It's Facebook's fault, really

One of the reasons I haven't been writing much is because, whenever an idea ocurrs to me, I take the lazy way out and just quickly post a sentence or two on Facebook.

So today I will write a blog post the includes the posts I've made on Facebook lately, and/or the things I thought about posting on Facebook.

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We've been watching the "Sesame Street Old School" videos with the original 1970's shows. There is actual a warning/disclaimer before it begins saying, "These shows are intended for adult audiences. They may not meet the needs of today's preschooler." WTF?

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Last night Rachael didn't want to her dinner of "Eggplant Divine." I told her wouldn't get any dessert if she didn't finish it. She didn't care.
Then I told her she couldn't work on her dance routines that evening unless she finished it. She ate it right up!

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I got the mail this morning and couldn't understand why I was getting promotional materials for myself. It turned out to be a newsletter from a fundraiser I played for gratis half a year ago. Nice and big, and on the front, it said, "Need a piano player for your next event? Contact Jennifer ____. She supports _____." Wow! A couple hundred people must have received that in the mail! Playing for free sure paid off!

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Taking the girls to see "The Music Man" tonight.

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I'm tired from hosting the girls' "Splash Bash Party" today.

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I finally saw my first episode of "Glee." More, please.

A post about laundry! Could it GET any duller?

If there were any lingering doubt that my life (and this blog) was fairly boring and mundane, this pretty much cinches it:

I'm writing a blog post about laundry. Yup. It's come to that.

However, as boring and pathetic as that sounds, my recent "laundry plan of attack" really has made life smoother and easier, so it seemed worth sharing.

Until recently, I would continually do laundry, and it was a continual pain. Plus, it had a habit of remaining "half-done": for example, some of the clean clothes would remain in the laundry room because "I'll just bring it up tomorrow with the next load." So it seemed like I was always sorting, always washing, and always having both clean and dirty laundry in various parts of the house.

Well, here's what I do now:
1) On Thursday morning, as soon as my feet hit the floor, I strip the sheets off the bed. I put them in the wash either right before or after my shower, before I get dressed. (I don't want to risk getting a drop of bleach on my clothes, ever, as I had a childhood trauma regarding bleach, which you can read about here.)

2) Later that day on Thursday, I wash all the towels and put them back on the rack, and of course I also put the clean sheets back on.

3) On Thursday evening, usually when the kids are taking their baths, I haul the laundry basket of clothes downstairs. I sort everything (which I find oddly enjoyable) and start a load of jeans. (Jeans are quick and easy to do in the evening, because there's not much to it, and there's all the same.)

4) When the jeans are done (usually right before I go to bed), I fold them and dump in the load of darks and put it on "delay" so it will start washing at about 6 am.

5) On Friday morning, before I get dressed (the bleach thing again), I move the darks to the dryer and dump in the whites.

6) When these are done, the girls put away all the kids' clothes. They also sort and put away all underwear and socks. I put away remaining things. This is usually done by around lunchtime.

7) This leaves the delicates, which is usually a fairly small load, and mostly my stuff. I might squeeze that in on Friday as well, but otherwise I throw them in some other morning, and it's no big deal.

So, wow. That sounds like a lot. BUT it is a lot easier, to me, to do it all at once and not have to worry about it the other days.

One thing I like is that now, when I see the laundry piling up, it doesn't stress me out or piss me off. I just think, "Yup, that'll all get taken care of on Friday," and I go on with my life.

Weddings -- the good, the bad, and the lovely

Someone had casually suggested that I write a book about my various piano jobs and adventures. While I'm flattered, I can't imagine there are many people who would want to read such a book.

But I figured it'd be worth posting a few things here.

Last night I played for my first wedding of 2010. It was in one of those huge Baptist churches, with tile flooring and a shiny baby grand piano up on a stage, and great acoustics.

I enjoy playing for wedding because:
1) Well, who wouldn't like it? You get to see fancy hair-dos and pretty dresses, and you feel the energy and excitement from everybody involved. I'm reminded of details from our wedding that I don't think of often -- like how we had a hard time getting that Unity candle lit, and the pastor made a little joke about it.

2) I really enjoy playing the 30 minute prelude music before the ceremony begins. This is the best of all worlds to me. People aren't sitting in silence staring at me, but they aren't as noisy and oblivious as they are at a restaurant or party, either. I can really sense that I'm setting a mood, and I like that.

