9-7

I am so glad it is Wednesday.  It is so nice and cool out.  I have had to wear a jacket for the last couple of days when I went outside.  I don't mind.  I have my Tinkerbell white hoodie on here in the dining room.  I actually had to turn the heat on this morning as it was about 68 degrees in the house.  A bit too cold for me.  I am glad it is a bit cooler.  I have been able to breath better these past few days and my headaches are the normal ones not the bad ones that come with the extreme heat.  I had 2 new students this afternoon.  Natalie, 11, will be every other week and Sarah, 11, every week.  Both are singers.  I think the first lessons went well.  Both girls are very excited about learning to sing.  Natalie had taken singing before for about a month, but she didn't think she was learning anything.  Sarah has never had lessons before.  Yesterday, I had another new student.  Her name is Aaiyanna.  She is 7.  She did very well too.  I was pleased.

I am almost to the point where I cannot add another student.  It is a beautiful feeling, let me tell you.  I figure I can either take 2 to 3 more with the online company or 2 not from the online company.  I have had several new students since June and they are all planning to continue this fall!  I am so excited about that because ALL the students who started last winter, have quit, yes, every single one of them.  I thought perhaps Kayla and Amanda would come back but I haven't heard anything from either one of them yet.  Oh well, it would be nice if they did, but if they don't, I will have other new ones.  I am excited about all the lessons, new ones and the old ones.  It should be a great fall.  I am working on competition music and Christmas music so that is keeping me very busy.

I talked to Kathy today.  It was nice to speak with her and find out how her 4 are doing on the 2nd day of school.  I spoke with her about another issue I am dealing with and between the two of us, we came up with a plan.  I feel good about the decision I made.  It is the only way for me to deal with this.  Sometimes family can be so hard to deal with but I feel good about this decision.

Tomorrow is my blood test in the afternoon.  I will have the lovely Breanna's lesson and then I will head to the doctor's for the blood test.  I am trying to drink enough water to make tomorrow's test easier.  Then later on I will have Logan's lesson.  This is his 3rd lesson.  I do need him to actually change his lesson if possible because it conflicts with choir practice, but if he can't, I just won't join the choir at this point.  It is okay either way.  I will join the choir later at a later date.

Overall, it has been a good day with all the lessons I have had today.  I only have 2 students tomorrow (3 lessons - Breanna takes voice and piano) so I am looking forward to that.  I love the temperatures out this week.  I hope your day has been good to.

Labor Day

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the rest of the students.  Fall is officially on its way.  Today is about 70 degrees today and it is now about 61 degrees.  What a change from Friday and Saturday that almost 100 degrees.  Yeah, Michigan has strange weather but hey, I will take the 60s to 70s over near 100s any day.  I have nice comfy pants on with my lovely Tinkerbell fleece hoodie.  I love hoodie weather!  I was supposed to have 4 lessons today but only ended up with one.  I am kind of bummed about that but Camille did reschedule to tomorrow.  I don't know what happen to Benjy and Joiene.  I don't know if their Mom understood she needed to call me if they weren't coming.  They are new to lessons and English is not their parents first language.  I will find out next week when I speak with her.  I also don't know if she had my phone number, that could be a problem too.  They are through the online company so i called and we decided to just reschedule the lesson to the end of the month so they won't be paying for it right now.  Of course, if it happens again, that is a different story.  I really do think this time the mom just didn't understand to call me or doesn't have my phone number.

It was an interesting afternoon.  I went to get a few things at the store and on the way home I was almost broadsided.  Yeah, I was driving down the street and the cross street had a stop sign.  How the car missed a bright RED car, I do not know, but they almost drove into me.  Fortunately, there was no one coming my direction so I could swerve and miss them.  I was not a happy camper but I am happy that me and the little red car are still intact and in one piece without anything wrong with it.  No bumps or bruises for either one of us.

