'Twas the Night After Christmas...

...when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, only Feathers the cat purring...

So I had time to finally write a blog.  It has been nearly two months since I have written, a sad record to have set.

As alluded to in the second-to-last post, we bought a house.  "A gem in the rough" as the sellers' agent described it. 

Can I just tell you that between October 27th and December 2nd, we were pretty much hanging by threads?

In list format, here is everything that went down in those five weeks and one day...

• Closed on house
• Reinspected it on our own to determine attack list for making it livable in the one month between closing and last possible move date and determine what furniture we would have to offload ahead of time
• Two week-long work visits from Jared's parents in which incredible amounts of work was done.  I don't know how we could have done this without their help.  They have lots of experience with house-fixing, and they have an incredible amount of energy.  What can I say?  Hire them if you every need help.
• Jared working on the house every morning and coming home to teach while I managed packing and cleaning and children pretty much solo on the home front and taught full time
• Packing the apartment into boxes
• Cleaning out the apartment (how can stuff get SO dirty???)
• Tore out chimney from former fireplace and '70's wall-to-wall mirrors
• Took out baseboards, interior doors, and door frames/trim
• Temporarily removed gas living room stove and its base
• Temporarily removed three ceiling-mount light fixtures
• Re-sheetrocked the ex-chimney wall
• Re-sheetrocked the ceilings in the living room/dining room/hall/two bedrooms
• Taped and floated such
• Sanded
• Taped and floated again
• Sanded again
• Taped and floated again
• Sanded again
• Applied primer
• Applied texture
• Applied primer
• Painted kitchen cabinets (took three coats)
• Tried for days to strip paint off of five interior doors before giving up
• Pried up random parquet floor on top of older wood floor by the front door
• Removed hardware from no-longer-in-use window treatments around the house
• Rebuilt floor and frame of bathroom closet
• Cut down new wood flooring to 1942 size and covered hole in floor left by chimney demolition
• Rented huge randomized orbital sander
• Sanded living room/dining room/hall/two bedroom floors within an inch of their lives with medium grit
• Sanded living room/dining room/hall/two bedroom floors within an inch of their lives with heavy grit
• Sanded living room/dining room/hall/two bedroom floors within an inch of their lives with medium grit

