I Blame Amy!

Ok, so this blog is a little different than my others. And yes, it is Amy's fault! As a mom I hope that I have taught my children many good things, but they also teach me things. Amy has been teaching me how to dress. So here are a couple of pictures of me in my Sunday clothes.

This is a new skirt that I got at Ann Taylor. I wish it wasn't wrinkled in this picture, but it is a really nice skirt. (It is a good thing I took this picture before church because I spilled bubble fluid all down the front during nursery. Yes, I know I shouldn't have worn it to nursery, but if I only wear things appropriate for nursery I never get to wear anything fun!)
















I also bought this dress at Ann Taylor. I like it a lot! Isn't it great that I have such a wonderful scarf to go with it? These sleeves are the type that when I life my arms my garments show. Also, I think the scar adds a little pattern to an other wise plain dress.


And just because I can, here is a picture of Molly and I that I took this morning.

And in other news that I blame on Amy, I actually went running yesterday morning. I'm following this plan that she suggested from www.coolrunning.com (I'm sorry I don't know how to do links!) It is called from Couch Potato to 5k, one of many such plans available on the internet. I am posting my morning's exercise so that I have to report my running. Anyway, here is what I did yesterday morning (at 5:30 am thank you very much!) Molly went with me, so she got some exercise too! I'm proud to say that a couple of times she actually had to run too!

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds
of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

I'm only need to run 3 days a week, so the plan is to go again tomorrow morning. Wahoo! It should be a little easier now that the weather is getting better.

So, Amy, thanks for having such a good influence on your mom!

Chicago & Inspiration

Almost 3 years ago, I was in the shower thinking and it came to me that I should go to Lacey to get reacquainted with Tyler so that I could be more help to Amy when her new baby was born. It was just one of those crazy things that I just knew I should do. So I did. It worked out well and meant that I got to be there when Henry was born.

A few weeks ago, I got that same kind of feeling about coming to Chicago for the American Choral Directors Conference. I hadn't planned on going, I didn't have anyone to go with and Chicago in march didn't sound particularly appealing. But, suddenly I had that feeling that I should go.

So, here I am, going to this conference and I'm wondering why I had such a feeling. I wish it was something as obvious as Henry's birth, but it isn't. I've attended several concerts and a couple of classes, done a little shopping in the exhibit hall, but nothing earth shaking. However, I think this message is more subtle. This message is all about remembering how much I love music and how much more work I have to do where I am.

I've watched some amazing High School choirs. I think to myself, "how do I get my choirs to this level of musicality?" Can I do it? Do I have what it takes? I don't know. I don't know if I have the energy to put into the program. I don't know if I have the organization. But I think I can go further than I've gone.

I've pondered whether I should change jobs for next year. I've thought about it a lot. There are so many places that would be more fun to live than Utah. I mean, I love Utah in a lot of ways, but it isn't my idea of "the perfect place to live."

I'm a dreamer and I've always enjoyed the opportunities that might lie just around the corner. It would be so cool to live in China or Africa. It would be so much fun to teach at a private school where the music program is actually valued. I want to learn more languages and see more of the world. There are so many cool things to do, why should I stay where I am?

I actually came to a decision last week to stay where I am. I'm not done here yet. There are things that I have started that I need to see through. Program, ideas, that I need to make sure are more stable than they are now. Things that would disappear if I leave. I've got good colleagues, I've got a supportive principal and some supportive parents. I am making a difference in some lives of my students. This isn't the most exciting decision I can make, but I think it is the right one.

So, Chicago was to energize me and to remind me that what I am doing is a good thing. Just a little reminder to keep on going and stay on course. And the conference is a lot of fun, I don't really mind doing things on my own and the weather hasn't been too bad.

Of cats and birds!

This is a story from my childhood that I think I have told to my kids. I was thinking about it the other day and thought I would blog about it, just in case I haven't passed it on, cause I think it is funny! Also, there are a lot of details that I probably never explained.

