Shopping!!

We went shopping today!! Yay!!! There's a new outdoor mall thingy around here, The Legends. It's gotten a lot of publicity, and we decided to check it out to see if it could meet the high expectations set for it.

Not quite. It was good, but not as good as They said it would be. Things rarely are, I've noticed. :P

This place has a Nike store and an Adidas store. Those weren't very exciting. But they do have a Gap Outlet, and a Maurices, and an American Eagle, and The Buckle. They also have a Hot Topic and a Pac Sun, but those aren't quite as exciting for me.

But it was a good time. We walked around the whole place (huge amount of real estate for what it is...rent must be amazing), saw everything twice and got some stuff. It's more my scene than Russell's, but that's to be expected. :P So I'm going to have to go back periodically, just to check it out. :)

Yay, shopping!! It makes my little heart sing. :D

Bump on the head.

Yesterday, as I was leaning down to put a dog treat in June's little kennel thingy, which is currently under the piano, I smacked my forehead awfully hard on the corner of the lid (the part that can close so that there aren't any strings/hammers visible). It's pointier than it looks, I think.

So, after some running around like an idiot trying to both get some ice from the fridge at one end of the house, and trying to get a look at the swelling at the other end of the house, I managed to hold ice on it for as long as I could stand (because ice is really, really cold!!), which wasn't long. I did stare at it for a while...and I decided to take pictures of it because, well, why not? :) So here's the bump on my head, just moments after it happened.




And here's the detail image...just in case you couldn't see it, because it doesn't look nearly as bad as it should, considering how much it hurt.


I was thrilled to discover that it had *not* turned all sorts of lovely colors overnight, so it looks the same today as it did yesterday. Well, it might be a little bigger today...maybe it wasn't done swelling when I took these pictures. In a few days, though, if it decides to turn all old-bruise-icky, I'll be sure to post that. :D

Oh, and I'm not usually orange...my camera just seems to think I am.

And, on a more serious note...

I've been debating about whether or not to post about this. My maternal grandfather has been a controversial figure for a lot longer than I've been alive. He left my grandmother (who was, at the time, a stay at home mom) with 5 daughters to take care of. My mother, the oldest, was in college at the time. And she married my father the summer my grandfather made it official. He'd never been an overly reliable guy, but my grandmother loved him. Even when he skipped off to Peru to be a tour guide for a while. Yup, not very reliable. He was actually late to my mother's wedding...in which he did the traditional dad thing and gave her away.

Now, over 30 years later, my grandmother is still very bitter (and has been married two more times since my grandfather), and my mother/aunts still love him dearly. They all still call him Daddy. Evidently when he was around, he was the most wonderful father. It's just that he was out of the country as often as possible. And when he was, it was because he couldn't keep a job in the States.

He is now in his upper 80s and in very poor health. Last Tuesday night his temperature spiked to 104, he was too weak to sit up, and he's barely recovered since. A couple of my aunts have called him over the past few days (my mother is on an Alaska cruise right now and is unable to call) and have reported that he can't talk very easily, and coughs every 30 seconds.

He lives in San Antonio and really wanted to travel to Missouri (where 4 of his 5 daughters live), but his doctor said he probably wouldn't survive the trip up. So my aunts are now planning on going down there to say goodbye.

I really want to go. He's always been somewhat of a mystery to me. For the first decade or so, I knew he existed, but no one really talked about him. Then my family went down there to visit him.

Turns out he left my grandmother for a Swiss art restorer (she's who people like the Louvre send their priceless art to so it can be cleaned 'n stuff...she's a painter, chemist, and miracle worker) and they moved to San Antonio into a *wonderful* house. At that time, he had a pet raccoon named Misty and a few peacocks. A couple years ago (while he was in his 80s), he fell through the roof of the peacock house while he was repairing it and broke his pelvis. He's been declining ever since.

So the man who is rarely spoken of, but is silently adored, who has always been something of a wonderful mystery to me (due in part to the fact that he & his wife had naked pool parties until that disastrous tumble through the roof. Icky, but fascinating), is in poor health.

He's dying. I've always wanted to go down there and get to know him better. In high school, I started planning to visit them for a while, but when I could go, they were in Switzerland.

