First week of school 2013

Whew – I made it through my first week of school.  Last Monday seems like AGES ago.  My 7^th grade orchestra at Lange has 18 students (3 violins, 2 basses, 4 cellos, and NINE violas!).  Rock Bridge High School orchestra jumped from 21 students last year to 54 this year!  OH MY – that is a LOT of kids to keep track of.  I saw them twice this past week and we have yet to play a note because there is so much administrative business to take care of:  get-to-know you, check out lockers for instruments, collect sizes for concert clothing, going over the handbook.  I made that activity fun this year by creating an open-book quiz covering various sections of the handbook.  Questions like:

COURSE OBJECTIVES

RBHS Orchestra students will (circle all that apply)

            a)         read and play notes     

            b)         run laps around the PAC

            c)         work on rhythm

            d)         develop better articulation and tone

            e)         sleep in rehearsals

            f)         play really out of tune all the time

            g)         clean their ears

            h)         practice ear training

            i)          have an awesome time

 PERFORMANCE ATTIRE

For a concert, you will wear  (circle all that apply)

            a)         flip flops and jeans

            b)         p.j.s

            c)         black concert attire checked out to you

            d)         anything black

            e)         girls in gold, boys in green

Most of the orchestra is comprised of lower classmen.  And I have only 6 seniors. But, they are all terrific students and I plan to put them to work helping me with the continuing administrative duties of such a large group – taking roll, distributing music, etc.  I have a fantastic set of parents who are the executives of our brand new music booster organization that we are calling Friends of the RBO (Rock Bridge Orchestra).  They are a blessing from heaven!  And, Steven was getting rid of this old poster and I have it in my office for inspiration. It is going to be a great year!

 

 

I think everyone who reads this blog knows about Ruth Marshall and that she had a stroke in June and passed away after lingering in the hospital for over a week.  In fact, she did not die until after her son and daughter-in-law, who had been at her bedside the whole time, had to fly back to New York.  She never wanted her sons to bother themselves when she was at the end of her life and I guess she was aware enough of Rich’s presence that she hung on until he left because she died that very night.  Anyway, Rich and Rosanne always came to visit on her birthday in August and they already had plane tickets for last week and it was decided back in June that a memorial would be held for Ruth on her birthday – August 22^nd.  She would have been 92.  The service was very small – I played Amazing Grace on the cello and the Monsignor from Our Lady of Lourdes spoke.  She was cremated and her ashes were placed in Memorial cemetery.

Below is Rosanne and Richard Marshall and Rosie, Ruth's younger sister

After photos of the master bedroom and bath

Here is how our bedroom looks after painting.

The green is a lot lighter than what we had previously

I removed the blinds from both windows and made some curtains.

 

 Here is how the bathroom looks now.  It is amazing that the smallest room in the house took the longest to paint!

Summer 2013 Chapter 7 - Amberg and the trip home

Monday, July 16, we were all tired of driving so we visited Amberg, a little picturesque town about 20 miles from Vilseck.  First, we stopped at a store that Jami described as "Germany's Wal-Mart" and she was pretty accurate.  I found a travel pillow just like the one Juli had and that I had been envying - it doubles as a neck pillow as well as a little square "huggie" pillow.  

Next, we visited the more picturesque and old section of Amberg.

We are in the shade so it is difficult to see Jami, Kason, and Juli in the market square.

I liked this business- this was above the entrance

And this was, too.  I have NO IDEA what was inside....wool, mutton, baby sheep

Check out the golden lions

and this fountain

This little ship was at the corner of a building. Poor pigeons will have to find another place to hang out

Tuesday, Jami drove us to Munich where we caught our plane.  Boy, the Munich airport is huge - we got out of the car where we thought our airline was located and we ended up hauling our luggage at least a quarter of a mile (it felt like longer!) to the Iceland Air desk.

When booking my return flight, I inadvertently bought an Economy Plus ticket which meant I got a slightly better seat and amenities.  I got a little travel packet with a sleep mask, ear phones, socks.  I got free meals - gluten-free ones, too, and a little more room -only two seats per row rather than three.  I have only flown economy so I really felt like a queen.

Here we are awaiting our flight.

I had a window seat all the way and got a great shot of Iceland as we approached.

Here is somewhere cold (maybe Greenland or Newfoundland?) from my window seat.  Can you see the chunks of ice in the river above?



Juli and I landed in Denver sometime in the late afternoon.  Neither one of us slept well on the flight home so we just zoned out in the Denver airport as we waited for our individual flights - Juli to Phoenix and me to Kansas City.  We both then had two hour drives before falling into our own lovely beds.  I don't know how Juli made it up to Payson in the middle of the night.  My plane landed in Kansas City 15 minutes after midnight where Steve met me.  I managed to keep up both awake and alert as we drove back to Columbia with me relating all my tales of an amazing trip to Europe, summer 2013.

The garden in 2013

We have had a summer almost completely opposite from last summer of heat and drought.  We have enjoyed mild temperatures and rain - although not as much as the poor folks in southern Missouri.  I cannot believe the photos of I-44

 

 
 Here are photos of what we have growing around the yard this year.

 can you see the cucumbers nestled among the leaves?  And, this year, they are sweet! (as opposed to bitter like we usually grow)

Below is my bean canopy. I need Noah and Lucy to crawl inside.

 Our LONE apple.  A granny smith.

 When we created our second garden on the south side of the yard, we used the lovely mulch that we created with grass clippings and kitchen scraps.  I just looked like rich dirt.  Little did we know that discarded melon seeds would survive and come up voluntarily! 

We also have a volunteer pepper

 My cherry tomatoes are finally getting red

 Our lone pear

 

 And I have a thriving patch of sunflowers.

A few years ago, Elise got a packet of saplings from the Arbor Day foundation and she gave them to me.  I managed to kill all but the Rose of Sharon you see below.  It struggled through the drought last summer but it is thriving this year.

Finally, my surprise lilies are up. You want to know another name for them?  

 Naked Ladies.

More chaos this week

 The last part of this past week, I tackled our bedroom and the half-bathroom.  The dresser is getting a coat of black and the closet doors will be white.  See that little purple table in the background - I was SO weary of painting that by the time I got to it, I decided to forget it and give it away. 

In order to paint the drawers, I took off the wooden knobs to be painted separately.  All except this one.  The screw (a flat-head.....which should be abolished forever and we only use philips head screws) would NOT budge.  I guess it must have been super-glued into the knob???  I tried everything (see above) and finally had to saw the knob into pieces.

The dogs have NOT liked this week's projects.  Trissy just paces around, following me wherever I go.  Happily, she does love to be tied up outside (weird, isn't it?) where she can hang in her dog house (her new favorite thing) and run on the tie-out trolly.  The chaos has seemed to draw these two closer together....(reminiscent of Eunice and Mr. Larabee in What's Up Doc). 

I find it strange that the SMALLEST room in the house, our half-bathroom, was the most time-intensive to paint.



Now, Alfred, on the other hand, has taken all this upheaval in stride.

After photos

Here are some photos of the living, dining, and kitchen areas....

The couches will eventually have slip covers that match - a pattern in blues, greens, and turquoise

 
 Here is a blurry close-up of the little curio cabinet over the computer.  I have my homage to Hummel on the bottom, as you can see

I like how this turned out - love the black.

I HATE how long it takes to paint the woodwork around the windows (1 primer coat and 3 coats of white) but I really love the final result. 

painting - living room / hall and music studio BEFORE

Here are all the pictures from the living room and hallway

The outside of the bookcase still needs to be painted black

My music studio......

  This has been my week.  Dogs have been so confused.  I will take "after" pictures tomorrow in better light.