I don't seem to be getting any less busy, which is definitely being exacerbated by the ADHD meds shortage. I usually take 50mg of lisdexamphetamine/day and quite fortuitously my last prescription came at a point where they were out of the 50mg capsules, but were able to supply me with 20s and 30s, so now I'm tapering down to 40mg and then 30mg on work days, and just taking modafinil at the weekends (which isn't nearly as effective for me, but does at least take the edge off the withdrawal fatigue. But this means that the vast majority of my executive function is being spent on the day job, leaving me with rather less for everything else.
I've got an appointment on Friday with a private provider in the hope that I can temporarily transfer my care and get a prescription for an alternative medicine before my current supplies run out. I am very conscious of my privilege here, as a lot of people with ADHD simply wouldn't be able to afford several hundred quid at a moment's notice, plus potentially ongoing additional costs for prescriptions and the drugs themselves, depending on how quickly I can transfer back to the NHS with new medication options approved for my GP to prescribe. But it's still several hundred pounds that I would prefer to be able to spend on frivolities like books and restaurants and supporting myself for the next three years once I go back to university...
I've been doing more baking for the Alpha course - last week I wasn't there because I was giving spiritual direction and also had a PCC meeting at St John's, but I made gingerbread with lemon icing ahead of time, which I hope went down well - I thought it was really good in any case. And at the moment I've got marzipan fruitcakes in the oven (definitely not Christmas cake, I hasten to point out, not at this time of year!)
I've been doing various church music things recently as well. I mentioned a couple of entries ago that I was planning on singing the Fauré requiem with another local church for All Souls, and that was absolutely glorious. I was quite glad that there were a couple of other tenors who were much better than me, but in some ways it was also quite nice that there was one who was probably a bit weaker, so I didn't feel like I was letting the side down. At any rate, I think I got most of the notes right, and definitely felt as though I was adding to rather than detracting from the overall quality. I've joined the sound tech rota at St Luke's, which was arguably unwise, but there's definitely something about serving in some way that makes it much easier to feel part of the community, which is probably more important as my attendance can be a bit sporadic given everything else I've got going on.
Also on the church music front, St John's has lost its organist - he's gone on to be Director of Music at another church, and whilst I am thrilled for him, we will be feeling the loss. In the past I've occasionally tried to play the organ as a last desperate measure, but I'm simply not good enough to be able to play harmonies with sufficiently few mistakes to effectively lead the congregation, and whilst I could just pick out the tune, it sounds so thin, it's really suboptimal. But then I realised that what I could do is play the tune on recorder, which as a solo instrument sounds a lot more like it's supposed to without any harmonies. I did that this Sunday, and it worked pretty well. I did discover that all the lessons I'd learned about accompanying an individual, and following their lead, needed to be unlearned when accompanying a group, where the point is really to drag them kicking and screaming into the next verse ;) I also learned that too many hymns are in Eb maj, and before next week I shall be getting hold of some manuscript paper and transposing them down a semitone or up a tone.
I've also got some other singing plans coming up. GSM has two Occasional Choirs in fairly quick succession - evensong on November 26th, then mass on December 10th, and I'm probably going to do Nine Lessons and Carols (on the 17th December) with another local church, members of whose choir I met at the Fauré. Suddenly when I get it all written down like that it occurs to me that maybe that's quite a lot to be taking on when I'm supposed to be avoiding new commitments, but singing is something that gives me so much joy that it probably isn't a mistake.
We've been gradually putting the final touches to the work we had done on the house last year. The builder finally came and finished the last few bits of snagging and we signed off on the formal project as complete, and I have now finished cataloguing the books on the downstairs bookcases, and we've got a new drinks cabinet. But we still have one large Ikea bookcase with a bunch of random odds and sods that we need to get rid of or find new homes for, and we're waiting for some wall-mounted wine-racks which should arrive sometime between the end of November and mid-December. And then we need to decide what sofa/armchair layout we want, and possibly replace some or all of the existing sofas. And then I think we'll be done, at which point we can start thinking about remodelling the second and third floors...
I remain eternally grateful to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smwhpf for introducing me to Olio, which has made the process of decluttering stuff that we don't want vastly easier than it was when freecycle was the only game in town. I am also finding the fact that it exists helpful in terms of giving myself permission to knit and crochet quite random stash-busting projects, on the assumption that I'll probably be able to find people to take away the results without having to try and guilt trip you lot into finding homes for them ;)
I have been doing a bit more social recently than I sometimes do. I had a nice weekend in Yorkshire, with a night in York seeing Mark in an excellent performance of the Government Inspector, followed by a couple of days at my parents' house, where we wisely didn't try to do much, but had some really good conversations about anything and everything. It did put a bit of a spanner in the works of my yarn stash-busting plans mind you, as I realised that I had a large carrier bag full of oddments that I'd left there when moving out of my flat in Huddersfield, which Mum was keen to return to me. Oh well :)
A couple of months ago I had an unexpected chance meeting with Michaela, an old friend from Cambridge goth scene with whom I'd entirely fallen out of touch when I left the Book of Face. It turns out that she's now Diocesan Secretary for Chelmsford, and so was there when I went to the Cathedral for the deaconing of one of my spiritual directees. We had a brief catch up there, and exchanged numbers with the intention of making plans. Contrary to all expectations, making plans actually happened, and last Friday I went and had dinner with her and her family, and other former camgoths Liz, Eleanor, and Jack, which was really quite delightful.