• Sanded living room/dining room/hall/two bedroom floors within an inch of their lives with fine grit
• Sanded living room/dining room/hall/two bedroom floors within an inch of their lives with very fine grit
• Cleaned stripped floors with vacuum, tack cloth, and then floor cleaner.  And then cleaned them some more.
• Rolled and painted on sealer
• Rolled and painted on first finish coat
• Rolled and painted on second finish coat
• Rolled and painted on third finish coat
• Approximately 5,000,000 trips to the hardware store (I may have exaggerated, but for the record a trip to the hardware store with a 1-year-old and a 4-year old counts the same as three solo trips.  So you can do your own math.)
• Called to get the electricity switched over
• Called to get the gas turned on - had to wait for water to get turned on first.
• Called to get water turned on.
• Called again to get gas turned on - and wait for a visit from a technician
• Waited for behind-schedule sewer repair so we could use toilet and sinks...
• When it was finally done, more negotiating with realtor and plumbers to get new sewer line attached to house drain pipe so we could use toilet and sinks...
• Measured the size of the hole under the house.
• Got bids on and ordered seven cubic feet of coarse gravel to fill it in
• Had the gravel delivered and built a chute to get the gravel from the driveway into the hole under the house
• Worked a lot of man hours to actually move the gravel from point A to point B in cramped conditions
• Fixed the post which held up the front corner of the roof overhang
• Copious amounts of cleaning in the new house, especially after all the sanding
• Attached address numbers to the front of the house
• Change of address with the post office
• Attempted to get the internet switched over the day of the move so that we could have our Skype lessons on Day 1.  It failed, but the Skype students were sick that day anyway...
• Scoured Craigslist for rugs to put on the wood floors and drove around the Eastside to look at them.  
• Bought moving boxes and tape
• Picked up some more from Linda
• Rented a truck for the right day (which was hard to predict until about four days out)
• Order floor finishing stuff via Linda's Amazon Prime account
• Ran out of checks so spent time running to the bank for cash for a variety of needs
• One day I left the apartment for literally eleven minutes (to put a flower on the baby's burial spot) while the kids were asleep and Jared was teaching, and Jared ended up getting sick and his student found our neighbor and when I got back the ambulance was on its way, and we ended up with what turned out to be an unnecessary long evening in the ER where I drove back and forth with the kids three times and had to schedule make-up lessons... (He was fine.  If I had only been home during those few minutes!)
• I was the primary organizer of two big group concerts (one in Federal Way and one in Tacoma) which involved lots of emails between the venue and myself, all the different students and myself, and my co-teacher and myself.  Involved getting attendance numbers, rehearsing all the music, figuring out part divisions and program order, chairs and music stands, call time, driving directions, and costume....
• I was the primary organizer of three solo recitals (two in Auburn and one on Fox Island) which involved determining repertoire, working out accompanists, setting program order, sending order off to my typist, contacting venues again, and communicating with students about attire, call times, rehearsals, and reception food, and showing up with the printed programs, paper goods, accompaniment parts, and instruments.  The Fox Island venue ran into a problem the night of the recital when we had fifteen minivans parked out front and families standing around in the dark in long coats waiting to go in, so we had to be quick about our wits and move our recital spontaneously back to the house where we teach in Gig Harbor.
• On the same day as one of the Auburn recitals, I also had a student present his Book 1 recital at his home in Gig Harbor, so I drove there to accompany him with the kids in tow and get back in time to manage the solo recital.
• Our studio joined forces with some other studios for a big double-header Christmas concert in Maple Valley, and I rehearsed our group class for it, helped my students learn new music for it, and passed on communications from the organizing teacher.
• Anne broke her cello in half at our group class on Halloween, so she had to switch over to violin performing for three solo recitals, the second group concert, and the Christmas concert.
• Everyone in our family had a cold, except Jared had two.
• There was teething.
• Panicked trying to find babysitters for random bits of my days off so I could help Jared with the house prepping.  It was intense, and thankfully several people came through for me.
• Oh, and the day of our move... it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We finished refinishing the floor around 4:15 on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, after lunch at Linda's, which meant we could start putting furniture down at 4:15 on Sunday.  So the Thanksgiving week, we taught Monday at the apartment, and then went crazy the rest of the week.  Sunday morning we got the truck and loaded in most of the boxes and little stuff.  Jared took it up to the house and one of my work study families helped unload it into the garage.  Meanwhile my dear Afghan neighbor took the kids for the day, and her husband and another Afghan friend helped Jared load.  I'm telling you, if you ever need strong, helpful guys, meet some Afghans!  Before we got the furniture loaded, it turned out my brother had a few more furniture items he needed to move so Jared went and helped him with that while we had the truck.  Then the amazing Afghans then got our furniture loaded after dark.  Jeffrey and Linda came to the house and helped unload (which we desparately needed) and brought dinner from our favorite Indian place.  (Have you ever tried to move a piano?  Ours is only a spinnet that we got from Freecycle, but that thing weigh at least 400 lbs.  Quite a physical and engineering challenge.) We had the furniture in the house by 10:30 pm and then we brought the cats in (who had been sitting in cages in the moving truck for a couple of hours), had dinner, and went to bed.  And we were up and ready to teach by 10:00 am the following morning in our new location.  During my first lesson, Jared put up curtains in place of three absent room doors by using a power drill to screw in eyelets, tying in picture wire, and then using cafe curtain clips to hang up queen size sheets from our collection.  So we have "privacy" on the bedroom, bathroom, and teaching room for now...
• In the few days following the move Lazarus was a bit out of sorts and acquired the nastiest looking bruise I've ever seen on an ear.  And then another nasty bump on the forehead.  And also threw his one paci that we could find down one of the vent holes in the floor prompting another trip to Lowe's to find new vent covers.  And then the final day of our lease Jared was trying madly to clean out our apartment and one of our cars wouldn't start so he had to take the one with the carseats in it, and I was home alone at the new place with the kids teaching some make-up lessons when Lazarus pulled the modem off a shelf and sliced his toe open and there was blood EVERYWHERE, and I had to cancel the rest of the evening of teaching, and the amazing Big Anne came with a loaner car and took my Anne home with her and I sat at urgent care with Lazarus for a couple of hours until the doctor was ready to glue his toe back together.  
• So anyway, the following day we had to have the battery and alternator replaced on the car.
• And also then the modem broke due to its fall, and my phone charger broke just because, and Jared had to go out and get replacements.
• And also the disc drive on our computer broke, due to Lazarus throwing the computer off the table.  But Merry Christmas to us, it suddenly started working again yesterday...

