Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
Wayne Dyer
Category: Music
My ‘practice’ journals and hobby journals are helping my progress. I’m finding myself wanting to play longer and more often on my instruments. Even the violin. I’m still trying to figure out tightening and loosening and rosining the bow.
Now NaNoWriMo. I’m three days behind. I hope to catch up but I am enjoying the story.
I’m going to piano, because you don’t want me to forte around.
Soon shots and fixing. But he seems healthy and adapting
I’ve begun to keep journals next to every activity. Some I do well keeping them up. Like the piano one. I write what I play, work on, and give myself a grade and suggestions for the next time I play it. I think it’s helping.
And I’ve started copying favorite pieces from books I had as a preteen. Now I can tape pages together so no annoying page-turning.
I was happy because I finally got caught up on the book reviews. But nope I finished another last night. Oh, well, I’ll get to it tomorrow or Thursday.
The most discouraging of my music fun is the progress on the violin. I guess I need to find a YouTube tutorial that addresses my screeching bowing. Too much resin? Not enough? Bad fingering? Who knows? I wish I had the money to get lessons on ally instruments.
My other projects are holding their own. Not much progress. I can announce that yesterday I managed my 5 miles in 30 minutes on my stationary bike. Today, though, I just managed 15 minutes. My body is still not up to par.
Peace. I know. Who thinks of COVID as peaceful? But 2020 gave us a moment of peace. Many embraced this time as a time to grow, introspect. Many learned new skills or strengthened their talents. It all fit into my favorite part of the movie, Groundhog’s Day. What if we were given time to get better? Time to embrace our passions? We had that time and many of us were surprised at what we could do.
The thing is, I’d been thinking that way since ‘fibromyalgia’ took over my life. That’s what the doctor labeled the pain I went through. The pain left no energy and was all inclusive of my life. Yet at times it would disappear. That diagnosis was over 15 years ago.
But it was during that COVID year that I needed a tooth removed. The dentist gave me a round of antibiotics before he’d do the extraction.
On extraction day, I accidentally broke my baby toe. So immediately after having the tooth pulled, I went to Urgent Care. My mask was full of blood. I looked like a sated vampire.
That doctor looked me over. Yep, the toe was broken but outside of a crazy boot, there wasn’t much more to do. But with my temp he decided to put me on another round of antibiotics.
A weird thing happened. Even though my toe hurt, I didn’t hurt all over like I would have before that second round. Any hurt used to became body wide. Like every nerve was feeling the same pain as the stubbed toe. But suddenly the ‘fibro’ had disappeared. I don’t think it was ever that. But maybe a low grade infection had been in me for YEARS maybe decades.
So now I wasn’t working. I was living in a fear that the pain would return. But it didn’t. I was free to pursue my passions and curiosities. All languages, knitting, crocheting, loom-knitting, diamond painting, etc. etc. I was given Groundhog’s Day and pain relief.
That’s why I keep track of all my fun. The bits and pieces of my peace.
In lieu of Finishing Friday I offer this stream:
Somehow I managed to keep at least one lesson a day in Duolingo. And I cheated here on the blog with the slightest post of a funny daily here.
Music and diamond painting had to stop until I started having energy again. I think that was about Wednesday.
Piano and ukulele started then but I just picked up the violin yesterday. I just barely played Twinkle and that was enough.
Same with the stationary bike. Wednesday I did 12 minutes or around a mile. By Friday I got up to 15 minutes or 2 and a half miles. So energy is returning slowly.
With health I can regain my passions piece by piece. And that gives me peace.
In the music realm, my violin is moving SO SLOW! I figured out I was over resining the bow. This is where a live teacher would have helped a lot. Getting my lessons via YouTube can be risky. But I can now squeakily play Twinkle, Twinkle (ABCD…), and Mary Had A Little Lamb, and started Jingle Bells. Nothing sounds like music. The positioning of violin and bow are still awkward. The instrument seems to hold tuning well, now that I’ve figured it out.
Ah, but, wrap me in plastic and kill me Dexter! This theme song that I picked up from MusicNotes has been tough!!! It looks easy. But not for me. I don’t usually have to listen to the song to get it. Thank goodness MusicNotes has a track to listen to. Even so, I couldn’t get the way it was written. I have finally memorized the beginning.
But midway, there is another section that sends me to a ‘nice cup of tea.’ Okay, let me explain. No. I can’t. Here:
Again. Short spurts. Still very slow. AND I do ‘air playing’ nearly 24/7 I find myself working on it in my sleep.
Thankfully, Succession Theme is recognizable. It’s fun to play the whole piano! Lots of ledger lines or octave lines to reach out for.
Speaking of
Piano time!
Besides finishing The End of Alzheimer’s (see previous post) these are things I’m working on this week.
Musically, I’m beginning to recognize The Dexter Theme. It has been hard as how it’s written is a little hard to interpret. After I get the basics I may rewrite it to the way I hear it on the show.
Succession, title song from the show. I didn’t much like the show, but I loved the music. I’ve finally played all the way to the end. It’s certainly not ready for anyone’s ears. Still it’s fun as I get to play the whole piano, less than an octave from either end. It’s cool!
Since the smoke causes my throat to hurt a bit I haven’t been playing the recorders, just in case it’s more than smoke irritation.
Enya, my ukulele, is getting easier. The B flat minor has been the toughie. But it sounded fine a couple times this week. I’m beginning to pay faster and smoother and having fun.
Violin! Whoa, what a challenge! I’ve barely gotten beyond tuning and putting resin on the bow. But I can finally say I’ve played Twinkle, Twinkle a few times now. My eyes get tired looking up the strings to my fingers. But I think that is good for my lazy eye and tracking issues. So I’ll take my time and learn.
I rarely report on my Duolingo, but it is such habit for me to pick up my phone and do a Duolingo 5 minutes here or there. In fact, it has joined me as I ride the stationary bike. It works when I’m just riding slowly but I have to put my phone down to get cardio.
Our weather is getting chilly. Though we get smoke from other places we’ve had huge rains lately that seem to help clear the air a bit. As of next Monday we will have a low in the upper 30s. I think we will welcome an early Fall.
I had to get peg drops for my violin ๐ป. 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.
And because I love how that arch feels I’m trying it on the watermelon shorty socks.
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.
So there we are. Making Monday in August.
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