100 things that made our year (2019)

Dear friends!

Happy New Year!

Here are 100 things that made our year:

1. Playing a bunch of diploma graduation ceremonies in January.
2. Ausra having a nasty bacteria infection.
3. Ausra reading “Foucuot’s pendulum” by Umberto Eco.
4. Watching total lunar eclipse.
5. Getting snowed up.
6. Feeding wild birds who were coming to our snowy garden in February.
7. Making Ausra very happy because of 2019 being a year of the pig (it’s her favorite animal).
8. Fixing security alarm because the siren kept raising the neighbors in the middle of the night.
9. Having some very slippery days and Ausra having to be very careful not to fall down.
10. Developing a serious addiction to pomelo grapefruit and eating them every night in March.
11. Going to the annual folk art fair around St Casimir’s Day (March 4) and buying some hand-made wooden kitchen appliances.
12. Eating lots of yeast with raising pancakes for Mardi Gras.
13. Giving up making breakfast for Lent.
14. Bringing tulips for Ausra on International Women’s Day and eating bean soup.
15. Raising Lithuanian national flag which was a gift from our community gardens on March 11 (Lithuanian Restoration of Independence Day).
16. Doing some Spring cleaning.
17. Playing organ duet recital in Alpe d’Huez in France. This is a nice ski resort which houses ultra modern-mountain shaped church with a gorgeous 2 manual Kleuker organ designed by the late Jean Guillou.
18. Having Easter holiday in April. Ausra watching birds in the woods as far away from school as possible.
19. Ausra remembering her favorite place in the whole world when school resumed. This is Big Spring in Michigan’s upper peninsula where the waters are so deep, green and charming.
20. Seeing “Avengers” movie in theaters. Ausra enduring it for 3 hours before she got her promised burger.
21. Wanting to buy a shirt to go with my butterfly in May. I thought my size was extra small. I was wrong.
22. Receiving a special hand-drawn birthday card from Ausra with a poem which goes something like this: Our hedgehog is bold / And fat is he now / His voice is clogged up / Can’t utter a word.
23. Playing solo organ recital in Torun, Poland at the festival dedicated to the bicentennial of Stanislaw Moniuszko.
24. Playing solo organ recital in Valletta, Malta for 200 tourists from Paris newspaper Le Figaro.
25. Rearranging our furniture and carrying my mattress to Ausra’s parent’s house on my head. It’s only about 1 kilometer away.
26. Ausra loving to stay in bed for 5 minutes longer than usual.
27. Doing my morning pull-up routine. Regretting of skipping those 3 weeks.
28. Ausra reading “Secret Life of Pigs”. Me - drawing comics.
29. Watering our garden in June. I was happy to do it, usually after watching at my phone for 3 hours for cryptocurrency prices.
30. Watching a beautiful titmouse in our garden which became one of the characters in our comics.
31. Watching a video of an elephant called Suda paint with her trunk on YouTube. After this video, I said I’m not painting ever again.
32. Dancing around the fire during Midsummer celebration. At the same time shortening daylight made us sad.
33. Going to a training session at our university cultural center in July. It’s called “Open Art”. It lasted half a year and it was a perfect time-waster.
34. Missing meeting Gene and Gwen due to high winds when they were supposed to moore in Klaipeda on a Baltic Sea Cruise.
35. Playing the last graduation ceremony for this year. “Pomp and Circumstance” work very well for our organ at church, especially when played one octave down.
36. Visiting regularly Ausra’s parents who live just 10 minutes away in the warm months. There Ausra’s brother’s dog Yoshke would be frequently seen. After dancing joyfully for seeing us, she would go to sleep on the sofa and if I woke her up she would growl at me to show who’s in charge! She likes to be fed human food from the hand and would ignore it when it was placed in her tray.
37. Hunting for mushrooms and picking berries in the woods nearby.
38. Taking long walks was and still is our favorite activity we do together.
39. Playing organ duet recital in Svendborg, Denmark. We stayed afterwards in Copenhagen for 3 days because Ausra wanted to see the Little Mermaid. Unfortunately she got sick with severe bacteria infection and even played the recital with high fever. We needed doctor’s prescription to get her antibiotics so I called local doctor on the phone and got acquainted with the Danish health care system.
40. Mowing the lawn in August. I was happy to do it because every step I take earns me AFIT tokens (they aren’t worth very much now).
41. Buying a book “Javascript for Kids” out of fascination with technology with the hope of teaching myself to code. Lasted only a few lessons (as usual).
42. Playing a solo recital at my church. A sole thought that kept swirling in my head was “Why haven’t I gone to the bathroom before…”
43. Having Fitbit bracelets to monitor our steps. For some reason Ausra’s device normally has more steps recorded. Maybe it’s because she is walking on all fours?
44. Painting our cabin. It took 3 trips to the hardware store because I chose red and salmon colors instead of brown.
45. Eating lots of raspberries from our garden in September. Ausra would eat them non-stop…
