four things friday

Have you heard about "Five Things Friday"?  Well this is only four...

1.  As you know, I'm learning to play guitar.  It's been 6 months now and sometimes I feel like I'm not progressing enough.  Learning to read music has been difficult for me and practicing the fundamentals is not always the most fun part of this process.  Sometimes I head over to my weekly lesson with dread, worried that I will disappoint with my lack of progress.  This week I tried to convey to my teacher that I hoped my slow progress was not perceived as ingratitude, and that I very much appreciate the time being taken out of this person's life to give me this gift of music.  And my teacher - who happens to be my uncle and is giving me free lessons - basically said to me that everyone progresses at their own rate.  That at some point things will begin to click for me, things will fall into place, a light bulb will go off, the planets will align or something, and I will move up to another level.  He's confident this will happen for me and in the meantime, he just wants me to be happy and have fun.  This sort of blew me away because I generally tend to have a pessimistic attitude about myself.  I've been feeling like I owe my teacher/uncle more progress than I've made and I'm the only one who is putting these expectations on myself.  He made me realize that he is taking time to do this because he loves music and he's happy to teach me as long as I'm having fun.  All I can say is that it was an incredible weight off me.  And my uncle, well, he rocks - in more ways than one.  

2.  On a lighter note, I have seriously been enjoying iced coffees from Whole Foods.  Cold brewed coffee has become a revelation.  Cold brew has less acid and less caffeine, which for me, means no more heartburn and less problems getting good rest when my head hits the pillow.

3.  Here are a couple of blog posts about art that resonated with me recently...

Art Is Not A Choice

jealous and alone... or maybe not

4.  Today I created an Etsy treasury full of weeds.  I promise there won't be any sneezing or itchy eyes.  Check it out... Weeds

Gotta run now.  Whale Wars is on tonight and they really left me hanging last week!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Love, me