A good cry

I’m no longer whining, now I’ve moved on to random crying.

I’m a sympathetic cryer (crier? English people, please enlighten me). I don’t even have to know who you are, if you cry in my presence I will cry right along with you. I inherited this trait from my mother and her sisters. You don’t want to start to cry around her and the aunts, or there will be a flood. They know how to laugh like nobody’s business too, so I guess it’s a fair trade off.

My last embarrassing crying moment was during the cartoon Up. I tell you what, the beginning of that movie hit me where I live. I can’t even hear the doggone music without tearing up. We saw it in the theater and I literally had tears dripping off my chin. I used up all the napkins for the popcorn trying to mop up the mess. at a cartoon.

Anywho, so there I was, alone on my couch watching the Olympics last night. The top U.S. figure skater hails from this neck of the woods, so I wanted to see her skate. But before she skated, of course there was the Canadian skater Joannie Rochette. If you watched the Olympics I don’t have to explain it to you, but just in case you live under a rock: her mother died suddenly of a heart attack on Sunday. She decided to go ahead and skate anyway.

I was doing ok (only moderate tearing) until the coverage mentioned that she is an only child. She skated beautifully, which I can’t even imagine doing under those circumstances. It was amazing and moving, and I think even the announcer was crying.

My tear ducts are CLEAN.

T-D-whine

Dh left today. Ordinarily I try not to complain too loudly about his absences, since he’s been home forever by Army standards. So I’ll just say that up front, I know that I don’t have a leg to stand on. However, this is my blog so I’m going to write it anyway.

I wish I knew why it is that The Powers That Be always decide to do endless, apparently pointless, trips in the months leading up to a deployment. I understand the train-ups to a certain degree, but when he comes home and says what a royal waste of time xyz trip was, or when I ask him, “So, what will you be doing?” and in reply he shrugs and says, “Who knows,” I start to get irritated.

When you know deployment is coming, every day is precious. For the kiddo, every milestone or class party, or just plain bedtime that is missed gets under my skin. I know I’m not alone in this, I have heard several wives I know saying the same thing, “I’d rather they were just gone rather than coming and going all the time.”

So see here, Big Green. If you’re going to take my husband away on TDY at least have it mean something. Are you ready because here it comes, my mantra: SOMEDAY WHEN I RUN THE ARMY…

overactive imagination

My baby is sick today. She’s had a fever since last evening, and while I think she’s going to be fine (she’s eating and drinking ok) it’s one of those situations where I wish I could turn my nurse brain off.

You know, the nurse brain that has been retired for so many years it only dredges up irrelevant and scary possibilities. Like the “mom radar” people talk about, only mine is haywire. (It’s meningitis! No, it’s Leukemia! Let’s constantly check her pupils, her respiratory rate, her temperature…)

Thankfully, I can usually recognize it and forcibly shut it off. Either that, or I call my mom to talk some sense into me.

I hope you have a wonderful and illness-free weekend. I have a feeling we will be spending lots of time on the couch watching Tom and Jerry.

Be mine, Valentine

We had a prolonged Valentine’s over here. The dutchkid’s party at school was today, so we were finishing up a few Valentines for her teachers this morning. For her birthday I got her these Lyra gel crayons. I love how vibrant the colors are, and the dutchkid likes them too (we already used up all the red) but they are messy as all get out.

For her classmates, I printed out some Valentines from Secret Agent Josephine. They’re cute and simple. I like to craft when I’m in the mood, but I didn’t think the dutchkid would be able to really stay interested long enough to craft each and every valentine for her classmates. This way she just had to sign her name to each one.

I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s day. I am very excited to be just that much closer to spring.

Today’s the day

The day I need to hang onto when everything goes wrong and I wonder if I am sadly misled in thinking I can study music.

The saxophone player and I have been trying to get together to work on our piece. It’s a nice little jazzy piece of chamber music, although not terribly difficult.   We couldn’t quite get our schedules to work earlier in the week.  Then, our professor got the wild hair that we needed to play for a class today. We met about 15 minutes before the class started, we ran through it twice. We had never played together before, period. I’ve only had the music since last week.

