Guilt is a powerful motivator, especially coming from anonymous internet people.

Really, that’s why I’m blogging – it keeps me honest. Those analytics make me feel bad, when they’re bad, and it’s a good kick-start.

Like the embroidery, for example. Here is the finished sampler:

Dang. It’s blurry. Oh, well. Anyway, I am really really pleased with how it turned out. I think it needs to be slightly bigger, to get all the detail in I wanted, but all in all it’s not a bad first attempt. I’m going to test a little with a single-ply thread on this same fabric, and then a triple-ply (the way it comes on the spool) on a thicker fabric. We shall see. It’s not too stiff and didn’t pucker as much as I expected when I removed it from the hoop. I will be adding pearls soon, just so I can see how that looks.

The task portion is once I get all the calibration over with, and move on to the actual skirt fabric. If this is 4 inches across and I have 2 yards of 45″ cotton to embroider, that is, oh, say 80 of these to do, plus a bottom border. I’m going to need a lot of guilt motivation.

The second thing is the Hindi. Luckily the people on LiveMocha are really engaged, so I have been motivated to keep checking back. However, knowing that people are following my progress is also a good  motivator. I will feel guilty if I don’t say anything about the language learning for a while.

Here’s my goal for the Hindi:

By the end of this coming May, I want to be able to find a pen pal and write to them in Hindi. I’d also like to be able to shop in Hindi.

By the end of 2010, I want to be able to watch Bollywood movies with the subtitles turned off. I’d also like to start reading books in Hindi.

In 2010, I’ll hopefully have learned enough that I can start learning Sanskrit, which will be helpful for the SCA.

So far, I can do really simple things, like introduce myself and ask someone if they speak Hindi. I cannot, however, continue the conversation any farther. I do feel that I can get to my goals fairly smoothly. Keep me honest.