So How Do You Actually Work This?

I seem to be getting myself in deeper and deeper -- Suzanne was wondering how I keep track of all those different colors. This is an earlier photo that shows it best.

First, you grid. Some people actually have the patience to stitch a 10 x 10 grid onto their fabric. I don't; I work the first ten stitches in any given row, then use a washable dress-pattern marker to plot the grids. And as you can see from this photo, I only do the grid I'm working on, and leave little "tails" of marker at the end so that when I'm finished with that grid, I can lay out the next grid and know that it will be 10 x 10.

Having done that, I am also fanatical about marking off each row of ten stitches as I work it. I really would go crazy otherwise.

And the final thing I do to keep track of all the colors and threads -- and the reason I chose this photo -- is that I "park" stitches. I only work ten stitches at a time, straight down the row. Sometimes a row will contain as few as three colors, other times, every single stitch is a different color. When I work a stitch, I look ahead in that row to see where the color will occur next, and bring the needle up in that stitch. If it won't occur again in that row, I look ahead to the next row, and if I see that color symbol in the next row, I'll bring the needle up in that stitch and "park" the thread there until it's needed again. If it doesn't occur in the next row, I'll scan the entire grid to see where it shows up next.

Sometimes it doesn't occur again until much later in the project, and in that case, I do finish off the thread and wrap the leftover around the skein of floss, where it stays until I need it again. I finish off using something called a "pinhead stitch": Since cross-stitch fabric consists of little holes, you can bring the thread up in between two holes -- crosswise or lengthwise, according to the weave of the fabric -- and push the needle back down smack in the middle of the little square. Then you bring it back up on the other side of where you've made your "pinhead," and push it back down in the middle of the little square again. Then you pull it tightly. Once you get the hang of it, you can actually make the pinhead stitch nearly invisible, because it buries itself in the middle of the square.

To start threads, it depends on whether or not they're leftover from earlier working. If I have two strands left over from where they were worked before, I'll start with the pinhead stitch, too. If not, I cut an extra-long length, fold it in half, and push both ends through the eye of the needle; bring the thread up through the hole of the first stitch, but not all the way, and back down into the cross-point of the stitch (looks like / ). Then, as I'm bringing the thread back down, I guide it through the loop left hanging when I pulled the thread up, and then pull tight. It's called the "loop method" of starting. Some people frown on it because there is supposed to be a shiny side to thread and a dull side, and using the loop method means that you're working with both a shiny thread and a dull thread, so to speak. But I have never been able to distinguish which is which, so I just go on my merry way. Hey, it's my cross stitch. ;-)

How a Cross Stitch Resembles a Painting

Suzanne was noting that she didn't know how shading could be accomplished with threads, so I thought I'd attach a photo of what one of these charts looks like.

The different colors of markers on this chart are an invention of mine so that I would know how much I got done on any given day. Purple is Sunday, Yellow is Monday, Orange is Tuesday, Blue is Wednesday, Red is Thursday, Green is Friday, Pink is Saturday.

It doesn't show very clearly, but each of those black blobs at the bottom -- the unmarked portion of the chart -- is a different symbol, and each symbol represents a floss color. The largest manufacturer of flosses, DMC, has a range of close to 4,000 colors; I've never seen a project with all 4,000 colors (egad), but the blend of all those colors is how you get that painterly effect.

I forgot to mention that this Saturday, my church is starting up a needlework group for the ladies of the parish -- women have been invited to bring their knitting or embroidery, and the idea is just to carve a space out of the month (first Saturday of each month) to get together and make time to work on projects, and hopefully, make some new friends in the parish. I bet I will be the only one to show up for a few months, though I might be surprised.

Updates, of one sort or another

Someone was kind enough to ask about my progress on my latest cross-stitch project. So here it is. In terms of being the "latest" project, actually, it's one of the older ones -- I've been saying I started it in 2004, but I looked at all my progress photos and I actually started it in 2005 -- anyway, it's been around long enough, and it's Time to finish it, by Christmas, I hope. So this is my focus piece for the year. I have 40 more rows to go, and it will be 40% completed. I am learning so much about art composition from working this piece -- it intrigues me, for example, how the color rises at an angle, and how very many different colors go into just one 10 x 10 section. At any given time, I can have as many as 40 floss bobbins available to work with.

Last night, we got another six inches of the white stuff dumped on us -- and then we got rain on top of that. Have you ever tried to shovel six inches of wet snow?! This is what they call "widow-maker" snow, and all I can think is, I wish my doctors could see me slogging my way through this stuff -- I bet my heart is healthier than theirs, if I can handle this c**p. (Oh, dh is out of town again. I am so tempted to write his boss and say, "If you want him to travel in the middle of winter, then you, or whoever is ordering this travel, should come up here and shovel this stuff out of my driveway." Grrrr.)

