Mr. Pete decided that the laundry is entirely out of control and decided that the fix for the problem would be to finally hook up that second dryer!! Duh!!! So he has become my laundry warrior, although it took him most of Saturday to get the gas dryer hooked up and consequently not much laundry. Still it will be nice to have both of those driers drying away. He also unfortunately, has decided to make the living room laundry central. Which means that I have little piles of clothes all over the room. I strongly protested this because I like to have the downstairs looking nice in case someone comes over, but the deal is if he’s going to work on the laundry, he can do it anyway he wants. At this time I am in no position to quibble. Physically I can barely bend over and my feet swell up to fast to do much on them anyway.
Mr. Pete was good enough though to take me to the cemetery on Saturday to decorate Raphael’s grave for Memorial Day! He also promised not to worry while I am recovering from the C-section, that he will continue to go out there and keep it well tended and looking nice. I have been out there every week since November 2002, so he knows how important it is to me, and honestly he’s been out there many times too. I have a feeling though Raphael’s stone will get a much needed edging and probably a shine as if Mr. Pete is going to go out there, he’s going t work – it’s just his way.
Sam and Gabe had their piano recital last night. My camera was low on batteries so the pictuers are too dark to post. Sam played his first piece beautifully. His second piece was from memory and he got lost somewhere in the middle of it. I knew that because I have heard that piece about a billion times, but I’m not sure anyone else knew it. He didn’t panic, in fact he composed a little bit until he could find a phrase to latch onto and finish the piece. I told him I admired his cool under pressure and that he handled the situation very well.
Gabe plays with authority. He just pounds out his piece – musically but very masculine. And he nailed the piece he memorized – he even remembered to bow! Overall a very good job.
Actually most of this teacher’s students are from 1st grade to 6th grade, with 1 or 2 high school students, and they are mostly very well prepared because she demands that. They ended the program with a piano/pipe organ duet of America the Beautiful and Battle Hymn of the Republic with the teacher and a guest artist and it was very nicely done and a good send off. The kids were fascinated to watch that pipe organ in action!
I picked up some more books at a library book sale over the weekend and I’m putting them slowly but surely over on my HalfBay and Amazon accounts. I think I got some pretty interesting stuff! My goal is to try to pay for at least half of the piano lessons for next year, so if I make $500 this summer I would be happy. A friend of mine who made $2000 last year on eBay told me that she would go to yard sales, tag sales and auctions and her son would stay home and man the computer. Then if she found something interesting she would call her son and he would look it up on eBay to see if it was something people were buying. Not a bad system and I’m sure since I will probably be the one staying home with the baby I could definitely man the computer while Mr. Pete scopes out the sales!
Tomorrow I am going to the OB for my appointment. He said it would be OK to bring my kids as they have a lot of questions and are kind of concerned about the whole thing. Everyone is going but Calvin, who I think is on pregnancy overload. “Mom, that’s too much information!” My OB doesn’t seem like a kid person, but he sort of seemed to like the idea of my bringing the kids when I asked him and even made a note in the chart, so we’ll see.
Obviously I did not go to Uncle Sam’s Funeral. Mr. Pete was just too concerned with it being so close to my delivery date and my incredibly expanding ankles! So I’m going to try to make it to an extra mass for him this week instead. Uncle Sam, and most of my relatives on that end are not Catholic, so it’s sort of up to us to keep up the prayers for the dead.
That’s sort of it. Only 2 more weeks of soccer and 10 days to my new baby!
Please browse my Amazon sales and eBay items!
[…] The audience became silent as the young man sat down at the piano. He looked tall and self-assured and his mother was confident that he was just going to kill this piece for his end-of-the-year recital. And why shouldn’t he? He practiced diligently every day. His piece was so familiar that family members found themselves humming or singing parts of it throughout the day. This recital piece had woven itself into the background music of daily family life. That’s how much he had played it. […]