46. Getting unexpected visitors at nights with full moon - martens who would be playing on our roof.
47. Getting ripped off by Lithuanian customs. They charge taxes for the shipping price too. I bought some organ CDs from my Australian friend and paid double. 
48. Ending of Ausra’s summer vacation in September.
49. Getting to fly a hot air balloon which was Ausra’s brother’s gift on her birthday. The first time the wind was too high so we only watched several other balloons take off. I was very afraid and Ausra was enjoying herself.
50. Playing Lithuanian organ duet program in our church, including an organ duet premiere of symphonic poem “In the Forest” by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis.
51. Being annoyed by the screaming babies during our playing downstairs.
52. Going to the training session at the cultural center of the university in October. One of the exercises was to pair up with a colleague and lead them with their eyes closed around the area.Then we had to switch.
53. Making solar system out of vegetables and other culinary materials at this training session.
54. Being hit by martens again at night who wanted to play.
55. Demonstrating 19th century organ in Vabalninkas (North Lithuania). There teenagers were too shy to try out the instrument.
56. Saving marshtit sitting on the ground. It probably had a concussion from flying into the glass door of Ausra’s parent’s apartment building.
57. Improvising on the story of Exodus with the Kinetic Theater Troupe at our church.
58. Going to the modern art exhibition in November with Ausra. We saw lots of photographs and artwork about composer Eduardas Balsys whose 100th anniversary Lithuania celebrates this year.
59. Ausra having a brief recess at school. It was just a few days long and she still needed to come to school for check-in.
60. Having made coronation of one of my teeth. The doctor gave me a stamp of my mouth as a souvenir.
61. Ausra demonstrating 19th century Italian organ at the Church Heritage Museum. She taught some kids to play some Baroque music too.
62. Loosening up the springs of E and F keys on the treble octave of the Great on our church organ in December. I needed for the keys to be easier to press before our duet recital. However, before the recital on December 21 I had to strengthen the F spring again because it would get stuck.
63. Playing a very successful “Christmas with Bach” organ duet recital with music from Christmas Oratorio and “Wachet auf” cantata specifically arranged for our duet plus “Nun komm” and “Wachet auf” solo chorale preludes.
64. Composing 7 organ pieces this year.
65. Reading “The Firm” by John Grisham.
66. Writing a diary.
67. Doing Salutation of the Sun.
68. Ausra measuring her blood pressure.
69. Seeing a video about how Greek TV journalist was attacked by a pig.
70. Eating pancakes for breakfast.
71. Drinking wheat coffee with Ausra in the afternoon.
72. Uploading a bunch of audio tracks to Distrokid to be distributed to multiple online streaming platforms, including Spotify.
73. Reading “American Elf” comic diaries by James Kochalka.
74. Recording with my Rode Wireless Go microphone.
75. Having lunch date with Ausra on Fridays.
76. Going to Unda Maris organ studio rehearsals on Wednesdays.
77. Waking up from a loud knock on the wall at night. Went to see if Ausra was OK. Turns out she told me to stop snoring.
78. Reading diaries of David Sedaris.
79. Going through Cathedral Square and seeing Krishna singers. Took their picture and got a calendar as a gift.
80. Watching “Bones” on TV at night.
81. Reading “Making Comics” by Lynda Barry.
82. Checking our Steem and Creary rewards.
83. Recording Secrets of Organ Playing podcast episodes.
84. Watching a crow march in a supermarket’s parking lot like a supervisor.
85. Listening to the radio: Avocados are the green gold.
86. Watching Ausra park her car in the garage perfectly from the 3rd time.
87. Yoshke licking my nose.
88. Ordering a greeting on TV for the 95th birthday of Ausra’s mother’s aunt.
89. Playing cards with Ausra and her parents.
90. Watching the movie “Knives Out” with Daniel Craig.
91. Answering urgent student question at 11:31 PM.
92. Reading “Keep Going” by Austin Kleon and his blog.
93. Having a dream at night about 2 fat rats. I gave them freedom. After fighting among themselves one of them came back.
94. Listening to podcasts about creativity while vacuuming the carpets.
95. Talking to my mom on the phone. She just finished her Eduardas Balsys project with her students and now is waiting for her sister Irena to come over and prepare Christmas Eve dinner together.
96. Watching the new “Star Wars”. I liked lamp-shaped droid the most. Ausra - BB8.
97. Announcing the winners of our Secrets of Organ Playing and Pinky and Spiky Drawing contests.
98. Starting my 21st notebook with Pinky and Spiky comics.
99. Publishing Ausra’s 2nd Pinky and Spiky comic book: “Pinky And Spiky In A Coral Island: And Other Adventures And Screw-Ups Of Pinky, Spiky And Their Imaginary Friends”
100. Listening to a woodpecker in the forest.

Overall, it wasn’t an easy year but we look forward to 2020 and our upcoming concert trips to Sweden and Germany, drawing our comics and to our other activities online.

Hope everyone will have much health, happiness and creativity in the New Year!

And remember, when you practice, miracles happen!

Vidas and Ausra