Fourteen Years

As of today, we have been married for fourteen years.  Here is a partial list of notable experiences in that time:

• Graduate school
• Acquisition of four kittens
• Death of a cat
• Five inter-city moves
• Death of a car
• Hiring for two big jobs
• Firings from two big jobs
• Several temporary jobs
• Starting our own business and trying to keep it afloat (not over the hump yet!)
• Commission of a cello
• Lots of chamber music performances, paid and otherwise
• Enough summer courses in Suzuki and Dalcroze to be equivalent to three degrees between us
• Birth of three children
• Thirteen-week miscarriage
• Two purchases of homes
• Renting out one of those after having to move suddenly
• Sale of same home remotely
• Hiking, camping, and snowshoeing
• Death of two grandparents
• Lots of plane travel - with and without kids.  Not for "vacation" so to speak, but to visit family or close friends, attend weddings, and to take or teach out-of-town courses and workshops
• Four weddings of siblings (one attended via Skype, since it overlapped with the birth of a child)
• Road trips, including the gigantic move from Alabama to Washington with three cats, plants, and musical instruments in the cars, assisted by Jared's parents.
• Three major surgeries
• Several smaller procedures
• Several EMS visits and rides
• At least five ER visits
• Two overnight hospitalizations in addition to the three which involved the birth of a child
• Several emergency vet visits
• Plenty of the regular doctor, dentist, and vet visits
• An annoying amount of dental work (me and Black Bean)
• Lots of DIY remodeling (it ain't over yet)
• Homeschooling
• Regular drives for long-term teaching in three other homes and a church 
• Issues with rentals {no heat in the Rochester winter (just for a couple of days at a time); minimal heat in the Rochester winter (for years); no running water for a weekend;  sorry, you've had cats for years but the new management doesn't do cats; two week gap - go find a short term rental with four cats; fridge broke - we'll install a new one next week while you are in the middle of a violin lesson; installation of new patio wall using power tools during a violin lesson and your child's nap; required force-air insulation testing of our unit during a violin lesson; repair of a washing machine and ceiling leak during a violin lesson; fire in the wee hours due to illegal wiring of a washing machine; security deposits stollen by crooked landlord who skipped town; lightning strike inside our unit; creepy short-term rental where the cat found his way inside the wall; no rental for a week where Jared and the cats had to sleep in his office; rental just above a bar - cue bar fights and police arrivals at closing time (2 am); someone creepily keying into our unit on a Saturday night and being chased off by us; sewage coming up our drains on Christmas Eve - managed remotely via our teenage neighbor and the fire department while we were in Texas; I'm sure there's more - that's just what come readily to mind}
• Inordinate amounts of cooking and laundry and cleaning - (especially of cat barf) - but those items are common to everyone (minus the cat barf for those who don't have cats)...
• Deaconing, assisting with children's Sabbath school, and lots of special music-ing for church
• Attending protests, calling senators and representatives, and writing letters to encourage people to vote
• Running two half-marathons
• Hosting two different foreign exchange students
• Pregnancy/nursing/nursing while pregnant/tandem nursing for eight years (so far!) straight

Really, the best parts of the list have been visiting with family and friends, hiking, and camping.  And some of the chamber music. And, of course, meeting our children.

More about Vancouver

We traveled to Canada like it was 1999.  No cell phone service.  No texting.  No GPS.  No internet.  Ahead of the trip we wrote down directions to each destination on a sheet of paper; then we intuited any navigational mishaps through the use of north, south, east, and west.  We paid for food with actual cash.  We used our phones only as clocks and cameras.  We planned actual meeting times and locations.  Jared was there for work.  (*This is officially unfair.*) The kids and I went along for fun. As fun as an overnight trip with three small children over an international border in two cars could be (see: five people PLUS cello don't fit in a sedan).  I wanted to find things to do with the kids in late winter which would not break the bank.  So... We visited Stanley Park where the adults took turns playing with the kids on the beach and going for walks or jogs on the trails.  We took the kids swimming in the hotel pool.  And while Jared was teaching, I took the kids to Lynn Canyon, which has extensive hiking trails and an amazing suspension bridge.  It also has a small, free, and really family-friendly ecology center filled with interactive exhibits and dioramas: a small wing about local animals, a small wing about local plants, a small wing about the history of people in the area, and a kids' wing with more dioramas, a video with different animal sounds, animal puppets, animal coloring projects, maps, animal puzzles, books to read about the seasons, and toy animals.  All three of my kids were happy for hours.

I drove around fairly extensively on some main roads in Vancouver, but surely I didn't see LOTS of town.  There is some pretty heavy industry and lots of shipping, just like Seattle and Tacoma.  I noticed that the development is more dense and mixed use than what I'm used to, and things seem to be kept cleaner.  I did see some homeless individuals, although very few compared to what I'm used to seeing in Seattle.  A large percentage of houses are at least partly stucco.  There seems to be little in the way of landscaping.  And lots of houses are surrounded by a front gate made with metal, brick, cinderblock, or concrete.  No billboards, and store signs are less obtrusive.  Parking and left turns are a pain, and most of the main roads are city driving - very little in the way of freeways.  Lots of very high-end shopping and dining, and very walkable.

Also the hotel had no microwaves.  Our baked potato plan went down in flames with that.  Fortunately we were three blocks from Whole Foods, so we found things that our weird dietary issues could eat without the use of heating or cooking.

The Canadian border agents were professional and armed, and seemed to be mostly female and friendly.  The American border agents were profession, armed, and gruff, and seemed to be mostly male and very militarized.  More "equipment" and metal gates and cameras entering the US, at least to the untrained eye.  These two groups are working right next to each other.  I wonder if they are friends and if they ever cross the street to socialize.

If you are not aware (and I was't until just recently), there is a little tiny bit of British Columbia, one town worth, which juts south of the 49th parallel, making it part of Washington state.  It's called Point Roberts.  The school there only runs through third grade, so from the fourth grade up, Point Roberts kids are bussed across the border into Canada and then a 45 minute drive back across the border to Blaine, Washington.  Can you imagine going across two international check points twice a day in a school bus?

The Time of Extra

During the first two months of this year, there is a lot of extra happening in addition to our happy little routine we have settled in since September. 

