Well, this is rich and fun

I love Advent and Christmas.   My kids are all almost home, which won't happen every year.   We run gleefully to church every day and hope that the guy leading all of those services knows how much he is appreciated.  I think I will go buy him some oranges so he has a better chance of making it through without taking the fall of sickness this year.  

Today, I am making out an update to son number two's transcript so he can continue on his way to working on his bachelors.   I am so happy about that.   Seriously.   It is what he wants and it is finally happening.   I'm just glad it is him who has come to this conclusion.   Waiting and patience as our kids muddle through without putting the ultimate heat on, is sweet.   I don't want to force or coerce my kids to do anything they don't have the heart for.

Me, I am happily practicing my horn and sort of restarting that aspect of  my life.   Playing the horn takes me to never never land.   I suppose it is like taking happy drugs so my family mostly appreciates that.   A happy  mommy is a happy thing.  

Oh, the Marine son, is home on Recruiters Assistant and working on finding some young folk to come in and see if the Marines has  a place in their future.   He knows more humans than his public school counterparts who were properly socialized.......this is sort of frustrating him as the home school stereo type of being inadequately socialized is said to him.   Yes, that was bad grammar but hey, I am just rambling.  

We are getting a new baby before Christmas - a baby grand piano will be blessing our living room.   I am sooooo excited I can hardly stand it.   I best get back to my dear son's transcript update and stop rambling for today.  

Transitions

My youngest is four now.   My oldest is twenty-three.   Things are changing and I am muddling through the changes.   For the longest time there were nine kids at home and things were relatively predictable outside of illness and stuff like that.   Now there is no one in diapers and I only have one more kid who needs to teach how to read.   Diapers and teaching kids how to read used to be overwhelming but if I stop and think about it, those things now don't loom over my head.  

Now that there is a little bit more time available, I have started practicing my horn again and am hoping to find more opportunities to play in my older age.   I was encouraged to find a website which stated that it is never too late to pick up your instrument again and have a go at it.   So far I have just rejoined the University band here and just finished up the semester.   We all had fun that and the concert went well.   I can almost play through all my old solo pieces and am working through technique books to improve my accuracy.   I enjoy it.   It is a nice change.

One of the side effects from regaining some of my music skills, is that my kids are taking music more seriously and are getting excited about the things they can learn.   I firmly believe that playing a musical instrument improves brain development as well as teaches dedication and perseverance and......it's fun.  

My older kids lives are changing of course so it has just seemed to me that I need to keep my own mind moving along with learning and relearning new things so I don't get caught mourning their growing up to much.   I have a hammer dulcimer which has too much dust on it and needs some tuning and cleaning.   The more I play my horn, the more I want to make more music.   We shall see how this goes as the weeks and months progress.