Another week

It's Saturday night now, and I missed Vespers again. This probably isn't a totally bad thing, as I'm really not well. C'est la vie. I've finished about half of my current page on peaceful paradise now, which is fun - I got to move the frame. The angel is all done now, and looks beautiful, though she's currently covered by the frame. I'll take a photo on Monday.

The stars are the most fun to stitch I think, there are so many different kinds. It's not like the day sky where it was just mostly blue with the odd blobby cloud. Boring. This can get tedious, but it's worth it to see the glow of the stars against the background. Slowly, steadily, I am getting there. It's fun!

I have a new project too - I meant to talk about it before, but I got Father's blessing to do it first! My friend Νικος - Nikos, or Nick, from Greece, has asked me to stitch him an icon - Solaria gallery's icon of St Nicholas, specifically. This one:


And I asked Father and he said yes, so I plan to stitch it over one on 32ct...either silk gauze or jobelan, depending on what I end up deciding. Should be fun - he ordered the chart and sent it to my house tonight, and he's going to pay for materials and wants to pay me for my time, but we'll talk about 'time', when I've got it finished. I think it will be fun :) It's such an honour to stitch something holy...

Anyway, I am tired, and I need to go to bed. So I'll end now - I have Church in the morning, Sunday of the Prodigal Sun. Halfway through the Triodion, almost in Lent... Κυριέ ελεήσον.

School, Chronic Fatigue Style

Well, I just had my first lesson. And it went well. The topic is matrices, and my class seems nice enough - two other girls and two boys, and the teacher. I got most of the materials I need for this term in the mail today, and it ended up looking like this:


Why yes, that is my laptop, and my blogsite! This is my bed, too, btw. I do an awful lot of stuff from my bed or my stitching spot on the couch. The purple thing is one of my workbooks - they have the whole unit's information and excercises in them, and we just stick them in a binder and use them as needed. The teacher says to get pgs x-y done, and we do, before the next lesson.

The writing on the paper on the wall is a list of greek vocab that I'm learning. The bottom words that you can just make out are αρουραιος, arouraios (ai prounouned like eh in meh) = rat, and ναός, naos = Church. And yes my room is that colour. I like it.

When I get this mess cleaned up I'll take a photo! Lots of stuff is in boxes or thrown out now, I am being ruthless this time. I have to be, I'm not allowed clutter anymore.

Speaking of cleaning, this is what I'm working on in between attacking the pile of clothes on my floor:

This is my desk. I need to clear it off so I can use it for school! Most things on there are either junk or recognisable for what they are, the bag is full of spare dmc all in baggies according to number (if there are multiples) or 100 (if there is only one of a colour). It will find a new home, NOT on my desk. I just haven't needed a desk for almost a year, so it's sat languishing. Poor thing. I think when it's cleaned and set up it needs an icon of the Three Heirachs (patron Saints of those who study/teach), don't you?

Anyway, I'm trying to get things done. I'm very tired, and I should at least get a start on my math homework, and I need to get another assignment done tonight too.

I can has photo post?

I can!

I woke up when Mum's alarm clock went off today, so I've been up for hours. I'm glad I went to bed early for me last night, it helped. Going swimming just relaxed everything, I should do it more often. Being weightless = very good for relieving joint pain.

So, we had the Sampler SAL on the HAED BB this weekend, and I stitched Peaceful Paradise - a natural choice given my current obsession with it. My eyes are not focussing properly sometimes (a side effect of my illness that doc doesn't understand, yet) but I just rest them a lot.
Here's the after photo:

Just a little bit of sun-ray and eye left to go, and the top panel of this side will be done. And just a few letters, and the writing will be done for this page too! I've cheated a little and started the writing on the next page where it had colours, as I had the colours already in my needle when I stitched 'his' so I figured I'd be productive. I can't wait to start the next psalm, psalm 23 is lovely but I've heard it so many times it seems cliched on its own. This is staying on the frame for now, at least until next weekend which is the themed SAL (we like SALs, if you hadn't noticed) which is 'animals' this month, so froggy will be coming out to play, if I can tear myself away from my psalms! I really need to take this to show Father one day, he'd like it I think.

And in other photos:
Here's what was in the bag I showed you yesterday, my PIF gift from Sally


And here is a closeup of the little pillow scissor keeper:


Also, I realised this morning how appropriate this is - Sally, did you know that the Forget-Me-Not is the symbol for Chronic Fatigue? CFS is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, so forget "ME" not. :)

It's lovely, thankyou again. Now I'm off to try and sort out the pile of clothes on my floor, and get ready for my class this afternoon (on the phone)

PIF received!

Look what I got from the lovely Sally:


Drawn Thread's "Forget me not Scissor keep", and two skeins of the DMC satin silks. So shiny! I took a photo of the scissor keep, but it came out blurry and I didn't realise until the light was gone. So you'll get a new photo tomorrow. Until then, you get a teaser ;)

As to today.

Well, I saw the doc. Who looked at me and went oh..no...
See, last time I saw him it was October. And I'd just managed to get 'not-sick'. This lasted two months, and I've been spiralling since. So, now I have to give my rats away or keep going up to the falling down house on our property that we keep stuff in every day to feed them, and I have to have the carpet ripped out of my bedroom and relaid with floorboards, like in our living room/dining room/pantry/kitchen/hallway (it all sort of flows on from one another). I don't mind the carpet, in fact I like that, but the rats is sad - I love my girls. Champers lives down here in Bindi's room with Sosspiri, which at least means I see my favourite girl, but it's still sad. The writing has been on the wall for a while though. We changed my meds slightly, and discovered new complications, yay. So I get more blood tests and a CAT scan of my sinuses, and we'll see if I've exploded yet.

So I spent today trying to clean my room up so that we can rip the carpet up, even just to leave concrete until the floorboards are laid. I got a lot done, but my clothes need sorting (and rationalising, I have so much that needs throwing out/giving away), and my desk and the corners, and all other surfaces, are a bit...nuts, still. But the main part of my room is fixed! I'll be doing my lessons at the dinner table tomorrow though. I have my first lesson - maths, tomorrow, which should be good, and God-willing everything will come in the mail first. Yay school!

Tonight though, at about 5:30 we left and went to the beach - me, Troy, his friend Frank, Frank's gf JoJo and Nathan. After swimming for a couple hours and throwing seaweed at each other (we are adults, we promise) we went hunting for fish and chips, but at 9pm they were all shut. Oh well, we went to Glenelg (where everything shuts at 10:30) and got pasta, then icecream. Num. Frank drives like a maniac, but he's good at it, so we drifted a lot of the way home! Not exactly safe, but a lot of fun. And now I am dead, but happy. Going swimming helped, it made me feel normal again to be in the water, with all the stress off my body.

So, soon I will sleep. Today has been good.

Thankyou so much Sally, it's lovely. I've got it hanging on a doorknob at the moment.

Stitching and stuff

I've been happily working, and life's found a steady pace.

I went and sorted out correspondence school stuff on Friday, and that's set up - I now have 'classes' on the phone/internet three times a week for 15min-1hr, and work from workbooks mostly. Sounds good to me, now just to rediscover my desk! My subjects are Maths Methods (academic maths, but without the stress of the top tier math), Studies of Society (sociology YES), and Australian History (love love love history). So this should be good.

Today's the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican in the Church - the Gospel reading is really short, so I'll post it. It's a good story, even if you're not religious:

The Lord said this parable, "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

And here's the icon (which I really like):


So, it's one of the three Sundays leading up to Lent in the East. This one reminds us not to be too proud of ourselves, especially in our sacrifices and fasting - which is what we do during Lent. So, a fast free week (usually we eat vegan on Wednesday and Friday), and it was a beautiful homily this morning. Jeremy's away visiting his family (his Dad just had an operation) but I did get to see Nona (godmother) Nikki, and my parents came with me and seemed to like it.

Yesterday was just sleepy. Nothing much happened, we just hung around, and today was Church, and now I'm exhausted. Troy and I have discovered that if he gets to the knots in my muscles (which are really deep down, and he has a knack for finding) that the stabbing pains don't affect me so much, and so he did that last night before sleep (I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow) but it hurt a lot and I had a pillow I was hugging tight. I'm glad he did it though.

