Lighting Candles to Pray for Light

My muscle strength has gone to zero because of lying on couch all the time, and I need to fix that. So I’ve started going to low intensity classes at the gym and building up. Quickly:

went to mind body balance tuesday night. felt sore and had bad balance and foot strength, but managed. Felt good after and ate a lot, drank even more water.

felt like hell wednesday morning

less sore thursday. Going to do gentle yoga to see how that goes. 

I’m sorry to have forgotten, but I finished the Spring Garden angel about a week ago! I also just finished part 7 (of 24) of Around the World in 80 Stiches, so I’ll give you pictures of both.

Here’s my angel:

Isn’t she pretty? 2×1 on 18ct lambswool linen, kit threads, fabric and beads.

Secondly, here’s part 7 of Around the World:

There’s Turkish three sided stitch, petite ray stitches, queen stitches, beautiful (and tricky) Maltese crosses, and lefkara lace in the middle from Cyprus. Beautiful and a lot of fun to do, even if I did put it down for several months to work on other things. Now on to part 8 – mostly in Africa 🙂

I’ve been a busy bee with my embroidery the last few days, so here is an updated photo of where I was at with it before I started work today:

I’m almost done! All the important things that aren’t border are there, with the exception of a butterfly in the middle of space in the top left which I’m waiting to have the borders done/semi-done to add so that I don’t miscount. Since the photo I’ve completed a bit over half the floor, and a lot more backstitching, as well as some more of the left hand border. I’ve also ordered the frame for it (since it has beads I can’t just stick it in a photo frame, even though it’s only 6×8″ and that would be easy otherwise) and I’ll do the framing myself when it’s done/frame gets here. My grandmother is currently in hospital recovering from a hip replacement, so I’ve told her that I’ll lend the angel to her when she’s finished to keep her company there. Hospital rooms are very stark otherwise.

In other news, I got sick the other day but appear to have recovered reasonably well. My response to feeling sick was to take to bed and refuse to do anything strenuous and that seemed to work, hooray! My chickens continue to eat anything thrown at them and produce eggs, so I got five yesterday and seven today. Today brought storms and rain and cold, but I spent it largely indoors so that was alright. We lazed around the house for most of the day, ate bacon and eggs and beans for brunch, and then my mum and I went shopping for baby clothes for my cousin’s shower tomorrow…so much fun and so tiny! We got one wonderful set which had jumpsuit, footed tights, short sleeved top, jacket, hat, gloves and bib all to match, in white with pink roses and the occasional mouse, for a really good price, plus a bunch of jumpsuits in yellows and oranges with bunnies and mice, a plain one with faint goldybrown bunnies, and an adorable going-out dress for summer (in a 3-6mth size) in blue with roses complete with matching knickers. I am dead of cuteness. Mum left to do something with Dad, but I stayed on to buy sneakers for the first time since I was 15 and discovered that I still fit into childrens’ sizes, which meant that my brand name sneakers cost half what they would have, bonus! I needed them because I’ve recently joined the gym where my sister and mum go, which does a lot of classes and has the best pool in the state, and I plan to take some pilates and balance classes plus maybe some aqua and stuff to build up my fitness. I came home from overseas much healthier ME/CFS-wise than when I left, which confirms my suspicions (shared by my doctor) that summer/warm weather/sunlight/something? causes me to get better (and quickly! I was hiking by a week or so into American summer!) and winter makes me go downhill, which has been slowly happening although I am glad that spring is just around the corner. This health that I have I want to try to build on and we’re wondering if me being active (carefully) might help a bit, so I’m going to try it. And that means I need the right shoes for classes, which I have now 🙂

I treated myself to a lovely big bag from the surf shop to use as a gym bag as well, which is brown leather on the bottom (and up the sides a little, enormous, and has both two side straps to pick it up by and a long strap for over my shoulder. I put my thick knitted jacket in there, plus a scarf, and the box of shoes, and other stuff, and there was still room, so I’d think I could fit what I need for the gym in there 🙂 I just need a small toiletry bag now so I can take shampoo and stuff. Yay! The cloth that the rest of the bag is made of has an aztec print in red, green, blue, yellow and white, and is really cheerful, and hard to lose in the changeroom or mix up with either my sister’s gym bag (all coloured stripes) or my mum’s (black). After that I was hungry, poked around the shops, bought a boost juice and came home to stitch, eat dinner, stitch a bunch more and then curl up in bed with the electric blanket. It’s very cold here at the moment, so being warm is important, especially since my health seems dependent on it 🙂