I've got an appointment on Friday with a private provider in the hope that I can temporarily transfer my care and get a prescription for an alternative medicine before my current supplies run out. I am very conscious of my privilege here, as a lot of people with ADHD simply wouldn't be able to afford several hundred quid at a moment's notice, plus potentially ongoing additional costs for prescriptions and the drugs themselves, depending on how quickly I can transfer back to the NHS with new medication options approved for my GP to prescribe. But it's still several hundred pounds that I would prefer to be able to spend on frivolities like books and restaurants and supporting myself for the next three years once I go back to university...
I've been doing more baking for the Alpha course - last week I wasn't there because I was giving spiritual direction and also had a PCC meeting at St John's, but I made gingerbread with lemon icing ahead of time, which I hope went down well - I thought it was really good in any case. And at the moment I've got marzipan fruitcakes in the oven (definitely not Christmas cake, I hasten to point out, not at this time of year!)
I've been doing various church music things recently as well. I mentioned a couple of entries ago that I was planning on singing the Fauré requiem with another local church for All Souls, and that was absolutely glorious. I was quite glad that there were a couple of other tenors who were much better than me, but in some ways it was also quite nice that there was one who was probably a bit weaker, so I didn't feel like I was letting the side down. At any rate, I think I got most of the notes right, and definitely felt as though I was adding to rather than detracting from the overall quality. I've joined the sound tech rota at St Luke's, which was arguably unwise, but there's definitely something about serving in some way that makes it much easier to feel part of the community, which is probably more important as my attendance can be a bit sporadic given everything else I've got going on.
Also on the church music front, St John's has lost its organist - he's gone on to be Director of Music at another church, and whilst I am thrilled for him, we will be feeling the loss. In the past I've occasionally tried to play the organ as a last desperate measure, but I'm simply not good enough to be able to play harmonies with sufficiently few mistakes to effectively lead the congregation, and whilst I could just pick out the tune, it sounds so thin, it's really suboptimal. But then I realised that what I could do is play the tune on recorder, which as a solo instrument sounds a lot more like it's supposed to without any harmonies. I did that this Sunday, and it worked pretty well. I did discover that all the lessons I'd learned about accompanying an individual, and following their lead, needed to be unlearned when accompanying a group, where the point is really to drag them kicking and screaming into the next verse ;) I also learned that too many hymns are in Eb maj, and before next week I shall be getting hold of some manuscript paper and transposing them down a semitone or up a tone.
I've also got some other singing plans coming up. GSM has two Occasional Choirs in fairly quick succession - evensong on November 26th, then mass on December 10th, and I'm probably going to do Nine Lessons and Carols (on the 17th December) with another local church, members of whose choir I met at the Fauré. Suddenly when I get it all written down like that it occurs to me that maybe that's quite a lot to be taking on when I'm supposed to be avoiding new commitments, but singing is something that gives me so much joy that it probably isn't a mistake.
We've been gradually putting the final touches to the work we had done on the house last year. The builder finally came and finished the last few bits of snagging and we signed off on the formal project as complete, and I have now finished cataloguing the books on the downstairs bookcases, and we've got a new drinks cabinet. But we still have one large Ikea bookcase with a bunch of random odds and sods that we need to get rid of or find new homes for, and we're waiting for some wall-mounted wine-racks which should arrive sometime between the end of November and mid-December. And then we need to decide what sofa/armchair layout we want, and possibly replace some or all of the existing sofas. And then I think we'll be done, at which point we can start thinking about remodelling the second and third floors...
I remain eternally grateful to
smwhpf for introducing me to Olio, which has made the process of decluttering stuff that we don't want vastly easier than it was when freecycle was the only game in town. I am also finding the fact that it exists helpful in terms of giving myself permission to knit and crochet quite random stash-busting projects, on the assumption that I'll probably be able to find people to take away the results without having to try and guilt trip you lot into finding homes for them ;)I have been doing a bit more social recently than I sometimes do. I had a nice weekend in Yorkshire, with a night in York seeing Mark in an excellent performance of the Government Inspector, followed by a couple of days at my parents' house, where we wisely didn't try to do much, but had some really good conversations about anything and everything. It did put a bit of a spanner in the works of my yarn stash-busting plans mind you, as I realised that I had a large carrier bag full of oddments that I'd left there when moving out of my flat in Huddersfield, which Mum was keen to return to me. Oh well :)
A couple of months ago I had an unexpected chance meeting with Michaela, an old friend from Cambridge goth scene with whom I'd entirely fallen out of touch when I left the Book of Face. It turns out that she's now Diocesan Secretary for Chelmsford, and so was there when I went to the Cathedral for the deaconing of one of my spiritual directees. We had a brief catch up there, and exchanged numbers with the intention of making plans. Contrary to all expectations, making plans actually happened, and last Friday I went and had dinner with her and her family, and other former camgoths Liz, Eleanor, and Jack, which was really quite delightful.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-14 06:21 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-11-14 11:02 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-11-15 07:07 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-11-14 10:39 pm (UTC)From:Yay! for the good stuff. Loving the idea of hymns being accompanied by a recorder instead of an organ - wondering if the small change in context helps people rediscover the words and music as well as it being a practical solution for you?
Good luck with the meds situation. I’m sorry it’s currently so difficult for ADHDers right now, Glad that you have a little bit of a buffer from the worst of it but sorry that it’s costing you so much and that it’s not an option open to everyone who needs it.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-14 11:10 pm (UTC)From:Thank you for the sympathy/good luck wishes. It'll be alright - even if I can't sort out an alternative, my current supply will last, albeit with lower than optimal doses, until I finish work for Christmas, and then I'm taking all of January to go on retreat, so I won't be back until 12th February, by which point I strongly hope that they'll have sorted things out.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-19 11:50 am (UTC)From: