A few days ago, I blogged about my intent to learn violin.

I looked around for a local teacher, and they all live in Ithaca (about half an hour from us). One of the first teachers I found teaches fiddle, as opposed to straight violin. This is exactly what I was looking for. I’m probably never going to perform Mozart anywhere, but fiddle? That I can do something with. I emailed her, and crossed my fingers that she had an opening.

A couple hours later, she emailed me back. She does have openings, and she would love to teach me. We emailed back and forth a bit, and she recommended talking to a local luthier (stringed instrument maker/fixer) about his rent-to-own program.

So, that’s what we did today. I had to go to Ithaca anyhow, so we drove the extra little bit to go see what the guy (Dylan Race) had. We called first (mostly because we drove past his place twice), finally found the place, and stopped in after lunch. He explained his program over the phone. The price of the violin, case and bow is divided over 36 months. At the end of that time (or whenever I pay off the remaining balance), the violin, ect. is mine.

This wasn’t how I wanted to buy a violin originally. I wanted to purchase one outright, and I even had one picked out. But then I got to see one like I’d be getting (he only had the 1/2 sized in stock). One of his assistants played it for me, and then showed me how to coax some decent noise out of it. And I was won over. The sound is beautiful. The violin (fiddle) is beautiful.

And mine will be in my hands in about two weeks.

The money that I’m not spending right away on my violin is now freed up for the rest of the supplies I need, and some other things I’ve been looking at (like my canning kit and hiking sandals). It will also cover an extra lesson between now and July 1st, when my teacher goes to Ireland for six weeks. That should get me up to three lessons, enough to get me started so I can work on my own while she’s gone.

I’ll put up pictures of my new fiddle as soon as I get it home.

It’s going on 11:00 pm, and I am up late working. Okay, I’m up late blogging while trying to avoid work, but still.

Up until a few weeks ago, I used late nights as my fun time. The house was quiet, and I could finally concentrate on whatever movie I was trying to watch or book I was trying to read.

Except Friday nights, when I would scramble to finish work before going to bed. And I started to notice something. My ability to concentrate during the day might suck, but I my concentration was almost normal when I worked late into the night. Finally, a chance to actually accomplish things without it feeling like I was trying to force myself into doing something that my brain was rebelling against.

I mentioned in an early post this week that I have ADHD. It’s self-diagnosed still because I see no point in seeing a doctor until I can actually do something about it. There are no medications approved for use with pregnant or breastfeeding moms, so I am on my own for the foreseeable future. And I don’t need a doctor to confirm what I already know. If you look at the signs of ADHD, I have them. Nearly all of them, and I have had for as long as I can remember. I even had a teacher nearly diagnose me, but the condition (see note below) wasn’t as well known back then, so it was never mentioned (to the best of my knowledge, anyhow).

When I was eleven, my mother bought me a guitar for Christmas.

It took me two years to get motivated enough to start lessons, something that I kept up for five years. My next instrument was a banjo. I wasn’t nearly so successful, and eventually sold it to a young girl who I thought would enjoy it much more than I was ever going to.

I bought a keyboard, to pursue my dream of learning how to play piano. I’m not good at it, but I’m getting closer. I find time every couple of days to get a little further with my lessons.

Last winter, I purchased a mandolin. Again, I’m not great, but I play almost daily. I love it. I love the sound, and the feel of it in my hands. And I love being able to play songs with a slightly different sound than I can get on the guitar.

There is only one other instrument that I really want to learn: the violin. It’s also, I have read, one of the most difficult. Nothing like taking on a challenge, right? My goal was to save up and get one near Christmas, but there is a chance that I might be able to get one much sooner. There are a couple local used ones available, and I have just about enough saved up to get a decent violin and the few things I might need with it.

The problem with learning the violin is that I will actually need to find an instructor. Which is never cheap. Mark and I get a certain amount of discretionary money every month, and bi-weekly one hour lessons will just about take all of mine. But I think I’m okay with that. I don’t know what to spend mine on most months, anyhow. I usually end up with books and kitchen supplies, which our cupboards really can’t hold any more of.  And I have a backlog of books that will last me at least through the end of the year. So no worries there.

