A "G-Rated Journal" That Even My Mother Can Read (because she does!)
Effervescence is a state of mind. It's about choosing to bring sunshine to the day.
Every person I meet matters.
If it's written down, I know it (If it's not written down, I don't know it)
If it's color-coded, I understand it (If it's not color-coded, I don't understand it)
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Daddy-do and me, 2010
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What is this Sleep of Which You Speak?
What is this Sleep of Which You Speak? Let's see, Wilhelm likes it when I mention in my journal what I've eaten for lunch. (Today that would be Subway with Pierre and Philip: Roasted chicken on 6" honey oat bread, no cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, black olives, carrots, spinach, cucumbers, and red wine vinegar; sliced apples; lemonade with water).
And Alia ponders when in the world do I sleep? Thomas just teases me that I never sleep. Sometimes I insist that I really do sleep, other times I joke back "what is this 'sleep' of which you speak?"
It made me wonder about my sleep habits. So I thought I'd start with Alia's question: When did I sleep during my Thanksgiving extravaganza? If I had to guess, I think I had less sleep than usual some nights. But let's look at the numbers.
Wed fighter practice, IHOP, back to Jeff's -- true, I didn't go to sleep until around 1 am, and then I was oddly awake "and bored" at 6:15 am (5 hrs). Thursday Thanksgiving adventures, up watching video clips with my Dad and sister, I think I went to sleep around 10:30 (very sleepy). I fell back to sleep after my 6 or 6:30 alarm, and got up around 7:30 I think (9 hrs). Friday demo at Los Con, Shabbat dinner at "the Nate's," back to Jeff's and chatting late -- went to sleep around 1 am again, I think. Saturday awake around 7 am (6 hrs), off to the linen spinning project, dinner and movies with friends -- we came home a little after 10:30, and I stayed up working on photos until around 1 am. Sunday project day I think I got up around 8 or 9 (7 or 8 hrs), worked on the sewing, worked on photos, back to the sewing, back to the computer -- in bed around just before midnight. Up to get ready for work somewhere around 6 am (so, 6 hrs sleep).
That's not *that* bad, is it really? I seem to average between 6-8 hours sleep most days, sometimes I'll push it to as few as 4-6 hours, but I still have the occasional 9-10 hours sleep on some weekends. But 6 or 7 hours is about right.
Oh, and I think I got 7 hrs sleep last night. *wink*
* * * * *
Apprentice Night - Tonwen and Medb Renata happen to be roommates, and they're both peers with apprentices or almost-apprentices. (Peerage is an SCA thing that indicates they are Masters at their Arts.) So twice a month, we get together for "Apprentice Night" for dinner and projects. It gives us all the accountability to be checking in and having deadlines, an evening set aside for working on projects, and an excuse for our peers to also work on *their* projects, too. Two of us live in the same side of town, on the same street even. So we've offered to host Apprentice Night in our neck of the woods occasionally, so we're not always driving across town.
Everyone convened on my apartment and we walked over to a nearby Mom-and-Pop beach-cities chain restaurant for dinner. (Wilhelm: I had a turkey burger on squaw bread, dry not toasted, with lettuce, tomato, pickles, french fries, and water with lemon.) Then back at the apartment, Medb spent some time teaching naalbinding and I worked on tearing apart my stacks of music resources, to start finding the material I plan to present at the Bard of Caid competition in January. I need to keep a close eye on the calendar, because I have about 5 weeks to prepare this year. [That's better than the 3 weeks we had last year, and not as much as the 6 weeks we had the time before. I vow that if I'm ever the Bard of Caid, I'm giving 3 months or more notice to the competition participants. But enough about that.]
Tonwen made a wonderful suggestion: The Bard of Caid competition could be considered less about presenting things that the audience enjoys and more about a "Pentathlon for Bards." That's not to say that you wouldn't present something that is enjoyable for an audience, but it's about pushing the envelope for good research and good content, and not just "the most popular and most requested pieces in your repetoire." If you judged my work based on requests, I'd be singing some of the bawdy songs in my set. But those aren't my most historically accurate or interesting works, and I believe in the ability to present good research in an audience-enjoyable manner. Not all historical research is boring and stilted, so why not challenge myself to do great research AND great performance at the same time?
