I am enjoying having daughter Elizabeth around to chat with. She, Eileen and I all went out for lunch together yesterday at the local Mexican restaurant, Margarita’s. After that, Eileen and Elizabeth took over my chore for the day and added grocery shopping to their list of things to do. Eileen has been wanting to buy stuff for Elizabeth so they went off and did that. Elizabeth wanted to frame a print she gave Eileen, so that was one of their tasks as well.

This worked out good for me. I stayed home and goofed off. I am feeling less tired. My arm is less sore. I’m thinking that it might not have been Chopin that made it sore so much as some Clementi études. The ones that I did last Tuesday were long and fast. I worked on them hands separately and then together. Yesterday when I began playing through one of them again I could feel the soreness in my arms once again. Aha!

Needless to day, I ceased working on that  étude.

Yesterday I spent time on the phone with my Mom’s lawyer and brother Mark who is visiting his kids on the east side of the state. They are planning a quick visit tomorrow. I’m consulting the lawyer about Mom’s recent influx of funds from sale of the home in Fenton.

Today I am going to take Mom to the shrink. Eileen has been helping me with some of these Mom tasks like taking her to appointments. I figure turn about is fair play today since I’m pretty sure Eileen is eating up all this time with Elizabeth.

I’m also going to reinstall Finale on my laptop today and do some church work. I will probably settle in to a rhythm of doing this on Wednesday mornings soon. But this Wednesday I want to spend time with the visiting Jenkinses. So I’ll get a jump on my tasks  today.

I am working on my Greek daily now. Also daily reading of the Cranmer biography and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. I’m on page 703 of 776 in the Taylor. When I have invested that much into reading a book, I am increasingly motivated to finish it.

I am deepening the way I read as well. I watched my grandson, Nicholas, pick up books that I knew he had read to take along to read when we were doing things as a family in California. When I asked him about reading books that he has already read, he said that he likes to read them over and over again, picking them up wherever he happens to open the book.

This repetition impresses me. I use repetition routinely in my daily practice. I have extended this to repetition in working on Greek. I also read deeper into my books. Where before I would disdain repeating passages in books and articles I read. Now I am more likely to read a passage over twice or to begin again in a book where I know I have already read. I think this is helping my brain.