Sadly not many diamonds reached the beach this week. This and my piano on the south side of the house are too hot to sit for long. Succession is coming along. The first page is starting to sound like it has promise.
The scrunchie is done. Yay! Time to start a new one. It’s an easy crochet pattern I found on Etsy.
Empty needles called for more socks so toes are nearly finished.
Huggable Arch is coming along.
Ready to do heel increases.
I had to get peg drops for my violin 🎻. I’m learning basics like tuning and putting rosin on the bow. Finally making notes sound halfway like notes. So much so that I’ve managed the first line of Twinkle, Twinkle.
I’ve nearly memorized Imagine on the uke.
With smoke the recorders aren’t getting attention because deep breaths and scratchy throat make this a bad choice for now.
With smoke and heat the only exercise I get is on the stationary bike.
It is getting cooler. And September seems closer. Let’s pray we all make it. Fires on our coast, floods to the east. I hope we all make it to Fall.
Wow. With summer heat and humidity, not to mention ADHD with non compliant stresses, progress is slow. But my super power is running.
Even the smallest amount of progress will get the job done eventually. It is in the giving up that nothing happens. Except drama. Reliving trauma never brings positive results. Acknowledging the downside, not jumping in and feeling sorry for myself, helps me survive and thrive.
In this case:
Talking too much, distracting thoughts, feelings, actions, and resulting health issues. They all are there. It was worse when I was working in jobs that weren’t healthy for me.
I wish when I’m interrupting I could say I’m sorry. But I believe that sorry implies a will to change. Sadly, in my 74 years that change is detrimental to my health. Every time.
I was Hermione raising my hand with the answer. But being fair, I let others answer first. By the time the teacher called on me my mind had already gone a thousand places and I couldn’t even remember the question. Then someone else would get it right and it was exactly the answer I knew I knew. And I knew what I had to say was unimportant. That my gold star was unimportant.
Yet learning was the reward. Still is. And friends. And family. But ADHD threatens all of it. Unless I do little bits. Many, many little bits.
I’ll never be a concert pianist or win great awards from my efforts of anything. But I have to be happy with my little wins. And keep trying to be a human who does her best to be kind.
Anyway. My little win is my new slipper socks.
I move the stitches as I work the last ribbing row onto separate 9 inch circular needles. That makes the cast-off work so much easier.
Shorty slipper socks with arch hugging ribbing.
Yep. For me.
And because I love how that arch feels I’m trying it on the watermelon shorty socks.
Two rows into the ribbing.
The heat makes yarn too hot. My brain needs something to stimulate it. But often, I find I get sloppy and make a ton of mistakes.
My Duolingo is still going but Chinese is as hard as Hebrew and Navajo. I tend to lose a lot of hearts. But I find a successful language like Italian to play with until I build the hearts up.
My music is even harder to get to because of heat and disruptions. But. I will keep trying to get all my passions back into my daily schedule. I miss having a good routine that pushes me to try.
Across from my piano that didn’t get touched is my sunset beach. But that’s the south side of the house and it gets hot in there. Bring back nice temps!
With the backlight on you can see how far I’ve been able to dot into the suds.
Without the backlight you can see how the colors paint the picture.
Yay! I caught back up to the beginning of the tinking. The rest is progress, I hope.
My daughter shared a recorder YouTube with me. It is fun and may explain my adult experience. I didn’t have a recorder in grade school. I only met the instrument when I was blessed to be part of a Renaissance/Christmas group. We played and sang at mall openings, rest homes/nursing homes, churches and caroling. We even recorded an album in an actual studio in L.A. But at that time I was better at singing; just a baby in recorders.
This YouTube reminds me of my trying out the recorder in the last couple years. I can play all the black belt songs. Yay, me! But I’d love a great teacher for moving forward. Mostly I’ve taught myself through books and a few YouTube tutorials.
Anyway, enjoy.
Oh, my Succession song is finally sounding like there’s promise. Dexter Theme still sucks.
My poor violin needs tightening in the pegs. I’m learning how to do that. No songs yet. Just learning how to hold, tune, put rosin on the bow. And possibly on the wayward peg, apparently.
Meanwhile, I’m loving the Olympics, wishing for a pool like crazy! Oh, well, pretending bike racing instead.
I’m so far from finishing anything. And I am proud to say I’m starting something new.
Next to my Enya Ukulele is what looks big enough to be a guitar. But Enya is small.
Isn’t she pretty?