This, of course, changes my approach to the stacks of material in my resources library. I'm thinking that if I pick a good piece every other day for 2 weeks, I'll have 7 pieces to choose from. I only need 3 for the show, and it's in 5 weeks. Then I take the best 3 of those 7, and I have three weeks to polish the performances and complete the documentation. Then in the competition, we'll be asked to do 4 performances -- our 3 prepared pieces and a new composition done on site, during the competition. Composition is my least scary skill (in other words, I love doing it, it doesn't intimidate me, and I feel confident). And if I've spent two weeks picking out 7 good pieces from history, three weeks perfecting 3 pieces, I'll have lots of historical knowledge to draw from when I'm writing my new competition composition at the show.
I think I've got an approach I can work with. Now, two weeks of picking a piece every other day. Time to get on it!
* * * * *
Geeky Postscript - Yippee!! iPod Software 1.2.3 fixes the problem that 1.2.2 introduced to anyone on Windows 2000 who CANNOT update to iTunes 7.5+ (which only works with XP and Vista). I had a fearful two weeks during which I could only see my 16 gigs of music and other files if my iPod was plugged into a computer, eliminating the convenience of a portable music unit. When I unplugged my iPod from my computer (remember, Windows 2000 only?!), the iPod looked blank. When I plugged it back in, it looked full of yummy stuff, like usual. Now, 2 weeks later and several failed attempts to "create" backups (with backup software), I just copied all the files to a backup folder, tried iTunes on an XP machine, refused the update to iTunes 7.5, *found* the iPod Software update to 1.2.3, decided to risk it, and unplugged the happily updated iPod. And poof! I have music again, even when not plugged into a computer! Yay!
(Of course, if Santa just feels ridiculously extravagant and wants to bring me a Macbook Pro dual OS laptop, I wouldn't be bummed in the slightest. Then I'd start saving for the new Canon Elph camera I want to buy next, and the new car I might have to buy in the next several years. I dreamt this morning that my car was burnt up in a California wildfire, and the horrid panic of this dream still occasionally worries me.)
* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Patrick and Brenda, you're my kind of friends. I'm glad to continue getting to know you better!
And Alia ponders when in the world do I sleep? Thomas just teases me that I never sleep. Sometimes I insist that I really do sleep, other times I joke back "what is this 'sleep' of which you speak?"
It made me wonder about my sleep habits. So I thought I'd start with Alia's question: When did I sleep during my Thanksgiving extravaganza? If I had to guess, I think I had less sleep than usual some nights. But let's look at the numbers.
Wed fighter practice, IHOP, back to Jeff's -- true, I didn't go to sleep until around 1 am, and then I was oddly awake "and bored" at 6:15 am (5 hrs). Thursday Thanksgiving adventures, up watching video clips with my Dad and sister, I think I went to sleep around 10:30 (very sleepy). I fell back to sleep after my 6 or 6:30 alarm, and got up around 7:30 I think (9 hrs). Friday demo at Los Con, Shabbat dinner at "the Nate's," back to Jeff's and chatting late -- went to sleep around 1 am again, I think. Saturday awake around 7 am (6 hrs), off to the linen spinning project, dinner and movies with friends -- we came home a little after 10:30, and I stayed up working on photos until around 1 am. Sunday project day I think I got up around 8 or 9 (7 or 8 hrs), worked on the sewing, worked on photos, back to the sewing, back to the computer -- in bed around just before midnight. Up to get ready for work somewhere around 6 am (so, 6 hrs sleep).
That's not *that* bad, is it really? I seem to average between 6-8 hours sleep most days, sometimes I'll push it to as few as 4-6 hours, but I still have the occasional 9-10 hours sleep on some weekends. But 6 or 7 hours is about right.
