Ordinary Time

If I had unlimited funds and unlimited room, this is the little souvenir I would be bringing home from my little judging jaunt. Do you not love it? It's a panda piano. Who doesn't need and love a panda piano? It's made my Pearl River Pianos. (It's a  Chinese business out of Guangzhou, hence the name Pearl River, since it runs right through the city. I've seen it. The river, not the company.) The recital halls where I was judging are attached to a piano store , and are owned by a friend of my mom's. He has two of these pianos in his store. I love them. Sadly, even just one will not fit into my carry on.

Gretel loves to play. One of Gretel's favorite game is chase. Gretel doesn't want to chase people (though there's nothing better to her than chasing rabbits and squirrels), she wants people to chase her. Chase is even better than fetching balls. Playing chase is the best, best thing and Gretel will do anything to get people to chase her. Gretel has discovered that bolting out the front door is the very best way to play her favorite game. Gretel's people do not like to play chase. They will throw balls. They will point out the rabbits. Gretel's people do not think playing chase is fun. Gretel's people think that playing chase with Gretel when she bolts out the front door is the worst game in the world. Gretel's people have to play the game Stalking when Gretel bolts and carefully sneak up on her, piece of food in hand, to stop the game the of chase. Gretel's people do not like this. One of Gretel's people teaches piano. This is fun because there a...

You know the story about the shoemaker who made shoes for everyone but his own family, right? That is always a bit how I've felt about my own children and piano lessons. I teach other people's children to play the piano, but teaching my own children often has fallen by the wayside. Today, I woke up and decided to turn over a new leaf and begin piano lessons for my children (again). I was glad everyone was so excited when I announced the news, but also felt a little badly that this is something they are all (well, except for B.) interested in and something I can easily do, but just haven't. The first step today was to figure out just where everyone was at. Some have had more actual instruction than others and some have taught themselves quite a bit, so it was a matter of matching books to ability. I will be teaching five of the ten. A. is much farther than I remembered and remembers more than I expected. P. and TM are of the 'teach myself' school, so I need to sp...