One of the best parts of getting back to taking music lessons is that, with violin I’ll actually be forced to learn how to read music. That will help with learning the piano. I’ll also need to learn where all of the notes are on the violin itself, and the mandolin is set up exactly the same, so I’ll be learning for that, too.

This will also force me to slow down enough to focus on something. I have ADHD, and I struggle with that sometimes (obviously). Violin could be really good for me.

Biweekly lessons also gives me two guaranteed hours a month of adult time. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it kind of is. And it’s something that I find myself loving the idea of.

Nothing is set in stone at this point. I still need to see if I can find a violin that I like within my budget, and then I need to find an instructor that can fit me in to their current schedule. I’ll start contacting them once I know that I’m definitely going to be purchasing a violin. In the mean time, I am trying to put more of an emphasis on sight reading while practicing with the mandolin and keyboard, and watching a lot of Youtube videos. I want to be able to make the most of my lessons, and that means that I’m trying to get ahead of the game before I even bring my violin home.

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Off topic, but Mark and I did end up coming to a decision on the baby carrier. We’ll be purchasing the Baby Beco (with a robot design) in the next week, and then getting the framed carrier later this summer.

It’s 6:00 am. I have been up since 4:00, courtesy of an over-active mind. After laying in bed for an hour or so, I came out to play on the internet, catching up on some mom-blog reading.

And I found this.

Warning. That is not the blog post you want to read at 6:00 in the morning, and especially not when you are functioning on too little sleep. The author of the post talks about an article she read, stating that you really only have 940 Saturdays with your child before they turn 18 and head off to college. And then she talks about her resulting panic attack over the idea that she’s already used up so many of them, and her regret that they were spent worrying about her lack of sleep and long to-do lists.

And it sounded way too familiar. Ouch.

But it got me thinking. Becca is quickly approaching five. Fiona just turned one. And it’s hard to see this when you’re in the middle of diapers and temper tantrums, or in the middle of talking back and refusing to take naps, but this isn’t forever. The clutter of toys and the piles upon piles of children’s books, or the scatter of crayons, markers and paper, won’t always be taking up 75% of our living space. The haphazard state of our home, that Mark spends so much time worrying about and that I spend so much time trying to ignore, isn’t permanent. It’s a state of being, part of life with small children, but it’s only a temporary one.

I won’t always have to know the best method for removing permanent marker from a flat screen television, or Vaseline from walls. (don’t ask…)

But I also won’t always have children that can fit on my lap (both at the same time, most days). I won’t always have a baby who would rather sleep on me than anywhere else in the world, or a preschooler who sneaks back into my bed to cuddle as soon as I start to fall asleep. We won’t always have trips to the park, or walks down to feed the ducks.

It’s all happening so fast with Becca. There are pictures of her on our wall from when she was just minutes old. In a few months, she is starting school. She’ll make friends, get to know her teachers, and I won’t be the center of  her world anymore. Her Saturdays will be spent at sleepovers, birthday parties, and school events. They’ll be spent doing homework and studying for tests. Someday, they’ll be spent with boyfriends, and then they’ll be spent in a college dorm. And then in her first apartment. And then, with her own family.

Fiona will follow the same path. Each Saturday bringing her one step closer to adulthood. The same goes for any children Mark and I will have down the road.

I can’t drop everything to spend every moment with my children. Becca and Fiona have their own little world, and I’m not quite a part of that. That’s their time. I have responsibilities and I need time for myself, and for Mark, too. I don’t believe it’s about the quantity of time. It’s about the quality. When I am with them, my phone is stuck in my purse, the computer is put away, and the television is turned off. We play. We read stories. We go for walks. We talk, and sing, and dance.

We smile. We laugh.

We aren’t always our best selves with each other. That’s okay. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, and that’s okay, too. Their bids for independence are sometimes squashed by my bids to make sure they both actually reach their 18th birthdays without inflicting too much harm on themselves or each other. There are days when my temper is a bit shorter than others, or days when the endless piles of  toys and papers, the crumbs all over the floor, and the bananas squished into the furniture seem like more of a hassle than it’s worth.