When I was 8 or 9 we lived in Warner Robins, Georgia. My cousin, Jane Gunderson came to live with us. Her mom (my mother's sister) had died a few years earlier and my other aunts had decided that her father (who was an under ground polygamist) wasn't taking good care of his children and so they had them taken away by the court. This is important, because my father, who hated cats with a passion, let Jane adopt a stray cat as long as it never came in the house.

During this same time period, Lorraine's mother (Donna Black Pearson) gave me a parakeet. Lorraine's parents were good friends of the family. Like most children of this age, I was very excited to have a pet, but once it came time to take care of the it, I wasn't so interested. Fortunately, for this particular bird, my mother really enjoyed it, so it quickly became her pet and I lost all interest.

We had lived in Georgia for 2 or 3 years, in a house my mother absolutely hated. So when a house around the block came up for sale we moved. This house was way cool, one of the neatest houses ever! I loved that house, but we didn't actually stay there very long, only a year and a half or so. I think this house, which was an A frame, is part of the reason my dad built the house he did in Port Tobacco, which was also a very cool house, but that is another story.

One of the fun things about this new house was that it had a sliding glass door to a really nice patio and a large back yard. My mother decided that our parakeet needed some sunshine in its life and would set the bird by the sliding door. Of course, now the cat had 2 reasons to sit by the door and meow. First it really wanted to come inside and secondly it wanted the bird.

Just a side note, I honestly don't remember if either pet had a name. It wasn't important to me, I guess.

Now my father, really did not like this cat. He hated that it sat at the door and meowed, partly because the master bedroom was on the same side of the house where the door was. Also, the lovely cat had kittens under the house, which happened to be under the master bedroom. All of which makes great sense to me as an adult, but I didn't understand at all as a child. This house, being in Georgia, didn't have a basement, but a crawl space. Our cat, had the kittens, but didn't have a clue as to how to take care of them. I remember going in the crawl space, which I thought was quite roomy, to bring the kittens out. They all died, because by the time we knew they were there they were quite malnourished. I really do understand, now why my dad was so angry.

Anyway, shortly there after an ultimatum was delivered. The cat had to go! Jane, was in tears, my dad was furious, my mom tried to make peace and I? Well, let's just say, I didn't get all the fuss.

Some of this part is a little fuzzy, probably because I didn't understand things. I remember driving in the car with my mom, Jane and the cat. I think the plan was to take the cat far enough away that it wouldn't come back. The idea being that since the cat had been a stray originally, it could take care of itself if we let it go in a different place. We drove what seemed a long way to me. However, if I remember correctly, the cat came back. (Sounds like a book title)

My dad, of course, was not a happy man. Tears, drama, fuzzy memory. I always hated it when people go upset and I probably hid in my room.

Next day the cat was gone again. I don't know if Jane got to go this time, probably not, because this time I'm pretty sure the cat went to the pound.

But again, we could hear meowing. My dad was angry, my mom and Jane totally innocent. The cat was gone, it really was, there was no way it could come back. More drama. This may have gone on for a few days, my father sure that cat was around and Jane and my Mom sure the cat could not be around.

Finally, on what I'm pretty sure was a Saturday morning, we found the source of the meowing. It was the parakeet! All that time sitting in front of the window with the cat meowing at it. The parakeet had learned to meow.

I, who was an innocent bystander in the whole affair, found this absolutely hilarious! Silly bird!

Just a side note, we still had this same bird when my family moved to Virginia. Now, my mother decided that the bird should be let out of its cage to fly around and we found that the bird had gone blind from sitting in the sunshine. After this one died my mother got another and another and continued to have a bird until after Brian died. I learned to hate my mother's birds, not because they were bad, but because one of my jobs was to sweep under the bird cage and they were messy things. Especially when we lived in Port Tobacco and the bird hung by the open stairway to the basement and I had to sweep bird seed out of the carpet on those steps, what seemed like every day. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but I was a teenager at the time.)

So there is the semi complete story of the parakeet that meowed.

This and That

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love reading my kids blogs! I miss you less when I know what is going on in your lives. So, hoping that goes both ways, here is a little about what is going on in my life.


