There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life:
music and cats.

Albert Schweitzer

Life has been a bit stressful lately – domestic problems (as in housing).  It’s been a rough beginning to this year.  January was all about helping family members including a move into what turned out to be an illegal apartment necessitating putting all belongings in storage.  And there were other things – no heat for the entire MLK weekend and then again the first week of this month.  This month has been all about stress over domestic stuff. 

One side effect of all the stress has been a HUGE bout of spring cleaning – as in take everything off the pantry shelves and throw out bags and bags of expired or old food and line the shelves and wash and put back everything and clean/dust/polish everything on all the kitchen shelves and all the pictures and windows and mirrors and lamps and bookshelves and all furniture and the floors and wash all the bed linens (duvets, blankets, pillows) etc.

And back to the piano – after 13 months of not playing – and have been playing 4–5 hours a day since the beginning of the month.  It was rough going at the beginning as my eyes and ears were way ahead of my fingers.   But four weeks on, the chops are coming back….and now thought is going to execution much more easily.  

And also now after a bit of a hiatus am full of knitting startitis…. too many things are calling to be started or finished.  so off i go to work on one of them.

As for the cats, well, how to imagine life without them?