And tonight...well, tonight I'm just resting. Veg-ing and watching tv, So You Think You Can Dance is on tonight, and I plan to settle down with my stitching and rest.

Oh yeah, I took a before picture for Peaceful Paradise, too. So this is what it looked like Thursday night:

Letter writing and other fun

Well, I can't remember if I said. So, again - Troy and I are getting baptised on holy saturday, Θεού θέλοντος (God willing), which is April 26 for us in the East. This is dependent on writing a letter to the bishop asking and explaining. I'm in the middle of writing that, and it's...eek. However, my good friend Seraphim/Salvatore has threatened to hang me from something by the ankles for stressing over it (the usual threat amongst my Church and Orthodox friends) so I'm taking a break, and letting it be Troy's turn to write a bit (we're writing it together).

I am finally sort of okay. I got sick for a few days there! But Wednesday night I gritted my teeth and got needle and thread back out, and have finished a row on A Restful Night, but the camera currently escapes me so no picture for now. Yesterday I got the Whiskey WDW out and started swapping between a length of it and a length of something else on Peaceful Paradise. Half the sun's rays are done now, all the yellow lettering I hadn't done is done, and I'm filling in some of the sun's face with the needle that's currently threaded and in my work. Other than that I've just been filing in lettering - oh and the sky's done too. I've got about a line total left on page 2 to go (two half lines) and when I've got that done, presuming the gold is filled in the sun, I can start on the other half. It'll be nice to have the other psalm in, because everyone just goes oh Psalm 23 that's nice but cliche'd. Besides, it has stars. Stars are cool.

I'm also going back to school. Tomorrow I've got an interview thingo to set things up, but fourth time's the charm, I'm determined to get my SACE (high school cert) this year. I have two subjects done, I need five. So I'm going to do three, Θεού θέλοντος, by correspondence. So that desk in my room might get some work done on it after all! They send the work, you do it, and mail it back, with a phone call once a week. Sounds just about right, because I couldn't make it to a brick and mortar school, and my health is sporadic at best, and on normal days the brainfog doesn't lift until about 5pm. Today is a good day for some reason, but I can hardly rely on it being like this! So this way I can do my schoolwork in the evenings. I need to set up a timetable of some kind, or at least a list of 'must do's for each day that get enforced. My total lack of ability to stick to rotations gives you some idea of how well a timetable is going to work out, but I need to figure something out.

It's funny, my rotation. I have one. I didn't plan it, it's just how it's working at the moment:

• Start month working on whatever the current obsession is
  
• sometime in the week before 2nd weekend of the month, start work on A Restful Night. (for challenge SAL) Work on this until bored (usually monday or tuesday after the SAL)
• pick up something else, or Peaceful Paradise
• start work on Peaceful Paradise on friday of 3rd weekend (for sampler SAL)
• work until bored
• work on whatever, from the list of WIPs
• no starting anything new unless I stitch a row of ARN and still desperately want to start it after that
• chart stashing is fine, kitting is not, except in case of above

The list:
current WIPs:

• Peaceful Paradise
• QS A Restful Night
• Mystery X

SWIPs (slow works in progress):

• Dance of the Graces
• Noon Basking
• Tranquility Mystery Sampler
• Japanese Octagon Box
• TGOSM Mystery Sampler

and way too many new starts screaming but being ignored (for now)

...except that Periphaeria mystery that is starting soon...maybe...

This one...

should be much shorter. Though I say should, because the last one was only supposed to be a few lines too! Again, the same disclaimer. Brainfog is alive and well here.

Today isn't very interesting to write about anyway. Tomorrow I'll take a photo of A Restful Night, which I didn't get to finish the row on this weekend. I actually haven't stitched since Friday, I've just been too busy and then I was sick. But I fulfilled the requirements, and that's what matters. I don't want to fail this challenge this year!

I got the last skein of floss for Peaceful Paradise today, too. It's a lovely golden brown colour, and will fill in the sun, angel's wings and halo, and some of the lettering. So when I finish off this row of A Restful Night, I'll have to get back into working on it. I miss it just enough to work on it again now, and it's the SAL weekend for a sampler this weekend, so it's about time! Maybe I'll actually get this one done in a reasonable amount of time?

Today...I got up, moped around the house for a while, got Troy up, and then went back to bed. I fell asleep with my prayer rope in my hand, and slept all afternoon. My family woke me up for dinner, and then tv was interesting without taking much effort to concentrate on. Now it is 11pm though, and my eyes are trying to close on their own, so after eating a couple pieces of crumpet toast with golden syrup and butter (yum and totally unhealthy) I am off to bed.

Oh and for those interested - you crazy also-Orthodox and anyone else who likes icons: this is my patron Saint, and there was an icon of her in this particular style but full length at the Church the other night.



It's St Kyriaki, and I got the icon from here. You can find her story here in part but it's not the full one, I just can't link to a longer version because the only place I can find it on the net has it on a page with all the other Saints for July!

This post may contain...

nuts, brain-fog, and rambling.

Hi all, I just realised I haven't posted in almost a week - again. So here I am.

As far as stitching is concerned, I've been working happily on the frog'n'fairy aka A Restful Night, and have about 200 stitches left to go on this row, before I take a picture - though if I don't get it done by tomorrow night, I'll take a photo anyway as it's the end of the Challenge SAL on the HAED BB.

I realised earlier that I haven't posted about my illness in a while. I suppose that's mostly because I just figure it's better to get on with life. With the exception of the comment in my sidebar, you'd hardly know that I have ME/CFS+FMS by my posting. I don't have it nearly as bad as some, just enough to be a pain in the everywhere - literally. As to how I've been? Well, I've had an interesting few weeks. I got really really sick for a while, perked up for a while, and then the last few days have been ok brainwise but kind of painful. Being the stoic that I am, I've stayed off pain meds as much as possible, but getting up in the morning with stabbing pains along your leg and arm bones is not fun. Especially when your fiance goes to rub your back sympathetically when you say about it when you see him, and it's THEN that you realise that he's making the pain in your back better by doing that too...wait, my back hurt before?

As far as doing stuff though, I've had a good few days. Nothing particularly interesting, besides making Fassolada which is an awesome greek bean soup - and best of all, totally vegan so therefore totally nestissimo, a word that the greeks use a lot and basically means 'allowable during the fast'. The english equivalent is 'lenten' but I'm not as fond of it, especially since it associates with Great Lent and the time before Easter is hardly the only time we fast. Us crazy Orthodox... so anyway, that was dinner on Wednesday night for myself and my sister, who declared that she doesn't like vegetable soup and then ate the whole bowl. Mmmhmmm... No complaints here though, it's nice that she actually liked my cooking! It was also my father's dinner on Thursday night (we were all out) and then Troy and I ate it again on Friday when the rest of my family were busy eating chops and vegies. Not bad for one pot of soup, that probably cost about $10AU (about $5 US) to make!

Thursdaynightgroup resumed this week too, and in true Orthodox fashion we had a liturgical service to commemorate this fact. The 'small blessing of the waters' - a short service, with a ring-in choir (much to the amusement of all present besides the choir who didn't know that they WERE the choir until 30 seconds before we started...) and then lining up to be blessed by Father by being splashed on the head with holy water from a bunch of basil he was holding. I got called a 'distracting troublemaker', what a lovely way to start the year! Father loves to tease me, and I get called trouble more than anything else, I think. The study itself was on the Gospel of Mark, which we're going to be working through for the foreseeable future except for brief interruptions for significant feasts etc (I can think of a couple that might fit 'significant' in the church calendar soon...) and we got through the first 10 or so verses, in the space of about an hour. Actually quite good for our group - we are VERY good at sidetracking and tangents, and so is Father. Study also included (by way of this) the life of St Paraskeve in nutshell form, a conversation on whether Saints feel the same pain in death as Christ felt, why Saints glowed at their martyrdom, and a few other things...I forget what. And then we hung around drinking tea and eating honey crackles and toblerone, and I talked to Daniel for ages.

I plan to get my sister to make me a 'my invisible chronic illness is more real than your imaginary medical expertise' LJ-icon that I can use there, and on forums and stuff. It's just so wonderfully snarky!

