I’ve got the perfect opportunity (again!) for an Extended Artist’s Date - my parents are out of town and I’m taking care of the house for them. Access to the piano whenever I want it, so I don’t have to try and carefully sing through a marathon practice session. My mom has misunderstood my complaining - she thinks I need the house all to myself (she’s been working on the local history room at the library as much as possible so I have quiet) when all I want is to be able to get at the piano and practice without people coming downstairs and trying to talk to me or turning on the television in the same room. (Aarrgghh!)

Enough rant. Things have been going pretty well as far as TAW is going. 7/7 morning pages, several mini artist’s dates including babysitting my 3 year old cousin for an afternoon that I’m including because I’ve never come away from something so open to practice. I know, I know, it should be alone, but I had the best practice session of the last few months that night, so I’m counting it.

Issues: our first full rehearsal (for me) for Princess Ida didn’t go so well in my case. I got nervous, wound up, had a bad practice session and was so convinced I was going to fail that I blew passages I never though I would before. I was so mad at myself. However - two days later (and the day after my baby sitting session!), a friend called to let me know that our recent Richard Rodgers performance made it to the public access channel (we’ve been on about 50 times since the beginning of the year - talk about exposure!). I figured I’d turn it on and evaluate the performance (prepared to rip myself to shreds, of course), but I didn’t. I really like the way my top and middle are beginning to sound, and I didn’t dip into too much of my “bad theater belt” voice as I have in the past. So I’ve been feeling better about me in general.

Speaking of feeling better - *I LOST 6 MORE POUNDS!!!* (sorry for the shouting - I’m so happy!!) Now to keep it off as well! While my folks are gone, I’m going to do a detox week and eat (mostly) raw fruits and veggies. No cow milk and no chocolate either. I was going to ditch dairy totally, but there are certain foods I just don’t want to be without. In fact, after this, I’m headed to the grocery store for some fun shopping in the organic foods and produce

My one big thing from TAW that I played catch up with: building the “Artist’s Sacred Spot” (I can’t think of the right name now, but it’s toward the end of the book) which helped in my quest to declutter.