In no particular order...
We buy a set of six or so season tickets to the Seattle Symphony, and this year most of the concerts we have picked happen to be mid-January through the first week of March.

I finally bit the bullet, so to speak, and am getting some dental things I'd put off taken care of.  This involves five trips to Kent.

I was behind on the cat's shots... so there are three more trips to Kent. 

And, speaking of putting off, now I've had three (and there is at least one more) trip to the chiropractor as well as additional exercises...

And a few other things, too...

Someone near and dear was in the hospital in downtown Seattle for 10 days, and we went to visit four times.

We finally had some friends over that we'd been trying to get together with for many months.

Anne has a bass recital next weekend.

I have a paid playing gig coming up.

We had to get new passports for the girls.

Jared's phone met its bitter end.  After being dropped, it fell in the toilet.  And then while drying out in a bowl of rice on top of the fridge, it fell to the floor again.  After Jared's first attempts to get a new phone we discovered that the  account is in my name and I have lost my password, so we had to plan a time to go to the store together, with kids in tow to take care of the problem.

The front screen door also met its bitter end, although the frame is still attached, and walking right through it is a fun magic trick.

There were a couple of snow days.

I have kept up with Anne's bass practice like the star Suzuki parent I aspire to be.  We have gotten behind on her other schoolwork, which I do not regret.  She's actually almost done with first grade math, and is quite good at it.  We are going to start phonics in earnest in a couple of weeks.

Last Tuesday, she called her grandmother in Oregon and said she was coming to visit for a week.  So... we drove her down Friday, spent the night, and drove back home Saturday in time to get a wee bit of exercise, eat dinner, and load the kids back off to drop them at Jeffrey and Linda's house while we went to a concert.  She seems to be having the time of her life, and despite her trepidation about sleeping alone, she is doing just fine.  And I hear she even did her bass practice and brushed her teeth yesterday.

Belated Silly Days

I guess I'm down to posting about once a month.  Recently I read someone saying, "There are no life hacks for three kids in five years."  That's where we are, so writing is scarce. 

I promised some sweet Silly Days from the fall.  Silly Days are the made-up stories Jared tells the kids in bed at night where they each star as something other than themselves.  I love lying in the dark hearing his creativity flow forth.  Everyone is quiet, and there is no fighting.  Talking in our beds in the dark at night is a family highlight for me.

An excerpt from one of Anne's....  Anne often asks to be some sort of medical person.  In this one she was a surgeon and had already done one surgery that day.... "Your next patient came in, and you said, 'What are we doing for you today?'  The patient said, 'I want you to make my chin longer, and my ears longer, and my forehead wrinkly, and make each of my teeth crooked.  And also all of my fingers longer.'  You said, 'Are you sure about all of that?  You know that surgery is permanent.'  'Yes!' said your patient.  I want to be a goblin.  Here, look at this picture of a goblin I found on the internet,' said the patient as he handed you his phone.  You took a careful look at it.  'I think I can do all that for you, but I can't make your skin green.'  Your patient said, 'That's okay, I can use face paint for that.'..."

An excerpt from one of Lazarus'... He was very concerned at that time about monsters, and asked to be a GOOD monster for his silly day.  "When you woke up, you had been sleeping all day in a drawer in the closet.  You peered around, and it was dark.  You could tell it was almost time for your favorite little boy to go to bed.  You waited until he was sound asleep in his bed, and you slipped out of the closet, and curled up next to him in his bed.  All night long, any time bad monsters wanted to bother your little boy, you would protect him and tell them to go away."

And another one of Lazarus' where he wanted to be a generic monster...  "You had been awake all night, the way monsters are, but it was just starting to get light so you had to hide.  You turned into a little puddle on the floor and started to ooze under the kitchen cabinet.  Just then, Daddy came walking in and stepped on you, and said, 'Ew!  Cat barf!' So he got paper towels and a spray bottle and cleaned you up."

Connections and Tetris

Connections

This week I came to the designated end of a big push to find more students.  On Wednesday we started a class for brand-new beginners.  My goal was to fill it with ten families, but we planned to make it work with just five.  In the end we only came up with two, and I was feeling somewhat defeated over the weekend.  But after the first class, and upon review of what's in the pipeline, I think my work in "advertising" was truly positive.

If you know me, you know I love all my students, and have found ways to connect successfully with a wide variety of profiles, but in replaying comments that Jared and I have made to each other over the years, I realized I heard myself saying that I really want to keep investing in beginners and growing together over the long haul.  I did some research over the summer by connecting with people who have done group starts, as opposed to the one-at-a-time starts I have always done, and I got some great ideas, and frankly, a good feeling about the group dynamic, and the easy out on all sides for those who start in our studio but find that Suzuki lessons with us is not what they were looking for.

Despite various methods of trying to reach out over the years to new students (because there really are people out there who want to play the violin, viola, and cello, and who will mesh well with our particular way of doing things!), nearly all of our students have come down to word-of-mouth connections.  With some great advice on how to "language" things from my dad, I communicated with so many people I have connections with.   Emails, and text messages, and fliers, and in-person communications EVERY day for some weeks.  As a result, not only do we have the two new students, but actually several more who are very interested in starting with us in the next few months, but for  a variety of normal logistical reasons couldn't do this particular class.  It feels very hopeful.  I have also come to realize that despite my introversion, I am definitely someone who is looking to connect with people and connect people to each other.

Now that we are off to a solid start with this class, I feel like I can relax a little bit.  Make some cookies or something...

***

Tetris

Earlier this year I was talking to another parent who lives in a house only a little bigger than our 840 square feet, with as many family members.  She described her home life as constantly shuffling *things* around.  I can't tell you how much that applies in our house, too.  Especially since Jared and I are teaching in this same tiny space.  

Group class days at home (currently Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday), we reorient our dining table and chairs by 90 degrees in our dining room/kitchen annex/utility room, and add our sofa (truly only a love seat) so that we have room in our tiny living room for our class.  This sounds simple, but it involves massive clean-up (see: three kids).  And also, if anyone needs to access the fridge or bulk goods during the hours of rearrange, it involves literally climbing over the table to reach them.  (Let's say Jared wants to put rice in the rice cooker for dinner in between two lessons.  He is standing on top of chairs and the dining table to reach the corner where the rice bin is located, and then climbing back over everything to reach the pot, hidden from view behind a curtain in the so-called kitchen.)