I don't enjoy playing for weddings because:
1) Well, they make me a nervous wreck. I have no doubt it will become easier after I do it a few more times. (Don't tell anyone, but this is only my eighth wedding.) But you have to watch the door and the aisle out of the corner or your eye while playing, and expect to end a song or switch songs on about two seconds' notice.

Last night, for example, I was supposed to watch for the wedding coordinator to stand in a certain doorway to cue that I was ready to stop playing prelude music and begin the first ceremony piece. This supposed to happen at about two minutes til six.

At six o'clock, I still did not see her. I took the repeat again, and hoped I wasn't somehow doing something wrong.

After taking the repeat again, I realized I was going to have to play something else. I switched to another piece, still frantically keeping one eye on the door (which is a bit tricky to do).

Still nothing when that piece was over.

This continued until she suddenly appeared in the doorway at 6:10 pm!

It turned out that Someone Important was late, and they had to stall to wait for them.

Things like that are good, though. Assuming I pull it off well, it adds a point or two of Appreciation.

And after I get eight more weddings under my belt, I probably won't think a thing of it.

Why it's Cool to be a Piano Girl

Last weekend I played at a nice restaurant downtown. It was my first time there. I'm scheduled to go back again twice in late June. If you know me personally and live in town, ask me and I'll tell you when and where.

My non-musician friends (which is most everyone) sometimes ask me how I get these jobs. In this case, a booking agent saw one of my web listings and called me -- which is sort of interesting, if you think about it. He's never met me, never heard me play, and didn't have a referral. Just found me on the web, called me, and hired me. I guess he was first dazzled by my photo and then completely won over by my professional Phone Voice, ha ha!

And that's just fine with me.

Someone else asked me if I get nervous. Actually, I was nervous about finding the place, getting stuck in traffic, and figuring out how to get from the parking garage through the bridge walkway to the actual restaurant.

But nervous about playing? No. And the reason is simple: No one is really listening to me or looking at me. And that's just the way I like it. It's kinda like playing at home, but more fun, and I get paid.

Now here's what's so cool about being the Piano Girl at a restaurant:

It's kind of an alter ego thing. It's a Slightly Different Me when I go out to a job.

In my real life, we go out to eat at the IHOP five minutes from home, when kids eat free, and get an extra plate for sharing. I go to places like Publix and the library and the doctor. I wear casual (although hopefully attractive) clothes.

In my real life:

I do NOT go downtown.
I do NOT eat at nice restaurants.
I do NOT get free valet parking.
I do NOT wear floor-length dresses and high heels.
I do NOT use rest-rooms with lit candles, cloth towels, and hand lotion.
I do NOT have people in uniforms bring me bottles of water and offer me free food.
I do NOT have strangers slip me twenty dollar bills. (Well, that only happened once, actually.)

It's Different. And it's Cool.

The other thing that's cool (and this is kind of along the same lines) is that most people I know in my Real Life don't do this.

So they're impressed. [Sometimes.] They might ask: How did you get that job? What's it like at the Ritz? Did you get any tips? What songs do you play? What do you wear? Do you get nervous?

And that makes me feel Special. And Interesting.

And I like that.

It's a musician's life ...

Obviously, one downside to being a musician is the unpredictability.

Here's how things had been going for me lately:

In September I was hired to play for a five-show running of Godspell, started learning the music and going to rehearsals.
In October were the actual performances.
In November, due to popular demand, we performed a second run in another theater in town.
In December I made $1800 playing at Christmas parties and concerts.

And in January, I had nothing.

This was actually Good. I caught my breath. I recorded a demo CD and mailed it out to several catering directors and wedding planners. I read a novel. I made an Unofficial Goal in head that, once I made $1,000 in 2010, I would buy myself a Kindle.

But now ... it's mid-February. I haven't played anywhere since Christmas, and I am starting to get antsy.

I actually am playing somewhere in a few weeks -- gratis. I won't write too many of the details here, because this is a personal blog and my full name is on the event's website. But let's just say it's a charity fundraiser at the Ritz-Carlton, and I'm playing background music for cocktail hour and dinner.

Am I foolish to be playing for free in exchange for my name being on the website and programs? I guess only time will tell. I'll be sure to report back.

And finally ....

Okay, now after two posts of Somewhat Unnecessary (yet hopefully entertaining) Autobiography, I can finally answer the question of "Why I had no desire or interest in writing" in one sentence:

I've been very focused on my piano lately, and when I'm delving into the piano, I have little mental energy left to focus on writing.