Anyway. Recently? Last night we had double-vespers again - first at normal-vespers-Church and the second at a greek church I hadn't been to before, but is BEAUTIFUL. It was the feast day of St Haralambos today and our 'day' for Church starts at vespers the night before - and this Church had the relics of this Saint visiting, along with the abbot of a monastery...so, we went :) And it was great! Except for the really really long protestant-rivalling-in-length sermon, which would have been wonderful if it wasn't in Greek. Jeremy and Troy both fell asleep, and I settled down with my prayer rope and the psalms which I snuck out of my bag and went unnoticed among the service books. Apparently it was good, and I got a summary from an older guy I knew who speaks Greek, so that was good. The bishop was there too and so we kissed his hand, and Troy and I were introduced to the abbot by Father, and he gave his blessing for our baptism and spoke to us and it was wonderful. Then we had Church this morning, and sat around talking after, and then took a lovely lady home and she invited us in for tea, which we drank middle-eastern style - in tea glasses, with lots of sugar, no milk, and sage brewed in it. YUM. And middle-eastern fairy floss which is less sweet and sticky, and more dense, and yum again.

About then I came home and crashed on the couch. I may not had done anything much for a week, but the last day-ish has just totally knocked me out. So a rest tonight, and a quiet day tomorrow, I think.

Kudos to anyone who got through all this!

A Peaceful Picture

Finally I cobbled together the charger and the cord from another charger, which miraculously fit, and I have a camera again. YAY! So here's a picture for you:



Apologies for the stray threads :)

Today's overcast and grey, but I've got a cd of chant on and I'm settled down stitching A Restful Night. It's peaceful today.

You know you've been stitching on 40ct too long

...when you go to stitch 1x1 on 32ct jobelan and think that the threads are huge!

I finally reached my limit on Peaceful Paradise, and put it down. I'll take a photo soon, it looks wonderful. I love how it's stitching up! The sky is almost done - totally done for page 1, and very close to done for page 2, and most of the lettering (sans two letters) is done for page 1, too. Half the lettering is done for page 2. I'll take a photo when I can, but sister dear has still not found the camera charger. Grr!

I was forcing myself to work on it, and then finally realised that I really wasn't enjoying it. And stitching is supposed to be fun. So, it's all packed away now and I stitched on the fairy'n'frog for a while instead. I got about 100 stitches done, and hope to get some serious stitching in tomorrow. I want to see more frog!

I have a baptism date now too. God-willing, I'll be baptised on Holy Saturday - the day before Pascha (Easter Sunday) which will be April 26 - two weeks after my birthday. We celebrate Easter at a different time, long complicated story as to why. Traditionally converts were baptised on this day, and it's nice to honour that. Troy's getting baptised at the same time, YAY! Lent is creeping up on us too. Yikes. I am trying not to think about feeding myself, but the extra Church will be good. I'm somewhat addicted, I think.

My friend Nikos has commissioned me to stitch him an icon of St Nicholas too, which is very cool. I've wanted to stitch one for ages, and for someone else to pay for the materials and for my time is so awesome! I don't mind not being able to keep it - to stitch an icon would be a great honour. So I'll ask Father's blessing, and if he says yes then I'll have a new start...more over one, but it's a Solaria chart so it'd be half over one half over two. I'm tempted to try it on 40ct...we'll see.

Rosey Dawn is calling too, and I am trying to resist the new start. If I finish this row on ARN and she is still calling though, a new start might be on the cards. I almost guarantee that I have the floss for her...yay! Dance of the Graces needs love too. I think with DOTG though, I am going to mark the stitch numbers on the fabric. There are just too many big areas of block colour that get confusing with counting.

So my stitching continues. And life goes on too, slowly.

Passage of time

Now is the last hour of January 2008, which is distinctly weird. This month has gone so fast!

I wish I could show you photos, I'd dearly love to. Unfortunately my sister has managed to lose the camera charger, and I can't take any! When I can, I'll upload them. Instead, I'll tell you my progress, which I know isn't as good but it'll have to do.

Well, I've almost finished page 1 of Peaceful Paradise (shock, horror - Kyrie's still managing to stick to one project!). I've sort of been working on two pages at once, but mostly on page 1, though more than half of page 2 is done too! All that's left to do on page one is to finish the word I'm currently stitching (righteousness), and fill in more of the sunny sky. Which is all pale blue, and very tedious, but oh well. It uses an incredible amount of floss! On the upside, it looks FANTASTIC. I estimate about 800 stitches left of the blue, but at least soon I'll have to do some counting so that I leave the outline of the sun's rays, which I'll fill in with the whiskey floss when I get it. Counting is good for breaking up tedium. The borders are in for this section half the central border is done, the top border for this side is totally done, and the side border is done to just below the bottom of the first page. So all in all, I've got a lot of the tedious bits done quicker than I would have expected. I just didn't expect the sky to be quite this tedious! These top bits are the only real 'block' stitching to be done, though there's quite a bit of grass to be filled in down the bottom scene, and the rest should go quite quickly - the writing really takes no time at all to fill in and it's good fun!

Sally asked about the loukoumia (turkish delight). Well, it was good, just sticky sweet. It's grown a hard layer on the top, but I think I'll cut that off and it should still be good. Still got half a pan left! Next time I make this, I'll make it before a Thursday or Sunday so that I'll have a mass of willing volunteers to gift the extra that I won't eat - Thursday night is my youth fellowship/bible study/group madness, and Sunday of course is Church. I'll just have to do it soon, Lent starts in March - eep. Sometime before March I need to get someone to teach me how to make fassolia, which is wonderful - beans in tomato and celery soup. YUM.

Other than that life is slow. It passes, day by day, but I've been sick for the past week. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have suspicions that it's my medication's fault. And I'm thinking of picking up a couple subjects Open Access (correspondence) because though I can't make it to school, I have a couple hours in the evenings when my brain is working, and I might be able to do some work then...work towards getting my SACE (A-levels, high school certificate, etc). Sounds good? I thought so.

Happy Australia day

Well it was Saturday, but today's the holiday. I'm still here, but I've been really really sick, so it's not really been that practical. Yesterday I went to get up and get dressed for Church...and couldn't make my brain think enough to figure out how to get dressed. At which Troy saw me in my pyjamas and sent me back to bed! So I've been stitching a little, and resting a lot.

I'm going to take a photo of Peaceful Paradise soon, with lots more work done on it, and I've made it all the way to the edge now on the left side, and the top border too. Slowly but surely I'm filling in the top section, and it's good fun. I haven't got the Whiskey thread yet, it's backordered but I should get it soon enough and in the meantime I'm just working on everything else. I've decided to work more or less page by page, because working across pages just gets confusing. The colours in this are so rich, and it's so much fun - I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

I've also been trying my hand at designing! Nothing complex though. My friend Jo, or Ιωάννα as it is in Greek, had her name day on the 7th - the feast of St John the Baptist (her name translates to Joanna, or John) and I haven't seen her since, so have got away with having a late name day present. So, I'm making my first biscornu! I have a feeling these will be addictive... anyway, I raided my fabric stash and found a piece of 28ct Toitoi (by countrystitch) and some Noosa Dinky Dyes silk. I'm stitching an Iota (Ι) on the diagonal on one half of the biscornu, and a J on the other - greek and english initials. It looked plain, so I added a backstitched heart in natural silk...which looked wrong...so i filled it in with satin stitches, and realised that it looked a bit clamshell-ish. A few threads more, it looked like a clamshell, and it matches the seagreen well. So I'm having fun, and thinking about a starfish or two on the bottom, or something...we will see. Hopefully she'll like it!

So I'm off to a bbq for Australia Day, and will take my embroidery - to be kept OUT of the way of tomato sauce, of course ;) Have fun, all!

Peaceful Paradise and loukoumia

Well...photos again. I'm not all that well, so it won't be a hugely wordy post, but you can have photos instead.

Here is what I cooked earlier tonight - loukoumia (aka turkish delight but DON'T call it that around the greeks!) which I found a recipe for cooking in the microwave - go figure :)

Okay ;) That is the before pic, all the ingredients. The loukoumia itself is in the fridge, hopefully it will turn out good!

and here is Peaceful Paradise after the Sampler SAL. I've worked on it lots today, but you'll get a new photo next Monday, unless I complete a section or something.

I'm missing the WDW Whiskey for the sun rays, angel wings and halo, and some of the lettering - God willing I'll get it soon.