I'm sure I missed a few things there, but anyway, life has calmed down a lot, and we no longer feel like we are hanging by threads.  We still have quite a bit of work to do on the actual house, and lots of unpacking.  But there has been a lot more work done in the last few weeks (work on insulated the ducts under the house, more painting on walls and ceilings, putting in our washer and dryer, more curtains here and there, fixing an electrical problem with the dining room light, reinstalling the gas stove in the living room, acquiring pads for the rugs...) and we are getting settled in.  And we got a rare white Christmas here, as we didn't get organized to visit Texas in time, although we will be there for New Year's.  Eventually... we'll have enough stuff done on the house that we can start on converting the garage to teaching studios, and believe me, that is going to be a HUGE project.  Not ready to think about that yet!  I am enjoying my two weeks off work immensely.  Doing house stuff, fighting with our former rental company about bogus charges (I tell you, that apartment is the gift that never quits giving), PLAYING with my kids, and sleeping.

Anyway, in case you wondered what we've been up to, that is the summary version.  Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Joyous New Year to you, and I hope to be back on the blogging bandwagon a bit more in the coming months.

Weekend wrap-up November 2016 Style

I used to do a lot of these weekend wrap-ups on my blog.  I need one from this season for the memory banks.

Friday night I sat with two kids on the couch while Jared went running.  Then we ate his gourmet dinner, and we had a short and wonderful chance for all four of us to sit on the couch together before bedtime preparations ensued.

Friday night/Saturday morning Lazarus finally conked out for the night on my lap in the living room around 12:15.  This is earlier than the previous couple nights.  I wait a GOOD long time before taking him to his sleeping basket in the bedroom.  I leisurely listen to a couple of great sermons online and message back and forth with my neighbor Nabila about getting together this weekend.

{My schedule is currently complex and fluid.  I want to go to the Burien beach park on Sabbath afternoon because the park meets all the varied needs of our family members, and I want to recreate a photo from three years ago we took there.  I invite Nabila.  But I check the weather and it's predicting rain.  (Turns out it was pouring Saturday afternoon.) Also, I suddenly decided on Friday I wanted to go to the Symphony this weekend, and we have two options - Saturday night or Sunday afternoon.  I am waiting for a reply to a last-minute email I sent a student's mom about babysitting.  I ponder how long it will take to complete my catch-up-on-the-laundry event I'm planning for Sunday.  Five or more loads waiting to be folded and probably as many to wash... I think we're out of clean underwear in the house.  Also, I wonder whether Linda and I are going to be able to get together on Sunday - we'd tentatively planned nothing in particular at no specific time.  Also, since we went to Orgeon last weekend - Lazarus' first road trip, and he did really well! -  I didn't get a chance to get flowers for the baby's grave on the anniversary of the miscarriage. Even though it's only a private, sentimental action, and maybe not as important in the long-run as it seems, I have it stuck in my head, and I'm sure I will regret not squeezing it in this weekend. I wonder when the kids and I will Skype with my family.  I think of more things I want to smash into the weekend... but try to put them out of my head.}

Eventually we go to bed and I finally conk out around 2:00 am.  Or was it 3:00?

