IrishOboe

We leave in half an hour for the airport.  I don't know when I can be in touch again.  Thanks for your prayers.  I'll write as soon as I can!  (Andy, thanks for the good response on my last post, I look forward to responding)  My how time flies!  I'm excited because my hostess is excited to see me!  I should arrive in Basel by noon on Wed. (Swiss time).

Much Love,

Janet 

I want to cry.  I want to sing.  I want to dance.  I want to hold on.  I want to fly.  I’m in my room with computer stuff everywhere trying to get organized before I leave.  Praise God that little by little most stuff has gotten done and I’m not panicking.  After crying to some Les Miserables (I’m good enough at piano now to accompany myself now) I danced to some Irish music, which never fails to lift the spirits.  Mom and Dad are off at a symphony concert and I’m supposed to be finished backing when they get back – ha!  I’m close, I think (it’s not the packing, but the leaving everything behind in order and knowing what I need to take).  The inspiration for this post is a back walkover.

As we pass the one week mark I’m finally going through papers I should have gone through long ago and what should I happen to come across but a paper entitled “Italy” and on it a list of about eight points briefly reminding me of some of my adventures there.  Sharing this with my mom, she pointed out that she did a website for me while I was in Italy, but had completely forgotten if I ever realized it because I wasn’t much into computers and certainly hadn’t heard of a blog.  The link is still on Mom’s homepage and the password is the same.  It has all my pictures labeled and everything!  There is a separate section entitled “Men” that has no content because apparently I promised all the juicy stories and never got around to writing about them.

Saturday Daddy took us to see La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil in Downtown Disney.  It was so amazing but I can't write about it or post pictures because I haven't been able to recover from the relapse with my arms.  Keep up those prayers, please!  Namely, that I would have patience not to do work on the computer, play piano, or basically get any work done even though I leave for Switzerland in a week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had my vielle (medieval fiddle) debut at church yesterday.  I played prelude and postlude and hymns for two services.  I did a mostly prepared improvisation on Be Thou My Vision and a different improvisation on the Spanish 13 c. song I did on my audition.  It went pretty well considering, and it helped humble me and give me confidence.  

Friday Jimmy took the day off so he could drive down and visit me for the weekend.  He got me out of the house for something besides church, choir practice, and grocery shopping.  Wasn’t that nice of him?  It was quite nice, actually.  I don’t have many connections left here in Orlando so it was nice to spend time with a friend.  This is not to diminish the value of being with Mom and Dad nor to denigrate the friendship of people still in Orlando, but mostly my friends are not where I am, which is proving to be more difficult than I’d supposed.  Here’s a big hug from me to everyone (and there’s a good number of you!) who has kept the emails and the love rolling.  It is very much appreciated. :)

I hope everyone has a lovely day.  We’re having long time friends over and eating hamburgers from a friend’s ranch.

Since my poor mother is having computer problems, I’ll fill you in with the family news.  On Saturday Daddy too Mom and I out to the Mad Cow Theater production of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

The good news is I’m feeling better.  The bad news is I’ve never properly shaken the music-related problems that I’ve had since the summer of 1998.  Hey, that’s less than ten years of my life so there’s plenty of time to get back to normal!

I’ve been ‘scolded’ for not updating my blog as much.  That’s good to hear because it means people miss it.  It’s usually just my mom who bugs me to write.

I’m very happy to report that the traffic on the way home was much improved over the traffic on the way up.  Mom, Dad, and I drove to DSTB and while the dads had to go off to work the next morning the rest of us spent a lovely few days playing with the boys and discussing homeschooling curriculum.  Both Mom and I want to be children in the DSTB household.  Aunt S has so many wonderful and exciting things planned for their first year of homeschooling.  Goodbyes were hard because we don’t know when the next time will be.

Our time at the Maggie P. has once again come to a close.  Once again I think picture are better than words.  Thanks to everyone for everything that made it a wonderful visit!

The big weekend with all of my sisters and my cousins and my aunts is over.  We had a marvelous time and the weather mostly cooperated.  Here is a smattering of the activities people indulged in over the course of the weekend: swimming; playing on and around the Aquillo (sailboat); water tag; water wresting; playing fox and geese, Frisbee, and paddle ball on the sand bar at low tide; walking the beach; sailing; building sand castles; building dams; mucking the little creek; kayaking; rowing; crabbing; walking on the breakwater to the outer light; running over the causeway between the Flounder and the Maggie P.; golfing; catching and skinning eel; eating ice cream and cookies and cake and crab and eel and Chinese and pizza and chips and soda and cold cuts and pumpkin bread and Omaha Steaks and laeckerli and oreos and dark chocolate M&M’s and and and; playing games (Quiddler, Blokus, Mille Bornes, Perspective, quadruple solitaire, Set, My Word, Apples to Apples, In a Pickle, Texas Hold ‘em, Rummikub, Settlers of Catan, Ringgz, but sadly not krypto or Boggle); lounging on the deck of the Maggie P. and under the cabana, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; sleeping; playing with nephews/grand kids; playing with dry ice in the creek; and more I’m sure I’m missing.  Here are some of the highlights in pictures.

 (More)

There’s not too much to report here other than the usual great food, fun in the sun and all the normal Maggie P. activities.  I helped to muck the creek, which was tiring but interesting for the first time work.  After swimming and rinsing off I still had a muck tan stain on my legs.  I wish I had Clark’s Tin Whistle book and I could look up the tune Muckin’ O’Grady’s Barn, which I remember from when I first started tin whistle oh so long ago.

We arrived and tumbled out of the car breathing in the wonderful smells and spontaneous erupting into yelps of joy.  It is so wonderful to be here again.  Enjoying the intense emotion and happiness I was experiencing I began to wonder how much of it is because this is a little heaven on earth and how much of it is because it is the little heaven on earth I grew up in.  I cannot judge objectively and don’t know of a stranger would find the place so lovely.  In any case, it’s glorious to me – especially with family waiting for us!

Wednesday (July 18^th) morning Mom and I left at a decent hour in the morning and started the four day trip up to the Maggie P.  It shouldn’t take that long, but these things happen.  I’m currently in the car an hour away from the Maggie P., but of course we’re stuck in stop and go ½ mile per hour traffic.  This way I have the time to write about the trip, I suppose, but I’d rather be at the beach.