And now he's dying. I left my mother a voicemail saying that I would be more than willing to drive her down to San Antonio to see him one last time. (My dad has to work pretty much constantly once they get back from Alaska, so he won't be able to go). But it won't matter if my mother wants to go down with me if he dies before she & Dad get back on July 2nd.

July. Just make it through part of July. Please.

Exciting Walk!

June and I had a very exciting walk today. And this followed an exciting day!

Before we got a dog, I wanted a little one I could take everywhere. Russell wanted a big dog, so we compromised on a medium sized one. At first I figured I could take June with me too (to the doggie store, ATM, quick errands where I could leave the car running & the heat/air on [with doors locked...I always carry an extra key], etc), but once we had her home it was very clear that she wasn't ready for the world. She was scared of everything. Loud noises, tall people, stairs, dark places, other doggies...just about everything except rabbits. Over time, she's become more secure, and she's better about not yanking me around by her leash (it's amazing how heavy 50 pounds of pulling dog are).

Lately, on our walks, I've been trying to do a little basic training. Like her not walking me at her pace, not spending 30 minutes sniffing a particular blade of grass, not trying to get to know everyone on our way by (we still have a long way to go on this one), and not getting so very excited when another dog comes along.

We have a long way to go yet, but she's a lot better. So much so that I took her with me to the pet store today. Last time we were there, she was too interested in everything but where I wanted to go. Today, she was great. She wandered around the store with me, waiting patiently (for the most part) while I put some gourmet treats in a baggie and checked to see if there was a pretty new collar she might need.

And while in the car, instead of trying to crawl onto my lap the whole time, she sat --actually sat-- in the passenger seat and looked out the window, even when I was at the ATM, she just sat there and didn't try to help! It was beautiful. She was the doggie I've always wanted. :)

So this evening we went for a walk. Towards the end, about the time we could see the house at the top of the (slight) hill, we met up with a couple walking their dogs. And a Basset Hound just wandering the neighborhood, saying hello to and walking along with whoever wandered past him.

June loves other dogs, when they're on the other side of a fence. When they're on the same side, she's pretty scared of them. So the very friendly Basset Hound scared her, and she ran...backwards, out of her collar. I called her name (in that special panicky voice I didn't know I had until the first time she got out) and she immediately crouched down in the next yard. I ran over to her and half hugged, half tackled her. Of course the Basset Hound thought this was a very fun game, so he trotted over to continue saying hello. June reeeally wanted to run, but I'm bigger. A moment later, the Basset Hound's person came out of his house with a leash. Evidently he'd gotten out and no one knew he was gone for a little while.

After the couple walking their dogs went on their way, and after the Basset Hound was on his way back to his own house, I let go of June enough to put her collar back on. We went home, where she got a couple of her new gourmet treats for her distress.

It was all very, very exciting.

Russell's going to be soooo upset he missed out on all the fun. :P

Quiet Time

Russell is on his way (with a co-worker) to Springfield, MO. He'll be back sometime on Wednesday.

While he's gone, I have wonderful plans to mow the entire yard (not just the front, which is visible from the street while the back is not), clean this place, play lots of flute and piano...all sorts of lovely, productive things.

So far I've played some flute and piano. I wouldn't normally put piano on my list of things to do, but I agreed to play for Russell's parents' church at the end of July. I usually just play flute, which they love. This time I decided I've been working on some piano songs, why not do some of that too? So I'm going to perform on the piano in public for the first time in...um...since 1999. I don't feel nervous yet, but when I sit down at the keyboard and suddenly realize what I sound like actually *matters*, I'm sure I won't feel quite as calm.

So I'm going to try to get stuff done over the next few days, but I can't promise anything. All I can be sure of is that right now, at this very minute, I want some popcorn.

No pictures this time.

Well, I was going to post another picture from the many Russell took this morning, but when I looked at them I realized they were all of me & June lying in bed while Russell was reading the paper (when he wasn't taking pictures of June that I happened to be in).

After posting so many pictures of June (with a couple that we were actually in) yesterday, and with 3 of the 4 on the bed, I decided yet another picture on the bed would be 1 too many.

Though you can never have too many purses, you *can* have too many pictures of the dog on the bed.