Sabbath morning we head out the door for church.  In my hour of awake time I have showered, nursed two children, changed a diaper, directed Anne in the packing of her back pack, and prepped the diaper bag.  Jared has exercised, cooked and eaten breakfast, gotten Anne dressed, prepared Anne's and my breakfast to go, showered, and loaded the car.  Also I got an email back from the students' mom that she could babysit for us Saturday night.  I was so glad I still had some frozen mama milk in the house, and put it in the fridge to thaw.

We go to church.  I heard a great sermon about estate planning from a Christian perspective.  Made a mental note to discuss it with Jared.  Forgot about said mental note when we have a couple of minutes to chat.

We get home close to 2:00 and eat lunch.  Then all four of us took naps! Sweet sleep!!!  Anne got up first and very considerately let the rest of us continue slumbering.  Jared and I woke up at 5:30, unexpectedly late, and just an hour before we had our babysitter arriving.  We both needed some outdoor exercise.  Jared loaded Anne into the stroller and went running in the downpour.  I put Lazarus in the Ergo and went for a brief walk under a large umbrella.  I got home and changed, wrote up a list for the babysitter, then got out bottles and various other things she'd need.  I nursed the baby.  Jared got dinner ready for the rest of us and vacuumed the apartment.

Our babysitter arrived, and Jared and I headed off to Benaroya Hall with food to eat in the car.  Romantic date-night dinner, right?  It was really tasty despite the  ambiance of taillights in the rain on I-5.  We heard a silly opera overture by Bizet, the Sibelius Concerto performed by Sergey Kachatryan (a young Armenian with GOLDEN tone), and Tchaik 5.  Also we heard the first movement of the Bach G Minor Sonata for the encore.  I felt he was going to play it before he began the first chord.  So glad to hear all the diction and beauty of these pieces live!  The solo violin was a Guarneri.  Once, many years ago in Rochester, I had a brief opportunity to play on a Strad.  It was not the best experience since I was completely not warmed up and totally unprepared for the surprise encounter.  Since then I've learned that despite all their major positives, Strads can be very unforgiving and difficult to play.  I'd love to spend some time with a Guarneri, because I understand they are really easy and wonderful to play on, and of course, I've never heard one which didn't have that incredible depth of tone.  ...Music nerd conversations in the car both ways.

Got home at 11:00 pm to find both kids VERY awake (no surprise there.)  Jared and I discuss the need to actually bathe Lazarus on Sunday. (Has it been two weeks since he'd had a bath?  I think so...) Jared mentions all the things he needs to return to the library, as well.  And we NEED to vote on Sunday beforehand.  This is the BIG one - Hillary v. Donald. Anne and Jared were asleep by 12:15.  Lazarus... well, he conked out close to 2:00.  Of course, it was the time-change weekend, so 2:00 miraculously turned into 1:00.  I sit with him in the living room working on the Three B's - blogging, Bible study, and ballot.

Sunday turned out to be lovely and sunny.  In the morning, in no particular order and with certain things on repeat, I eat breakfast made by Jared, scroll through Facebook, run some laundry (our babysitter folder about 2/3 of the unfolded laundry Saturday night!!!!!), message with Nabila about our plans, nurse children, bathe the baby, play with Anne, vote, run to Fred Meyer, and take some flowers to the park.

In the afternoon I went to Nabila's home for the first time in about five or six weeks (she just lives across the parking lot, for crying out loud, but we are both running VERY full lives right now.)  It was lovely to sit and chat and eat some Afghan food.  Meanwhile Jared put Anne down for a nap, rotated the tires on one of our cars, brought Anne across the street to play with the kids after her nap, returned all our library stuff, dropped off our ballots, and made dinner.  Jeff called while I was at Nabila's to see about coming by.  After we finished up at Nabila's, we came home, met up with Jeff and Linda, put the kids in the double stroller, and walked our 2-mile loop.  When we got back, we ate dinner, and then Linda folded most of the rest of my laundry (God bless you!!!) while I switched loads through the machines, put away dinner, and picked up some of the living room disaster.

