Spring sunshine

It snowed here in Chicagoland last night. Not a lot, but noticeable. Now that it is April and springtime, I have started again to sit outside for 20 minutes or so in the morning. I have a sleep problem. Last summer I watched a video from my health insurance company about sleep, both its importance and how get better sleep. The bottom line was five recommendations:

1. Pick a wake-up time and stick with it.

2. Stop caffeine by 2 pm.

3. Limit alcohol 3 hours before bed and drink one glass of water for each alcoholic drink.

4. Limit exercise 4 hours before bed.

5. Get 15 minutes of sun every day, preferably in the morning.

I have no problem with numbers 2, 3, and 4. I have not tried #1 because I hesitate to give up any sleep I can get, whether it's in the morning or night. 

Number 5, 15 minutes of sun, is very pleasant. I take my coffee (well before 2 pm!) and sit in the backyard. But this is Chicago, so sitting in the sun for much of the year is just not practical. So I am delighted that April is here, snow or no snow. I had to clear ice and snow off the patio furniture and put down towels to soak up the wetness, but I sat for at least 15 minutes. I watched a squirrel find something to eat. I did the New York Times crossword. And I had peace.

Salvador Dalí

 Yesterday we took the train into Chicago and visited the Art Institute with friends. We went to see the Salvador Dalí exhibit in particular, though the Art Institute has so much wonderful art, you don't need a particular reason to visit.

The title of the exhibition is Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears. It was a relatively small exhibit, fitting in three rooms, but with an interesting assortment of art, most of which I had not seen before. Some of the paintings were like those pictures that you can look at two ways and see different images. Like this:

There were a lot of music references, which surprised me. Richard Wagner was in one of the paintings! I can't say I saw what the notes said was happening in all of the works, or why Dalí created some of these works, but it was certainly interesting. 

Concert Time!

 Last night was a late night for me - I'm not used to staying up so late. But, the community orchestra that I play in had a concert -- a special concert in Orchestra Hall (Chicago), the home of the Chicago Symphony. 

I have played on that stage before, both with this same community orchestra (the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest) but also decades ago with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, a training orchestra for your musicians in their 20s. The Hall has had a major renovation since I played their in the 1970s. The downstairs, where the dressing rooms and offices are located, is amazing. First of all, there is an actual women's dressing room! In the 1970s the women were put in a room not designed as a dressing room - there weren't that many women in the orchestra (or any professional orchestra!) at that time. There are also "quiet rooms," a ping pong table, showers, and lots of space! 

Leaving the downstairs and proceeding to the actual concert - we played the premiere of a symphony by one of the members of the SOPRF and parts of the Te Deum by Hector Berlioz. The Te Deum includes a large choir and children's choir. The audience was enthusiastic - it was mostly friends and relatives, but still... 

So we all finished the concert in a glow of happy accomplishment. Here is my section (I am next to the tall young man):

The end of SOLSC, beginning of NaNoWriMo

 So many fellow bloggers here have written about the challenge of writing something (hopeful good!) every day this month. Here we on the final day. Whew!

So I have decided to take on another month-long writing challenge! I question my judgment, but I think it will be a good thing.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a yearly challenge in November to write 50,000 words of a novel. I know two people who have done this. My sister wrote a Nordic epic and my friend Kevin wrote a fantasy novel. My sister let our mom read her novel. (I should ask her if I can read it. I don't know why I haven't.) Kevin asked me to be a beta reader for his novel. I was happy to oblige and gave him my opinionated feedback. After revising, he asked me to read it again - wow, it was good! He has published the novel, it's on Amazon. You can find it by searching for Wellspring, by Kevin Sutherland. (Irrelevant aside: Kevin and I met because we both play French horn. We played together for awhile in a horn choir.)

Two years ago I decided to take the NaNoWriMo challenge. I had an idea for a historical/fantasy novel with music (horn playing) and time travel. I did not meet the 50,000 word challenge, but I learned a lot about writing and what I need to learn in order to be successful in finishing the story. 

NaNoWriMo has grown and now offers a variety of writing challenges throughout the year. April is Camp NaNoWriMo, where you set your own goal, whether it's writing, revising, or something else. There is a lot of support available if one wants it -- master classes, forums, regional writing groups, and so on. It's a very positive space. People cheer you on.

So my goals right now are to improve my plot (it's too thin), fill out my characters (including the bad guys!), and do some historical research that will help with the action, food, clothing, how music worked in the small kingdoms in what is now Austria, and so on. It will be challenging, but I hope it will also be fun. 

