keyboard festival

william participated in his first keyboard festival this week.  these things have changed since i was little.  i remember doing a few of them, and i walked into a room with a judge and a piano.  that was it.  now, however, they are divided into groups.  you have to play in front of the entire group and whoever the group participants brought with them.  we had a group of about 30 kids.  add up the parents and siblings, and it was quite a large number of people in attendance.  it didn't bother him a bit.  he was ready, and he did great!  got a superior and a blue sticker on his certificate.

i, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck.  not for william.  he was fine.  but i felt soooooo bad for the kids that forgot their music and messed up and had to start over and had to go sit down to regroup and start over again.  could not handle it.  i was sitting there with my eyes closed just willing them to play the next note.  i didn't even know these kids!!  poor little people!

anyway, we made it through, and i got a picture of the cutest two pianists there!

(on a separate note, when did these two grow up?)

i don't have a video of him playing "holy, holy, holy," but he also played "joyful, joyful" while we were there.  i did have that one on my phone.  however, i'm not smart enough to figure out how to get it in the right format to post it on this blog.  therefore, it's on Facebook if anyone is interested!!


until next time...

fashionista

it was 1988.  or somewhere around there.  second grade.  math kits.  lost teeth.  a broken arm (well, for me at least.)  somethings never change.  second graders are still going at the math and losing teeth and breaking arms.  but you know what else second graders like?  birthday parties.  i was no different.  back in the 80s, birthday parties were a heck of a lot slightly different than these gigantic affairs that are put on today, but we all still liked to go hang out with our friends and eat some cake!

i remember this one party so clearly.  paige was having a birthday.  it was at the antique mall.  a tea of some sort.  "great!  i like tea!" was my only thought.  however, when saturday morning rolled around my crazy mother told me to put on a dress to go to this birthday party.  hold up...what?

if you know me at all right now, then let me tell you that i was the exact same way at the age of 8.  i don't like clothes.  i don't want to dress up.  i don't want to shop.  give me a t-shirt.  period.  unless it's sunday morning, i've got on tennis shoes.  it makes no difference to me if everybody around me has on skinny jeans, some sort of sparkly shirt, and a pair of knee high boots.  i'm perfectly happy in my t-shirt.  i don't feel the need to fit in with you.  leave me alone.  hallelujah.  amen.

so....back to saturday morning before the party.  the conversation went like something along these lines:
DK: "here.  wear this dress." (think blue floral, white panty hose, white shoes with a buckle.)
me: "i don't want to."
DK: "you have to a wear a dress.  it's a tea."
me:  "i don't care.  i can drink tea in blue jeans."
DK: "you cannot wear jeans to the antique mall.  this is a dress up party."
me:  "nobody cares what i have on.  i do not want to wear that!"

this went on forever as it always did, and then my mom changed her tactic.  she decided to let me wear jeans and TEACH ME A LESSON.  everybody at the party would laugh at me because i had on jeans.  i would be the only one that had on jeans at a party filled with little girls all dressed up in frilly, floral stuff with big collars and panty hose.  (i'm hyperventilating just thinking about it.) i would never, ever forget how terrible and out of place i felt.  this would be the turning point!!!

yeah...that little plan of hers backfired.  i showed up to the party dressed in my jeans.  i am certain they were white guess jeans with a cute little triangle on the back pocket (because you know i do care about my jeans!) topped off with keds.  i can't remember if i was into the slip-on keds yet, but you know i was happy as i bebopped into that party NOT wearing a dress.

emily: "why do you have on jeans?"
me: "because i didn't want to wear a dress."
courtney: "what???!?  that's not fair!!"
cobern: "yeah.  my mama MADE me wear a dress."
me: "my mama told me i didn't have to."
mandy: "that is so not fair.  your mom is so cool."

and there you have it ladies and gentleman.  the turning point.  the point in life that i realized that i just needed to wear what i want.  it was also the point that my mom just gave up.  i think.  ha!!

anyway, i give you that background information so you'll know that i have hated to shop for clothes for as long as i've been alive.  unless it's jeans or tennis shoes, i will walk into a store, take a look around, and then i just walk out.  i can't do it.  one of my friends used to own a clothing store.  i would go sit in the dressing room, and she would bring me stuff.  i would put it on, walk out, and she'd say yay or nay, hand me something else to try on, and that was that.  she's moved on from that store, so now that's why i have my own personal shopper when i have to have clothes for a function.  wedding coming up and need a dress....call ginger.  i have a dress for this thing, but i need some shoes....call ginger.  going with chase to a work thing....call ginger.  then she sends me the links for different outfits, shoes, etc.  i click.  order.  done.  it's fabulous.  everybody needs a ginger.

last week i hit her up to find me a few things.  she did, and then she sent me a picture of some shoes.  her comment was "get some like this.  it doesn't have to be this exact one...just something like it."  well that means i have to shop on my own.  goodness.  i found what i wanted, and they came to my door.  i opened the box, and i wasn't one bit surprised to find two different shoes in one box.

this is what happens when i have to shop.  i wanted the shoe on the top.  (preferably two of them.)  instead i get two totally different shoes.  chase told me it would be a cool fashion statement to walk around looking like boy george.  but, i give up.  after all these years i have decided that it's just meant for me to wear tennis shoes.

 even zappos thinks so!

back at it

there's nothing that welcomes you to the new year and back into the routine like looking at the thermometer to see that it is 7 degrees outside.  poor william was outside at 730am (without my knowledge) trying to do his chores.  i heard him hollering "this windex just won't work!!"  it was kind of neat to watch it turn into a powdery substance, but it was not neat enough that i cared to stand out in the 7 degrees and watch it.  i made him come in and put the vacuum in his hands!

anyway, with all the frigidness in these parts, we have had to find to something to do.  you can only play legos for so long.  so we spent a whole lot of time at the library during the last week of christmas break.  william found an old mystery series, and he worked his way through that shelf.  wes cleaned them out of all the frog and toad books, and reed knows right where to go to find his favorite froggy books.  i even managed to make it through a novel or two.

one of the best parts of library day(s), is the snack afterwards.  chips, rotel, and tea from pepper's is never a bad idea!

we started back to school today.  and while everybody at our house is glad to be back into a routine, i think i might miss my library sidekicks.  and i guess i'll have to get that snack to-go this week!  happy 2014!