Good morning Aj and everyone else.
She wanted to get up. So?
I got her up and dressed her before I got dressed.
Then, turns out, she thought she was going home when she got dressed.
I told her that it isn’t time to go home yet.
I didn’t say, “The Lord isn’t ready for us yet”.
And I want to thank the person who posted the Diana Ross and the Supremes the other day. I don’t know why, but that song always makes me think of this one. And now it’s stuck in my head. So yeah, thanks…. 🤪
Thanks AJ. I knew, as soon as I hit “post” that some smart person would do that for me.
It is more serious that I can explain here. What do you do when someone who can’t do anything says “I don’t know what to do”. Or, “Seems such a waste of time.” When time is all that she (and I) has.
Doing nothing gets difficult at times.
No kidding. I teared when Jim mentioned the “mother in glory land”. But I know he/and she are there. With all of this, I have so much to be thankful for. And I am.
Awake since 4. Up since 5. Starving because I have fasting blood drawn at 8:45. I told my doctor it had to be early. I get sick and mean if I don’t eat.
I’m already planning what I will eat as soon as I leave the lab.
Chas my Mama Ruth loved Jim Reeves. He has one of the best voices.
No kidding here.
she is desperate for something to do.
I told you before, Adm. Jim Stockdale was president of the Naval War College. Later The Citadel. He also taught a class. He told us some stories about his imprisonment. He said one of the most difficult thing was sitting there, alone, for days on end with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Just alone with yourself. He said your mind plays tricks.
They devised a tapping on the wall system of communicating. The VC tried to intrude, but they (prisoners) developed a fool proof method of identification.
A prisoner would start his message with “shave and a haircut” clicks.
The VC never could get it right.
Some of you don’t know what I’m talking about here.
I read his book, Chas. I was on a bus tour once and the driver had been imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton for many years, too. I so admire these people and it amazes me what they endured.
Even now so many endure so much for Christ’s sake and we need to remember to pray for them.
Good morning. I tried to post yesterday a.m. before leaving for Bible study group but my post got lost. I wrote about how cold it was in Atlanta with wind chill making it feel like 18° and that the real temp in the Georgia mountains north of us was 13°. It had not been that cold since 2018. It is warmer today but still not up to our average of 53° for January.
Is that a park and maybe a walking/running trail in the header, AJ? Is it near where you live? It looks cold, but pretty. Imagine a lot of people in the scene in other seasons.
Morning! We had a beautiful pastel colored sunrise this morning! Temps will be colder today and snow just might make an appearance early next week. Yes we still have some ice on our roads and there is plenty of snow on the ground but it is frozen hard! Old snow isn’t as pretty as fresh snow 😊
Janice I am so thankful the Lord is bringing to you a refreshing in your groups. You brought a smile to me this morning. I had a wonderful time of worship as I was on the elliptical last night…a time of moving the body and worshiping Him 😊
Ok Chas one more thought…did Elvera like to garden? I am just wondering about filling some Dixie cups with dirt…putting in some seeds and watching what happens…there is the planting and watering..then the anticipation of the new growth coming forth…wonder if that would be a point of focus for a bit? Praying for wisdom and strength for you this day…and everyday….
Chas, what I keep wondering is whether you have discussed Elvera’s “nothing to do” with your nurse granddaughter. Our younger daughter is a nurse (or, rather, she will be a nurse as soon as she takes the test to be licensed as an LPN, but at the moment she is still officially a CNA) who loves elderly people and works in the “memory care” unit at a nursing home. I’m guessing that if Elvera were one of her relatives, she would visit your home and Elvera’s abilities and interests, make some assessments, and come up with something. Ask your granddaughter, if you haven’t.
I’m pretty sure it’s not, but the picture looks a lot like Wrightsville (PA), which is on the Susquehanna. There is also an awesome trail there for walking and cycling.
I have a very busy morning ahead with (yet another) homeless story to write out of last night’s late-hour count, a spacex story (maybe) and a port meeting to follow on livestream, starting in an hour, for a waterfront story.