Since this photo was taken there's a lot more of the sky done, along with the lettering for the first three lines finished, and I've started the border down the side. So boring, but it's satisfying to look at the progress. I've also started the next line, which has an ornament under it - yay, something new to stitch! It's a flower with a green background and it looks like fun.

Otherwise I have just been practicing my greek, which I've sorted into proper notebooks, and sleeping. And driving a little. Life goes on.

Home

Yep, I'm home. And sometime soon I'll take photos of everything.

The trip home was uneventful, I drove for 95min (1.5ish hours towards my total of 50 needed for my next license level), we ate some yummy food, totally failed to find a bakery in Pt Augusta, and I got quite a bit of stitching done, all on Peaceful Paradise.

I haven't got my stand set up yet, but it'll happen soon - it's just nice to be home and in my living room again. So much to catch up on the internet too.

We're watching the Hewitt/Jokavic game on tv too, and it's quite fun. GO AUSSIE :)

Here are some random photos for you:


This street is named for my family (small towns are like that) and it amused me.


These are the gates at the Lutheran church, Trinity symbols - I've always loved these gates.


And this is my Dad's hometown. Yep, that's the town. There are two houses (not pictured, they're not seeable from the sign at this viewpoint) but they are old and falling down, and mostly it's just scrub!

FROG!

Hello everyone.

Well, life has followed the usual Tumby pattern. Mostly I've slept in in the morning (but not as much as at home), had more cups of tea than I'd have in a week each day, had lots of quiet time and done a lot of stitching. Peaceful Paradise is growing rapidly and looks stunning, and is so much fun to stitch. I never realised that these kinds of pieces could be so fun! I'm loving stitching 1x2 on 40ct too, I hope I can find another piece to do this with.

I have a picture of PP but it is on the camera, and it's from Thursday night as the Sampler Challenge SAL started this weekend on the HAED BB. But, I will show the photo of my progress soon enough. I'll be back home soon! Fast internet, and my camera, and...yay. I've found myself mostly stitching right-way-up when I'm out of the house and leaning the frame on a table or something, and stitching upside-down when I'm at the house with my stand, as I'm working on the very top and this involves less reaching, much to the amusement of my family. Turning it right way up to take it out is always great, I get this lovely surprise of how it looks. The first two lines of text in Psalm 23 are basically done, the sun has most of one colour (of two) done, and i've been filling in lots of sky...oh and border, but border is boring. Evil border of DOOM.

Anyway, I have a photo of my fairykin and her frog, so here you are - this is taken just after the Challenge SAL (again on the HAED BB) and it is after 11 rows (16,500 stitches). Fairy is basically done, and froggy's eye GLOWS.



So, I'll end this - there's nothing much else to say, except that we went to Pt Lincoln (the closest thing to a large town that there is over here) shopping yesterday, for practical things (like my nana's carpet) but I also bought two new pairs of pyjamas, as I have killed my summer pairs, and Target not only had them cheap because of end of season, but they had a big sale on . Yay!
I think the two pairs cost about $20-$30 total, and they're really nice. We grabbed two pairs of the cheapest kind for my sister, too, because they're not bad-cheap and very cute, and she kill pyjamas even more than I do (lifespan is about six months, tops) and they were $4 a set. YAY!

Oh and I got new bathers (cossie, bathing suits, swimming trunks...) today - a black tankini with green design on it. Very cool.

Working

Well, I've made quite a lot of progress. But no photos for you, worse luck! Very slow internet here, so I'll wait 'til I get back in a week or so. Photos HAVE been taken though.

What have I been up to?

Well, when I got here I got stuck into Mystery X, and got about half of part 6 done. It's looking lovely, and very sparkly, but I got very sick (read: weak, everything aches, and very tired) so I swapped it for A Restful Night, a few days early for the Challenge SAL, #1. I duly worked on her for the weekend, and got 'her' almost done - just the bottom of her arm yet to do, and gave the frog most of one eye and the beginnings of another. VERY cute. It almost glows! I finished the row, and put a few stitches into the next before bed...and in the morning, got a package from Singapore containing a fat 1/4 of Vintage Exemplar linen. Sorry froggy - Peaceful Paradise jumped right onto the frame! I started in the centre with the border, which drove me batty but did place it nicely, and as I've moved out I've added things like the lettering, day sky and the beginning of an angel wing. I'm missing one colour - WDW's Whiskey, so I might put in a quick order for that before I go to bed tonight. It's been going well, except for some annoying frogging today - I found that about two hours' work - lots of lettering, was a stitch out. ARGH! It's duly frogged now, and I'm tempted to grid the lettering area now. Stupid frogs.

Mostly here I've been relaxing, lots of stitching and sleeping, and playing with the two girls next door who are 5 and 7 and adorable. Good fun.

Packing and stuff

The last few days have wandered their way on. The days are slow, but not miserable, though the state of the house is scaring me. Not really my problem though, and I leave tomorrow morning for my grandmother's house - my yiayia, (γιαγιά) as I keep calling her when I talk to my friends. I like being over there, though I'll miss my church family and the internet (I always do), and I'll be going to an anglican church for the first time in my catechumenate which will be interesting.

I'm going to go stay with her, and my family over there, for two weeks. I'm taking my lowery stand with me - the massive upside to these stands is that you can take them apart and tuck them into a suitcase. My big q-snaps are going to get dis-assembled too, and tucked in with the stand. Probably my other stitching bits and pieces I will take in bags on the bus with me.
The question is - which to take?

Well, I'm going to take my laptop, because a) it has a bunch of charts on it and b) I'd go mad without somewhere to type, even if I have no internet. So that helps matters.

Here's the list at the moment:

• Peaceful Paradise - Midsummer Night Designs (this is my GFJanuary project, though my fabric is taking its time to get here, grr! I'll take all the other supplies for it, and I've already made a working copy of the chart)
• Mystery X which I want to get lots of work done on
• A Restful Night which I'll take and hopefully get some progress into
• Tranquility Sampler which I'm going to have on the bus with me to work on (fits in a hoop or q-snap easily, tuck it against the window for good light)

I wanted to take Noon Basking and the Historic Countries sampler but I really can't justify it - I'm only away two weeks!

So I'm packing - everything's packed but my stitching now, so I just have to sort out the supplies and tuck them in my bag, and set things up so I can stitch on the bus easily :)

I'll blog from the town where my grandmother is when I can - there's a library, and I'll probably do what I've done before - write entries, then back-post them when I get to the library. I'll see you all then!

Edited to add: And to my Eastern Orthodox friends who read this, CHRIST IS BAPTISED!
It's Theophany today (well, technically yesterday as it's past sundown now) and most of my lucky friends got to services. I didn't but that's okay - Jeremy's sick, and I'd rather he get better than for us to have gone. There is always next year, and we DO have twelve great feasts and Pascha through the year....lol.

It's funny

for someone who really isn't that normal, I actually got to act normal tonight. I dressed up, jeans, sandals and a light breezy top Nikki found for me over a camisole, and grabbed housemate-Hannah and we went down near the beach for pasta, then walked down jetty rd to the foreshore at Glenelg with icecream. As I walked, I realised that Glenelg is really one of those places where you're constantly being looked at and checked out, and for once I wasn't self conscious about it. I was reasonably well dressed and definitely modest, but I didn't stick out like a sore thumb either. I don't want to be like everyone else, but it is nice to just blend in sometimes.

But, my body is still in a foul mood. It isn't quite as bad tonight as it was last night - I can walk without feeling like there are knives in my feet and my ankles, but my arms ache instead and that's made me not really stitch all day. This is killing me, but I've figured out that what it is really protesting against is me reaching up on my big frame to work on Mystery X. So I thought I'd take a photo, show you all where I've got to in the last few days, and pick up another piece - it will probably be Noon Basking (remember I was stitching that???) because I can put him in a nice small q-snap and curl up to work happily in DMC for the night. I guess to a degree I'm hitting burnout on Mystery X too, which is usually a good time to stop, before I actually do get sick of it and refuse to work on it for a few months (been there, done that, too many times).

So here's the photo of Mystery X - the west house is coming along nicely, and the others are growing with whatever threads I have left over in my needle when I finish working on the west house, which house they go into depending on which way up my frame is at the time (I can't work on the 'top' half of the roof of the side houses or my arms scream)


So now to unearth the chart for Noon Basking, and tackle some fractionals! I love this golden, sunny dragon :) I've missed him!

