Counting

Today in the car Rebecca counted from one to one trillion. (She might have skipped a few.)

Not Exactly Sneaky

Alex (reappearing well after bedtime): "Mommy, where's the tape? So I can get it tomorrow morning?"

Me: "In the cupboard. Now go to bed!"

Alex: "How long are you planning to be in this room?"

Dear Mrs. McShane

I admit it, I didn't play any of the music you taught me for years and years and years. I can blame it on my very old, banged up piano (75 years in a kindergarten classroom does that to an instrument) or my busyness, but really I just didn't get around to it, though I did used to practice the organ once upon a time...

But when I realized that my piano's major flaws might impact my children's learning and brought in a piano technician, he started playing classical music. Music that I knew! And I thought to myself, "Why don't I play like that anymore?"

So you'll be pleased to know that I pulled out my old piano music. It's the Romantics, of course (way more expressive than Bach, especially now that my piano has dynamics instead of thunks), and there's way more music in that book than I ever learned or ever could learn. But the pieces you taught me still sound pretty good.

You must have despaired a little during my later high school years, when I didn't fit much practicing in (see above, though I was quite busy at the time). Still, we managed to work up a few very nice things that have stuck with me all these years. I even have a few of your notes scribbled in the pages to guide me through what I've forgotten (although could you clarify your note about tone at the end of the Chopin etude?) I'm even learning something new.

After all this time, I want to thank you again for all that you taught me. I had a very pleasant half-hour tonight playing the piano after I put my children down. I hope they were listening. I hope you were too.

Sincerely, your once and always student

How To Make A Family Meal

Day 1: Husband thaws beef brisket (which you would never do, because you're wary of any kind of beef that's not ground)

Day 2: Read brisket recipes in the afternoon. Realize that you cannot possibly cook a brisket by dinnertime, no matter what method you use. Make kale with sausage and a quinoa salad with cherries, celery, goat cheese, and toasted pecans instead. Kids object to 1) goat cheese 2) contamination of cherries with goat cheese, and instead serve themselves plain quinoa with soy sauce.

Day 3: Spend all morning mixing spices, slashing brisket to cover with dry rub, frying onions to go in crock pot, and assembling the whole thing on a teetery breadpan inside crock pot. Finish by noon. Brisket still half-raw at dinnertime; feed kids hot dogs and pull brisket out at 11 pm.

Day 4: Serve brisket with still-plentiful (thanks to the goat cheese) quinoa salad, along with a strawberry spinach salad conceived to keep kids from downing the whole carton of strawberries in five minutes. Wish I could sit on the deck savoring dinner, but have to run to deliver one child to martial arts testing and another to church activity days. So much for dinner!

on FINALLY doing the mending

-The upside: finding the right color of pale blue thread to sew up a mysterious J-shaped hole in my daughter's pants leg*
-The downside: realizing that my daughter probably grew out of these particular pants last year

*not to mention finding a pair of snazzy brown jeans I totally forgot I owned--perfect except for one easily-mended hole in the pocket