Spring At Last

I think it's finally here to stay - SPRING. I love it. My lilac bush i s blooming and smells like heaven. I'm going to miss our May bush this year, but we had to get rid of it before it ruined the foundation of the house and now I have a fairly large sunny patch of land to play with.

Today, I played my first 9 holes for 2008. I would have preferred to spend the evening at a driving range, but none around was open so the old man and I headed for Sandy Creek. The place wasn't too crowded at all. I teed off with limited confidence but smacked my best drive of the day out to to 150 yard marker in the middle of the fairway. From there, it went ugly. I did make 3 pars today - #2 (par 3), #4 (par 4), and #8 (par 3). I'd say I hit at least one decent shot on every hole, but I lost 3 balls in 9 holes, and visited a few rough knolls and bunkers. I got opportunities to practice uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies. I got to practice the knock down shot under trees. Gee - it was a learning day for me. This year, I'm getting a new putter. It's time.

I will be landing in Ireland in less than a week and I am excited about that. Worried too about how everything will go here at home and work with me away. I still have a ton of loose ends to wrap up before I can hit the road. I've been making lots of lists lately. I am very much looking forward to seeing Sarah in person again. We tried Skyping a few times at first but it was just too frustrating - Sarah's internet connection sucks - and the connection kept dropping every time.

Erin is now a UFAF 2nd degree black belt. We are planning to take a vacation to Vegas and attend the convention so Erin can meet Mr. Norris and have a photo made with him. I was in Vegas when I was18 - it seemed like a strange place to locate a city - out in the middle of nowhere. I imagine land was very cheap in the beginning.

That is all for awhile. The next time I blog, it'll be after I get back.

Whats new?

I haven't taken time for bloggin' lately, too much going on these days. The dance competitions are over and Governor's Cup is over. These were all good experiences but also it's always nice to get those over with for the year. I had nice weekends in Lexington and Louisville with my girls.

Before those, I went to Garyville, Louisiana for work. That turned out to be a great experience for me. I got to meet people in person that I've talked to on the phone every week for the last 5 years. I got to see a plantation house, which was totally awesome. The refinery has a small graveyard within its boundaries and it made me sad. The graves are like two hundred plus years old and what's really neat down there, people are buried above ground, and the little concrete buildings (vaults? crypts? whatever you call them) are elaborate - statues of angels, birds, fancy crosses, etc. Maybe they are even marble and not concrete...I'm not sure. And all around this little cemetary is an old iron fence...but then around the iron fence is a huge chain link fence, and gigantic 500,000 tanks, a giant cracking tower, and an isom unit and noise so loud you can barely hear yourself think. If my loved one was buried there, I'd have to move them. Nobody is resting in peace there. It makes me think that I'd as soon be cremated and have my ashes dumped in the river. Then nobody could build such an abomination on my grave.

I had an unforgetable trip to the French Quarter. Our host, aka "the controller", which was quite an appropriate label in more ways than one, made sure nobody left there without a hangover the next day. He generously bought drinks at every bar we entered, selecting the drink and ordering in huge quantity. I would have never ordered or drank any of the drinks he ordered for us - exotic, fruity, mixes of God knows what. After the first two, I didn't care...they all tasted the same. We took 3 cars down there and I left with the "sane" group, although 3 of us in that group paid hell the next day. I was sick the next morning, in the airport, on the plane of the first hop, in the next airport, and finally in the last airport before I got home. It took me nearly 48 hours to recover. USAir lost my luggage and I didn't get it until 2 days later. I'm happy they lost it coming home rather than going down. Dan sent me some of his photos from the evening - mementos.

Soon I must get on line and look for my ticket to Ireland. The hardest part is committing to a time. It's so hard to get away without missing anything. I have tickets to Evita and I hate to miss it, but I might have to just miss and let the girls or Jerry invite somebody to use my ticket. Also, I don't want to miss Erin's test (for 2nd degree UFAF black belt). I'm pretty sure I'll be missing the spring orchestra recital..but I will survive it. My favorite part of that is seeing the kids all spiffied up in suits and dresses, more so than the music they produce. I miss Sarah though, and I'll be happy to see her even if it's only for a few days. We will spend a night in an enchanted (or perhaps haunted) castle, look for mermaids, ride bikes, sip tea in the afternoon, explore, and I hope I'll hear my sweet songbird sing. I suppose I'll take my crappy little camera and trust Sarah to take the good pictures and send them to me. Maybe I'll buy a memory card for her camera as a bribe.

