126 acres

That's the current size of my favorite city park, and daily sanity pill.  It is shaped like and H on the map, because there are two old farmsteads which are still sitting there.  The city is planning to buy them when they go up for sale and increase the size of the park.  They're still inhabited.  I know I've taken a ton of pictures at Clark Lake Park in just a couple of years, but here are a batch from yesterday and today.  A tribute to so much beauty...

An insistent knock

Friday afternoon I was teaching a family of three students when I heard a quiet and insistent knock on the door.  One of the students said, "That must be your next student?"

I replied, "I'm not teaching anyone else today.  You are my last ones."  I ignored the knocking for a minute and went back to my lesson.  And it continued.  So I went to look out the peephole.  I saw the face of a young Asian adult.  We've had visits from Worldwide Church of God missionaries, who are mostly Korean, and so I returned to my lesson, saying, "I think it's missionaries.  I'll let them visit some other neighbors."

We went on playing the violin.  And the insistent and gentle knocking continued.  So I finally went and opened the door.  I found a young man standing there in a rain jacket, holding an instrument case, and he said, "I want to study the wiolin."  I suddenly remembered having gotten a call from a Chinese college student in the fall about lessons which I had returned and then heard no more about; I realized this must be the fellow.  I invited him in, and he sat at the dining table and studied while I finished teaching the family in my living room.

Then he and I made arrangements.  He knows another international college student of mine who had told him how to get here on the bus, and he had taken it into his own hands to show up and acquire lessons.  He will be coming for his first lesson this Thursday at 3:50 and taking 45-minute lessons every week.

Packing and a Friend

Anne really got into packing this week.  Normally on Tuesdays we pack just about everything but the kitchen sink to go to Gig Harbor to teach.  That includes:  violin, violin teaching bag, cello, cello teaching bag, Dalcroze teaching bag, Anne's box violin and bow, Anne's potty bag and change of clothes, the stroller and a blanket for nap time, the bucket and shovel for playing on the beach, lunch, dinner, and snacks, any overclothes any of us needs, and a toy or two to keep Anne entertained on the way there.  We got everything lined up in the hallway ready to go, and Anne started adding to the pile... church shoes, boots, a few books, Sister Bear, her watering can and rake, her stuffed horse, Baby "Jesus", a few more books, a baby paci, her backpack, the Dassah shoes...  We had to veto a few items, which was rather disappointing to our little packer.  Wednesday we were packing the stroller for our jog to the park.  In the generous undercarriage we included her little wagon and her potty.  And then she started adding - her horse, Baby" Jesus", the Baby Jesus basket, a blanket, Dassah shoes...  anyway, we had to nix a few things again, which was a grave disappointment.  We are packing up tomorrow to visit Grandma and Grampa and Aunt Glenda for the weekend.  What will she need to take with her?

...

Yesterday I was witness to one of the most touching scenes I've had yet as a parent.  I took Anne out to play in the sunshine after I finished teaching at 7:00 and while Jared was still working.  There was a little girl on the playground all by herself, and I introduced Anne and ascertained that this 4-year-old girl had just moved into the unit above us.  Score!  Anne was clearly interested in her and she was clearly interested in Anne, but neither was sure how to make the first move.  I kept following Anne around, and then I realized I was totally the problem.  Once I stepped away several yards and pretended to pay attention to other things, the girls warmed up and got going.  Anne had her Scramble Bug "Scrommel" out, and K went upstairs and came back with her scooter.  They scooted around the parking lot a bit and took turns saying "Car!" and running over to the curb together to wait for it to pass.  K went upstairs several times for a number of little trinkets which she brought down in a plastic pumpkin bucket and hung on her scooter.  Eventually she took them out one at a time and showed them to Anne and they made sound effects and giggled.  They went over and reached through the chain link fence to pick dandelions and blow the seeds.  They found an abandoned baseball, and made quite a game out of throwing it into our entryway/stoop area and laughing maniacally while chasing it.  Eventually K's mom came down when her dad quit working on his car, and we chatted a bit.  She told me K has been wishing she had a sister.  Well, now she's got one downstairs from her.  When Jared was done teaching, I went inside and brought him out for a few minutes, and we just stood and watched the girls from a distance.  What a wonderful time with a new friend!  I hope she and Anne will get to spend a lot of time together.

