Merry Christmas Music

 Merry Christmas Music from my studio!

Survival

 We all survived the first week of school! It was different, painful, weird. But it was also necessary, empowering, and accomplished. 

So many schools in Illinois have given in and decided to go strictly online, but we are fortunate that we get to go in person. 

Here's a another bulletin board in my classroom that features more than 50 quotes about how music helps us heal.

I used old (only songs that were incomplete) sheet music I had as a background.

The girls put together most of this board. I cut out the sparkly letters and drew the letters for 'YOU,' but they did everything else.  Annah put up the die cut music notes that are the last 2 phrases of the school alma mater. ("All your sons and daughters ever shall be true to the diamond in the prairie--the silver and the blue."

I really want my students to know that their music does belong to them. A teacher can teach them, but they are the ones who have the talent, who work to increase their skills, and who use their voices to create the music.  It belongs to them, and no one can take that away from them. 

I started with teacher in-service days Monday 8/17, and the first two were forced online at the last second because someone who had been in the building had been exposed to someone with Covid19 and the school had to be deep cleaned. 

The in-service days were great, and helped me a lot. I thought it was awesome when our elementary principal put this quote on the screen at the beginning of our first in-service day.

My office has been painted, and I've made it look as different as possible from how it looked before. It's still a work in progress, but it is functional enough for now.

I need something really big and great to cover the door!

The elementary classes are cohorting, and I will travel to them. This is my classroom-on-a-cart!

It's actually a desk on wheels, and I probably won't take it with me every day if I can get away with just using a backpack. But it allows me to have speakers and play songs on the keyboard. 

The girls stopped at the Dollar Tree and got me the colored containers for each class.

I also have my own school website now.

We went on a walk around town the night before everyone started school.

We started Friday 8/21. Jeremy moved Annah in at SIUe that same day, and she started classes (both in-person and online) Monday 8/24.

Jeremy is still working from home, so he took our first-day-of-school pictures.

SENIOR!

Sophomore!

We go together!

Every morning before we go to school, I have to complete an online self-certifying wellness check for the kids and myself.

 The staff has been so supportive and encouraging of me.  I received these beautiful flowers from the elementary guidance counselor on the first day of school. 

It has been an uber emotional week. I’m exhausted in every way, and went to bed at 7:30 a couple nights this week. (Hey, I haven't worked full time in 19 years!!) 

The disappointments continue to pile up. But! We continue to hang onto Jesus. Good things and blessings are in the mix too. I will continue to fight to focus on those things...

Mr. M taking a moment after school to show Caeden how to re-string a guitar I found in the music library.

Annah checking in to tell us how much she loves it at SIUe...

The art teacher and I with our classroom carts--and our photo-bombers in the elementary office!  Haha!

Encouraging emails from our Principals and Superintendent, and an anonymous donor providing lunch from Subway for the entire staff!

There are blessings in there. We will be thankful.

A new friend in our home and my music studio

A new friend arrived at Music In Your Heart yesterday, and I want to kind of make introductions before students arrive for lessons today. First, I would like to tell a little story about pianos.

The piano I've had in my home for the last 21 years, an upright Kimball, was a graduation gift from my parents when I received my music degree. It had been their friends' and hadn't had much playing since it was bought new in the '90's. It lived in my apartment in Columbus, Ohio for a short time, our first house in Columbus for an even shorter time, and came with us when we moved here to Arrowsmith in 2001. 

Pianos require a consistent temperature and humidity level to be maintained. Our old (125+ years) house has not had central air conditioning for the 19 years we've lived here--until last month! (I could talk about how how life-changing central air is, but that's another story!) My point is, Kimball has been through some life over the past 19 years because we couldn't regulate the humidity level and temperature in the house consistently. I stopped having it maintained and tuned several years ago because my piano tuner became so frustrated that his work would be undone so quickly. My students can probably tell about sticky keys in the summer (That low B that won't even play!) and clicky keys in the winter (We just call it "extra percussion!").  When I had toddlers, one of them left a sippy cup of water on the keys for who-knows-how-long before I found it, and my piano tuner had to heat up the wood of the key over my stove and sand it down with sandpaper to get it to work right again. Yes, Kimball has been used and "loved" a lot over the years. 

My kids have grown up playing it... 

My students have spent a lot of time playing it...

And, I'm so, so, so happy that 5 students returned to lessons in the last couple weeks to play it!

Now, as much as I've loved Kimball and have been SO thankful for all the music made on it, I have always wanted to have a baby grand in my home.  I grew up playing on a baby grand in my parents home from the time I started piano lessons at age 5, and there's just something special about it. 

But, because we didn't have central air, we didn't want to put the money into buying a baby grand we couldn't maintain. So it has just been a dream...until yesterday!

