WIPocalypse redux - March update

Topic of the month:Show us your favorite places to stitch.
I think i'm actually going to punt on this topic a bit - currently I do most of my stitching sitting on my bed, sometimes while watching TV. And my bedroom is not neat enough to be shown in public. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

And anyway, the updates are the important things - so on to them!


Project: Convent Herbal Garden
Designer: Chatelaine
Fabric: 32ct Lugana - Silkweaver solo
Total hours to date: 183
Progress since last update: 13 hours. I've finished all of the stitching.
Notes: I have only the beading left to do, but that will wait until after Lent/Easter.


(Click for larger image)


Project: Nativity - shepherd panel
Designer: MarBek
Fabric: 32ct Belfast - Countrystitch "Pansy"
Total hours to date: 39
Progress since last update: 10 hours. The angel's gown is done, although she's still headless.
Notes: This is my focus project during Lent/Easter, so next update should hopefully show a lot of progress.


(Click for larger image)


Project: Around the World in 80 Stitches
Designer: Papillon Creations
Fabric: 32ct cream Lugana
Total hours to date: not tracked
Progress since last update: none


Project: Stars for a New Millennium
Designer: Anthony Minieri
Fabric: 18ct pewter mono canvas
Total hours to date: not tracked
Progress since last update: none


Project: Fantasy Triptych
Designer: Teresa Wentzler
Fabric: 32ct Lugana - Silkweaver "Blue Dynasty"
Total hours to date: 28
Progress since last update: none

I did finish a small project that I'd been keeping in my purse - Mill Hill's "Tiny Treasured Diamond - Royal Orchid".

I started this back in...August, I think, and it's been getting just a few stitches here and there. I finished it during gaming last week.

In non-stitching news, my treadmill is finally working again! What a relief. Now to get my rear in gear and try to make healthier eating choices again as well as continue exercising.

Lent started a couple weeks ago, and I've decided to give up online shopping. Amazon 1-Clicks and other minor things like iTunes tend to add up, and I really need to rein them in.

Time passes too swiftly

And all too soon, it's almost Lent again. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow, which means I need to decide, quickly, what to do for Lent.

I think as a family we will give up fast food again, where 'fast food' is defined as anything that can be gotten at a drive-thru. This would still allow pizza, and places like Boston Market and Panera. These latter two are pretty much a necessity on nights we have choir practice, since there is not enough time to go home and prepare meals between getting off work and getting to choir, and it would be unfair to make DD wait until 9pm to eat.

Personally, I will give up the snooze button again - I find myself all too dependent on that again. I have also just started Dante's "Paradise", which probably makes for good Lenten reading. And at 33 cantos, even just a canto a day would give me sufficient time to finish it (and complete another item off my 101List)!

I did briefly consider giving up WoW for a bit, but as a member of a regular raid group I'd be putting some folks out to do that for a whole 6 weeks. I could, perhaps, reduce my time on non-raid nights, though, and maybe even give up one or two days a week altogether. It certainly bears thinking about...

In the administrivia department, I have two unguessed song lyrics from my last (long ago) post. The answers are:
6. Where would you rather be? Anywhere, anywhere but here - Rush, "Double Agent"
7. [song title] don't want to lock me up inside - Evanescence, "Lithium"

Raising the steaks

Last week, I realized that giving up fast food and sugary drinks wasn't really much of a sacrifice for me. So I decided to up the ante a bit and give up red meat for Lent. This has proved a little more of a challenge, partly from a grocery-shopping and meal-planning perspective. (Poultry is fair, um, game, so it's a little easier from a meal-planning perspective than DH and DD's giving up of all meat last year)

In the semiconsciousness preceding sleep, when the mind wanders strange paths, I got to thinking...

Is alligator 'red meat'? It has four legs, but isn't a mammal. (Which of those is the defining characteristic of 'red meat' anyway?) It's not poultry, and it's presumably not seafood.

And what about other things, like rattlesnake, or escargot? Where do they fall in the fish/fowl/flesh spectrum?

I'll give up the 'gator during Lent as well, but I'd welcome any insights on my nocturnal musings...

Into the wilderness...

Punxsutawney Phil may have seen his shadow and predicted a late Spring, but Lent comes early this year. It seems like we just had Christmas, and already Ash Wednesday is tomorrow.

Which means I need to decide, quickly, what to do for Lent!

DH, DD and I have decided as a family to give up fast food this year. It's been a bad habit we've gotten into, mainly due to hectic schedules. And we all need to start eating healthier anyway. For my part, I'm giving up sugary drinks. I need to drink more water anyway, and I need to get back in the habit of drinking my tea unsweetened. (We won't talk about the bad soda habit I've picked up the past few months...) I haven't decided about giving up the snooze button again or not, but I think I'm going to move my alarm clock to my dresser away from my nightstand. I've discovered from setting one-shot alarms on my cell phone that if I have to actually get out of bed to turn the alarm off, I'm much more likely to actually stay up.