There.

I hope that was worth waiting for.

To be more specific ....

I've been trying to market myself more, and have put up two websites. I'm in the process of putting together some audio clips, and once I put them up on the sites, I bet I'll start getting more leads. I've been working on a lot of music, including things like Jazz Standards and lots of "Charlie Brown music."

In the meantime, I was smart enough to put the word "accompanist" in my Party Pop listing, and was contacted to ...

.... be the accompanist for a local production of Godspell!



The show is in less than three weeks, so I am, uh, learning the music rather quickly. What's fun is that the whole family is learning it. For example, last night Becca was getting ready for bed and singing (very sweetly), "Pray ye ... pray ye ... the way of the Lord ..."

The kids particularly like the song "All for the Best," which three year old Benjamin calls "the silly song."

So there you have it: Right now I'm focusing on being a Pianist, and not a Writer. Stay tuned for which of my two identities takes over next month.

Cliff-hanger ... resolved!

When we last left, you were breathlessly awaiting the answer to what kept me from pursuing a journalism degree and/or being a well-known children's writer by now.

Well, when I was sixteen, my piano teacher at the time quite casually asked if I was planning on majoring in music in college. And I was completely intrigued by that idea.

Believe it or not, I had never heard of someone actually studying music in college until just recently. I honestly thought (and sadly, I think a lot of people think this way) that piano teachers and accompanists were just bored housewives that wanted to make a few bucks and had taken piano lessons as a kid.

To be perfectly honest, I was not a very good piano player when I was 16. But I was good enough to get a partial music scholarship at a college that was very generous about their music scholarships.

So when I started college, I thought I would either:
a) Get a double-major in journalism and music; or
b) Take the required classes to be a freshman music major, so I could keep the scholarship for a year, then switch to studying journalism

Well, I ended up staying a music major.

I still feel torn between my two desires, for music and writing. Because I've been driven to do both, I've never been able to pursue either one with the intensity that most musicians and writers do. And I often feel like I've never really excelled at either.

If you'll excuse the laughable comparison, I've often felt a little like Joni Mitchell. While she professionally pursued a music career, you can tell that, in her heart, she is more of a painter.

I feel like writing sums up more who I am, while music sums up what I do. I'm naturally a pretty good writer. I feel like I even have what I call a "writer's personality." I am not naturally a particularly good musician, but for whatever reason, I've felt driven to work hard at it.

Of course, right now I am proving that I am not a very good writer, but taking three entire blog posts to address something I could have actually answered in one sentence. More to come ...

Post with a Shameless Cliff-Hanger ....

Since I'm sure many of you have been tossing and turning at night, wondering why I haven't had the desire to write lately, I thought I'd address it.

I've always found it curious when people got to college and said they "didn't know what to study." For one thing, that is a hell of a lot of money and time to be spending when you don't exactly know why you're there. But more to the point, I could never understand it because I always had the opposite problem.

When I was in third grade, I dimly remember being given a school assignment to write a story called "What I Would Say if Snowmen Could Talk." (And I distinctly remember my father pointing out that it should be titled, "What I Would Say if Snowmen Could Listen." Well, what can you expect from a South Jersey public school?)

I no longer have this story, and do not remember what, in fact, I would have said if snowman could talk (or listen). But I do remember writing it and thinking, with an unusual clarity and certainty for an eight year-old, "I'm going to be a children's writer when I grow up."

This clarity and certainty continued and, when I was ten years old, I actually wrote a rough draft, then typed up as a 45-page manuscript (yes, on a typewriter!), asked a neighbor friend to illustrate it for me, and mailed it to Dell Yearling Publishers.

Why Dell Yearling? Why, because I had a copy of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret -- I still have it, and it has the cover torn off, is permanently curled, and has Various Food Stains on it -- and Dell Yearling was the publisher, and their address was on the copyright page.

At age ten, I didn't know enough about the publishing industry to even enclose a SASE. So, really, it would have been fair for Dell Yearling to have thrown it in the trash and go on about their day. If they were feeling particularly generous that day, I could picture them paying the postage to return the manuscript and send me a form rejection letter

So it rather is quite stunning, in retrospect, that they took the time to send me (and my illustrator friend) a personalized letter, saying that it "had potential" and other encouraging things I can't remember at the moment. They also sent me a list of periodicals (like Stone Soup) that publish children's work.

