Happy 29th birthday, Sarah!!!

I will have photos of her birthday to share later on….

Here is a photo of the Mid-Missouri Community Orchestra just before our spring concert yesterday at Parkside Manor.  We sounded pretty good!  (most of us are wearing bandanas to go along with a couple of western songs we were performing - Theme from Gunsmoke and I'm An Old Cowhand)

 

 Here is a photo of us during the performance.  Virginia Dooley is a terrific conductor.  I wish I could say I was a terrific violist.  Ha!  It is so much larger than the violin that it hurts to play for very long.  Maybe I will play saxophone next year? 

 I don’t know about your part of the world but we are having just about perfect weather here in Columbia.  The daffodils and lilac are all gone but now there are purple iris, daisies, and these late-blooming tulips lining the front walk.  Gorgeous! 

 The journey of digitally converting dad’s slides continues…..So, I got the FHC computer all set up here at home (had to wait until I could get a mouse and keyboard) and I started scanning.  And, I realized the scanner was seriously washing out many of the slides.  I could hold the slide up to the window and it would seem perfectly normal but, when viewed via the scanner, it was too bright.  And, this particular scanner has no brightness adjustment.   So, I went to good old Amazon and found a scanner that does have brightness adjustment (and color adjustment) and it does NOT need a computer (with Windows 7 or 10 or anything) and it was under $100 and I just bought it.  When I finish, I can always sell it back used.   So, back to square one.  Initially, when I began this whole slide converting endeavor, it seemed there was no way to determine when they were taken.  But, during the scanning – when I was handling each slide more closely - I noticed that most of them have a date stamped (embossed) into the cardboard sleeve.  It is kind of hard to see unless you really look.  This is GOOD news because now I can sort all these slides by date before I begin scanning again. 

Otherwise, a pretty normal week for this time of year. I have been sewing up little boy teething bibs and I have watched “Great Expectations” (the 2015 BBC version) and it was pretty good.  I watched “Peggy Sue Got Married” and it was pretty “meh” but it had a surprising the number of stars (a very young Jim Carrey, Nicholas Cage, Joan Allen, and Helen Hunt plus the actress from Star Trek IV -  Catherine Hicks). 

Final note – as I was switching summer clothes with winter clothes, I found that my “Christmas” amaryllis that was supposedly in dormancy down in the basement closet had decided to bloom no matter what (minus light, water).  

It had a completely white stalk with blossoms starting to pop out.   I guess because there was no light, the stalk got REALLY tall.  But, the flowers were too heavy so I had to cut them off.  They are in front.   Another bulb was not as far along and it looks like it will bloom this week.  When it was first brought into the light, it, too, was albino but you can notice it greening up.  This stalk is also exceptionally tall.  Isn’t that crazy?