Then it was off to bed, except that means hanging out in the living room for Lazarus and me while I do the Two B's: blog and business emails.  Lazarus seems to have issues with going to sleep at any sort of decent hour, but seriously don't feel sorry for me, because he is usually sleeping close to eight hours at a stretch once he does go down. And if not, he's sleeping four or six hours before nursing and falling back asleep.  At this age Anne was usually sleeping 3-4 hours at a stretch, and I thought that was really decent.

In the end I regret not getting more exercise during the weekend and not spending more time in the sunshine on Sunday.  I also regret not talking with my parents (although I have a time planned on Monday due to an expected student absence backed up to one of my breaks.)  And I regret not spending some quality time with my violin.  But I know we all have 24 hours in the day, many of which should rightly be devoted to sleep, and we get to make choices with the remaining hours.  I'm not sorry for what I did choose...

Coincidence?

...I think not.

Anne and I have a new tradition that after I pick her up from class on Wednesday mornings, she picks out a book at the church library.  A few weeks ago she walked over to one of the shelves of books  for adults and picked out one for me, too.  I checked it out but didn't pay much attention to the topic.  I decided to read it when I got home.  It gave clear explanations of some of the history and beliefs of a certain group of people, and I found it quite interesting.  I do like learning about others' beliefs.

Perhaps unrelatedly (or perhaps not!) I've been thinking about the word "evangelism" lately and wondering what it means to various people.  I almost started asking for personal stories from my readers who have been evangelized by others, and my readers who have, themselves, intentionally evangelized their views.  The word evangelism is used rather widely these days to mean sharing any deeply held beliefs in the hopes of converting others to those beliefs, but it is originally a Greek New Testament word referring to the Good News.  I like good news, myself, and especially the Good News.  I'd briefly whispered a few prayers recently asking God to use me to spread his Good News.

Even in Christian circles, the Good News gets defined in various ways.  And there are many different Bible texts about the Good News, so it seems that there is more than one good definition.  I'll throw a few thoughts I've heard out there:

• God is not the capricious and cruel monster his enemies have made him out to be
• Jesus gave up his place in heaven and showed us his love by dying in our place 
• God gives us grace since we can never earn our way out of sin
• God freely gives us life after death which we receive when we trust Jesus
• Repent of your sins, believe in Jesus, and you'll be saved
• God is in the process of fixing all the broken, hurtful and sad things in the world

A few days after our library visit I was out for a walk with Lazarus when I happened to run into a couple of people who struck up a conversation with me.  They were "coincidentally" part of the aforementioned group I'd been reading about.  They were acting at that moment as missionaries for the group, and I enjoyed learning a few new things about their beliefs during our conversation.  (We end up having a lot of missionaries for different groups in our neighborhood, and you never know who might be knocking on your door.)  As part of the dialogue I shared my differing perspective in a few areas.  I had the chance to share some Good News with them, and they asked me if I would pray for them!  Gladly, I did so.  I left that meeting amazed on two fronts - that I was given the personal courage to explicitly disagree with someone, and that I was given an opportunity to share God's Good News.

***

... A few days later I mentioned to a Bible study friend that I was coming up on the first anniversary of a miscarriage, and I hoped that God would use my grief to benefit myself and others.  I didn't/don't have  an explicit idea of what exactly I hoped God might do.  Truly I don't want to feel like that little life and all the pain of its loss makes no difference in the world.

The next morning I was out for a run when shortly before I returned home, I randomly thought of a certain woman I'm acquainted with who lives in another state.  I was specifically remembering how over two years ago she'd told me that she and her husband had been trying for quite some time to have another child.  And I was thinking how it was unfair and frustrating and sad that they'd not had any success.  Just after I returned home I saw a message that she'd just given birth to a sleeping daughter at 20 weeks, and my heart broke for her.  I sent her a message sharing that I'd just been thinking of her and how sorry I was for her to have lost this long-awaited precious baby.  And she told me in reply how much messages like mine were helping her to deal with her grief.  I don't know how much difference this little coincidence is really making in her life, but I know that this was not my doing.  God orchestrated it, even though it was a little thing.

