I note that I am neglecting my blogs, there are several reasons, all due to being quite busy!  I attended a Society for Creative Anachronism event called Gulf Wars in March, which was a blast. I also decided a few months back to begin updating my skills in puppetry and add ventriloquism to what I knew. It seems there are now some excellent resources for ventriloquism online, so this has been a great boon to me. AND I have been working on ONE song playing it on each of my autoharps in an attempt to learn to play something.  I picked up a program to help me organize my work and hobbies and family commitments, and this sort of started the entire cascade of activity.

Habitica is an online program where you list your To-Do list, your Daily actions, and Habits you wish to develop. It plays like a game, with the completion of tasks to key to gaining the energy and gold needed to succeed in the game. This is a really GOOD and useful program for those of us who are chronically airheaded. I’ve put most of my vocation into this program, and seen improvement in many areas. I have my prayers listed, and even weekly activities like Mass on Sunday. It dovetails wonderfully with my planner (I’m using an Erin Condren weekly planner) and I’ve managed to improve in ways I had despaired of doing!

Autoharp is one area. I have owned and strummed and longed to play autoharp for years and years. The instruments sat in their cases and I made no improvements at all. WELL, enter Habitica, and there is now a DAILY practice listed, AND a set of habits listed. So the smallest practice is a daily and anything extra gets rewarded in the habits column. I now practice every day.

Puppetry is something I loved as a kid. Captain Kangaroo was my childhood favorite show. Movies like LILI grabbed my imagination and I wanted those puppets so bad. So, in college I picked up puppets as part of teaching elementary school. But really needed to learn ventriloquism as I rarely had access to a proper puppet stage (which I longed for!). Well, I happened upon the International Ventriloquist Society at a website called Maher Studios. Where I found a link to five free lessons on ventriloquism! Needless to say, I am still working on the course, learning and having fun! Currently I have done a couple of videos to show myself at this level of skill.  I’m terrible at it but improving.

Of course, Gulf Wars was a blast and has nothing at all to do with anything else. Camping and dressing in medieval clothing for an entire week. I will most certainly go back again.

This is why I have not been updating this blog and I really ought to do more. 🙂  I even have blogging on my weekly Habitica! More on each topic soon. 🙂

Dear Lord, thank You for all the good things of this world. +Amen.