Practice with 2-hands

I'm working on a couple of pieces, very easy, with good 2-hand exercise. It is quite difficult to think of what I'm doing with both hands at the same time and staying in the moment is an absolute requirement. That isn't always easy but I am bound & determined that I will have them learned so I can play them for some occasion in the future that I have no idea about at this time. I'm not crazy about practice and discovering all the mistakes I still have to iron out to make it palatable to an audience of humans with any sort of ear for music. I know that the favorite saying of harp teachers is: if you miss a note, who cares ~ its the harp. I love that saying, but you can't miss too many or it gives harpists a bad name. I don't know what I'm going to do with this talent, I'm just doing it for now. Music List: * Wisteria * Boating * Row Your Boat * Los Pollitos * Lavender's Blue * Latan Doll

Being In The Present

It seems like a long time since I've been here . . . again. As you know I am working on a Lenten Project that requres me to learn ways to put discipline into my life. I'm finding it tiring and harder to work in a straight line going forward than I had believed possible. I thot it meant getting up and putting one foot in front of the other and getting things done. Well, its much different than that, it takes a lot of effort to recreate routines after so many years of not having any and whining about it. Harp is still important to me and still the hardest thing to schedule into a routine. Maybe that is what I need to really focus on is just that, make a space in each day for a good harp session for the coming week and assess it later. I've been orgnizing files and found all my old music that was missing. Next time ~ don't put things away so well, Meg. I had one day that I did a 2 hour session and it was so exhausting, from using that part of my brain that gets no exercise in any other way, that I seem to have let it go since then. Man, I'm such a coward! At this point I have no music selections or updates on previously chosen ones. What I do have is a ton of paper and ideas on how to store them. So, lets get at it.

Lately I've been busy putting many small projects together for the season of discipline of Lent. I am going to work in ways that will put routine in my life and get back into the daily schedule I used to work towards each day. Not always having been the malingerer that I see myself to be now, I want to do some of the same ordinary things that used to be so obvious to me.

Getting dressed each day should not have to go on a list, but if it does for a while, then so be it. Dressed to Earrings. That means that I have to be dressed beyond dog-walkig clothes. These are the sorts of things I need to put back in my life. The fun of life that has gone missing.

As I look back on my adult life, that started when I was sixteen and got married for the first time. There wasn't any time or money for fun, once a pair of kids decided to set up housekeeping, to go out and have any fun, even a movie occasionally was hard on our income. Then there was having a baby and becoming a single working mom by age eighteen, and finally marriage again at twenty. Work was all I was able to think about. If I just get all the work done first, then I can go out and have some fun. But, being the A-type personality that others told me I was, I never had a good idea of what I'd like to do now that I was a grown-up, it seemed lke all they did was sit and watch while the kids went and did stuff.

At one time I became quite interested in gardening and the roses bloomed, the vegetables grew, the vines got tall. I seem to have lost all interest in that. One day I read an article that asked the question: What did you like when you were ten? Wow! that was a long time ago. Thinking, thinking, thinking . . . there was skipping, Jax, puzzles, scrabble, reading, writing stories, organizing my desk and papers. Making up stories out of the math problems was great fun. Not being allowed to keep a diary, I used to write out my entries in my notebooks so they would not be found. Looking words up in the dictionary was fun.

That is a list that says I really like eveything about language and creating stories and spending more time with all my writing now. I could probly do something with words for a living. I also have harp things that I like to do. I seem to have a few things that are play for me, but I don't let me do much of it, or very often

The daily list of things that I do will include work tasks and play time. Hopefully, I will do both ensuring a balance. My reward will be TV and computer going on at 1 PM in the afternoons, Sundays not included.

Trying to stay Present

Hye, I'm baaaaaaack.

I am beginning to see that I don't take life as a serious matter that needs my contribution in order to have any validity to it at all. I don't contribute.

Lent is coming in a couple of weeks and I have observed it over the years. It shows me the areas in which I have discipline and those in which I don't. Giving up things, like sugar and coffee have never been a problem for me. In fact after several years doing this to make me able to be more subserient to the Lord. But, I am thinking that I need to change my strategy to what am I willing to DO to get closer to the Lord? I have given up all my life, I have learned to live with less, lower, more pain to keep on going. Now, it could be time for me to start giving and doing to make my life more worthwhile for the Lord.

Music is one way that I can add to my life. I have been refusing to have music as part of my days; hence, I don't listen to it, sing any songs aloud, play music. I was shut down for many many years due to being married to a husband who only liked country music and nothing else got into the house. Living, as I do, in ways that will keep me in the same place that he left me, so I don't change in ways that he doesn't approve of, and won't take me back, I still refuse to have anything to do with music.

