Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A Whole Lot of Stuff

My violin: (This seems like a good place to begin.) I dropped a metronome on my violin the first week of January. Happy New Year! It didn't drop far, and my metronome is not much larger than a cell phone, and a bit lighter, so how much damage could it do? A lot, apparently. The metronome left a one inch wide indented piece on the front of my violin with a crack running from the top of the f hole up about 6'' and one from the bottom of the f hole another 4 in. Ouch! On top of that, in order to get it repaired properly, I had to un-string it, remove the bridge and tailpiece, pull out the end button, and even hammer down the sound post! For those of you who don't play in instrument, this would be like finding out your right arm was broken and that you have to amputate it yourself to send it away to be fixed, and hopefully it would work again when you got it back a few months later. Long story short -- it's wonderful to have my arm back.

Our dishwasher: In February our dishwasher went kaput. Hopefully we'll be able to replace it soon because hand washing when you're as messy a cook as I am is the pits! The good news is that all of those hours of dish washing represent many friends who come to spend time with us. We love visitors!

Tickets to Rome: Steve and I are planning a research trip/belated honeymoon to Rome for the month of June. In order to prepare ourselves we're taking an Italian class together at the college. I am so bad at Italian! Thankfully, this is one of Steve is excellent at languages.

My computer: Tosh, my laptop, has seen his last day. Poor Tosh. He served me well.

My car: Jade keeps puttin' along, thank heavens! She got an oil change and a new tire this past week. 220,000 miles and going strong.

An Aveda gift certificate: Steve gave me a gift certificate to the Aveda Salon and Spa for Valentine's Day. I'm redeeming it this afternoon, and I can't wait!

Books, and more books: Steve has a lot of books. A lot. We have bought five additional bookcases in the last few months. Now there is space for the books, but where do the cases go! AH!

Boxes, and more boxes: My mom sent me a shipment of boxes from home: childhood memories, journals, etc. As soon as I thought I was finally done shuffling and re-boxing, and second load came. I'm not a pack rat, so where is it all coming from! A few more days and I may toss them out without looking back. I haven't noticed that I'm missing anything. So ...

Curtains: Steve and I are enjoying re-making the house. Three more cans of paint and one more set of curtains ought to finish the job.

Sunshine: Does this qualify as stuff? It doesn't matter. Anytime you can say "The sun is shining in Oberlin," it is note worthy.

A new vase: We bought a beautiful little vase at the orchid show at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens last Saturday. It was our Spring Break this past week and since our plans to get away didn't pan out, we tried to vacation a little in Cleveland. Erin, Kjirsti, Tom, Steve, and I went to the gardens for the first time. I can't believe I've never been. It was stunning! The whole scene was literally dripping with orchids of every color, shape, and variety. The vibrant colors and exquisite delicacy of the flowers, the perceptible breeze from butterfly wings, and the chattering of the birds were intoxicating.

A new CD: As part of our Spring Break we took a trip to Borders, coupons in hand. I bought a CD of the Emerson String Quartet playing the Mozart Dissonance because that is one of the selections my new quartet has chosen to play. Yes, indeed! I'm in a quartet now! YAY! The other violinist is Nicole, our violist is Lanson, and our cellist is named Bobby. I'm SO excited!

OK. That's enough "stuff" for now.

5 comments:

Ashlee & Christian said...

Holy cow that is a ton of stuff. Way to start out with the violin, my heart sank and wasn't sure I wanted to read any farther, but i am glad I did. I feel you pain on the violin side and wow esp your violin vs mine. Sounds like you guys are having tons of fun. Oooh how I love rearanging and new curtains, etc it makes it so fun. How fun, Rome!! yeah. okay we need to meet up in D.C. sometime if you guys can make it before we leave the East in August, but I understand you are jam packed full of 'stuff' to do. Congrats on on the quartet, that is so exciting. you are amazing, miss ya!

Cory & Alli said...

Yea! I love hearing from you! Keep the "stuff" coming! Love ya! Miss ya!

Lindsey said...

I ditto Alli :)

Amy said...

Can I say I ditto Alli and Lindsey? What would that make it not a ditto, but trippo (as in tripple?) Anyway, we all love hearing from you and miss you terribly. I am so glad to hear life is eventful even with its ups and downs. Have a great day! Love ya!

Ashley said...

My mouth dropped when you said you had to take everything off of your violin for repairing! Wow, way to be brave!