I have now attended 3 Bikram Yoga classes and I really like it. If you haven't heard about this kind of yoga, it is the one that you do in the heat. And it is hot!! I like it though, you can feel the heat relaxing your muscles and you can stretch more. Also, it helps bring up the heart rate. Some of the poses are really hard, but the entire class is done in a positive way and they explain the reason for the different poses. I wish I could go more frequently, but as always there are things that make it difficult.



At school we are getting ready for this years musical. We have a great cast. I am not only acting as the vocal coach this year, but also as the rehearsal pianist. We often use minus tracks during rehearsals so the kids can dance and sing to those. The problem is that when we add live music the kids have a horrible time making the transition. So, I'm hoping that by playing during rehearsals they will be better prepared when we add the pit orchestra. This means that I am doing vocal rehearsals, going to as many dance rehearsals as I can, and also attending the afternoon play rehearsals. I know, I did it to myself and it is fun. If I can't get anything else done it is my own fault.


Last week was homecoming. Probably the biggest event for us is the pep rally the night before the game. We have never had a great football team, although we keep hoping. As far as I know we have only won 1 Homecoming game in the 15 years of the school's history and that was the year before I started working there. This year we played an undefeated team and it was not a pretty picture. So we all look forward to the other activities involved in homecoming; the parade, pep rally, tailgate party and of course the dance. As far as I am concerned the highlight of it all is the burning of the CH at the pep rally. Every year the science club tie strips of denim to a metal CH and fill it with the appropriate chemicals so that it will burn blue and green. Then the city of West Jordan pays for us to have fireworks (we trade by letting them use the school for free for 2 city events a year). This year I traded with the Drama teacher (so he could go out of town) and I chaperoned for the dance. Really that means that I helped take tickets and money. As always the Madrigals sang the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the game and choir participated by building a float and giving away candy at the tailgate party. It was a busy time.

Anyway, I also got my hair colored, went to all state rehearsals, got a sump pump put in the basement so it can stop cracking and leaking water, got cement pumped under the back patio, taught classes, attended the symphony with Scott, taught nursery at church, held ward choir practice, read a book (The Chocolate Chip Murders by Joanne Fluke) watched some TV (Biggest Loser and Castle) and played with my dog.

A pretty normal week!

Thoughts before I leave

I promised Amy I'd put up some stories about my family history. She says her boys are getting tons of stories from Grandma Nelson but not much from my side, so....

My grandfather Chester Allen Black was a flour miller. His father built many of the flour mills that sit throughout Utah. He would build a mill, have one of his sons run it and move on to another mill. So for many years my grandfather ran the flour mill in Grayson, Ut, which is now known as Monticello, UT.

One Sunday morning, grandpa had just come home from priesthood meeting, which in those days was held Sunday mornings usually around 7 AM, then Sunday school was around 10 am and Sacrament meeting would be somewhere between 5 and 7 pm depending on the place. Anyway, he was standing at the kitchen sink, ( which would not have had running water, but grandpa had rigged up a pump in the kitchen - he was very handy that way) drinking a glass of water. As he looked out the window he could see a hill in the distance and just over that hill was the flour mill. On this particular morning he saw smoke coming up over the hill. He dropped the glass in the sink (as I remember my mother telling the story) and ran out the door shouting "The mill is on fire."

The whole town turned out, but all they could do was watch it burn to the ground. Flour is very flammable and the didn't have a fire truck or running water. I don't think anyone made it to Sunday school that morning.

Well, this was grandpa's livelihood. It was how he supported his family and now he had no work. This was during the great depression so there wasn't a lot of work out there and lots of people were in need. Also, many families in the town had flour in the mill and they lost all of it as did grandpa's family.

Grandpa decided that he would rebuild the mill. Now, grandpa was a hard worker, but he was one of those people who you didn't always see working. As my mother used to say "When there was a job to do, dad would sit down and think about the best way to do it. Then when he had it all figured out, he'd quietly get up and do the job, while everyone else was running around trying to solve the problem. By the time they came up with a way to make it work, dad was sitting back down, because he'd finished the job." And grandpa could do anything. He fixed any kind of engine or new fangled electronic. He could repair clocks, build houses, do just about anything he "turned his hand to." But the people in the town pictured him as lazy.