Without boring you too much with details, I was thirteen when I had my first story published, I won a school-wide, then county-wide writing contest when I was fifteen, and I was the front page editor of my high school newspaper my senior year. Surely my Snowman Epiphany when I was eight was no passing phase.

Yet ... a college friend I recently found thanks to Facebook [Shelley] recently said to me, "Oh, I never knew you liked to write."

What?? How can this be, you ask? Wasn't I avidly writing in college? Where did I go wrong? What happened?

Ah ... the same thing that is happening now, and if you haven't figured it out already, you will have to wait for Part Two to find out the answer ....

I finally discovered Tori Amos!

Ever since college I've been a fan of Kate Bush. Wonderful, Hugely-Underappreciated-in-America Kate Bush, who is an amazing songwriter, musician, producer, dancer, choregrapher, and all-around Brilliant Genius.





Sometime in the 90's, when I used to spend a lot more time in my car, I heard a song called "Cornflake Girl" on the radio. I thought, "Oh wow, does Kate Bush have something new out?"

No, turned out it was someone named Tori Amos.


Who's that?

Was she someone I should like? Or should she tick me off for daring to try to copy Kate the Billiant Genius? Was she just another in a somewhat tired line of 90's female artists, like Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne, Sarah McClaughlin, Courtney Love, and Alanis Morisette?

It was a question that, believe it or not, sort of dimly lingered in the back of my mind for over a decade. I kept thinking I was going to "research" Tori Amos, and then never did. I later realized she did a song called "Crucify," which had never particularly impressed me. Eh, I thought, probably just a lame wannabe.

And then, two nights ago, I happened to stumble on Tori Amos on VH1 Storytellers. I watched it. I watched it twice. I did searches to read the lyrics.

And ...

Oh Yes. No one else can be Kate, but Tori is Quite Amazing.

The one thing I think she does have over Kate is that she is a better piano player. Also, she scores an extra point for being a redhead (and quite a quirky one at that).

Watch "Precious Things" to see what I mean.

(Warning: When I graduated college, my roommate Sara said to me, "Of all the many many things you always listened to, the only one I really couldn't tolerate was Kate Bush." Yes, she is quite an acquired taste, and I think Tori could be as well.)

My [rather cynical] review of the Hannah Montana movie

Several years ago, I remember telling somebody that I enjoyed watching Barney with my kids, simply because -- to paraphrase The Grateful Dead -- "A friend of Rebecca's is a friend of mine."

It was in this same spirit that I went to go see the Hannah Montana movie with my two daughters and niece earlier this week. Rachael dressed up in her HM costume, complete with wig. I gobbled up plenty of popcorn and numbed myself to the fact that a tub of popcorn and two drinks cost $14. It was fun. I enjoyed it. Really.

However, I am only human, and I do still have a few working brain cells, so here are the many thoughts that were actually going through my mind during the movie:

* It is impossible for me to get past the fact that nobody realizes that Miley is Hannah. Maybe I could buy it if Hannah had a different accent, or wore some sort of distinct makeup, like a female sort of KISS member. Maybe glasses could even go it -- after all, it worked for Clark Kent. But Hannah sounds exactly the same as Miley, and other than snazzy clothes and a blond wig, she looks exactly the same as Miley. At the very least, you'd think people would constantly say to her, "Wow, you know, you remind me a lot of Hannah Montana."

* In one scene, Miley gets on stage in front of a bunch of Hannah Montana fans and leads everybody in a song. Amazing how nobody notices that she sings exactly like their favorite star, Hannah Montana.

* Does Miley Cyrus write her own songs? I'm just asking. Actually, I wouldn't expect her to. After all, Ricky Martin didn't write "Livin La Vida Loca." Heck, someone else wrote songs for Elvis. But then why did people give The Monkees such a hard time for not writing most of their songs?

* Emily Osmont (who plays Lilly) is just gorgeous. Of course, I am probably partial to her, since I liked her big brother, Hayley Joel, so much.

* I agree with a movie review I had read earlier, which basically said, "The biggest mistake the movie makes is having Taylor Swift sing a song. The comparison in their singing ability is not flattering to the movie's star." Yes, that's correct. It was striking.