Sorry I missed your offer last night, DJ. I went to bed early.
I’ll be available next Wednesday. 🙂
I couldn’t get a flight out of Philadelphia that got me back solo, to SFO at a safe time, so I’m flying back to LA with my daughter.
I’m going to visit Lettie and Charles Cowman’s graves then head to DJ’s town to spend time with my mom’s close friend who will be 89 a week from today.
Actually, I’m going to a BSA cocktail party that night. My charismatic brother (not in the religious sense), can talk me into anything!
Thanks for your comments about the Holiness Movement. It was the instigating force that sent the Cowmans to Japan and thus the world.
Chambers also was involved, but more remotely and not with the same “vigor” as the Cowmans. To read Utmost is to see some of that theology but I imagine by the time Biddy compiled the devotional, she edited most of the radical statements out, if OC even made some of them.
But the HM was very important to the Cowmans and I’ve been struggling to get a grasp on it.
Through an odd series of searching involving LinkedIn, of all platforms, I’ve been in contact with the historian of the movement, who is an excellent writer and kind scholar.
He’s invited me to ask any questions and told me Biddy and Lettie were two of the most influential Christian women of the 20th century.
Score one for me on biography topics.
I told him I needed to read his books before I asked questions, so yesterday I read the very interesting Holy Jumpers.
Pretty radical group, but this book provided insight I lacked.
I’m not good with theology, as Linda will point out, but I’ve studied Scripture long enough that I can see the holes with the HM theology and the truth, too.
But how to put that together with Lettie, explain it and then examine her life through that lens, will be interesting.
Missed my BSF group and fellowship yesterday, but oh, the delight, and exhaustion, of being with little Archie through his first group. He ended the day wanting to go back again, yeah! We met up with Lucy when we were in the gym to play. The tears came when we left Lucy with her class and went back to his class. Luckily we only had 20 minutes left.
Michelle,
I am admittedly jaded on the Holiness Movement. It was part of my Bible education at the Independent Methodist Church School. It was the roots of the school. As I have said in the past the list of what you couldn’t do was a mile long and what you could do was stretching it to be an inch.
At the same time they were teaching us the doctrine of saved by grace they were imposing all sorts of rules and regulations.
I don’t know how you reconcile it except to call it what it is, a movement within the Christian faith that led to revival and change in church doctrine. On the far extreme it was a cult.
I firmly believe that Christ will return one day. I also believe that WE cannot predict when that will be and so we need to live life with an expectation of Christ not returning in our lifetime. He will come like a thief in the night. On the other hand, live like He might ring the door bell any minute. 😉
I’ll take credit (or the blame) for posting the Diana Ross & the Supremes video that led to AJ’s earworm. 🙂
Actually, Kizzie started singing, “Stop…in the name of love,” which led to the video, which led to the earworm, so … SHE STARTED IT!!!
I really like that song “I Will Survive.” I won’t mind having that in my head for a while. 🙂
After the recent headers of DJ’s, the song California Dreamin’ was in my head for literally days. I woke up two or three consecutive mornings with those words, “California dreamin’ on such a winter’s DAY-AY!” in my ears. And that’s OK too. 🙂
I am trying to remember if I mentioned here that there was some discoloration with some of the shingles used on the roof? They will be replacing those in a section. We have scheduled that. So we will have round two of getting our new roof. There has been no balking or discussion. The gutters project manager sent photos and I guess that was all that was needed. This is our lives . . . everything takes longer than it should. We have been parking our cars on the street. The neighbors across the street who are caring for an invalid and have been using the street for workers to park are now filling up their driveway and inconvenienced. Wish it could be otherwise for their sake. We still have materials awaiting pickup. And we will be getting a second waste disposal container delivered.
Chas, get nearby high school or college kids from the music department to come and sing or play instruments for you and Elvera now and then. This is the season where a lot of students are preparing for spring music festivals and competitions. Their teachers are always looking for opportunities for the kids to play for an audience several times before their music events.
Or ask musicians from your church to come over and play/sing. I think Elvera would enjoy that.
