Lesson one and other random miscellany
Lesson one:
I started learning the violin along with the other kids in Gracie’s summer music class today. It was fun. I’ve inspired one of the other moms to bring her violin and learn along with me. Gracie and I practiced last night and I think it’s going to do us both a lot of good. She needs some major one-on-one time and the best way to learn is to teach so there you go. Now that I’m practicing with her, however, I see she’s getting frustrated. I gently try to help her but I can see that suddenly having someone at home who can practice with her is making it a bit harder than it used to be. I don’t want to discourage her but I also want her to learn how to play and understand that anything worth doing requires some sweat equity. Most importantly, though, I want her to love doing it. By that I mean I don’t want her to trudge through just to make me happy. I hope she still sticks with it. When it comes to Gracie, you have to know how to work with her sensitivity. She’s quick to cry and can be sensitive so you have to approach her with a lot of love and understanding. It’s funny because on the one hand she can be very sensitive but on the other she can be pretty tough. I don’t know where she gets it from.
What I still need to learn how to do is tune. Being a new instrument, the strings on my violin will slide out of tune for a little while until it stabilizes and Gracie’s will need tuning from time to time too. I’m sure Google will fetch me something to teach me how to do it. I won’t be able to do it by ear so I’ll have to stop by the music store and get a pitch pipe or something. I can’t wait to practice!
Random miscellany:
In other news, a friend of mine told me about an opening at About.com for the guide position for photography. She’s suggested applying for openings in other topics before but for one reason or another I didn’t apply. Mostly it was my worries about not being qualified but this time I said what the hell and did it anyway.
I had to submit a writing sample so I spent much of yesterday working on it. It wouldn’t have taken me the entire day had the kids not been as loud as a bunch of monkeys and my husband turning up the TV to hear over said monkeys. Of course, in his irritation he didn’t take into account that it was he who was working them up in the first place and expecting them to calm and quiet the minute sports was on television was a bit unrealistic. Men.
I finally escaped to Iain’s room and sat on his bed with my laptop and wrote and edited and re-edited and edited some more. It’s not a masterpiece but it shows understanding of a topic in photography to present to someone at a beginner level. It also shows them that I can stitch a sentence or three together and do it in a way that proves I attended school beyond the fifth grade. Anyone who has read in an Internet forum knows that it’s not always easily discernible who is and who is not educated beyond junior high school. I’m not sure if it’s because people get lazy online or if it’s the state of our educational system. People out there are stupid. Hnst 2 gd. Anyhow, I hope I hear soon. Patience is not a virtue I possess. I don’t want to think about it too much lest I set myself up for disappointment.
I’m finally finishing the great sibling room move. Children, beds, toys and dressers have been switched so now all that is left is clothes. I’ll be more than happy to get rid of the mountain of laundry baskets in my living room. It’s driving me mad! Of course, am I doing that? Nope.
I just got my package of calling cards in the mail. No, I’m not referring to cards with prepaid minutes to call international relatives. I’m talking about honest to goodness, old-fashioned calling cards (oops, my bad — they are now known as personal contact cards). VistaPrint.com was offering 250 free business cards plus shipping (it was maybe $5) and I’d been thinking of doing something simple like my name and email address on a business card for awhile now. They had a category just for personal contact cards and it looks like it’s geared toward the mommy set. I vaguely remember seeing something on The Today Show about moms with calling cards but that was some time ago.
Why I thought of it is because many times I’m scrambling for paper and a pen to write down my info and I either don’t find anything or I write it poorly on a scrap of thermal paper receipt (Target, I’m talkin’ to you) that will be lost or thrown away by mistake anyway. This way I only have to whip out the card, hand it over and be on my way. I ordered 25 free magnets along with it to give to moms who I interact with more often so they can keep my info on their fridge next to their Realtor and the plumbing dude. Next I’m going to work on some marketing materials and see how well their free samples (postcards for example) hold up.