Let's talk about our official *kitchen*.  The so called foot-space, if no cabinet or over doors are open, is about seven feet by three feet, boxed in by a weird pillar in the middle.  Smack in the middle of that small walking space, we have a full-size dishwasher on gimpy wheels (you know that shopping carts which doesn't run smoothly? > Those wheels.), which came with the house.  The dishwasher is at all times blocking a) the silverware drawer and the kids' dishes drawer, b) the sink, c) the oven, and/or d) the cabinet.  It is truly the most difficult small kitchen we have ever had in all our dwelling places.  When I gave my parents their first tour of our house on Skype, I showed them the kitchen, and my dad kept insisting he'd like to see more of it.  But that was it.  He'd seen it all.  I have done less cooking in this house than I have in any place I've ever lived, and I'd like to think it's because Jared likes to cook and would rather I do more kid stuff.  That is likely true, but also, it's because it is such an awful kitchen to work in, I usually want to give up before I start.  In order to do anything in there, one is physically shoving the dishwasher back and forth, climbing over chairs, walking in wide arcs in and out of the kitchen around the pillar, squeezing past the table to access the bulk goods and refrigerator, and becoming totally exasperated.  Jared is a saint (truly a SAINT!) and cooks copious amounts of tasty and nutritious food for all of us, and then washes the dishes.  I honestly don't know how it doesn't drive him insane.  

There is also the laundry.  The clean laundry migrates from the dryer and various precarious hang-drying spots to the sleeper sofa, and then sometimes to the beds or tops of bedroom cabinets before it gets folded and put away, often in a hurry before students arrive. Hurriedly dumped on the bed, that is.  Next to Jared's nice cello in its case, and a pile of books which fell off the adjoining bookshelf, a sleepy cat or two, and hopefully not on Laurel's napping spot.

These are all the most obvious examples of work-flow issues and TETRIS in our house, and I could go on for hours if I wanted to.  There have only been two places I've lived as an adult where I thought my home was tidy and organized, and both of those had a LOT more square footage per person than my truly charming 1940s War house.

Anyway, this is not a complaint.  It's really to preface my excitement about some genuine change coming down the pipeline, which is so close, I can almost... feel it.

My 9'x5' mini-studio attached to the end of the garage is in full use for all of my lessons now, and the larger 13'x20' studio is getting close to usable.  Plus, of course, Jared and his dad added the 12'x12' storage shed last year (which could use some more internal work on my part to get everything stored well).  Right now! > the garage studio is sheet-rocked minus the window and skylight openings and the attic access.  There is still taping and floating, texturing and painting, and eventually flooring and baseboards to go (and probably several things I don't know about).  The new donor upright piano our neighbors passed along needs work before it is ready to lead improvisation in Dalcroze or accompany the string group.  It is playable (although a half-step flat), but we need a professional to work on it - no one has maintained it in at least 20 years....

But as soon as we deem that room suitable for all group classes, I have grand plans for interior  house reorganization, which I know will improve our family flow.  The kitchen will be more functional (although a full remodel/addition would be the true solution to its issues).  I might even consider cooking something more complex than popcorn.  The living room will be friendlier.  The laundry room/dining room/kitchen annex will be a wee bit less crowded.  We will have TWO bedrooms in which to store beds, toys, books, and homeschool stuff, and I will not have *six people stepping on my bed pillow as part of their normal throughway every day*.  This evolution will not be instantaneous.  It will probably take several months from start to finish, but I am excited.  Also, in this house, I am ALWAYS trying to clean out. (Which goes against my nature.  But so does looking at the horrible headache of clutter all the time.) I have no illusions that our space is going to be showing up in House Beautiful, but I have hopes that certain things will be more functional for all family members.  I have been committing Tetris in my mind with all the furniture in anticipation.

Words

I have a sudden and possibly short window of opportunity since Anne is at the neighbors', Laurel is asleep in bed, and Jared and Lazarus have just left on a run.  Seize the writing!

Just bits and pieces today, about literature and life, not so much related....

Matthew 5:38-48 in N.T. Wright's translation:
"You heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."  But I say to you: don't use violence to resist evil!  Instead, when someone hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one towards him.  When someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your cloak, too.  And when someone forces you to go one mile, go a second one with him.  Give to anyone who asks you, and don't refuse someone who wants to borrow from you.
'You heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  But I tell you: love your enemies!  Pray for people who persecute you!  That way, you'll be children of your father in heaven!  After all, he makes his sun rise on bad and good alike, and sends rain both on the upright and on the unjust.  Look at it like this: if you love those who love you, do you expect a special reward?  Even tax-collectors do that, don't they?  And if you only greet your own family, what's so special about that?  Even Gentiles do that, don't they?  Well then: you must be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.'

...and some of his commentary...

