Tidy House, Tidy Mind.

Ah, Incompetent Soprano followers, I can only apologise for the lacklustre and neglectful way I have treated you recently. Much has been happening in the life of this most incompetent individual only none of it has anything to do with my own singing and performing so did not feel the necessity to put fingers to keyboard and report owt to you. However, I feel change is afoot. Perhaps Venus is in Scorpio or He-Man is in Equador, or the like, meaning things are about to jiggle about.

I started 2018 with a bang! Well, the biggest clear out I have ever done in my life! I followed the Marie Kondo book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying” to the letter and disposed of approximately half of my worldly possessions and I now have an immaculately tidy flat with not a thing out of place. I finally understand how to keep a tidy home and, hopefully, it will stay that way. It has only taken me 43yrs to get it.

If you need to sort your life out, BUY THE BOOK! Before the book I would come home with much to do, look around and see clutter galore and think “I can’t work in this I’ll just have a gin and watch University Challenge or Pointless" depending how intelligent I felt at the time. Consequently nothing would get done and my procrastination levels were at the most ridiculous level. Not anymore!

I talked about this with a colleague who said he had read somewhere that it takes a month for a habit to form. It has been a month since the epic clear out and I see 3 habits have formed:

1) I now keep a tidy house

2) I have managed to write in a diary every day for a month (not the sort where I write about how Josh hasn't noticed me and he's bound to like my best friend Hayley more because she's got bigger boobs, more a stream of consciousness type affair)

3) I write a to-do list every evening for the next day. I don't always complete everything on my to-do lists but at least I am more likely to remember to do the things I probably would have forgotten to do at some point.

All of these things, I hope will lead to a more organised, slightly less incompetent soprano as the months go by. I do feel a change is necessary, but not sure about the nature of the change. I have handed my notice in to one of the school's I teach at in order to free up some time to teach more at home but also to work on more cabaret stuff.

Today I had a rehearsal for a gig I'm doing in Rottingdean next weekend. It's the first time I have sung properly in 6 months. Unfortunately I have succumbed to a lurgy but I managed to power through. I really have to sort my life out so I do more singing. I'm not desperate to do shows again but gigs here and there, now and again, would feed the soul which becomes more necessary the older I get. So, I am hoping that the new found order I have in my life will keep me on the straight and narrow and allow me to make room for more me time! Much as I love teaching I was starting to forget that I am a pretty decent singer and who am I to deny the world the odd performance!