Making Choices

Well, this has been an interesting week. After much deliberation I quit the clarinet lessons. I did well for the first three months reading music and learning how not to make the clarinet squeak too much but then we got into the notes where I had to use my right hand for more than holding the clarinet. My right hand is a bit ill-formed, unformed, or deformed and I couldn't make the hand hold the clarinet and stretch to reach the holes and cover them completely. You need to cover the holes completely or the instrument will not make clear sounds no matter how much you blow into the mouth piece. My right hand works perfectly well for most things. It is a tiny bit smaller than the left hand, and it has that fleshy piece at the base of the thumb missing. Otherwise you wouldn't notice it - if I didn't tell you. So, I can make art and I can write and I probably could play the baritone if I wanted to but - I don't want to. It was my choice to resign or quit or leave or whatever you want to call it. I know that after I turned in the music books and chose not to learn the baritone I left with sort of a relief and a lot of tears. I really had wanted to learn to play the clarinet since it was given to me. I can play certain notes but not all of them. I, however, did not think of myself as a failure because I did learn a lot and I did accomplish a lot and I tried for three months. I believe you are not a failure if you try. The tears, I'm not sure what they were. Maybe it was because it had always been my favourite instrument and the music from the Big Band Era is still my favourite music and I'd dreamed of playing that kind of music. Oh well, I tried.

So that all said and done we move on to the middle of the week. I was able to take my aunt shopping and go to do a few errands but every once in a while my car would not start. I'd planned to go and take a beading class on Saturday and when I went out to the car it would not start at all. I got a hold of my daughter and she and my son-in-law and grand-daughter came and he proceeded to fix it. (His passion is cars and repairing them). Well, he got the part off and then almost finished putting the new part on when he noticed that something was wrong. The part store gave him the wrong starter. The package says it was for my car. He had all the information from my motor and car year and make and still the wrong part was delivered. He phoned and long story short there is apparently two types of starters for my car and the wrong one was sent. He cannot get the new part until Tuesday. Good thing I live in the city and good thing that I'd gotten all the fresh vegetables that I needed.

After they left yesterday, I came back in and took a nap. Then instead of getting up and making or finishing my wall doll, I laid down and rested - tired from the hard work of taking a nap I guess. My body said to lay down so I did and listened to the body for most of the evening (except for preparing a salad and making dinner.) Often I didn't do that. I kept right on going no matter if I was tired or not feeling good.

I'm all set now to see if I can decorate my living-room/studio/kitchen/dining-room for Christmas. I will have to find out if the tree will fit and if not will there be any other things that can decorate the room. Or I can move things on the book shelf to make room for my paint brushes and paints but that means cleaning this area and moving my gnome and tree spirit seen here.

Or I can just repeat yesterday's afternoon and lie down again.