Studio Pictures

I'm very excited to have a room in our new house where I can teach piano. I'm also happy that I now have some students and a reason to use it! Without a doubt, there will be more students by fall.

Of course, the most important thing in the room is the piano. I have a Charles Walter studio piano. Not very many people have heard of this family-owned piano company out of Indiana, but piano technicians go ga-ga over my instrument. These are very well-built pianos, and some technicians liken them to Yamaha. Mine is a little bright for my tastes these days, but the action is very good - responsive.

I finally have an "I Love Me Wall." This is what Kevin calls the wall in his office where he hangs his diplomas, his Naval commissioning, and memorabilia from his Navy days. There just wasn't room for all of my stuff, but at least some of it is up. The sofa opens into a double bed for when grandparents come to visit during arthritis flare-ups and they don't want to climb the stairs to the guest room.

I have my desk, my filing cabinet, and my digital piano all crammed onto one wall. It's a bit cluttered looking, but leaves plenty of floor space for away-from-the-piano activities with students. Maybe one day the digital piano will go away and a nice little harpsichord will take its place. For now, the digital is useful. The kids find it motivating to play, and I can use it to make recordings with my computer. These days, you just can't avoid using technology in the teaching studio. It's here to stay.

Music storage is an ongoing issue for me. Ideally, I'd like to store scores flat, but it's hard to find storage solutions that accommodate that.

So, I have music in the filing cabinet, music in the filing crates behind the keyboard, and music in the magazine files in the bookshelf. In addition to that, there's music in the guest bedroom closet. The magazine

files have actually proved to be a pretty handy tool for storing my teaching literature. I'm in the process of covering cardboard magazine files with fabric to dress them up. Pretty soon, we'll have no place to live for all the music!

Ready for Kindergarten

Mary Beth is officially no longer a preschooler!

Thunder Over Augusta

Here’s the munchkin dressed up to go to Thunder Over Augusta, an armed forces appreciation festival last Saturday. See the matching outfits? Since she almost never plays with dolls, mommy was happy that she wanted to hold her baby for the entire day. Lots of people at the festival commented on how cute she was with her doll, and she ate up the attention. I guess I need to look for more of those matching outfits!

We saw some paratroopers land, including one whose main chute got tangled on his foot. We didn’t realize there was a problem ‘til I I read about it in the paper the next day. We missed the jet flyovers, but we did see some Chinook helicopters flying overhead. The munchkin enjoyed the bouncy castles and we watched some attack dogs do their thing. Lee Greenwood crooned in the distance as we set up our chairs for the fireworks on the riverwalk.

You can’t tell from the picture, but there’s a pretty steep hill. The highlight of the afternoon for the munchkin was rolling down it – in her white dress. Thank God for Oxiclean.

The other big highlight was a fantastic fireworks display. We agreed that it was the best we’d seen short of Disney World.

When we got home, we discovered that we really should have taken the dog with us. We could have – lots of other people had their dogs on leashes. It would have been a little tricky, but possible. Bella had been redecorating the house, and now, we are searching for a couple of new sets of faux wood blinds that match the dimensions of our breakfast room windows.

It’s lucky that she’s so cute.

New home

For those of you who look for Lowe news here, I'm sorry it's been nearly half a year since I posted! We do indeed have lots of news. We have moved to Evans, GA, and we like our new house! I'm particularly happy to have my own studio - a place where I can teach piano while the rest of the family can still use the family room. Unfortunately, there are no students yet. I'm hoping that I'll sign up some by fall. Kevin has an office, too. We've done some painting, and we have more plans to remove some wallpaper and eventually enclose the back deck as a screened porch.

The munchkin has made some friends at her new PreK, and here on our street. Two of our little neighbors are exactly the same age and will start to school with her in the fall. She's very happy because the neighborhood pool is close to our house. She's signed up for swimming lessons this summer, as well as ballet camp. She'll start kindergarten and ballet classes in the fall. Lately, she has been practicing for her pre-K graduation ceremony - "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United STAKES of America and to the the REPUBLIX for which it stands..."

There is one sad bit of news. We said goodbye to our cat Dolly recently. We miss her very much, but she was old and sick, so we are glad that she is not in discomfort any more. We still have Sebastian, and we now also have a new family member...

Meet Bella! She's an 11-month-old mixed breed dog that we adopted from a local rescue organization. We think she's part lab, shepherd, maybe setter, and maybe golden retriever. She's fetching balls for us with no training on our part and splashing in a plastic wading pool in the yard. She's a sweet, good-natured doggie and very trainable. Now, if we could just get Sebastian to come out of the bedroom...