August news

        I must say that, up to now, school has been pretty time-consuming….planning meetings, setting up classrooms, preparing for classes, figuring out my schedule.  I THINK I can say that things are now pretty well set up and it will just be moving forward.  I HOPE!

         I have not begun my CIS orchestras – that starts tomorrow – but I have been contacting students and setting up size-me-up sessions all last week.  My violin class at Lange is comprised of twelve students – 10 girls, 2 boys – who range in playing ability from “pretty good” to “how did they make it through all last year?”  One girl literally received an F and yet, she is back and in my class.  Oh boy!  My Rock Bridge High School orchestra is great – 12 violins, 6 cellos, 2 basses, aaaaaaaaaand 1 viola – and he is not very strong, at that.  But, we will work around that by asking assorted violins to fill in on the viola part.  I teach six students at Central Methodist University – 3 cellos and 3 violins.  All are at the beginning level and last week was my first time to see them.  It was not as tiring as I thought it would be and I think I will come to look forward to my Thursday afternoons in Fayette. 

Since I do so much driving, I decided last spring to check out books on CD to help pass the time in the car.  I am currently listening to Huckleberry Finn and I am really enjoying it…. laughing out loud many times.   My pathetic high school English education left me without exposure to many of the great authors so I hope to make up for that this year by listening to them on CD. 

        Ruth Marshall turned 91 on Wednesday and her son, Richard, and his wife Roseanne flew out from New York to be with her.  I was invited to join them and Ruth’s sister, Rosie and her family at Golden Corral Wednesday evening.  It was a nice evening.

 Below is a photo of Siri, Julia, and Margaret - the ladies in the Prairie String Quartet - at a little luncheon we had last Saturday.  The picture was taken on Siri's deck of her beautiful new home in west Columbia.  Our quartet has many weddings booked for the fall and we needed to have a planning meeting.  We played for two weddings just yesterday!

Last Friday evening, we traveled to St. Louis to attend the temple and we stayed over at Emily and Joe's.  Here are some cute pictures of Lucy and Noah that I took Saturday morning before we returned to Columbia.  (kind of blurry, Emily, I know)

        We are still suffering from no rain.  We are supposed to get some today but I will believe it when it happens.  Sarah has moved out and into a cute one-bedroom apartment above the garage at Charles and Rebecca Lamb’s house (members of our church).  She is literally in the middle of the woods in the middle of Columbia.  Trissy has moved with Sarah on a trial basis.  We are not sure how it will work since the house on Parker has been the only home she has ever known.  And, Steve is probably her true “person” but we are not sure about that.  Steve DID discover her newest escape route yesterday.  I thought she was climbing over the fence but, no, she is still crawling under the fence by the garden.  There is a spot where she doesn't have to dig and that is how she gets out so quickly (less than 5 minutes!) She won’t do it if we are out in the yard with her (which is pretty much all the time because she is so persistent in escaping) but, Steve went back inside and peeked out and caught her “red pawed” so to speak.   

        Beckie’s progression towards leaving for Hawaii continues.  She took a truckload of stuff to St. Louis to sell in her friend Kathy’s yard sale last weekend and made $400.00.  She will empty out her storage unit this week (it is mostly empty already) and will start living out of suitcases the first of September.  She has been working LOTS of overtime lately at MBS.  That and the hoops she has to jump through to bring Max to Hawaii have been her biggest stressers. 

        So, that brings you up to date with us here in Columbia….