It’s the newly remodeled and renovated Occoquan Regional Park.
If you click the link, the photo of the building on the right of the page is where I took my pic. It was taken from the lower floor of the building about half way up the steps, facing down and to the right you see the view I photoed above. 🙂
I know what ‘a shave and a haircut, two bits’ sounds like. It came up in my musical training quite a lot. When I was small, my mother took me to a special music program provided by a teacher who attended the same church. Second and Youngest also attended the same program. But we could not afford the costs of private lessons from the same teacher when we grew out of the special program. So, we went to the piano teacher that Eldest had started with, an elderly teacher who lived in the hamlet nearest to our parent’s house. She charged only 5 dollars per private lesson (later, when we were more advanced, it went up to 7 dollars). She was a chain smoker and her house reeked of smoke, but she was a good teacher. In the years when our parents could only afford one vehicle and our father needed that vehicle for work, we walked the half hour to our lessons and back, the four of us together. She taught us music theory using the rhymes and ditties of her youthb- including ‘a shave and a haircut’ – and we always did quite well in our Royal Conservatory of Music exams.
We were a little better off financially and had a second vehicle when I started violin lessons in my early teens. My violin teacher was also an excellent teacher, but I always think the chain smoking Mrs. M. was the most important of my several (I had 5 over the years) music teachers in forming my musical ability. She was the one who wanted to leave me her sheet music, but her family chose to interpret that as meaning her classical music records so I have a set of Classical record albums I never know quite what to do with. My father still has his record stereo system, which still works, so I can listen to them, but I can also now watch live performances of the same works on the internet. My father hardly even listens to his records now (he has a number of Chat Atkins) as he has found most of those recording digitized on iTunes. I actually think the records has a uniquely rich sound that digital files no longer have, but records aren’t exactly convenient to play.
“Shave and a haircut — two bits” is tacked onto the end of a favorite piece in the Piano Safari repertoire book, a piece so many of my students enjoy.
Chas, here’s another musical idea I thought of for Elvera. At first, it might appear to be a long shot, but I’ll mention it anyway:
What if you were to buy her a simple keyboard to play? You don’t have to invest in a big piano, just something small that could sit on a tabletop.
It would give her something to do with her hands. It would provide immediate “rewards” by producing sound when she touches it. It would help free you up some, as it’s something she could do that you don’t have to then go and undo.
And it wouldn’t involve any arranging for or waiting for others to show up and make music for her.
Even if she has never played an instrument in her life, she could do this.
Keyboards also have different sound settings. She may enjoy the variation of tones, depending on the settings you use. Some keyboards have a pipe organ sound button. They all have some sort of piano tone setting. Synthesizer. Violin. There’s usually quite a variety, and it’s simple to switch among them based on your preferences.
Is there someone who could bring her something like that to keep around?
Work day is done, whew. What a week. But I’ll get some OT out of it from last night and editor told me to take a long break this afternoon and just “log off” but stay available. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I wrote 2 stories today, still waiting on doing a 3rd which is held up by source, something that’s required multiple and frequent back-and-forth texting for days now.
Tomorrow I’ll have other stories to write. Then the week will be over.
Wandering Views 
Good morning Aj and everyone else.
She wanted to get up. So?
I got her up and dressed her before I got dressed.
Then, turns out, she thought she was going home when she got dressed.
I told her that it isn’t time to go home yet.
I didn’t say, “The Lord isn’t ready for us yet”.
off to fix breakfast.
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I found “This World Is Not My Home” by Jim Reeves. But couldn’t bring it over.
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Here you go Chas. 🙂
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And I want to thank the person who posted the Diana Ross and the Supremes the other day. I don’t know why, but that song always makes me think of this one. And now it’s stuck in my head. So yeah, thanks…. 🤪
https://youtu.be/ARt9HV9T0w8
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Thanks AJ. I knew, as soon as I hit “post” that some smart person would do that for me.
It is more serious that I can explain here. What do you do when someone who can’t do anything says “I don’t know what to do”. Or, “Seems such a waste of time.” When time is all that she (and I) has.
