A Dream Come True

When you're poor like me, it seems more often than not that you have to focus on what you need and make yourself forget about what you want. No income is ever "extra" so when money comes along, there is always some bill or need to eat it up. So, naturally, when I got the idea that I wanted a flute, I thought it to be a distant dream instead of something I might acquire anytime soon. Lucky for me, my Uncle Mark decided to make my dream come true and surprised me with a gorgeous Gemeinhardt 2sp - the number one top selling student flute. It arrived at my house one week and two days ago and I can hardly put it down.

My only prior experience with a flute was in about 7th grade or so at which time I played clarinet in the school band of about 8 kids. I think we had 4 clarinet players, 3 trumpet players, and one trombone. We were a pretty pathetic band and our teacher only taught us to play by finger numbers instead of notes so we really didn't learn properly. Well, one time we came across a song that had a short flute solo in it and the band teacher recalled having come across a couple flutes in the school shed so my friend Ashley and I volunteered to learn the flute solo and play our clarinets the rest of the song. The flutes we used looked like someone had been bludgeoned to death with them... twice. They were awful. So, I guess you could say my desire to own a flute wasn't entirely a wild hair, and may or may not have been fueled by a flute performance at church on Easter Sunday.

Despite not learning to read clarinet music, I had taken some piano lessons as a kid and have enough choir experience to be able to read music at a very slow pace. On the piano, I can't sight read and it is very difficult for me to play anything I haven't heard before. I struggle through the sheet music until I learn it then I memorize it so I don't have to look at it again. Thus, I can play a few songs on the piano complicated enough to trick people into thinking I can play the piano, but it is only a facade. I am most talented at playing my vocal cords.

When I first assembled my flute, I found I have a natural ability to blow a tone and a good ear to pick out a couple basic songs based on the notes that are straight forward enough to play without instruction. Then, I began the task of learning the names of the notes I was playing and the fingering for more notes. Flutes aren't as simple as one might thing. They aren't like a recorder where the more holes you cover, the lower the note is- not in all cases anyway. It seemed like a daunting task, at first, but I was surprised at how quickly I was able to memorize the fingerings and even learned to read and play the music to some easy arrangements. One thing I am really enjoying about playing the flute is that you only have to worry about one note at a time, which is great for someone like me who is not fantastic at reading music.

Playing the flute hasn't been everything I hoped it would be, it has been even more. Thanks again, Uncle Mark, for paving the path to another musical adventure.

Full Circle

Despite my best attempts to be 100% stay at home mom, I couldn't escape the fact that we remained unavoidably a couple hundred dollars short every month. I really didn't want to go back to work 20 hours a week- it just takes too much out of me to be able to be a good wife and mom at the same time- so I looked for a job that would be less than 20 hours a week. There weren't a lot of options in this category so I knew I couldn't be picky. I saw a couple of housekeeping jobs and applied for them, and sure enough I got a call from a husband and wife looking for someone to work at their house a couple days a week.

I have been working Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9-12 for about a month now and so far I really enjoy my new job. It's definitely a huge change from my heavily secretarial background. I haven't worn an apron since my very first job working as a server at Grand Occasions Catering and Banquets. Now I feel like I have come full circle back to my beginnings except now I don't have to wear a white shirt and black tie.

Since my job is cleaning, it doesn't really feel like work. It feels like every day life. Like an extension of my daily activities. In fact, it's actually easier than cleaning my own house, because there are no children to clean up after which means I don't have to pick up a million items off the floor that come from all over the house, and I don't have to worry about Keira destroying everything I have just accomplished. I think that these 6 hours a week will do exactly what I hoped- help make ends meet without taking up the better part of my time and energy.

A Random Kind of Girl

After watching a movie, Keira comes up with the most random quotes to say. I think Keira has seen Tangled a few too many times, because she walks around saying things like, "This is the story of how I died," and, "I have a PERSON in my CLOSET!" It's a little disconcerting. Then after she watched Beauty and the Beast today and has been saying things like "Don't talk about my father that way!" "Take me instead!" and "Show me the beast!"

Keira has started pretending to play the guitar on random objects like her big shovel and the broom. She pronounces guitar "cantar" which is funny because it means "sing" in Spanish. So she has been singing, "Cantar cantar all day long!" I really don't know where she came up with that line.

Lastly, who is Peter? In my house there are 3. Peter Joey (Keira's name for a peanut butter jelly sandwich), regular Peter (heater), and good ol' Com Peter (the computer). Who knew the name Peter could cover 3 random objects?

On a whim, we had a picnic at Millerton Lake last week. I knew it was close and wanted to check it out for quite some time. I'm glad we did. It only took about 25 minutes to get there and we had the whole place to ourselves since it was a weekday. The picnic area was grassy, shady, and beautiful. We saw a bunch of lizards, a bunny, fought off some squirrels, saved 2 tiny frogs from the bathroom, took a picture of a wild turkey in front of the lake, got our feet wet, then came home. Here are some pictures of our picnic adventure.