"The shocking thing about this passage in the Sermon on the Mount is that we are told to watch what our heavenly father is doing and then do the same ourselves.  Here is the puzzle: Israel, the chosen people, are challenged to realize that God doesn't have favourites!  What sense can we make of that?  If they are chosen, doesn't that mean they are God's favourites? 
"The answer to the puzzle is found earlier in the Sermon.  Israel isn't chosen in order to be God's special people while the rest of the world remains in outer darkness.  Israel is chosen to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth.  Israel is chosen so that, through Israel, God can bless all people.  And now Jesus is calling Israel to be the light fo the world at last.  He is opening the way, carving a path through the jungle towards that vocation, urging his followers to come with him on the dangerous road.
"And dangerous it is.  Not only has Israel in Jesus' day got many enemies, pagan nations who have overrun the land and made the people subject to harsh rules and taxes.  There are just as many dangers within, as movements of national resistance spring up, fuelled by anger at the increasing injustice and wickedness.  And, within that again, the divisions within Jewish society are becoming more marked, with a few becoming very rich and the majority being poor, some very poor.
"These were all pressing issues for the people listening to Jesus.  How did his kingdom-message apply to them?  How can it then apply to us today?
"Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing, restorative justice.  The old justice found in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself.  Better an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth than an escalating feud with each side going one worse than the other.  But Jesus goes one better still.  Better to have no vengeance at all, but rather a creative way forward, reflecting the astonishingly patient love of God himself, who wants Israel to shine his light into the world so that all people will see that he is the one true God, and that his deepest nature is overflowing love.  No other god encourages people to behave in a way like this!
"So Jesus gives three hints of the sort of thing he has in mind.  To be struck on the right cheek, in that world, almost certainly meant being hit with the back of the right hand.  That's not just violence, but an insult: it implies that you're an inferior, perhaps a slave, a child, or (in that world, and sometimes even today) a woman.  What's the answer?  Hitting back only keeps the evil in circulation.  Offering the other cheek implies: hit me again if you like, but now as an equal, not an inferior.
"Or suppose you're in a lawcourt where a powerful enemy is suing you) perhaps for non-payment of some huge debt) and wants the shirt off your back.  You can't win; but you can show him what he's really doing.  Give him your cloak as well; and in a world where most people only worse those two garments, shame him with your impoverished nakedness.  This is that the rich, powerful and careless are doing.  They are reducing the poor to a state of shame.
"The third example clearly reflects the Roman military occupation.  Roman soldiers had the right to force civilians to carry their equipment for one mile.  But the law was quite strict; it forbade them to make someone go more than that. Turn the tables on them, advises Jesus.  Don't fret and fume and plot revenge.  Copy your generous God!  Go a second mile, and astonish the soldier (and perhaps alarm him 0 what if his commanding officer found out?) with the news that there is a different way to be human, a way which doesn't plot revenge, which doesn't join the armed resistance movement (what's what verse 39 means), but which wins God's kind of victory over violence and injustice.
"These examples are only little sketches, like cartoons to give you the idea.  Whatever situation you're in, you need to think it through for yourself.  what would it mean to reflect God's generous love despite the pressure and provocation, despite your own anger and frustration?
"Impossible?  Well, yes, at one level.  But again Jesus' teaching isn't just good advice, it's good news.  Jesus did ti all himself, and opened up the new way of being human so that all who follow him can discover it.  When they mocked him, he didn't respond.  When they challenged him, he told quizzical, sometimes humorous, stories that forced them to think differently.  When they struck him, he took the pain.  When the put the worst bit of Roman equipment on his back - the heavy crosspiece on which he would be killed - he carried out of the city to the place of his own execution.  When they nailed him to the cross, he prayed for them.
"The Sermon on the Mount isn't just about us.  If it was, we might admire it as a fine bit of idealism, but we'd then return to our normal lives.  It's about Jesus himself.  This was the blueprint for his own life.  He asks nothing of his followers that he hasn't faced himself.  And, within his own life, we can already sense a theme that will grow larger and larger until we can't miss it.  If this is the way to show what God is really like, and if this is the pattern that Jesus himself followed exactly, Matthew is inviting us to draw the conclusion: that in Jesus we see the Emmanuel, the God-with-us person.  The Sermon on the Mount isn't just about how to behave.  It's about discovering the living God on the loving, and dying, Jesus, and learning to reflect that love ourselves into the world that needs it so badly."

Some more great children's literature we have been listening to on library CD's:

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
During the Depression, a family in Chicago is split up when they lose their apartment, and the teenaged daughter goes to small-town Illinois to live with her rather colorful, self-supporting, and unaffectionate grandmother.  Her year in such a tiny town where everyone knows everyone's business is quite extraordinary.  The large snake in the attic falling on the nude postmistress posing for the New York artist who is renting a room in Grandma's house is only one of many AMAZING and uproarious scenes.  Story telling at its finest.

Ice Whale by Jean Craighead George
A bowhead whale is born in the Arctic in 1848.  The young boy, Toozak, who sees his birth from his canoe names him Siku.  This novel follows Siku until the last sighting of him in 2048, as well as several generations of Toozaks, whose lives are bound to that whale.  It follows the commercial whaling of the late 1800s which decimates the whale populations, as well as their slow recovery after whaling falls apart.  And it follows the change in Native cultures from subsistence to dependance on Western interventions, as well as the building of the Artic Research Station in Barrow, Alaska.  It ends on a hopeful note, and is full of love.  Love for humans.  Love for animals.  Love for plants.  Love for land- and water-scapes. 

On the Far Side of the Mountain, also by Jean Craighead George
This is the sequel to another book we have not yet listened to.  Two teenagers have left home and are living off the land in the Catskills.  Their wilderness survival skills are awesome, and their careful observations of the land, plants, and animals around them allow them to use what they need while living peaceably with their surroundings.  They have adult friends nearby - a librarian, a university professor who lives in a cabin, a farm owner...  This story follows the confiscation of the boy's endangered falcon by a wildlife ranger, and a pair of long, interrelated treks through the mountains, using special wilderness communication skills.  Just as in Ice Whale, there is a lot of love.  Love for people, animals, plants, and the landscape.  Also, history.

Recently neighbor lent Anne the Ramona Quimby books, and I have read her two of them so far.  I remembered not liking them very well as a child, and now from my adult perspective I can understand why.  Ramona is such a real, wonderful child, with such big feelings, and frankly, most of the grownups around her don't make much effort to understand her and despite their sympathies toward her, pretty much feel that children should be seen and not heard.  She is loved dearly by her family, but her insides are pretty much a mystery to her parents.  I think Anne can really relate to her, and is LOVING reading them.

Also, I am loving the little bit of homeschooling we've been doing.  We have started math, handwriting, and phonics (in addition to cello), and because we started in late June, I feel no pressure to hurry through anything.  So we do one or two or three subjects most days, and if we miss something here or there, it's totally fine.

