Groovy Snippets

Oy...Is it January yet?

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Obviously I have not been here lately. Today is a "rest" day for me - no traveling, no extra chores, no school. I should have school with the girls, but schooling has rather gone to pot (whatever that means!) since Scout got home. His kiddos have come over here almost every day to hang with him. Needless to say, it's hard for us to focus on past participles when many little people WANT your attention! Now! Please!

I am not even remotely complaining though. It's been a good visit thus far and I am treasuring this time together!

Here's Scout with 4 year-old Ji-Ji.



Grampa Mulletman with 2 year-old Cookie:



And here's beautiful almost 6 year-old Fireball busy making a card for Aunt Funsocksgirl and Uncle J-Man:



In addition to much visiting and playing, there has been much ado over music at our house.

I sang a couple of bluesy songs in a Groovy concert (and got to wear a fun outfit! and make-up!) This is a pretty lame photo because, well, that's how we Groovies DO photography! There's a wicked nice professional photo of me belting it out, but it's copyrighted, so I can't post it. If you just desperately want to see it, you can find it and a few others HERE. I'm in photos #41 (my fave!), 46 and 47, 81, and 83. Enjoy!



Speaking of photos - My regular readers will recall my past whining about my current camera. (This is where Groovy would post a link to her past whining posts if she weren't such a mediocre blogger and could actually find any of them!) Long story short; I hate it. It's a sad excuse for a camera and has horribly wounded my self esteem by making my mediocre photography skills appear even worse than they actually are.

Want my advice? DON'T buy a Sony Cyber-Shot! *shudder*

At any rate, I was failing miserably at having a properly thankful attitude - after all, some folks don't have a camera at all. At least I have one and it works (sort of). I should be thankful. Yet in spite of my bad attitude, God chose to bless us with a barely used fancy-pants camera of a magnitude we'd never even consider purchasing. My brother-in-law bought it a few years back and then sweetly gave it to the Folks when their camera broke. The problem? It IS a more elaborate camera and requires, you know, reading the manual and all. Consequently, it has sent the past year sitting on a closet shelf.

Since we'll have mos tof the fam here this Christmas, the Folks want an easy to use point-and-shoot type camera and passed the big one on to us!!!!!!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it and I'm positive that my photographs will move from the sad side of mediocre to fabulous! (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)

Hmmm. Back to music...

The girlies have been taking piano lessons this year and were slated to perform in a Christmas recital last week. They opted to play in a trio to hopefully bring down the fear factor. They practiced faithfully and really had the piece nailed. However, they're both quite shy and I wasn't sure how they'd fare at the performance. We got there quite early so they could practice on the grand piano before the crowd arrived. Silly-Head climbed right onto the piano bench, but Girly-Girl froze. She was absolutely, positively NOT going to sit at that piano and play! end. of. story.

So I did the Mom thing. I pleaded, I coaxed, I comforted, I identified. No progress.

Suddenly I had a flash back to her first dance classes where she froze up. It was truly an "AHA!" moment. I went from NiceMom to MeanMom and used guilt and threats.

It worked like a charm. ;-)

She played perfectly and was SO HAPPY with herself that she couldn't wait for her turn to play in front of the completely packed church. She and Siilly-Head and good friend, Peanut, did a fabulous job. It was awesome! Now Girly-Girl and Silly-Head have agreed to play another trio song for part of the prelude at church on Christmas Sunday. Woot!



Hmmmm. I wrote way more than I meant to, so I'll condense the remainder into bullets.

* I have instigated a family rebellion by insisting that we follow our Groovy tradition of eating seafood for Christmas. The seafood haters can lump it or leave it (whatever that means!).

Here's the menu:
-Potato leek soup
-garlic herb rolls
-fried shrimp
-broiled scallops
-baked haddock
-coleslaw
-greenbean casserole
-homemade applesauce
-any stuff the rebels bring

*Mulletman and I are doing a nice rendition of "I Wonder as I Wander" for Christmas Sunday. He's playing guitar, I'm singing and playing the soprano recorder.

*In addition to playing her piano piece, Girly-Girl is singing in the kids' choir and gets to be one of 4 young ladies singing a soprano descant. :-) That girl has gone from hermit to show gal in .2 seconds!

*I bought a mystery gift for the Folks and accidentally left it in the car. It was so mysterious that Mulletman thought it was trash and threw it out. Good thing it only cost 89¢!!!

*You can burn a heck of a lot of calories shoveling/scooping snow!

*I miss Funsocksgirl and J-Man. :-( *sigh*

*Noisy toys with batteries should be illegal.

(I'm just saying...)

*I'm STILL in physical therapy. I wish they made housecalls because I need extra appointments in December about like I need a pain in the neck.

*GrammaJ is trying to kill us with cookie kindness. She made gingerbread houses with the girls and then came over to our bigger kitchen for a day of baking/decorating. THEN she's made something like 16,000 MORE cookies of varying types for our enjoyment.

Bless her heart.





So, as you can see, our December has been quite suh-weet thus far. Hope yours is the same!