Doing nothing gets difficult at times.
No kidding. I teared when Jim mentioned the “mother in glory land”. But I know he/and she are there. With all of this, I have so much to be thankful for. And I am.
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Awake since 4. Up since 5. Starving because I have fasting blood drawn at 8:45. I told my doctor it had to be early. I get sick and mean if I don’t eat.
I’m already planning what I will eat as soon as I leave the lab.
Chas my Mama Ruth loved Jim Reeves. He has one of the best voices.
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No kidding here.
she is desperate for something to do.
I told you before, Adm. Jim Stockdale was president of the Naval War College. Later The Citadel. He also taught a class. He told us some stories about his imprisonment. He said one of the most difficult thing was sitting there, alone, for days on end with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Just alone with yourself. He said your mind plays tricks.
They devised a tapping on the wall system of communicating. The VC tried to intrude, but they (prisoners) developed a fool proof method of identification.
A prisoner would start his message with “shave and a haircut” clicks.
The VC never could get it right.
Some of you don’t know what I’m talking about here.
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I read his book, Chas. I was on a bus tour once and the driver had been imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton for many years, too. I so admire these people and it amazes me what they endured.
Even now so many endure so much for Christ’s sake and we need to remember to pray for them.
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Michelle, I did make a post about holiness, FWIW. Not sure if it is appropriate for your particular movement, though.
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Good morning. I tried to post yesterday a.m. before leaving for Bible study group but my post got lost. I wrote about how cold it was in Atlanta with wind chill making it feel like 18° and that the real temp in the Georgia mountains north of us was 13°. It had not been that cold since 2018. It is warmer today but still not up to our average of 53° for January.
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Good morning. I was too lazy to go up and exercise today but that is okay because husband is still sleeping and somebody needs to watch the baby.
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I can’t believe how blessed I am to be with my Bible study group and my Sunday morning prayer group. I am in awe at what God is doing.
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Chas, if you had more visitors at your home would that be a good distraction for her so she could feel useful by listening to someone talk?
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I have people in my life who need to talk and just need a listener. I would share them if I could.
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Is that a park and maybe a walking/running trail in the header, AJ? Is it near where you live? It looks cold, but pretty. Imagine a lot of people in the scene in other seasons.
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Morning! We had a beautiful pastel colored sunrise this morning! Temps will be colder today and snow just might make an appearance early next week. Yes we still have some ice on our roads and there is plenty of snow on the ground but it is frozen hard! Old snow isn’t as pretty as fresh snow 😊
Janice I am so thankful the Lord is bringing to you a refreshing in your groups. You brought a smile to me this morning. I had a wonderful time of worship as I was on the elliptical last night…a time of moving the body and worshiping Him 😊
Ok Chas one more thought…did Elvera like to garden? I am just wondering about filling some Dixie cups with dirt…putting in some seeds and watching what happens…there is the planting and watering..then the anticipation of the new growth coming forth…wonder if that would be a point of focus for a bit? Praying for wisdom and strength for you this day…and everyday….
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Chas, what I keep wondering is whether you have discussed Elvera’s “nothing to do” with your nurse granddaughter. Our younger daughter is a nurse (or, rather, she will be a nurse as soon as she takes the test to be licensed as an LPN, but at the moment she is still officially a CNA) who loves elderly people and works in the “memory care” unit at a nursing home. I’m guessing that if Elvera were one of her relatives, she would visit your home and Elvera’s abilities and interests, make some assessments, and come up with something. Ask your granddaughter, if you haven’t.
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Just about to leave for a blood draw myself. It’s a day broken up by places to be, all day long.
Can’t decide if I’m going to need boots in Philadelphia this weekend. They’re a bit awkward on the plane, through TSA, etc.
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I’m pretty sure it’s not, but the picture looks a lot like Wrightsville (PA), which is on the Susquehanna. There is also an awesome trail there for walking and cycling.
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I have a very busy morning ahead with (yet another) homeless story to write out of last night’s late-hour count, a spacex story (maybe) and a port meeting to follow on livestream, starting in an hour, for a waterfront story.
