The rest of the doggie story.....

                                  

Did you lose this dog?

He was found on Blue Ridge Road Wednesday, 

October 10^th and taken to the 

Humane Society on 616 Big Bear Blvd 

where you can claim him.

This was the poster I made for the lost Dauchund I found the other week.  I posted it on the mailboxes of the three trailor parks in the area where he was picked up.  But, his owner never claimed him.  The good news is that someone else did adopt him on Saturday.  Yay.

Music stuff...... what else?

Just a quick update from this past week.  It was one full of music - BIG surprise there. But, this was more than usual.  Monday night was an RTO rehearsal.  Tuesday night was my first high school orchestra concert and I was a little nervous.  But, we were well prepared in our music and I am please to say it showed in our performance. We did Folk Tune and Fiddle Dance, Waltz of the Wicked, Adagio (the famous one by Albinoni), and Blue Rhythmico.   In between  the four large ensemble numbers, a few students performed solos or duets.  Those numbers also turned out wonderfully - even my senior boy who is autistic and kept messing up in rehearsal with his memorization of Moonlight Sonata.  He remembered to bring his music that night and he played with only a couple of glitches.  Another senior played a brilliant violin solo and she also performed an original piano composition.  I was so happy with how the concert went that afterward, I bought myself a frozen custard!  Thursday night I had tickets to hear a "world class" cellist. Two other cellists from CCO and I went together and I was really looking forward to the performance.  But, I left at intermission because, while he was clearly a brilliant musician and his cello was a masterpiece, I just couldn't justify sitting through the 20th and 21st century noise he played.  If I wanted to listen to all the crazy and bizarre sounds a cello can make, I can do that myself!  I had spent the entire afternoon trying NOT to fall asleep during my students lessons at CMU and do you think I could doze off in the concert - heck no!  So, I left and made very good use of my time here at home doing lesson plans.  Friday night, the Rock Bridge high school quartet was enlisted to play background music at a banquet for a school office workers conference.  We don't have a strong violist so we had to recruit across town at Hickman for one.  None of quartet had ever rehearsed together (we were too busy preparing for our concert!) and most had not really even looked at the gig books - but, thankfully, they were all solid enough musicians that they performed with very few mishaps.  I was required to be there so I sat between the second violin and viola and tapped an unobtrusive beat pattern for them to follow.  Saturday, Prairie Strings had their own banquet to play for at the elegant Tiger Hotel.  It was nice to put away the Pachelbel Canon and Bridal Chorus and break out the Mozart Divertimenti and some Bach Brandenburgs as well as his Double Violin Concerto for a change.  The hour and a half went by really quickly as a result.  Saturday morning began very early as we left at 5:30 to make the 7:30 session at the temple.  We then attended Noah's preschool's Fall Festival and enjoyed ourselves very much.  I forgot my camera - Emily's photos won't be ready to show for awhile - and I took a few pictures on my phone.  If I can figure out how to transfer them to the computer, you may get to see how cute Lucy and Noah were.  Stay tuned....

Signs of the times

Renaissance Festival – Prairie Days – leaf raking – corn maze……yep, it is definitely autumn time. 

 Emily, Joe, Noah and Lucy were here Friday and Saturday 

 

and Noah and grandpa got to have some time in the back yard with the leaves.

 

 

 

 

 Before Noah got to jump into leaf piles, he went camping with his dad, grandpa, and uncle Steve the night before at ward father-son campout.  The weekend forecast was not a dry one and the guys did have about 45 minutes of rain during the night, but our new tent kept everyone dry.  We had a bit of a reprieve Saturday morning for the corn maze......

Not surprisingly, Noah and Lucy were quite fascinated with the kernels of corn

but by the afternoon, the skies opened up again and just dumped!  Poor Sarah had rain at the Renaissance Festival and Nellie and I (she is a fiddle player) drove in rain all the way to and from Prairie Days down at Cole Camp (1 ½ hour drive one-way).  Thankfully, the event was held under a huge tent so we stayed dry, although our bows suffered a bit from the humidity and it got pretty dark toward the end of our playing time.  This was our third year to play for Prairie Days – the second year for just Nellie and me.  I was so excited to play my bass this year but it doesn’t fit in the Volvo and the truck has just the open bed so I had to bring the cello instead.  Darn!  Maybe next year?

