Science Monkey

I’ve been practicing piano like a motherfucker lately. For whatever reason, I’ve had a decent amount of free time at home — work is a little bit lighter right now, I’m sleeping less, whatever — and have been making myself spend a lot of it at the piano. Last year (last month, even) I would have wasted my time watching mind-numbing TV or dicking around on my computer…this year, not so much. Maybe it’s my resolutions. Maybe I’m actually improving myself. Maybe I’m over interpreting this situation.

That said, practicing scales is boring as all get out. Even with the addition of a few chords at the end of the scale this week, after about ten minutes my mind starts to wander. To force myself to focus, I’ve had to make practicing into a game. The current game is that I have to play five perfect scales (with chords) consecutively before I can progress to the next one. I played the B-flat major scale twenty or thirty times the other night, and last night I feel like I spent half an hour on A-flat major. The game seems to work, though, because this morning I was able to rip through all of the major scales with very few errors. And when I slowed the tempo a little, I think my only mistake was on A-flat. I keep wanting to play G-flat rather than G-natural. Oh well. Practice, practice. Maybe this next week I’ll get to start using my left hand…

In other soul food news, I ordered a bunch of seeds last night from Seeds of Change! I’m so enthused by having chickens (THAT LAY EGGS!) in our backyard that I want to put some time into the garden this spring. I bought the easy-to-grow garden sampler, which seemed like a reasonable first stab. We have a bunch of germinating trays lying around the house, so this weekend I’m going to set a few up. I’m cautiously optimistic. This seems like the right time of year to start germinating seeds in these parts (it may actually be a few weeks late) and we’ve got some good space for our garden. My father-in-law has a tremendous garden in his backyard, so I may need to go pick his brain a little as I progress.

Okay. Back to work. Happy Thursday (and happy February!)

Believe it or not, I went to a hot yoga class yesterday morning and enjoyed it. My mother-in-law has been taking classes at Big Ron’s Yoga College (a name that continues to amuse me) here in town for the past year. Every few weeks she tries to recruit someone in the family (or not in the family) to come with her, and this week I agreed. I’ve never taken a yoga class before, but I thought it might be fun. Well, not fun, exactly…I figured that if I went once I could avoid feeling guilty about not going again in the future. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it, and am planning to go again next week.

The class is Bikram Yoga, about 100 minutes at 100 degrees F. The heat wasn’t too bad, actually, but the yoga was tiring. I managed through the first hour, but then had to take a break and step outside for a minute or so. I went back in after catching my breath and went through about half of the remaining exercises. Maybe a little less.

I’m going to try it again next week and if I still enjoy it, I think I’ll buy a month membership (or series of classes or whatever). We’ll see!

Games night! Thursday, chez Arne & Emma. Everybody’s welcome! Email me for directions.

Emma has a set of unmatched china plates from her grandmother. This morning, we hung them up in the dining room. I like the way it looks…it reminds me of a British pub. Okay, so the only British pub I’ve actually been to is the Rose & Crown in Epcot, but still…Now I need to get some tasty beer for our pub. Heh.
We finished filling in the garden with cedar mulch yesterday, too. It looks really nice. We want to get some more camellias for one area in the front and fill in the rest with mulch. I think it’ll look nice.
Read the rest of this entry »

The weather was absolutely beautiful today, so Emma and I went out and did some gardening. Well, after we went out for breakfast, of course.

We went to Lowe’s and bought a few nice perennials to plant in front of Susy’s room. We planted some azaleas there earlier in the year, but we planted them too far back and they never got enough water or sunlight. We bought some Mexican heather which will be low and will spread well, and some taller plants whose name escapes me at the moment. We even bought mulch (!) to help the area look nicer. I’m pleased with the end results. Pictures after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »