Figured We'd Post - Sorry for the Two Day Delay

Monday, January 13, 2014 @ 11:58 am
Good morning.  This is me.  We’re finally starting off after a long time of not writing … seems like we go on these binges with about two weeks in-between.  Stuff has been happening, but I don’t think we will write ALL day in that we want to get a little sewing done too.  Ok, and truth be told … we need to do some housework.  It reminds me we should start the laundry while we’re thinking of it.  BRB
Ok, we’re back AND we have popcorn.  We did good.  We’ve started to write, we puffed up the dryer load and washed a second load and we emptied the dishwasher, put a few more dishes in her and we washed about 8 glasses by hand, AND cleaned off the surfaces.  I know I know … not a lot, BUT it does make a difference in the kitchen.  It looks all spiffy, except the floor.  Might have to do something about that too.  Next up time, we’re going to fold blankets and make the bed.  And, then fold some clothes and to be REALLY different, we’re going to try hanging some clothes today.  Rich brought back a high chair so I could sit in the closet.  Not much room in there, but then the next thing would be to get a small board from the garage OR, maybe a folded box would work.  There is one in the sitting room.  Gotta start putting those clothes away on hangers.  The next thing to do would be to get out the vacuum.  The sitting room with the cat scratch boxes are the worst.  Looked past Rich sitting at the table and I KNOW the sunroom needs it next AND then it would follow that the living room, bedroom and kitchen floors need it too.  No question on the kitchen floor.  And, then the last thing if not before OTHER than folding the second load too would be assuring that all the counter/table tops are picked up.  That be a good Ann.
I think we’re then on a good schedule.  We already practiced this morning for an hour.  It seems the best time is about 7 am.   At least at that time we’re excited AND we have a captive audience Rich.  He’s already up doing business, but he’s not too much on the phone making calls yet, so we’re not a TERRIBLE bother.  Just a regular one. 
Maybe you didn’t all hear that part.  I think the first week of January the lady I had talked to before – Michelle about taking piano lessons called back like we’d asked her to do.   It was too much during the holidays, but the deal is that she works through the park district and it costs about $90 for the book and six weeks of lessons.  That naturally breaks down to about $15 per session/wk.  I go in on Wednesdays at 3 pm.  We go to the park district building which is actually pretty small.  I don’t know if they have a real piano there, but I don’t have a real piano at home – just a keyboard, so that part didn’t make a problem.  She has a full 88 key e-piano.  Ours is only 61 keys BUT they light up!  Hehehe … well it is kinda fun and takes some of the tedium away.
Last week was our first lesson.  She actually carried me about 50 minutes and she had a very full session.  Little things were learned like I know she plays piano for her church and she has an 18 year old son.  Not much more is known about her.  She knows that I’m a Multiple and that I have some upper education especially in learning and psychology.  She said something about feeling better after taking some medicine, so we were thinking that she takes some kind of medicine like we do. 
She’s real smart, quick and knows what she is doing.  She has a plan in her mind about the things she wants to cover.  She also wants to start at the very beginning we can start out fresh doing things right, and taking care of little problems as they come up.  I like that method A LOT!  We took a recorder class (flute) in college and didn’t get through it all the way because we were so frustrated with him skipping all over the place.  Then he would bring his recorder and we’d be site reading music together, but it was REAL music and it was way over my head.  With Michelle, we are starting off with only three notes on our right hand and three notes on our left.  The music is for three blind mice.  If I were playing it on my computer it would sound like lfdkjs fldkjs.  Hehehe well not a REAL lot to be working on, but it’s a start. 
I’m working on all the different octaves and I’ve switched instruments a lot, AND I’m not sure if she’s going to mind, but I added all ten fingers instead of six.  I’m still keeping my hand on the same place she indicated.  It was one of the first things I learned.  Basically, both thumbs play the same “C” note.  Depending if you are reading treble or bass.  I’m starting to do work with the coordination of those notes so I can go up and down several times without stopping and hitting very rhythmically each note with and equal thump.  Sometimes, I look at our hands, but most often I’m trying to look at the page of music notes.  It’s actually of several octaves, but we keep practicing just the same ten fingers.  Other times we try to concentrate on naming the notes like “C, D, E, F, G” on the right hand and “C, B, A, G, F” on the left hand.  The one other thing we’re practicing is getting an idea of whether the note is on a line or in a space.  Naturally on the right hand the lines would be “C, E, and G” and the spaces would be “D and F”, etc.
Nothing is too hard, but there are surprisingly enough a lot of things to be remembering.  One more thing we have to remember is not to put up our pinkies.  They are supposed to curve over the keyboard – just in a hover.  We can’t do that on all at once but we are trying.  I’m realizing that when we type on the computer we don’t really lift our pinkie so high at least all of the time, so we have hope for our piano playing. 
