May 31, 2011 5:51 p.m.

Don’t you just love pictures?  I do, too, except I haven’t posted that many of them lately.  But I hope to make up for it now.  Here is a photo journal of various doings and highlights over the past several weeks.

How many weeks has it been already?  Our yard Easter egg hunt seems so long ago.

As I recall, it was a beautiful Spring morning.  Spring is pretty much gone already here.   Summer has set in.

Chips is not too old for this yet.  But I don’t know about next year…

Sweet Girl proudly shows off her painted fingernails.  Her hands look so perfect to me. (I am biased).

It was high time we got a new microwave here, one which actually functioned properly.  Self-Reliant Man got on that this month, too.

It amazes me what passes for a mounting bracket these days.

My poor cooktop!!

And here it is.  My kitchen is really looking good now!

Sweet Girl thinks the electric circuit science experiment for Calvert 3rd grade is pretty interesting.

 

This is our practice session the day before the FSMTA competition in Tallahassee.  That’s our dear Miss O. on piano.  She’s the best.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos or record the actual event.

May 14th: At FSU.  Chips held up the award certificate for me, although he really had higher hopes for that event.

We couldn’t resist this posed photo, although Chips really still wasn’t feeling too happy then.

May 21 was the day we finally celebrated our May 14th SEVENTEENTH wedding anniversary at a certain local French restaurant.  This is a nice tradition I can live with…

…. yes, along with inviting the children to join us for dinner.  We are weird that way.

Miss O. performed a great musical concert at our church on May 22.   She is one busy lady.  She performed violin, electric violin, piano, and here, even accordion (!!!) and kept the crowd happy for over an hour.  This is a terrible photo, but the concert was great fun.  She deserves a break today.

Finally, a bit of daily life around here.  As you know, Sweet Girl just loves to read aloud to anybody who will listen.  Here she is reading to Chips while he sits on the Throne.  Priceless! 

Thanks for taking a look into our house.

May 26, 2011 10:41 a.m.

Okay, so we did it.  Yesterday Chips and Sweet Girl auditioned for a certain youth orchestra in a city near us.  It turns out their auditions were received well by the directors.  Extremely well.  So Sweet Girl now has the opportunity to join an orchestra of her own, and Chips will be able to join a different orchestra that is more geared to his level of playing.  They are both very excited to have been accepted.

Part of our reasons for seeking out orchestra at this time is that we feel our kids would benefit from the positive atmosphere they will encounter there.  It will be good for their skills and talents to be appreciated in different circles than the ones they have been inside to date.  Chips has not found a new chamber group to join, and it doesn’t appear there is going to be anything new starting at church.  Some of the most formidable competitors on the state level are also members of youth orchestras in their cities.  At least two of those have been soloists with their orchestras.  And speaking of state competitions, they haven’t always been very affirming or encouraging experiences for our kids.  It is time to give our children another reason to be proud and excited about violin.

However, the decision to actually join or not join is not one that I am taking lightly.  I need wisdom, here, because there are many things to consider.  First of all, our violin teacher is not going to be happy about it.  She has voiced her concerns about this in the past, concerns that early participation in any orchestra could have a deleterious effect on her students’ technique.  She has also voiced concerns that her students will have less time to work on the music she assigns them, and instead come to her (too much) for assistance with the orchestra music.  I recognize the possibilities here, and plan to have our children learn and practice their orchestra pieces as independently as possible.

But most of all, although she hasn’t said this in so many words, I think she is concerned that orchestra participation will erode the level of influence she has over my children’s violin playing.  And yes, I cannot guarantee against this.  Our teacher is operating in a very different world from the local orchestras.  If her students receive one type of feedback from other adults, and a very different type of feedback from herself, it can have unpredictable results on our children’s attitude about their playing over time. 

As an aside, our teacher is Russian-born and trained, and if I recall correctly, youth orchestras are not a thing in Russia.  They have their reasons for this.

So, we have to think this through.   We definitely need wisdom, as joining an orchestra  is likely to alter our kids’ violin (and perhaps even social) trajectories in ways we cannot anticipate.   We have to make up our minds that we will continue to participate, as before, in state competitions, in order to continue to raise the bar on ourselves to the same extent we have been doing these past 7 years.  We have to continue to make Miss S’s music assignments a first priority, and to uphold the standard she sets, and the respect our children pay her, through the year. 