Today's Pictures...lots of them!

This evening, we loaded another 80 pictures on the computer, all of which had June in them. Some had June *and* us... But that's a pretty crazy amount of pictures to have of the dog, especially since they're in addition to the other millions of her already on my computer.

So enjoy the small number of pictures I have selected from the 80 possibilities.

Here we are taking a nap. My rule of "No Doggie On Bed" turned into "No Doggie On Bed Except When We're Watching TV." It soon became "No Doggie On Bed When We're Sleeping At Night." It's not so terrible being weak. :)


Here she is in the back yard. I was out in the sun for most of the time we were out there...she was smart and sat in the shade.


This is yet another picture of her on the blue couch with a blue blanket on it. But it was so cute I had to include it! That's her Pirate Baby she's resting on. It used to have a "bone" that went through it, but she spent a couple days working on it and got it out. Now that "leg" is scattered throughout the house. Good times.


The other day, Russell and I were laying down for a little nappy, and June had joined us (since the Rules of Sleeping do not prevent her from joining us when it's light out. Surprisingly, she knows that when we turn off the lights, it's time to get down.) So this is a picture of her hogging the camera. My face is behind her outstretched paws. This was not our first attempt at getting all 3 of us in the picture...she was a little tired of the flash by this point.


And this is a more successful attempt at a family portrait. Only we would wait to try this until we're lying in bed. At least we're all lazy together. :P

And the money keeps coming...

I rarely contribute to our finances. Usually I just take, take, take. But in the last few weeks, I've actually brought *in* money. (I'm really hoping Russell doesn't get used to it.)

So the influx of cash started when I found out I had a couple hundred $$ credit on my apartment gas bill. I wondered why I was paying as much to heat an apartment as we do the house, which is considerably larger. I'm not sure if I overpaid, they overbilled, or if I was on some "pay more now, reimburse later" plan I didn't realize I'd signed up for. There was probably something to fill out and send in if I *didn't* want to participate, but I don't remember receiving it. So for the last few months I had the apartment, I kept getting bills for $0.00. That was nice. :) And, when the time came to transfer services back to the landlord, I found out that they'd be sending me a very nice check because I still had a hefty credit on my account.

Then, 5 minutes later, when I called to transfer the electric back to the landlord, I found out that I had a $9 credit on my electric bill. This kind of made me think that perhaps I had paid a bill twice and not realized it. So they sent me a happy (little) check for that one.

Then I played the gig in Emporia where I made a little more than the gas company owes me.

Then I just called to cancel a credit card I haven't used for 2 years but did buy my flute and piccolo on it. So it seems that sometime in the few years that I've had the thing, I've become a preferred customer. How exciting. And as a preferred customer, I've been earning 1% on all my purchases. I'm not usually excited about 1%, but when you take 1% of a flute, and 1% of a piccolo, well, suddenly 1% looks pretty good. So good that I now want to keep the card and buy all sorts of really expensive stuff I can't afford, just to get 1% back. (Which is, I assume, the Big Evil Corporation's plan).

All of these are things that have never happened to me before (except the earning money for playing flute, otherwise I would have moved on to something else by now), and I'm so excited that they're all happening at the same time! Yay!!

Anybody want to go shopping? :D

Short hair is my happy place.

We went to Chipotle for supper tonight. While there, a girl with very short hair sticking out from under a ballcap asked me where I get my hair done. I told her rather enthusiastically, which I thought might have frightened the poor thing. She was nice and thanked the crazy lady. Or I thought I came off crazy. But just moments later, she came over to me as I was sitting down at a table. She apologized for stalking me, then asked which stylist at my salon cut my hair. I told her...gave her a physical description as well as the girl's name, and felt like the cutest girl EVER as she walked away.

Since cutting my hair off (not that there was much to cut off, since it was only a few inches long when I decided to go shorter), I've had 2 people that I would have liked to be ask me where I get my hair done. The first one was the quiet, self aware but not self absorbed, independent type (cute, inshape, and you know that when she talks, it's meaningful) and this one was the athletic smart girl type (cute, in really good shape, and intelligent looking).

