A Reprise

I am starting to feel restless and despondent. I don't know what I am thinking, taking on this enormous cross-stitch project. I know that the end result will be breathtaking, but it doesn't seem even humanly possible to complete. This weekend is the Irish festival. How many of these have we attended now? Our first one was my first year at Bethyl. That was 2003. So this will be our fourth. Time goes so quickly: it's startling. Today was the first bright day in days, and I would not have changed anything I did. I don't think I will take another photography outing until the trees have starting turning a little green. Everything basically looks as it did in January. I submitted my haikus to the Ito En contest. Wouldn't that be something if one ends up on a bottle? Moreover, if my picture of Ophelia ends up in Doll Reader? This may be a year of fame. At least I am putting many things out there for consideration.

Daffodils Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . I began my daffodil project this weekend. If I can complete one design a day, it won't take too long to finish.

I am so excited! My order with Shoe Mall is shipping already. It's been two days since I placed it. Mail-order shopping has come along so far since I was growing up. I used to wait six to eight weeks for a package. Now things from as far away as Korea can take a week to come to me.

The mirror crack'd Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . The Lady is my desktop background.

Don't think that because I haven't written that I have been busy or anything like that. No, I have come up with a couple more hobbies, through trial and error. First I wanted to take up my embroidery again, but I didn't like the way it was turning out. I still don't feel certain if I want to continue, but for now I'm enamored of cross-stitching. I love the precision and lack of limitation in my designs. There are so many adorable cross stitch patterns. I can't even take them all in. The only disadvantage is using Aida cloth all the time, but at least it comes in different colors. I have a daffodil project planned for my (very short) weekend. I have also been following through with Internet purchases I thought on for a while. My most-anticipated is all the cute shoes I ordered from Shoemall.com. My mood was bleak a day or so ago, but I am getting better. This gray weather makes it very, very hard to feel excited about much of anything. There is a couple sitting a

I have been silent for a while because I have been thinking, and now I wish to talk again. Time is still a frightening thing from which I cannot break free. In looking over my housekeeping journal I am alarmed by how quickly time passes, and how little I note it. I have only to turn two pages back and I see what I wrote two months ago, and I cannot believe I have only been to the store a few times since then. How irregular my life seems! I began this journal for practical reasons to keep up with chores once I started working, but it has helped define my understanding of what home means to me. I feel I want to serve my home, and I feel a sense of loyalty in keeping it orderly, and great despair when I have failed to do so. I also feel despair when I have unnecessary things, buy something that doesn't fit in well and becomes junk, or fail to decorate attractively. This journal encompasses all of these things. I especially use it to agonize over purchases and where I will store them.

There is one consolation in that it is raining, and cold, and miserable today. Even yet I would rather be by my window learning Dreamweaver or editing photos or stories. I yearn dissolutely for my fantasies, yet I am in no position to present myself to them: I have little concentration or energy at my disposal right now.

I am so proud of myself. I have paid attention to my lecture almost all morning.

Morning: I look out over a flat, luminous Fort Worth near the Trinity River. My class is about to begin. This isn't so bad, but it's hard to imagine being here for seven more hours.

I am trying unsuccessfully to sleep. I thought it would be this way. Here begins my first week working during the day: of course only for this week. I have had such a wonderful weekend. Today I had a sushi roll made just for me: rice, white tuna, cream cheese, wrapped in soy paper and drizzled with chili sauce, aioli and wasabi cream. Yesterday we went to the Crow Asian art museum in Dallas, a sculpture garden, and a pricey restaurant called Dragonfly. I wish the weekend didn't have to end, but I had a wonderful time, took some pictures, and I have this great British Dreamweaver magazine I read tonight. It gave me some great ideas for my photography/writing site.

This morning I rejoice. This morning I have realized how some of my writing is bad. I do not know quite how to make it right, but this is a start. There has never been a time when I have realized the badness of my writing that I have not been able to fix the problem, so I am not afraid. I hope that I will have many more revelations like this, so that one day I can become a good writer.

Pretty tea shop Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . Night time at Summer Party tea shop in Irving, Texas.