Here’s that holey bendy bits and the rings bits. How do they fits?
Bendies at the top and bottom of the three chains. Ringies hook the top of the chains to the heart and another hooks the big gem at the bottom. Squeeze the hole parts onto the chain with pliers. Make sure they are on tight or you will be flustered and floundering and possibly throwing all the bits. Two suncatchers more to go. Enough frustration for this day!
Progress, mostly halfway finished
Real flounders entice sea turtles down to floor. The flounders are having a feast!
Another pair of slipper socks. I’m incorporating that nice stretchy arch I learned with the no-show socks.
I’m getting a little better with chording on the ukulele. I almost don’t have to look when changing from C to F to G7 and back to C all the while singing. Almost time for a new lesson. It’s supposed to be a 30 day course, but my soft, achy fingers needed more time. I’m still learning day 9 a couple weeks later.
The recorder comes and goes. Teaching myself and my fingers soprano, alto, and tenor. I can finally reach all notes on soprano and alto, though not consistently. I can barely get the top three holes of the tenor.
And. AND I CLEANED THE PIANO WELL SO IT WELCOMES ME! Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually play!!!!
A quick note. Door push-ups, floor to ceiling stretches, then more than 30 minutes or more than 5 miles on the stationary bike. All still happening. So some things are growing into habits. Others are still work. But a lot of flounder still happens. Ah, well, it’s February!
Oh, my goodness! This book was fun from the very beginning. My eyes have difficulties tracking to read; even since cataract surgery fixed a lot of my issues, tracking remains nearly impossible. I have been an avid reader since I was little. Reading was slow going, but I got through the ten books allotted by the library every three weeks. The heft of the books was unwieldy, but I didn’t ask for help.
So, I began reading this book on my old phone using the Kindle app. It took me quite a while to get through even half the book. Finally, I caught up with the Libby audiobooks I had checked out, and Piglet became my bedtime book. Now, I could use text-to-speech and speed up the reading quite a bit. And give my eyes a rest.
Another reason I got into this book is my own dog, Kali, passed last spring after being nearly blind and having doggy dementia and bad hearing. It was so hard at the end of her life, but we had such a hard time from the beginning trying to learn from each other that the bond for her was strong in the end. I miss her so much and feel the need to help another dog as soon as I can. Meanwhile, Piglet helped me. Now I feel even stronger about getting another dog. I know there is one out there that needs me as much as I need him or her.
I think this book has a couple of other inspirational stories within. Melissa Shapiro is a veterinarian who tells her story of how she and her husband got together. Then, she shares her children’s aspirations with music. She tells of their college experiences.
By the way, one of her daughters and her husband have honest and raving reviews on the Piglet GoodReads page. I was delighted to read these as I felt I knew them from the book.
This book is full of the good feels a person needs these days. I look forward to looking all over the internet to find videos and follow the dogs, Melissa, and her family, and all the good they are doing for disabled people and animals.
When I feel I am floundering, I need to remember the floundering Ms. Shapiro and her husband went through with that one-pound blind, deaf puppy screaming his needs to them. Floundering is how one finds one’s balance. That is what February gives me. Meanwhile, today my turtles got a little more colorful.
This has to win the Black History Month finest read. Joy-Ann Reid has written and narrated one of the best books I have read in a long time. Especially since I don’t much like nonfiction, there was history and personal story involved. I cared from the beginning for all the characters involved. And Ms. Reid became one of them as she was a personal witness by getting to know Myrlie Evers personally. So, her research was not only factual but personal. That is a true history book!
It wasn’t just a bunch of facts and men, as most history books seem to be. Nor was it only fighting and war and the heroes. However, that was included as only a part of history.
I could not stop listening/reading, so I went over my 3 AM sleep time as I didn’t want to stop listening. Joy-Ann is fun to listen to, and I always feel the wiser when I heed her voice.
I highly recommend this book. I was lucky to find it on Libby as an audiobook.
This was a hard day. So tired I barely got anything done. But a tiny bit of progress happened. After a bit of floundering and getting nothing else done, I took a nap.
A pair of short slipper socks. They need more ankle then ribbing. I am incorporating the arch of the foot ribbing from the no-show sock pattern. I like how it feels on my foot so I hope the recipient will like it, too.
I mentioned the tray set I use for pictures with confetti of colors. I put a little label in each one if I feel I might get mixed up.
This little tool is great for straightening the diamonds as I go.
When there are large amounts of color I have these larger trays with lids making shaking the drills a bit neater. And you can save for later that way.
See the top line? That’s what I got done today. Reaching up that long did hurt after a bit. So that’s all I could finish.
I’m having trouble with the sun catchers. I’m not sure how to make the strings of sparkles to chain on them. I’m too tired to work with it this evening. I’m watching YouTubes to see if others know how to do the jewelry parts.