A little over a week ago, my friend Tracie texted me pictures of a little baby grand piano and asked if I might be interested in having it for free!?!

Now, I am always hesitant to consider taking a piano that someone wants to give me for free. They are such sensitive instruments, and you always need to know as much as possible about a piano's history and condition before agreeing to take it and assume care of it. 

Upon asking some questions, I learned that this piano was been in a beautiful old mansion that is about to be demolished after sitting empty for at least a year or two. I watched many videos and read up on how to inspect a used piano.  And two of my kids and I went to inspect the piano ourselves.  

We were amazed at the condition the piano was in, 

and felt confident we needed to rescue it to come live at our house!

So just yesterday, the moving company we hired met us at the house in Decatur and carefully packed up  and transported our new friend Fischer!

I followed them and watched them bring it into our house!

And now it is at home at our house!

Fischer will need to rest for a few weeks before I will have it tuned and regulated, so it is a bit quirky right now with some keys having a little more ring...but actually less so than my Kimball, really!

My daughter Annah and I have already spent hours carefully cleaning the keys and wiping down the surfaces on Fischer.  And for now students may choose if they want to play on Fischer or Kimball.  I will disinfect both between lessons so that students have a choice which they sit at, and I will stay at whichever one they don't choose and we will still have social distancing.  

I'm happy that my students and I will get to enjoy this new-to-me piano together!

I emailed all my piano and voice students this week, and have loved hearing back from them how they are using their music and what they are doing during this difficulty.  One dad responded that he is playing music from different eras and genres for his kids each night!  So cool--a little "music history class" in their kitchen and they probably don't even realize they're learning!  That same dad said to me "I think this was God's way of reminding everyone what is truly important in this world." Yep, I think he's right.

Another person said to me, "God has a plan in everything, and I pray we can use this time of a slower pace of life to really evaluate where we are in life and how we are using our time in service to Him!"  Ohh yes, and did I need to hear that!!!

During this past week I have been able to connect/reconnect with friends I haven't made time for in a while.  One morning my friend Kim called me after she sent me and Jeremy a text to check in and I told her I was having a rough morning.  We talked for probably 45 minutes, and I bet we haven't talked on the phone in years!  She was such a comfort to me!

One day, Pastor Todd issued a Facebook challenge to our church to reach out to 10 people, and I did that.  I delivered a couple of the bags I crocheted last week to friends and was able to visit--from 6 feet away--with Jenna and Will (and Martin) for a while.  They are such cheerful people, and Jesus' light just shines out of them...such a refreshing joy to just talk with them for a little bit!

I also texted dear friends that are far away that I haven't caught up with in too long, and had sweet conversations with Lori and Cora.  Ohhh, that does a heart good!

Friday evening I received a really difficult message from a friend and I have been extremely upset and emotional about it all weekend.  I decided to fast my phone for the weekend, and it has helped not to have it in my hand as much as usual.  

Saturday morning, the girls and I started an online women's small group with several women from church.  We will be studying this book, and I am really excited about it!

For the first couple weeks, we are just chatting and praying together, since we need time for our books to arrive.  It was so wonderful to see the faces of some of our closest sisters in Christ on the zoom meeting yesterday, and to hear about what the past weeks have been like for them, and to pray for one another and feel encouraged!  Every person is experiencing the situation differently, but we can all appreciate and support one another through it.  Such peace and comfort in that!  I am so grateful to have the time to be part of this group and study, as it occurs during a time when I would usually be teaching and unable to participate.  Thank you for that, God!  

We have loved our PoC online worship service each Sunday morning.  Sundays have been crazy busy for us for the past I-don't-know-how-many years! It is so refreshing to get up and come to the living room and worship at home, then have lunch and spend the day relaxing together.  A beautiful sabbath, really.  I know it is still a lot of work for those on the church staff, the worship team that is rehearsing and playing, and especially the technical staff.  They are doing a great job, and it is so meaningful and wonderful for our congregation.

Annah recorded this for her recital at school.  We've all enjoyed hearing her learn this very difficult piece these past few weeks!

Today was a gorgeous day here, and we all got at least a little time in the sunshine. Jeremy spent a lot of yesterday outside removing a stump in the yard, and starting to fashion a fire pit in the corner of our yard at Annah's request.  Today, he and Sylvia threw a little nerf football back and forth for quite a while, and Sylvia spent time skateboarding, of course. Sometimes it would be nice to have a bigger yard, but I am thankful for the little spot we have.

Annah stood on Sylvia's skateboard and has pretty good balance.  I got on for about 7 seconds and found it pretty scary, haha.

This evening, I noticed these flowers by the garage looked so pretty in the sun.