And I had a sweet note from my priest -- I had sent him a clip from Fr. John Whiteford's blog about Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, and he responded, "What a wonderful town! We really should organize a trip there!" He has no idea just how wonderful Jordanville is. (If you click on the clip on Father John's blog, you do have to slog through about 4 minutes of trivia about Jordanville before you get to the "main event," the monastery.) Any time I see photos of the church, it's like looking at photos of an old and greatly beloved home.

Poor Father Costin, by the way, has come down with chicken pox. His older daughter brought it home from school, and about two weeks ago we were talking about it and he said, "Oh, yes, I have had chicken pox. I think I have had chicken pox." And right then, I knew he hadn't. Well, he's got it now. He still plans to be in church on Saturday for the First Saturday of Souls, but I told him not to come if he is feeling the least bit tired -- this isn't anything to play games with. Why do kids think they're indestructible!!!

Dumped. Again

What a winter it's been, one snow storm after another since December. Normally, we don't get much snow in December at all -- we might have a dusting in time for Christmas -- this season, we had a good foot on the ground by Christmas, and it has continued unabated ever since. Today is just the latest storm, and it's particularly irksome, since dh is travelling in it.

Yes, the Powers That Be in Good Ol' DC decreed that Travel Must Go Forward, regardless of the probability of snow and travel delays, so this past week, dh has been in (of all places) Philadelphia. Our son lived in the Philly area for 2 1/2 years, and not once did my husband have travel in that area. Now that Chris has been home for a year, where does his father have to travel?! Go figure.

Having left the City of Brotherly Love at, what, 8:30 a.m.? -- he just walked in the door at 8:45 p.m. Sound miraculous? Not if you took the train, as dh did. He hates airline travel so much that he will actually wrestle with Defense Travel Service to get train travel approved -- as it turns out, it's a good thing he did, this time, since all the airports are closed and flights from elsewhere are delayed up the yinyang. But Amtrak made it through with, I think, only half an hour's delay. And if they had gotten stuck, at least he could have stretched out in his seat to sleep, not have had to make do with sleeping in a )@(#*$&%^! airport.

The worst part of the trip was getting from the train station to the house, because he had to wait for a cab for 45 minutes -- I do not drive, in this weather. But there's a cafe about two blocks from the train station, and he sat it out very happily, till the cabbie showed up and brought him home.

So all's well that ends well. But I am still ticked off. When dh was working for the Navy, they did not travel in the winter, period. Army, apparently, does not believe in such civility. Am I correct in my belief that Navy consistently wins the Army/Navy Football Game??

Meanwhile, there's a few inches of the white stuff out there -- six or so -- with more to come. Everyone I know is ready to hang the groundhog. Even me, and normally I love winter. I stopped loving it, this year, around mid-January. Come on, Mother Nature, February's almost over. We need at least a little warmth -- flowers, no, it's way too early for flowers, but a modification of air temperature, anyway.

And less -- much less -- of the white stuff, thankyouverymuch.

Please Tell Me...

...it isn't already almost the end of January.

Sigh. I knew it was, really. I just can't believe that I haven't posted in almost a month.

It hasn't been all that bad a month, either, but Jim's been working from home, which really limits computer time. The up side of that is that I've gotten quite a bit done on my cross stitches (see above). I am particularly pleased with the detail on the Golden Tikhvin Theotokos, from Solaria Gallery -- I have included the link in case anyone else is interested in seeing the kinds of cross stitch this wonderful lady designs. The detail is simply incredible.

Some people have e-mailed me recently asking about my father-in-law. Let's just say that he is proving to me how much Christian development I really need; over December, I had a mini-meltdown, in that I got so overwhelmed that I was unable to process the need to pay bills, so got behind on several (not too radically, and we're all caught up now). The main reason for this, I think, is, as my husband put it, "Every time we open a piece of [his father's] mail, it creates a month's worth of work on his behalf."

And yesterday was no exception, as I went to the nursing home to pay his monthly bill there -- a five-minute errand -- and ended up hanging around to get a list of his prescriptions because, guess what, we never even thought to enroll him in Medicare Part D!!! And the nursing home is no longer direct-billing his medications, so we will now have to pay that bill. He has the money -- I'm not worried about that -- it's just one more d*** thing I have to do on his behalf, while he sits there, consuming food and oxygen, and raising his fist to his son when we go to visit. (I nearly kicked him when he did that last Sunday.) He isn't senile, either, and he isn't mean-tempered with the staff -- just with his only child.

Pray for me, because I'll never get into heaven on the strength of my charitable thoughts for my husband's "father."