I am looking forward to two new students tomorrow and Wednesday.  Both are singers.  One is 7 and the other is 11.  It shall be fun.  I also have another new student who needs to pick their time because they were signed up at the same time as one of my new students.  Overall, so far fall is shaping up nicely.

Fall is my favorite season of all.  It looks so pretty when the leaves change color.  Okay, I must admit, I do not like raking leaves.  Well, I can't do it myself, so I have the young man who mows my lawn do it for me.  I don't have many trees in my yard, wow, come to think of it, I don't have any except the Japanese Maple that is in the front yard, but across the street is a huge, and I mean huge, Poplar tree that sends my lawn lots and lots of leaves.  The tree is so big that if it came down in a storm towards my house, it would take out my whole house.  Fortunately, that has never happened and I hope it doesn't.

I am re-reading the O'Malley series from Dee Henderson.  She is a Christian Contemporary Writer.  I love these books.  I had thought I donated them 3 years ago when I donated 17 boxes of books to a church rummage sale.  I have regretted it ever since.  At the time I thought Momma and I would be moving closer to the store.  This was way before I realized how expensive the Rochester Area was and before we lost the store.  I am glad we ended up not moving.  With losing the store, we needed to stay in the house and this was right before the housing bubble burst.  I am thankful we stayed here.  However, there is no way to get all those boxes of books back.  I don't miss the Star Wars books.  They were getting boring and they were killing off the best characters.  Since there are multiple authors, each book was not in sync all the time with other books.  There were some good authors, but others weren't so good.  When I emptied the dresser drawer that had the books in it, I found 5 of the 7 O'Malley series.  I am glad I only have to purchase 2 of them.  I have already read 1 of them.  I found several books that I am excited about finding.  I also found some in the boxes in my room too so my room has been a treasure trove these last few weeks.  My dining room table that was so nicely empty, is now covered with books!  I am sure this is not a surprise since I have been bringing books downstairs from my room.  I haven't had to go to the use bookstore to get new books.  I did find several books that I plan to take to the use bookstore and turn them in for credit for more books.  I also need to go to my friend, Lisa's used bookstore near by.  She opened her own bookstore when the Border's books and music went out of business near my house.  Lisa is doing pretty well with it.  I am pleased with that for her.  She went to high school with me.

It has been a good day despite my sleeping in rather late and the almost car accident.  I am looking forward to the cooler weather this week.  Thank goodness for that!  I do hope your day is good too!

Jessie's Wedding Day

Jessie was a beautiful bride!  She looked simply beautiful.  Her dress was a sweetheart neckline with sparkles all over it.  Her sister, Katie was a bridesmaid and also look so beautiful!  I would love to tell you that I took a lot of pictures and can post them, but I can't.  I was so caught up in the service that I forgot I had a camera.  Yeah, wasn't that smart?  No, not really, but considering I have memory problems with Fibro Fog and doing more than one thing at a time is not something I am good at, I am not surprised.  Robin came with as Mike was ill.  She took some pictures with her phone so hopefully she will post them.  It was a lovely reception too.  We stayed until about 9:30 when Robin started getting a bit tired.  I was ready to go to because the dancing was starting and I usually leave about that time.  I was getting a bit of a bad headache at that point too so it was a good time to leave.  I saw Jessie and Katie's brother, Martin, as we left and told him to let her know it was a wonderful wedding and she and Katie looked beautiful.  I did get to talk to Katie so that was good.  I know Jessie knew I was there because she saw me at the church.  She had both her mom and dad walk her down the aisle.  That was really neat.  It was simply a great day all around.  It just was.  I even broke down and put some makeup on, foundation, eye shadow, and all.  Well as I was putting my eye shadow on, my brush broke.  Yeah, that was not fun but I got what I needed on.  Martin's girlfriend, Chelsea made all the cupcakes for the dessert table.  Boy, the one I had was amazing!  It was so good.  She is an incredible baker.  Martin is going to school to be a social worker, I had thought he was going for being a youth pastor, but I guess he changed his mind.  I think he will make a great social worker.  He plans to get his master's degree too.  He said with social work it is a necessity.  I am so proud of all three of them.  Katie is working on her Nurses Administration degree, Martin is for social work, and Jessie is getting a masters in English.  They all have grown up so well.  They are such good people too.

