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Is the weekend gone already?

For some reason I had trouble remembering what I did on Saturday beyond completing the edit on chapter 6 of The Page & The Magician. I think I had a nap? I know I made soup. It was a homemade onion soup base with mushrooms and sweet potatoes. Odd, but tasty and quite filling. Oh and I had my second last guitar class, which makes me sad. I hope another session will run soon. Technically there are two more sessions, but I'm having an extended session next week due to being a Prose in the Park volunteer and having to miss the final class.

I'm wondering if there is a guitar with a neck that has a smaller diameter than mine. Mine starts at 5 inches on fret one and is six inches on fret 10. I have tiny hands and they're making it incredibly difficult to learn scales. I wonder if my teacher knows of any or if I need something even smaller than a 3/4 size. Perhaps a custom one.

I'm working on chapter 7 today. It needs the most work of any so far. It doesn't currently do enough for the story. It needs more direction and connection to the main plot. At least I know it has problems, I suppose.

I'm thinking about combining my martial arts blog with my main blog. I haven't wanted to before now because I felt like the audiences are probably different and I didn't want to alienate any readers, but more and more the two halves of my life are intermingling and it makes sense to have a single blog rather than two. This will make more sense in the coming months.

I watched some of the Tamarack Ottawa Race this morning. I was hoping to see a couple of friends run in the half marathon. I managed to miss them entirely as I was unknowingly watching the full marathon runners and couldn't even see that there were other runners beyond the tall people around me. It was interesting. I noticed quite a few runners didn't carry water with them and instead had loved ones supply it along the route. I saw people who ran by barely lifting their feet off the ground and others who brought their feet up as high as the backs of their knees. Some wore costumes (Batman ran a marathon today). Some held their hands behind their backs, others let them flail, others kept them in an asynchronous pace with their legs, and a few kept them from moving at all. And some of the men stripped as the ran. It was a good morning. I know virtually nothing about running beyond that it is bad for anyone with herniated discs. It's about time I get my neck rechecked as it's been nearly a year. It still hurts sometimes, but chiro doesn't seem to help it anymore.

For the next couple of days, I have some training on project scheduling. I'm taking the bus to avoid parking in the middle of downtown. I've been trying to get this training for nearly a year. The course didn't have enough people to run previously as it's quite specific. Hopefully there are no hiccups tomorrow or Tuesday.

In my martial arts class today, we did some Niten Ichi Ryu. This is the two sword art of Miyamoto Musashi, the famed author of The Book of Five Rings. It's a little freer than the other forms we do as most of the footwork isn't strict. You have to be in the right place for whatever technique, but the steps taken to get there aren't specified. I found myself often defaulting to what I've learned previously. I don't know if that is a good thing or not, but we've learned things like not crossing our feet as we walk. Sensei hit my hand a couple of times with his sword, or maybe it was my sword. It happened as he threw my swords out of his way just before he killed me. Other than the pain of that, I enjoyed Niten. I think it's going to be fun learning it.

Well, in order to make the bus in time tomorrow, I think I need to eat breakfast on the bus, so I have muffins I need to bake. I should take some knitting with me too.

Ciao,
R~

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