Tag Archive: ukulele


Finishing Friday


Here is where I keep myself accountable to me for progress on projects of my passions. But yesterday I got behind and then ahead on this episode.

Sometimes I feel I make other people feel inferior through my checklist. Please don’t. I feel inferior to everyone else in that I’m sure they’re getting other stuff done that they don’t even need to report because they are so good at getting their adulting jobs done that I feel guilty not getting done or just overlook, like dishes and shampooing. The same 24 hours is all we get and we make choices of what we can do. What we need to do. And what we can’t wait to do, leaving other necessities hanging with futile hopes.

And since this blog is attached to ‘Warts and All’ I’ll start with what hasn’t gotten done. My husband asked me today why I haven’t been playing the uke, recorder, or violin. Well, I thank Mrs. Skinner for this sidetrack path straightener.

When I got sick of practicing piano and ready to quit lessons, she came up with this  bait and switch. Forced practice came from Mom. But I adore my teacher. She sent me home with her ukulele. It helped so much in bringing me back to the piano.

So in hopes of keeping my music alive I tried the recorders and strings. And sure enough it worked.

When my dad was in the rest home over a decade ago, the lady in the room next to his played her piano all the time. I decided I wanted to grow up to be her, or Huge Lauri of House fame. He would sit down and just play, no sheet music just music.

I’ve been stuck with eye music since I was 5 years old. My goal this time is to learn to improvise and play. Still, there is so much to learn to get to that stage of free-playing. The other instruments help with learning chords and meandering melodies. And a change of positions. So I need to get back to them sometimes.

Shiloh sleeps waiting for me.
Shiloh makes it hard to skip piano. So I’ll need to plug in other musical play elsewhere in my day.
Scrap socks 1 Milo refuses to look.
Scrap socks 2
Watermelon socks
Blue boho socks. Not much progress for research booklets.

Duo still rides my stationary bike managing a few lessons for the half-hour 4-5 miles on #3 grade. So… There’s that.


YAY! My brother likes his socks!

He likes the arch ribbing like I do.

Just for review: these were Turkish cast-on. Chiaogoo needles Two at a Time socks. Then arch ribbing. Fleegle Heel, my favorite.

I thought I was finished at a 2″ cuff, but my brother needed a longer one for his boots. Otherwise, I would have been finished on his birthday.

Towards the end I had to rely on Advil and Aspercreme. But now my hands can rest a bit.

I found a bunch of unfinished WIPs. Here are a couple calling me:

Maybe I make me watermelon socks?
Or, should I make another pair from these?
Now I can finish the larger size basket weave hat.

I’m nearly finished with Smiling Turtle!

Just got the top little bit. I like this so much it may go on my bathroom wall. I think the blues will blend or compliment the vague color palette. Besides, that smile will make me happy.

I think next week I’ll record my favorite songs. I’m loving Going Home, God Bless The Child, Just the Way You Are, and a few more. With my new enthusiasm for improv or composition I now have a keyboard within reach of my every perch. (Recliner, bed, Dabbling Den)

I didn’t get ‘Dar’s Dabbling Den’ rearranged yet. I want to make more room for my Yamaha keyboard near my piano. Maybe this weekend?

I’d like to make it easier to switch gears, bring in violin, ukulele, recorders, art challenges, podcast or book narrations.

Since COVID months ago, I’ve not been able to get faster than 5 miles in 35. But I’m still trying. And now that spring may have arrived I need to find walking time. Still a work in progress!

Oh, and I am three book reviews behind.

Duolingo still plugs along. I seem more focused on Italian. It’s easier.  I still visit the other languages when the spirit moves me.😉


I found a 4 pager that is fun to pianoize. I know I could play it easily when I was a young teen. See the star stickers? Yeah, I thought I was too old for cutesy stickers. Yet, my prof in college often gave us adult students stickers or happy faces. Oh, the old, boring age of adolescents! I should probably do a vlog ‘concert’ to see if I’ve improved since my last ‘warts and all’ vlog
This piece of fun for my recorder, uke, and violin. The challenge for my piano is to teach myself to improvise more. And the vocal range is easy.

I’m enjoying my music.

And there are times I feel my inner child do this:

So close to being done. Hopefully in time…
Almost to the heel. Hopefully, these will be way too big for me and fit one of the males in my life.
This shows the freezing fog of the past week is cleared. See that beautiful blue sky. It’s not gotten too much above 32 this week. Pretty. But the weather changing is still causing arthritic pains for we old folks.