And I am back taking Russian. Why? Because I hate myself??? I don't know. But I really love the two department heads, even if they are atheists. ;-) And it is my last grammar class -- after this, I'll have to take literature classes or something to stay current with what I've learned.

So -- life continues. More or less. Now I have to file all the paperwork from an afternoon of paying bills. And I'm going to post this blog before I get started on another rant. =:0

Not Quite So Humbug ;-)

I couldn't stand the thought of the old year passing without a bit of reflection.

After the horrors of 2006, that year closed on a hopeful note, and this year began with confirmation of that hope: Our son's move back to his home state. We've seen him off and on throughout the year, but of course a good bit more of him since he's about 700 miles closer to home. His visits fell off during the summer, when he was working six days a week, but he was in for a week just before Christmas; he spent Christmas with us; and surprise, surprise, there's a possibility that he may spend tonight and tomorrow with us, as well. He called to say he was going to a party, but wasn't expecting it to last "more than a few hours" (presumably, it breaks up at midnight, then he still has an hour's drive to our place). I hope he makes it to our house, though, because tomorrow, we're supposed to get a foot of snow (a little under a meter, for European or Canadian readers).

The snow began, I believe, around December 10, and so far, we've had -- now, is it three or four storms of significant size? I don't remember a winter like this since I was a girl, sixteen years old and slogging three miles on foot to school because, well, it was a school day and in our house, you didn't stay home from school unless there was a death in the family (your own). Anyway, none of the buses were running, so I walked to school, and yes there were drifts of snow to overcome, got there around 9:45 (having left the house at 7:00), rang the doorbell with trepidation -- to discover from an astonished nun that school had been cancelled for the day, and I had to walk all the way back home. I think I made it around 1:00 or so. My mother demanded to know what I was doing home, and all I said was, "School was cancelled," and that was that.

Then there were the snows of 1967 and 1968. People who fume at Callous Business are probably unaware that even the evil minions of Wall Street and Madison Avenue actually sent employees home if a storm was threatening. One year we were dismissed at 1:00 p.m., and I made it home on the elevated train from lower Manhattan to my home in Queens; but again, no buses were running, and I had to walk the mile from the train station to my house. It was windy that day, and the very hardest part of that walk was the last two blocks, long blocks that probably came to a third of a mile and were all uphill. I remember standing next to a parked car and thinking, "I'm not going to make this," then pulling myself together and battling that fierce wind down the last block to home, then collapsing in tears on the back steps.

At least this snow hasn't been accompanied by such horrendous wind, nor have I been required to be out in it, other than to help shovel the driveway. But we've had an awful lot of snow, and dh and I aren't as young as we were 21 years ago, when we bought the place. Today, dh was even talking about moving to a retirement community, something both of us have resisted with all our might. It's like God's waiting room, for crying out loud.

So we've been quite busy, what with snow removal and enjoying our son and our washing machine breaking down and being unrepairable because That Part Is No Longer Manufactured, and having to spend money earmarked for Christmas presents on a new washer, instead. Thankfully, we had all of ds's presents bought already, so we just did without presents ourselves. At our age, who needs a lot, anyway. But a new washing machine is crucial. ;-)

On both Christmas Eve and this past Sunday, I got to direct our choir again. The choir director was visiting family in Florida, as we'd known, and had made arrangements with a teenaged boy to direct in her absence, as we'd known; as we hadn't known, the teenaged boy got cold feet and never showed up at all for Christmas Eve, and yesterday, I was in full swing when he did show up, saw me at the podium, and shook his head vehemently when I stood aside to let him take my place. I must admit that I enjoyed doing it again, but it would have been nice to have a little more advance notice.

And there is the ongoing and phenomenal blessing of our new priest. The newness is beginning to wear off, both for him and for the parish, but he is still unflaggingly enthusiastic, and I have yet to hear a negative word about him -- in our parish, that's something of a record for any priest. It seems he and his family are ski fanatics, having gone skiing in Vermont over the long Thanksgiving weekend and in New Hampshire for a week after Christmas; and in speaking with him today, I learned that he's planning to make another ski trip to the same New Hampshire mountain "just for one day, on Wednesday" (his usual day off). He and his family continue to live in Massachusetts, where they'd bought a house just last year; I should mention to him that if he bought a house up here, he'd pay less money all around, because not only is it cheaper to live up here than in Massachusetts, but he'd also get to save on resort fees, since he wouldn't have to stay overnight. On the other hand, maybe that's the charm.

Oh, yes, he's spiritually a great blessing, too. ;-) People were telling me yesterday about his not being too happy with the Christmas Pageant this year, because Baby Jesus was represented by a little girl baby: "Jesus was a boy Baby!" he kept insisting, but finally gave in reluctantly. They thought that was very funny. I think it just shows that he is being true to his priestly responsibility to keep to the true Tradition. (But yeah, I find the story amusing, too, and very sweet in his earnestness.)