They also weren't crazy about my grandma, Sarah Clarrissa Hancock Black. She had grown up in old mexico (I'll tell that story another time, but it is pretty close to the story as she told it in "Strangers on earth.") She had trained to be a school teacher and she was smart. She loved to read and she taught her children to be smart. People in the town were kind of intimidated by how smart she was and so they weren't always very kind to her.

I always thought this was strange, because the town had been settled by the Black family and the Redd family and most of those people were related. How can you live in a town full of family and have them not like you? This was all the reason my mother ever gave me though.

So when Grandpa announced he was going to rebuild the mill no one believed he could do it. It had been quite a while since his dad had built the mills and he was dead and buried. For some reason none of grandpa's brothers were willing to help so he was on his own. Also, things had changed quite a bit since the old mill had been built and if grandpa was going to build a mill he was going to use some of the new technology.

In the mean time, he took on all the jobs around town he could find. He ran the electric plant which stood on the side of the mountain. This meant that someone had to be there 24/7 so he had the oldest of his 7 children take turns staying up there, then they could run and get him if there was a problem and he could fix it. He fixed things for other people in the town. I know there were other jobs he did during this time, but I don't know what they were. I do know that my mom worked at the telephone office in town and I know that grandpa always had a garden.

Anyway, grandpa and his son Roy sat down and planned out how they would rebuild the mill. They decided to build it in the back of the house where they lived so it would be closer to home. They also decided they were going to get a used diesel engine it. They weren't rich, but they heard of one down in "Old Mexico" that they could get for a price they could afford. It needed to be fixed up, but grandpa could fix anything. So the whole family piled into the car (he was the first one in town to get one.) and they drove to Mexico. (In those days it was always "old Mexico" not just Mexico, I guess to differentiate from the state of New Mexico.) I remember that they had quite an adventure getting there and back, the car broke down several times, I think the engine came on the train, but I don't remember for sure. They visited where grandma Sarah had grown up, and they ate mexican food and had a great adventure.

Eventually grandpa did rebuild the mill. Everyone was amazed that it worked and it was even better than the old one. That mill still stands in Monticello Utah. Now it has been converted to a bed and breakfast, called the "Grist Mill Inn." Their web site states that it was built in 1933, but they don't credit grandpa Black. My aunts have assured me that this is "The" mill.

Just a few more notes. Much later grandma and grandpa moved to Salt Lake City and since grandpa couldn't get work, the church had him help build the flour mill that stands on welfare square. For some reason the church decided that it was better for the family to be on welfare and grandpa help with the mill, than it was to just hire him to help build the mill. My mother was always a little put out that it had been done that way, but I doubt grandpa minded. He was a kind, gentle and happy man. He loved his family, he loved the church and life was great.

Not only was grandpa the first one in town to get a car, but also a radio. Whatever new gadget came out he was interested in it and found a way to purchase one.
Here is a picture of the Grist Mill Inn that I found on line. I don't know how much if any of the outside is original. It is up for sale!

Summer

I love summer! I have always loved summer. I like the heat, I love the sunshine and I like that I don't have to work during the summer - or at least if I work it is because I choose to, cause I don't get paid for that time.

I remember as a child growing up, mostly in Georgia, that summer was the time when you ran around barefoot all the time. It didn't matter that those asphalt roads got hot or that there were pine cones on the ground. At the beginning of the summer your feet wouldn't like those hot roads or pine cones, but by the end you didn't even notice them anymore. It was time to play outside, make forts, ride bikes, learn silly songs like "Mares eat oats and does (as in female deer) eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid will eat ivy too, wouldn't you?" (It took me a long time to figure out that the kid referred to was a young goat not a human child. I knew I wouldn't eat ivy.) One summer was the summer of bike riding, we rode our bikes everywhere. Another summer we spent long hours roller skating. What ever we did it was great fun and low stress. It was the best! Do kids get this kind of summer any more?



