The Life in the Day

Apr. 29, 2009

Piano at last!

When I was a little girl, my brothers and I spent much of our summer break each year at our Grandma and Granddad's house. It was a simple pleasure, filled with Asian pears fresh off the tree, refreshing dips in the above ground pool, all the cheese we could eat (Grandma always made sure there was plenty because she knew we loved it and our parents didn't buy much of it), quick walks up to Kilgore's convenient store where we could put a drink and a candy on Granddaddy's tab each day, long hours spent playing up in the hay loft, and (for me, at least) there was the piano.

Grandma's living room was basically off limits to the kids because it had NEW carpet and pristine furniture. But as I grew older and displayed more self-discipline, Grandma would let me sit in the living room and play her piano. I took 2 years of piano when I was 10 and 11, but at Grandma's I mostly just played around trying to pick out the melodies of my favorite hymns.

Of the 14 grandchildren, I was the only one who had any interest in that old piano. It wasn't much, just a small upright with a sticky key and a wobbly bench. It was covered with Grandma's old nick-nacks, including a figurine of a little girl riding on a rocking horse. I would dust the piano and it's "pretties" on top carefully with a rag nearly every day. Grandma would give me a Hershey's Kiss for this, which I hated and fed to her little pomeranian as soon as Grandma turned her back (heh, heh, OOPS!).

Grandma was a diabetic, a fact she tried to hide from the family until it was so bad that she had grown quite ill (several years of denial). Her youngest son and his wife, my Uncle Ken and Aunt Chris, had a baby boy at that time, and Grandma kept him while they worked. While I was there during the summer after I turned 12, I helped her take care of him because her health was failing. He was such a cute little darling and gave the sweetest hugs and kisses. She would bounce him on her knees and say "Old Lady Get on the Old White Horse" and lean him to each side and then way, way back. It was the happiest I ever saw her.

As most toddlers, he loved to bang around on the piano. He would giggle and squeal, and he even tried to play gently with his little chubby fingers tapping each key separately. It was a great diversion for both Grandma and me.

But when I was 13 years old, Grandma passed away. My heart was broken. This was my first experience with losing a family member. I was honored when the family asked me to sing for the funeral, but it was a difficult thing to do. I made it through one verse of the song, but I motioned to the pianist not to play the next and went to my seat and cried.

As things were being settled, I learned that Grandma had said the little figurine of the girl and rocking horse was to be mine (I was a horse enthusiast) and the piano was to be my youngest cousin's. I guess this made sense at the time, because my parents had a piano at home. But I knew that the little guy had no interest in the piano, and I had developed an emotional attachment to that instrument.

When I was a little older, my parents sold their piano because they had a financial need. And as a homeschooling mom, over the years I have wished for a piano and often thought longingly of that old piano of Grandma's. As I had expected, my little cousin never grew to love or even use it, but they wanted to hold on to it because Grandma had given it to him.

So one day last week, my mom came up to say with a sparkle in her eye, "So, where are you going to put the piano that Uncle Ken is giving you?"

My breath caught in my throat for a moment, and then I asked, "Grandma's?"

She nodded, and then ~~being the prim and proper mother that I am, I calmly smiled~~ I jumped around in circles squealing with joy. Ahem.

Uncle Ken had called to say that we could have it if we could come and get it by Saturday. Otherwise, they were going to put it out by the side of the road. See? It was so well loved.

We borrowed a truck, and my dad and hubby picked it up and gave it a temporary home in our garage until we figure out how on earth we can get it up our oddly shaped stairway without breaking it all to pieces or crushing someone in the process. It looks almost just as it did when I last saw it about 10 years ago, with a few superficial wounds and a couple more sticky keys. And it's still not much, but, oh, it's mine, and I'm in love.

So, without further ado, here it is:

And I even found a website where I can download and print off sheet music for learning piano, broken down by piano lesson grade level. Here's one I learned as a little girl. It took me about 30 minutes to relearn it (playing it an octave low because of those pesky sticky keys):

Now I have to save up enough money to hire someone to give it some tender, loving care. But I guess I need to find it a more permanent home first.

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Apr. 15, 2009

Sustainable energy...

I was researching history resources and stumbled across this...