Right.

Given my progress today, I want to try something. I'll actually print this out and stick it up, so maybe I'll follow it, too!

IF I AM BORED, AND NOT WANTING TO STITCH (for whatever reason):

• go through cookingmagazine to find the recipes which will be good to cook up sometime I have to feed me/the house
• go through cookiebook to find recipies
• make cookies!
• eat
  
• pray
• clean - do a quick tidy of the areas already clean. when this is done, start work on rationalising the boxes and presents under the tree, cleaning the coffee table, and clearing off my sewing cabinet
• clean my room
• collect the dirty clothes from my room
• wash said clothes
• not waste time on the internet
• read - I have FTLOTW, and several fiction books. reading is good.
• vacuum the living room floor
• lay out moonshadow quilt
• pin moonshadow quilt
• sew - quilt needs the blocks sewn together, bindi's green dress needs finishing, my green dress needs hemming, purpledress needs fixing, bindi's red dress needs sewing, my red skirt needs sewing.
  
• redress the dolls
• plan church photostory
• blog
  
• BE PRODUCTIVE!

I've found myself very easily wasting time on the internet recently, and that bugs me. This funny part of me is saying that I should limit my net 'surfing' to an hour a day, and just check up on things like bloglines, and my usual forums, during the day. And KoL. Otherwise I waste SO. MUCH. TIME.

I lost it today

...I cleaned! My parents left on the 23rd, and this house...well, Hannah (who is house-sitting with me and always has the car) hasn't been home except to sleep, getting home at weird hours of the night...and I've been sick. And not in the mood to clean. Today, my house just started to scare me too much.

Most of the living/dining/whatever room is reasonably clear on the floor, except over by the tree which has lots of boxes left from Christmas and a few presents left, but no other rubbish/trash. I can now SEE the table, and there is nothing mouldy on it. This is an incredible improvement, believe me. All the mail for my parents that we have received is now re-addressed and in a neat pile to be re-mailed tomorrow, a notebook and my cooking magazine (and cookie book) are on the table for me to do some planning with, and the table is wiped down. The kitchen...the kitchen is still scary. I have been putting things in the dishwasher as I have used them, and put glasses etc that I've found there...but there are things going mouldy. I can't touch detergent, but Hannah has promised me that she will fix them tomorrow, and do a washup of the things that can't be dishwashed. I started to work on the top of my sewing cabinet (where the dolls are) but not much progress has been done yet. At least there's no more dirty dishes or food. My little icon corner is neat and clean, but that's normal - I can be a total mess everywhere else (my room attests to this) but the icon corner is always pristine. I am neurotic about this. Even when it was in my bedroom (which usually looks like a bomb hit it!)

I also cooked. I've been living on McDonalds at 2am when Hannah got home/pizza that Hannah brought home also at 2am/tinned soup. We heated up some pasta sauce and made pasta the other day, which was at least something more human... anyway, I stole Hannah today and went food shopping. I didn't grab much - a tub of yoghurt (Dairy Farmers has a new line out that I wanted to try and will definitely be grabbing a big tub of when I'm next at the supermarket, it's delicious), some deli meat, a jar of plum&raspberry jam (for something different), a loaf of bread, a litre of milk and the fixings for what I was making for dinner. The recipe says feeds four, so I figured I'd make it up and stick it in the fridge to eat when Hannah wasn't around for me to get stuff to cook something else. Most of what was in the recipe (oil, chicken stock, couscous, minced garlic, curry powder) was at home, but I needed to pick up a few extra things (a capsicum, some baby spinach, two tins of tuna, a carrot, some hummus and some spring onions), which I did. I was supposed to add margarine, but realised I had none when I was cooking so substituted olive oil. It worked. I also realised, as I went to cook, that I only had half the amount of couscous. About then it dawned on me that I should halve the recipe, which I duly did. Good thing, too! Feeds four? The amount I made would feed three hungry people, I think! I ate three bowls worth of it and put the rest in the fridge to eat later. It is very tasty.

The plants are all watered too - we can't use sprinklers due to water restrictions, so buckets/watering can it is. Our watering can is AWOL, so buckets! We have quite a few potplants too, and it's been HOT. It means I have a lot of watering to do at night.

Hannah laughed at me and said I'd gone all domestic...I guess I have, I spent the time I wasn't doing the above stitching on Mystery X (which is growing nicely, I have more than half of the west house's part done now, and progress on the others) and plotting making cookies. I got an awesome cookie book for Christmas, and I'm tempted to make a huge batch of cookies as gifts for everyone I know (we get to celebrate all through the twelve days, yay!) partly because it's fun, partly because I want to and mostly because I am bored with not a lot to do.

I also read some more of For the Life of the World (A. Schmemman) and am halfway through chapter 2 and enjoying it immensely. This is my current 'read this' book, this time assigned by Jeremy! I've been reading and noting The Orthodox Way (Met. Kallistos Ware) for Pater/Father, but Troy's stolen it and I was re-reading it, so I think he needs it more. Besides, I'm having so much fun with this one! Dad would like it, I think.

So...night owl Kyrie should probably go say her prayers and go to sleep, but I'm not that sleepy yet. Maybe taking my sister's (very mopey) cat to bed will help me want to sleep, she is very insistent that I should be in bed asleep and keeps trying to round me up into bed. Mrrrrp???

G'night all :)

2007 in brief

As always, doing the recap is a popular pastime among bloggers at the moment. And I've done it before, so I guess I'll do it again! Mine is of the month by month variety:

JANUARY: Spent most of the month with my grandmother and my family, started Mystery X, started the HAED Challenge SAL with From the Ashes, ended up in hospital with something minor, came home. Oh, and helped Troy move into his new house. Lots of stitching time.

FEBRUARY: Started yr 12 again, new school. Seemed to settle in reasonably well. Participated in the Challenge SAL again, but was getting frustrated by my lack of progress. Worked madly on Mystery X, but was still really behind (due to the part being huge).

MARCH: Participated in Challenge SAL, got increasingly more annoyed with it. Bought masses of fabric for dresses that I didn't have the patterns for. Helped Troy out with Uni stuff. Made some awesome kiwi+lime+coconut muffins. Finished MX's part 2, finally, almost a month late. Started and thoroughly enjoyed part 3. Started Japanese Octagon Box and SAL'd with Tash sporadically.

APRIL: Started Tranquility Mystery Sampler on 28ct linen, over 2. Made progress on JOB. Challenge SAL #4. Worked on part 3 of MX, but got attacked by beading. Got a beautiful sewing case thing from Troy's Mum for my birthday. Oh yeah, I turned 19, too. Dyed an awful lot of fabric with Peta for a quilt I was planning to make for Craft. Gave Periwinkle Fae a face. Finished part 3 of Mystery X.

MAY: Worked more on Periwinkle Fae. Got really sick, and thought it was the flu. Restarted Tranquility on 32ct linen 1x1. Liked this much better. Was sent A Restful Night by a lovely RAK Fairy (aka fudgey) as a get well present. Discovered that my muscles didn't like letting me take un-blurry photos, and enlisted Troy's help in that department. Stayed sick, which makes no sense given that it's the flu, right? Parents left for Florence for a few weeks and Hannah came to help house-sit. Started ARN. Troy's Dad disassembled my 6' off the floor bed and put my floor level bed in instead. Much smarter for an invalid. Bought Troy some clothes so that he looked respectable. Had the first set of blood tests done. Had a bath all by myself and celebrated this. MX's part 6 released and it's beautiful, and I get depressed because I'm behind.

JUNE: Tried to sort out a way to actually keep some quality of life (ie not just staying in my room all day). Mum and Dad get back. Worked on ARN a lot. Got told I had Chronic Fatigue. Saw POTC3. Had the adrenal gland tests, which were very painful, and fell asleep on Dad's office floor. Got ratlets - Amina and Jemimah. Bindi got one too, Sosspiri. Bought lots of homeware stuff for my house when we get married, as it was all on sale. Caught a train to Melbourne. Also, lots of weird stuff to do with this crazy denomination of Christianity called Orthodoxy...