Way back in my 40s I was gifted a violin that a friend found on a wall. It was a planter. She took it to a violin maker and he was able to make it perfect for a first violin.
My daughter and son wanted to join and soon we had a 1/2 for my daughter and a 3/4 violin for my son.
At the time I was teaching keyboard at a couple elementary schools. I was introduced to the violin teacher in the same schools. She kindly allowed my trio to come to her classes to learn.
I got to learn Twinkle, Twinkle before the program ended. My son didn’t seem to like violin at all (though he grew up to be in a band as a guitarist, so maybe he did like strings?). My daughter was probably too young. She would lay the violin on the floor and saw with the bow. Sadly, hers was the best of the three instruments.
Somehow the violins left our lives. I’ve been wanting to try again but never could find one at a price I could afford.
Then I saw this during Amazon’s last sale. Even $46 seemed too much but my husband said I should go ahead.
The set up per the free YouTube tutorials went okay. Then, tuning. I was sad I couldn’t tune a couple strings. More tutorials. I finally found one about loose pegs. The fix was easy.
The book that came with my Mendini by Cecilio violin instructed new students to spend time holding the fiddle, tuning, and rosening the bow every day. So I know this will be a slower learning experience than the Ukulele. But I am excited to learn my first song!
Well, that is, after I learn the holding, tuning and putting rosen on the bow properly. So I’ll just enjoy how pretty it is and the four notes I can play from the properly tuned new baby.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to memorize Imagine, Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne, and Edelweiss on my Enya. It might take a while.
One ponytail holder finished. The next one nearly finished. Crocheted.
Finally on the heel of these slipper socks.
See the wrap-around yarn? All tinked and ready to try again.
A few more rows until the heel.
Piano scheduling had difficulties this week but I started attacking Succession and Dexter measure by measure.
This pair is nearly ready for a heel. Maybe an inch more of the arch ribbing.
My new recliner diamond painting is ready to set up. This guy is cool! I can hardly wait to get started.
My new project. Ponytail holders. The red band will probably not show once I crochet the lime green around it.
Info about the yarn.
I had made progress of about 4 rows but found an oops. Can you see the blue marker in the top of the sock on the right? Ugh. I felt watermelon would make me feel better these days. Oh, well.
No light shows progress on my sunset beach diamond painting.
With the back light on bright you can see my progress into the water. Me stepping in…
I’m finally getting my piano groove going again. I’m keeping sessions short and as successful as possible.
I finished all but the Dexter movie. Can’t seem to find it. But both series(es) done. I miss the music. Trying to find a good piano copy of the sheet music of the beginning theme and end theme.
My allergies kept me from the recorders. I don’t like playing them with a sore throat or sneezing.
I am finding progress on my Enya Ukulele. Even my B flat seems right every now and then.
The groove still sits empty. No bike, no walk, once with recorders–maybe when I finish writing this. A couple nights with the new Enya Ukulele. No piano. Haven’t straightened or sealed Dock Diamond Painting.
New slipper socks are moving along.
I haven’t touched these. Until this moment.
Same story here. Darn if touching these and writing this isn’t making a spark of desire click in.
So maybe this blog of self-awareness is keeping me honest to myself.
ADHD plays a part here. Flitting from idea to idea gets nothing done. Before I left the obsessive side was helping to get things done. And the arthritis side kept me from getting to the point of being crippled from any one hobby.
The only obsession this week has been finishing my old Sudoku book and reaching
On the other hand, it’s been nice to hang out with my husband this week.
Okay now time for Enya.
I know. Not a Uke but Bitmoji doesn’t have one for me.
Yay! The dock is finished. It still needs to be straightened and sealed. Soon, it will see its new owner.
The socks have 3 inches until heel time. I’m pretty sure they will be finished before I leave. Yay!
My finer yarn socks are waiting patiently for me to finish the slipper socks. They will come with me to keep my hands busy while peopling. Yikes! I love travel, but I have to be brave and meet new people!
Having a timeline for my hobbies is hard for my ADD brain and arthritic fingers. I find having a lot of variety helps me get things done. Too much focus when it hurts, or I’m distracted makes me give up.
An example was sometime this week when I sat to play piano, people distracted me. Even my thoughts distracted me. I couldn’t find my hyper-fun focus. So I quit for the day. Also, my shoulder was hurting, and my neck seemed stiff. Hmmm. Was that there before or after the attempt? So, with the tension of the next few days, I don’t see a lot of playtime at the piano. But while on my trip, I am sure I will have alone time to think about music. As they often tell us about Olypian contestants, sometimes picturing the job can pay off nearly as much as jumping in full-bodied.