Spring Break

Blow by blow, the things I did over spring break that I wouldn't have done on a normal teaching week...

Monday:

Finished our taxes, thanks to a four-hour toddler nap.  Self-employed taxes can be daunting, and each year we're getting slightly more organized about keeping the correct categories of records throughout the year.  Having organized information means you don't have to spend weeks digging up everything and reconstructing it.  Arghh...

Also, I visited a pianist in the neighborhood and read through some duo music for 45 minutes.  Fun!

And Jared and I finally looked through the REI store online and ordered our rain jackets, which were his parents' Christmas gift to us.

And Anne "helped" me as I took step 1 on the creation of E and K's wedding present.

Tuesday:

I took all the recycling to our secret drop-off point.  We had two bins full, plus another bin's worth sitting around in our tiny kitchen....

Anne napped while I took steps 1.5 and 2 of E and K's wedding present.

Then I went through all of Anne's toys while she continued napping and culled a few things which are a bit young for her.  They are in a bag in the closet until further notice.  I also cleaned out a lot of actual junk from her toy baskets - pinecones, pennies, broken cat toys, plastic pill bottle lids...  Also, I tidied up the amorphous pile of her drawing supplies which keep leaking out of their designated corner into the living room and fit them all nicely into an easy-to-use box.  Crayons and markers are even in their own ziploc bags now.  This whole undertaking was triggered by the child's birthday, aka acquisition of lots of wonderful new playthings - a dry-erase coloring book with markers, a family photo album, a Bible, a wooden puzzle, a logging truck, five miniature construction vehicles, a tiny plastic elephant, a box containing a mix-and-match wind instrument called a saxoflute, a watering can with a little rake and spade, and another lovely bag of wooden blocks.

Then I started on a biggie - transforming our "pantry", otherwise known as the floor of our kitchen and dining room.  My goal is that we can walk through without tripping, and easily find ingredients we need.  I only took the first few steps on Tuesday, but I could see it's going to involve moving a bit of furniture around to make everything fully functional.

For the last couple of days I have been on an emotional roller coaster ride, and it finally stopped on Tuesday.  It took an act of faith to get off my chair and start working on my list rather than sleeping all afternoon which is what I really felt like doing, but I'm so thankful I did.  A more functional and less cluttered home is a big de-stressor, and seeing an accomplishment gives one quite a boost.

Wednesday:

First thing (meaning I woke Anne up at 9:45 to get her in the car by 10:00) I drove up to the Institute for Learning and Brain Science at the UW for another experiment.  Anne has participated in several of these at different departments at UW, and this was our third visit to I-LABS.  They were looking specifically at whether 24-month-olds learn efficacy of actions from social behavior.  I thought it was set up oddly, but anyway, I'm sure they'll figure out if things aren't working the way they expected and redesign it.  The best part for Anne was the 45 minutes she got to play in the waiting room before and after the experiment.  The waiting room has about three times the number of toys in one room that we have in our whole apartment, so it's pretty awesome.  She was poking through their toy kitchen and brought an item over to me, saying, "Oh dat, who's dat?"  "Hotdog," I answered.  She looked thoughtful for a few moments, and then scrubbed on her left arm, saying "Missi Hotdog."  Suzuki teachers and parents will know what that's about.  I hadn't thought about it, but she'd probably never seen a hotdog before, and thought it was just a random word.  On the way home in the car, a little voice piped up from the back seat, "Oh dat, who's dat?"  I started guessing what on earth she might have seen.  Then she held up her right hand in the proper Suzuki formation and said, "Bunny teef - hahahahahaha!"  It was a string teacher joke on me.

