What I Do When There is No Place to Go

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The last several months of "safer at home" has meant a lot of time spent within my own four walls. Of course, I'm a homebody anyway, so I'm probably not home much more than I was before COVID and quarantine, but I've had more time with my family around, and less time on the desktop computer that I share with Peter. Of course the usual things like housecleaning and laundry haven't changed much, but I have had a lot of free time on my hands. Here are some of the things I've been doing to keep myself busy over the last few months:

Books read: 

  • Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge Series (20 books), 
  • Charles Todd's Bess Crawford Series (9 books), 
  • Jacqueline Winspear's Masie Dobbs Series (Books 1-10... I have 5 more to go). 
  • Miscellaneous Agatha Christy books 
  • The first six or so Lillian Jackson Braun's "The Cat Who..." books 
  • and I don't know what all else I might have picked up to read in an afternoon.

The first three above are historical fiction mysteries placed during or shortly after World War I. What can I say? I've been on a mystery kick lately.

Crafts done:

For my birthday in May I acquired a needle felting kit, and I've had a blast with it. I started with the patterns supplied with the kit, and then branched out on my own a bit.


In July and August, I made a bunch of little key chain animals which I gave to my mom and sisters at our sister's party in September. Thanks April for taking pictures of them for me!




More recently I made bait for a "catting" pole.

Earlier this week I made myself a new skirt (with a pocket!):

Musical:

Since I was called to be a ward organist at the beginning of the year, I've done more practicing of the piano than I have over the last several years. I don't have an organ, so I spend a lot of time practicing my fingering, trying to play as smoothly as I can without using the pedals. 

While Hannah was here, we enjoyed playing duets, with me on the piano and her on her viola. We worked hard to learn a Celtic Hymn Medley. (We got it from here.)

I've also done some composing in the last few months. I created a medley of I Know That My Redeemer Lives and I Believe in Christ for piano and viola. You can listen to it here. (This is a computer generated version... Hannah and I did record a live performance, but I think it was on her phone and I don't have it.) If you are interested, you can download the piano sheet music here, and the viola part here.

Less Productive Stuff:

I'm not always productive with my time. I've solved over 500 Einstein's Riddle Puzzles, conquered 4000+ levels of Lily's Garden and played countless games of spider solitaire. I think I've also watched almost every episode of all seven seasons of Star Trek TNG.

So, that's most of my day-to-day life between the big vacations and events. How have you been keeping busy?

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