that are important to me. I also have odd ideas about love winning over all, but I also know that it takes a lot of work for that to happen.

A is for artistic. I've been told a thousand times that I have an artistic temperament. I think that's usually a conclusion people come to after seeing the mess that is whatever space I inhabit and my stitching! I'm the sensitive creative dreamer, and this gets me into trouble a lot but I wouldn't change it for the world. Life just seems to 'taste' good this way.

I is for intelligent. This gets me into trouble on a regular basis. Part of this is because intelligence =/= wisdom, and showing off/being proud or arrogant is NOT a good thing. It also caused me trouble all through school - being the kid who can read, write and count three years above what you're supposed to and reads books for fun (and does a 7th grade level assignment on the Victorians during fall break in grade 2) is not the way to have happy teachers. Finally though I'm having a bit of fun with it - it makes it easier to think, read and understand stuff, and have great chats with people. It also appears to make learning language easier.

N is for names. I'm a sociology geek, so I love things like the meanings of names - and I think names are important, too. I like how names were once given specifically for their meaning, and plan to do the same for my children. Mine mean "Lord have mercy" - Kyrie-Eleison, and "for the Lord/the Lord's day"- Kyriaki. Some of my favourites are Eleni/Helen (light), Susannah (rose or lily), John (gift of God) and Daniel (God is my judge).

E is for exact. I'm a perfectionist, and will happily stitch and restitch things until I'm happy. I drive my family nuts restarting projects, but it's always worth it.

I tag...well, anyone that wants it. I hate tagging.

Progress and Despondency

2008-03-20T10:28:00.002+10:30

The weather has now swung around to being grey and cold. So it's gone from one extreme that's bad for me to the other! I'll settle down soon enough I'm sure.

My illness is acting up, but I suppose I should be used to that by now. I'm planning to spend a lot of today just resting, I need it. Yesterday I woke up late, pottered around a bit, had a lesson and realised that it was Wednesday and we had Pre-Sanctified Liturgy (Mass, but they keep the communion from Sunday instead of doing the consecration again) that night. A few phone calls later, and we figured out Jeremy couldn't take us, as he had something else he had to do and had gone that morning to another Church (at 7:30am, the nutter). So we rang Abouna, the priest from the arabic parish. His english is pretty good, but on the phone, with people around? Ha! It took a few goes, but finally he figured out who I was, understood what I was asking, and got the address to pick us up from. Fixed. Troy was feeling particularly grumpy and staring at the wall so I dragged him out of his house for a walk to the store (a km or so I supppose? I'll have to measure it) to get some bread and juice to take to Church for after. Was good for him, but not really for me - I was dressed for Church so my shoes weren't walking shoes, and I'm sick. Oh well, I'm still alive! We got back just in time for Abouna to pick us up, and went to Church.

Weeelll....none of the usual choir were there except one lady, and no Jeremy! So we had the service book (in arabic), the one lady who knows how to chant but not the tones (different tunes that you chant to), me, because Abouna had asked me...and a lot of prayer. Like I said last week, noone really knows this service very well as we only really do it in Lent, so it was interesting. We made it through though! It was kind of fun, in a weird way. We had one particular visitor that's been coming a few times, who is not Orthodox but is arabic, and he smiled at me and was following what I did - as if I'm an expert on these things! Weird, but I think I did alright. He's nice. I was clever, too, and wore a very full skirt - I remembered stepping on my hem as I got up from prostrations each time the other day! Prostrations are...well, the way we do them is like the final bow with forehead to the floor that the Muslims do and is always shown on tv. You do that, and get up again. Do that, and get up again. Usually in sets of three. Stepping on your hem is NOT fun while doing that! As my friend said though, you know it's Lent when you've got rug burns on your forehead.

After that, we got ourselves dropped off at the netball courts in the parklands that surround the city where Troy's brother's girlfriend was playing, watched half the game, and then all four of us went for pizza. There's a pizza place near there that does wholemeal pizza, and they do a mushroom one which is delicious. So we got that with no cheese (Mushrooms! Yay!) and ate it rapidly. Mushrooms and chickpeas are my new favourite foods now I've got to Lent. Oh, and real baba ghanoush...yum...

Troy's brother brought us home and now I'm still tucked up in bed, avoiding the cold, and my homework. Eventually I'll get up and do it I'm sure!