Reading to little ones

 Reading is very important to me - novels, nonfiction, newspapers. So when we had children, I wanted to start reading to them as soon as possible. I don't remember exactly how old our son was when I started reading to him before bed. It was before he cared about stories, for sure. I would hold the book and read aloud and he would usually climb all over me.

Eventually, of course, he was able to follow the pictures and stories and started to have favorites. One of his absolute favorites was a Richard Scarry picture book. I'm pretty sure it was Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. We read it about a million times.

When he got a bit older and could read for himself, we still had read-aloud time before bed. He was reluctant to read on his own. I loved reading with him (and we continued until he 11) but also wanted him to read on his own. We were reading the first Time Warp Trio book by John Scieszka, Knights of the Kitchen Table. We came to the end of a chapter where the three main characters are about to be devoured by an ogre. I said, "Okay, that's it for tonight." 

"Give me that book!" he said, grabbing for it.

And that was the start of his independent reading journey. He has read hundreds of books since then. 

Lately other activities have pushed reading actual books aside, including an infant son, but hopefully he will rediscover the joys of book reading again. And the baby already has quite a library for when he stops putting everything in his mouth. 

Coffee Drinking Journey

 Inspired by https://horizon51.blogspot.com/2023/03/solsc-23-day-27-coffee-evolution.html?sc=1679933732168#c4098539422588800953

I first drank coffee in high school. I was in a lot of music groups and one summer my friends and I would go to IHOP after rehearsal. Thinking back, it's amazing how much food high school students can eat. Some of my friends were drinking coffee, so I started drinking it too. I took it black because my parents always did.

Fast forward past college to grad school. I had a friend would would add a single drop of cream to his coffee. He said it took the edge off the bitterness. I started doing the same, only my "drop" got bigger and bigger until it was really coffee with cream. 

Side note: Back in the olden days, like the 60s, when you ordered coffee in New York City you got it with cream in it unless you specified black.

Another fast forward to the 1990s. Now I'm married with two children who I signed up for art classes on Saturday mornings. While they were making art, I would go across the street to a coffee shop and have a latte and read. It was such a nice, relaxing way to spend Saturday morning that my husband decided to join me, even though we didn't need two parents driving the kids to art class. 

Then came Starbucks. A Starbucks opened about a block away from "our" coffee shop. Eventually the charming coffee shop closed. I know this was happening everywhere. And yes, I did get coffee, lots of it, from Starbucks.

However, I also started making coffee at home. It didn't take any more time to make a cup at home than it did to stop at Starbucks on the way to work. I started buying coffee beans and used a press pot to make my morning cup. I highly recommend the press pot - it makes a nice, smooth cup of coffee. I bought a coffee grinder and good whole beans from the grocery store. Somewhere along the way I had become lactose intolerant, so I switched to almond milk. I don't like sweet coffee, but I like a hint of sweetness so I add a tiny bit of caramel syrup.

Also along the way my son became a barrista, first at Caribou, then at Starbucks. 

We recently took a Caribbean cruise that had a stop in Jamaica. My son the Coffee Master asked us to buy some coffee beans in Jamaica (He was babysitting his infant son at the time.). So we brought back two bags of coffee beans, one for us and one for him. We have almost finished our bag. 

The end of my post, though not the end of my coffee drinking!

The New York Times Crossword

 Some years ago I decided I wanted to be able to do the New York Times crossword. It's hard. So I bought a book, "How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle," and I learned all kinds of interesting things. Some puzzles have themes, others have puzzles within the crossword puzzle. 

Monday and Tuesday are the easiest, and most straightforward, so that's where I started. I just did those two days each week. The puzzles get harder each day, peaking on Saturday. Thursday is sometimes called "Gimmick Day," because Thursday crosswords sometimes feature the unexpected. One crossword near Halloween required you to figure out that you needed to draw little ghosts in some of the squares. Sometimes an entire syllable needs to go in a square and is part of two words that cross each other. 

Now I generally solve the Monday Tuesday, and Wednesday puzzles. I give Thursday a try most weeks. Nowadays it's easy to look up the answers on the internet. There are multiple sites that give the answers to the clues. Though I might look up something I truly don't know, like names of athletes or TV stars, it obviously is more of an accomplishment if you can figure it out without looking it up!

I really like words and word games. I will probably never "conquer" the New York Times crossword, but I'm enjoying the journey.