Sorry I’ve neglected my blog for so long, but life’s been crazy and then I was overseas. My health has (mostly) been much better this year, especially since I spent six weeks of winter overseas which helped a lot. I’m still stitching, sewing and knitting, and I’ll try to be better at uploading photos as I go. At the moment I’m working on the “Textured Throw” that Spotlight put out as a block of the week (actually two blocks per week) on their facebook page, although it’s now on their actual website as well I think. I’m 19 squares of 25 in, but I need to block a lot of those and do the crochet edging on them still. There’s everything from garter stitch to complex cables and I’m really enjoying it, although I’m slowing down a little as I come to the end of the project. Stitching-wise I’m still working on “Around the world in 80 Stitches” although I’ve stalled on the bottom flower section (part 7?) because that’s where I was working before I went overseas and I picked up another project while overseas to be something easy to work on on busses/planes/cars. That’s Debbie Mumm’s “Spring Garden” Angel Girl (a kit from Mill Hill) which I’m mostly done with, apart from the neverending borders. I’ve not finished all the ‘not border’ bits yet because I’m using them to break up the monotony of several shades of green in the borders. Here’s a photo of where I was up to before I started work this morning:

The green thing in the bottom right is actually a frog, not an octopus…it’ll get there! The bottom section is all checkerboard squares in green and cream and isn’t anywhere near finished yet, but it will be.

And I got three eggs from the chickens today 🙂

I need to create some flexible routines which I can work within, keeping structure in my life while being flexible. With that in mind I thought I’d try and invent a couple and post them here, and see if I can work with them.

Cleaning

Monday: Hang up and put away the clothes washed this weekend and that have accumulated in my room, change pyjamas

Tuesday: Dust all surfaces including my bookcase and bed. Let dust settle, then sweep or vacuum.

Wednesday: Clear accumulated clutter off dresser and drawers (my drawers end up open with stuff in them a lot) plus my bookshelves. 

Thursday: 15 minutes minimum clearing, sorting, trashing accumulated clutter from floor. Change pyjamas if necessary.

Friday: Change sheets, clear end of bed (accumulates clothes and clutter)

Saturday: help with washing, put away any clean clothes that come in that day

average day

8-9am: wake up, take laptop out to kitchen to make a cup of tea and check fb

after that: prayers, get dressed

1/2-1hr intervals: active activity then restful

as soon as I start to feel fatigued, lie down IMMEDIATELY and read a book or play farmville or something

Start making dinner about 4pm, pace this as well, dinner ready for 6-6:30pm. 

Prayers around 9:30, light out by 10:30, do it all again tomorrow.

am Church day

7:30-8am: get up, get dressed, put hair up

8:15: leave for Church

9am (ish): Church, then stay after for coffee, but don’t push it

12ish: drive home, lunch with family, lie down to rest

afternoon: long rest periods with short activity periods in between, then as normal for the evening 

pm Church day

as normal until noon, then long rest periods with short activity periods, and one of those being preparatory prayers

6pm: dress for church, do hair

6:15pm: drive to church

7pm: church, then stay after for dinner

8-9pm: drive home

when home: compline (while still awake!), dress for bed, lie down and prepare to sleep.

(this is not exact, because sometimes I stay later etc, but it would be good to get home in time to get to sleep early-ish)

There will be other days, too, but these can create a structure for most days that don’t involve uni (we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it) and that will help 🙂

It’s been days since I’ve slept properly. I went to sleep last night as the sun was rising. I don’t know what stops me from sleeping. At first it’s adrenaline, and the inability to make my body relax after having to try so hard to function during the day. The fatigue attacks me sometimes and the hit is sudden and it’s so hard to try and work through the exhaustion that makes me want to lie down on the floor or at least the table if I’m sitting down and just exist for a while, since I have no energy to do otherwise. 

I am not at home, and that usually helps, but I have the internet here for the first time ever and that’s not helping – my internet addiction is as bad as it ever has been. I need to find a way to limit that. I won’t be home for a few more weeks, so we will see how things go.

My bed isn’t as comfortable as home, but instead of that, I do have the sound of the waves only a few hundred metres away that seem to crash just outside my window even though it faces the opposite direction. I lie here propped on pillows to type, my laptop on the coverlet over my bent legs which raise it to a working height. I’m in the least energy-using position I can think of while still being able to type.