For Lenten reading this year, I think I'm going to tackle Dante's _Divine Comedy_. I found a good translation by Anthony Esolen, with plenty of reference and notes in the back of each volume. I started _Inferno_ back in November, and found it quite readable - I only put it aside to finish _Fortunate Traveler_, and it's still simmering on the back burner.

On with the journey....

Ashes to ashes...

Ash Wednesday, and so far my Lent is off to a promising start. I did not hit the snooze button this morning, but got up and did 15 minutes on the exercise bike while going over the daily readings before getting ready for work. Hopefully I can keep this up for the duration of Lent.

I've also got a couple of things to read. I'm partway through the US Catholic Catechism for Adults, which is rather nicely organized, and a friend of mine gave me Father Elijah by Michael D. O'Brien - sort of a Catholic version of the Left Behind series. It sounds interesting, and I've heard good things about it, so hopefully it will live up to the expectation. But I still need to finish Eragon first.

So, dear readers, what (if anything) are you doing for Lent?

148 down, ? to go...

I just realized it's been over a week since I've blogged. Life continues here at Alternate Dementia, busy but not particularly noteworthy.

I haven't stitched since the first week of January, but I have been doing a lot of crochet on DD's First Communion veil.
Click for larger image
The one 'missing' motif in the lower corner is there to remind me which side is 'up' - with a size 8 steel hook and size 30 crochet cotton, it's a little hard to tell by looking at the motifs themselves. I'm up to 148 motifs, and since I don't know a definite size, I'm playing it by ear. Whatever I have done by the end of March will be pretty much it - I still need to make the dress!

In designing news, I have two smalls in the works that I hope to have out by the end of the month. I will go ahead and spill that one is a St. Patrick's Day design....
I haven't forgotten about the Spring bookmark, either - it also is in the works.

In other news, Lent is just over a week away, and I'm still trying to think about what I want to do. I've decided I'm going to give up the snooze button (again) and soft drinks (a recent vice caused partly by a surplus from our Super Bowl party). I still need to decide what I'm going to take up, though. Maybe something I can do with the time gained by not pounding the snooze button!

Not so fast...

So far, my Lent has gotten off to a decent start. I did not hit the snooze button this morning, and DD was well-behaved so I have not yet been challenged in my resolution not to yell at her. Of course, today is not over yet, but it's a good start at least. I even did the daily readings this morning! No ashes yet, though - I'm going to the 7pm Mass tonight.

My struggle right now is with the fast. And the mind is a curious organ - some days I can be busy or such and forget to eat lunch, or go all day without snacking... yet *knowing* I'm fasting makes me very aware that I'm hungry!

I can't wait to get home and have dinner - DsD is making homemade mac&cheese tonight.

The Fast and the Curious....

Lent starts tomorrow, and I have finally settled on what the plan will be.

I had already mentioned giving up the snooze button, and I'm going to go with that idea. DH quipped that once again I was giving up something that would be more of a penance for the rest of the family, so I also decided to give up yelling at my family. Unfortunately I do far too much of that, as evidenced by DD's obvious excitement upon hearing I was giving up yelling. I didn't think I yelled *that* much, but apparently I do. So, that is certainly an appropriate thing to give up. Although if DD has another morning like today, where she was Grand Duchess of Cranky, it'll be a tough challenge! At least I'm not giving up caffeine or sweets - I'll need all the help I can get!

On the flip side, I've also decided to read C.S. Lewis' Complete Signature Classics, which has: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, and The Abolition of Man. I've already read Mere Christianity, which leaves 6 books for 6 weeks, and I've been wanting to read The Screwtape Letters for a while now anyway. And with not hitting the snooze button in the mornings, I'll have time to do the daily readings first thing in the morning instead of late in the evening. I have a subscription to Magnificat, a missalette that has the Mass readings and a meditation, as well as morning and evening prayers, for each day.

So that's where I am. Wish me luck!

On a completely different front, I have a small finish - a square for Laura's memorial quilt.

The pattern is a modification of Sweetheart Tree's "Wild Violets", on a 32ct Jobelan hand-dye. (The fabric was a 9x13 Silkweaver solo, and I'll be using the other half to do the normal "Wild Violets" for myself.) I just need to get the edges serged and get it in the mail.

Decisions decisions...

Only one week to go until Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. And I have yet to decide what I'm going to do, either in giving up something, or developing a new habit.

The past two years, I've given up caffeine. The first year I started a week early because I knew I was a horrible caffeine addict, and I certainly got headaches the first few days. Last year I didn't get the headaches for as long. I thought about doing it again this year, but DH wonders why I bother because I always get re-addicted afterward.

One year I gave up swearing - I stumbled the first couple weeks, but even today my language is a LOT cleaner than it was when I first started. Definitely a good thing!

Some ideas have come and been discarded, like giving up junk food, but I don't eat a lot of junk food anyway, so it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice.

Perhaps giving up caffeine and/or junk food, and developing a new spiritual practice? Maybe. I'll have to think on it.

In the meantime, I'd welcome suggestions.