* Doesn't anybody wonder where Hannah Montana is when she's not onstage? If she is, in fact, the most popular teen in the whole world, how come Tiger Beat magazine has no spreads about her family, her friends, her hobbies? Don't her fans ever google her name, trying to find out how she became a star, where she grew up, how she got her start?

* I recently saw an interview with Rita Moreno who said The Electric Company cast would be on the set for about ten hours a day. After that, at least one of them would have to stop at the recording studio on the way home, then have to go home and practice lip-synching to the song they had just recorded. Performers are hard workers. So the idea that anyone -- hidden identity or not -- can hang around school and their friends all day, and then just show up for their Superstar performance, really rubs me the wrong way.

Ah ... thank you. I feel better now.

Nostalgia (and photos!) of 1986-1987

I took this picture on December 30, 1986, when I was 17 years old:




I recently have been chatting with one of the boys in this picture, thanks to Facebook. I've heard
a vicious rumor that he is no longer a boy, but rather a forty year old man with a wife and child, but in my mind he will always be the teenage boy that I knew.

Talking with him has been Really Neat for me, and hopefully at least A Little Neat for him. It
made me think about a lot of things, so I dug out these pictures, which made me think about them even more.

My senior year in high school always felt like a single and isolated event, rather than being connected to the rest of my teenage years. My first year in high school was spent somewhere else -- Pittsburgh -- and then we moved. Strange as it may sound, I spent the next two years just struggling to adjust, and it wasn't until senior year that I had -- or had even met -- this group of friends.

In a way, that makes that time period and those friends more special, because it was so fleeting.
We had fun together for a year, then all went off our separate ways.



I look at these pictures and remember so much: The party at Maureen's house where we
watched The Sure Thing and all belted out Rod Stewart's "Infatuation." Stopping at Dunkin Donuts on our way to go take the AP English test, and laughing when we realized we had started to drive away with the box of Munchkins on top of our car. Watching Ferris Beuller's Day Off at Vicki's house and thinking it was the greatest movie ever. Feeling like the whole day was ruined when the boy I liked wasn't in Calculus class that day. Going to Six Flags with three of my girlfriends on the day of prom because none of us had dates.

I could go on and on.



I see these pictures and have an almost aching desire to jump inside them,
like the chalk drawings in Mary Poppins -- or the "skidoo" on Blue's Clues.
I look at them and remember how exuberant and carefree and silly and bubbling with excitement we all were.

I wish I could go back and visit them. Visit that.

I don't think I would say my life was better back then. It isn't that. But today I have a mortgage and endless amounts of laundry. My husband just got a pay cut and our health insurance premiums are about to go up -- again. I have watched one of my children be literally on the brink of death, unable to move, for almost three straight weeks. I've spent days myself in a bed in ICU, unable to even use the bathroom, while various other people took care of my children for me.

And yes, I wish I could go back, for just a few hours ... to the times when we laughed and shrieked continually about Nothing in Particular, when we decorated ourselves with long streams of toilet paper and danced outside in the dark at my birthday party, and when I spent the night at Adrienne's house and babbled endlessly over trying to decide who I liked more, Bryan or Scott.


I haven't seen, or even heard from, most of the people in these photos for well over a decade. I wish they could somehow read this post -- to know I'm thinking of them, to know all the nice memories I have about them 22 years later.

I guess I'd like to tell them Thank You.

The apocalyse must be near -- I'm doing MOTH!

If you're not familiar with Managers of Their Homes, it is a Christian book written and published by the Maxwell family, who had seven or eight children and homeschooled them all.


It is about ... SCHEDULING, yes in capital letters and boldfaced, because I'd heard that the SCHEDULING they talk about is so intense and constant that their home sounds like the military.

So I figured it wasn't for me. Back then I was an unschooler, for heaven's sake!

Still, I was intrigued ... I always feel like I could use more help in getting my act together. Also, as you know, I'm always interested in What's Out There, because even if I hate it, it gives me something to think about (and, often to blog about).

But the library didn't have it, and I asked around to borrow it and couldn't find a copy ... and I really didn't want to spend $25 for a book that would probably make me say, "Oh my gosh, no WAY are we doing that! Are they crazy?"

But recently I heard about it again on a FIAR message board, and decided to finally suck it up and order the thing.

Well.

I got it a few days ago, and already the difference has been amazing. Just amazing.

I haven't even gotten to the point where you make the full-blown color schedule and hang it up. I I probably should, and it will probably help if I do.


