Busy-Ness

My sister-in-law, Mindy, tells me that she knows we are crazy-busy when I don't blog regularly. She's probably right. We shall see if I can make up for it while all of my machines at work are happily humming along and I have nothing to do but make sure they all have bellies full of paper. Last week and the weekend that accompanied it were just insane. You all know that Chris was out in Orlando with Andrew at his first-ever TSA conference. I sent my camera along with Chris (that's why there were no photos of blueberry picking or pie, Amy!). So, here's a little proof of where they were: He's so cute, all business-like in his official blazer, though he'd never allow me to say so in public. He was a voting delegate for their club. Each club has two delegates that cast votes for the organization's officers for the upcoming year. Also? There was a lot of gaming going on. Food Court lunches are the best I think I said before that he was a finalist in all three of his events and came in third place in one of them. He got to bring home the team's trophy for the weekend and it was in the living room, on display for all to see.

And on Sunday, Emma had her first piano recital! We are SO proud of her! As is evidenced by the story of the Spelling Bee Choke, she has never gotten through anything on stage. She cried every time she was a flower girl (one time, she even refused to walk down the aisle), she has choked at every spelling bee, and the few times she has had to sing with her class on stage have terrified her enough that she absolutely refuses to be in the chorus at school. But she made it through her recital piece. No. Wait. She owned it. She loved her special dress that we bought, She played so perfectly and musically. There's a difference between playing the notes and playing the song. And she definitely played the song, simple though it was. It's surprising to note that you can hear a difference between those two things, even in the first year of playing. And when it was all over, she was thrilled to get a bouquet of flowers from her daddy. All the excitement was so overwhelming that we didn't notice until it was over that she had artwork on display in the lobby gallery as well. This was a Fine Arts Showcase, not just a piano recital. And none of us, including the Artist Herself, were aware that she was also a featured artist. I'm sure someone sent home the information, but I probably missed it in the mountain of other end-of-school-year papers. Here she is, explaining that it is a fish print, a Japanese technique, that she made using an actual fish! On top of all the good stuff, there was other crappy stuff. The only one I'll share publicly is that our car needed a new radiator. It was spewing coolant everywhere. My boys (hubby, brother, dad and son) took care of that for us on Monday night while I made a big pot of black bean soup to feed everybody. So, that problem is solved. A mountain of others remain. But that's the way it goes, isn't it?

DAILY BLISS: Emma, conquering a little bit of her own fear