So I would really like to be cute, in reasonably good shape, intelligent looking, and intelligent sounding. I'm not tooo far off...I have cute days, I take the dog for walks every couple of days (though that doesn't counteract my inability to say no to cookies), I can look smart if I try really hard, and if I don't talk too much I can seem intelligent.

And of course I have my short hair to thank for all of that. :D

Some things can't be rushed.

Laundry. It can't be rushed, it just has to do its thing. I forgot that I don't have any jeans for tomorrow (heaven forbid I wear khakis or something like that), so I had to do a load before morning. I only have to put them in the dryer before I go to bed. So another 15 minutes of washing and I can sleep.

Oh, this is a thrilling post.

This weekend, I played a 2-day gig in Emporia. My flute playing friend Brandon and I played duets for a couple hours both days, and we got paid for it, so that's pretty remarkable. I was such the girl during this thing. On Saturday, I wore dress black because that's what you're supposed to do, especially if you don't know how formal the thing is. So I wore my casual black. Which doesn't look very different from my dressy black...I just change the shirt. During the first day I found out that we were playing outside, it wasn't a highly formal affair (it was at a Day Lily farm/crazy beautiful garden called Toad Hollow...gorgeous location!), and that it had rained a little the night before so the ground was a little soft. This caused the slight heel on my cute black sandals to sink in a little. But not too much.

On the second day, I got all excited about the outdoor location and switched out my shirt for *lavender*. Veeery exciting! ;) It rained at home the night before, and I forgot that Emporia always gets rain when we do, and twice as much (it seems). So while dressing for the day, I had to decide between the Sensible Shoe (flats) and the cute shoes (with heel) from the day before. I decided that cute is so much more important than sensible.

Turns out that was not the right choice. It had rained, so my heel sunk over an inch into the ground. I tend to shift my feet when I play, so there were some not-so-graceful moments of me playing along, pulling my sunken heel out of the ground. At one point I almost fell over because the entire heel of my shoe was underground. Brandon, a guy who really does not get women's fashion, had trouble seeing the humor in my continually sinking heels.

Despite my poor shoe choice for the location, we did a good job. Quite a few people asked those in charge what CD was playing. So we were convincing enough I guess. :)

As we were playing our last song on the 2nd day, tragedy struck. An elderly woman sat down on the bench across from us, fell over, and had a short seizure. Her husband was terrified. After the seizure ended, she seemed to stop breathing. She was out for quite a few seconds. When she woke up, she thought she'd just had a dizzy spell. The paramedics were called. We left before they arrived.

It made me aware that life is very unpredictable. One second we're playing Mozart, the next there's a woman having a seizure a few feet away. I talked to one of the people in charge today...he said that she was doing much better by the time the paramedics arrived and that she had been doing even better today.

Life is strange.

How frustrating.

Well, on Day 2 of my professional writing career, I still have writers block. So I might need to rethink giving it all up for my art.

I think it's a very good thing my flute got back in time for my paying gig tomorrow.

I love my mother.

Before we get to the latest reason I love my mother, I'd just like to say that the Flute Problem has been overcome...it's on its way home, and more about it is fixed that I knew was wrong. Without getting into the intricate workings of a flute (which I couldn't begin to explain coherently, seeing as how I can't begin to understand why this spring makes that rod turn which makes that key lift which, due to some complex mathematical calculation, produces a D), there was a problem and one of my keys was stuck slightly open at all times. Which made it sound bad.

Wouldn't it have been easier if I'd just said, "The fixit guy fixed the bad sounds and made it all better." Hm. I'll have to try that next time.

So, on to my wonderful mother....
I had lunch with them yesterday, and at one point my mother asked if she could borrow a series of books I have (wonderful romance novels written by a woman with degrees from Harvard & Radcliffe colleges. She's brilliant). My mother knows I've always wanted to write something, anything, and during my early teen years, she got to hear some of my worst work. Really. Upper middle class 13 year olds have very little material to work with.

But over the years, she's received numerous letters (some written at 2 in the morning about why they never should have had my sister, especially not first), countless emails, and we've had lunch at least a million times. Really, a million. We love lunch.

So at yesterday's lunch, my mother asked why I hadn't written a book yet. Um, why? (My father stayed out of the conversation, instead enjoying his omelet from the Cheesecake Factory. You can get omelets there!)