Because the next few days are house-cleaning and packing for the trip. I may have very few piano sessions.
I might take my roll-up to run scales daily. I don’t have to have sound on to do that. I’m also taking my practice fingerboards for the ukulele and guitar. I downloaded music to play around with. I won’t be able to hear the instrument, but I will practice moving chords.
I have an old recorder that will be good for pretending to play. The sound isn’t great, but it’ll be okay to keep up fingering work. If I lose it or give it away, no problem. Again, I’ve downloaded music to my phone to play around with. I just don’t want to lose the habit of music.
My other habit I’ve been happy about is the stationary bike and door exercises. I’m assuming that the trip itself will offer walking and moving around. I don’t know how I am going to feel like I’m keeping that up while on a completely different schedule.
Oh, and blogging. I’m going to try. I know I can share a bit on my phone. I’ll try to get the book reviews done before I leave, as they need the laptop. But saying “hi!” daily may be easy. Same with Duo. Five minutes can be done. I probably won’t be able to hit all the languages. I may just stick with Italian, as it is the easiest for me right now.
Okay, back to finished. I did finish a pile of stuff that needed to be tackled. I have so much more to do, but I have to give me a pat on my back.
I just learned that I might get to travel to Washington for a friend’s birthday. Oops! No money what to do for a present? Heck, I have yarn! Slipper socks! But, hopefully, these will be big enough. The sizer/blocker doesn’t go far enough for the recipient’s great understanding. Winging it!
My watermelon socks are coming along.Another pair of no-show sneaker socks are nearing the heel.
Here are all the pieces I’m playing with. Embarrassingly, that Music of Today book, I think I learned in 5th or 6th grade. So many good! But my husband says he heard a lot of improvement. Just when I thought no one was listening. 😥. By the way, at the far left is Succession. I didn’t like the show so much. I watched it for the music. But I’ll have to work up to it.
I’m having a lot of fun with this book.
This is one of the easiest songs. Can’t wait to learn guitar! But first I’m conquering the uke. I’m planning on giving my $11 Memorex to my son when I upgrade to an Enya. By the way, the Memorex regardless of price, holds tune very well and despite my ineptitude still sounds nice.
In this book with my recorders, I’m teaching myself to do harmonies so I can record me playing with myself. Keep it clean! You know what I mean!
For example, see how at the bottom of the page is the alto playing melody. Above is both soprano playing melody and alto playing harmony. I’ve worked through most of the book and can finally do both recorders’ melodies. Now learning the harmony.
Just because I think they’re pretty.
The dock is coming along. Though I’m working on it upside down to make it easier on my arms and back, it’s fun to see the picture right side up.
Ah, but here’s the problem. These “hard” ones in this EASY Sudoku book aren’t fun. I need lots of penciled hints. Even then I have to cheat and look up a few. Do I keep it up and finish regardless of difficulty or move on to another book where it starts very easy. Oh, the dilemma!
My other socks took a sideline as I finished the slippers. So I’ll take pics next week.
The dock is nearly finished. It reminds me of my son-in-love and daughter’s wedding dock At his parents’ home, at a lake. It is so beautiful there.
I feel better about my piano. We have love/hate moments. I do learn a lot with each sit down. I play not practice. I do work on problem areas. I work on my concentration. I see my playing as meditation. Here’s a thought. Check. Don’t dive in. A slight thought given attention can bring about a mistake tornado. Distraction of any kind can throw off the fun.
Take for instance, today I wanted to analyze the few pieces I shared last week. By thinking about key signatures my fingers lost their groove.
I’m much happier about the ukulele now. Being able to sing while playing makes this instrument far more fun than piano or recorders.
See those post-its? I can sing and play 16 songs in this book. No, not for an audience, but for fun. Still, I stumble, but it is fun. Isn’t that what counts?
This is that songbook.
Recorders seem to be helping my breath control. Note recognition between the soprano and the alto instruments is getting better. I still have goals of playing duets with myself. I need to learn how to record like that.
That’s about it for now. Time to get to Duo, and the recorders and uke.
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
Books, games, music, and life — filtered through the mind of a writer, drummer, and philosopher who thinks too deeply about all of it. If it moves something in your chest, I'm interested.
Darswords 
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