Love it!

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Apr. 14, 2009

sick, sick, sick

School, rearranging rooms and organizing, laundry, and basically everything else has been lagging badly with everyone so sick. It will be nice when everyone is well again! I was eagerly hoping to be able to share with you pictures of my beautiful, newly arranged and perfectly organized schoolroom...but if I were to show them to you now, you'd most likely be shocked by the disarray.

My poor hubby has had to come home to this craziness for nearly a week now. He is such a wonderful and understanding man. He has been helping with dishes and laundry and even dinner preparation. I love him!!

I'm the latest to come down with strep throat, though I did everything I knew to keep it away. I covet your prayers. On a lighter note, my little ones have enjoyed having a mommy who is not on her feet all the day. Though I've not been able to read with them or play, we have gotten some wonderful cuddle time in!

Oh, and if anyone is reading this and can answer a question...I would love to know how to go about adding a video to my post. Thanks so much!

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Apr. 11, 2009

Poor bunny

Thursday afternoon while I was rearranging furniture, I gave Zechariah and Isaiah the go ahead to play outside for a little while. It was only moments later that they came running back upstairs and into the house yelling, "Mom! We have a rabbit in our yard!"

This was definitely not as strange as when Isaiah ran to me to tell me there were horses in our yard (we live in a subdivision). That time I was truly surprised to find that it was not a product of his active imagination...or just one of Rachael's toys.

A rabbit in the yard seemed much more likely. "Where?" I asked.

"In the bushes!" (Zach)

"Yeah, in the bushes!" (Isaiah, Zach's little echo)

Hmm...the only bushes we have are a few shrubs right in front of the house. I went to investigate, and this is how I found the kids.

They were just amazed at this little bunny. So I looked over the rail and this is what I saw next.

Umm...close up, anyone?

So I let them investigate a little, as any good homeschool mommy would do. I let Rachael come out in her pajamas, and I even called poor Daniel out in his pajamas (they were sick with strep throat).

They were very fascinated by the poor little bunny and spent a few minutes speculating as to it's cause of death. Did the cat bring it as a gift, as he had brought birds, mice, and moles?

But it was Rachael, not one of the boys, who first came at it with a stick. "Rachael, what are you doing?"

"I just want to poke it, Mama!" This is a picture of her second attempt at poking the poor thing. "He's stiff!"

Zach, ever practical like his daddy, said, "I'll go get the shovel, Mom." Here he is putting it back up after helping me scoop up the poor thing.

Just a little glimpse into the life that happens in every day around here.

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Apr. 9, 2009

My first post...

...in which I whine because I had a really great first post all written out and accidentally closed it because my sweet hubby changed the settings for closing tabs, and I got back here finally to find out that homeschool blogger does not have the auto save feature that my other blog service has.

Ok. Now that I got that out of my system, I thought I'd start off my blog by showing you what we've been working on today. See, a little over a year ago, I decided that I wanted to have my "dining room" turned back into a dining room...soooo, I shoved all our homeschool stuff into one tiny corner of my living room. As it turns out, though, we NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, EVER use the dining room because I guess we all like to eat in the kitchen so much. But it worked very well as a schoolroom. So here are some pics of us in the transition. For sure, there's still a LOT left to do, as you'll see:

That's where it's going to be...this is where it all was:

And in case you were wondering...no, it didn't look like this before I started moving everything around. There were two more bookshelves, one on each side of this one, and I pulled all the stuff off them and out of the desk, etc. I can't wait to share what it will look like when I'm all done rearranging!

Oh, and you should go back up and look at the new schoolroom shot. See the piece of paper hanging off the light fixture? My sweet 7 year old daughter put that there so I would stop banging my head on it...OUCH!! So far it has worked, thank the Lord, cause I don't know how many more times I could have whapped myself without getting a concussion! :)

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About Me

This is a homeschool extension of my other blog on blogger: The Life in the Day. We are a family of 8. Shelley (that's me), Loren (that's my awesome hubby!), and our children: Joshua, Daniel, Rachael, ^Abigail^ (with Jesus), Zechariah, and Isaiah. We are a Jesus-loving, homeschooling, church-working, simple-living family. And we're glad you've stopped by to visit!