Crochet, flowers and summer time!

St. Brigid Anemones

Huge weights have been lifted off my chest. Tonight I feel lighter and less restricted than I have in months. As of today I'm down to teaching one day per week until the end of June, though I'm still studying and going to lessons for various music exams and auditions coming up.

The decision to fill this summer with as few travel plans as possible came quite naturally after an intensely busy travel year last year. Since Christmas I've sorely felt the need of a nice quiet sit down on my own. There will, of course be adventures with friends in the UK, but for my health and sanity, I need a few weeks of calm, baking and crafting.

My fabulous Cork KnitUp group has begun again after a slow start to the year and I am enjoying it so much! About two weeks ago, the lovely Hilary taught me to crochet and it's really pulled me though these tough final weeks of work.
On Saturday we had our biggest turn out yet with around eight crafters coming! I'm really looking forward to the group every Saturday and it's motivating me to finish projects!

For my birthday I was given a Cath Kidston crochet cusion kit by my friend Orla so that's what I've mostly been working on for the last fortnight. I can't wait for it to be finished and on my bed. :)

Tonight after walking my dog, the neglected packets of seeds that I bought weeks ago called to me. I planted at least 48 sunflower seeds, lettuce, love-in-a-mist, cornflowers and nasturtiums as the sun went down (and the midges came out.) I'm loving the garden right now. The dozens of bulbs I planted in the spring are finally coming into bloom and it's so satisfying!! My herbs are doing really well too and all of the fruit bushes are heavy with unripe berries! 

Singing-wise, things seem to be going well. I had a lesson today,though I was quite worried about it beforehand because I didn't feel I'd done enough practice. I hate the feeling that I could have put more work in. This week was CRAZY with teaching and exams, though, so I really didn't have more time. This week I intend to put in consistent work every day. I'll need to do an hour every day of actual singing.

I find that when I'm out running, most of what I think about is singing. Posture, breathing, mouth shape, facial muscles, placement of breath, meanings of songs and ideas for compositions and concerts are all on my mind for the 50 minutes that I spend out of the house. I think that must be the reason why I'm improving despite not having enough time for long practices.

Having this week's lesson over with is contributing to my feeling of lightness. :) I am so content right now. It's late, but I don't have to be up for any particular reason in the morning, other than to run. :) Leisure!

How are your summers coming together, blog friends? Will they be chilled out, or jam-packed? (Mm...jam..)

Playing with Playlists

On Thursday I'm scheduled to run for 22minutes straight.

The advantage of this is that I don't have to have the little man in my earphones saying "RUN NOW!" "Walk now." "RUN AGAIN!" Having 22 minutes of pure running means that I can listen to what ever I like! Tomorrow, in some of that precious and glorious free time that I will have, I plan to finally make a running playlist. It will certainly have Ministry of Magic on it, Titanium by David Guetta and I'll have to trawl my iPod for other motivating tunes.

This track will definitely make the list. It helps me to remember why I'm running at all - i.e. I need to be fit for when the Doctor comes. (Also useful in case of zombie apocalypse and escaping from Death Eaters.)