That's all I can think of for now.

Lots of Stuff

Lots of stuff going on these days. Emily is trying for the first time for a title - Junior Miss Dance of the Bluegrass - this coming weekend. Break a leg, Emily! She is doing a really cute tap dance to a number from Hairspray (Welcome to the Sixties). Her costume is really cute - a hot pink sequin mini-dress with a matching hot pink hairband. Sorry, no picture. Erin Smith did a fabulous job with the choreography, I am pleased.



I
was doing dishes the other night, and cleaned some pots and then noticed they looked like something....very commercial.

I shouldn't have to tell ANYONE what this looks like. Don't you just love shiney metal? I do. My girls pretty much eat all the time and it seems like by the end of the day, any knife in the house is dirty.

Chewy is my night-time running buddy. We make one or two laps, sprinting, jogging, and walking. We have so much fun! There is a big black lab in the neighborhood that "gets" to run loose at night sometimes. He is scary! There is also a mutt that is part pit-bull that is still running loose at times. That dog scares everyone. Fortunately, tonight, we saw no other dogs loose at all and there were no cats or other critters.

Sarah has forsaken her blog and she rarely emails me, but from what I've heard so far, she is having the time of her life. I'm looking forward to visiting her and actually seeing another country (besides Canada and Mexico). I hope she is happy, but not so happy that she never comes home. I miss her SO MUCH!!

March will be a busy month. I get to spend a weekend in Lexington with Emily for a dance competition, and a weekend in Lousville with Erin for Governor's Cup. I am looking forward to Louisville - we will stay at the Galt House and we'll get to visit Akiko and Ron and hopefully Miki and her family. Erin and I had a very nice time last year. Erin is studying debt in developing countries for the competition.

pre-mid January news

Molly has been helping me with the laundry today. Actually, we keep the catfood in a cabinet right beside this cabinet she is sitting in. She jumped into this cabinet because she thought she might find a way to get to the food. She isn't the brightest crayon in the box.

The holidays aren't officially over for me until I get all the Christmas stuff packed up and carried down to the basement and stowed away. I took my Sarah to the airport last Tuesday. It was hard to say good-bye, but it's a once in-a-life chance for her. And now!!! I'm planning my trip over to go visit her. I should have my passport within a few more weeks, and I've been looking at places I want to go see while I'm there.

Jerry and I tested for our advanced yellow belts this morning. Eight other people tested with us today, and we all passed. I'm kind of liking karate now, but starting February, the class schedule is changing, so I'm going to have to hire a driver if I'm ever going to make it to a class. I need to do that anyway since I have some business trips coming up.

I sure hope my Sarah blogs soon so I can read details about her adventures over on the Emerald Isle. I hope she has found some red-headed musicians to make music with. This picture below is interesting. The picture uses lots of pictures of rocks. The background is a flourite crystal. The face and neck are slices of polished rock (I can't remember if it's agate or onyx, or a slice of a huge geode). The mouth is a geode. The hair looks like amathyst or rose quartz crystals. The dress or shoulders - I can't tell what that is. The rose is a piece of sandstone, a formation called a sand rose...I think. Sarah made this picture...I think she either made this in highschool or perhaps a college art class of some sort.

2008

The start of another year and this is going to be a busy one...and expensive. Lots of travel plans coming up for this year. I am going to make a trip to Ireland to visit Sarah in the late spring sometime. We are taken Erin to Vegas in July, and I hope to combine that with a trip to the Grand Canyon. We will no doubt do the annual Henderson Myrtle Beach pilgrimage. I'd love to take the girls somewhere they've never been for spring break or fall break this year, or maybe back to Washington. They were 6 the last time we took them to Washington. Emily doesn't remember anything about being there and Erin says all she remembers is eating a hotdog on the street. We should go back. I'd like to take them to Williamsburg this year, if we don't go to Washington.





Sarah is leaving soon and I will miss her tremendously. She bought a beautiful new banjo with an awesome sound. It sounds tinny like her dad's banjo, but with a strangely hollow sound that I really like. Maybe it's the skin head on it. The workmanship on it is impressive. A man in Ironton made it.

It's Friday and my van is getting new tires today. My front tires are bald and the rear tires aren't much better. With this last snow storm, I can't ignore the lack of traction any more. I'm hoping it's ready to pick up by noon so I can find somebody to give me a ride over to the garage. It's only a couple of miles to walk, but it's COLD today, and I'm a puss about the cold.