***

I read this past week in John 4 about how Jesus healed an official's son.  The man came and asked Jesus to return home with him to heal the boy.  Jesus, rather that returning with him, gave the word that the son would be healed and sent the father home.  The father went, without having yet seen any evidence .  After the man returned home the next day, he learned that God had healed the boy at the very hour the father had conversed with Jesus.  It was a reminder to me that sometimes when I pray, God is setting the answers into motion though I can't see.  I will only experience God's answer when I begin to act in trust and "go."

John 15:7-8 also came to my mind; it's a short passage Jared and I memorized many years ago.

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.  This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."  

Yes, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you!  But it's only when we remain in Jesus and his words remain in us that we'll ask for something which is part of his will and plan for the world, which he most desires to do.  And when the answer brings glory to the Father and bears fruit for his Kingdom.  Answered prayer of this sort doesn't make the asker powerful - it means that without our even realizing, if we are willing to cooperate, God leads us to ask for that which he wanted to do.

***

On a completely unrelated note, I learned some great things while working with one of my students this week.  She is preparing the Glazunov Meditation for our Russian music studio recital coming up. We had been working at the previous lesson on adding depth to her tone and incorporating a more singing vibrato.  After she played through the piece for me this week, I asked her if she had any questions.  She said she wasn't getting the kind of tone she wanted on the higher notes, and the vibrato wasn't working there either.  I was glad she noticed those things, because those were the two things I most wanted to address in her performance as well.

With regard to the tone, we talked about pulling the bow in toward the bridge to accommodate the shorter string length.  Pulling into the bridge is something I've heard from probably every teacher in my life, but the best exposition which I've long remembered was something I overheard in a lesson my sister was taking in Houston with  her teacher Andrzej Grabiec.  He discussed how a bow contact point  of 1/10 of the string length from the bridge makes for the clearest sound, and as you crawl the fingers up the string the 1/10 point necessarily shifts.

I also talked with my student about dropping and releasing her bow arm further to sink more weight into the E string.  It's something I mention or work on in subtle ways at almost every lesson I teach.

 Then we talked about playing "through" the E string at an angle toward the ground in back of the violin.  I don't remember mentioning that to a student before.  I heard Ronda Cole talk about this concept at an overview course I took in Florida many years ago, and it suddenly popped to mind for this student. After I said it, I realized it's a handy tool to have in my toolbox!

Then I taught something I've never taught before - the left thumb scroll-lift.  I certainly do it sometimes in my own playing.  I first learned the maneuver by watching other people performing; I don't think I've ever had a teacher show it to me.  I specifically remember Matilda Kaul use the maneuver several times in the Chausson Poeme when she was a concerto competition winner in graduate school at CIM.  Bob Lipsett students are famous for the maneuver.  At that moment in my student's lesson I had the sense that if she did this maneuver when she reached the high notes, it would open up her sound.  And when she tried it, it did!  Just then it occurred to me that part of the beauty of the maneuver was how it would add string pressure to the bow hairs, allowing the violin to "play the bow," another concept I learned from Ronda Cole in the Florida course.   Coupled with the thumb lift, we discussed a knee softening (allowing a subtle pelvis tilt) which takes some pressure off the back keeping the body free, also gleaned from the Florida course.  Now I want to think about this maneuver a bit more and teach it intentionally.

Then about the vibrato.  I noticed that the heel of my student's hand was resting on the violin's shoulder, locking her out from free motion in 7th+ position.  I'd never thought of the hand-lock issue in shoulder zone of the violin, and I've never addressed it with a student.  Of course, I release my palm when I'm playing there and have a nice vibrato in that zone, but I'd never actually articulated the idea to myself or anyone else.  Now I can add that to my teaching arsenal.

It's great to have motived students who ask good questions and spur me to discover connections between things I've learned over the years but not articulated before!  I thanked this student several times for teaching me some new things in her lesson.  Now I hope those discoveries can help other students!

