I feel like I made some solid progress on my goals of taking time for my creative pursuits. Let’s see where I stand.
1. Knitting: I made no progress this week because I needed all of my free time to read and write book reviews. I hope to remedy that this week, now the my deadline has passed.
2. Piano: I had a fantastic lesson where I managed to play all of my pieces with some level of competency. I have a couple of new pieces for this week that will challenge me by requiring me to play legato and with my hands independently. Truthfully, I’m looking forward to the challenge.
3. Cooking: I ended up not needing to make the Italian Minestrone recipe I posted last week because we had enough Sausage and Lentil Stew leftovers to last the week. This week, of course, will have a turkey theme, I will be making Turkey Noodle Soup with the leftovers of our Thanksgiving bird.
4. Painting: I also didn’t get to painting this week because of my book review deadline.
5. Writing: I’m adding a new category here. Again, I didn’t make a lot of progress this week, but I think I want to try to incorporate more creative writing into my week. For this week, however, I can say that I wrote several blog posts and four book reviews.
6. Outdoors & Exercise: And I’m adding a final new category. The quality of my life improves dramatically when I make time for exercise, particularly outdoors. To that end, I want to track my efforts here, too. I walked for a couple of hours with my dog this week, worked out on the elliptical for 50 minutes, and went for a two-hour hike with my boys. I also rode a magnificent horse named Charlie yesterday. I was actually riding him with the idea of purchasing him. I’ve decided to pass on the purchase because he really deserves a better rider than me. However, the ride made me realize how much I would enjoy taking lessons again and regaining some of my skills. So, that has become a new goal.
That’s it for this week. I can see some places I would like to improve, but overall I made progress toward my goal.