During nap time I got the rest of the kitchen "remodel" done.  It did involve moving furniture, and organizing our three cabinets by the sink for the first time since we've lived here.  (Two and a half years already???)  Totally revolutionary:  drinking cups are in one place, vitamins are in one place, spices are in one place, tea is in one place, baking goods are in one place, bulk items are grouped by type, and canned goods (mostly from the "farm" in Oregon) are all together in our small blue hutch.  The things we are less likely to use are in plain sight on open shelving (in the hopes that if we remember we have them, we'll use them), and the things we use all the time are neatly and conveniently stored behind doors.  This is not the most attractive organization, but I think it will be the most useful.  I'm almost inspired to create a curtain out of an old bed sheet for part of my pantry, but that is probably more effort than I've got brain for this week.  The only part of the official project I didn't finish today was washing out all the empty peanut butter jars I found in the back of one of the cupboards so that I can stow them in the recycle bin.  I often feel like I'm the only person I know who is this untidy on a daily basis, but it can't really be true, can it?  Oh yes, I'm sure it can be!  Anyway, it is gratifying that I can get from my dinner chair to the stove for seconds without squeezing through tight openings or tripping over things.  It's like I live in a real house instead of a pigsty.

Thursday:

Wednesday night shortly before bed, I learned that Mrs. Knight had four tickets still to the Tacoma Symphony's 5th-grade concert that many of our group class kids were headed to on Thursday morning, and I think I dreamed about it all night.  So at 8:30 this morning I called her up and confirmed that I could bring Anne.  Anne and I headed over to downtown Tacoma, and Anne attended her first orchestral concert.  It was kinda kitschy, as you might imagine, and involved shenanigans between the MC, the tenor, and the conductor, but the kids loved it, and some of our young violinists played along from their box seats.  Afterward, we had a studio picnic on the green space next to the theater, and Anne had the time of her life running around with two of the smaller grade-school girls, looking at a fish sculpture, and chasing birds.  By the time it was all over she was exhausted, but too wound up for her nap.  What a day for a little girl!

Although I'm not officially teaching this week, I taught three make-up lessons in the afternoon.  I owe some lessons for when I'll be gone to E and K's wedding in May.

Friday:

In the morning I worked on a list of much less glamorous things - canceling our duplicate renter's insurance policy, attempting to book our checked baggage on Frontier (their computer system was down, and it's cheaper if you book online before you go than if you call them or pay at the airport), looking at a couple of options for our trip to SoCal, getting some things updated on our cell phone billing (which took multiple phone calls and online adventures.)  In the afternoon I taught more make-up lessons, and then Anne and I went to Costco for a few items....

Jared has been on his own little rollercoaster ride this spring break with some work-related things and very busy with homework for a course he's taking in June.  But this isn't about him...

Anne got to spend a lot more play time at the park than normal this week, and it has made for a very happy little girl.  I wish we could do this for her all the time.  Which leads me to...

I keep going back and forth about moving vs. staying here.  Thoughts of the week:

• I love living here, because we are surrounded by so many neighbors of different colors and nationalities - Anne has a childhood where it's normal to identify with people of a different background than herself.  I don't every want her to lose that!  And also, we can walk to the Lake Clark Park, and I need to go there most days of the week for a little sanity.
• But I wish Anne had a fenced yard so she could just go out back and play while we took care of things inside and watched her out the window.  
• I suddenly may find myself filled up in Gig Harbor teaching-wise in a couple of weeks.  Maybe we should move out that direction if we can fill our studios out there.  Of course, that would be a very White experience for Anne.  But it is so beautiful out on the Penninsula, and cheaper if you get far enough west. (It's shockingly spendy here.)
• Latoya is out of the management office on maternity leave, and her boss is filling in for her.  Her boss is getting draconian on the residents - for example, they neglected to properly run the auto-pay system at the beginning of April, meaning our rent wasn't deducted even though it's supposed to deduct automatically, and we got no less than two notices on our door, three in the mail, and a phone call about it.  It took me two phone calls and a visit to the office to clear it up and get the penalties taken off our bill.  And yesterday everyone got nasty notices about having the wrong things on their porches, because we all know, this is such a classy place that having a child's bike on your porch is going to scare off future upper class residents who want to live in this "stunning property near fine dining".  I quote the promotional literature.  We've been trying to figure out what the fine dining is.  Here's what I can think of nearby: Papa Murphy's Pizza, Applebee's, Taco Time, McDonald's... Anyway.  I'm sure things will stabilize when Latoya comes back in June; all of the neighbors, including us, are rather eager.

