Well, part of my healing process as well as my writing process, is working on hobbies that I enjoy that I couldn't enjoy as much while in a relationship. Writing alone was a real challenge because we were together during almost all our free time and we both preferred hobbies that kept us interacting, such as video games, watching movies, and playing with the ferrets. So it's exciting for me to announce my latest project: a cross stitch pattern called Geisha Beauty.




Isn't it beautiful? In my house, my mother and I have a lot of Asian items from China, Korea, and Japan. Some of the pieces are rather old, especially two beautiful silk embroidered geishas that my uncle brought back from his post WWII tour in Japan. We plan to frame this project and add it to the wall that they hang on.

Last night, I finished the black thread hair, eyebrows, and eyes; so here is the first completed stage of the project.

And this afternoon, I finished the second stage, the dark grey highlights of the hair; so here is the photo of that.



The best part about working on this is that my fingers and mind is engaged in one project, while my imagination can run free, running over the current stories I'm working on and fleshing out possibilities without the frustration of sitting in front of Word or with a notebook and scratching out or deleting more than I create.

10:30 pm -- Got some more cross stitching done, and several paragraphs written for my GU fanfic that I won't post until it's a finished fic.


This is the beginning of the mouth, the coloring of the flower and hair band and the eyeshadow. The Dark Pink didn't show up very well, so I had to take the pic on the foliage setting.


And finally, this is the last bit I shall work on tonight, the Light Red in the hair band, flower accessory, and fleshing out the lips.

Okay, so it's only about a page and a half for TPP6, but it is something. It's the first bit I've written in over a month. So I'm ecstatic.

In other news, I think I'm finally pulling out of this funk. I've been angry for the past couple of days and after talking to a couple of friends, I have been encouraged to pick my pride back up and walk away. I can't say I don't still hurt and I can't say I don't still love him. But I can say that I deserve better and I don't intend to wallow around wanting him back anymore. As much as I love him and as much as I have forgiven him over the course of 3+ years, I don't think I could trust him again. Maybe someday, when he's grown up a bit, we can be friends. But right now, it's hard to even respect him. And how warped is that, being madly in love with someone I can't respect anymore?

I'm not saying look for a new chapter anytime soon. But I am saying that I'm working my way back. And since TPP 6 was about 2/3 finished when all this garbage happened, it will most likely be the first new posting. It's already already 22 Word pages long, so this one will probably be the longest chapter of the fic. I trust it will be worth the wait when I finally get it out there.