...Here's a post I put yesterday on facebook, if you're not on there:

Ballance Talent Education

Published by Ruth Marie Ballance · 23 hrs · 

What a group class week! Lots of learning and fun. Plus...our musicians experienced the unfinished studio space, noisy work by a trio of electricians, a visit from a city inspector (who it turns out is a singer in his off-hours and was beyond tickled to be serenaded on the job), and a visit by a service dog who tried very hard not to chase all the tennis balls bouncing around during Dalcroze. Our musicians capped the week by playing an inspiring pop-up concert under the trees at the neighborhood park. Their program:

Chocolate Drops by Will Marion Cook

Sonata IV by Isabella Leonarda

Duchess of Devonshire's Reel, Marianne's Reel, and Just So in the North by Ignatius Sancho

The Boom & Birds at Sunrise by Stanley Fletcher

...and three folk songs: All My Little Ducklings (which they also sang in English and German), Go Tell Aunt Rhody, and Suzuki's 1st Twinkle Variation

A little about the composers on the program:

Will Marion Cook grew up in D.C. and Chattanooga.  A fantastically talented young person, he attended Oberlin Conservatory to study violin at age 15, studied in Berlin for two years, and attended conservatory in New York where he studied composition with Antonin Dvorak.  Much of this was sponsored by Frederick Douglass, who was himself (I did not know this!) a violinist.  Working as a Classical musician, Will faced a lot of discrimination as a Black man, so he ended up turning to popular styles and writing for the theater, where he was more accepted.

Isabella Leonarda, a Baroque composer, lived her whole live in Novara, Italy, where she was quite famous as a musician.  She entered the convent there at the age of 16, and spent the rest of her long life there.  She composed extensively, and also likely taught the younger nuns music lessons.  She wrote an entire set of twelve Sonatas for two violins and violone.  There are recordings and scores available.  They each have several movements which are through-composed.  If you're looking for the female Vivaldi, my fellow violinists, she's the one.  The Sonatas are all up on imslp.

Ignatius Sancho... it is hard to tell his story without wanting to break down and bawl.  He was born on a slave ship off the coast of Africa, which can only mean... His very pregnant mother had just been kidnapped and forced onto a horribly crowded, unsanitary boat and was being shipped overseas to work as a slave.  She somehow managed to give birth with very little or no medical help, and she and the tiny newborn survived the voyage to South America.  As a toddler, Ignatius was again put on a boat and shipped across the ocean to England - with or without his family?  I don't know.  This tiny boy is then sold to a family in England who held him captive, although they did choose to educate him as well.  He was eventually freed.  Due to his force of personality, I can only imagine, he survived all this and was quite prolific in publishing papers on abolition and was the first Black man in England to vote in an election and to have his music published.  The fiddle tunes we played all date from the late 1700s.  By the way, I found his music in the amazing new book Music by Black Composers, Volume 1.  It's got music suitable for Suzuki book 2-4 students, and can be played as duets, or with the piano.  I can't wait for the second volume to come out!

And Stanley Fletcher.  Well, all I have to say to my violin readers is, if you have never watched the Paul Rolland videos, it is more than well worth the $200 to purchase The Teaching of Action in String Playing.  That thing is a gold mine.  Truly life-changing.  Watch it.  And watch it again.  And then some more.

Coming up:

My dad is arriving on Tuesday to do some more electrical work on the garage conversion for us.  This is very exciting!  With the two studios out back totaling something around 358 square feet, our 840 square foot house is going to feel SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE.  Next week we also are rehearsing the Brahms C Minor Piano Quartet with Adam for our upcoming August 2nd house concert.  And next weekend is Jared's and my 13th anniversary, which we will celebrate by loading our poor little car to the gills, and dragging the children all the way across the state to the desert to teach at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute next week.  I am hoping to figure out how to do something slightly more fun, but the logistics of travel and childcare and rehearsing and teaching are a bit daunting...

Education - Part the Next. And Other Projects.

Anne's last day of forest kindergarten is June 24th-ish.  I will be sad for her to be done.  We've been needing to figure out what comes next.  Jared and Anne and I have gone back and forth this year about what that should be.  The plan is now as follows:  We will start homeschooling at the end of June, and see how we like it.  I've been collecting some basic curriculum ideas and keeping-kids-responsible-for-themselves ideas.  We will give it an experimental run during the summer.  If it flat-out doesn't work for our family, Highlands Elementary is a block and a half away, and we'll march right over and register her.

Currently being brainstormed:
A laminated chart with Anne's daily responsibilities, which can be velcro-ed on as they are completed for the day.  Completion of the chart will lead to the possibility of screen time if she wants it.  Exactly what will be on the chart is still undergoing brainstorming.  It will include cello practice, some sort of spiritual component, reading, handwriting, math, some sort of ways of contributing to the household, reading together, and outdoor play.  Still not entirely sure about the details.

While it seems kind of daunting, getting this child out the door to school, getting her home from school, getting her to do her homework, and managing the emotional fall-out of her long, exhausting school day while teaching after-school lessons, seems even more daunting.

Anyway, it's a good time to experiment, as you don't legally have to register for school in Washington until you are 8.  The summer trial run will also give us a little lead time to figure out how to schedule (or NOT schedule) our lessons for the fall....

There are other projects going on around here, too.  The big one is that I have a goal for myself of getting the garage cleared out to the point that we could use it for our group class workshop week July 8-12.  It doesn't have to be remodeled or sheet-rocked or painted or heated or anything by then, but I can at least have it cleaned out, cleaned, and have the rug on the floor.  You may recall that we moved in on a Sunday and started teaching in the house on Monday morning.  In order to make that happen, all the boxes went into the garage, and only the basic furniture went into the house.  Also, there *may or may not* be some pack-rats among us who have done several moves last-minute without cleaning out.  So the quantity of boxes and STUFF in the garage has been somewhat overwhelming.  Two steps in the right direction have happened since November.  One is that Jared and his dad built a shed in the back yard, so I have been moving quite a few things over there and organizing on shelves and such.  That includes all the tools, the camping gear, the yard toys and snow gear, the off-size clothes for the kids, the Christmas decorations, and the furniture temporarily out of use (e.g. toddler bed).  Also, Jared has been putting bookshelves in the house up near the ceiling so we've been unloading boxes and boxes of books without using up our very precious floor space.  I've been cleaning out.  Boxes and boxes of things are going to new homes via Buy Nothing and Goodwill, and empty boxes are going to neighbors moving.  It's getting down to the tough stuff now - construction debris, boxes whose contents have to be sorted through one at a time when my eldest isn't looking.  Hundreds of tiny decisions I don't have the fortitude to make...  But I'm doing it, because I want that space usable!