I ran into a couple of former students' Moms there too.  I actually expected that I would because I know they are friends of Jessie's parents.  It was nice catching up with them.  I knew a bit about the one mom because her daughter, Kelly Lynn is the teacher I loaned books to so she can look and figure out what she wants to do.  She took a big pile home with her and I told her she could borrow them for about a month.  Kelly was like, oh, I will only need them for about a week.  I knew a bit better on that and I knew it would take a bit for her to go through them all.  She is a brand new teacher who I also hope will take her students to Michigan Music Association Competition this winter.  We shall see!

I am very tired now and my legs and feet hurt as I don't have a good pair of dress shoes.  They hurt my feet but I didn't want to wear sneakers.  Maybe I should get a pair of black sneakers so no one will know I am wearing sneakers instead of dress shoes.  I also thought that maybe a pair of ballet slippers would work too.  I don't know.  I hope that by Christmas I will lose some weight and then maybe I can fit into an old pair of dress shoes.  My feet need to lose weight too.  I can only try.

I am going to get a book to read now while I relax before I head for bed.  It was such a wonderful day.  I had such a nice time at the wedding and the reception.  It was simply beautiful.

I do hope your day was as beautiful as mine!

Saturday 9-3

I ran some errands this afternoon.  Boy, was it hot.  I am glad that tomorrow is projected to be much cooler.  It would be good for the wedding although the wedding is inside.  I am sure there will be some outdoor pictures and that would be really hot for a guy in a tux and the bride in the gown.  I am very excited about this wedding.  I just love Jessie.  I first met her when she was about 9 years old.  I had started a homeschool choir at one of my students church.  Jessie, her sister Katie, and her brother Martin joined.  We had the choir for one year and then I was called to teach them private music lessons.  All three play piano simply beautiful.  Martin is gifted to be able to play anything he pretty much hears.  It is amazing.  Katie and Jessie are also very gifted pianists.  I have had the lucky privilege to watch them grow up.  When each of the girls graduated high school, I encouraged them to start teaching themselves.  Then I bought the music store I taught at.  I immediately hired both girls.  They are wonderful with children and very good teachers.  I just love them all.  Jessie is the first to be married and I just know she will be an absolutely beautiful bride.  I will probably have tears watching her through another milestone of her life.  I was also lucky enough to be invited to her and Katie's graduation from high school.  Jessie is now going to Graduate School for English.  She wishes to be an English professor.  Katie is now a Paramedic and I believe she is heading for nursing school.  Martin is going to be a Youth Pastor.  I think they all will be super successful in their chosen careers.  I haven't seen them in a while so it will be nice to see their parents as well as them at the wedding.  Weddings are such beautiful things.  I simply adore them.  I have been lucky enough to have been in attendance at several of my former students weddings.  It is a nice thing.

The rest of the night will be spent relaxing and hopefully getting a lot of sleep.  I have to be up a bit early tomorrow to get ready for the wedding and to have Rick's lesson.  He is coming a bit early so that I can make it to the wedding on time.  I didn't want to cancel the lesson as that wouldn't be necessary.  I just asked him to come about 15 minutes earlier than usual.  Since he is usually a bit early, this timing will work out wonderfully.  I am re-reading several books that I had forgotten I had.  They were stored in one of the bottom drawers in my dresser.  I have since pulled them out.  I was so excited that I had these books.  I know I have read them all, but I can't remember them so it is like reading them for the first time!  How cool is that?  I have already read 5 of the books.  They will go on the bookshelf downstairs.  I am lucky that I can read books over and over and still enjoy them.  I have a student who can only read a book once and that is it.  She remembers them enough that she can't enjoy them the second time.  One nice thing about Fibro, is the memory thing when it comes to reading books and seeing movies, other than that the memory problem sucks.  However, when it comes to remembering books or movies, it does come in handy that I have memory issues because then I can read the same book over and over or see the same movie again and again.  I am currently reading the Stonewycke Legacy by Michael Phillips and Judith Pella.  It is a Christian book that is actually 3 books in one volume.  There are 3 books to the Legacy and they published them all in one book so it is kind of cool.  I finished the first Stonewycke books last night.  I expect by tomorrow I will finish the others.

