Creative stuff

It's been a bit. Mostly I've been amazingly busy with creative stuff.

My job is music, of course, and both church and piano lessons are going well. One of my older students has stopped (no, not Dylan!) but I understand that, and he is well enough along that I suspect he'll continue to pick things up by himself.

I'm polishing the long version of my research on Thomas Commuck, and trying to be patient as my kid finishes editing the recording of the service I led on June 2. I did my Master's Thesis just before word processing programs were able to easily create and organize footnotes, so that part is kind of fun right now. My transcriptions of the tunes are all on IMSLP now, and once the recording is done I'll be begging you all to help spread them around!

Still playing hammered dulcimer. Trading time between other people's compositions, and arranging Commuck tunes.

Finally... for all the years I've been helping Laura learn to quilt, and watching her grow into being a modern art quilter, I've been content to do traditional quilting, though with a modern twist to my design and color choices. But a little idea has been nagging at me, and suddenly I find myself well into creating my first actual art quilt! In fact the top is more than 2/3 done and moving quickly; but once it's together I'll have to pause and work on my actual quilting skills before completing it.

non-creative stuff

Cats: Lilly clearly has kitty PTSD and is very wary, but loosens up a little more each day. In fact as I type she's sitting at my feet asking for pets; usually that's reserved for one of her two safe spaces.

The first time I brought out a laser pointer, I thought I had broken Livvy-- she went manic chasing it, and kept hunting for the red dot for literally hours after I stopped. I wasn't sure I dared try it again, but recently she destroyed her feather toy and wouldn't accept a substitute, so I brought out the red dot... and lo, this time she has figured out that I make it come and go, and when I put the little gadget down it won't come back! She's also considerably less frenetic while she plays, though still quite intense.

Kid: Laura is enjoying her current part time job, and working hard on her art. Besides art quilting, she's started doing fabric collage on natural slate and then painting-- gorgeous stuff! It looks like she'll be renting a small studio soon.

You may remember Laura has Stiff Person Syndome, and was diagnosed long before we all learned that Celine Dion has the same thing. There is now a documentary called I Am Celine Dion that may be of interest if you are curious. I hasten to add that Laura has never had an episode as bad as the one that happens in that show, though we've been close.