Breathe . . .
I've had to remind myself to do that lately.
I was at the National African Violet Convention in Austin at the end of May and then hit the ground running last week, with stuff happening practically every night. I just managed to get my suitcase emptied yesterday, and all the plantlets and leaves that came home with me from National taken care of. I put the leaves down right away last Monday, and then on the weekend I potted up all the plants. I now have 104 varieties - which is far too many to care for well, but I usually ramp up at National, and then grow what I bring home, letting things go along the way that either don't bloom true or that I find don't like my growing conditions, or that I just don't care for after having grown them awhile.
Lately it has been my experience that a lot of plants just don't bloom true to their descriptions - I don't keep them in that case. I had a couple do that while I was away - so I got to send them to their Great Reward, freeing up more shelf space. for the newer arrivals.
I've also started piping again. Seriously. Thanks to the wonders of Skype, I am studying again with my teacher in Southern California. He's awesome. So for the past few weeks, I've been practicing nearly daily (with daily being the goal :-) ). Right now, just exercises to get my technique back. It's going better than I could ever have wished :-) We're talking about focused study, tons of practice in both light music and Ceol Mor, with an eye toward competition next summer.
Light music is what you think of when you think of bagpipes :-) Ceol Mor, or Piobaireachd, is classical pipe music.
Summer is shaping up to be busy - with friends here off and on all summer long, practice every day, a book to work through with two of my Iona sisters, and plants to grow.
In two weeks I will have been producing my weekly video podcast, All About African Violets, for a year. I can hardly believe it's been that long!
Just had a go-round with BlipTV - apparently I no longer meet their terms of service . . . I'm guessing that my original, educational podcast isn't sexy enough for them and it's not "episodic television." Oh well - their loss. Unfortunately, however, they told me I would have two weeks to move everything off their server, but they disabled my account immediately. I'm in the process of moving everything now and have a new server already in place. So, instead of actually giving me two weeks so that I could upload a final episode and let my viewers on Blip know about the change, it was quite a scramble to get Episode 50 uploaded yesterday.
Asshats.
So it goes. I'm moving forward, but it could have been a lot smoother. My friend Tammy, The Proverbial Knitter, has been a great help - Right now, I'm still struggling to figure out how to redirect the iTunes feed.
Wish me luck!
I was at the National African Violet Convention in Austin at the end of May and then hit the ground running last week, with stuff happening practically every night. I just managed to get my suitcase emptied yesterday, and all the plantlets and leaves that came home with me from National taken care of. I put the leaves down right away last Monday, and then on the weekend I potted up all the plants. I now have 104 varieties - which is far too many to care for well, but I usually ramp up at National, and then grow what I bring home, letting things go along the way that either don't bloom true or that I find don't like my growing conditions, or that I just don't care for after having grown them awhile.
Lately it has been my experience that a lot of plants just don't bloom true to their descriptions - I don't keep them in that case. I had a couple do that while I was away - so I got to send them to their Great Reward, freeing up more shelf space. for the newer arrivals.
I've also started piping again. Seriously. Thanks to the wonders of Skype, I am studying again with my teacher in Southern California. He's awesome. So for the past few weeks, I've been practicing nearly daily (with daily being the goal :-) ). Right now, just exercises to get my technique back. It's going better than I could ever have wished :-) We're talking about focused study, tons of practice in both light music and Ceol Mor, with an eye toward competition next summer.
Light music is what you think of when you think of bagpipes :-) Ceol Mor, or Piobaireachd, is classical pipe music.
Summer is shaping up to be busy - with friends here off and on all summer long, practice every day, a book to work through with two of my Iona sisters, and plants to grow.
In two weeks I will have been producing my weekly video podcast, All About African Violets, for a year. I can hardly believe it's been that long!
Just had a go-round with BlipTV - apparently I no longer meet their terms of service . . . I'm guessing that my original, educational podcast isn't sexy enough for them and it's not "episodic television." Oh well - their loss. Unfortunately, however, they told me I would have two weeks to move everything off their server, but they disabled my account immediately. I'm in the process of moving everything now and have a new server already in place. So, instead of actually giving me two weeks so that I could upload a final episode and let my viewers on Blip know about the change, it was quite a scramble to get Episode 50 uploaded yesterday.
Asshats.
So it goes. I'm moving forward, but it could have been a lot smoother. My friend Tammy, The Proverbial Knitter, has been a great help - Right now, I'm still struggling to figure out how to redirect the iTunes feed.
Wish me luck!
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