JULY: Did stuff in Melbourne. Came home, went to Vespers at an Orthodox church with Jeremy...and found myself in front of an icon of St Kyriaki (who had haunted me). Then found out it was her feast day. Gave up believing in coincidence. Went to Divine Liturgy and fell in love. Went to a quiz night and came 3rd. Made progress on Tranquility. Went to the Grampian mountains with Dad. Celebrated St Elias' feast day. Cleaned my room. Went to a movie night and ate an incredible amount of pizza. Started Stretch. Made progress on JOB.

AUGUST: Finished pt1 of JOB. Started taking horrible medication, but medication appears to help so not complaining toooo loudly. Caught trains with Tait. Medication makes me sick, so start taking another medication to counteract this. Got my dolls out from their boxes that they'd been in for a few years. Got some fabric for a FFW restart. Bought lots of charts. Progressed with this whole Orthodoxy inquiring thing. Got made a catechumen on the eve of the liturgical new year!

SEPTEMBER: Restarted FFW. Worked on JOB. Attended my first ever vigil, all in Greek. A very new experience, but a good one, and got fed large amounts of soup. Made an incredible amount of food for Father's Day brunch. Started Historic Countries sampler. Visited my grandmother, acquired a clothes dryer, and attended Liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and got thoroughly lost - festal liturgies will do that. Made a couple dresses. Bought the chart for Dance of the Graces, and ordered fabric and threads. Attended another quiz night, where we won convincingly (by a couple hundred points). Made Caitlin a dress.

OCTOBER: Attended a picnic, ate a large amount of loukoumades (greek honey puffs), and souvlaki, played backgammon, and discovered that my CFS had decided to go away for the time being. Knit a dalek. Started dresses for Nikki's nieces. Bought the chart for Peaceful Paradise. Ordered everything else for it! Worked on Mystery X again. Ordered AG stuff. Got stash (stuff for Nuts About Autumn). More or less finished Mali's dress.

NOVEMBER: Got kidney stones and landed myself in hospital for half a week. Started a blog for my church stuff. Made a lot of progress on ARN. Got a new prime minister. Started work on MX again. Sort of got my license again.

DECEMBER: Got ready for Christmas, was a slack blogger, worked an insane amount on Mystery X. Got part 5 done (finally!) Had Christmas, went to a new year vigil...

and here we are again :)

Well...

Here I am. New blog post! And I actually have interesting things to say today.

It's been Christmas - yay! And everyone liked what I got them. Here's the list:

• Mum - olive oil sprayer and crossword book (she'd been wanting both)
• Dad - book on Shackleton's boat journeys
• Bindi - Candle that has three scents, glitter and is YUMMY
• Troy - frog and present that he doesn't have yet...
• Troy's Dad - carving magazines
• Troys Mum - Hogfather DVD
• Bronwyn (T's sister) - salad servers
• Doug (B's partner) - Bundaberg Rum hat
• Caitlin (niece) - noisy toys - a camera and telephone
• Jessica (niece #2) - beanie bears, a cat and a interesting textured bear
• Matthew (T's brother) - Optimus Prime Mr Potato Head (which he loved, YAY - buying a gift like this for a 27 year old is a gamble)

My family swapped gifts last Friday night as they left for my grandmother's on Sunday, and I got what I'd hoped for - the AG doll, Julie (1970s, and adorable), her pyjamas and her Christmas outfit. She seems to get along with the other dolls alright.

We went to Church on Christmas Eve with Jeremy, and I swear that festal Liturgies were designed to confuse catechumens...anyway, it was good even if we did get very, very lost. We got home about 3am, and slept in the next morning, then went up to Troy's parents' house for dinner and the big present swap. Presents are a big thing for them - and everyone goes mad, opening as many as possible as quick as possible. Good fun, lots of chaos and excited noises. I got a cookie recipe book and a bunch of necklaces, and a box and things to decorate it with...and some very cool furniture. See?


A wardrobe/cupboard for my doll stuff... that he made (of course)


And the girls on top - from L->R is Felicity, Amanda-Katherine, and Julie


And this is what it looks like open, with their stuff hanging up.

I am so grateful, this one is SO COOL.

Also, I got this:

Well, the table. This is what passes for an icon corner here... I will get more (and bigger) icons sometime soon but this does for now. The tabletop used to be a massive chunk of tree, but Greg sliced it then cut it in half. Now it's a table! And look what's woodburned into the centre (I have cloth over it until I get glass, so I don't drip wax on it or burn it with candles)



Now I wonder where he got a reference for that...hmmm.... *looks at Troy*

(for the non-Orthodox/non-Greek speakers, this is St Kyriaki, my patron Saint)

So I am very pleased.

As far as stitching goes, I have photos! Here is the current progress on Mystery X (my focus at the moment) I am working on part 5:

First, the whole thing


and the west house (part 5 is done)


and the south one...


and finally the east one:


It's coming together nicely, I think. If I keep working, part 5 will be done soon. I got the email that my fabric for Peaceful Paradise has shipped, too - YAY! I'm going to make myself finish part 5, and then I might work on PP for a while if I get the fabric by the time I'm finished.

2007 meme

Sorry...yes its a meme, and yes it's long. Skip it if you don't care :)

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Went to an Orthodox service, became a catechumen, went to a public school, got chronic fatigue, rode in an ambulance, caught an interstate train, went on a trip with Troy on our own.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I actually made any. Maybe I'll make some, if I remember!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Helen from Church, my future SIL

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Um. No, I dont think so?

5. What countries did you visit?
Just Australia

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
My health, a life!

7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 7. My name day, and the day I first finally gave up and went to Church.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Church stuff, I think.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Um... staying healthy.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Um. Yes, I got Chronic Fatigue. Why are you looking at me funny?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'm not sure. Probably something stitchy :)

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Troy's for actually finishing the year, Jeremy's for putting up with me.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I really can't think of anyone. Is that weird?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Stitching. By far.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Church. Scarily so. And re-starting school.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Um. This is where that my memory being a sieve thing is annoying, isnt it? Probably something Church-y again

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier I think
ii. thinner or fatter? the same, I got much thinner for a while
iii. richer or poorer? poorer, less money stashed in the bank

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Hanging out with friends, praying

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time on the net, moping

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Church and with Troy's folks.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Stayed in love

23. How many one-night stands?
None

24. What was your favourite TV program?
I really don't watch much. I like numb3rs, house, and aus idol though

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No

26. What was the best book you read?
Too many!

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Byzantine chant

28. What did you want and get?
A faith that made me grow

29. What did you want and not get?
Yr 12!

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Across the Universe, Stardust

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
19. Had dinner with people.

32. What's one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being able to do more.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Pyjamas!

34. What kept you sane?
My faith, Troy

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Meh. Really not my thing!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election, I think.

37. Who did you miss?
Fishgate people

38. Who was the best new person you met?
This ones not fair as I met way too many people with Church.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
It is a blessing to be able to say "glory to God for all things" and stop moping about life, getting on with things.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I can't do this. My memory is sieve-like, and all I can remember is liturgy...wonderful as that is, it's hard to sum up the year in it!

Still alive

I've been a bad blogger, I know. I just haven't had much happening in my life.

I sat the entrance exam thing that you can take to get into TAFE (trade college) if you didn't finish high school. I passed! So now just to see if I get a place. I hope so.

Other than that...really the interesting things have just been Church related. Services, Thursday nights (complete with laughter, teasing, and throwing of food), and my own personal catechumen-y journey. Which is good, but hard to blog about, especially for an audience which isn't coming here to primarily hear about the Church stuff...it's a different world. All that's in my other blog.

As far as stitching is concerned I have done about 200 stitches of the next row (11) of A Restful Night, but I've been working on Mystery X instead. Which is growing! I've been working on building up part 5 all the way around, and I now have the North one (was already done), and the west one has all but half the rhodes stitches done, and the east is growing. I'm alternating lengths of thread on rhodes stitches and lengths of thread on cross stitch, and it seems to be working. I haven't been working on the South house, I think I will when I get the cross stitching done on the East house, because the Q-snaps are currently positioned annoyingly for me to try and work on it. I'll fix that. And then on to part 6! (and getting the thing officially halfway done) I'll take a photo when I finish the rhodes stitches on the West house.