Here's the Glazunov Meditation performed by Nathan Milstein.  I'd never heard it before I started selecting music for my students' performances, but a violin teacher in a Facebook group I'm part of recommended it to me. I fell in love with it!  Enjoy!

Fall Fun Bonus Edition

On our way to Bible study on Wednesday, we saw advertised that the new piglets were at the Carpinito farm, so we went back today, Sunday, with Jared.  I think we have a new October tradition, which I'm so glad for, since otherwise my October tradition was going to be crying over the baby we lost last October.  That will happen, too, but this one is more fun.

New chicks have hatched!

All eight piglets at once

Hay pile playground

Old John Deere - the girl loves a good tractor

Playing in the hay bale maze

Pumping water in the rubber ducky derby was hugely popular this time.

Ropin' cows

...and the mountain decided to make her appearance toward the end of our visit.

May 5th Continued

May 5th was a beautiful day, and although I did not cancel life, as I alluded to in the previous post, I did what I could to maximize outdoor time.

We tried to have a bit of Anne's cello practice in the back yard, which would have gone better if E. and K. hadn't been yelling out their windows upstairs to her the whole time.

When it was time for our daily walk to the park, I loaded myself down with my lunch and Jean's violin so I could warm up for my afternoon lessons there and thus buy myself an extra fifteen minutes of park time.  Anne insisted on bringing her violin, too, since I had mine.

I also knew ahead of time that I would be finished teaching 30 minutes early that night, and I had tried to look up scenic locations to watch the 8:30pm sunset, but none of them were close enough to reach reliably from the Knight's house in time, so Anne and I dashed back to Clarke Lake, and although we couldn't exactly see the sun, it was a lovely place to just be for a bit.  I took pictures of the water and the sky, and my little model trotted back and forth throwing gravel over the railing and mugging for the camera.

May 5th

Today was #2's due date.  When we buried that baby I tentatively planned (in my head) that I should take today off from teaching and go hiking in the mountains.  But along came #3, and that has been very healing.  So I forgot about the plan.  Sort of.  And also ignored it, because making up lessons is a pain.  Any day I don't teach means a future vacation day I do teach.  Pragmatic concerns usually trump the day.  But today I am very much missing #2, and I'm sorry I didn't cancel the rest of life and go somewhere far away and beautiful for the day.  I keep imagining holding a tiny little person dressed in footed pajamas.  I'll probably be fine tomorrow, and I won't likely be hiking in the mountains this weekend on account of the fact that Linda and I are running a 5k early on Sunday morning, and I probably need to conserve my sleep and exercise energy.  I'm feeling pretty strong at 19 weeks pregnant, but I'm not in top race form...  Off to teach group class!

Homing in on the Holidays

This is our last week of teaching before the holidays, and it's full of tying up loose ends.

We arrived home late Sunday night from a lovely and restful weekend in Oregon, needing to get going early on Monday with work stuff.  Except I woke up Monday with a stomach bug, on top of not quite having gotten over my three-week-long cold.  In case you needed to know about that, in the week-and-a-half surrounding our Messiah performance, I went through three *family size* bags of cough drops BY MYSELF.  I did not need that much sugar, but I needed to not cough my lungs out during various events involving other people...  Anyway, the cold is really almost completely gone now.  Back to Monday - I rescheduled my first three students, and by taking a two or three hour nap and not eating much of anything I was ok enough to teach my Monday evening students and my Tuesday students.  I guess a stomach bug was a good way to get rid of my lingering pregnancy weight before the holiday goodies hit...

About that. Number Two was to have been at twenty weeks today, half way to full term.  Long ago I passed through the stage of being sad all the time, and then through the stage of not being sad all the time but still crying each day.  I'm down to crying maybe once a week, and under very controlled and private circumstances.  It's strange how you can miss someone so much that you never got to meet, and who was around for such a short time.

Because of the impending holidays I've had some added activities, although we did have Tuesday morning off from Bible study.  Making cookies for our neighbors.  A dinner get-together with Jeff and Linda.  A Christmas tree smack in the middle of group class followed by a rehearsal and chat with Anita.  Working on Christmas presents for people.  Writing a letter to my new pen pal in Lesotho.  A trial lesson with a potential student.  Doing some homework for the Suzuki Principles in Action course we're taking in January.  Looking for a cat sitter.  Also, I think I've finally gotten the Bach E Major Concerto memorized, although it needs some more work to become dependable.

