A Crazy, Rainy Day

I've a wedding cake to make later in the week, and with that in mind I took my 3 kids, the puppy and my niece on a quick supplies trip to the city.

But our muffler was getting louder and one bump was enough to knock it free and dragging. Thankfully we were close enough to my final stop that I got there and went in to get my supplies. I called my husband for ideas of what to do. . .

When checking out I asked the cashier if one of the men who worked there was handy with cars and would be able to tie my muffler up so that I could get home. She sent me two guys and in the RAIN that got down and had a look. Then they drove up with their forklift to lift the car enough that they could get underneath it.

The kids were waiting patiently all the time in the car and I was so thankful when the guys were able to secure the muffler with some wire. They both also refused the money I offered them for their help. I thanked them profusely for being so helpful so I could drive home. And told my son that that is the way men need to help those in need- not expecting anything in return.

Then began the seemingly long drive home with a VERY loud car- and me avoiding the gas as much as humanly possible in order to drive oneself forward. It was a long, embarrassing drive since my car was as loud as a race car. and my son was sure everyone was scared by us since they seemed to be all driving around us ( I was just driving slowly to avoid the gas). :)

Thank God for:
-sending us men to help.
-that it broke in place not far from our destination.
-that we got home ok.
-for HIS goodness to us.

For my Daddy on Father's Day

Dad, I want to thank you for caring and making your love for us known. Every year I have FELT your love as you tell the story of my birth and your great joy. Thank you for verbally affirming me , those words will go with me forever. 

Thank you for taking us fishing with you. I remember going bass fishing in the middle of the night with you and how there were tons of centipedes crawling everywhere on the boat ramp in the water. Thanks for teaching us to appreciate God’s creation by spending time in it. 

Thank you for the hours of reading and many books you read us growing up. Those stories shaped my dreams and inspired me to be who I am today. You helped me learn to love reading by reading to us. 

Thank you for setting an example to us in word and deed. You have been the person in private that you portrayed in the pulpit. Thank you for setting a good example to us. 

Thanks for never being too proud to do humble jobs, whether it be washing dishes, or changing diapers. You’ve always been willing to help where it was needed. Thanks for showing me to be that way. 

Thanks for caring for the elderly. I loved going to the nursing homes with you all those Sundays and singing with you and playing the piano. Thanks for teaching me to be kind and friendly to those older than us- even if that is just giving a warm hello and a friendly hand-shake. You taught me that being old is nothing to be feared by the hours we spent serving in the nursing homes. 

Thanks for encouraging me in my dreams, and believing in me. 

Thanks for the blessings you gave us every night growing up. Those prayers of blessing cling to me now and remind me that You and God are with me! 

Dad- there are so many memories that I could recall of fun times growing up. But I wanted you to know that I value you and the hard work and sacrifice you invested in us kids growing up. 

You have been a great Dad, the BEST. 

I love you!

The Case of the MIssing Tooth

One day my D-boy woke up and we realized his loose tooth was gone. He was as shocked as anyone and we all wondered if he has swallowed it, or if it had got stuck in some hard food, or what.

Later I decided it must have fallen out in his sleep because he does grind his teeth at night. So D-boy decided to look for it. Sure enough he found it near his pillow.

Wow, just shy of 6 years old and he has already lost his first tooth. It is hard to believe my kids are now getting old enough to lose teeth. What will be next? ! 

Happy Birthday Sweet Cousin

Somewhere out there in this big wide world I have a cousin who has a birthday today.

I don't have your address or phone number. I don't know what you are doing or even where you live. But what I do know is that today is your birthday.

I have always thought you a pretty, lovely lady. Since you were the oldest of the cousins and I was the second oldest female cousin I always admired you. I loved how you were elegant, and feminine and able to express yourself through acting. Yet at the same time you knew how to play with the boys- you even played those big games of football at Thanksgiving. Wow!

I remember how when we all lived at Grandma's house you used to turn on some nice loud music and clean the house. Somehow that stuck with me and I like doing that too. It gets me moving and helps me stay cheerful while cleaning.