We nailed it. The class was impressed. We’re on for our concert next week. Today was a good day to be a music major. I really needed the affirmation.  I just had to blog to remember it.

Whole Wheat Tortilla: FAIL

Me: What would you like for dinner, a quesadilla or spaghetti? (tonight was leftover night)

Dutchkid: A quesadilla. A normal one.

Me: What does a not normal one look like? (feigning confusion)

DK: It’s brown instead of white and it tastes yucky.

Touché, my refined flour loving kiddo.  I bought that package weeks ago in a fit of “I will feed my child healthier”.  The trouble is no self respecting Mexican (half and quarter — her and I, respectively) would eat that and call it a tortilla.  Let that be a lesson to anyone who hasn’t yet introduced their child to flour tortillas.  Feed them the wheat first.

30 days of beauty

One of the blogs I read, Bluebirdbaby, had the brilliant idea for a photo project. Since I was just complaining about how I need to get my camera out, this seems like the kick in the pants I need. The idea? Between now and spring (not necessarily consecutively) capture 30 days of something beautiful. Perfect. Just the shift in focus I needed, because I tend to always look to the outdoors when I think of beauty. And honestly? While I live in what must be one of the most beautiful places on the planet, I am getting a little weary of snow. I may not always share the photos here, but you can always find them on my Flickr stream. Here’s to finding beauty in other places.

I bought this fabric months ago, but I like it so much I can’t bring myself to cut it (and for me, it was expensive). Yesterday, though, I got an idea to make something out of it that would involve using it in its entirety. We’ll see if I’m brave enough to go through with it.

Today’s tidbits

I went to a “meet the babies” shower today for dh’s unit and while it’s fun to see new babies in all their snuggly cuteness, I find myself not going out of my way to hold them. Nor am I particularly nostalgic about having one, it’s kind of weird. You would think that I would be consumed with envy and wanting to hope it would “rub off” somehow, but no, that’s not what happens. Perhaps I am better suited to being a mom of one than I thought?

You know that famous theme from the movie Gladiator, the one with the woman singing what sounds like another language? (this one) I saw a special on the making of the movie once, and found out that the “language” is made up nonsense words and ever since it ruins the song for me. Not that all songs require words to convey emotion (of course not!) but I think because I thought at first it DID mean something, now I feel like it’s fake. Or I could just be weird.

I haven’t been writing much here, mostly because I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the music that I’ve had thrown at me in the past few weeks since school began. But it’s also good to have new things to work on. I’m very excited to be playing some chamber music with a saxophonist for a Black History Month concert. I’m also playing in a small recital next month that my teacher is giving featuring Chopin’s preludes and I’m working on a piece for 5 pianos, ten hands with other piano majors. And then of course there’s my solo pieces. Oh, and playing some irritating music for the children’s choir at my church (and it IS irritating, if you happened to be subjected to Psalty as a kid, as I was, you’ll remember. I thought Psalty was over with after the 80′s but apparently not. And it doesn’t help that the piano part is a pain in the arse).

That’s about the extent of my week. (Wasn’t that an interesting train of thought, from babies to Gladiator to Psalty, but that’s the way my mind works these days). Have yourself a fantastic weekend!

February, bring it.

I updated my header today, and as you can see (if you’re not looking at this through a reader) I’m feeling all Valentine-y lately. I’m not sure why. Maybe because that brings us just ever so slightly closer to spring? I’ve started to fantasize about how warm Georgia was this time of year. Let’s revisit:

Sigh. (and this week I am promising myself that I am going to get the camera out and take some new pictures, my flickr stream has stagnated. And note to self, taking the header photo doesn’t count).

It’s really unusual for me to be ready for Valentine’s because I am an avowed Valentine’s scrooge. The dh and I don’t usually even exchange presents. However, since I’m already feeling the anticipation this year, I’m going to have to think something up.

Oh February, am I glad to see you.