leading music on a Super Saturday

I got to lead the music for a stake leadership meeting on Saturday.  The organist emailed and asked what tempo I would like the hymns to be.  I replied with tempos at least 25% faster than the typical range.  He took me at my word and played them fast.  It was really fun.

Saturday was amazing.  M and I attended an exercise class at Marineland.  It was a HIIT in front of the dolphin tanks.  So amazing.  M was in a different group than me.  There were other young girls who ran off or stood around when it started to rain.  M kept going through the 5 rounds of 7 exercises.  I was glad she put in the work. A member of the group came up to me at the end and asked if she was my daughter and said she had worked hard the whole time.

Afterward we went out to clean the beach for International Peace Day and were given free passes for the whole family, who joined us at the clean up. 

We came home and had lunch.  The children were eager to have their computer time that they had earned all week long.  This was our first week of not having computer turns during the week.  Instead the children earned time for the school work, or bike miles, and piano practice they did.  Everyone earned at least an hour.  While I was gone at Stake Conference they each played many more hours than they earned I'm sure.  But overall it was a significant decrease from their usual "living for computer time" lifestyle.  It had gotten to the point that I felt like we couldn't go to the park or library during their computer hours.  Lame.  So we change and adapt. 

pathological

M has been going through and playing old songs from 2 books ago.  This is actually an assignment from her piano teacher.  Tonight she was playing the song that lP is doing for suzuki WRONG!  I can not tell you how crazy making it was for me to hear something that is to be done as ear training, played wrong.  That's like peeing in the cheerios. For reals.  Ack!

Food storage

I have had food storage with a mix of duty and prepper fever.  Earlier this year a friend was moving and wanted me to take all the food storage they never used and didn't want to move with again.  She had tons of dry milk, noodles and freeze dried vegetables along with the usual wheat.  I gratefully added hers into my own and began using the dry milk freely in my breads and pancakes. 

Today I had the kids sort, inventory, clean and re-pack the food storage.  They didn't want to at first but then they had a blast.  Now they are vacuuming the garage so they can skate around on the strips of card board I made to label the piles.

I notice that I am much more inclined to use these food storage items from my friend.  They were free to me, and to not use them would be ungrateful.  When I buy things for storage I feel very reluctant to use them because I bought them to STORE.  It's an interesting switch for me to recognize my thinking motivates and changes my behavior.

The trees I have loved

I read Lab Girl a few years ago and loved how the author described her relationships with trees.  I loved the trees in my neighborhood and knew the ones in my yard so well.  In the back yard there was a horse chestnut tree whose spiky seed tennis balls were a curiosity and a nuisance.  Along with the horse chestnut there were tons of gigantic tall oak trees on a 3/4 acre lot.  The front yard had lilac bushes at 4 corners so the smell in the spring was like walking into a room.  The weeping willow at the south east corner made the effect of walking into a room even more pronounced year round.  In the north east corner there was a chinese lantern tree whose funny seed pods provided amusement for months.  The azalea hedge along the front of the yard was a barrier.  On the north side of the yard there were black berries growing on the flagstone retaining wall.  Wild strawberries grew in the yard with buttercups in abundance.  At the edge of the driveway there was a tulip poplar that I loved to pick the leaves of and hold up to my face.  Next to the house there was a holly tree that had good branches for climbing but very pokey leaves.  In front of the porch there were rose of sharon bushes that we would create little dolls out of by putting a bud onto an upside down blossom.  There was a dog wood tree in the side yard we would climb to get onto the fence and leap to the tire swing suspended from a 20+foot branch of an oak tree. 

I had a very happy time outdoors.  I'm grateful for my childhood in Virginia.

E-va-cu-cation

  We drove to G-town on Monday to spend the day with Grandma L.  There was gas available the whole way and no traffic.  We had been ordered to evacuate so we were worried that the opposite would be true.  We picked up Grandma and went to see butterflies before the exhibit got closed for the hurricane.

 Me and my big kids hardly fit in a selfie anymore.  But we still fit on a little bench in the butterfly exhibit.

B has been wanting an umbrella for a long time.  This was our third trip to the museum with that on his wish list.  I checked at walmart and found that kid umbrellas were about $10 either way.  They had a cool space one but the handle was a large rocket, not easy to handle.  B chose this one with sharks and fish instead.  It has been treasured and loved and coveted by L.  B sleeps with it, dances with it, and carries stuffed animals around in it.

 

 B is a super reader and I love how often he and L are tucked away somewhere reading together.

During our 3 days visit in G-town we went to the museum, pool with water slide, 3 playgrounds, 2 libraries, and Panda Express.  It was a great time and we had a lot of fun with Grandma and aunt L and aunt E.  I'm so grateful we had such a wonderful place to go to wait out the hurricane.

Dorian

We've been ordered to evacuate because the road into our neighborhood is likely to flood, but our house should be fine at 10+ feet above sea level.  Shutters are down, car is mostly loaded, generator packed.  We'll pull out in the morning and wait for this storm to turn north as the predictions say.

We are so blessed.  I have a childish curiosity to go to a shelter, but I wouldn't want to actually be stuck there or expose the kids to any risk.  So we will go hang out with relatives in cinder block homes that are so kind to let us land with them.

Florida!

In other news, we went to the beach Saturday and I jumped around in the waves like a teenager or something and had so much fun.  Hurricanes are harsh, but so are snow storms.  I remember a bad snow storm when I was in high school.  We lost power for days and could only hike out of the neighborhood.