Learning Something New

"One sure-fire way to stay Creative: force yourself to learn something new."
-Harvey Mackay

My new ukulele. Isn't she pretty?

And, she is so much fun!

I have issues with my left hand. I have had spinal fusion surgery to help repair some vertebrae that were pinching some nerves. Unfortunately, it didn't repair my hand completely, so it was left weak and on fire all the time because it lacks circulation. I know... good times.

I do some squeeze ball exercises to help my hand and sometimes sleep with a brace to help relax it. It still hurts.

My wonderful, creative friend has taken up playing the ukulele and shared how to play a few chords with me. It was so stinking fun! I loved it. My daughter has a ukulele and I hear her playing it all the time. She also has two guitars and a cello, but the uke is so small and easy to grab. It's just cute.

She didn't really let me play on her uke very often. So, I got on Amazon and purchase a uke of my own.  Oh my gosh!

My hand hurts if I play too long, but it is so much fun learning new songs that I don't really mind it too much. Trying to remember the chords takes practice - but hey, what doesn't take practice?

I wanted to find a way to be creative. This is one wonderful way to do so. I am so grateful to my friend for insisting that I try his ukulele and teaching me those first few chords.

I'm not necessarily saying that my weight loss helped me make the decision to purchase and learn to play a ukulele, but it certainly made the action come much more quickly. I don't know if I would have been "brave" enough to jump in to something new in this way if I am not more open to new experiences with this journey.

Either way - Learning something new is exhilarating! Just wait for my first performance on Ulleli, my Ukulele!

I know. I'm a dork and named my uke!