Also, I have some newly minted yard plans.  I bought myself a rose bush and some flowers yesterday, and we have a bunch of bricks sitting by to make a new garden space as the former garden box is on its last legs...  Need to finally get sand for the kids' sand box.  And I have had a life-long dream of a laundry line that I'd like to build.  (In all my spare time.  Haha.)

Along with that there are a million more little projects, like hanging hooks for all the bags by the door, doing something about our litter box drama, finishing the baseboards and door frames...  But who's got time for that?

Because there are OTHER things happening, too.  Jared is teaching at a week-long program in Chattanooga.  We both teach for a week at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute and for a week at the Japan-Seattle Suzuki Institute.  And we have our afore-mentioned week-long in-house group class workshop.

And the concerts...  Jared and I are playing a pair of concerts in Bellingham the first week of September, the first of which is a subset of the second.  Finding time to rehearse with just the two of us is not all that easy, despite the fact we live in the same house and work together.  Additionally, we are playing a house concert in August, half of which is a subset of the same, but also contains a separate piano quartet - the Brahms C Minor, with Adam and Linda, which involves scheduling rehearsals around Adam's in-town dates and Linda's job.  And in June, Jared and I are playing another subset of the same at a retirement home in Auburn.  The complete program for the second September concert is:

Kodaly Duo
Lullaby and Grotesque by Rebecca Clarke
Mozart Duo in Bb Major
Rautavaara Ugrian Dialogue
Limerock and Emily's Reel by Mark O'Connor
Sibelius Nocturne
Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus by Messaien
Something TBA by J.S. Bach

Currently starting the summer lesson-scheduling process...  And the lead-up to our end of year recitals.  And keeping an eyeball or two on recruiting new students to replace those who are graduating, quitting lessons, changing teachers, or moving.

Last summer we did not go camping so that we could work on the garage.  We ended up not working on the garage (due to concert preparations) and not taking any vacation.  That was a mistake all round.  This summer maybe we are planning to be doing both - I'll let you know how that goes.  :-P Packing it in around nursing and diapers and Anne's cello practice and sunscreening and managing the visits with the neighborhood kids and the house cleaning and the meals and the practice and, and, and.

Awash

I am awash in responsibilities.  Other people have many responsibilities, too, so I am not trying to compare myself.  And I am glad for the privileges which attend them, so I am not complaining.  But this is why I say no to a lot of things...

Responsible for taking care of my health: Thanks to Jared's cooking, that part is going fine.  The exercising part is fairly abysmal right now.   The sleeping part is prioritized, so although it could be better (see three children under 6), it's pretty decent.

Responsible for taking care of the house and yard: Jared does most of this stuff, but when there is organizing and sorting and cleaning out and dreaming up better ways of doing things and working with the yard, that's my deal.  Reminder... we are slowly working on a massive fixer-upper project.  It's not just the laudry-dishes-mopping stuff going on here.  I'm behind the times.

Responsible for caring for and educating my children:  That takes up most of my time, and although I'm pretty hands-off, I do love them and want to spend time with them when I'm not doing other things.  And potty-training toddlers and nursing babies are pretty need-intensive.  So also are almost-six-year-olds who were born teenaged.  It is possible that after two hours of practicing a musical instrument yesterday, which could reasonably have taken 20 minutes, I told Jared I wished I was into drinking something stronger than herbal tea.

Responsible for my relationship with God:  Well... Last week I missed my Bible study because I was one day off in knowing what day of the week it was.  This week I was there but had managed not to have done any of the lesson, although I had read the assigned Bible chapters.  I was physically present at church today, but spent at least half the service not in the sanctuary.  We'll just leave it at that.

Responsible for my relationship with my husband: We got to talk a little bit this morning as we were both able to eat breakfast before the kids got up.  That is a rarity. 

Responsible for income to pay the bills: Self-employment is never-ending.  You can't leave the office and go home.  But I like the freedom to choose direction in a way that teaching for the entities I have taught for in the past doesn't afford.  We haven't gotten to the point where the business recruits for itself.  Yet.

Responsible to my students: They pay an arm and a leg for lessons and struggle to do the work at home.  They have my fullest sympathies.  And I want to keep growing and learning as a teacher and improve my work with them.  It's one of the most challenging and rewarding and frustrating things I do regularly.  See also, *parenting. 

I think about whether *if I had the option* it would be easier to be only a stay-at-home-mom.  And all I can think is yes, and no.  Yes, I'd have more time and energy for my kids.  Yes, I'd have more time and energy for the house.  But no, I'd have to do more of the house stuff than I currently do.  And no, I wouldn't have the musical outlet that keeps me/drives me insane.  And I don't even try to imagine my life without kids, because that not what I have ever wanted.  Oh, and being the stay-at-home-mom is not an option anyway.  See *Pay-the-bills.

This list is why I am saying no to a birthday party this weekend.  And a school picnic.  And told our pastor I could not lead a strings group at church despite the fact that I look like the obvious choice.  Many people have NO idea how much responsibility we're awash in here; they can't see all the moving parts.  It probably looks so simple from the outside. 

I have two weeks of laundry to fold.  And several boxes of books to unpack onto the shelves Jared built a week-and-a-half ago.  And work for my students.  And recital prep for next Sunday's shebang at the library on MANY fronts.  See, *Business does not recruit for itself yet.

We are just managing to stay afloat.  And if you showed up here telling Jared he should be shouldering more of the responsibility, we would both roll our eyes at you, because we both know how much he does.  I wouldn't trade lives with anyone else.  I like the good we have going well enough that the bad is worth it.

Car Trouble in Narnia

We have had snow on the ground for fourteen days now at our house.  These pictures were from height of things.  

On Friday morning, I finally went to dig out our Honda from the driveway, as Anne was slated to go back to school for one day before the break, and Jared wanted to run out to the grocery and bank.  As it turned out, Anne's school was cancelled yet again, as the parking lot at the park was unplowed and the gate locked.  

Later on Friday, Jared went to dig out the Chevy from the street.  After he dug it out, he was going to move it into the driveway behind the Honda, but it wouldn't start.  So he pulled the Honda around and tried jumping it.  Still nothing.  So we texted my brother, and he showed up a while later with his car battery charger.  

Having two cars working on Saturday morning was going to be important, as Jared and I were slated to play special music for church, and five people plus a cello don't fit into one car.  

