Night of Music:

It is Monday night in Echo Park and there is a live mariachi band playing on the porch of the house 5 doors up. Ordinarily I wouldn't think, oh, you know what would make me so happy? - mariachi music - but that's what happened. How can a live trumpet not make you happy? So I was so happy when I packed up my cello and went to my first lesson with a new teacher. Then I got there and found out they had double booked the time slot. Fortunately they rightly concluded that I had booked the time first and the other person was late anyway and I feel guilty but I concede defeat all the time. Anyway, I was back to being happy again because I learned so much - I learned a completely different way to hold my cello, to hold the bow, and to place my fingers. Then he played a Bach sonata on my cello with my bow and I COULDN'T BELIEVE it was the same instrument. So there is hope.

Some of you asked for more pictures. Here are a few. This is Theron Underwear Arms. I have no idea why. He just came out like this and asked me to take his picture.

I'm not really sure why but underwear have been the theme of the summer.



So, there you go. Now it's bedtime!

Highlights of the weekend:

Ashley devised two mobile butcher block type units for the kitchen using kitchen cabinet pieces from Ikea with a butcher block top that he cut in two himself to maximum efficiency. Now we have 7 extra kitchen drawers and two work surfaces - yay Ashley!

Theron, through absolutely no prompting on my part, picked out an orange stacking drawer at the Container Store. Though I must say it is very difficult to get out of that place empty handed.
He has started two chapter books: Trumpet of the Swan and James and the Giant Peach. He's doing just great using his imagination where there are no pictures. And then we kicked the soccer ball around a lot.

I'm looking forward to starting cello lessons with a new instructor tomorrow after work.

Oh, if I haven't mentioned this already, we are ready for Christmas lists ANYTIME. I am working on getting our lists on WishList.com and I would encourage you all to do the same and invite us to view it. You can make a list so that you can add to it, but you can hide the ability to see whether your guests have reserved or purchased the items - they, of course, can see this part. I am determined to finish shopping early this year so we can enjoy the season visiting with friends and family, baking cookies, and decorating the house. Not sitting by the mailbox or splurging on rush deliveries. We even bought wrapping paper at Ikea the other day. We can hate that Christmas is so commercial and that the Christmas tent at Ikea is already up even though it is not even Halloween, but we are going down that road anyway, and if there are ways to be prepared early, well, we're there.

Welcome to our family blog. We are out of touch with our loved ones too much of the time - join our mundane existence in sparkling detail!
This month we are in recovery from a stomach flu that attacked each of us in turn: first Theron, then mommy, then daddy. Each of us were sick for a week. The only perk was the hope of losing some useless water weight and maybe a few pounds of actual fat, but after we felt better we could not stop eating. In fact now our stomachs were wracked with pain if lunch was 5 minutes late.

Last night I had to work an event for my museum and was on my feet till almost 11, the bones in my feet beginning to poke through the soles of my adorable shoes. Today I went for a foot massage at the Thai spa RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER from where we live. I highly recommend it and I hope that next time any of you come to visit you go yourselves. I went for a body massage last weekend - one hour $40. Unbelievable. However, next time I would only do 30 minutes because it was a little too intense for me. I think I like massages that just feel good. She put her whole body into it - her elbows were in my back, she walked on me, and she sat on my butt and pushed which made my spine sound like a bundle of breaking twigs. I felt okay unless someone touched me for about a day, but I actually do think it did something good because I had blotches on my skin from when I was sick and they started to fade.

Theron is reading like crazy - he calls it spelling , "Let me spell that for you". He loves kindergarten. Here he is in his classroom last month:

He and I finished our first chapter book. We read Stuart Little. We're on our way to the library right now to pick out another. Any suggestions for good chapter books? Stuart was actually pretty good because the chapters sort of went together, but they were sometimes single stories, which made it easy to stop after one.

Ashley has been working hard on home improvements. He's in there putting together something from Ikea, although the sounds coming from the living room lead me to believe we may not have the right thing - again. Ashley had to go do a return today because they gave him some of what he asked for and some not.