Oh, and I think I got 7 hrs sleep last night. *wink*
* * * * *
Apprentice Night - Tonwen and Medb Renata happen to be roommates, and they're both peers with apprentices or almost-apprentices. (Peerage is an SCA thing that indicates they are Masters at their Arts.) So twice a month, we get together for "Apprentice Night" for dinner and projects. It gives us all the accountability to be checking in and having deadlines, an evening set aside for working on projects, and an excuse for our peers to also work on *their* projects, too. Two of us live in the same side of town, on the same street even. So we've offered to host Apprentice Night in our neck of the woods occasionally, so we're not always driving across town.
Everyone convened on my apartment and we walked over to a nearby Mom-and-Pop beach-cities chain restaurant for dinner. (Wilhelm: I had a turkey burger on squaw bread, dry not toasted, with lettuce, tomato, pickles, french fries, and water with lemon.) Then back at the apartment, Medb spent some time teaching naalbinding and I worked on tearing apart my stacks of music resources, to start finding the material I plan to present at the Bard of Caid competition in January. I need to keep a close eye on the calendar, because I have about 5 weeks to prepare this year. [That's better than the 3 weeks we had last year, and not as much as the 6 weeks we had the time before. I vow that if I'm ever the Bard of Caid, I'm giving 3 months or more notice to the competition participants. But enough about that.]
Tonwen made a wonderful suggestion: The Bard of Caid competition could be considered less about presenting things that the audience enjoys and more about a "Pentathlon for Bards." That's not to say that you wouldn't present something that is enjoyable for an audience, but it's about pushing the envelope for good research and good content, and not just "the most popular and most requested pieces in your repetoire." If you judged my work based on requests, I'd be singing some of the bawdy songs in my set. But those aren't my most historically accurate or interesting works, and I believe in the ability to present good research in an audience-enjoyable manner. Not all historical research is boring and stilted, so why not challenge myself to do great research AND great performance at the same time?
This, of course, changes my approach to the stacks of material in my resources library. I'm thinking that if I pick a good piece every other day for 2 weeks, I'll have 7 pieces to choose from. I only need 3 for the show, and it's in 5 weeks. Then I take the best 3 of those 7, and I have three weeks to polish the performances and complete the documentation. Then in the competition, we'll be asked to do 4 performances -- our 3 prepared pieces and a new composition done on site, during the competition. Composition is my least scary skill (in other words, I love doing it, it doesn't intimidate me, and I feel confident). And if I've spent two weeks picking out 7 good pieces from history, three weeks perfecting 3 pieces, I'll have lots of historical knowledge to draw from when I'm writing my new competition composition at the show.
I think I've got an approach I can work with. Now, two weeks of picking a piece every other day. Time to get on it!
* * * * *
Geeky Postscript - Yippee!! iPod Software 1.2.3 fixes the problem that 1.2.2 introduced to anyone on Windows 2000 who CANNOT update to iTunes 7.5+ (which only works with XP and Vista). I had a fearful two weeks during which I could only see my 16 gigs of music and other files if my iPod was plugged into a computer, eliminating the convenience of a portable music unit. When I unplugged my iPod from my computer (remember, Windows 2000 only?!), the iPod looked blank. When I plugged it back in, it looked full of yummy stuff, like usual. Now, 2 weeks later and several failed attempts to "create" backups (with backup software), I just copied all the files to a backup folder, tried iTunes on an XP machine, refused the update to iTunes 7.5, *found* the iPod Software update to 1.2.3, decided to risk it, and unplugged the happily updated iPod. And poof! I have music again, even when not plugged into a computer! Yay!
(Of course, if Santa just feels ridiculously extravagant and wants to bring me a Macbook Pro dual OS laptop, I wouldn't be bummed in the slightest. Then I'd start saving for the new Canon Elph camera I want to buy next, and the new car I might have to buy in the next several years. I dreamt this morning that my car was burnt up in a California wildfire, and the horrid panic of this dream still occasionally worries me.)
* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Patrick and Brenda, you're my kind of friends. I'm glad to continue getting to know you better!
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