In the last several days, we’ve also been watching people play the piano to see what their hands are doing.  If they are good enough to be recording themselves, they are good enough to do music without looking.  Pshwoo.  Not us yet!  We’re going to need piano music all the time I’m afraid.  We’re going back to the part of having a moderate to severe impairment in our ability to recall.  I don’t think that’s something that you can get over.  It’s something wrong with the way our brain processes, and if it were left up to me, I’d say it was because of getting hit and kicked in the head when we were young.  Not that I want that to be our excuse, but it’s where we are at. 
Moving on … We folded the clothes in the dryer, but the second load in the dryer, cleaned off the surfaces and folded the blankets.  Hmm, forgot to make the bed.  Maybe we’ll give that a moment or two. 
Ok, well it seems as soon as we make up our mind, then someone comes by and says … nah.  SO keeping that in mind, we went in the bedroom, picked up and unpacked our suitcase, made our bed, and get this …. WE HUNG CLOTHES!  Our ideas worked out.  We had taken the basket out for our sewing group, and then when we were done, we tucked our chair under our clothes so we could again walk in the closet.  We hung up ALLL the folded ready for hanging clothes!  WooHOO!!!  That was a big chore we were putting off.  It’s not an ideal situation, but we took in the cardboard box and weighted on top of the duffle bag thing holder.  It’s about 3 -4 feet wide and hold on metal hangers four bags.  The idea is to get things to the wash before two bags get full.  It worked having the chair in the closet really well – especially after we picked up the folded clothes that were sitting in there on the floor.  I think those were dating back to when Thom was here mid-November.  Pswhoo!  It was a long time.  We’re then SUPER happy with the new system.  It’s just that before our back would ache just standing there putting away a half dozen shirts.  There’s nothing to kill motivation than pain.
We still have to hang up the clothes from the dryer, but already a lot of the hesitation is gone.  Good girls!
Ok, so bedroom is done – all the rooms are picked-up though I think the sewing room could use some good decluttering.  I’ll have to look into that too, but maybe not today.  Tomorrow our appointment with Dr. Marvin is at 2 pm, so that gives us an extra hour to the front part of the day.  YAY!!!  Now if we did REALLY good, we would next set-up some vacuuming.  Rich is at his computer checking out some things now, but he has to go to his mothers to check medicines and then go grocery shopping.  Hopefully, then we’ll have the counter cleaned off before he gets home, AND most of the vacuuming.  I’m not sure if we’ll get the kitchen floor washed, but that be the ideal goal.  Still want to save some time for sewing, and MAYBE another piano practice.  Hmm, AND I want to continue writing.  Do regular people have this much trouble with choices? 
We’ll see.  We’re looking at pretty good time.  It’s about 2 pm now.  So we’ll see how far we can go.  I think the vacuuming at least takes 20 minutes in between different rooms.  The sitting room one makes me want to cry.  OHHHH and we have to do the litter box/garbage too.  We did it before we left, but those things have a way of sneaking up on you. 
Hmm, AND one more thing.  We should take a shower about 4:30-5 pm.  Usually, our favorite time is when Rich is cooking.  That might be a little early for him.  He said hopefully just a couple of hours, but we’re thinking this kind of trip usually runs late.  I think what we’d found before which worked really well was to be practicing the piano during some of the time Rich was preparing food too.  It seems to be the time we’re at our grouchiest, but yesterday and last week when we played it during that time, we were able to distract ourselves and able to wait patiently until Rich said dinner was ready.  Thinking, Thinking
Maybe what we could do on the days that we’re home is plan our regular shower for 4:30 pm, and then we can do the piano at 7 am and 5 pm.  All these times have worked.  Then from 8-4:30 pm – which is a full days work, we can plan to do other things.  Last night it worked that we sewed from 7:30 – 9:00 pm, and then we spent from 9 pm through the night with Rich.  Going in the bedroom with him at 9 pm works, because then he gets an hour or more of backrubbing before either fall asleep.  I think he’s happy with that and in the meantime the 1 ½ - 2 hours of sewing gives him time to watch some of his more “violent” shows.  He seems to have a lot of shows with guns and mystery especially police or some form of detective. 
I also found it nice when I was in there last night, was that it gave me a chance to watch what WE wanted to watch.  It’s been a long time since something like that happened.  Usually, only when Rich is gone.  We’ve been trying to watch lately some Will and Grace shows.  We had an idea of what they were, but we haven’t seen them so don’t have to worry about reruns.  That’s the problem with Big Bang.  There’s only one show a week that is new.  It just seems then like a good idea.  Maybe further down the line, we’ll explore more channels.
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