If I do work on music during Lent, for the Lord, as I try to do all my things at this time, it could be a break thru to make other changes. I am stubborn and psychologically I can work myself in ways that keep me stalling out.

Gotta go, coffee sale on my favorite beans.

Meg

Slogan: Live in the Present


Hye folks, well, there has been nothing to report since my last entry. I feel like I am actually thinking more and doing less, the more I think the less I have time to get done.

Why am I writing this non-entry? you ask. Because I am tired of leaving things sitting and not even making an attempt till I do enough to make it feel worthwhile. Maybe, after doing this, doing anything at all will feel repot-worthy. The sad thing is, this is my present.

Sadly, Meg

Slogan: Live In The Present

As I go into the new year it occurs to me that I have been working on this blog in a haphazard way that doesn't really keep me interested. I know that I want to have music and I love to hear the sound of it on the harp. Somehow I need to make things right here. I need to figure out what it is that will make this a functional piece of memorabilia.

Since I got to the end of the class I was taking I have found that I'm tired. There are many things going on with the Spiritual Season of Christmas upon me. Some are good and the scales are balanced with the hard things that take a lot of effort to work thru. I am figuring out that things I do on my own go fairly well with no hitches. Now, things I plan with other people is a whole different story. We make plans and then they get changed, I think things will look like this and other people think it will be in a whole different way that just doesn't work for me. So, the next step is to get mad and blame me. Ya, for some reason when things go wrong its just my fault. I think that makes it all too easy for those who want things all their way and are looking to Blame someone.

I get tired, confused, and lazy in those times. I grab the remote and start looking for hours and hours of TV to fill the gap called the rest of my life. Getting lost in something that takes no energy is the only thing that I am up for. Over Christmas there were many hours spent with all the programs that gave me the comfort that the people I kmow were too busy to do.

On Christmas Day I did a few special things, had some food I wanted around, did not play any music ~ sadly, found a mini series (7 hours) and enjoyed most of the day with it. I tried to read but for the most part I was staying up too late at night and falling asleep in the pages in a very short period of time. I tried nothing that took me too far away from the house as it was so cold out that I couldn't keep warm and hated to even move around the house, and doing chores in the rooms that don't heat well was so bad my fingers lost feeling.

On January 2nd, 2011 I went to the store and bought a new journal to begin recording my year in. It felt better to have physical pen & paper in my hot little hand. Of course, my first chore was to create a set of goals for the year, those big tasks that will take an entire year to complete in tiny daily bits. I don't want to take on too many as I do have those little surprises that crop up and need some time also. I won't mention them all here in detail as this is getting pretty long as it is, but I'll come back with news as I go along. I was quite pleased to see that I would go to my harp when needing to take short breaks during study times, it was a good way to refresh my head and heart so I could resume studying. I'd like to do it again between other tasks now that class is finished. Working harder around here is the focus . . . maybe even clean the fridge =:()

So long for now ~ Meg

Slogan: Living In The Present

Hye and Happy Season to All,
I am coming to the end of yet another course and have taken little time to be part of the living. My Present/Now is mostly studying the chapter I'm on for the next quiz. Its all coming to an end on Monday December 20th when I take the final exam and can resume regular life.

I am going over to a friend's for Christmas Day and have been asked to take my harp and play some carols. As I have agreed that I would do this, I have been practicing daily to make sure that all those little pieces that I love to hear on the harp are as polished as possible. I think I only have about a half dozen songs to offer, but I am doing the best that I can with each. Finding the fingering again is one really difficult thing to revisit. I am working hard at trying to memorize the pieces as I know that my music reading isn't very good at the best of times. For now I am spending a lot of time reading and finding my place on the page, the chording bits have lots of writing to indicate the notes I'm grabbing for . . . literally, as I get really confused when I glance up and try to think of more than one note at a time.

The one piece that I have been trying to perfect for about three years is Huron Carol and it seems like this year I have gone further than any other year, I have actually turned the page and and doing the middle chording that I was never able to get to before. Also, it tinkles way up in the high register, so I love it and will probly take a stab at it even if I don't do it well.

* Huron Carol
* Joy To The World
* Good King Wenceslaus
* Silent Night

Other possible options are:
* Ding Dong Merrily On High
* O Come, O Come Emmanuel
* All Thru The Night

But this year I am doing more than in past years and there is a desire to work for this little occasion. While I'm practicing I think about putting up my tree and some decorations out to make the season of Christmas and Advent with the Nativity scene. There is a different attitude going on within me that hasn't been there in many many years.

I have a short story that I want to put up here the next time I am here, for the Christmas time that is just a delight to read and share with children who come into your life this season.

Cheers, Meg