But first, I have to get past telling her about the auditions.

There is potentially more to say about Chips’ orchestra placement, but I will leave that alone for now until we find out more.

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May 24, 2011 10:06 p.m.

I have made my blog public for a moment just to post this notification.  Please make a note of this change.

This is just a notification to let you know that since my blog was changed to private, the RSS feed has been shut off.  Therefore, if you are used to relying on a reader, like Google reader, to notify you of new posts to my blog, it will no longer work.  Unfortunately, you have to actually check in and visit daily to see if there is a new post.  I am sorry for this inconvenience, but I am learning about this as I go along.

By the way, I have 45 readers now.  I really appreciate all of you!

May 24, 2011 9:50 p.m.

I just realized today that my RSS feed is no longer working since this blog went private.  So, if you are used to relying on your reader to find out about new posts, it will not work anymore.  You have to actually stop by and check the blog site itself.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but it is probably unavoidable.

I appreciate you guys!

May 24, 2011 12:25 p.m.

It was a simple, and yet precious, question.  I was replacing the bedspread on Sweet Girl’s bed when I happened to walk past Chips’ room.  He was glancing up at the top shelf in his closet at a box he couldn’t reach without getting a chair from another room.  Then he saw me.

“Can I have that?”  he asked.  “I need to get the batteries out of my electrical kit to try in this flashlight”.

“Sure, Little Son,” (which I still call him) and got down the box easily and gave it to him with a big hug as well.

It was such a short and simple question, but as I walked out of the room, it kind of hit me between the eyes.  Chips is such a confident, capable, and independent boy; it seems like he always has been for whatever age he has been.  Yet, he could still benefit today from my reaching up and easily retrieving a high box for him.  He is still short enough to need me in this small and simple way.

A year or so from now, he might be towering over me in height.  How many more times will I be able to retrieve something from a high shelf for him?  I almost felt like shouting,  “Hey, anytime you need anything stored up high like that, forget getting a chair.  Just ask me!” 

A sweet and simple moment. 

How many more times? 

Time is fleeting.

May 23, 2011 8:49 a.m.

Sweet Girl loves to write and is currently at work on her own mystery novel.  She has read so many mystery novels that her daily spoken vocabulary is beginning to be formed by such words as you would find in Nancy Drew books.  Can’t think of any such words offhand, but when I hear her say them I recognize them.

Anyway, some time back she wrote a short poem and the other day she asked if I had posted it to the blog.  I told her I honestly did not remember if I had, so here it is..

Raindrops

Raindrops, silvery raindrops

Falling from teary clouds.

When the sun peeks out and the rainbow shines,

The raindrops say goodbye!

                  --written by Sweet Girl, some time in 2010

May 20, 2011  2:20 p.m.

Can anybody answer this?  When you view my posts, do you see the same “Ad” at the bottom of each post, from Photobucket, saying that my “bandwidth is exceeded”? 

I am just wondering, because I don’t even have a Photobucket account. 

All my photos are stored on Picasa.  I am just wondering if it is something that only I see, or does everyone else see it, too?

So strange, and annoying.

May 20, 2011 2:09 p.m.

That’s me, I guess.  Did you know that tomorrow is Judgment Day?  I can’t believe that nobody at our church has mentioned this yet.  I was there on Wednesday evening, and everybody was milling around like normal, like nothing unusual was in the works.

In fact, we had church directory photos taken, and we let them have 75 of our hard-earned dollars, after they told us the photos would be delivered in two weeks.  Ha Ha – looks like the joke is on us!

Thank Drudge Report for tipping me off to this, and therefore, all of my fortunate readers.   I am so glad, or else I wouldn’t have stood a chance.  So, over at FamilyRadio.com, there is the following image on their front webpage:

I figured it was okay for me to steal borrow it.  After all, they aren’t going to be around to sue me.

So what should our family do this evening?  Maybe some grocery shopping, like every other Friday evening.

Don’t they know that nobody knows the time, nor the hour, except the Father?

May 19, 2011 1:05 p.m.

Hey!  Since this is a PRIVATE blog now, I can actually share this. 

This is the winners list, and this is the link to Chips’ bio.  He took Junior Strings - Honorable Mention on Saturday.  Despite our initial disappointment on that day (for various reasons, not all of which had to do with violin) his teacher says he should feel good about the honorable mention; that they don’t always give out an honorable mention if they don’t think it was deserved (which was sadly the case with the Senior Level Strings this year). 