I do hope it has been a good day for you.  I am just excited that fall will be here soon!

Super Hot day

It feels like it is over 100 degrees today.  I am not happy about that but I hope it is the last of the really hot days.  I didn't go very far today but that is okay.  Tomorrow I have to pick up Jessie's Wedding gift and Wedding card along with some music books.  I was planning to go grocery shopping but since my lovely Calli wishes to go with me I will postpone it to next weekend.  She won't be home for the weekend.  It will work out just fine because I don't need to shop this weekend.  There is enough food for another week.  I just need some milk for the week.

I had Calli's and Acer's piano and voice lessons this afternoon.  Calli is learning Ave Maria for Christmas.  She is doing very well with it.  We just did the first 1/4 of the song.  Acer, I think, is also learning it a bit too.  He likes to sing every song that his sister learns.  I don't mind because it totally expands his musical education.  Acer learned a new piano song today too.  Sometimes he likes to only do 1/2 but with a song that is only 3 lines long, he learned the whole thing.  I think he was pleased with himself with the song.  He is now in the 2nd book in the piano series we use.  We used Alfred's basic piano series.  My younger students use the Alfred piano series for the younger student.  We had started Acer in that but he quickly out grew it.  We had a brief chat on what we would be doing this year.  He seemed happy with what direction we are heading too.  Calli and I talked about what happens when she finishes the lesson book she is in.  She was very happy about that.  Calli is very excited about moving out of the lessons books and into just regular songs for the piano.  The reason I don't use the lesson books after level 3 is because they will have excerpts of songs but not the whole thing.  For example, they will have the main theme of Fur Elise and I want her to learn the entire song.  She totally understood what I meant and is anxious to get to that point in piano.  Both kids do very well.  They have to have their lessons memorized when they leave my house and usually they do.  I do expect a bit more from Acer and Calli because they are so talented.  With the love of music that they have and the talent they have I will say, I do expect a bit more from them.  Acer and I did talk about what happens when I give him too much just like when that happened to Calli.  Both children know that occasionally I do give too much of an assignment.  I don't mean too, but it does happen.  They both now know that if that happens, they just let me know and play part of their lessons.  Calli had that happen to her this summer and we hadn't talked about what to do when that happens.  Now she knows.  I am very happy with their progress.

I don't have too many plans for the weekend.  I am going to go and get the music books I need for Monday and that is about it.  I have Rick's lesson and Jessie's wedding on Sunday.  Monday has lessons despite the fact it is a holiday.  I told the parents I was available if they wanted lessons.  Apparently, some of them do!  So that is awesome!

Next week is the first week of school for the rest of the kids.  It will be an exhausting week for some of them.  I always expect some absences the first week although this year it doesn't seem to have any.  I usually don't give such big assignments during the first few weeks.  With homework, the students have to find that balance of practicing and homework.  I am looking forward to another school year.

It has been a good day with the wonderful students and their Mom.  I am looking forward to a low key weekend with a few errands and lessons.  I do hope your day has been good.

