Small Joys

  

From April to July my daughter has been doing an online art portfolio course with the City Lit. The last project was a personal project that she entitled 'Petite Joyeaux'. Small Joys seem to be even more important at the moment. These are a few of the ideas and pictures from the project.

   

Reverse Bucket List

After completing my mini bucket list (5B450) in 2017 I have had a little more to do with bucket lists. My new bucket list is called 5450+ which is more of a being list than a doing list. After a brief exploration of the blogosphere I discovered that reverse bucket lists could be a good exercise in reflection and gratitude. The sixteen items on my reverse bucket list are a reflection of my life over the past fifty odd years. I think the 1990s was a big ‘to do’ list for me: getting a job, getting a career, getting a house, writing songs, poetry, short stories, getting a husband, getting a baby. Since that time I have become more reflective. The last item on my list, ‘2 years of mindful discoveries’, offers the hope that the 2020s will be more a time for ‘being’ and less about ‘doing’.

Lorna’s Reverse Bucket List - A Meaningful Life?

1.      Thirty Years a Librarian (February 1990 –February 2020 plus)-after gaining my library degree-BA(hons)-in 1989

2.      Five decades of travelling (1970s-2020s)– (50 places in England and 33 other countries)

3.      A year of London – visiting 52+ interesting London places

4.      Found and lost love

5.      Learnt to drive

6.      Bought a house (with Richard)

7.      Twenty years since SubVerse (2020) – (active period was 2000-2005)

8.      Raised Amy to the age of 20+ (got her through school and helped her with qualifications) (2020)

9.      Twelve years a Piano Teacher (2008-2019)– helping pupils get fifteen certificates in ten years

10.  Ten years at church (2008-2018)- including ten months of Sunday School teaching from 2010 to 2011

11.  Ten years of Arts and Crafts (2010-2020)– redecorating the house, appreciating art and culture, developing craftwork

12.  Ten years in concert (2010-2020) – Playing classical piano pieces in various public places

13.  Two diplomas in the 2010s – Level 3 in Business Administration and dipABRSM in Piano Teaching

14.  Ran a craft stall in the Twenty-Teens (2013-2019)

15.  Ten years a blogger (2013-2023) – Highlighting my creative and therapeutic endeavours

16. Two years of Mindful Discoveries (2018-2020)

The photos are from the 'Bucket List Coffee' shop in Eastcote.

 

Spring Term Therapy

January is a traditional time for making resolutions. According to quite a few studies it is also not a very good time to be making resolutions. March and the beginning of Spring are the best times to be making positive changes. The therapies I have been exploring in the Spring Term reflect the fact that January and February are still winter months, a time to enjoy indoor activities like arts and crafts, watching films, reading books, listening to music and playing games.

Piano Lesson One

I have taught many 'Piano Lesson Ones' over the years. The first thing I explain to people is Middle C, which is the C in the middle of the piano.

I encourage people to think about fingering, starting with 'One is Thumb', so they can use all five fingers of both hands when playing the piano. I talk about notes as in pitch and time. The letter names of the notes of the octave, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and back to A again. I talk about the stave; the treble clef played with the right hand and the bass clef played with the left hand. As for timing I talk about time signatures: common time 4/4, waltz time 3/4 and march time 2/4. I also talk about semibreves, minims and crotchets. I don't usually get to talk about the rests at the bottom of the page.

Terminal Therapy

2018 was such a difficult year I started creating a whole range of therapeutic approaches and coping strategies in order to live the best life I could given my situation and circumstances. My collection of therapies are split into the three traditional academic terms; Spring Term (January to April), Summer Term (May to August), Autumn Term (September to December). Within that I have created therapy ideas for each day of the week, I will be sharing them with my blog over the next three years.

Sunday School Ideas

From September 2010 to June 2011 I was a Sunday School teacher at my local church. I was helped a lot by the website Sermons4Kids and built ten main lessons from it, which I have listed below.