The problem was, that there were only three competitors, and he came in third – as he said, “otherwise known as ‘last’ ”.    This bummed him out.   Plus, a seven year old beat him. 

But what bothered him most was having certain (uninvited) relatives who were present see him coming in last.  Relatives who, perhaps, don’t have an appreciation for all that goes into violin.   Who only saw that he was the only one of the three who stumbled in his piece, and that he lost to a “little guy”.  Folks who think he’d be happier, “normaller”, and better off on a soccer field or spending his free time with a Playstation than being made to suffer through practicing violin.

Anyway, Chips needs to enjoy his year of fame and feel good about it.  He certainly worked hard. 

May 18, 2011 10:40 p.m.

Whew!  It sure feels good to be here on the other side now.  I have a feeling that this is going to breath some fresh air into this blog.  I really appreciate all of you who crossed over with me.  It really is wonderful that I have good friends in real life, and in the blogosphere, who are interested in reading about the lives of Chips and Sweet Girl.     About 35 of you made it over here.  A few didn’t quite make it, unfortunately, and I haven’t been able to reach most of my international visitors, but I am happy for how everything worked out today.   Thank you, thank you , thank you!

May 17, 2011

I am very happy to say that so far I have 22 readers who have indicated an interest in continuing to visit this blog.  Thank you, and unfortunately there are several who I still have not heard from so when you see this post, please send me an email ASAP (email address in previous post) and let me know.  And to Dawn in Nebraska, I surely hope to hear from you, whether you have a blog or not.   You’ve been a great visitor and I will miss you if I don’t hear from you.

It won’t be long now. 

 

May 15, 2011  4:30 p.m.

Well, readers, unfortunately, at the request of my husband, it looks like I am going to have to take my blog underground and make it by invitation only.  I really hate to have to do this, as I was really enjoying an extensive and growing readership, especially with many newer readers from the community which is a part of our homeschooling curriculum.  But, it seems that some folks are bent on spoiling my fun.  It is such pathetically juvenile nonsense.   They have no shame.

I will no longer be able to acquire any new readers, which really disappoints me.

So I am leaving this post up for a few more days, and hoping that most of you promptly send me an email to let me know that you want to get an invitation to continue reading. 

 

My email address is billberna at bellsouth dot net.

Here is the information I will need in your email:

1.)  I need to know your email address to put you on the list.  It is possible that you need to have a Google account and a Gmail address for it to work. (not yet sure about this, though)  If so, please tend to that first and send me the Gmail address.

2.)  Also, if you don’t mind (for my sake) let me know a bit about yourself including first name and through what means you have come to read my blog, as well as your location (city, state, country), what we have in common, etc., so I “recognize” you.  Please don’t let this part scare you off.

3.) In addition, in order to approve you as a reader, you need to give me the URL of your own blog.  I am truly sorry about this, it will eliminate some, but it is the only safeguard I have to ensure that I am only approving readers who I want to approve.  I have no other means to invite you without this info.  (there are certain personal friends who are exceptions to this requirement, so you guys, don’t worry).

I eagerly hope to hear from all my Followers, and from most of you, and not lose too many readers in this process.

It is a sad shame that I have to do this, and I know it is an inconvenience to you all, but some people never learn, and to recall what I wrote a few posts ago: 

People who think they are clever

often turn out to be the losers

in the end.

May 14, 2011 10:14 p.m.

 

Home Again…

….. and not feeling especially good. 

Today was our 17 wedding anniversary.  But, it was a miserable day for us.  Not just the competition itself, but also experiencing, once again,  lack of consideration and respect from others. 

But I will talk only about the music competition.  Things did not go well for Chips, and I will not go into too much detail here on the blog.  We had a seven hour trip home, enough time to do a full post mortem analysis.  When I got home, I checked my lesson notes from the past few months and confirmed what we had suspected all along.  Some last minute decisions were made by our teacher, just two days before the competition, that significantly changed the way she wanted Chips to play his concerto.  It was, perhaps, a last ditch effort on the part of our teacher to add more “flash” to his performance, perhaps due to her fear of his very skilled opponents.  It was a recipe for disaster, and unfortunately, Chips was the unhappy casualty. 