Now, if only his Romanian accent didn't keep reminding me of Count Dracula...

Bah. Humbug. :-(

Permit me a bit of grumbling here. Just -- be here for me, OK?

I'm upset. A friend of mine knows someone who has apparently fallen on hard times, and is asking people to buy a holiday product from this person. So far so good. It's just -- I have the sense of a whole lot that has gone unsaid.

I mean, the situation that this person finds himself in, is not something that strikes out of the blue. Let's just say that it involves a legal action, one that is so difficult to execute that there has to be a phenomenal amount of evidence, accumulated over a long period of time, for that action to be executed. (An example: Someone locally was recently evicted from a property that was not only a neighborhood eyesore, but also a health hazard, not only to the resident but to neighborhood schoolchildren (the property was across the street from an elementary school). The length of time involved in the eviction? Seven years.)

The situation that my friend's friend finds himself in is similar. It sounds as if the person's financial straits are dire. But -- dire doesn't just hit, it builds over a period of months. In that time, wasn't it possible for this person to contact family members for help? I'm thinking of the many relatives who stayed with my late Aunt Mary over a period of about fifteen years. Nothing was said, none of us young folk knew that these people were homeless and would have been out on the street but for my aunt's generosity. They stayed for an average of three years with her, finding work, then finding homes of their own; in a couple of cases, we never heard from these people after they moved on. But my point is, they called on family for help, and that help was forthcoming.

So, why is this person soliciting help on the internet?! Does he not have family to whom he could turn? Is he so on the outs with family that they wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole? Why are you bothering complete strangers for help?

As I said, I have the sense of a whole lot that has gone unsaid. And without those blanks being filled in -- I feel used.

Thank you for the shoulder to cry on. We now return you to your regularly scheduled revelries.

Making Your Home a Haven, Day 3

Today's Challenge:

1) Refresh Your Spirit (5 minutes)

I actually got to sing Vespers last night, and Matins this morning. I hate when I sleep late, and have to miss my prayer rule -- the day never goes as well as when I get up a bit earlier and get this done.

The blog I cribbed this idea from (Crystal Paine's blog -- see down a couple of posts) was encouraging participants to list three things we're thankful for. In my case:

1. Being Orthodox
2. Having a good roof over my head. It's small, but we raised two kids in it, and it still does us well.
3. Having an absolutely sterling husband, who loves me and puts up with a mind-numbing job to provide said roof over our heads.

2) Take Time to Plan (5 minutes)

Ahem. I can either pray, or plan. ;-) That said, at least I have dinner planned: Spaghetti with shrimp sauce. This is cheating, though, since this is our usual Wednesday dinner.

However, I'll take the challenge and share my to-do list, such as it is:

1. Bredenbeck's Bakery in Philadelphia sent my son's Christmas cookies to our house. Every year since they were born, we've celebrated St. Nicholas Day with the kids by putting cookies in their shoes; the year Chris moved out to PA, I was wondering how to continue this tradition when I came across Bredenbeck's online, and they actually ship real German cookies. So Chris has not missed his cookies at all, until this year -- and he won't this year, either, if I have anything to say about it. I'll ship 'em overnight express. So that's my first item.

2. The "Maintenance Required" light has come on in my car, and won't shut off. I suspect it's because when I had the oil changed last week, the people who changed it forgot to turn off the blinking "Maintenance Required" light, and now it's on permanently; but I do have to check with the dealership about this.

3. I need to pay some bills. :-(

4. And I need to study for a Russian exam that takes place tomorrow. We don't have finals in these classes; we get one test that covers each chapter, and then go on to the next one. So this test will finish out Chapter 11. I'm not sure if there will be time to cover Chapter 12 completely before all our classes wind up, though.

3) Do Something! (15 minutes or so)

Quoting from Crystal's blog now:

Today we're going to focus on the laundry and laundry room. Your goal by the end of today is to have all of your laundry finished, folded, and put away.

Uh-huh. In my dreams, maybe. What I can do in this area is wash a load of towels and hang them out on the drying rack so that the house gets some moisture into the atmosphere. But folded and put away?? That waits for tomorrow, when the stuff is dry (and I get to hang out a new load of laundry!).

One More T'ing...

...as Columbo used to say.

This past Sunday, our Hierarch, Metropolitan Methodios, came to visit our parish. (Which is its own story: He called our priest on Monday and said, "Oh, by the way, I have an opening in my calendar for this Sunday, and I'd like to come visit." Gulp.) Anyway, he came, he saw, whether or not he conquered the choir is still up for grabs ;-) -- but the point is, he preached the most wonderful sermon. I've never heard a sermon like this.