Thursday 9-1

Yeah!  It is September and cooler weather.  Okay, so not cooler weather today, tomorrow, or the next day, but after that cooler weather.  It is going to go from over 90 to 70 overnight.  Okay, 70 is not my favorite temp but that is okay, I can survive it.  I have the most adorable fleece hoodies to wear and I am anxious to wear them again.  I am not looking forward to winter, but I do love fall best of all.  The colors of the changing leaves is simply beautiful.  Last fall when the leaves were changing I took Mom on a couple of drives.  Nothing too long, just short little jaunts.  Mom and I really enjoyed the drive and the company.  She didn't speak to much to other people but she spoke a lot to me.  It was cute when she would become a chatterbox to other people.

I have one lesson tonight.  Logan is a new student.  He has only had one lesson with me so far so tonight is number 2.  He lives right near me so that is nice for the family.  He could even walk here from school and then walk home.  That is how close he lives to me.  When I talked to his Mom, she was very familiar with my street.  That was the first time that has happened except for when my neighbor's grandchild took lessons.  He quit this summer.  I was bummed by what can I say?  It happens.  Logan is working really hard on reading notes.  I have to get some note reading material for him this week when I go to the music store.  I am planning to go tomorrow to the music store.  I need to get some books for Emily and Sarah.  That should do it for all the students who need books at this time.  Oh wait, McKenzie will need them next month.  We have about 1 lesson left with this book and then she will need the books.  I usually pick up the books because then I know they got the right ones.  Most of the time the parents pay me back right away.  Only a few times have the parents not paid me.  The parents I have know have even given me the money for the books ahead of time!  That is so cool when that happens.

I am very tired today.  I received a call from my Breanna saying she wasn't feeling very well so no lesson for my girl today.  I just received a call from Rebecca.  She will be starting lessons next Saturday at noon.  Yeah!  I haven't seen her since last year after competition.  Her mom is planning for her to be every other week, which works nicely for the little one.  She is 10 now.  Wow, I remember when they brought her home from Russia 9 1/2 years ago.  She is still rather tiny.  I do have a bit of a bad headache again today.  I have been waking up with them for a few weeks now.  They often go down by the end of the day to the regular headache, but it is getting frustrating to have them every day.  i hope it ends soon.

I do hope you are having a good day.

Wednesday 8-31

I can't believe it is the end of August already.  I am glad that it is going to be fall though as I will have a few more students than I do now.  I have a new one starting next week.  I also received another phone call this afternoon about a new student too.  I hope that student's mom calls back soon.  I also have a new student with the Takelessons, unfortunately, it is at the very same time with my other new student.  Yup, I called when they had it marked as a possible new student so they are fixing this issue.  I called again this evening that is how I found out they are taking care of it.  Thank goodness for that.  I do hope these students last longer than the ones I had last winter.  As a matter of fact, I do not have ONE student from that time at all.  Many were adults that quit, a couple were temporary students, and the other s quit for the summer so I have no idea if they are coming back or not.  I shall find out as they call the online company.  I do hope that Amanda comes back for the school year.  She is a lovely girl who is starting 8th grade.  She was a good student to have.  I am friends with her on facebook.  I don't know if Kayla will come back or not.  So far all of my summer students are planning to stay so that is awesome.  I am pleased with that.

I went to get my hair done but they were closed.  I don't know why because it was the middle of the week and the middle of the day.  I will try again tomorrow and if I can't get it done there I will go to another place near by.  I also need to take a package to the UPS store for my Uncle's girlfriend.  She needs to exchange one of the packages she ordered.  They were a pair of shoes that were a bit too bag.

It has been a decent day except for my dear friend, Julie, has been very ill.  She is home from the hospital now, but it was a scary moment for the family.  She had a bad reaction from her migraine medicine.  It was apparently very close call.  I am so glad that she is doing better.  That is really a good thing but it will take a bit for her to totally recover.  I had no idea except for I had called Lily to ask her when she and her Mom were coming over to help with the family room.  I got a call from Ross this morning and he gave me the scoop.  Yeah, obviously, they did not come over.  Julie needs to totally recover from this issue, then we will deal with the family room.

Tomorrow I have Breanna's and Logan's lessons.  Logan has had one lesson so far.  He is a piano player.  I wonder if Breanna is going to join the band that wanted her too.  I will have to ask tomorrow.