I've also been doing a lot of dressmaking prep work. I now have a dress cut out for my sister (a copy of the medieval gown I made my godsister a few months back) with the exception on the sash, which needs cutting and a blouse cut out for me in an adorable cherry on sky blue print. Hopefully it will turn out well. My to-do list in terms of dressmaking is as follows:

• put zip in and hem green dress for sister (been done otherwise for MONTHS)
• hem my green dress
• sew sister's medieval dress
• sew my shirt
• find out from nikki what she wants done with the girls' dresses

And while I have my sewing machine out, I can take over the floor for a while and try to get some more of the quilt-of-doom sewn together - the blocks have been done for THREE YEARS now. ARGH. It's half sewn together, all done in shades of grey with the odd jewel tone. Beautiful. I'm thinking maybe I'd give it to Troy for his bed, or maybe to Jeremy - it'd make the most awesome nameday/birthday gift EVER. I don't need a quilt, and there's no real reason to stash it for marriage. Either way, it needs to be finished. It's about half sewn up, by memory. I need to fix that. I'd also like another crack at the redandwhite quilt, which I have an incredible amount of fabric for. Enough for a queen size bed quilt. Yes, I am mad. Thankyou for noticing! The plan is to make it snowball and ninepatch. I miss quilting, I'm going to do a lot of patchwork while Hannah and I housesit (parents are going to stay with my grandmother, I'll join them after Theophany (Jan 6)) because she won't mind if i take over half the living room floor for a little while.

Mostly though, I'm tired. I am not quite sure if this is a relapse, but it's definitely not fun. It's 10:46pm and I'm lying in bed - not abnormal, except I've been doing it since 7 and wanted to since 4.

It's the feast day of the Forefathers of the Church today, so now more than ever it's appropriate to say:
Through the prayers of our most holy Fathers, may the Lord have mercy upon us and save us, Amen.

The One Book meme

This got started by Ben Myers, the entry is here and I just felt like doing it.

So here we go...

1. One book that changed your life:
The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware (now Met. Kallistos)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Willow Tree and Olive, Irini Saviddes

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The philokalia? *grins*

4. One book that made you laugh:
The Magician's Daughter, Justyn Walker

5. One book that made you cry:
Willow Tree and Olive (as above), lots of others

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Why Kyrie should have just given up and joined Orthodoxy when she first thought about it!

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Oh too many. Lemme think...Eldredge, the Purpose Driven nonsense, an awful lot of Western protestant theology...

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) (for theology), The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky (for fiction)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Count of Monte Christo, Dumas

10. Now tag five people: Um... anyone that reads this!

A Restful Night, two pages done

I realise that I've been neglecting this blog. I guess it's been more that nothing really of interest has been happening, or that which is interesting is all Church related and most people come here for stitching and life trivia, not theology. And with the Church...theology is in everything. I'll put a link to my Orthodoxy blog in my sidebar, in case someone wants to read it. I don't just write theology, I write life-stuff there too, but most of life-stuff that isn't stitching ties in with the Church!

Here's my darling little fairykins though, and the beginning of a frog, at 15,000 stitches, and two pages done (of six, but two are partial):


She's lovely, and it's so much fun to stitch her. Amazingly, I'm almost done with her altogether! From now on it's mostly frog. Which will be nice, I love the froggy and it will be good to see her watching me, but it's kind of sad too. It's been fun working on her.

I have the dilemma of whether to switch off and work on something else, but I'm still wanting to work on her so I think I will, for the time being. Until I get sick of her and run off to work on Dance of the Graces or something :)

December goals

Hm, goals. I'm starting to hate these things, as life seems to interfere.

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish North house on Mystery X Nope. Discovered that I needed to put it on a scroll frame. THEN discovered I need to tension the frame on the sides...
  
• Make progress on West house Yes, I think.
  
• Make significant progress on another WIP QS A Restful Night. Yes!
  
• Join back in with Tash on JOB SAL Yes, but I won't count it as a completed goal. I did, but I keep forgetting! I'm horrible at remembering that it's Monday.
  

Life goals:

• Finish Nikki's nieces' dresses No, because she's uncertain about some things and I don't want to make the dresses only for the girls to grow out of them first.
  
• Make damask skirt No...not this one either.
  
• Finish green dresses More or less finished one, but it needs hemming.
  
• Attend church as often as possible Yes yes YES!
  
• Read and note The Orthodox Way Ahahahahahahahahaha. Um. *cough* I started. It's taking me much longer this time around.
  

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish row 10 of A Restful Night, and achieve my HAED half year goal
• Finish row 11 of above
• Sort out tensioning stuff for Mystery X, make progress (and take photos every day I work on it)
• Remember to SAL with Tash

Life goals:

• Read and note TOW to the end of chapter 5
• Attend Church as often as possible
• Get my paws on an icon of St Kyriaki if at all possible
• Work on sorting out my room
• Make a pattern for a skirt like my white&gold one that the rats ate, and make one
• Enjoy Christmas
• Try not to spend too much on gifts, or get caught up in commercialisation
• Remember the *real* meaning of Christmas
  

I cans drive? I can!!

Yep, I've got my Ls again. For non-Aussies, that means I've passed the first test on the way to getting my full license. I get to drive, now, as long as there's a driver with their full license in the car, and I don't go above 80km/hr. Oh and I can't have been drinking, but that's really not an issue most of the time! Now when I've passed certain competence-y things and done 50hours of driving, they'll let me have the next stage, where I get to drive on my own and drive up to 100km/hr, but still can't drink, and stuff.

Yay, it's nice to be working towards a bit more independence. I can't afford a car of my own, but the parents will probably let me borrow theirs sometimes, and it'd be easier than having to steal lifts off of people to get everywhere.

Stitching progresses, slowly. It's been hot, and I've been tired. All the work recently has been on the fairy'n'frog, and the left mushroom actually looks like a mushroom now (has the cap done, so the stalk is begun) and she's got another sleeve and the beginning of a hand now. I'm just starting work on the bodice for the row, which will be nice - lots of block stitching, much less confetti! It's been confetti city recently. I've also been contemplating the Historic Countries sampler, which I think I need to get out again. I miss it. I just got so fed up with the Germany part, those motifs were starting to get to me. Some over-two work will be a nice change, and the specialty stitches in part 2 sound like fun!

I'm off to church on Sunday...with my family, and with my old pastor and his son Tait (a good friend of mine) which will be FUN. I'll probably get a bunch of the questions on why we kiss *everything* and stuff...but it'll be good. I need to cook something to take with me for Sunday night, too - we're having a 'fasting dinner'. Basically, us fellowship group (we can't call it a youth group, I'm one of the youngest there and the oldest is 50 or so) decided that we needed to get together for a meal again, but it's the Nativity fast so no pizza. So, us enterprising young folks decided we'd each bring something we *can* eat, and it'll be potluck style. Yum, Greek food. No complaints here, especially if someone brings dolmades. I love dolmades!

I feel bad for neglecting this blog, but I guess these things happen. Forgive me, folks :)

Row Nine

...is done! My fairy no longer looks quite so...nude, and I'm getting so close to starting the froggy. I can't wait!
Here she is:

13,500 stitches done so far. The next row of blocks goes over the page, so when I get it done I can say that I've got 2 pages done (and met my half-yearly goal, woohoo) which will be good, to say the least. Not working on it now though, Dance of the Graces is calling my name instead. So Im off to immerse myself in yummy browns.

Turning Nocturnal

Or at least that's what I want to do! It was 35*C today and too hot. We don't have air conditioning, and I don't have a car. Well, technically we do have air conditioning. It doesn't currently work. So I slept as late as I could, and then lay on my bed being a pancake a lá my rats until the hotness went away. Their attitude seemed to be something like that - I am going to be a furry puddle and sleep until it GOES AWAY. So I filled their water bowl, and added ice cubes. Which lead to much curiosity, and squeaking at the cold! Champagne hoarded ice cubes down the bottom of the cage, and kept nibbling at them and then being surprised by the coldness. Intelligence was never exactly her forte - she's blonde in colour and in the proverbial intelligence factor. We love her to bits, but she has the attention span of a goldfish! She was so upset when they all melted too...