And somehow tonight I’m melancholy, and I don’t know why. It’s one of those nights where I find myself missing something, longing for something more, and knowing what that is. I just have to…somehow, get a grip on myself, and find a pattern for my life again, as difficult as that is, and as different to a normal person’s pattern of life it might be.

I know, but constantly seem to forget, that my life isn’t normal and probably won’t ever be, and that I should stop judging myself based on a standard that I can’t keep. There are things asked of me by my body that most people do not have to answer, there are things that make my life so different, and I have my own special joys, crosses and sorrows. There are opportunities in this hidden life that are not present to most people, and we invalids are in a position to be something other than the two usual ‘types’ in spiritual literature, those who are Christians in the world, with its cares, and those who are monastics and living their lives apart from the world. I am not a monastic and make no pretensions to being one, but yet I am not part of the world around me as I once was. I have so much time where it is just me, perhaps my computer, and the stillness of my bedroom or, at most, my house. I do leave home…I do go places, but mostly that is with family or friends, I am not independent like i was once.

The hard thing is trying to figure out what this life looks like. We can’t be held to the expectations of those who are not sick – to study and work and be busy, when our daily energy ‘allotted amounts’ are somewhere around 30-40% of a normal person’s, with dire consequences for overstepping those. I’m still paying for Christmas, and I didn’t even do that much that day. At the same time it’s too easy to just give up and not be involved in anything at all. I think I’ve found a happy medium with activities, achieving things, studying, making things, as I am able, living day to day. But that’s one facet of my life… but there is the spiritual life, where I have been trying to find my feet as an invalid who cannot possibly achieve the disciplines I wish for myself, and fall into despair when I predictably fail. I find solace and peace and strength in prayer, but at the same time prayer is more of a struggle for me in some ways than it was when I was less sick – disciplining yourself to a prayer rule is difficult enough normally, but when you have had several episodes where you’ve literally had to sit down or you would faint in an evening…it’s hard to ask yourself to concentrate enough to say your prayers, especially when they’re as long as ours are. This blog piece is being written in fragments and snatches that my brain somehow is managing to produce, at a crazy hour of the morning, through eyes that struggle to focus and only manage to do so by limiting my attempts to see the screen to simply the word I am typing at any minute, and hoping that the words i have typed will make sense.

God will help me and I will find my feet. I have faith in this. But it’s a strange path to walk, without my usual favoured friends along the journey of books and examples of those who have done these things before. There are many invalids and people for whom illness or injury is a cross in the hagiography, and these stories give me hope, but very little practical advice for what day to day spirituality looks like when your body simply wants you to stay in bed all day and it isn’t laziness but actual bodily need…and it’s sheer force of will that allows you to rise and dress and do things with your day at all.

I will get there. God is with me, and I have friends who help as they can, and although the road is unfamiliar I trust that I will be guarded along the way and, if I remain on the path shown to me, that I will reach the destination I have always desired. 

I made Sewaholic’s Cambie, and I gave a teaser photo in my last post, but only just realised tonight that I didn’t post pictures once I got proper not-webcam ones. So, here we are! My Cambie is cut at a straight size 8, which I then took in at the back as needed. Next time I’ll do the alterations as bust darts to the waist, but it looks alright so I’m not complaining. The fabric is a very light dotted swiss cotton voile, with a gorgeous pink and purple flower pattern (click the photos for big shots you can zoom in on) and a polycotton lining because I needed something with plenty of body to give the soft, light voile some structure.I’ve got a belt on, because for photos I wanted a bit more definition, and it dresses it up, but it looks fine without, too. And it’s SO COMFORTABLE! I’m working on a second, A-line version (as soon as I can do the necessary alterations to the skirt, as I am not a pear shape) which I expect I will love equally.

So, photos!

Cambie dress #1

from the side

And from the back!

The skirt is fuller at the back, which makes it very comfortable and practical, and I can bend over to do things without having to bend my knees since the skirt’s fullness just sweeps around and I don’t show anything I don’t want to. Hooray! The day these photos were taken was 38*C, and humid, and even then I was very comfortable in this dress which I couldn’t believe given it was a dress with sleeves and more than one layer. Amazing.

I love this dress and am happily making my second, since the bodice muslin fit and is wearable, so all it needs is a skirt – which will be the A-line version, when I finish altering the pattern. Watch this space – although not too hard, because I’m currently in the middle of an Alma blouse (also by Sewaholic) with strawberries all over it. Because…summer!