Here is a list of what we did today before 4:00 pm:

* I washed Benjamin's sheets and put them back on his bed, and did another load of laundry besides -- and put it away!

* I gave both Rachael and Rebecca a private "piano lesson"

* I sat with on the floor with Benjamin, alone, and did several puzzles with him for almost a half an hour

* I finally helped Rachael set up a great birthday present she got, which was a scrapbooking kit with yarn and simple sewing machine. We learned how to thread and use the machine together.

* I brought the trash can back from the curb, got the mail -- and processed it! -- and filed some papers that had been piling up on my desk

* I read two books to the girls, and two books to Benjamin

* I researched and printed off some components for the lapbook we're doing next week

* I helped the girls finish up the FIAR notebook they were doing this week

* Rachael and I had a spelling lesson together, and she read a story out loud to me

* Rachael read the chapter book she's working on, did two phonics pages and two math pages, and we spent time doing some math together with the blocks

* Rebecca did three math pages, much of it with me

* Both girls made some "sticker scenes" from Oriental Trading, which we had forgotten we even had in the house

* The dishwasher was unloaded first thing this morning, and all of today's dirty dishes are in it

* Becca and Benjamin watched Blue's Clues together

* And I took a 30-minute nap, undisturbed



Now, that may not impress you, but it certainly impresses me! And by the way, I did not wake up particularly early -- 8:00 am.

And I still have time to blog before dinner!

The two other things that are impressive are:

1) I think the kids really liked it. They got to spend time alone with me, and they got to do many things that they really enjoy that we don't normally get to. I asked Rachael how she enjoyed the day following a schedule, and she said, "I love it!"

2) Perhaps best of all, the day felt so smooth and relaxed, and I was felt less tense and wasn't snapping at the kids as much. I didn't feel frustrated because I wasn't getting anything done. I didn't feel exhausted with nothing to show for it. Things didn't feel chaotic.

What was really interesting to me was that, with this scheduling idea, the computer didn't even become an issue. I didn't have to "keep myself from getting on it" like I talked about here. We were so busy doing interesting things that I had no desire to go read blogs and message boards or get on Facebook.

I'm hoping to write another post in a few days, both as an update and more detailed explanation of the book and why it seems to work.

If he's the one working, why am I so tired?

My hard-working husband, Robert, has been working from 8:30 am - 1:00 am every night this week. He's at work right now (Saturday) and won't be home til after midnight. Last week was similar, although not quite so extreme. Next week will be the same.

Sadly, in the midst of all this, he was informed that everyone in the company is getting a pay cut.

It's been sort of surreal (and tiring) around here. Most mornings I see Robert for a couple minutes, and then I'm asleep when he comes home. Becca and Benjamin didn't see see for days. (Rachael is our "early bird" and they had breakfast together most mornings.)

I feel like I've been getting behind on everything the past two weeks. I still have two boxes of Easter Stuff I need to label and put in storage. Maybe tonight.

This morning felt good -- I swept, vacuumed, and mopped, and the girls did a thorough cleaning of their room (and Benjamin's room) and put away all the clean laundry that's been accumulating all week. Oh yeah, and I washed the ... what are they called? ... the things that go over the couch cushions.

So the house feels a lot better now.

Evenings here have been Different, though not necessarily Bad. One evening we packed a sort of picnic and went to the local school playground for an hour or two. After we got home there were tornado sirens, and the four of us, i our pajamas, read Mother Goose stories while lined up against the wall of the basement.

Last night we had "movie night" and ate popcorn and turned out all the lights. and watched the first half of the BBC production of The Secret Garden, which was very good. Rachael announced that we should make it a routine to have Movie Night every Friday night, which is not a bad idea.

We're been subsisting mostly on Trader Joe cheese pizzas, Trader Joe mandarin orange chicken and rice, and things like PB&J and mac and cheese and even a couple drive-thru meals for lunch. I am contemplating getting KFC and bringing it to a park tonight. I just don't have the energy to plan meals and cook like I normally do.

Robert is quite a guy. We all had breakfast together this morning, and, although he is very tired, his spirits are up. He even mowed the lawn before he went to work this morning. Can you believe it?

You Know You're from Pittsburgh When ...

Although I lived several places while growing up, Pittsburgh is, and always will be, dear to my heart and definitely my childhood home.