But I’m going to do my very best to treasure every moment, even the not-perfect ones. I’m going to hug them when I feel like screaming. I am going to laugh when I feel like throwing my hands up in the air. I’m going to make a little extra time every day to enjoy being a part of their lives.

The author sums up her blog post by stating that the exasperating moments are as much of a gift of time as the joyful ones. I have a choice; I can either choose to let the more challenging bits get to me or I can learn to cherish them nearly as much as I cherish the more enjoyable moments in our lives. Because one day,  I’m going to wish for a way to reclaim the wasted seconds and minutes and hours, and there’s going to be no way to get any of them back. I have a single chance at each minute I spend with my children, and I want to make those minutes count.

Being a work-at-home mom is a study in creativity. Every day is something new. Today, for example:

7:00 am- I am awake. Fiona was restless last night, so neither of us got much sleep. She seems to think that she can get off the bed (she can’t) to go play. After getting stuck halfway off the bed, she finally settled down around 11:30, and then proceeded to wake up again every hour or two. All. Night. Long. This is not typical, by the way. She usually sleeps like a dream.

7:30– Breakfast, diaper changes, talk to Mark (who is now home from work). He promises me a nap after he gets up, as long as I have dinner in the oven before I lay down. Roast chicken intimidates him, I guess. I agree, and he goes to bed.

9:30– The girls are watching cartoons. I am starting research for tomorrow’s assignments and wasting time on the computer. After a while, I get distracted with some new guitar music and play guitar for fifteen minutes or so.

10:00– Exercise time. I settle for a 10-minute upper body workout. Finish the workout, get everyone snack. I have crackers and cheese, the girls have fruit snacks.

10:30– Bathtime for the girls. I get everyone clean and then let them play while I go through some of tomorrow’s research with a highlighter and start planning out my articles.

11:00– Play time. The girls climb all over me. Fiona slobbers all over my shoulder, laughing like crazy. What fun!

11:50– Lunch. Becca and Fiona want peanut butter sandwiches and Goldfish crackers. The meal is interrupted when Fiona enters meltdown mode. Quick clean up, and then…

12:05 pm– Quiet time. Fiona falls asleep on me, Becca falls asleep in the other recliner. I start the week’s grocery list and do some creative writing.

2:15– The girls wake up. I stick the still partially frozen chicken into the oven, and start hoping for a miracle. The girls tear the house apart while I get a little further on my goal to learn Italian (love all of the free online resources!).

3:00– Mark wakes up. I hop in the shower (finally!) and then lay down for a quick nap.

3:50– Mark wakes me up, two seconds after I finally fall asleep. The chicken won’t be ready before dinner time. Can he make cheeseburgers instead? (Yes, he felt the need to wake me up for this.) Fiona starts fussing, so he leaves the girls with me while he starts his laundry. Twenty minutes later, I finally get my nice quiet bedroom back. I do not fall back asleep, and instead spend the time daydreaming.

5:00– Becca comes in to get me for dinner. Chicken and roasted potatoes has turned into cheeseburgers and tomato soup. We eat. Mark goes to get ready for work.

6:00– Mark leaves. The girls and I have a 25 minute clean-up spree (with kitchen timer). We conquer the living room, part of the dinning room, and half of the dishes. Good enough.

7:00– Movie time. Tonight’s choice was Alice in Wonderland. We finish up the turtle pie from Easter for dessert.

8:00– (Now.) The girls are working off the sugar from the pie by spinning around the living room. I’m working on this week’s grocery list. Bedtime starts in half an hour. I hope to get them into bed at a decent time (read: before 10:00), and then get an article or two written for tomorrow while watching some adult (meaning- not animated) television.  Then I’ll climb into bed, pull out my Kindle and book light, and read until I finally fall asleep.

Tomorrow, I will get up at the same time. I’ll work, get everyone ready to get groceries, and figure out what to do with the now cooked chicken. Somewhere in there, I will find time to exercise, read, and work on my Italian. I’ll also finish the dishes and clean through the living room again. It’s not exciting or inspiring, but it’s what our lives are like.