Sadly, my NaNoWriMo stalled. Holding the laptop hurts, my eyes couldn’t focus, yeah, the changing barometric pressure affects a lot for me. So I changed goals from 50k, to 25k, and finally to 10k. Today I have 9,642, so I think I’ll meet that goal tomorrow.

Shadow Foxing is the title. Not about the furry animals, by the way. Character types.

So nothing is near finished–except the dragon. But happy progress is happening.

Back to work.

Nothing is finished. The weather has made my favorite things uncomfortable if not downright pain. But progress goes slow. One second spent on projects you feel passionate about is still progress! So here are some things still moving forward.

So little left to do.
Another pair of slippers on the comfy arch.
Trying to make stress balls. But I think I need to frog and start over.
A uke Kindle book I’m playing with.
My family thinks I’m overdoing it. I need a place to put the taped together pieces. Maybe a scroll library? I don’t want to fold or roll these as they become even more cumbersome. Ideas?
Recorder fun
More Christmas fun for the recorders.
Christmas for the violin. Bow tightening and rosin amounts still in flux.

And prayers for the safety of my adult kids driving over the river and through the woods, or some such. Weather will be rain/snow, etc. I’m worried but can’t wait to see everyone!

Thus Thursday


I have no idea what to write about and really I’d prefer playing around with uke, vi, and toot. I’ve discovered Christmas carols for all my instruments. Piano is the most fun right now. But the others are fun and challenging. I try to keep them all fun so I don’t give up.

Poor, Sammie. His favorite spider toy got stepped on and broke. Funkle Chris has already ordered a replacement. Random Sammie pics:

He helps even a struggling writer feel better.
He still loves his tree though he’s almost too big for the boxes.

That’s the toy that broke.😥

Okay, time for strings and toots!


Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “blanket.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Snow started two nights ago.
See? A nice little blanket that lasted the whole next day.
And is still on the porch banisters today.
It’s not as thick as the sheets of music I’m enjoying playing with on my piano. I’ve made copies of favorites and new pieces. Taped together, I didn’t have to do page turns. Yes, the newest fun is Linus and Lucy Theme. As much as I love that and Dexter, I’m horrid at the rhythms presented. So my newest challenge is to get beyond “Nice cup of tea” triplet against duplets, and other syncopation and jazziness. All my new and old favorites are making me more passionate about my piano time. Okay. Thanks, Mom. 60 years too late, I suppose. But you knew I’d say it some day.

How does one thank those who have given you the most? Especially when they’re gone. In this case, I’m embracing the passion and challenges. Though I’m not naturally gifted. My mother blanketed me in lessons and learning discipline to practice. Or as I convinced my inner child, playing.

As I blanket myself in other musical fun.
Blankets of security and fun.
Nearly finished.

Sammie the Spidercat the furry lapcat who now can blanket my legs as I knit, crochet or scroll.

The best blanket. Feeling content and secure.

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:

Haven’t done much in these. I need about two inches before the heel starts.
About the same for my watermelon socks.
See that wad of yarn vomit? Yeah. That’s how much I had to tink back. I was well into the heel when I noticed a big mistake. Hopefully, I can get back the lost bits soon. Once I start the heel, I pretty much stay with the one pair. See, once the heel is done, there’s only a couple inches of ankle bits. Then I finish each sock on it’s own set of needles. It makes the castoff easier that way.
I don’t know if I shared but this ponytail holder finished with the beginning of my case of COVID. These little projects were about all the productivity I got done during the fever parts.
My latest ponytail holder.

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.

Just a piece of sky left to do.

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.


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.

Anybody else finding routines hard in the heat?

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.

Oh and the sunset beach

Stepping into the foam.

Okay. Despite the Olympics, time to do strings!

At Home


Look what got here while I was gone:

An Enya. A nice case. Strings and tuner in the zipper pocket.
This is so much smaller than my Memorex but has great sound. It is matt black but doesn’t look at all black in the picture. A nice strap came with.
There was a box but I have shared and enjoyed a few.

I’m so glad to be home! So happy to be with my hubby. Glad to get back into my little routine. But I really miss my new friends. Including Mia and Hermione.

Mia was sweet but not feeling well, what with allergies and age against her.
Hermione is such a love I threatened to kidnap her. She’s still with her family. Don’t worry.
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