I loved dressing up with gals and walking around Wheaton one fine day. It was fun to be fine ladies together.

I loved the way you talk- always so clear and you were so great at doing accents. I'd love to see you interacting with your kids now. . . 

I love you dear cousin, wherever you are. I wish that we could keep in touch despite the distance and all the changes life has brought. I know people just drift apart- but I wanted you to know, wherever you are I am thinking about you, and I admire you!

Blessings on your birthday! 

I Can't do it- When knowledge is not enough.

There are a lot of things I can do. I've been blessed with many opportunities and many gifts.

 I've been blessed with parents who sent me to music lessons for 16 years. I even got to teach piano to my own students during college and when I graduated. I enjoyed that ALOT!

But I just can't teach my kids to play the piano.

I know that in reality I could do it.

But there are some serious hurdles in my emotional state as to my music history and acquistion and the struggles I faced over the years.

I hadn't realized this until this week.

I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old. My first teacher that I remember was positive, dreamy and I was tested and told I had perfect pitch.

Lots of moves and at least 7 teachers later I was left with knowledge, discouragement and even trauma.

That may sound shocking, but not EVERY teacher is meant for teaching. Some expect too much, some too little and some are just not meant to teach.

One of my teachers expected me to memorize 10 short pieces for a music guild jury of some sort. I must have been about 12 years old at this point and even though I did memorize them all and I did know them when the moment came to play them for the jury I forgot EVERY SINGLE one of those 10 pieces.

I left the room that day humilated, and discouraged and it was then I knew I couldn't do it. I could not preform by memory.

Since that day I have had several other teachers. But I have NEVER been able to successfully preform by memory and learning to play without music has become very difficult for me.

I am sensitive to a fault, I know that. I want to please people, way too much.  And somehow the emotions of dissapointing myself, my family and my teacher that day are just so deep that I can't do it.

But how is that connected with teaching my kids to play?

Here in Latvia kids usually go to music school. They choose their instrument and go to private lessons as well as solfège lessons at the music school.

I had been waiting to find out how the acceptance into music school would occur this year since my oldest child is now nearly 6.

From what I had heard there is a high demand of those wanting to get it. I found out late last week that their would be an audtion for those wanting to get in to music school.

I was surprised. How can my 6 year old boy who has never had a music lesson in his life audition for a place in music school? The requirements seemed rather high for a child who has never had lessons.

•  Sing a song without accompianment. 
• Repeat a tune. 
• Clap a rhythm as demonstrated.

All week long we prepared with my teaching my boy to sing all the words to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." We worked on singing note patterns that I played for him on the piano and rhythms. He seemed ready.

Then we went to his allotted time for the audition and they whisked him off without me, no parents allowed. That was a shock- they hadn't mentioned that when we had had our consultation.

When he came out I asked him how it had gone and he said he didn't sing his song. I was shocked, and disappointed. He said he had hesitated and since he wasn't singing they asked him to do something else. It sounds like it was very rushed- a 5 minute frame is that way.

As we went home all the disapointments that I had faced concerning music over the years came sweeping over me and I felt again how often I had felt I wasn't good enough, and didn't measure up. I suddenly felt as if that was living on through me in my son and I loathed that idea.

I don't want him to be burdened with the expectations and disappointment of not being good enough. Why do we always measure ourselves against someone elses standard?

But I soothed myself with the thought that even if he is not accepted into music school this year we could find him a private teacher. But my husband thinks I should and can teach him.

I told him I can't. But he didn't get it . . .

And that is when I realized all of this musical baggage and my history of music acquistion has become so heavy.

• I don't want my son to have to have 7 different teachers, each with their own method, and each one setting him back a bit. 

• I don't want him to have the confusion of me teaching him my American method with A, B, C and hen having to re-learn when he starts with a different teacher here using Do, Re, Mi. 

• I don't want him to have to somehow learn the bad attitudes I carry that learning by memory is difficult, and that playing is hard. 

I want him to have a fresh start, and make his own musical path, disconnected from my own.Though of course I will help him when he needs it.