Happy Easter!

It’s the night before Easter, and all through the house….

It’s 8:40, the night before Easter. Colored eggs? Check. Mostly clean house? Check. Candy divided up into separate bags for each family member? Check. The only thing I have left to do is help the girls write the letter to the Easter bunny, set out a few carrots, get the cinnamon rolls ready for the fridge, get the kids into bed and asleep (please, God…), and get everything set up for in the morning.

For a one-shot holiday, Easter is a hassle. Unless you’re religious and get into all of the pre-Easter festivities there, it’s just a day with a lot of prep, a big meal, and then it’s over. It’s like a disappointing Christmas. Except there are jelly beans, possibly the best redeeming quality the day has.

To make the evening even more exciting, Becca has the idea that, if there are goldfish crackers left on the floor, there is a very good chance that the Easter bunny will accidentally crush them on his way in and out of the house. So, I’m letting Fiona spread some around (she’s so good at it), and then I will be crushing some near the table later, and maybe some in the hallway. She’ll be thrilled; everyone will hear about this for weeks.

I am off to get the girls into bed so I can get everything else started. Happy Easter, everyone!

VEGETABLES: They're What's for Dinner!

With all of the healthy eating Mark and I are doing, there was a very good chance that our kids would be living off of peanut butter sandwiches. I was a somewhat picky eater. I don’t know if I would have eaten all of the stuff I put in front of my kids.

For example, last night Mark grilled up some portobello mushroom caps, topped them with some Swiss cheese, and we had porto-burgers with peas, and fresh pineapple on the side. Tonight, I cooked up a couple swai fillets, and set them over a bed of saute’d mushrooms, spinach and grape tomatoes. All of that was served over brown rice. The girls loved it. Both eat salad, broccoli, spinach, brussel sprouts, and any other vegetable we set in front of them.

Mark and I love to cook, and we cook a wide variety of foods. We don’t eat a lot of chicken nuggets, fries or boxed mac-and-cheese. We eat salad, fresh fish and vegetables. We eat some junk food too, but not as much as we used to. The girls never get soda (except for ginger ale when they don’t feel well), and Mark and I have both cut down our soda consumption to a couple cups a month. The girls don’t expect soda at parties. I was shocked when I saw parents giving three and four-year-olds caffeinated sodas, like it was normal. Whenever we have a party, there are always juice boxes for the kids.

I didn’t start this post out as a way to brag about my family, but I guess I am a little. I’m proud of the fact that my kids like salad. I think I’m allowed to be. I’m proud of the fact that my girls would rather have an apple or a cup of grapes than cookies or candy (most days–They are still kids).  There are things that they don’t like, and Becca knows that she doesn’t need to eat what she doesn’t like. She does, however, need to take at least one bite of everything (a ‘no thank you’ bite) before I will even consider making her a peanut butter sandwich.

So, yes, I’m proud of my children’s eating habits. And, yes, I’m bragging just a bit. In this case, I think I am allowed.

I have some amazing Facebook friends. A few weeks ago, one of them posted about a summer adventure project she’s completing with her two young children. They read “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” (Dr. Suess), and then came up with a new place to visit for each letter of the alphabet.

I, of course, shamelessly stole the idea. I think it’s great! Just what we need to get us out of the house and off exploring new places this year. We’re starting it officially on May 1st, giving us four months to get through all 26 letters. It’s going to be a blast. Here are a couple of our ideas:

• Balloonfest
• Underground Caverns (Howe’s Caverns here in NY)
• Museum
• Racetrack (Most likely Saratoga Springs; the girls like horses)
• Waterfall (trip to Niagara for vacation)
• Erie Canal
• Radio Station
• Zoo

As we finish each letter, Becca and I are going to draw a picture of what we did to hang up on the wall, creating a quest “quilt”. I can’t wait to get started. This is Becca’s last summer before starting school (mine, too. More on that later), and I want to make it super special for her.