Friday is just the Bowman-Tomlinson kids' lessons right now.  Elizabeth may be switching to Friday soon.  I just don't know.  She is very sporadic for her lessons and I don't particularly like that.  I prefer regularly scheduled lessons.

I don't have any plans for the holiday on Monday except for any students who want their lessons.  I have to purchase Emily her books on Friday.  I will probably grocery shop on Saturday.  I have to get Jessie's wedding gift and card then too.  I am excited about her wedding.  I bet she will be a gorgeous bride.  I just can't wait for her wedding.  I will have Rick's lesson at about 1:15 pm so I will be on time for the wedding.

I have had a bad headache most of the day.  It isn't as bad as it was earlier today, but it is still extra sore.  I don't particularly know why.  I have had many more bad headaches this summer than usual.  I thought last week that I would have to go to the hospital for it, but it went down a bit so I was glad.

Beth had her lesson today.  She is doing so well.  She knows what play the theatre she belongs to is doing this winter.  They are doing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I have some of the music for that musical.  I don't know where it is right off hand, but I do have about 3 of the pieces, 2 for women and 1 for men.  I love the music from that musical.  i think she will like it a lot too.

It hasn't been too bad a day despite the headache.  I was able to sleep some of it off this afternoon, but I still have a bit of a bad one right now.  I do hope yours was a good day too.

Tuesday 8-30

Today is Jessie's Birthday.  i think she is 26.  She is getting married on Sunday!  I am so excited about that.  I really am.  I am planning to attend the wedding and reception.  It should be a good time.  I am just so looking forward to it.  I can sleep in on Monday so that is great!

I missed Designed Star last night.  I totally forgot all about it.  Fortunately, I can watch it on my computer without commercials!  That is rather neat so I plan to do that as soon as I am done with this post.

It has been a busy day.  My Uncle's girlfriend, Michelle came over with her son, Jayson.  She had ordered some items that had arrived.  One more came after they left but they will pick it up next week or the week after.  We went to Red Lobster for lunch and boy was it yummy.  I got a nice salad with some grilled shrimp on it and a bread bowl of Clam Chowder Soup, which is my all time favorite soup.  We had a really good visit.  Jayson is 4 and will be starting Junior Kindergarten next week.  It is hard to believe he will be in school already.  It seems like yesterday he was only 1.  Wow, boy time flies especially with the children.

I had 2 lessons tonight.  Charlie had his plus a make up lesson for last week and McKenzie had her regularly scheduled lesson.  Both are doing so well.  Tomorrow I am meeting with a potential new student. She is a friend of another student so that is very cool.  The daughter is 11 which is a perfect age to start singing.  I also have Beth's lesson tomorrow night.  She is also doing very well.

Not much is going on tonight.  I need to mark McKenzie's lessons and then I will watch Design Star on my computer.  It shall be a good and quiet night.

I do hope you are having a good night too.

I love Mondays!

Mondays are the best day of the week because I have the most students.  I have 6 lessons most Mondays.  Once a month I have 10 students on a Monday, yes those ones are tiring, but still rather lovely!  I am all filled on Mondays, I cannot have any more students on Mondays.  However, i have several openings on the rest of the weeks.  I have resolved the Rachel/Aaiyana scheduled at the same time problem.  What happened was that Rachel switched from Tuesdays to Mondays but Takelessons accidentally put her on Tuesdays at the proper time and then scheduled me with a new student on Mondays at the same time as Rachel's lesson.  I had to call the new student and have them switch.  Fortunately, her mother was very understanding and took care of it.  I now have it correctly in my schedule.  Tuesdays are also full.  I have  no spots left on Tuesday.  Wednesday and Thursday are pretty open with either 1 or 2 lessons each.  I am almost to the point of what I can handle, which also co-insides with how much I can earn with the disability.  I am not going to fool myself into thinking that I can handle more that a few more.  I think I can handle about 4 more and then that will be it.  I just looked at the old schedule and the total for new students is 5.  I can handle 5 more and that is it.  I am hopeful for a few more, if I get 5 that would be great, if I don't that is okay too.