I told my mother that I've tried, and I've gotten fairly far into one or two...or ten...but I always get stuck about the time the characters need to do something to remain interesting. In other words, my plot falls to pieces.

This is an even more lovely story when I include that my mother is not one to support something that I haven't majored in at college. Like psychology, Spanish (I majored in it for at least a week), English (this one maybe only a few days)...oh, and music. She's not excited about my numerous fun ideas that will never work out because, as ideas, they're worthless. So for her to say that she thinks I could --and should-- write a book, and make a career of it, was astounding.

And it made me think, "Well gosh, if my mom thinks I can write, then surely I *can* write!!"

So here I sit at my computer, trying to write, and only managing to come up with this *brilliant* blog post. :P

Flute Fiasco

I sent my flute off to my fixit guy on the 7th. He got it on the 9th and started working on it (I assume). The 10th & 11th were the weekend. He was supposed to ship it to me on Monday afternoon (because there wasn't any major work to do on it, just minor adjustments, which he was going to do at home). He hurt his knee over the weekend. Evidently pretty badly, because when I called on Tuesday (when I was supposed to get it back) to see why he hadn't called me to tell me the final repair costs and ask about shipping, he was still gimping around quite a bit.

So I asked him (very nicely...it would be impossible to be rude to this guy) how my flute was doing. He told me that he was just finishing it up and would have it out to me Wednesday. Which would put it at my house on Friday. Which is what I reeeeally wanted to avoid, because I have to play a gig on Saturday morning an hour away from home.

I didn't hear from him yesterday like I had assumed I would (to give me the total amount he would bill me before shipping), so I'm a little worried he didn't ship it. And if that's the case, my flute will not be here in time. Which would be very bad.

Why?

Why does pizza taste so good?!?!

More pictures!

Russell laid down for a nap when he got home this afternoon. A little while later, I wandered in to join him, only to find that June was in my spot!! But it was so cute that I decided to wait to push her off the bed until *after* I took pictures.

Cute Day

I'm having a cute day! Unfortunately, June hasn't picked up on her photography training, so it will probably go undocumented.

Luckily there will be more days such as these!

:D

Today's Pictures

We spent a lot of time in the garage yesterday (since the attic access is up there and we cleaned that up). June went out there with us. We put her on her tie out so she could wander around the front yard, but she just wanted to get into Russell's truck. So I opened the door, she hopped in, and there she stayed until we made her get down to go inside.


Thought this one was cute too...she really wanted us to get in the truck with her so we could take her someplace wonderful and exciting.



I took a nap earlier this evening...a long day of nothing really makes me tired... When Russell came in to wake me up, June came with him. Despite my (formerly) firm objections to having her on the bed, we've let her get up there with us since we put a tv in the bedroom. So now it's sort of like all 3 of us on the couch, but now there's enough room for everyone. :P So this picture is of our post-nap hug. (The pillow is covered by a black t-shirt...actually the one we got for attending the Mac Store opening on the Plaza...to keep June's hair off of the sheets. I still have rules, they're just more relaxed now.)



This one is from the first night we let her on the bed. She was wearing her "I chase bunnies" shirt.


If you're blinded by that...interesting...bedspread we have, please don't judge. One of my mom's friends made it as a wedding gift. I swore I'd never use it because it's...um...not something I would have picked out myself. But life is full of irony...it's the lightest bedspread we have, perfect for summer. So I'm faced with using it or going out and buying something to take its place. So we use it.

Ugh, productivity.

We've had this house for 3 years in August. When the moving guys brought my piano back from Emporia earlier this month, one asked if we'd just moved in. (Granted they were moving guys used to moving someone from Primary Household to Primary Household, not Really Expensive Storage Unit to Primary Household...) When the guy asked me that question, I took a good look around. I've always known that our house doesn't exactly look settled, and that day it was worse than usual because I had moved the chair that had been where the piano was to go...but I only moved it to the middle of the room because it takes 2 to get it down the hall (to its new home in the bedroom). We haven't hung pictures on the walls (because neither of us liked the other one's previously own pictures, and we haven't found any that we both like).