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I love stories like these:
https://breakpoint.org/biblical-history-in-broken-jars/
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Sorry I missed your offer last night, DJ. I went to bed early.
I’ll be available next Wednesday. 🙂
I couldn’t get a flight out of Philadelphia that got me back solo, to SFO at a safe time, so I’m flying back to LA with my daughter.
I’m going to visit Lettie and Charles Cowman’s graves then head to DJ’s town to spend time with my mom’s close friend who will be 89 a week from today.
Actually, I’m going to a BSA cocktail party that night. My charismatic brother (not in the religious sense), can talk me into anything!
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Thanks for your comments about the Holiness Movement. It was the instigating force that sent the Cowmans to Japan and thus the world.
Chambers also was involved, but more remotely and not with the same “vigor” as the Cowmans. To read Utmost is to see some of that theology but I imagine by the time Biddy compiled the devotional, she edited most of the radical statements out, if OC even made some of them.
But the HM was very important to the Cowmans and I’ve been struggling to get a grasp on it.
Through an odd series of searching involving LinkedIn, of all platforms, I’ve been in contact with the historian of the movement, who is an excellent writer and kind scholar.
He’s invited me to ask any questions and told me Biddy and Lettie were two of the most influential Christian women of the 20th century.
Score one for me on biography topics.
I told him I needed to read his books before I asked questions, so yesterday I read the very interesting Holy Jumpers.
Pretty radical group, but this book provided insight I lacked.
I’m not good with theology, as Linda will point out, but I’ve studied Scripture long enough that I can see the holes with the HM theology and the truth, too.
But how to put that together with Lettie, explain it and then examine her life through that lens, will be interesting.
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Missed my BSF group and fellowship yesterday, but oh, the delight, and exhaustion, of being with little Archie through his first group. He ended the day wanting to go back again, yeah! We met up with Lucy when we were in the gym to play. The tears came when we left Lucy with her class and went back to his class. Luckily we only had 20 minutes left.
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I got in my exercise after all.
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Michelle,
I am admittedly jaded on the Holiness Movement. It was part of my Bible education at the Independent Methodist Church School. It was the roots of the school. As I have said in the past the list of what you couldn’t do was a mile long and what you could do was stretching it to be an inch.
At the same time they were teaching us the doctrine of saved by grace they were imposing all sorts of rules and regulations.
I don’t know how you reconcile it except to call it what it is, a movement within the Christian faith that led to revival and change in church doctrine. On the far extreme it was a cult.
I firmly believe that Christ will return one day. I also believe that WE cannot predict when that will be and so we need to live life with an expectation of Christ not returning in our lifetime. He will come like a thief in the night. On the other hand, live like He might ring the door bell any minute. 😉
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I’ll take credit (or the blame) for posting the Diana Ross & the Supremes video that led to AJ’s earworm. 🙂
Actually, Kizzie started singing, “Stop…in the name of love,” which led to the video, which led to the earworm, so … SHE STARTED IT!!!
I really like that song “I Will Survive.” I won’t mind having that in my head for a while. 🙂
After the recent headers of DJ’s, the song California Dreamin’ was in my head for literally days. I woke up two or three consecutive mornings with those words, “California dreamin’ on such a winter’s DAY-AY!” in my ears. And that’s OK too. 🙂
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I am trying to remember if I mentioned here that there was some discoloration with some of the shingles used on the roof? They will be replacing those in a section. We have scheduled that. So we will have round two of getting our new roof. There has been no balking or discussion. The gutters project manager sent photos and I guess that was all that was needed. This is our lives . . . everything takes longer than it should. We have been parking our cars on the street. The neighbors across the street who are caring for an invalid and have been using the street for workers to park are now filling up their driveway and inconvenienced. Wish it could be otherwise for their sake. We still have materials awaiting pickup. And we will be getting a second waste disposal container delivered.
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Chas, get nearby high school or college kids from the music department to come and sing or play instruments for you and Elvera now and then. This is the season where a lot of students are preparing for spring music festivals and competitions. Their teachers are always looking for opportunities for the kids to play for an audience several times before their music events.