I am so glad it is almost September. I really am.  This summer has been pretty okay as far as summers go.  It has been hard summer in some ways as it is the first I am alone.  The fall will be easier and harder all at the same time.  The one year anniversary is coming up in October.  I have no idea how I will feel about it.  I plan to not be alone on that day.  It will be on a Tuesday and I will have lessons that day so that is a good thing.

Tomorrow only has 2 lessons because Rachel and Laith had their lessons today because of schedule needs.  Elizabeth will be switching to Fridays come school time.  I am not what exactly she is doing, but that is okay.  Wednesday has just Beth's lesson but Julie and Lily are coming to work on the Family Room.  I am a bit nervous because I have no idea what is down there right now.  I do know there are boxes of books that just need to go back on shelves.  I do have some Christmas Figurines that can either be given as gifts or donated.  They were Mom's and I just don't have the room for them.  I also have some nice Thomas Kincaid Christmas Houses that I don't have room for.  I don't know what to do with them either.  I love them because they are beautiful, but I haven't used them in about 10 years or so.  I no longer have a bar that they would sit on for Christmas so they will probably be either given away or donated.  I have a few boxes of Christmas Crafts that my students will be doing this year.  We are going to have a craft day in either October or November.  I also have some sewing crafts that I want to keep because I will do them for gifts for the family and friends.  I don't know how much we will get done, but we will get a good chunk done, I think.  It will be one more step forward to customizing the house the way I want and making it mine.  Eventually, I will re-paint the house and re-do the carpets, but that is months and months away.  I need to take care of the taxes first.  With the new students that I have been getting this month and the new one next month, I will be close, but I should be able to pay the 2010 property taxes and begin on the 2011.  I know it will take a couple of years to catch up, but I am sure that I can do that.  Somehow I will.  I am thankful that I was able to pay $275 in July, but I couldn't this month so I need to make that up.  I have 6 months left.  With the new students that I have at the end of this month, it will make September much easier.

It has been a beautiful busy day.

I do hope you have had a good day too.

Summer Concert Day

We had the Summer Concert  with the BBQ today.  It was wonderful!  Everyone did pretty well, some better than others, but overall I am pleased with how they did.  Afterwards we went into the social hall for some BBQ hamburger and veggie burgers.  There were not that many hamburgers left or veggie burgers.  It was a nice time for everyone.  My little ones got to meet my older ones.  Katie loves little ones so I made sure she went and met the newest little ones.  Calli and Natalie did the announcing.  They did a good job of it.  Calli likes announcing and I think Natalie does too.  In the past Natalie's sisters, Hannah and Lydia, have announced too.  I am rather tired now from the long day.  I woke up at 10:30 to finish printing the program.  We had just enough.  I will have to make more for next time.  I am glad we had enough though.  I only printed 40 of them so I wasn't sure.  Often we have many left over but the little ones have lots of grandparents and great grandparents to come to the concert as well as some aunts and uncles so that is nice.  We like big audiences for concerts.  The next one will be Christmas.  I will be pulling some of the music after Labor Day.  Much of it is in the Living Room or a box in the office so it is handy.  We will also be looking at Competition music starting after Labor Day so we will be rather busy with music in the house.  I don't mind, it gives me something to look forward too.  I just love my students.  I have a new one starting after Labor Day but the new company made a mistake of the day for another one of my students so that is going to take some fixing.  I was not too happy about that but i didn't notice until they scheduled the new student.  I also am not taking any new students on Monday.  Mondays are full now.  However, I have time the rest of the week for lessons.