1. What to wear. This lesson revolved around a dress up doll and the words compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, patience, gentleness 'and above all love'. These words have since formed the basis of my virtuous flower brooch.

2. Don't bury your talent. In this lesson we did a lot of origami.

3. All you need is love. In this lesson we discussed the things in life we love and drew hearts.

4. Don't be afraid. In this lesson we concentrated on things we were afraid of and drew lots of candles to cheer ourselves up.

5. The tater family. This lesson was about the fruits of the spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We spent our time drawing a big tree, cutting out paper fruit with spirit words on them and sticking them onto our tree.

6. Look on the inside. In this lesson we discussed what makes someone look great on the outside and also what qualities make someone great on the inside.

7. Things that go together. In this lesson we discussed things that go together in the material world like fish and chips and also things that go together spiritually like faith and good deeds.

8. A topsy-turvy world. This lesson was more ambitious as we tried to write upside down poems, 

9. Riddle me this. In the lesson we answered various riddles and tried to make up our own.

10. The greatest gift of all. In this lesson we made origami gift boxes and made special note cards featuring the spiritual gifts of grace and love to put in them.

I was pleased with my ten months of Sunday School teaching, although quite overwhelmed with other stuff in my life at the time, so I was also pleased when I gave it up. Below is a collection of some of the resources I built up in my time as a Sunday School Teacher and the virtue card matching game I created is at the top of this post.

Out of my Window

'Out of my window' started life as a project for my O'level art. It explores feelings of freedom and envy relating to the girl and the bird. The girl is based on the German singer Nico as she looks on the cover of her LP 'The End'. The idea later inspired my poem 'Out of my window' which later turned into song lyrics.

Tudor Montage

My daughter and I have long been fascinated by Henry VIII and his six wives. In junior school Amy drew so many pictures of the Tudor kings and queens I decided to put them into a montage accompanied by one of my songs 'That Far Away Look'. I feel the song is quite apt in reflecting the lusty and flirtatious nature of King Henry.

Me and my Piano Diploma

This is a story of slow education.

I started learning the piano in 1975. Mum and I were never in a rush for me to get my grades and so, with various breaks for O'levels, A'levels, a degree, various jobs, travelling abroad, buying a house and marriage, I finally passed my Grade 8 in 1998.

After another break of 10 years, while I was busy as a working mum with a small child, and spurred on by my daughter's young friends wishing to learn the piano, I decided to return to piano education and try for a DipABRSM in piano teaching. It took me another year to get the prerequisite Grade 6 Music Theory and in February 2010 I started studying for the diploma. I didn't know it was going to take me four years to do it, but I am quite a busy working mum so I think it's quite understandable.

The first year was spent reading books, making notes and working on my Written Submission. Years two to three were spent working on the Grade 6 pieces I needed to teach, collecting relevant tutor books, working on answers to possible questions and producing a set of hand-out notes for each of the grades.

The day of the exam was a very strange day as I felt very far out of my comfort zone. The Viva Voce was one of the hardest exams I've done, I thought it would be like an interview, but I now know that it is far more objective than that. I received my first set of results in February 2013 and was pleased with my Written Submission result, they'd given me a distinction, relieved I'd got through the Viva Voce and not too disappointed that I'd failed the Quick Study, as, looking back, I hadn't really given this part of the exam enough time or thought.

I decided not to retake the Quick Study straight away but spend a lot of 2013 improving my piano playing with the help of my music teacher and working out what was required in the Quick Study. I had a good day, the day of the Quick Study retake, although I didn't like the piece they'd given me to play. I had a feeling I'd done enough to pass, but they are very strict when it comes to the DipABRSM so I wasn't sure.

I was really happy, February 2014, when I received the big white envelope with my DipABRSM certificate inside it and the letter saying I was now entitled to append the letters DipABRSM to my name.

The best thing about playing the piano is playing the piano, regardless of what exams you manage to pass. It has been a source of comfort and joy to me in my life and I'm glad I could pass that enjoyment on to a few of my daughter's friends. For the record, my daughter is not into the piano, she likes singing.