A week from tomorrow is karate testing. I will test for my advanced yellow. I am pretty confident I will pass. The hard part will be reciting the code of ethics because my memory sucks. It won't be too bad - there are 7 people testing in my group and it's a 45 minute test. I've had all my tips for several weeks now.

I haven't been running much thanks to the ice and snow. I've been trying to stay in shape at the gym, but I miss my early morning runs. It's supposed to warm back up Sunday so I will defintely be getting out there again.

Long weekend

Long weekends - my favorite kind. I took yesterday, Friday, off work and I won' be going back there until next Wednesday with any luck at all. I wrapped nearly all the Christmas presents in the house, and did some errands. I always overestimate how much I'm going to get done, and yesterday was no different. Even so, it was a good day to have off. Heck, everyday is a good day to have off.

Today, I must run Emily to her dance class/rehearsal here in a short time. Then, when I come back, I am ready to launch into holiday BAKING. I have big plans (again) - chocolate chip cookies for my brothers, oatmeal raisin for my grandfather, and oatmeal butterscotch for the Jerry. f course, the girls will be eating their fair share I'm sure. I have also bought stuff to make cream candy, so I am hoping to attempt a few batches of that as well. Then again, I'd love to go see Sweeny Todd today, but that might be an evening thing.



I really need to make time to load stuff on my new ipod. I still have a $25 iTunes card to use and I haven't begun to get through all the music Terry gave me. Not only that, I have 4 CD's waiting for me to rip. Here is a portrait of my little lovelies.
I got up at 4:50 this morning because I wanted to run. I was still too wiped out from last night, so I went back to bed until about 5:30. Then I got up and was on the road about 5:45. I haven't had a run in over a week now and the first mile about killed me, but then it all came back and I finished a 6.5 mile run in about an hour. Not bad. It was really nice out, no wind and maybe about 40 degrees. I smelled lots of wood burning, people must be burning in their fireplaces. I would love to have a fire in ours. I suppose I should bite the bullet and just open up the damper this morning and let the chimney start warming up. I hate to have all the heat sucked out of the house, but the last two attempts at a fire resulted in the family room full of smoke. It could be that the chimney just doesn't draw good enough, but more likely, I don't let it warm up enough before I light off the fire. The previous owners of this house used the fireplace, for sure. Perhaps I should buy an insert this spring, then I can have a fire without worrying about wasting so much electricity.

Black and White

I stayed up and played piano last night until nearly 2 AM. I think I would have sat there all night if not for knowing I had to get up and go to work the next morning. There at the bench in the wee hours of the morning, I had an epiphany. Sometimes, things are so random and yet so perfectly in order. I went to the gym last night and I wore pants that are black with white stripes down the sides of the legs. I didn't change when I got back home, just launched into chores and when I finally got time, I sat down at my piano. Sweet Jack had come in and he curled up on my lap, which is very unusual for him, he's not a lap cat so he must have just been cold. Anyway, I was playing and I realized Jack matched my pants - black and white cat on black and white pants. I then looked back at the piano keys - more black and white. Then I looked back at the music, black notes on white paper. Then, as if that weren't enough, my eyes traveled up to the picture hanging over the piano - my favorite Nancy Noel "Sarah" - Amish girl dressed in black holding a white cat. All this black and white in one place at one time, just like it was meant to be that way. For some reason, I got an idea about what I should do with myself. I think I want to go back to school and study music, and become a REAL music teacher. I have thought about becoming a teacher, but when I checked into it, I thought that if I did that, I would need to teach business, technology, math, or English to middle school or high school. That's what I could do quickest. BUT, if I could teach music, then that's something I myself could be interested in doing. I could be interested in teaching science too, but there's a lot I could do with music. The thing is, do I have to be a good musician to teach music? I will need to find that out before I put a plan together.



I have lots to do today - lots of errands to run. Our router bit the dust so I need to go buy a new one and install it sometime this weekend. I must go try to find bow resin. I need to deposit a check for Sarah (but first I have to FIND the check), and I need to pick up Emily's proofs. I can't wait to see them. These are photos for the Junior Miss Dance competition and ABT auditions next summer.



I am taking tomorrow off work to Christmas shop. I'm going to try to do it ALL in ONE day. Will that be possible? It has never worked out before, but I have been making a list so maybe I can get a lot done. This weekend we are putting up the tree and lights outside - do or die.



Here is a photo of the girls I took before their little piano recital out at Greenbo last weekend. The lodge was decorated for Christmas and the fireplace had a huge fire - it was very nice.