I made my weekly jaunt to Dillons to partake in my Seniors Moment (aka the senior’s discount granted by virtue of my spouse being over 60 – but now that I think about it I think I’m eligible now anyways as of last October because I’m officially over 55). Anyway, as I was discarding some empty water bottles from the van into the recycle bin, I noticed our cherry tree blooming. Just a few days ago it didn’t show any evidence of buds but now they are all over the limbs.
I also found my old hummingbird feeder and a package of the nectar concentrate mix yesterday. I cleaned everything thoroughly, mixed up a small batch and placed the feeder outside my upper patio door, which I sit near in my current home office setup. I haven’t seen a hummingbird yet, but it’s only been twenty-four hours. I’ll need to switch out the nectar today as it got up to the mid-80s and was very sunny yesterday and will be so again today. My back patios are not in the shade so the nectar will go bad quite quickly. Once I move upstairs to the spare bedroom, that won’t be a problem, if I hang the feeder outside the upper east facing window.
While on my first conference call of the day, I heard strange noises coming from my front yard including on my roof. I surmised, since I could not get up and check, that the lawn service had arrived that we contracted last week to power wash the house, refresh the landscape mulch, haul in some dirt to fill in under our huge black oak tree and seed that portion of the front lawn. The finished the house scrubbing within an hour or so and will be back this afternoon to complete the rest of the work.
I’m behind in my reading. I need to read thirty more pages in Morgoth’s Ring before the Mythgard Academy session three tonight at nine o’clock Central. I need to finish listening to about six more hours of Life of Pi before five o’clock tomorrow since I’m supposed to be leading the first virtual book discussion of my local library book club. I don’t understand why I’m having trouble motivating myself to read. I’ve been an avid reader as long as I can remember, going back to before I started grade school. Reading something, anything, is second nature to me. Yet I find myself in a reading funk. I’d almost rather do anything than read right now, including practicing the piano.
Speaking of which, while cleaning out one of the spare bedrooms (the green one – I’ll explain in a different post), I found several music books, one of which I played a song out of last night that was relaxing and helped warm up my hands enough that I could play Für Elise without too much difficulty. However, my daughter’s assignment of a Mendelssohn art song defeated my enthusiasm. I had forgotten which art song I was supposed to be learning and got frustrated with the issue of learning a piece of piano music I am completely unfamiliar with including the melody. I’m absolutely the worst at keeping tempo (that’s what percussionists are for – oh wait, the piano is technically a percussion instrument – harrumph). And I still haven’t downloaded a metronome application to my smartphone or tablet; although, my husband did claim to have a metronome among his old band equipment in the basement.
I even find myself pulling out my old adult coloring books and starting a new page. Anything but reading. What’s wrong with me? I hope I snap out of it soon.
I read a few more pages during lunch but Morgoth’s Ring is not a quick read nor can I afford to skim. I’ll try to listen to Life of Pi a bit this afternoon between conference calls. And that reminds me, I belatedly remembered to call my aunt and check in on her. I’m in my fourth week of working from home and hardly leaving the house and should have reached out to my other local relatives sooner. She and her husband are doing well sheltering at home. We had a lovely half hour chat, which lifted my spirits some. She wanted my daughter’s cell phone number to text her a photo of her father’s antique trunk to see if Rachelle wanted it.
The lawn service is back so I need to sign off for now. Stay safe and healthy!
Dillon’s has a seniors discount?