Hi all,

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged. Life’s been…interesting. I really haven’t been doing much of all for the last few months, only in snatches in between days of bed rest, or a few hours on a day spent mostly in bed. Such is the life of someone with ME!

On the upside, what I have achieved is quite cool, and I have photos. And I’ve been stitching!

I’ve also ordered a millennium frame and a spare set of horizontal bars to play with, so when they get here I’ll put my Greek mandala on there, and perhaps my current project, Papillion Creation’s “Around the World in 80 Stitches” SAL which I am loving, I’m 4 parts into it and about to start part 5 (they’re on pt 8, but that’s okay!).

So here’s where I’m up to with that:

(click for detail, it’s a high resolution photo, but it’s too big for my layout!)

It’s on a minty green 32ct linen I got from my LNS, with all DMC stranded floss except the white which is two sizes of perle cotton, and PTB 01 to add sparkly rainbowy interest. The next part goes anticlockwise from the leaf shape and is a weird ‘filling’ shape between other more recognisable shapes, and full of firework looking stitches from the Balkans. I’ve seen it stitched up and it’s one of my favourite parts. Part 4 was lovely, Hungarian and Romanian stitches. I loved the Romanian leaf stitch in the leaf shape, it’s easy to do and really pretty. Much preferable to satin stitched leaves I think, I’ll have to remember it.

I’ve also been sewing a bit. I like dressmaking, it’s something that’s low energy to do (cutting aside) and good to do in instalments, and I can make a dress much faster than finishing an embroidery project! It’s a lot of fun, too. So, first I made aprons for my friend Rachel and her little girl Ember for their birthdays – it’s the same apron, but the pattern has a criss-cross back made from the straps on the kids version rather than the straight ones on the adult’s pattern. Ember got cherries, Rachel owls. Photos!

Me & Ember:

And from the back, showing the apron goes around the back of the hips, and the criss-cross:

And Rachel in hers:

This was fabric that just screamed Rachel, who mostly wears black with bits of red. And the owls are adorable and grown-up-cute. I got more of the fabric for an apron for myself, and it’s cut, but it’s put away until I was over my being sick of aprons (making three in a row is a bit much). I should get to making it soon 🙂

Then I tried a Colette patterns design called Jasmine and fell head over heels in love with her patterns…here’s my first Jasmine – I have more fabric for a dressier version with a big soft bow and puffed sleeves:

This one’s all quilting cotton, bought from my local haberdashery store when they had a massive sale due to changing owners. I love it, and it’s lovely and stiff away from my body for hot days. It is SO comfortable. I need to make a pair of comfy cotton pants in similar weight fabric.

And then I did the ‘dress’ part of dressmaking. I made the Darling Ranges dress by Megan Nielson. I…do not like this pattern. I made it in the size it said for me, and it’s so small in the bust I cannot find anyone it fits. Perhaps a 16 year old? Not me, and not my sister, and not our friends! Disappointing. Undaunted, I cut the next size up in more fabric, and made this:

I had to go for all three photos to show off the fabric! This is a gorgeous cotton voile that I picked up from spotlight – it’s very thin and somewhat translucent, but lovely for very hot weather. I had it on yesterday with a tank top underneath and belt over the top (like in the photos) on a 39*C day and it was very nice. I had to cut every single piece by hand (no folding the fabric and cutting two!) because the print wasn’t symmetrical across the fabric, very directional, and had different designs in different places. In some ways that was a good thing, because it led to some beautiful effects when it was sewn up, like the meeting of the two patterns on the back at the waist. It’s actually the same design in two different directions, you can see it the other way up if you look at the skirt. And the sleeves have that gorgeous big flower at the shoulders, I knew I had to fussy cut for that as soon as I saw the fabric! And because I’m me, I sewed the (clear, 5/8 inch) buttons on with three colours of embroidery floss, alternating colours, using the colours from the design – pink, purple and dark green.

I love the dress. But I do not love the pattern. I rarely swear, and I swore my whole way through both versions of this dress. Some people have said that it’s not good in smaller sizes and maybe that’s it, but I had so many issues… anyway, it’s done and I won’t be making it again. The biggest issue is the front, which is far too low to be decent – you can see my bra, and that’s just…no. Tank tops it is, thankfully I picked a fabric which looks good with a nice bright tank underneath. I thought about the puffed sleeves, and have nothing against them, but decided that my fabric was busy enough that I didn’t need the extra embellishment and left straight 3/4 length sleeves with a seam width hem on them. They fall to just past my elbows and look great, and are comfortable and practical given that my medication makes me very sensitive to the sun. I wore it to Ember’s first birthday party a few weeks ago in a park, and between it and a  square of muslin over my legs (and a hat!) I didn’t get burned at all.

