Quiet

We're coming to the end of spring break here in the NorthWoods.  A friend from college spent the week here visiting.  They were recently "made redundant" in their job, and so are unemployed, but got a decent severance and such.  And their profession is one where there's lots of job movement through a career, so I expect they can find a job pretty quickly in their field.  Unfortunately, they're also really burned out on their field.  So we'll see.

At any rate, it was wonderful having a friend from my previous world visit.  Since my friend was feeling tired and burned out, we spent a lot of time relaxing, chatting.  We did some driving around, going out for meals, and hanging out.  I introduced them to some favorite Netflix series.

My friend left yesterday.

Now life feels quiet.  My house feels quiet.  (Not that my friend is loud, but it's quieter.)

I did some grading and such, so I'm all caught up there.  I spend yesterday rereading a novel to teach this coming week, and still need to reread a play or two.  And plan classes, of course.

I'm working on a really difficult violin piece.  I missed two days of practice over the break, so that's not too bad.  Strings suggested an exercise book for third position, and I've been working on that.  The biggest difficulty with third position is reading notes and putting my fingers in different places than before.  (The position thing has to do with where the fingering hand is on the fingerboard.  First position is nearest the end.  Third position is with the first finger where the third finger usually is.)

I'm also working on additional scales, in second and third position.  Some are physically difficult for me (reaching up the violin), and all are mentally difficult in terms of thinking about what notes I'm playing.

So I'm plugging along there.

I haven't been birding at all yet this spring, but I've heard about a great pond about 40 miles away, so I'm heading up there in a bit, I think. 

And my crocus smile is up.  I've got a new plan to try to fill in spots.  I got some crocus bulbs in fall, and left them in the garage all winter (so they'd get cold enough, but not too cold).  So I'm going to stick them in the empty areas today using a dibble stick thing and some bone meal, and hope they'll come up!

Meanwhile, Gent Wevelgem is on (it's a bike race in Flanders) and very exciting.