On the way home, I sadly looked back at him in the van, seeing how he was feeling so incredibly dejected.  A boy who can play violin so splendidly should not be feeling this way!  Something is not right.  Fortunately, by the time we neared home, he was his normal self, laughing and giggling and pretending with his sister, enjoying games of “Go Fish” and “War”.  Chips is so incredibly resilient.

So it has been an especially hard experience for us.  For those of you who are interested, please email me and I will share the whole story with you.

billberna  at  bellsouth  dot  net. 

Strangely enough,  Chips’ duet partner just switched over to another teacher this week.  Hm…

May 11, 2011 10:27 a.m.

Scarcely unwound from this past weekend, and now turning our attention to the coming competition.  For Chips, this one is a much bigger deal than last weekend was because it is not easy to even qualify to participate.  (This is in sharp contrast to Federation where every student who gets a “Superior” rating in their local audition is allowed to attend at the state level).  Our teacher, Miss S., is one of the most respected string pedagogues in our metro area.  And it has been three years since she has been able to send any student to this upcoming competition.  So you see, it is a bigger deal.

We are full of thanks to all those who really have taken a sincere interest in Chips’  accomplishments.  In addition, we are thankful for the way that his teacher, Miss S., and his accompanist, Miss O., have bent over backwards on Chips’ behalf to give him the best possible chance on this coming Saturday.  Both ladies have unselfishly given of their time, attention, and energy to help Chips.  They have scheduled extra (free) practice sessions at various locations to provide extra coaching.  Since Miss S. is unable to play the piano part, Miss O. has often been willing to meet  with us to work on the piece.  She will be meeting with us again tomorrow, and even on Friday, to give Chips every opportunity to do well.  She will also be making a ten hour round trip by car, with an overnight stay, to make it all happen and to stand in for our teacher whose doctor has not allowed her to travel so far.   We are so amazed at the dedication of such people and feel blessed that we have two dedicated teachers who are involved in this competition now.  Folks are bending over backwards to make this a good experience for us.

Also, we appreciate all those friends who have taken a sincere interest in our kids’ violin playing, their performances, their ups and downs, successes and failures, and who have been truly supportive of us all along the way.  Friends from the music community, friends from church, work … You know who you are.  So no matter how it all turns out, we know we always have a strong support system among you.

Our objective now is to make the next days go smoothly, and to help Chips stay properly focused on the short term goal,  because there is no telling if or when the opportunity will arise again.  Hopefully nothing will come along to undermine our efforts.  We also have a lot to do in the next couple of days, especially as we are trying to keep up our homeschool schedule at the same time, so I will be offline (i.e. not blogging, not online, not on computer, etc.) until after our return.  Thank you friends.

Nearly a half century upon this earth and I thought I had seen everything, but this weekend topped all.  When we were out of town for our state competitions, we happened to enter a local restaurant for lunch.  While we were eating, I noticed a family with two children at another table across the dining room.  The children were involved in the competition and the family appeared to be well-educated.  The child had gotten up to stand on top of one of the chairs and the father was standing alongside; he had whipped out about 20 inches of dental floss and was proceeding to floss that child’s teeth right there in the restaurant dining room while people were eating lunch. 

It just reminded me of how many people, no matter how old, or how educated, simply don’t have a clue.

Which led me to think about things I have learned over the years.  Tidbits on wisdom.  Here are a few.
When you lose someone's trust it is very difficult to earn it back.

May 8, 2011 9:45 p.m.

We are back from our first state competition.  It is the FFMC convention, affectionately (or not) referred to by students and teachers in our state as “Federation”.

So, let me tell you about the Federation experience, our annual pilgrimage to the city of “ Jax” for our “day of atonement”, our musical self-flagellation, our competitive penance.  You are beginning to get the idea, perhaps?

Federation, for this violin mom, is like a pregnancy all compressed into three nights and two days away from home, with hours of heart-pounding labor and frequent adrenaline rushes, all to culminate in giving birth to … a ribbon.

A ribbon did you say?

To begin with, here is today’s photo of Chips’ dresser.

Do you see that red white and blue ribbon on the wall?  That is the newborn of the family.

Other special features of Federation include….. sleepless nights in a hotel with beds that are too soft, tossing and turning and reliving  dozens of moments of the day, only to repeat the tossing and turning on each successive night.  Didn’t I call it “emotional sandpaper” a year ago?  I still feel the same way.