Mostly we just haven't found the right place for everything. In 3 years. The living room arrangement is okay, but I'm not fully satisfied with it. It still feels like we just brought furniture in, put it down, and decided to leave it there because you can see the TV just fine from the couch. The dining room is where stuff we don't know what to do with goes. The office has always looked messy because I'm not as careful about putting things away as I should be.

But today we did things about it. Today I cleaned off my desk (so much so that I hardly recognize it.) Russell took the stuff cluttering the floor away. We reorganized the attic so there aren't 6 small boxes doing the job of 1 large box.

Most of the house still looks like we just moved in because this is a work in progress and we don't work very quickly. But the bedroom now looks like a room. The furniture is arranged, not just put in the room however it arrived. The office is now a work space rather than a storage space.

The rest of the house could still use a good reorganizing. But not today. If we did it all in one day, what would we do with the rest of our lives?

Smells yummy!

I got some new dog treats at the pet store yesterday...the kind that you scoop out yourself. So there are these ones that look like those vanilla sandwich cookies, the ones I love. And it's amazing, but the dog treats smell almost as good as the real cookies! So I'm sitting here with the smell of yummy cookie in the air. And we don't have any cookies.

Don't worry, I haven't eaten a dog treat. And the chances of me doing so are only slightly better than me eating the spider I killed on the front porch this morning.

It's a miracle I can smell the yummy doggie cookies...I just finished mowing the yard in 85 degree heat, so I have a special odor of my own.

But wow, those doggie cookies do smell good. I might need to go to the grocery store in a little while (after I'm clean so that I don't clear the building).

Amazing June Cuteness

June doesn't like most dog toys. I don't know how many times I've thrown a tennis ball for her, only to have her not even watch it whiz by. And those squeaky ones that look like hot dogs and hamburgers...doesn't care about those either. But her floppy plush toys (the expensive ones), those are a different story. She loves them so much that we always have a backup. The come in Blue Puppy, Green Kitty, and Brown Mouse. We've never gotten Brown Mouse. The others are just waaaay cuter. :P

All of her toys go in a canvas basket. It used to sit on the subwoofer in the corner, but now that the piano is above it, the basket won't fit anymore. So it's now on the floor under the tv entertainment center thing. Well, the other day, she noticed the backup Blue Puppy. She wasn't supposed to see it, because her current Blue Puppy still has all his legs and ears. But she doesn't understand that the new toy is for when the old toy is worn out, so she grabbed it out of the basket and has been loving it ever since. But she still seems to love Old Blue Puppy too, because I found them both in the hallway (which is where she prefers to play...it's the most in-the-way spot in the house).

So I got her a new Green Kitty today, and I put it in the basket. Because that's where dog toys go. But it seems that I'm going to have to find a better place to put new toys because she decided she needed 3 plush toys on the living room floor. And then at the end of the hallway.

Or should I leave all the toys at doggie level and let her play with them all? Is it hurting anyone? Each one will last a little longer because she can only chew on 1 at a time, and she does seem to love carrying them one at a time from room to room...

What a conundrum!

Play Date!

I had a play date today! My friend Hannah and her husband Brandon came up for him to have a lesson at KU. While he was learning, she and I went to Old Navy and Target. We were both very good, only getting less than $20 each at Old Navy. She didn't get anything at Target, but I wasn't as strong. But I didn't go crazy...there wasn't time for it. We only had a couple hours to go shopping and grab some dinner.

At Old Navy, I was very strong. There was a really cute purse that I would have loved to have added to my collection...er, wardrobe...but I ordered a new one online today. I figured 2 purses from 2 different stores in 1 day would have been lovely, but excessive.

And Old Navy will be there tomorrow. ;)

Sorting markers

Russell's going on his first business trip of the summer. To prepare, he's sitting on the living room floor trying out all his markers on scratch paper, just to make sure they haven't dried up. The ones that make the cut will go into his little art bag, which will go to Russellville, AR tomorrow.

I'm going to be around here all by myself until sometime late Thursday night or really early Friday morning. I have all sorts of great ideas: clean, mow, go to the grocery store, send my flute off for its yearly checkup...

