New and Variations on that Theme

There it is! The new piano! Thanks almost-all to my FIL, who thought it important enough to send us some money.

So off we went to The Guitar Center, where we took entirely too long picking it out and haggling over various things. The stand in the ad (supposedly free) wasn't available, so would you take a collapsible one instead? Errr, not really no? At the last minute they found one. Purchased the piano. Left.

Later that evening, I got almost all the way through assembling it (seriously, I was at "screw in the four fasteners, done!") before coming up against a "what screw hole" problem and realizing that this stand didn't fit this keyboard. I was all ready to go into a bit of a fit, but Fran said "can't we just modify it?" and ran out to the shed, grabbed a plank, cut it to size, and brought it triumphantly into the house. A bit of sandpaper and a few screws later, and we wind up with something that I think is actually BETTER than the original intended stand.

Meanwhile, I move the wall-mounted shelves up a few inches because they would have been in the way of the music prop.

We get everything together and in place before realizing - oh shit - that couple inches wasn't going to do it. I'd forgotten somehow that I didn't just need enough space for the stand itself, but also for the music that would go on it. I was out of drywall screws. The shelves are going to remain too close for a while, I think. This job is a royal PITA.

Yesterday we spent some time outside the house; I have laid approximately 20 more square feet of patio bricking. I gave up on "perfect" and am now aiming for "workable." Because it was just never going to get done on "perfect" mode.

I have the kids outside right now trying to collect small rocks to lay around the grill Fran made out of old cinder blocks (because it is ugly and the grass growing up around it is even uglier). I'll be going out in a minute here to lay more bricks. I planned to go out today, to grab some groceries and deposit some checks and take the kids to the library, but it is looking sunny and the kids are having fun. Who knows.

We've eaten dinner after 8 and slept after 10 for the past 5 nights. This heralds the awkward transition into summertime in this climate, I recognize it now. This failure to recognize that the day is closing until it actually gets dark, at which point an actual meal is out of the question and I'm fishing frozen spaghetti sauce from the back of the freezer while the kids shower mud from their tired bodies and check themselves for new cuts and scrapes...this is what spring looks like in the Pacific Northwest. In our home, in what little space we have, we made room for some plants - they are coming up now, little bits of life flourishing on the tabletop in the egg cartons, tomatoes and pumpkin and watermellon and canteloupe. Toddlerness picked some of the canteloupe seedlings, but luckily enough that was the plant that was coming up heartiest, so it was just a little lesson in how roots grow.

And to backtrack a bit, Girliness hadn't been at a sleepover without me for a long, long time when we decided she could stay at ~l~'s house on Friday night. I got "that" call with my softly crying child a bit after 10. Poor thing. She stayed the night and has decided that she had fun, though, and would do it again and be less scared if she could. It isn't like this is her first sleepover ever, and I'm not sure what her particular problem is. Goodness, she loves ~l~'s house! Out of practice I suppose.