So the vacation seems to have eased my burnout quite a bit. That’s nice. I’m home having a leisurely Saturday morning. Eileen and I have gone to the farmer’s market already (cut basil, small tomatoes, asparagus, leaf lettuce, strawberries and cucumbers). Eileen came home from vacation and discovered that a weavers festival that she has been reading and thinking about is actually being held here in Holland.

In addition the local library has brought in Eric Litwin, the author of Pete the Cat, for their summer reading kickoff party about two blocks from here at a park.

So Eileen has a busy day planned.

Eileen drove us home yesterday and I went and practiced organ. I ended up changing some pedaling in my Mozart. The edition I am playing from was done by Bonnet and is a bit dated. Initially I pedaled the furious pedal parts with toes only. This involves some pedaling that is almost awkward but is of course how one would probably have to pedal it with more baroque pedals.

Yesterday I tried some of Bonnet’s suggested pedaling and think that I will follow some of them. I admit that I keep hearing my teacher, Craig Cramer, telling me I arrived at Notre Dame with no pedal technique. In retrospect I think this is probably a tad harsh.

However, in my isolation and old age I have to work at ignoring this negativity.

So I added some heels to my Mozart pedaling. Startling, eh?

After practicing  and grocery shopping with Eileen and stopping off to say hi to my Mom, I didn’t have the energy to treadmill yesterday. But today I plan to. As well as practice.

But in the meantime I’m trying to keep myself in a vacation mood and do a lot of leisure reading.

Life is good.

A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find – NYTimes.co

Further thoughts on the weird new Flannery O’Connor stamp.