For one thing, he cited the text of this past Sunday's Gospel, the story of the blind man by the side of the road who asks Jesus for his sight. The Metropolitan said that the Church gives us this Gospel at this time of year because we are all in darkness, stumbling around like the blind man, and we should remember that the Light of Christ is coming to us.

But the other thing he said that really grabbed my attention was that the blind man cried out, and Christ -- God -- stopped walking and paid attention to him. And the Metropolitan said, When we pray, we stop God in His tracks, and He listens to us.

Think about that.

When we pray, we stop God in His tracks. And He listens to us.

Holy cow.

Making Your Home a Haven 2

Since I was out of the house at 9:30 today and didn't get home till 4:30, there wasn't too much I was able to do on this front. Today's effort was getting the breakfast dishes done before I left the house, and making the beds. This is more of a triumph than ordinary tidy housewives might think: There have been days when the dishes didn't get washed till half an hour before dh came through the door, and as for making beds...well...

I love the sight of a made-up bed, so I never thought twice about it until dh asked me not to make up his bed -- "It's easier to get into when it's left unmade."

This is the same person who comes from the family that never put anything away in the kitchen because, "We'll just have to get it out again." And I seriously wonder why my house always looks like a bomb hit it?!

So the bed stayed unmade, for a few years, actually. Once a week I'd change the sheets, but that was it.

Then we had the house blessed. Our new priest decided that a good way for him to meet the parish would be to bless everyone's houses over the summer, and since ours hadn't been done at Theophany (the weather was crappy), I invited him over to do that. And to have the house blessed -- you have to have tidy rooms.

And dh discovered that, wonder of wonders, it's kind of nice to sleep in a made-up bed.

So that is my contribution to making this home a haven for today. Actually, pretty much every day, since the house got blessed, but since I was out of the house all day, I decided this would have to count for half a brownie point. :-)

(The chief reason I was out for so long is that I went to confession. My spiritual father's parish is 40 miles away. 40 miles over roads that are not entirely clear of ice and snow is, um, interesting. But I really needed to go to confession. Now to put the results into practice -- I need to go sing Vespers.)

Making Your Home a Haven

OK, I have to confess that I don't know how many of my readers this will actually apply to, but the idea, which I got from Emma's blog, seems to be to come up with one or more things you can do every day to make your home a haven for yourself and your family, then post about it on your blog. The woman who first came up with the idea (Crystal Paine) cleaned her front entryway, made herself a cup of tea, and spent time with her Bible. Me...

Well....

I made a nice beef stew for my husband.

Hey, it's been snowing all day, and he's been alternately digging out the driveway and tele-working. So I just tossed some beef, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes in the crockpot and let 'er rip. I must admit that the smell is driving me crazy! But I will be content with my crab cakes and rice.

I also worked on my cross stitch, which was very soothing and meditative, and made up (I hope) for all the ranting and raving I did when dh informed me that his father wants to come back to living with us. NO. Plain and simple. I finally told dh, "It's him or me," knowing that dh would know I was at least half joking (and half not!!!). There is simply no way we could maneuver a 95-year-old man, with his fragile bones, down a flight of steps to get to and from his various doctors' appointments. To say nothing of the fact that he won't tell us if something is bothering him -- he won't tell the people at the nursing home, either, but they know what to look for, and we don't -- and oh, yeah, I can just see me maneuvering him into and out of the shower. He certainly can't do it on his own.

So maybe my chief contribution to Making My Home a Haven was putting my foot down about Dear Old Dad. ;-)

Our Four (More or Less) Hours of Fame

Not sure if this is appearing on national news, and I guess I won't find out for another hour or so, but if you have seen http://www.wmur.com/news/14737868/detail.html?treets=man&tml=man_break&ts=T&tmi=man_break_1_12260411302007 -- yes, Rochester, NH, is where we live. I found out about this when attempting to run a couple of errands downtown -- pick up a finished cross stitch, and drop some sheets off at a local laundromat (we don't have a dryer, and it's below freezing outside).

All the local stations have been running this story, and the inaccuracies I've heard -- our fanciest restaurant described as a "bar," a 72-hour drinking bout on the part of the hostage-taker described as a 48-hour drinking bout, his "being Known to police" (as in, "Oh, yeah, this guy has a major criminal record") being the result of having grown up with half the cops on the force -- well, it's been an Education, in terms of just how accurate the media is. But you already knew that, right? ;-) I mean, look what they do to Orthodoxy....

