Gardening

We are having fun getting back to basics around our house. The chickens are getting big, to bad it will be a while before we see any eggs. We are gardening this year after taking a break last year. My son has requested to plant his own garden. This weekend he started it, and has been out there every evening watering it and checking its growth. Sadly or maybe happily I must report that the garden looks better then mine, maybe he has his grammies green thumb, it must evidently skip a generation??

Beautiful Music

I love that my son chose to play the violin. He came home one day and asked if he could learn to play. He has a wonderful music teacher who has taken on the task of teaching any third grader who wants to learn the violin. Like most parents I was skeptical about his choice, certain it would loose its appeal in weeks...however much to my surprise and poor dogs ears the violin endures. A few weekends ago my son participated in a music camp fundraiser where kids (who play string instruments )from area schools all got together for a day to rehearse and then put on a concert at the days end. There were 5 different orchestras and depending on your level of experience determined what orchestra you were in. My son obviously participated in orchestra I. Let me tell you, when you hear the few kids in his class play they clearly sound like beginners but their hearts and best effort is there. when you put 140 beginners together something different happens, the music blends and is magic. They seem to feed and be inspired by one another and there was a beautiful harmony that made for a beautiful concert that I was proud to attend.
I am thankful for music teachers who often have to fight to keep the music in schools alive. Music programs are often underestimated, overlooked and usually the first to get cut during budget cuts.
What I saw at that concert was confident, inspired, dedicated and well behaved kids and the value of that is priceless..

cooking up conversation

I love to cook, but not a forced lets make dinner cook, I sometimes get inspired at bizarre moments/ hours. Tonight I was putting away dinner when I discovered some ground sausage in the fridge quickly approaching its use by date. so at 8pm I decided to cook up an awesome breakfast for tomorrow, throw it in the fridge and heat and eat in the am- LOve it! My son in his PJ's comes strolling in ready for bed, (after a chaotic morning when I could not get him out of bed we had agreed tonight he would be in bed by 8pm.) My son waiting for his tuck in, sees the culinary chaos going on in the kitchen and says "can I help, i love to cook"? I overlook the time and allow him, he gets his old step stool and starts sauteing the onions. As he sautes and I chop, he tells me about his day, about how the new kid made a bad choice and pinched so and so, about how he is learning all about Einstein and a little know fact that Einstein played the violin. We are Deep in the throws of conversation and good cooking when dear hubbies nose gets curious and leads him to the kitchen, he samples the cuisine, adding spice not only to the pot but to the conversation. A moment meant to be thrifty, and creative turns into a great family moment. No rushing to feed hungry mouths, just cooking up some food and conversation!
*** (On a side note my son promises to jump out of bed in the morning because he is looking forward to eating our breakfast!)

highs and lows

Its been two long weeks full of highs and lows. Why is it one can go for months with nothing uneventful, or remotely interesting happening and then all of a sudden bam, it all hits you at once like a speeding train. No secret my father died 5 months ago to the day. As if his passing wasn't difficult enough it has been a painstaking task trying to settle his affairs. Finally getting the courage to clean out his house, sort through his things, fix up his home to sell... it just goes on an on making closure next to impossible. This week we sold his beloved boat- his dream, it was to big and massive for either my sister or I to keep and maintain, so up for sale it went and with in a week someone else bought his dream. I have mixed emotions about this, while it is one step closer to closure, I cant help but feel that I just lost a piece of him all over again. Tonight out to dinner with some family I mentioned we sold the boat, forgetting that I had not yet told my son, I watched him also loose all over again. He cried as he told our company about all his good times on the boat with his grampie. Tonight when I tucked him he asked if he would ever stop missing him, I told him it is a blessing that he even has the memories that make missing him possible...
So I will continue on this journey of mourning, enduring the highs and lows.

To my Nana who worries about me putting such 'personal stuff out there"- its cheaper then a therapist. ( Gonna go now, I am very excited Betty white is on SNL- who doesn't love Betty White)

Victory

Every year my son competes in a local fishing derby held for kids 15 and under, its a lot of fun and holds a lot of history for me as my father used to take me to the same derby when I was a kid. This year preparing for the derby we discovered my sons reel was broke, so last night we quickly ran out to replace it. Very emotional when he picked a red reel "just like grampies". My father passed away 6 months ago, when he was alive one of his favorite things was to take my son fishing, he talked with great pride about his own pole he had nicknamed "big reg". somehow after my fathers passing big red has come up missing, we figure its sitting at a friends but its bitter sweet as he had bequeathed his pole to his only grandson. So that being said it was somewhat of an honor when my son picked a red reel like his grampies, and just like grampie he gave the reel a prominent name, he named it "Victory".
So today my son took Victory to the Derby, he cast his line... I was prepping my camera for pictures when I heard my son holler "V-i-c-t-o-r-y" He with no assist from his mother or father had hooked and reeled in his first fish! Beaming with pride I snapped picture after picture, all the while thinking he didn't do it alone, his grandfather was there!