I tweeted how beautiful Central Methodist University is in the fall and Beckie asked me to take some photos.  Coincidentally, I needed to be in Fayette today for the Fayette branch conference.  I packed my camera in the car and Steve and I walked around campus afterwards and took pictures. 

 

 

 

 

 Pretty, huh? The drive to and from Fayette was also quite beautiful. 

Oh, I have a doggie story to tell.  While driving home Wednesday afternoon, I had just turned on to Blueridge Road when I saw a little dauchund in the middle of the road looking very lost.  No humans were around so, since there was no one behind me, I stopped the car and opened the door to see if he would come to me and, what do you know – he did.  (most dogs cannot RESIST a car ride, right?)  He let me pick him up (I can’t believe I never even thought of the possibility of him biting me!)  and I put him on my lap, made a U-turn, and took him straight to the Humane Society.  I need to call tomorrow to see if he was claimed because he had a collar and a tag (from Fayette, interestingly enough). 

Only other “news” to report is that I had my annual mammogram Tuesday afternoon (ouch!) and then a doctor appointment to get a flu shot and to find out why my knee hurts.  It is only painful when I kneel and, besides kneeling to pray, it is surprising how much I kneel down.  I am supposed to be putting ice on it, doing some exercises, and taking naproxen twice a day.  Then we will see what that does.

October 7th and all is well

I need to accept my new busy life and move on….but, oh, it was so hard to do that on Wednesday.  I was such a grumpy wimp as I drove all over town (I went to CIS THREE times!) and taught all day.  I really love what I do – what better way to earn money than to teach music? – and right now, I just get to do it a whole bunch.  I DID get to sit down at my sewing machine Thursday evening after a long day and it was grand.  I watched a documentary called “Please Vote For Me”  about a third grade class in China that decided to elect (rather than appoint) their classroom monitor.  It provided a FASCINATING glimpse into Chinese daily life while showing that bribery and bullying was the most effective way to win votes.  Hmmm…..Thanks, though, for that recommendation, Kirsti. 

Our weather has turned quite chilly over the last three days.  We actually turned on the heater this morning.  The cooler temperatures did not go well with the outdoor wedding the quartet had to play for yesterday evening.  Our violist was livid that we were going to still play but we currently do not have a low (or high) temperature limit clause in our wedding contracts so we really had to go ahead and suffer.  She made the most of it, though, by wearing my gloves and the two blankets I fetched from my trunk – one around her shoulders and one around her knees.  Too bad the bride’s colors were not forest green (with bits of pet hair), hot pink, or powder blue!  This was wedding #2 for the day.  Our first one was in Hermann – takes an hour to get there…..when there is not a traffic back-up on I-70, which there was as we were preparing to leave.  We got to the church, the second church we tried – aaak, hate getting lost – about 10 minutes before the ceremony was to begin.  That put a wacky spin on the whole proceedings for us but we muddled through and still got compliments afterward.  Thank goodness no music critics were on the guest list.  Finally, after the two weddings, Civic Orchestra had a concert last night.  We played two pieces by Beethoven (I can NEVER play too much Beethoven) and it was well received.  This will be my only fall concert with CCO as I have two school concerts conflicting with upcoming rehearsals for the November concert and I just don’t want to be any more busy than I already am by preparing for the December performance.  Hopefully, I can jump back into the game in January.

We went to St. Louis last weekend – started with the temple and finished with peeling wallpaper from Emily’s dining room walls.   

 

 

Oh, how evil the wallpaper/decorating industry was in the 80’s convincing homeowners to cover their entire homes.  However, the chore was made more pleasant by happy conversations and delightful grandchildren.  

 

 

   

 

  Lucy is officially walking – and doesn’t she look adorable in the pinafore Emily made for her?

Melanie finally received her graduation gift from the family.  We had to wait until she got the second diploma in the mail for Hobby Lobby to do the final matting.  

 

 Looks nice, doesn’t it?

OK, Music and the Spoken Word is about to begin and then General Conference.  I am so looking forward to all the sessions today.  I was sad to miss parts of both morning and afternoon sessions yesterday.  Thankfully, there is internet to replay everything as many times as we want.