So they charged the Chevy for a while and we ate dinner.  And it still wouldn't start.  So Jeff and Jared and Anne loaded up to go to the only car place still open at that hour in Renton to buy a new battery.  But the guy there wouldn't sell them a battery, saying that the car needed to charge overnight.

So Jeff went home, and we left the car plugged in overnight.

Saturday morning, Jared was up early to practice for church, and he went out to check on the car.  Good news was it started, and he drove it around the block.  BUT, the check engine light came on.  So he didn't want to drive it to Auburn and have it conk out and have to be towed all the way back to Renton.  So he did some calculations and figured out how to get us all in one car.  At departure time, we had the head rests off the front seat, the bottom end of the cello case balanced on the top of Laurel's car seat (her head is low enough so as to be out of the way), and the top end hanging over Jared's shoulder in the front passenger seat, braced by his left arm.  

We limped down to Auburn and walked in the door just a few minutes before the service started.  The lovely greeter of the morning asked if we needed any help, so I recruited her to watch the kids while we were playing.  Jared picked up a bulletin.  It turns out we were listed, not only for special music, but also for offertory.  So he grabbed some hymnals, and we came up with another number with five minutes to spare.  It all turned out fine, but was a bit crazy.

The car is going to a shop tomorrow morning, and our trip to Oregon is a bit postponed...

That was the first time in two weeks I had been down the hill from our house, and I was surprised to find that it was snow-free down there.  Looked like winter had never hit.  Saturday night we went into downtown Seattle for a fabulous concert.  Today I took the kids to the waterfront to see the Aquarium, and we had a family outing to Lowe's for shelf-building materials.  Every time we came home, it was like returning to the land of Narnia - winter, where it was only drizzly and grey down the hill.  The rest of Seattle seems to be back in normal business.  But we still have three or four inches of snow in the yard and piles in the street.  Wild.  And I love it!

Today's view out the front window:

Bunny Pajamas

When we were teaching at the weekend workshop in California in mid-January, I had no fewer than three people ask me, in the course of twenty-four hours, if I was planning to have more children.  (Side note: Why does everyone ask me but not Jared, since we are both *stuck* being parents for the rest of our lives?)  Anyway, to two of these friendly inquiries I answered very honestly: "I don't know."  To the third questioner, my very dear friend Beth, I answered in greater detail: "I'd LOVE to!  But I'm not sure there is room in my house, my car, my budget, or my schedule."  Her husband waved his hand dismissively, and replied thoughtfully: "Oh, that's all the stuff you figure out later."  He is right, of course.  I have two children, and you just figure out how to make what seems impossible work.

Incidentally I was feeling a bit odd that evening, which I very reasonably attributed to a tofu overdose on account of an excess of SoCal restaurant food during the trip.  It wasn't until a week or two later, in between two bouts of actual food poisoning, that I discovered I was pregnant.  I was, of course, surprised and elated for about three days.  But then my rational mind kicked in.  When I was at the doctor again for lab work due to another unrelated illness and was prescribed a super expensive antibiotic compatible with pregnancy, I felt the doctor's congratulations on expecting rang quite hollow.  I know all too well that being six weeks pregnant means almost nothing, because the statistical risk of miscarriage does not even take its first drop until after seven or eight weeks.

Now we are well past the part where one feels exhausted all the time as well as simultaneously sick and hungry.  And not yet to the part where one is constantly aching and can't get comfortable enough to sleep.  At seventeen weeks we seem to have a healthy and VERY active little person in there, who is expected to join our family the first week of October.

Date Minutes

Other Americans put their kids to bed early, and then the parents may potentially have time to talk like adults.  That has almost never worked for us due to: 1) our late night teaching schedule and 2) our daughter with an almost insatiable fear of missing out.  Last weekend we were driving home from church at the end of a long day there, and we suggested to Anne that the drive was going to be very boring and there would be lots of traffic, so she might just take a little snooze.

"But I'll still be asleep when you park."

-"I'll wake you up."

"If I'm asleep, DON'T DO ANYTHING FUN."

-"Don't worry.  We will absolutely not do anything fun."

But she didn't sleep nonetheless.

When I mentioned Americans putting their kids to bed early to Anita, and then having time for themselves, she said, "Except you have to keep putting them to bed."  So then I felt better about it.

Now that we have two kids, and they have gotten really good at interacting (aka feeding off each other), and by our late night dinner times everyone is exhausted... I understand what my cousin used to say about the "goat rodeo" when her two children were young.  I cannot get them into the shower fast enough after we eat!

They are very happy in the shower, and the adults use that time to clean the cat boxes, clean the dishes, find the bedroom under the detritus of one day, scrub the food off the dining room floor, and some evenings to vacuum the house in case the children haven't gotten out of bed before the upcoming 10:00 am lessons.

But lately we've instituted something even better: date minutes.  Some people have date night.  We do that a few times a year when we have tickets to a concert.  Of course, it gets inconvenient and spendy really fast (in addition to being wonderful!)  So now we sit on the sofa for five minutes (I set the timer) and chat (or not) like mature human beings.  And sometimes we keep sitting for another five or seven minutes after the timer goes off.  The kids can take a really long shower usually quite happily.  (For those of you worried about their safety, they are making plenty of noise in there, so we would know immediately if anything goes wrong, and also, the sofa is about five feet from the curtain to the bathroom (see below.)

Anyway, after the kids are fully bathed and have splashed way too much water around the bathroom, and I have gotten them dressed, they are usually happy to sit quietly in the bedroom and look at some books for a few minutes while their parents finish evening preparations before lights out.

Blasting through Spring

There was an incredible but exhausting (and rather belated) February break this past week.  We decided to teach through our previously scheduled February break and then reserved this past week for attending the Seattle Young Artist masterclasses as UW.  I taught make-ups Monday and Thursday, attending classes at UW on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Jared was home with the kids on Wednesday and Friday, and we got them a babysitter on Tuesday.  He went up to watch cello  Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  I spent hours watching Piotr Milewski who is recently retired from CCM and relocated to the area, as well as the young and energetic Danielle Belen, whom I had never run across before.  She was a Lipsett student who is now a professor at UM.  My two students who played in masterclasses got some great, and much needed new directions, and it was wonderful to see the smorgasbord of violin and viola students hailing from the region, meet up with old teaching pals, and make new teaching acquaintances.  And also the UW cherry blossoms were at their peak this week (with some ironic but beautiful snow fall on Friday morning.)