Or ask musicians from your church to come over and play/sing. I think Elvera would enjoy that.
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Oh, I like that beautiful thought, 6 Arrows.
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In case anyone missed it as I had in the loaves and fishes story, about the leftovers . . .
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-loving-meaning-of-the-leftovers
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Janice,
It’s the newly remodeled and renovated Occoquan Regional Park.
If you click the link, the photo of the building on the right of the page is where I took my pic. It was taken from the lower floor of the building about half way up the steps, facing down and to the right you see the view I photoed above. 🙂
https://www.novaparks.com/parks/occoquan-regional-park
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Janice, 2:25. Thanks. 🙂
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I know what ‘a shave and a haircut, two bits’ sounds like. It came up in my musical training quite a lot. When I was small, my mother took me to a special music program provided by a teacher who attended the same church. Second and Youngest also attended the same program. But we could not afford the costs of private lessons from the same teacher when we grew out of the special program. So, we went to the piano teacher that Eldest had started with, an elderly teacher who lived in the hamlet nearest to our parent’s house. She charged only 5 dollars per private lesson (later, when we were more advanced, it went up to 7 dollars). She was a chain smoker and her house reeked of smoke, but she was a good teacher. In the years when our parents could only afford one vehicle and our father needed that vehicle for work, we walked the half hour to our lessons and back, the four of us together. She taught us music theory using the rhymes and ditties of her youthb- including ‘a shave and a haircut’ – and we always did quite well in our Royal Conservatory of Music exams.
We were a little better off financially and had a second vehicle when I started violin lessons in my early teens. My violin teacher was also an excellent teacher, but I always think the chain smoking Mrs. M. was the most important of my several (I had 5 over the years) music teachers in forming my musical ability. She was the one who wanted to leave me her sheet music, but her family chose to interpret that as meaning her classical music records so I have a set of Classical record albums I never know quite what to do with. My father still has his record stereo system, which still works, so I can listen to them, but I can also now watch live performances of the same works on the internet. My father hardly even listens to his records now (he has a number of Chat Atkins) as he has found most of those recording digitized on iTunes. I actually think the records has a uniquely rich sound that digital files no longer have, but records aren’t exactly convenient to play.
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“Shave and a haircut — two bits” is tacked onto the end of a favorite piece in the Piano Safari repertoire book, a piece so many of my students enjoy.
Chas, here’s another musical idea I thought of for Elvera. At first, it might appear to be a long shot, but I’ll mention it anyway:
What if you were to buy her a simple keyboard to play? You don’t have to invest in a big piano, just something small that could sit on a tabletop.
It would give her something to do with her hands. It would provide immediate “rewards” by producing sound when she touches it. It would help free you up some, as it’s something she could do that you don’t have to then go and undo.
And it wouldn’t involve any arranging for or waiting for others to show up and make music for her.
Even if she has never played an instrument in her life, she could do this.
Keyboards also have different sound settings. She may enjoy the variation of tones, depending on the settings you use. Some keyboards have a pipe organ sound button. They all have some sort of piano tone setting. Synthesizer. Violin. There’s usually quite a variety, and it’s simple to switch among them based on your preferences.
Is there someone who could bring her something like that to keep around?
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And I can’t hear the Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive” without thinking of this version.
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Another age old favorite. The card I got from second son with that on it, finally died.
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Thanx for the suggestions everyone. I may try a couple. She used to play the piano some years ago. We had one in Annandale. That was 21 years ago.
We both went to the dentist this afternoon. She watched the Gaither Gospel hour on RFDTV this evening. She likes gospel music.
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Work day is done, whew. What a week. But I’ll get some OT out of it from last night and editor told me to take a long break this afternoon and just “log off” but stay available. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I wrote 2 stories today, still waiting on doing a 3rd which is held up by source, something that’s required multiple and frequent back-and-forth texting for days now.
Tomorrow I’ll have other stories to write. Then the week will be over.
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good night, Donna.
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