For all my complaints, though, it’s very comfortable to wear, I get compliments every time I wear it and it’s so awesome to be able to grin and say “thankyou, I made it myself!”

The last thing I’ve sewn is my Cambie dress. Oh Cambie, I had to have you as soon as I saw you. Cambie has two options in the skirt, both teamed with the gorgeous bodice, which is essentially a strapless dress front with a high back (to the top of the shoulders) which becomes cap sleeves/straps down the front. So you can wear normal underthings, hurrah, because if it’s summer I do not want to be messing around with strapless anything, too hot for that. It’s also adorable. The two skirts are either a very full skirt or an a-line one. My first Cambie is a full skirted one, but I made it a straight size 8 (despite being an hourglass rather than the pear it’s sized for) and the skirt is probably a bit full for me, so next time I’ll cut a size 0 (!!) and grade it to the waist. I only have bad photos of this one, so I’ll just give you one teaser webcam photo of it, and then when I’ve hemmed it (yeah, it needs hemming, I haven’t had a chance to sew since I finished everything else) I’ll get good photos out in the beautiful spring garden.

The fabric’s a swiss dot voile covered in tiny pink and purple flowers, lined with a very stiff poly cotton (which I won’t use for lining the skirt again unless I want it to stick out a mile!) and it’s adorable. I haven’t had a dress this feminine and just plain girly sweet in a long time, and for me that’s saying something since that’s my usual taste in dresses!

Sorry I’ve been away so long, but I hope I’ve made up for it in photos.

I had 3 days of 9/10 pain (on MY pain scale, where 1 is a normal person’s 5!) from Friday to Sunday, with very little sleep, then a better day yesterday where I woke with no pain but the pain got worse as the day went on (especially when my doctor checked my fibromyalgia trigger points, although at least we figured out which one was giving me the issues that day, hooray). Today is somewhere in between – I’m in pain, but it’s feeling a bit distant and removed from me, and mostly I’m just exhausted, which often happens during pain storms like this. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Today I have achieved: 

• I woke up
• I ate the second half of the tub of icecream that I got yesterday – chocolate with salted caramel
• I organised to meet a friend for lunch next week
• I played a lot of farmville
• I cuddled my cat
• I stayed in bed mostly, except for a couple brief walks out the back into my garden

Today/Tomorrow I must: 
Today:

• eat dinner
• change my pyjamas
• take meds
• try to sleep before 1am this time

Tomorrow:

• wake up
• eat
• live

Tomorrow I’d like to:

• get up
• get dressed
• do something with my day

On the To-Do Sometime List:

• clear things that don’t belong on passage side bookshelf
• deal with the pile of exploded stuff from other bookshelf
• go through ‘from dresser’ box
• clear clothes rack
• clear giant pile of clothes
• get rid of the boxes of magazines I haven’t and won’t read again
• put ‘deep winter’ clothes away/send them to get cleaned
• organise wardrobe into warm/cool
• cut & sew darling ranges dress #2

A quote for today:

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of Grace
Is where my song begins
In the colors of Your goodness
In the scars that mark your skin
In the currency of Grace
Is where my song begins

– Switchfoot (The Economy of Mercy)

Stitching/Craft: 
I made Darling Ranges dress #1, but it doesn’t fit me OR my sister, despite being the right size according to the pattern. Bah. Making #2 the next size up. Thankfully it’s cheap fabric 🙂

A hymn/prayer for today:

With great joy the Church of Christ today rejoiceth on the festive memory of blest Longinus, the all-famed and godly prizewinner. And she doth cry out: O Christ, my foundation and might art Thou.

– For St Longinus the Centurion (the one at the foot of the Cross who said “Surely this was the Son of God”)

Food today: 
half a tub of ice-cream. Water. No appetite or energy to eat more than that.

What I’m reading today:
A Wind in the Door – Madeleine L’Engle.

In my garden:
Things are growing 🙂 I bought a red raspberry plant yesterday, which will go in a box as soon as I can put it there. My broccoli is starting to flower so I need to cook it up quickly