This coming week we have the usual teaching, finishing off with a group concert at a library on Thursday night.  I have gotten our Covington group class students less prepared than usual, which is a little frustrating, but hopefully it will be fun for the kids and their friends and relatives anyway.

Then, if all goes well, we will spend next weekend with Jared's parents in Oregon, which of course means a long drive on Good Friday and a long drive on Easter.  And a beautiful country weekend with pleasant, dependable, and quiet people.  I have not yet wrapped my head around the fact that we're already at this beautiful season of the church year or planned any special celebrations with the children.  I will.  I hate missing out on the Good Stuff.

Then another week of teaching, followed by a pinata-smashing involving neighborhood children in honor of Anne's upcoming birthday, and then the kids and I are off to Texas for the week for our actual April break.  Leaving Jared home to do the taxes by himself.  The man is a saint.  Truly. 

No house projects happening right now.  I'd thought maybe I'd use this free day to work on painting the laundry room ceiling, the next big item on my list, but instead I am recovering - doing some laundry and tidying and attempted (but unsuccessful) napping.  Also I took Anne out to one of the neighborhood Latin markets to get her a pinata; then we popped in the dollar store to pick up fillings which are *mostly* not candy - bubbles, glow sticks, colored pens, tiny animal figurines, plastic heart rings, plastic chicken eggs...  It occurred to me last night this is literally the only discressionary errand day we have before the designated April 6th smashing, so I had to be on it!

I've also been keeping up with my Bible study (working our way slowly through Romans this year), and reading the national and world news with mixtures of hope and horror, and playing with my kids...  Trying to eat and exercise and drink enough water....the usual.  And I finally changed my beyond-dead violin strings this week, which is a pleasure!  Also, we're one month out from the next set of three studio recitals, and there are things to coordinate with pianists, my program maker, and all the rest.  At least all the students' repertoire is selected and somewhere in the process of becoming performance-ready.  Our summer has not been very planned yet, but that calendaration needs to get going here at some point....

'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.

Silly Days

When Lazarus and I came home from the hospital on the third day after his birth, we had to shake up the bedtime routine.  We'd been prepping Anne for it all along, but the shift couldn't happen in full force until we actually had a baby in hand.  Changes for Anne included: She would have to sleep completely in her bed, not in our bed.  She could not be guaranteed her night-time mama milk as the last event before going to sleep.  And, Daddy would be the one sleeping next to her, not Mama.

So in those early days, we wound up evolving a new bed time routine, partly by design, and partly by inspiration and needfulness, which has stuck.  She gets a Silly Day, a Normal Day, a Song, and a Prayer, in that specific order.  Daddy is usually the dispenser of these things, although Anne is often quite collaborative in their composition.  The Song and Prayer are pretty self-explanatory.  The Normal Day is just a recap of what she did during the day.  The Silly Day is where the magic happens.

One of the early Silly Days involved Anne waking up one morning to find the entire apartment filled with baby pacis, such that it was very difficult to find anyone or anything, and her friend Kayla coming down from upstairs to experience the paci madness.  Her brother liked it, because he always had a new paci falling into his mouth after he had inadvertently spit one out.  In another related Silly Day, Anne herself was a paci, and was subject to the abuses her brother could heap on such objects as a newborn.

She often requests a specific Silly Day theme.  "Dada, can I be a frog?  No a turtle."  "Dada, how about I am a shower."  "Can I be a snake?"

Two Silly Days have stood out as extraordinarily memorable.

The first happened during our Christmas vacation in Texas.  It is just possible that Anne was driving us all a little batty with her barrage of "why" questions, as well as the fact that she was still having a lot of trouble sharing her mama milk with her brother and letting him have first priority in that department....  In said Silly Day, she woke up one morning with two heads.  The two heads spent the day arguing with each other.  They argued about which head got mama milk first.  Then they argued about their breakfast.  They spent the day talking to each other nonstop, and asking each other "why" about absolutely everything.  Anne and Jared and I were in stitches as this story was composed, and when we shared it with my mom the following morning, she found it to be quite uproarious.

The second has come up just in the last week.  It has been subtitled Backwards Day.  It is Anne's full day of activities in reverse.  Such reverse, in fact, that it defies laws of physics.  For example Daddy picked up little tiny white things and using little nail clippers, glued the white things onto the end of Anne's fingers.  Also, the eating of food in reverse is quite popular to describe.  Anne sits down in front of an empty bowl with a spoon, puts the spoon into her mouth, takes applesauce out of her mouth, dumps the applesauce into the bowl, and when the bowl is full, goes and puts the applesauce into a jar in the fridge.  The grossest part of the Backwards Day is the cleaning of cat boxes in reverse.  Daddy pushes up on the lever on the toilet, and cat poo comes up the pipes into the bowl.  Daddy reaches in and scoops it out, dumping it into the cat boxes, and returning the now-dirty cat boxes to their rightful places.  Gross, but also so funny, that the whole family is crying by the time it is over.  Backwards Days are super popular, but also have to be rationed to every other night, or every three nights.

Rolling Into Easter

Good Friday, the Sabbath between, and Easter are all long gone, but I'm only getting to sorting the pictures now.  They were the end of our MUCH needed spring break in Oregon, where we did virtually nothing and went virtually nowhere.

Friday night construction project in front of the fire:

After church Easter attire photos in the back yard on Sabbath:

Going places in the grass:

After nap time we went on a field trip to the new playground at the state park nearby:

Easter morning, Jared sent his mom out with the kids to look for some plastic eggs he'd hidden for Anne in the green house:

Dyeing our carton of eggs:

Ready for Easter dinner:

We also made these hot cross buns after our Skype with my family in Texas, and they were amazing!  Gluten free baking has come a long way:

https://withoutadornment.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/vegan-refined-sugar-and-gluten-free-hot-cross-buns/

Lazarus mixed his metaphors.  Nancy dug through the holiday closet to look for the Easter things, and Anne begged to have out the pumpkin baskets for Halloween as well: