Journal of a Week

Because my obsession with the accordion is growing rather than shrinking, I’ve been trying to find ways to increase my practice time to 5 hours a week. This is not as easy as it sounds, as I work full-time, still try to write books, and am the only available person to help my son with his math homework. I’m in that middling spot, though, where I will remain as a musician if I don’t up my game. How did I do this week? I probably hit about 4. There are various ways to work the math; for future reference, the easiest might be 2 hours on weekends and 36 minutes on busy weekdays. I must do this, as I find myself playing accordion music at work so I don’t go out of my mind.

In addition to the usual routine, I’ve been attending a church history class on Thursday evenings. This week, however, there was a Sanctity of Life presentation followed by an Adoration for Life. I went to that, instead, and while it was worth it, it meant I was on the parish campus for 12 hours. That is too long. This is a general problem for me when considering getting involved in parish groups. The ones most valuable to me are the adult education and pro-life, and so I will not join any others. Adoration is a very special and beautiful Catholic devotion, but I will, again, not be able to take part more than about once a month.

One evening, my husband carried off the Firestick, and I searched madly for it at 6 a.m. the following morning for my exercise habit, but was unable to find it. Desperate not to make up my own workout while braindead at dawn, I quickly clicked on a video I found on my phone. The number of squats, curtsy lunges and back lunges were so numerous, I could barely walk by nightfall and suffered for the next two days. My husband promised to hide the Firestick more often. I was going to explain that my phone YouTube would eventually figure out my preferred workouts, which would not include that one, but I chose not to speak the obvious. Also, it was a good workout. I might do it once a week as the exercise lady suggested.

I have not been writing, even though I indicated that I was still doing so. This is because I told my sister I would edit something for her — only my sister, though. Please don’t get any ideas. I took the editing page off this blog for a reason. This plus spending a couple hours a night helping my son with math has led to restlessness. Restlessness is not a good look for me. When I’m restless, I ponder running away to Mexico. The only problem is our responsibilities here are too great, and it would be impossible, which would lead to more restlessness. It’s one of those life things that once one’s husband retires and most of the children have moved out, that an elderly parent moves in. That is life as it should be, but the spirit tends to rebel and desire change, new scenery, a way to speak Spanish. It would be far better to make sure I start writing again than to long for things I can’t have.

The weekend has been quiet and rainy. Last night, I put on the kind of movie that is crack for me, called The Perfect Game. It’s an inspirational true story of the underdogs winning. I like these true stories because when they’re fiction, I become cynical and proclaim that good things never happen to underdogs in real life, which is true … most of the time. The mores of the world don’t favor invisible people, but sometimes the invisible people work hard and overcome. In this case, there was a strong faith and relationship component (faith in God and relationship with their priest and each other) that helped them achieve. I highly recommend the movie if you’re into that kind of crack, too.