I found this on Facebook; I guess if you're not from Pittsburgh it won't mean much to you. It's much longer than this; I just trimmed it to the ones that I "got" the most:

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You Know You're From Pittsburgh When ....


Words like: hoagie; chipped ham; pop; and gumband actually mean something to you.

You will defend with your life that it's called pop and not soda. [I don't; but I remember how everybody else did.]

You wake up to KDKA.

You go 'food shoppin' at 'Jine Iggle'.

Chipped ham was always in your refrigerator when you were growing up.

You know what is meant by "The Point".

You've ridden the two oldest surviving inclines in the world.

When you refer to "Jimmies", you're not talking about some a group of boys with the same name.

You find it fun to kill your brain cells while holding your breath through the tubes.

You can pronounce the word Duquesne. [It never occurred to me that other people wouldn't!]

You don't understand why people say "to be" before verbs. "My car needs washed" or "my hair needs cut" works just fine. [Like the "pop" thing, I don't really do this myself, but I can spot it a mile away.]

You say "You guys" even if you're referring to a group of all girls. [Oh yeah. Now this one, I do.]

You have a picture of you when you were younger with the pirate parrot.

You know what Eat 'N Park is and the song that goes with it...Eat N Parks the place...for...SMILES.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

You remember waiting for KDKA to flash your school name for a 2-hour delay.

You know that Mars and Moon aren't just in outer space.

You remember what Horne's was.

You measure distance in hours.

Your mother or grandmother has been seen
wearing a "babushka" on her head.

You own more than one original Terrible Towel.

You walk carefully when it is "slippy" outside.

You tell your children to "red up" their rooms.

You don't see what all the hype is about Disney World when Kennywood is just around the corner.

You know who Donnie Iris is!! [YES!!!]

********************************************
Oh, and what was that other local band, the one with initials ...? "I'm sure they sell ... VITAMIN L! It makes all things well ..."

I also remember eating Klondike bars at Isaly's ...

It costs so much to eat out!

Yes, I'm quite sure that you are laughing out loud at my ridiculously obvious title.

But I think what surprises me is that, even when I knock myself out to try to make it cheap, I'm still amazed at how much it costs.

Case in point:

Last week was Rebecca's sixth birthday (I hope to post pictures in a couple days) and we had gotten her coupon for a free Creation at Cold Stone Creamery. Since Cold Stone is between our house and Robert's office, I had him meet us there on his way home from work.

Rebecca's kiddie cup was free, we got a kiddie cup for Rachael, and Robert, Benjamin, and I all split a "Love it" sized creation.

It was seven dollars!

Not worth it. I won't be doing that again.

Then we realized we should probably get something for dinner (which I know sounds really stupid, but Robert doesn't usually eat dinner, and the rest of us had a big lunch and I thought we wouldn't be too hungry. But we all were). So we thought we'd live it up and stop at IHOP on the way home.

First of all, IHOP is hardly Fine Dining. (Which is just fine with us, but what I mean is, I think of it as a Cheap Eat.) Second, kids eat free there at dinnertime. Third, we all drank water.

And it cost twenty bucks!

To me, that's a lot of money for a single meal, especially when we had just spent seven dollars for "dessert" already, and especially considering we had gotten:

* Two free kids' meals
* One free kids' ice cream
* Split the ice cream we actually paid for; and
* Drank nothing but water

I guess I just need to get a grip and realize how much restaurants cost, and that even "cheap" isn't really and truly cheap.

Tonight I am cooking a chili casserole (Rachael's favorite!) and we just bought a carton of "Edy's Thin Mint" ice cream, which was on sale at Publix today for ... three-fifty, I believe.

The TV show I dreamed about last night

This is really weird ...

This morning I woke up suddenly and instantly remembered that I'd just had a dream where I was sitting in a restuarant writing a blog entry about a TV I used to watch about ten or fifteen years ago.

I have no idea why I was dreaming about said show; I certainly didn't even remember it until I had the dream, and barely do even now.

So ...

I'm not sure how much of an audience I even have left these days, after the last few rather pitiful blog offerings I've made recently. But, I thought it would be fun to post what little I remember about this TV show, and see if anyone knows what I'm talking about, and if they could jog my memory a little bit.

And if you have any Deep Psychological Theories about why I was dreaming about this show, I suppose you could throw those in, too.

Okay, the instant I woke up, I thought, "Bowling Alley."