I'm excited about my flute getting perked up. Every year I send it to a shop in Des Moines, IA. It costs more to ship (and insure it through UPS) than it does to do the actual fixing, but it's very worth it. My fixit guy (named Denny) is amazing. I always feel like a Real Flutist when I'm talking to a fellow flutist about Flute Things, and I mention sending my flute off to get fixed. More often than not, the person will say, "Denny?"

I send my flute to Denny for more than his expertise though...the makers of my flute require that I only have it worked on by fixit guys they have certified. (They're pretty snobby.) If I had someone else work on it, my flute would no longer be under warranty. And I want it under warranty. Woodwind instruments are a lot less expensive to purchase and work on than string instruments, but that doesn't make them cheap. The flute I really, really want is over $30,000. Well, one of them is. There are so many flutes I want, because each brand has its own sound. So if money grew on trees, I'd have a Prima Sankyo, a Brannen Brothers, another Muramatsu... If the companies made it easy to purchase a really expensive flute, I'd probably be able to choose between a Prima Sankyo & and Brannen Bros. But they don't keep $30,000 flutes in stock, so if you order one to try, you've just bought it. And you'd better not need it for the 6+ months it'll take to make one. But at that level, all the flutes are *awesome*, the only reason you'd buy a Prima Sankyo vs. a Brannen Bros. is because you like the company's trademark sound.

If you're at a level to be spending that much on a flute, you can make it sound good even if it's stuffed with cotton. :P I'm not quite there yet. My plan is to buy myself a new, wonderful flute when I get a job once I have my doctorate. :)

Today's picture

Today's picture is not of June. You're speechless, I know. :)

It is, instead, what I see when I look down. If I'm standing barefoot in the backyard, of course. :)

Today's Pictures

Before I get to the pictures, I'd just like to share that I no longer have any reason to get out of bed. I brought my tv back from Emporia and we put it in the bedroom. We have an old Dell tower sitting around, so Russell hooked it up to the bedroom tv. So my bedroom now has the internet, making it possible to blog from bed. :)

And now, the pictures....

June the Adorable


While I was in Emporia doing the final walk-through with my ex-landlord, Russell played in the garage, and June helped from under the truck.


I made June a shirt on neighborhoodies.com...it says, "i chase bunnies." :)


And here she is in her "i chase bunnies" shirt sniffing where the bunnies go under the fence. :)


This is right after I got home tonight. Moments before I had been resting my head on her belly. She doesn't usually let me do that, but I guess she missed me extra today. *sentimental sniffle*


And here we are on the couch. I think my head looks really round in this one...because my hair is so short, not because I have particularly round cheeks of course. ;)

Love is strange, at least for old people.

We went to Russell's elderly relative's wedding today. She and the groom are both around 75 years old. I know I've mentioned this before, but she's a very large woman (which is relevant later on). She can hardly get up and down stairs due to her considerable bulk. She hasn't seen her feet since, well, I definitely wasn't born yet.

The ceremony was remarkably short. Since both have been married and widowed, they know how this marriage thing works, so the minister wasn't inclined to explain it to them. He mostly talked about how they're uniting not only themselves, but also their children and their children's families. I think it only took 15 minutes to marry them.

When we've attended weddings together in the past, it's been pretty neat. (For me, at least. Russell's never quite as excited as I am. I want to hold hands and stare lovingly into each other's eyes, he wants for it to hurry up and get over with so he can change out of his suit. But he holds my hand anyway.) :) Today's wedding, well, it wasn't the usual sentimental affair for us. (Me, whatever.) The bride is sort of an ugly person. Yes, she is unattractive, but she's also not someone you want to spend time with. At all. Ever. Very unpleasant. Tactless, blunt, demanding, condescending, and just all around unpleasant. Oh, and she's unpleasant.

It's hard to really get sentimental when you think the groom is either so lonely he's willing to commit emotional suicide, in such a sad financial state that this unpleasant woman is his only resort, or...um...well, we're not really sure what other reasons he could have for marrying her.

Actually, that's not true. Judging from the way he's looking at her in a picture from Easter, he's marrying her for all the right (and disturbing, in a naked old people way) reasons. But I'd really rather block that out.

The reception was considerably longer than the ceremony. The photographer was very thorough...they documented the cake cutting for a long while. Then they had to do the drink-at-the-same-time thing, and the feeding cake to each other...all the normal wedding stuff.