I should add that no one seems to know quite why he picked on Hillary's campaign headquarters, but it seems perfectly clear to me that surely, he is of the opinion that the fewer Hillary supporters there are in the world, the better. Not that I would advocate this particular method of reducing their numbers, but I have been truly astonished by the number of brainless idiots -- I mean, Hillary supporters there are in these here parts. My secret hope is that this will convince the Democratic Party that this woman is way too controversial to be electable, and they will hand the nomination to someone with at least marginal brains. (Naming no names here...) But I'm not too convinced that that will actually occur.

Meanwhile, I sure hope I can get my sheets taken care of tomorrow. Sigh.

Commitment to Loveliness. Or Something Like It, Anyway.

First, thanks to all who commented on my last blog posting, for affirming what I believe to be the correct course of action. Philippa, you are right, I shouldn't read her blog, but at this stage, it's the only way I have of keeping up to date with my grandsons. :-(

Now, on to better stuff. I recently became acquainted with a blog called Charming the Birds from the Trees. The nicest thing about it is that it's another Orthodox lady -- can't know too many of those, there are so few of us! This young lady seems to be committed to a standard of gracious living that I thought was lost forever; good for her! Once a week, she posts a "Commitment to Loveliness," which she describes as:

a fun way to increase femininity and beauty in our lives each week without even trying! All you have to do is choose five things that you would like to work on or do during the week that will increase the loveliness in your life!

I'm all for that! We can't have enough beauty in life! So here are my five:

1. Listen to more good music. We've gotten into a rut lately of watching television, and although we don't watch too many of the network offerings, we do have a rather large library of tapes and DVDs. Time to put them on hold, for this week, at least.

2. Make a point of tidying up the house. With all that goes on around here, it's too easy to give the featherbeds a fluff and say, "I'll make the bed properly later." Or to stash the plethora of catalogues out of sight and say, "I'll get to that later." Not this week.

3. Make an appointment to get my hair and nails done. I started having my nails done a few months back, after literally years of neglect, and ya know? It feels pretty darn good to look civilized.

4. Sing Matins and Vespers regularly. With Jim home so much lately, it's been too easy just to read the prayers, or not to say them at all. But this time of year has some of the loveliest music in all Orthodoxy.

5. See if I can actually go a week without using slang. This will be a tough one. New Yorkers speak better slang than they do English.

Once you have chosen five simple things, post them on your blog and link to this post in your post, and then post the direct link to your Commitment to Loveliness post in the comments section. This looks like it could be fun!

Dilemma

Some time ago, when I mentioned on the OrthWomen's list that I had a daughter, someone responded that she hadn't known I had a daughter. This post may explain why I don't generally talk about her.

This isn't the first time she's trashed her father and me on this blog (which she knows I read), and there was a period of about three years when she didn't want anything at all to do with us. During that period, she initially had my whole family convinced that the problem was me, and the way I was treating her, but over that period of time, people who got to see us together formed a totally different picture, and sadly, my daughter has no credibility in my family anymore. Obviously, with her friends, it's a different story.

My husband is in favor of telling her off, loudly and clearly, and breaking off relations altogether. I just don't know. Part of me wants to say, "OK, enough with the lies." But a larger part of me references the example of St. Nektarios, who lived under the cloud of slander for, what, 30? 40? years of his life? and died under it. Only after his death was he revealed as a saint, and only after his death was the slander exposed for what it was.

What's better -- to endure, and keep praying for her, hoping that she corrects herself? Or to call her on it?

No Chris :-(

Well, at least he made it home for Thanksgiving dinner, but had to return to work today. We had him a scant 24 hours.

But this time last year, he was home for five days, and then we had to put him on a train and ship him back to Philly for another month. It was so hard to see him get on the train, knowing he was going back to a half-life that he absolutely detested. We didn't even know that the job he has now was in the offing.

So at least he's able to be with us somewhat more often this year, which was my big Thanksgiving focus. Face it -- we got spoiled, being able to see him every weekend when he was working days. He's been on nights since September, and expects to continue on nights till January. After that, who knows?

The biggest downside to nights, besides lousing up his circadian rhythm, is that he can't get to church because he doesn't get in till sometime after midnight -- he works from 4:00 p.m. until anywhere between midnight and 4:00 a.m. -- then just crashes till about 10:00 or so. And the nearest church is 25 miles away. I hope he doesn't lose track altogether of his spiritual life; he's been such an inspiration to so many people in his faithful church attendance.

Just grumping aloud. I miss my son. I have to remind myself -- I missed him a whole lot more last year. ;-)

Up to No Good...

...as usual. Yes, I've been Very, Very Quiet of late, and this picture is why.