Starting Monday evening, my inner night owl has been going crazy, maybe that long I'm-exhausted-and-sick-to-my-stomach-and-have-a-low-grade-fever nap got me off to a bad start.  I've been good about staying in bed in the dark for hours and trying to turn my thoughts toward the uplifting, but tonight a little after 1:00 am, I decided to use the bathroom and make some tea, still being nowhere *near* sleep, and then type up this blog I've been thinking about.  I debated with myself, because backlit screens are *not* supposed to contribute to good circadian rhythms...  I might go read a real book for a while until Anne calls for milk.  And then maybe I'll be ready to sleep.

Tomorrow evening is the candle-light communion at our church, and I love it.  First of all, I'm kind of a sucker for candles.  And also, I like the sort of sedate Christmas decorations found in church.  And, I've probably mentioned this before, but I *love* the Adventist communion which always includes foot-washing and singing and prayers in small groups.  We only have it four times a year, and I hate to miss it.  Saturday morning is the special Christmas music program during the church service, and Jared and I are playing two Christmas carols with two of our students.  I imagine Anne will stand up there and play along.  We'd offered to let her bring her box violin, but we discovered tonight on the way to group class it was missing - I think we must have left it at group class on Fox Island on Tuesday.  Her box cello is around, so maybe she'll come complete the quintet at church that way...

November

The leaves are quite beautiful here, even though mostly they are the yellows and not the proverbial reds and oranges.  I am glad to look out my window and see yellow leaves on the trees and yellow leaves on the ground.  It is another season.  It is a season for healing.  Physically, I am ninety percent recovered.  Emotionally, I am doing well, but for nearly a month I have been quite sad at some point each day.  I've lived long enough to know that sadnesses get better over time, but that the big ones never disappear entirely.  Eventually they get filed in the sad drawer and can come out another year when one gets to rifling around.  Before I store them I need to enjoy them (if I could describe it that way) for a while.  Sometimes I find myself wanting the sadness to pass so that I can invest in other things.  But more often I find myself wanting to live in it while it lasts and let it diminish in its own time; I feel that if I push to walk past it too fast, it will mean I didn't care enough.

Things take the time they take.  I broke my toe in June.  I almost couldn't walk for a week.  After that, it was pretty much fine.  When the weather changed in late summer, it ached a bit.  Even now in November the toenail is still not fully regrown - it looks ugly.  Maybe another two months will pass before it's completely back to normal.  Hearts are like that.  Healing is a messy process and you can't predict its twists and turns or the moment when it is time to close the file drawer.

There is a beautiful passage in Isaiah 25 which says: "He will swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth."  It's a promise I cling to.  I think it means that One Day there will be no new hurts, no new tears, no new pains, no new sins.  I think we will be comforted and see the Big Picture, but I don't think we will ever forget what all we have been through in this world.  Jesus, resurrected, still carried the scars from his crucifixion, and I can't imagine that any of his resurrected people will forget the price he paid for them.  His wounds are healed, but they will never disappear.  They are part of the story for ever and ever and ever.

Maybe our own little sadnesses are like that, too.  Maybe we will always remember the trials which led to our sanctification.

The autumn is beautiful.  I am grateful.

We brought some inside for November this year.  The farm stand had oodles of enormous pumpkins for a dollar each on the first of the month, and Anne and I picked out this giant for our table...

Anne is old enough to understand thankfulness this year, so we've made a November tree out of construction paper and put it on the piano room door.  Each evening, Anne gets to write (and then I transcribe) something she's thankful for on a leaf, and we stick it to the branches.

Because she's only two, she lives entirely in the moment, so her thanks are often whatever is right in front of her.  But isn't that the way to live?  Look right in front of you and find something to give thanks for.  It's a lesson for me, too.