With my own children it seemed like we spent a lot of the summer going from one lesson to another. I wonder if they had enough time to just play and be kids. Did we enjoy those "lazy days" enough? I hope we did. I hope they had time to read books and play with friends and sit in the sun. I hope I didn't make their summers too busy.

Now with all the children gone summers often mean traveling. Now, I want to go see my grandchildren or visit some place exciting, like my trip to Europe this year. But I still want days of sitting in the sun and reading books and taking long walks with my dog. I still want there to be days when I don't HAVE TO DO anything. I wonder if we are so busy these days that we forget to enjoy life. I want to sit on the front porch and watch the neighborhood kids play. I want to play the piano and the guitar and my ukulele. I want to eat popsicles and throw frisbees and play ball. I want summer to be just like I remember it being in my childhood.

Work to Live

My graduate degree is finished. I have learned many things during this time. I have learned about conducting, music history, music theory, performances and increased my musical repertoire. However, some of the things I learned have little to do with the curriculum I was taught. In fact, in some ways these things are much more important than the curriculum. But there is a difference between knowing these things cognitively and putting them into actual practice.

I have learned that I cannot just push through stressful situations until it is over. I used to do that, but now I get sick or worse shingles. I need to learn to listen to my body and be aware of stress as it increases. I think ultimately learning to exercise more regularly will help me deal with stress in a more positive way, but I have yet to put that into practice. I need to make sure that I get enough sleep and that I plan some "down" time into every day.

I have learned that I am an introvert. During this time I was introduced to a book called "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencione. One of the things he advocates is taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test. Introvert vs. Extrovert is one of the 4 different areas. I learned that introverts may enjoy people but they get tired and regain their energy by being alone. This is me. I enjoy people a great deal, but I need time away from almost everyone to recuperate and recharge so that I can go out again and face the world. Time at home with my dog, Molly, is really good for me. It doesn't matter if I cuddle up with her and read a book, or watch TV. I just need this down time.

Along with down time, I've learned that I need time alone with my own thoughts. Even when I come home I tend to "do" things that keep my mind busy. Sometimes I just need to listen to my thoughts and allow the Holy Ghost a time to speak to me.

I have learned that I enjoy sunshine and long walks with my dog(s). I have learned that I enjoy playing with my grandchildren and interestingly enough with my nursery kids who sometimes act as substitutes for the grandchildren who don't live close enough to cuddle frequently.

I have learned that I LOVE playing the piano. When I get so busy with other aspects of music that I don't come home and play the piano for fun, I start to miss it. For years and year I would spend an hour or more every day just playing the piano for fun. When I started teaching music, I stopped playing the piano at home. I was doing so much music, that I didn't feel the need to play the piano any more. But now I have remembered how much I love playing the piano. I love accompanying people, I love (I know this is harsh) playing scales and doing Hanon exercises. I need to play more frequently.

I love the temple. I want to be there more frequently and regularly than I have this past year! There is no place on earth that is more peaceful. When I took tai chi, I learned about packing strength into your bones. I think about this when I am in the temple, only I think about packing peace and serenity and the spirit of the temple into my bones. I visualize packing the feeling of the temple into every pour and every cell of my body so that I am literally armed with power when I leave the building. I love the temple!
I have learned that I need to remember to slow down and enjoy life. I think that after Brian died, I decided that the best way not to be lonely was to keep so busy that I didn't have time to be lonely. Having a father who packed every waking minute of his life gave me a predisposition to this type of living anyway. Now I have learned that I don't want to live this way. I want and need time to enjoy life. I want to smell the flowers and decorate my house, and quilt and crochet and spend time with friends and walk my dog and read a books and take long baths, and spend lots of time at the temple and enjoy life.

I don't know if I can put all of these things into practice, but I'm going to work on it. Probably for the rest of my life. If is time to live. And if I get lonely, I'll learn to live with that too. Maybe, it will even give me the courage to go out and meet some men. Who knows?