And then I started thinking "odd assortment of characters," although I can't remember who any of them were. In the dream, I was including characters from the show Northern Exposure, so I don't know if these two shows have anything in common or not.

Oh, after I woke up and started thinking about it some more, I realized that a character worked in a bowling alley, but did something different ... like, he was a lawyer who operated out of a bowling alley ....? And I'm thinking it had a romantic element to it.

Any takers?

YouTube can actually be useful!

Wow.
I just discovered that YouTube can be useful for something other than watching Schoolhouse Rock spoofs, 70's commercials, and Interviews With Famous People who are Hot (not that I'm naming names.)

I just got some music for choral festival this month, and one piece in particular is, um ... weird. Pages of quintuplets. Changing from 5/8 to 6/8 to 5/8 to 4/4 all in a single page. Markings like "accel. into blur."

I thought it would be really helpful to actually hear the darn thing.

And I can. (And so can you, right here.) In fact, every piece I'm preparing is right there.

This is very very cool. It helps greatly to hear what the emsemble sounds like before I show up.

Here's a couple others I'm playing this month, for your listening pleasure:
Exaudi! Laudate
Diriait-on (this one is quite lovely)

The Jenny Weight-Loss Program

It's quite simple, really:

1) Eat nothing after 7:30 pm

2) Eat nothing "on the fly."
This is the hardest, and most important: No popping things in my mouth while I clear the table; no grabbing a cookie when I walk into the kitchen to get something, etc.

And that's it.
As long as I stick to those two rules for a period of time, I tend to stay fairly thin.

Well ... maybe I should say "less overweight." :)

My New Obsession -- The Big Bang Theory!

No, not the actual scientific theory.

Are you kidding? I can't even name the planets in order.

No, I mean the TV show called The Big Bang Theory!

I first heard about this show from my dear friend Ali over a year ago. She told me it was funny, and that Bare Naked Ladies did the theme song (always a plus) and that "the guy who played David from Roseanne is in it."

Well, yay. I'm there.
But unfortunately, we got about three channels, and CBS was not one of them.

But now something has changed -- is it that High-Def stuff? -- and now we do get CBS, and a couple months ago I started taping BBT. Now I am finally getting around to it, which means I can plop on the couch after the kids go to bed and watch three episodes at a time, skipping commercials ... aah, the joys of modern technology.

And here's the best part:

Robert has watched it with me a couple times, and he likes it too.

We almost never have TV shows we both like: He tends to like things like Nova and Apocolyptic Movies, while I tend to like things that are Not Nova and Apocolyptic Movies.

(We did enjoy watching Friends together at times, although if it weren't for the Joey character, I don't think he would have cared much.)

So this is cool.

What I did with my picky eaters

[Warning: This is going to strike some people as harsh, cruel, and maybe even somewhat abusive. If any of my unschooling buddies still read here, you are not going to like this.]


I hate the idea of forcing a kid to clean his plate.

I hate it when parents spend the entire meal harassing their kid about what he does or doesn't eat.

I hate it when parents say, "If you don't finish that, you'll eat it for breakfast!"

And I don't like the idea of using food as a reward or punishment.

However ....

I knew something was wrong around here when we all stayed at my in-law's house for the weekend a few months ago:

The girls were going to have a sleepover at their Aunt Carol's, so my MIL made some macaroni and cheese and a couple other simple things for the girls' dinner before they went. The girls wouldn't eat it.

Robert, fearing they would get Cranky and Difficult with no dinner, asked Aunt Carol if she could get the girls some dinner.

So Aunt Carol took the girls went through the McDonald's drive-thru. Rachael, age seven, cried when she saw her hamburger had "stuff" on it, and refused to eat it.

And I thought, This is not right.

So I started implementing an idea I think I read in a book, believe it or not, way back when I was pregnant with Rachel. Something like "How to Cope with a Picky Eater."

Here it is:

At mealtime, try to serve at least one food you know your kid likes. Serve them very small servings (about two or three bites) of everything.

They can eat, or not eat, whatever they like. But they can't have seconds of anything until they've finished everything on their plate.

And that's it.

I'm not militant about it. For breakfast, Rebecca still gets her waffles every day, and Rachael gets her oatmeal. But I usually do it at dinnertime, and it has helped. They are trying more foods and having a slightly more balanced diet.

BTW, I don't remember what the book says, but I personally wouldn't do something like that until about age four, which means Benjamin gets a break. Actually, right now he eats almost anything anyway.