Then we could eat cake and drink little tiny cups of punch. :) When it was time to send the bride & groom off, they released 2 doves. That was pretty neat, and not nearly as messy as the birdseed we did. :P

After freeing the birdies (or condemning them to death because I don't know if they're up on the finding of wild food), Russell & I, his parents, and 2 of his relatives went to the Outback Steakhouse for supper. That made sitting around waiting for cake so very worth it. :)

We eventually got home, I took June for a walk (a whole 1.5 miles, actually!!), then we watched a movie. I just finished a Midori Sour a few minutes ago, so I'm feeling a little sleeeeeepy. It's really amazing that I have gotten myself to the end of this post because alcoholic drinkies have the same effect as sleeping pills for me. My chances of becoming an alcoholic are pretty slim...can't stay awake long enough for more than 1 or 2 drinks. :P

Well, I think that's it. I guess is is actually Sunday now (and all this happened on Saturday, except the drinkie part), so it's bedtime anyway...

Goodnight, big internet world.

What I do for my art...

In my lesson with the KU professor, we discussed breathing. Most of flute playing has to do with how and when you take in air. Sure, the fingers have to know what they're doing too, but breathing is harder than remembering what fingers go down to play a D.

We worked mainly on Bach. Bach must have hated the flute, or flute players, because he wrote very long phases. During a phrase, you're not supposed to breathe. If you did, it would be like stopping at random places in a sentence. It sounds dumb. And evidently I'm an expert at sounding dumb. World class, even.

So we worked on where it would be better to breathe rather than wherever I was breathing. And it became evident that I don't have enough air to go around. So I'd be playing along and everything would be great and the phrase would sound lovely and then all of the sudden .

Yeah. It's not as impressive when I'm playing along all lovely-like and suddenly the sound stops.

I've gotten carried away with the explanation of the situation. Back to the point....

I need more air. Lots of it. And how does one get more air? Fabulous question with an equally fabulous answer: make more room for it. There's this nifty trick...imagine an old wooden barrel around your chest/torso area. To make the most wonderful, air-ful sound, imagine you're filling the barrel with air, then holding the shape even though your lungs are completely empty and there's nothing left to give.

Evidently this works for the KU professor. I have yet to trick my lungs into creating air...but I'm working on it. He also plays with his arms kind of high. He says it helps him remember to fill the barrel if he keeps his arms above it. I tried using this fabulous imagery today. (Took me this long to get around to it...oh yeah, I'm dedicated to my art.)

After one second, I could hear an amazing difference in my tone...it was bigger and better! And with my arms higher, I didn't slump and look lazy! (I have this bad habit of kind of curling into the stand. Which looks kind of stupid on stage.) Of course, after about 1 minute of holding my arms higher than usual, my left bicep was done.

Really done. I stopped in the middle of a phrase (the music gods will find me and curse me for that) and put the flute down. Because it was either that or drop it.

Have you ever suddenly come to the realization that you're wimpy? I can stand there and hold my flute up in the air for an hour at a time...but only so high. Raise it one inch and I've got a good minute of endurance.

So, having heard the difference between Correct Posture with Barrel and Just Plain Poor Posture, it would be in my best interests to build enough muscles to hold both my flute and myself up.

My flute teacher during high school was into working out. Reeeeeally into working out. She was crazy healthy. Back then, she wanted me to do push ups and situps, and maybe even run if I could bring myself to do it. I did...for a short while.

So today I decided that perhaps the Workout Queen knew what she was talking about (seeing as how she had a doctorate in flute), and I know the KU professor is in reeeally good shape. (He had me put my hand on his upper stomach area to feel him push out the barrel. Oh. My. Goodness. The man must do 100 situps daily.)

Where was I? Oh yes, I'm squishy. So I tried the push up/sit up thing today. I got through 10 whole situps and 2 sets of 5 pushups (because I couldn't do more than 5 at a time).

That's quite sad, don't you think? Here I am, trying to succeed in Flute, which requires controlled breathing, which requires stomach muscles, which I don't have. Really. So I'm going to try to work on that. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up...I tend to forget about doing things that are good for me...but I'm really going to try, because I want to be a good little flutist. Because people pay good flutists.