If you haven’t noticed I’ve been doing a fair amount of reflection as of late. Reflecting on faith, family and goals. It was wonderful. I found: faith keeps me going, I must write, but I must be forced to exercise and practice my bass (eating homemade pies and cinnamon rolls, however, I can do just fine by myself) and my place in life is still at home. In short, I didn’t learn much, just spent a lot of time prioritizing my life and coming up with a bucket list.
When it was all said and done I purged keeping the good, tossing the bad and putting the rest into the recycle bin of life–to be repurposed for something great, unexpected and wonderful later.
What’s next? More recipes of simple food, money saving tips, insights on faith, gardening gushes and other total nonsense.
Stay tuned.
Sis
Besides making myself scarce on the Internet this summer, I did something most out of the ordinary for me. I adopted number four. Remember when we adopted three? Ben just had to have a third child. I was ready to quit at two, but Smoke is here to stay and is growing into something great–let me tell ya. So not to be out done by Ben and his love of babes–I decided if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em and adopted Punkin’. A stupid name for sure, but just looking at her screams nickname. I mean we could have gone with Red, Big ’en, Tiny, Slim, or something Irish sounding like Jack O’Lantern, or even Lucky (as she’s had her neck broke) — but in the end we settled on Punkin’.
In case you’re wondering where we would get a child that looks like her, you have to go all the way to Romania –I guess or Kansas City to Kansas City Strings (a place that deals in adoptions of this kind). After buying her we found there isn’t a car seat big enough to fit her, in fact we have to lay down the back seat and leave the boys home if we want to take her anywhere, but the joy she’s brought me has been great. In the bluegrass world she is known as an upright bass, bass fiddle, or dog house bass, and sings a simple bass line of bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb in whatever key you want to play in. I changed her strings from a heavy steel to a silky, nylon-type that is easier on the fingers. Ben now likes to talk about my silky G-string, and the possibility of rubbing our G-strings together to make beautiful music. I haven’t found instructions for this in my learn to play the bass videos, but I’m still looking.
Anyway.
I got her in July and two or seven days after getting it he drug me to a novice slow jam. Because “you can’t get better unless you play with others”. So there I was playing trying to play well with others while sweating like I hadn’t paid the bills. I had to give Pumkin’ a bath when I got home–but a few months later it’s getting better.
So while the rest of the world is carving punkins, I’m plunkin’ on mine.
I hope your fall is being filled with new adventures.
Simply,
Sis
Tags: bluegrass bass, doghouse bass, double bass, kansas city strings basses, karl knilling bass, upright bass
I’m always looking for a good deal, on anything –really. Folks–lookin’ is the key word there. Remember that. Some days I’m not lookin’ but, I get one anyway.
When I was a kid I wasn’t look-ing for a cheap lesson but found one while playing Dukes of Hazard with my brothers. It was a hot day in the fall, the wind was blowing out of the south and we decided it was a perfect day to shoot flaming arrows into an old farmstead. Of course, Jay Bo and I (Daisy) were putting out the fires while Luke was firing off fiery gasoline soaked arrows…
(We’ll stop there. My Mom is a good mom. She always promoted the use of our imagination, but didn’t hover over us–which allowed us to make some mistakes and learn from them. So yes she knew where we were. She just didn’t know about the fiery darts. In my now humble opinion that falls nicely under ‘your imagination’ unless your my kid. Okay–onward.)
…Of course we burned that building-rich farmstead, a pile of tires and a cedar wind break to the ground in a hurry. I mean totally slicked it. Then the real nightmare began, we had to tell our parents. Yeah, the fireman chewing my butt was scary, but I knew he couldn’t hold a candle to the wrath of my Dad.
Thankfully, he didn’t come home until late and after hearing the story from Mom… he decided he didn’t need to wake us up, or whip our tails to insure our understanding of our poor choices. I guess he figured laying in bed and waiting was bad enough. He was right. He simply said, “sounds like a cheap lesson to me.” (Pretty sure he wasn’t looking for a cheap lesson that day, either, but he got one anyway.)
I told you that story to tell you this one.
Ben and I were watching Glenn Beck the other day when the kids asked to shoot off their remaining firecrackers. We said that would be fine, light them and run, be safe, blah blah. Two hours later… I was fixin’ to fry some chicken, W was doing homework and Deputy Barney was talking. (He starts every sentence with and then.) Sponge Bob said this, Patrick did that and there’s the smoke from our firework…
It was then I came back to reality–as they hadn’t been outside for a good 45 minutes. It was then I realized our only great shade tree, an ash, was on fire and smoking out of every hole. What followed was a bunch of drama: hose gettin’, Dad gettin’, much water, some chopping, some what da @#$% were you guys thinking, a couple light bulb moments and two hours later the fire is out.
It’s always funny how kids process things. W couldn’t do his homework for being remorseful of his choices. I tried to to console him by saying, “Look at the bright side, now you have a Dukes of Hazard story for your kids.” He smiled and said, “Yeah, but we didn’t have to call the fire trucks.” See things are looking up.
Barney on the other hand, is a horse of a different color. He puffed up and bragged about how he saved the day. “I can’t believe I saved the day … can you believe I saved the day … I’m a super hero … I saved the day.”
After a few minutes of this, I had to bring him back to reality and explain, he ruined the day before he saved it.
I wasn’t shopping for a great deal on a lesson that day, but found one anyway.
Simply,
Sis
(Thanks to BlogHer Pic App for this photo)
The 8/28 Restoring Honor rally brought well over 300,000 people from around the world to Washington D. C. to well–restore honor. (Some people are puzzled by all of this and have mistakenly call it a political rally. It’s been a long time–maybe never since honor was synonymous with politicians. I think our founding fathers were true leaders, andwould have been highly offended to be called politicians.) The rally focused on faith, hope and charity encouraging people to become their best self. The idea being the person who are their best self–can govern themselves just as the founding fathers had hoped.
The above picture was not taken from another website, it was sent to me by my friend, Marlin. Marlin had made the hard choice to give up his tickets to the 8/28– restoring honor rally on The Mall in Washington, D.C., to the guy who took his family and took this picture. The man who took this picture got to The Mall early on the morning of the rally– 7:30 a.m. and this was as close as he could get to the stage. This was as close as he could get because there were too many ‘God fearin’ neighborly folks’ in the way. A great day for America.
(another thanks to BlogHer Pic App for this photo)
More of this is just what Washington needs–a bunch of God fearin’ neighborly folks in the way. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were so many God fearin’ neighborly folks in Washington that the politicians would be voted out and leave the running of the this country to God fearing neighborly folks. Just so we’re clear, the United States Constitution calls God fearin’ neighborly folks– We the people. To be even more clear … that is us–me and you.
We are in an age in America where we are losing freedoms daily to power-hungry politicians who thinking we are too dumb to govern ourselves. I think this rally is evidence that there are plenty of great, God fearin’ neighborly folk in America who love their country and aren’t ready for a handful of pompous, power-grabbing politicians to take our freedoms. Take heart and know, Neighbors, we’ve got them surrounded and ONE person can make a difference–your vote counts. Keep up the great work, America.
Simply,
Sis
Tags: 8/28, glenn beck, pictures from 8-28, rally, restoring honor, the mall, washington dc, we the people