Now, there's a story here. (Otherwise, why blog about it?) I bought this back in either 1989 or 1990 so I'd have some needlework to occupy myself with in the summer months -- in those days, I was BIG into knitting, and face it, wool just isn't what you want in your hands when it's 90 degrees in the shade with 100% humidity. So, traipsing around the Windsor Button Shop, a wonderful store which has sadly gone out of business -- they couldn't afford the rent at the local mall -- I spotted this and picked it up. Hey, it has sheep, right? What knitter doesn't have a love affair with sheep, if only in theory? So I bought it and started work on it right away.

By 1990 or 1991 -- I rather think I started it in 1989, so progress would have been by 1990 -- I had the words all in, and the line border. Then I set it aside -- time to get back to knitting -- and forgot all about it. In 2001, feeling horribly depressed over a number of things including Empty-Nest Syndrome, I rediscovered cross stitch, picked this back up, and filled in all the sheep and the background. Then I was stumped -- I knew that the floral border would require a good deal of finicky work -- so I set it aside again.

In the meantime, I discovered the wonderful world of internet groups, including a couple of cross-stitch groups, and these taught me hitherto-unknown techniques like the pinhead stitch for starting and ending needlework, the loop method of starting, and "parking" threads so that it's possible to work on really complicated projects with multiple colors of thread without losing one's mind. In October of this year, I had to attend a conference for tax collectors -- what needleworker in her right mind travels without a project?! (On the other hand, who said I was in my right mind....) This was my designated Travel Project (shows how much travel I do), so I flung it into the van and headed up for three incredibly boring days, about which I have already blogged.

But they were just the jump-start I needed to keep going on this project, and this past week, it suddenly dawned on me:

After, what, 18? 19? years -- I could finish this thing.

I got it done last night.

Now to frame it, and then -- on to the next thing, or rather, back to current projects, namely, the Golden Tikhvin Theotokos (see my last post for photo), which is my Lenten project, and a bit more work, as I can fit it in, on Maryland Mountain Express, which is somewhere in the distant archives of this blog. (I just looked -- January 2006)

All I can say is, thank heaven for "parking."

Gold October

On Saturday evening, dh and I watched "The Hunt for Red October" on AMC -- we have it on video, but this was a letterbox version with captions underneath that made little esoteric notes about the movie.

I can't help wondering if this was a complete accident, or if somebody over at AMC was aware that November 7 was coming up, the anniversary of the 1917 revolution (which took place on October 25, according to the Old Calendar, thus the references to "October" when discussing this particular event).

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, November 7 has been a source of considerable tension in Russia. On that day, the dwindling Communist faithful gather to remember their lost glory -- it doesn't seem to have occurred to them that they are enjoying a right they certainly denied to their own opposition! -- and grumble and mutter about how the world is going to the dogs, or something like that.

Anyway, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has replaced November 7 with November 4, the "Day of Russian Unity." The Day of Russian Unity commemorates the day the Russians drove the Poles out of Moscow in 1612, during the Time of Troubles in between Tsar Ivan IV ("the Terrible") and the rise of the Romanov dynasty. My friend Dimitra has blogged about this new holiday, and notes that it is also the feast of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God -- which played a significant role in the driving out of the Poles.

So I shall think of this new holiday as "Gold October," since I almost never think of the Theotokos without thinking of that line from Psalm -- 44, I think it is -- "At Thy right hand stood the Queen, arrayed in a vesture of inwoven gold." The icon above, of the "Golden Tikhvin Theotokos," is what's in my mind.

Dimitra, I should note, is currently living in Russia and teaching English. Can you imagine actually being able to live in an Orthodox country?!?!?!

Oh-My-Goodness

DH is in Boston today for a two-day conference, which means I get more computer access than usual. :D

Got online this morning, ostensibly to write to himself, and the first thing I did, as I always do, was check out my Bloglines subscription. I would never remember to read any blogs if it weren't for Bloglines. Anyway, the very first in my list is daughter Christa's blog (see right-hand column). This morning, she had a photo of "Hamlet," her older son, in his dragon costume -- absolutely adorable -- and a link to a story, which I clicked on for the heck of it, not realizing at first that she was the author.

If you ignore the Language at the beginning, this is incredible...

Of course I know that she is a professional writer, but this is Shirley Jackson stuff. WOW!

Livin' La Vida Loca

I'm not sure what Ricky Martin's definition of la vida loca is, but mine is probably pretty tame by comparison. Still, for me, it was definitely a Walk on the Wild Side -- to wit, a tax collectors' convention in North Conway, NH.

There were lots of workshops that were about half useful and half boring. The worst was the legal presentation on bankruptcy, by a lawyer who droned on and on and on -- at the end of an hour and a half, he was at the end of Page 2 of a 15-page presentation -- I left at that point, and was followed by so many women that I thought a break had been granted (when my own boss came up about 15 minutes later, I learned that there had been no break, they all just decided to follow my "sterling" example!). The second-worst was the one on employee relations, since it focused a great deal on how to discipline unsatisfactory employees, and most of us don't have employees, since we work for small towns and not big cities. Reality check here, folks.