Perhaps this has all come across as negative. But I want to say that my last 2 piano teachers I had were the ones that saved me musically.

They were the ones with the power and encouragment I needed to begin putting my heart in my music and to learn the value of hard practice.

It was with my last two teachers that I learned to love to play the piano and learned to enjoy my music.

So even though I feel I will never be able to teach my children piano as I want (they are just too emotionally tied to me) I am so thankful for the gift of piano playing that I have been been allowed to learn and enjoy and for how expressing oneself in music is such a great way for expressing ones emotions.

My Hero, My Friend

I was a very nervous student starting my Freshman year  at college. Shy, scared  and feeling quite alone until I met Joy.

She was one of my new roommates and we even happened to be studying the same major.

She was the kind of person you just "clicked" with and we immediately felt we'd known each other all our lives.

She was the opposite of me in many ways; coming from a loud, fun loving, joke loving family, and me from a quiet, serious one.

But we became fast, best friends and four years passed thus.

Four years of classes, good grades, hikes and adventures in the woods and on the lake. Dreams of the future and our husbands-to-be. Crying together when we never had a date and praying together for the families we someday hoped we'd have. Laughing together, cooking together and even get a surprise visit from the fire department when our pie boiled over.

Four years of of preparing to live and work abroad- even our practicum ended up being sent together one summer in China.

Through smiles, tears and probably even fights we became sisters for life.

We graduated- as single as nuns and began to work to pay our loans.

I met a guy and feel in love. But when it crumbled apart, she just let me cry on her shoulder and understood.

We parted ways to live our lives. I moved abroad to teach and live in my old "mother land."

She kept on studying and got her M.A. - nearly ready to fly away and begin her life overseas. Her papers in order, her country called. She'd go abroad soon to fulfill her calling.

I met and married a local man and became a permanent resident here. So far from home, and those I loved, yet Joy still wrote and kept in touch.

And then. . .  one day I got the news her health had crashed and left her ruined.

She took to bed, with pains, tears, and unknown woes. A mystery illness, a disease unknown; gripped and shook her fragile frame.

Fevers, chills and piles of pills. Tests, and shots and dark, dark holes- side effects of meds so strong- my dear friend Joy was immersed in gloom.

And YET, her spirit, ever bright, a faith in God that held her tight. She lived in pain and laughed on days she should have cried.

To lookers on they'd never guess, how ill she was- except to see her tired gaze and smile that longed for better days.

And as she pined for dreams she'd dreamt, she'd every right to turn from God and burrow down in gloom untold.

Yet JOY held fast despite the days she'd rather have died. She fought in pain and suffered in silence, keeping all her grief smothered inside.

Then my friend made a choice. She chose to completely change her life.

She gave up all her little comforts- her snacks, her candy, her love of junk food.. She chose to live a new and healthy life, to feed herself with real food.

She started hard, she started fast, she left that life and jumping headlong into a new and healthy one. I watched and waited across the ocean. I clapped, I cheered in unheard applause, as I saw her begin to make lifestyle choices.

Her health improved a wee bit at last, but still she suffered way too much.

She began to see a natural doctor, who started her on some new type of treatments.

She's made much progress, she's suffered much. She's learned to cry and feel her grief. She's learned to embrace her disappointments, and to live with this evil illness.

Yet on she fights for better health. A mighty warrior of health and beauty. A daughter of her Great Creator, she's on a quest to gain her health.

Her enemy illness now has a name- she's lived her life with Lyme disease.

The fight in hot, gruesome, and hard.Her body protests and wants to quit. Yet she holds fast, her spirit bright. Despite the paint her JOY remains. My dearest friend has earned her name!

Happy Birthday JOY!

- - - - - - 

To support my friend I am donating  50 % of the sale of this scarf to help her a bit in her fight for health. It isn't much I know, but I want her to know that she is NOT alone in this fight.


 

Rootbeer Anyone? - A Recipe

I made some delicious rootbeer today. Get the recipe and link to the extract on my recipe blog by clicking HERE or on the photo.