It has been a nice weekend.  Yesterday, Heather B-T and family went with me to Charlie's house for a pig roast.  It was so much fun.  We had a blast.  The only thing I shouldn't have done was go done all 67 of the cement stairs to watch the kids swim.  My legs are STILL sore from that.  What was I thinking?  Oh yea, I wasn't!  I won't do that again.  It was crazy and I honestly thought at one point I wasn't going to get up the stairs.  Thank goodness I did.  Never again.  I will actually think before I do something like that again.  I just wasn't thinking.  I was thinking I wanted to watch the kids swim, that is what I was thinking.  Next time, I just won't do that.  I will bring a book to read while the kids are down at the lake. I will stay up on the upper deck at the picnic table.  Over all though, it was a great time.  We were there for several hours.  Acer had a nap in the afternoon so he would be ready for it.  Calli, before the party, and I went grocery shopping for the BBQ today.  She is a great assistant, she really is.  She did try to drive the scooter at Walmart though.  That was pretty funny.  She was fascinated by the scooter.  She did really well will helping in picking the groceries up.  I also had to buy a new camping chair.  I now have one again.  That works for me.  Overall, it was a grand weekend.  I am so tired though from both days that I think I will be in bed again early like last night.  That would get me on a good start for the week.

I do hope this finds you doing well and having a good weekend too!

Reading old Posts

It is very strange to be reading things I wrote starting from May 2009 to December 2009.  The things I was worried about.  Mom was the biggest worry and so was pain.  My left shoulder and arm were so bad at that point, now they hurt every now again, but I still can't lift my arm up over my head very well.  I am so used to it that it doesn't matter.  It was weird because at one point in July of 2009 I commented that I thought I may have a year left with Mom living at home before I may have had to place her.  Strange to think that in reality I had 1 year and 3 months left of her being here at all.  I also think we did see a lot of movies that summer and out to eat a lot.  I at least can smile over that.  I also wrote about family wanting us to move to Canada, wow, has that not changed at all?  I am glad that I did decide not to move as I do really like where I live.  I have a nice house with a good size yard.  I have everything I need in the house including some guest rooms now.  My living room is perfect for teaching and the family room will be perfect for sewing/crafts with a TV/library on the other side.  I love the neighborhood and the town I live in.  I think it is very pretty and everything is very convenient for me.  My church is nearby and friends are near too.  It was not obvious to me at that time how some of the issues Mom and I had with her health back then would totally haunt her.  I was reading how one day at Tim Horton's, Mom choked trying to eat her donut.  It is amazing because swallowing was the issue we had when she passed away.  I did smile at some of the things Mom and I would do.  We would go for a walk (well, I would be on my scooter) almost every day that summer and fall.  She loved being out doors, she was definitely an outdoors girl.  When I was small, she would try to encourage me to play outside more but I just liked being inside better.  In order to get me out of the house to play, she would take my books or dolls or barbies and put them outside.  She would then tell me they couldn't come in until she said so.  I still am an indoors girl to this day.  I do try to go outside for a bit everyday because I know fresh air is important, but given a choice, I would choose the inside.

I did talk about my pain much more in 2009 than I do now.  I guess I am more used to it or I have better medicine or the combination of both.  It is hard to say what is really the change.  Maybe I just know it is there all the time that I don't need to say it.  I don't know and it doesn't matter why.  I am glad that some days I can read stuff about me and Mom and it not be painful or as painful.  I know that I am going to miss her forever, but someday it will be a bit more bearable.  There are days that it is a bit more bearable than it used to be but overall, I am getting through this day by day and with bad days, moment by moment.  I talk to her a lot at night.  When I write in my private journal, I write it to her.  It makes me feel closer to her.  Mom and I were good friends as well as mother and daughter.  I am glad of that.  So many I know just aren't that lucky with a Mom like I had.  I think it our friendship that I miss the most.  We loved going to movies together, out to dinners together, playing games, or just hanging out together. I am thankful that I have good friends and family to help me muddle through this thing called mourning. Thank you to all my friends and family members.