No, Chips didn’t get any award for his solo this year, or for his concerto, but we are very happy that his duet got an award.  It was fabulous, it really was.

And poor Sweet Girl, she was robbed.  Her Minuet One was flawless, her bow control was right where it ought to be, she perfectly set the bow all four times, her tone was lovely, her bow distribution was correct as taught, she remembered the dynamics, her intonation was spot on.  She got robbed, I say.  We are still scratching our heads over that one.  And we were so certain that she was the tops; we led her on to believe that she would get something, so she was disappointed to tears when it didn’t materialize.  Another lesson learned.

But we all survived, and we are all stronger in character because of it.  And now, let me tell you the good things about Federation…...

• something about Federation bonds our family together like nothing else.  There is no other time all year long in which the four of us connect like at Federation.  We ride the emotional rollercoaster as a family unit, coaching our kids and keeping their spirits up, engaging in soul searching, and reminding ourselves why this is what we do and why competition is a good thing.

• we remind our kids that music is God-given and to glorify the Lord in their performing.  And I am taking more joy in the successes of all the other kids we have known over the years, even when our own kids don’t come away with what they hoped to.

• something about Federation makes our kids pull out all the stops and do the performances of their lives!  WOW WOW WOW!!  I have never heard Sweet Girl play Minuet One so beautifully.  Our teacher actually said she played it “perfectly”.  She said that Chips and his partner played their duet perfectly, too.  I still can’t get over the fact that she used that P word twice in the same weekend.  It might be five years before we hear her say it again.

• something about Federation makes us do all the things that we don’t do all year that often, like go out for ice cream, order special sodas at Cr*cker Barrel, stop by for M*cDonald’s french fries, and any other simple pleasure we can dream up that brings a smile to our kids’ faces.  Can you say “comfort eating”, boys and girls?

• Federation holds a free exhibition of two exceptional senior student musicians each night, and it is such an inspiration to experience such superb performances.  This year, we got to see three pianists and one violinist.  Wonderful.

• oh my goodness, did I say how awesome the boys’ duet was?  It was stunning.  They played Tartini Sonata in D major, allegro assai.  It was truly, truly supercharged.  They played it with such intensity and passion, at quick tempo, with seamless communication between themselves, and plenty of testosterone, like a musical political argument, if you can imagine such a thing.  I so wish we could have been allowed to videotape their duet.  It was unforgettable.

Here are the duet partners with their Honorable Mention ribbons.

Lord willing, they will probably be duet partners next year, too.  And don’t let the diminutive size of that boy on the right fool you.  That kid is heading for Carn*gie Hall.  You’ll see.

Another Federation down.  Now to focus on J.S. Bach for our next competitive experience, coming soon to a blog post near you.

and p.s.  Yes, I spent Mother’s Day and my birthday totally exhausted and wanting to nap all day.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 11:30 p.m.

I don’t know what has been keeping me away from this blog.  I have so much to tell you and so little time in which to do it.  Much will have to wait for another post.

Our children are heading to two different state violin competitions this month.  The first contests are on May 6/7, in J*cksonv*lle.  Then on May 14th is another contest, in Tall*h*ssee.  I don’t have much time to go into the details, but both children have been working hard all year for this.  The competition is very stiff this year, too.  It is just the way everything fell together this time.  But as of right now, both of my violinists are not discouraged.  They are working on doing their level best-est.

I am also in need of wisdom regarding whether our children ought to join a local youth orchestra.  Right now, my gut feeling is “yes”, although it will be costly in terms of time, gasoline, and money.  I hope I am not just being impulsive.  Like I said, I need wisdom in this decision (our violin teacher is of the old Russian school of thought that orchestras should be deferred as long as possible, so I know she will not be happy with the idea.  Even our Suzuki school director has mixed feelings, so I am really on my own here.)

But first, please pray that the upcoming competitions, regardless of the outcome, will be positive and God-glorifying experiences for both our children.  Can’t help it.  These weekends are always emotionally charged.

Also…

…. in other news,  Mamma has got herself a new K*ndle!

Yessirreee, this Luddite woman here is joining the brave new world of ebooking. 

It is my

“Birthday (5/8) / Mother’s Day (also 5/8) / Wedding Anniversary (5/14) All Rolled Up Into One In The Same Week” gift.

Happy happy happy.