So what was so wild about all this? The food.

I'm serious. The convention was held at a resort in North Conway, and while the accommodations were frankly crummy, the food was unreal. The sandwiches we had for lunch were made from slabs of meat. The dinners were lavish, even if you were "consigned" to eating salmon because it was Wednesday and that was the most "fast food" on the menu. (The filet mignon at the Thursday gala dinner was to die for. Probably literally.)

But the desserts were sinful. Put it this way: The desserts were served buffet style, and you could not only choose your own, but build your own. So if you wanted, for example, strawberry shortcake, you could start with half a biscuit, or two biscuits. You could have half a cup of strawberries, or half a bowl. We won't even go into the subject of whipped cream. There were cheesecake, chocolate "molten" cake (melted in the mouth), tiramisu, bread pudding, cobblers, and the aforementioned strawberry shortcake. All at once. And those are just the desserts I can remember.

Whatever wasn't finished, was simply thrown away. We probably had enough food, over the course of three days, to feed half of Africa for at least a week. I was, frankly, shocked at the volume of food available to maybe 100-150 people who were far from malnourished -- though I should note that we probably worked it off just by getting around this vast resort, which has one elevator that serves three floors of sixty rooms each. And to get to the elevator, you had to walk a quarter of a mile (I clocked it) if your room was at the far end of the corridor. We all did a lot of walking and stair-climbing.

Then there was the drinking. The less said about that, the better.

All of this was paid for by the municipalities that employ us. I don't know what the fees were (registration, room and board, whatever else). I don't want to know. I do know that unless I see a topic that I genuinely need to know something about -- I won't be going again.

Кровь Христой

Or, the Blood of Christ.

Priests must learn in seminary how to channel excess energy. Mine has decided that, since I offered to embroider Church paraments (analogion covers, Communion cloths, etc.), I must be a good person (a) to sew extra Communion cloths, and (b) to wash them. Why do people think that if you like embroidery, you must like sewing? I hate sewing. My mother used to give me all her mending and hemming to do, too, since she hated mending, and, well, since I loved embroidery, I must like sewing, too. Sigh.

So this past week, Father gave me a box of Communion cloths that need washing, and a sack of towels and a sheet that had been used in a Baptism. The sheet and towels, he explained, could go into the washing machine after the Chrism had been rinsed off them, but the Communion cloths would have to be washed by hand.

So I bought a large storage bin (for the sheet and towels), and on the first dry day all week -- today -- I carted the bin outside and poured three buckets of hot water into it, along with some environmental detergent -- since the water has to be dumped out into the ground, and in a place where no one will walk at that, I figured I'd better use environmental detergent. I left that to soak out on the "back" porch, and filled a much smaller basin with hot water, more environmental detergent, and the Communion cloths.

Let me tell you, six gallons of water weigh a lot. I couldn't lift that tub of water after I'd wrung out and removed the sheet and towels. I ended up emptying it the same way I'd filled it, pail by pail, and when the pail would no longer pick up much water, I was able to lift the bin and carry it out to a spot in the back yard that is so overgrown, no one will ever be able to walk on it. It has the added advantage of being a property line shared by a Catholic church. Look out, Catholics. ;->

Then I turned my attention to the Communion cloths, and I quickly discovered something: When you wash Communion cloths, the water turns...

...the color of blood.

The same color it would turn if you rinsed out clothes that had gotten blood on them.

Suddenly it hit me, as it never has before: That is the Blood of Christ that seeps into those cloths, and I was washing it out. What do you do with that knowledge?! The only thing possible, for me anyway, was to whisper the Jesus Prayer over and over, all the while tears pouring down my face. I heartily recommend this experience to anyone who has begun to get comfortable with his faith. It's a real smack upside the head.

(This water also has to go into the ground, where no one will walk on it. That patch of garden is awfully soggy, at the moment, between three straight days of rain and a lot of wash and rinse water.)

Now, my "back" porch is actually on the side of the house, and my house is on a very main street in town. I couldn't help wondering what the neighbors were making of this performance, the tub of water with the laundry ("Doesn't the poor soul have a machine?! What's wrong with the laundromat?!") followed by the trips back and forth into the house with large pails of water, not to mention the repeated trips out to the "back 40." My family and I can provide weeks of entertainment to the entire neighborhood just by having a dead tree removed and replaced by two new trees. I cringe to think what they'll be saying now.

But it was worth it.

My only problem: How am I going to do this kind of thing during the winter, here in the Far Frozen North?!

Maybe the One Whose Blood I was washing, will provide the answer to that one, too.