April 2020 Recap

April felt simultaneously too long and like it was over in a flash. The first two weeks went on forever, and then the last couple have been here and gone. It's just such a weird time. I wish it would all just go away, as unrealistic as that is.

What I Did

• I did a bunch of walking. Not only around my house, but we got to Jug Bay, because it's free right now, and that was nice. There was a lot of people there, but it was peaceful. I would love to know how far I've walked on my driveway alone.

• We had a quiet Easter at home, like everyone. It made me sad that we couldn't go to church, but we still did our best at home. We played cornhole, had lots of good food, and got to video call with my mom's family for an hour or so.

• I've been watching a ton of YouTube and movies. They're great for distracting yourself. I'm also about halfway through the Silmarillion, which is good progress.

• But honestly, I haven't done much. I've gone driving a few times. I've made a bunch of art. I've gotten back into playing violin. I did my best to exercise daily. It's been over a month since I had work, although they were great and gave me like four weeks of pay before I was officially furloughed.

Read

Frankly In Love- David Yoon (3 stars)

A Thousand Perfect Notes- C. G. Drew (5 stars)

P.S. I Like You- Katie West (3 stars)

Inventing Victoria- Tonya Bolden (2 stars)

Leia: Princess of Alderaan- Claudia Gray (4 stars)

These Broken Stars- Amie Kaufman and Meaghan Spooner (3 1/2 stars)

The Scorpio Races- Maggie Stiefvater (5 stars)

The Lost Stories- John Flanagan (5 stars)

Watched

Dr. No

From Russia, With Love

Goldfinger (These first three are all James Bond. We just started getting into them)

Avatar (Interest. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it?)

Persuassion (An excellent version)

Return of the King

A Goofy Movie

An Extremely Goofy Movie

Togo

Writing

I took part in Camp NaNoWriMo this month to help me get a good start on my novel. On Monday I hit my goal of 30k. It was hard to sit down and write every day, but I did my best, even if it was only 500 words. I still have to finish the novel, but I do have over half of it down now.

Art

Again, I did a bunch of different art this month. I'll only put a few here. (Don't forget I have an art Instagram you can follow me on called rachel.e.art.) One project I've started is drawing different dancers I follow on Instagram. So far I've done two- Zara Silver and Autumn Miller.

Then this month turned out to be A Goofy Movie's 25th anniversary and I finally saw it, so I drew Max as Powerline for it. It was a fun afternoon project.

I also challenged myself to redraw some old art of mine, and you can see the results below. I was actually really happy with how they came out.

May Thoughts

• I'm trying not to think too much about next month. Everything is going to start opening up again, including my work (although I don't know when), and the whole thing just makes me anxious. So we're working on staying in the moment.

• I plan to finish re-drafting Lost Magic. It should only take me a couple more weeks.

• I'll keep making art, because it helps me cope. I hope to draw another installment in my Lord of the Ring characters. I'm hoping Merry.

• And I guess I'm leaving the rest up to the Lord. I hope my church can start meeting for services again soon, and that things will begin to return to normal.

How was April for you? Did you get to go outside or do anything interesting at home? Tell me in the comments.

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