A cooler day

2008-03-18T13:07:00.003+10:30

The change came. Finally. We have set a record for the longest heatwave ever in my city now - 16 days of 35*C+ temperatures, most of them around 40*C. Ugh. Today is much more pleasant, currently about 26*.

I'm procrastinating, as usual. There is so much that needs doing and I feel overwhelmed, which is not the way to do things...bleh. It'll get sorted out I'm sure!

Sally and Chiasmata - thanks for your comments. As to being addicted to BAPs - yup! I know that, I seem to totally fail at picking small projects. That's why I have so many, this way I can swap around easily. Speaking of small-er projects, I'm thinking I might take JOB (which I love but has been driving me CRAZY because I can't get it to fit in my q-snaps up with me to Troy's parent's place, and get his dad (who is a carepenter) to make up a frame to stretch it on, like a canvas. I don't think it'd hurt it at all (he'd be good with it, his wife is a mad crafter and embroiderer) and it'd make me able to work on it, and get it done - it's been sitting partly started for ages. Again, I don't want more current WIPs, but I would like to know that it has the possibility of being worked on easily. Besides, it's not hard if it's on a frame like that to tuck it in my bag and stitch at appointments etc, or just put a length of thread in every now and then. And I'd really like to get it done! It's so pretty. Chatelaines are so annoyingly addictive :)

I've got this backlog of started projects too...I finally have a sort of 'STRIP' list, though it's hardly long. But I have found my rhythm - have a focus piece, and then a couple other pieces that I work on for a break. Mystery X only works as a focus piece, really, so I'll leave it be unless I get totally fed up with Peaceful Paradise or finish it - I've got a number of people on my back to finish this one SOON - but A Restful Night comes out to play sometimes, as do other things. JOB could happily be an 'other thing'. I don't really do rotations, but this works.

Here's the backlog of started things:

Japanese Octagon Box (parts 1 and 2 done of 12, sans beading and rhodes stitches)
Mystery X (about 50% done)
Tranquility Mystery Sampler (15% done?)
Historic Countries Sampler (1st part of 12 almost done)
The chatelaine if i get around to stitching it (not sure that I will, I don't really like smalls or have anything to do with them) (not started)
Noon Basking (a chunk done, maybe 20%?)
A Restful Night (about 55%)
White Musings, which I have a love-hate relationship with (the first few bands)
Dance of the Graces. (not even 5% yet, I learned I don't cope with more than one HAED at a time)

Ugh. And I love them all! I've also got Convents Herbal Garden and Nuts About Autumn kitted up, plus a zillion charts...

Oh well.

I should go do some work. I'll finish this length of thread and go tackle some math.

Hey, photos!

2008-03-17T18:55:00.003+10:30

I found the camera charger. Yay! And now, editing to add that I'm somewhat more awake now so now you get commentary with it.

Here's the frog'n'fairy:

I deviated from my mental parking ways this SAL, which was kind of fun. I'm still parking, sort of, but this is much faster to do it this way. The way I used to do it was...well, insane. I will probably still use that method sometimes, but I wanted to make serious inroads and I did. About 500 stitches I think, all told. I love the fronds coming through, and I'm starting to outline the frog's legs, but you can't really see - yet. Maybe next time I pick it up.

and here's Mystery X - I got heaps done while I was in Tumby but never got around to taking a photo!

It's starting to get too big for decent photos. I'll have to start taking photos of the areas I've worked on soon, rather than the whole thing! And it's only half done....wow.
I miss this piece, I'll have to get back into it again - maybe when I've got peaceful paradise done? At least when there's a lot more done on it!

And, this icon I keep talking about. It's only a start, and only the border, but it is pretty. The photo doesn't do it justice, as usual. I wasn't expecting it to 'glow' this much from the computer generated image. She's a brilliant charter, from what I've stitched so far. Instead of just being brown wood-esque stuff, this actually looks nice!

There are two 'rubies' started in there too. This one's a nightmare to park, so I'm not - just at the edges of pages, as trying to work across the A3 pages with this would be nuts. I've actually folded the pages so that they're A5, and I'm mostly working within the top left section, obviously. It simplifies things, these charts are intricate! I gridded like mad, and I've been using it a lot. This is a lot of fun to stitch, but I'm finding myself missing Peaceful Paradise so that's back on the frame tonight. I'll have to figure out a schedule.

I'm tired, and I'm slightly manic because I'm stressed. But I will be okay, I hope.