That was the cuteness for today. Once it got cooler I migrated to the living room, to watch tv and then eat dinner (smoked salmon sandwiches because we couldn't be bothered cooking), and settle down to my stitching. I've been working on A Restful Night and she's looking lovely, the row is almost finished except for about 25 stiches on the final mushroom, and then going back to frog about 20 stitches (all the same colour so no real drama) at the beginning, then I'll have a photo for you all! Her sleeves were a pain (fifty zillion shades of pale, pale blue) but they look lovely, and I'm very proud of her. All the same, I'm starting to get tired of her so I'm going to put her away for a little while when I finish this row, to work on either Dance of the Graces or Mystery X. The Historic Countries sampler needs to come out for some love too at some point, but I'm not really in the mood at the moment.

It will be Dance of the Graces tomorrow, anyway, as I'm waiting to work on Mystery X until Mum brings home the tapestry frame someone's lent me and gave to her at school...which she's been forgetting for the past week or so. It's just too big for q-snaps now. Part of me (the crazy part) is actually wondering if Dance of the Graces would do well on a tapestry frame...we'll see. At the moment she's in a hoop, and staying there! I'd really like to do some major progress on the background, I think I've figured out a plan of attack. Now that I've done most of the detail bits within the background, it should go quick, and I can sort out the far corner section for this row and post a picture. It's lovely, such gorgeous browns.

I've started a wordpress blog for the spiritual/church side of things, too, if anyone's interested. Most people come here for the stitching, so I'm not at all offended if you're not interested, but I thought I'd let people know here just in case. The blog's at candleprayer.wordpress.com, and it's from a decided Eastern Orthodox perspective :) I'm having fun.

I think that's all that's interesting here in my world - nothing much happened today at all! I do have a lot in the way of doll photos though, as I got a nice big box from American Girl, so I might post a few photos later. Maybe :)

Survey fun

LIFE SURVEY
12 years ago
I was:	Five
The year was:	1993
MY FAVOURITE:
TV show	Playschool possibly?
singer/band	Peter Coombe!
movie	Something disney, if anything
subject	Reading
WHO WAS
your best friend	Stephen maybe?
your crush	Heh
your teacher	Mrs Green
your idol	Mrs Green!
Pick something nostalgic about the era	The star charts I had as bribes because I'd figured out I didn't need to work and people wanted me to
8 years ago
I was:	Eleven
The year was:	1999
MY FAVOURITE
singer/band	B*witched
TV show	Something on ABC I'm sure
movie	Not one that I remember
subject	English
WHO WAS
your best friend	I didn't have one
your crush	Nope
your teacher	Mrs Bleby and Mrs Richmond
your idol	None
Pick something nostalgic about the era	Pikachu
4 years ago
I was:	Fifteen
The year was:	2003
MY FAVOURITE
singer/band	P.O.D.
TV show	Aus idol I suppose
movie	Life as a house I think
subject	not at school
WHO WAS
your best friend	Troy
your crush	Troy
your teacher	Lots, but home group teacher was Mr Sullivan
your idol	N/A
Pick something nostalgic about the era	Black P.O.D. hoodie and wearing my cloak on casual day
TODAY
Age:	Nineteen
Occupation:	Sort of a self-employed dressmaker
FAVOURITE
singer/band	Chant of some description or another
TV show	Aus Idol I guess, I don't want much TV
movie	Recently, Across the Universe
subject	My stitching, Orthodoxy
WHO IS
your best friend	I dont know, I have a lot of good friends
your crush	TROY :)
your teacher	God, Fr Silouan, Jeremy ;)
your idol	...God?
Something about this year you'll never forget	Becoming a catechumen
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

PIF and exhausted

Well, I finally got my (massive) American Girl order in. I think we kind of scared the CS lady...oh well :) Stupid having to do it over the phone...oh well. So now I'm stalking the mailman for a few reasons!

Can't wait, it will be good to get an AG order again. Then I'll be counting the days to Christmas - I get to open *my* stuff but the Julie stuff is all hidden away until Christmas day. Oh well, I'd have a few cute outfits for each of my girls and the most adorable pair of shoes... that'd keep me happy.

Sally's hosting a Pay it Forward on her blog, and I signed up for it, so now it's my turn! Basically, it goes like this: First three people to comment and say they want to be in will receive a package from me sometime in the next year with a handmade (most probably stitched) gift and maybe something extra ;) So, come on - sign up!

I also saw Across the Universe tonight, and it was brilliant. Go see it.

Now, I am going to go pass out!

More photos

Well first I have my sister's cat + Felicity (the AG doll)'s bed:


And also, JOB after my SAL with Tash got resurrected :D

I'm almost done with part 2, just the bonsai tree to do. And when I've started work on part 3 proper (not just the frame, which is 3/4 done) I'll fill in the rhodes stitches in part 1 because they'll no longer be in the way of my hoop.

I'd forgotten that hoops can actually be useful things! But this really doesn't fit on my q-snaps in any kind of satisfying way, and using a hoop works very well. I have a feeling that if I dont have a big frame by the time I get past the borders of the ginormous q-snap that I currently have Mystery X on I'll be using a hoop for that, too, and beading the last parts by hand. That's why I haven't beaded anything for the North house - just in case!

Mystery X Photos

Yay photos! I got the camera back, so now I have pretty to show.

Here is the whole thing:


Here is the North house, the right way up:


And here is the West house, but its rotated 90 degrees (thanks, webshots):

Hit by a Truck

I still feel like I have been. It will pass, it will. In the meantime I need to rest!

I got quite a bit done on Mystery X yesterday, after staring at it and not wanting to work on it. I just started work on the Western house instead, and I'm going to do the three not-North houses in the parts they're supposed to be done in, with the exception of where it's logical to do the little bit more (ie the top little rows on the walls, etc) I'll take a photo soon.

I've also been rinsing and drying the silks for Convents Herbal Garden, and if I'm not careful I see a new start on the horizon. I've got no problem with starting it though, it's beautiful and I've had the kit patiently waiting since February.

Nikki came to visit yesterday, and so did Tessa, which was nice. Didn't see Jeremy, but he had good reason, and I'll see him Thursday night anyway.

And Friday is the feast day of St Nectarios', patron Saint of one of my churches! So massive festival to be had by all, and then a dinner that night for the *other* church. Hoo boy :) Sounds like fun to me, much food. I approve of food!

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on JOB for the SAL with Tash today. I'm going to try in a hoop today and see how I go. I will find a way to get this done!

Goals for November

I'm starting to get worried with this whole goal-setting thing. I keep changing what I'm working on!

Anyway, here's time to face the music.

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish part 1 of Historic Countries Sampler nope, have barely worked on it
  
• Finish part 2 of above see above
  
• Finish pages 1&2 of A Restful Night (carryover from last month) have barely touched it
  
• Make progress on one other WIP This one I got! Lots of progress on Mystery X
  

Life goals:

• Attend DL at least twice on Sundays Every week
  
• Make the spidery gift Still no. I need to print out the logo, and we don't have a printer - argh.
  
• Get all my clothes AWAY and pack the heavy winter ones in boxes for the summer Progress has been made, but it's slow
  
• Finish godsister's dress on time Yes, very yes!
  
• Make a bag for church Nope, too busy
  
• Buy damask fabric for a new semi-circle skirt for church Yes!
  
• Finish green dresses Nope, too busy

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish North house on Mystery X
• Make progress on West house
• Make significant progress on another WIP
• Join back in with Tash on JOB SAL
  

Life goals:

• Finish Nikki's nieces' dresses
• Make damask skirt
• Finish green dresses
• Attend church as often as possible
• Read and note The Orthodox Way
  

That should keep me out of mischief, I hope!

Gak

Well, I've spent three days this week in the hospital with kidney stones. That was annoying, but I'm not going to go into it because it was just irritating. Literally. They thought I had appendicitis, but I didn't. Yay!

Now I'm home, and that's a lot better. I'm very very tired, and I am going to enjoy my bed tonight. Troy told people that I was in hospital, so I got a few surprise visits yesterday!

First, Father turned up while I was eating lunch and we had a chat, and then later Maria came to visit bearing roses (which were beautiful) and a card and gift on behalf of my study group. The gift was a small framed icon of the Theotokos, given to watch over me, and it's beautiful. Elias (the one who found my blog by accident!) also came, with a card and a lovely blown glass angel.

Anyway, now I'm settled down with dinner and my stitching, and part 11 of Mystery X looks BEAUTIFUL, so I will be pleased when I get there!