How is it already Sunday, almost Monday? The weekends seem to affect me now as much as they did when I was working. Back then, the time that was my own was filled with all the things to get ready for the work week and take care of the house. Now it’s just a rhythm change. Chris and I watch sci-fi, fantasy, or disaster movies. Just kind of like our date time. Today we watched Daybreak on, um, I think it was Hulu. It was pretty good to be so old.
Before we found a good show to settle on, we were watching vet shows and Sunday Morning and UU, where they celebrated Mardi Gras.
I got a bit more of the Sea Turtle done. (Just the back leg and tail).
The backlighting seems to show all the wavering lines. Guess I need to hit it with the straight edge to straighten it out. What’s funny is that that little tail bit took longer than the sea parts. I think I am not used to the confetti coloring and need to get more efficient with my trays. I’ll share that later. I think this is going to be pretty when finished with all the colors.
Time to do the recorder. Then scales on the keyboard. I do think all this floundering is making progress. But it is slow, for sure. By the way, I took a few moments while the computer wi-fi loaded that sea turtle picture, to practice chord changes and You Are My Sunshine on the uke.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “heavy/light/dark.” Use “light” and/or its opposites. Bonus points if you use all three. Enjoy!
It’s a good thing this prompt came up today. After floundering about the last step of diamond painting, I decided it was time.
You are supposed to apply the sealant, in this case, Mod Podge, in a light coat.
I did that yesterday. It turned out nice. But I got in a hurry today and put it on too heavy. Do you see the clunks of white and the clear cellophane stuff on the edges? Okay, they are sitting on little cellophane packets. But, there are little bits I’ll have to peel off tomorrow before putting on the chains.
This is the first side up and the sealant pooled underneath. So I’ll let it dry and hopefully it will be alright.
Darkness falls over me while I flounder. Impatient attitudes and crankiness show up. If I know what I’m doing and my day is mapped out I’m fine but trying to get myself sorted out and things don’t appear to be hopeful well, see what happens?
Yeah, it’s not pretty.
Yet at the end of this day I’m seeing progress and the sealant is drying nicely, even with my heavy application.
I finished these ages ago but never did the sealing or chaining them to the hooks and beads. So tonight I sealed side one. I think by Sunday I’ll have them ready to hang up.
I was able to last longer this time finishing the strip on the left side. This has a lot of color in it. Even the water is varied in its blues and greens.
I finally have a I, IV, and a V. Okay, I needed to do a quick note to myself as to how to do the G7 (V). But as I sing as I strum, I’m teaching myself to work with chords instead of each individual note (how I was taught all my life).Here is the next batch of chords I’m working on. Yes, I cheated by adding my own I and IV chords.On the recorder I’m playing with the G major scale and arpeggio, and that minuet. On piano both are easy but trying to be smooth with breath and fingers is the challenge.This song has memories. I was learning it in voice class when my grandmother was dying. I hadn’t memorized the lyrics but by her hospital bed as she was nearing the end, my cousin asked me to sing a song. Here I floundered, all I could hear was The Ash Grove. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know the words. It’s quite beautiful and fitting for the situation. So I sang nothing. I did get to sing In The Garden at her funeral. My work on this is to get smooth enough to record them to sing to.I can play all the melody songs on my soprano recorder. But now I want to learn the harmonies and all the alto recorder parts. Again I hope to record and do duets with myself.I found this pair of socks I’d started and somehow forgot. So I’m farther along in my family gift than I thought.I’ve made a little progress here probably 3 more inches then start the heel.One more inch and the arch gets made. I’m really enjoying these sneaker no-show socks. I nearly have the pattern memorized.
Since this is Black History Month, I decided if the Libby app could get this book to me, I would read it. Well, listen to it. They had the audiobook. Clay Cane did his narration.
As important as the information in this book is, I found it like any history book. It was all facts, names, and dates. I felt it could use more story and more emotion for the reader to relate to. The author/narrator was hyped and sounded like an evangelistic preacher. So before long, it was just noise.
Maybe it would be better to read the paper copy or the Kindle version. I felt I needed charts and timelines, and I needed to take notes. That’s hard to do at 2 in the morning when I am trying to go to sleep. I may have to read this again with the summaries I see on Mr. Cane’s Amazon and Goodreads pages. All that I have said about it was my own reaction to how it went into my brain so late at night. I think others who hold onto facts better than I do will love this and find new insights into our system of government.
So don’t take my word for it. Try it. You might like it and learn something you didn’t know before.
The Floundering part of this review is knowing it is a good and important book. But my lack of sleep or ability to concentrate ruined the book for me. And the entire day following. I got nothing done but weird naps and 40 minutes at the diamond painting only amounted to:
Just the little green drills got done in the 40 minutes before my body decided it was enough.
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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