Check-In

This poor little blog has been sorely neglected. I can’t believe I haven’t posted since June. A check-in is well overdue.

I’m making steady progress on the practice I detailed in my last post. Homeschooling has resumed, so my free time is very limited. However, I have gotten into a habit of rising before 6 o’clock in the morning and banishing my boys to their rooms with books or toys until 8 o’clock in the morning. That and setting my coffeemaker to perk at 5:50 have given me two hours for myself to read and exercise. I hope in time to add some writing to this.

Getting down the details:

Current reading: Labyrinth by Kate Mosse and The Creative License by Danny Gregory. I’m also enjoying working through exercises in the latter.

Current exercise: I’m genuinely enjoying 35 minutes per day on the elliptical. I intend to work up to 50 minutes. Once I reach that goal, I will work in some swimming, yoga and fitness ball workouts. I will resume horseback riding lessons very soon as well. With the coming fall weather, I also hope to get back to biking and hiking with the family on weekends.

Current knitting: I have successfully completed one full set of rows of the Priceless White Diamonds pattern. It’s only taken me at least a year and a half dozen attempts, but I’ll take it.

Current piano practice: My boys have resumed their piano lessons, and I thought I would model good practice habits by picking up my own studies. I continue with Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises and Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course. I also practice scales and am attempting to learn Bach’s 6 Kleine Praludien. I don’t have high hopes for the last one, but I will enjoy the challenge.

Current recipes: I have been seriously expanding my cooking repertoire of late with the help of Clean Eating magazine. Among my latest feats have been Lemon Chicken Scaloppine with Spinach, Broccoli and White Bean Macaroni and Cheese, and Italian Pork and Tomato Soup, I’d try to hot link the recipes, but I’ve liberally edited them because I can’t leave a recipe alone, so hot linking isn’t possible.

Current writing: This is where I need the most improvement. My first goal is to attend to my three blogs a bit more routinely. After that, I’d like to start a longer creative project. It feels like something is skirting the edges of imagination. I just need to focus on getting it on the page.

That’s it for now.

Continue reading

Creative Check-In

It’s time for another creative check-in.

Knitting: In a continuing effort to clean up my UFO’s in case we move, I’m tackling the Priceless White Diamonds pattern in Leisure Art’s Our Best Knit Baby Afghans. I bought the yarn and pattern for this blanket on the day I found out my youngest son would be a boy. He just turned five in September, so I think it’s time to get this one done. In some strange fit of insanity, I decided to do this pattern in navy blue and teal, instead of white (or any other single color, for that matter), which should make for an interesting look, to say the least. I will say the boy I intended this for originally is priceless, so I guess that part holds true in some way.

Piano: I am taking piano lessons again. At the moment, I’m laboring over Hanon‘s exercises 2 and 3 and Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson book, level 1. I can now play When the Saints Go Marching In, and people can occasionally recognize it.

Cooking: This week, I intend to tinker with Stephanie O’Dea’s Italian Minestrone Soup recipe at A Year of Slow Cooking. I’ll update if my tinkering turns out well.

Miscellaneous: I’ve updated my sidebar to show my current reading material. I have a short stack of reviews due at the end of the week. I also took a class with a terrific friend last weekend where we made watercolor postcards. The class was awful, but it did pique my interest in playing with my paints again and dabbling in my art journal again. To that end, I ordered Artist’s Journal Workshop, which should arrive any day now. And with the fall weather finally here, I hope to get out of doors more with my camera.

And that’s where things stand, creatively speaking.

Creative Check-in

I’ve decided to start a series of posts called “Creative Check-ins” as a way of keeping myself honest to my goal of having a creative life. Basically, these posts will summarize what I’m doing to nurture my creative side.

This past weekend, I finally made a solid start on a new knitted baby blanket for Project Linus. I am attempting Warm Bundle in Leisure Arts’ Tea for Two Baby Afghans. While I don’t think the pattern is particularly complex, I have a knack for complicating matters. I’ve started this pattern once or twice in the last year without success, but this weekend I finally figured it out. That said, I came up with two extra stitches on my last row, so I’m going to have to backtrack a bit to get it right. Still, I can finally see myself finishing it, so that must be some sort of progress.

Beginings of Warm Bundle
I’m also delighted to report that I’ve started taking piano lessons, as of this morning. My sons’ piano teacher kindly offered to give me two lessons a month. I started playing piano as an adult just after my first son was born, but couldn’t really pursue it once my second and third sons arrived. So, I’m a complete novice. I realized today that I have so much to learn, but I love a challenge. For the next two weeks, I’ll be continuing working through Level One of Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson Book and attempting to master the second exercise of Hanon and (Everything I Do) I Do It For You in Fun with 5 Finger Pop Hits. It’s a start.

Piano PracticeFinally, I am taking a poetry workshop with an amazing woman, Julia Connor. My assignment this week is to write an object poem where I give an object a back story and see if I can create a poem from that. I will also read Stone by Charles Simic for what it says about imagination.

And that’s exactly what I am off to do!