Celebrating

I think I might need to take Anne to a church next year on Palm Sunday where the kids get to parade in during the service with palm branches.  That's what we got to do when I was growing up.  Was that just an anomoly of my church?  I hope not.  My Montessori leaning self wants to do it as an adult.  Anyway, I poked around on youtube and found this little gem of a story for kids about the triumphal entry:

Then later in the week, we started watching this one about the last supper:

Friday evening we had an agape feast/communion service at our church.  I and another violinist were slated to take turns playing.  We'd never met, but decided to spend the time playing duets.  It was fun.  The special activity of the evening was making the communion bread.  We used the text from Leviticus 2 as our inspiration.  Each table had a little "kit" delivered to us, and one of our deaconnesses gave us instructions.

 

If you happen to be my mother-in-law and want to watch said individual giving the very same instructions, you can watch this:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Our communion always involves foot washing.  There is a room for men, a room for women, and a room for families.  The room is filled with chairs, bowls, buckets of water, towels, people gathering together in pairs or small groups to pray and wash each other's feet, and people singing hymns.  If you ask me, it's one of the best things about going to an Adventist church.  It was Anne's first time to participate.  I washed her feet; then she washed mine and her father's.  She was so excited about "wash Jesus feet":

Our bread turned out thus:

We watched this story of Jesus' trial and arrest, called "Jesus loves me":

After our Sabbath morning church service:

 Here is the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, called "He is Alive!": 

Sunday morning the cats and I baked Anne a birthday cake (her actual birthday is tomorrow):

...and did my once-a-year egg boiling procedure:

When Anne got up, she and I went to the Easter service at an Episcopal church nearby.  We sat down in an empty spot at the end of the pew and found ourselves next to Elvera, a friend from my Bible study discussion group.  I didn't know she was a member there, and we were delighted to see each other.  It was her first time to meet Anne.  After the service she took some pictures of Anne and me in the church garden:

In the evening, Jeff and Linda came to celebrate Easter and Anne's birthday with us.  Linda and Anne read:

Anne and Jeff decorated eggs:

We had a picnic out on the back lawn: potato matzoh casserole, potato quinoa casserole, lentil salad, crackers, hard-boiled eggs, beets, and grape juice:

And then we came inside for Anne's birthday cake:

Two afternoons

This post is powered by pictures which didn't fit into the real blog I'm writing about this week...

On Friday afternoon before my students came, I was out in the parking lot with Anne and inadvertently went dumpster diving.  I picked up these two wooden chairs for our back porch.  Sorry the picture isn't so great.

And I picked up this table which I put behind our apartment with our potted plants on top of it, rather than in the dirt which they spray with herbicide every Wednesday.  Hopefully since the lady who always had a fit about there being too much of the wrong sort of stuff on people's porches no longer works in the management office, no one is going to complain about the table.

Why do people throw stuff like this away?  No scratches or anything.  Craigslist, freecycle, curbside, Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, or several other places are great ways to get rid of stuff.

Saturday afternoon we went to our favorite park, and we saw a pair of mallards with four ducklings.  The little ones move so quickly, and it was hard to get a picture!

I also saw some lovely new flowers - hello spring!

While Jared was cooking dinner, I watched Anne careen around the parking lot on her Scramble Bug, and stomp in puddles with her friend E from upstairs.