It’s been a couple weeks. My only excuse is that I have been beyond busy. And when I’m not busy, I’m too tired to come up with a decent blog post idea. Or I have an idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

I am about half-way through week 37. Becca was born the day before week 39. We’re thisclose and I am mostly ready. I’m still trying to finish up work, but the actual baby gear is all in place. She has clothes, and washcloths, and burp clothes… I was actually a bit panicky over the burp cloth thing. We just get the cheap cloth diapers, and then use them for everything the first couple of months. Baby with an upset stomach? Out-of-control leaky boobs? Spilled juice on the side table while trying to balance a baby, book, and TV remote? Grab a cloth diaper! Problem solved. The thought of not having any was kinda terrifying. Fortunately, Walmart carried a brand close to what I was looking for, and I just found a couple of our old ones.

Our new washer was delivered this morning. It’s nice. It’s big. And I can’t wait to try it out. It needs to warm up a bit first, so it’ll be this afternoon before I can actually start washing anything. Eventually, we’ll be getting the matching dryer (hopefully in the next month or so). We had money set aside for it, and then my laptop battery finally died the rest of the way. If the cord even came a little loose, the laptop shut itself off, instantly. It made work a bit difficult, so we finally took the plunge and got a new one. It’s smaller than my old one, and the keyboard is taking a bit of getting used to, but it works! It has almost 8x the speed as the old one, and 4x the space. In practical terms, I can now run Word, Chrome and a photo editing program all at once without my computer threatening to explode. I can also use Skype, which wouldn’t even download right on the old one. I got a bluetooth adapter, a headset, and a few other accessories, along with a printer. We haven’t had a printer in three years. I’ve missed it.

Between the rest of the baby stuff, a surprise car repair, the laptop and the washer, our tax refund is gone. It lasted all of four days, which is fine. We always put it towards big purchase for the home. A few years ago, it was a couch, couple of recliners, and a bed. Before that, it was a TV, sound system and camcorder. All of the big purchases are saved for tax season, and it works for us.

We’re still working on getting Becca to stay in her bed all night. She sleeps there without a problem, but she wakes up 3-4 times during the night and has to come get me to get back to sleep. It’s not as bad as it was, but I’d still like uninterrupted sleep at least one night before Fiona arrives. She’s really doing great, though, and I’m so proud of her. She still finds her way back into our bed by 5:30 or 6:00 every day, but I’m okay with that. I enjoy the hour of cuddling before she’s ready for us to get up and start our day. It’s a nice way to start the day.

It’s been around a month since we started working on getting Becca into her own bed at night. And tonight, we start on the final stage. She will (usually) sleep in her own bed for naps, if she doesn’t manage to get out of taking a nap that day. She starts off each night in her own bed, staying there for a couple hours before waking up and coming in to bed with us.

Tonight, the goal is that she will be sleeping all night in her own bed. I’ll be getting up whenever she wakes, and helping her get back to sleep, until she feels comfortable doing it herself. My hope is that, once she sees that coming to our bed isn’t an option, she’ll sleep longer than a couple hours at a time, or at least get better at getting herself back to sleep.

We have five to six weeks before Fiona arrives. I don’t expect things to be perfect by that point, but if she can sleep most of the night without needing me, it’ll be a huge step in the right direction.

What this means for me is that I will not be sleeping for the next several nights. Ha. I’ll be getting up when she does, and I know she falls back to asleep much faster than I do, especially if I have to get up and go into her room. Depending on how things go tonight, I might be setting up the air mattress in there for a few nights. I’m kind of hoping it doesn’t come to that, though. I can deal with a few mostly sleepless nights if it means I get more sleep later on.

Until, you know, Fiona arrives and I give up sleep for another four months.

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UPDATE: The Next Morning

Becca fell asleep without a problem, woke up twice early on, but went right to sleep as soon as she saw me there (I rushed in when she started making noise). Around 10:30, she came wandering out, so we walked back in to her room together. She started crying, so I let her sit on my lap for a while until she was almost back to sleep. Then I helped her get back into her bed, and she was sound asleep in a few minutes.

Which is how she stayed until almost 4:00am. Meanwhile, I was barely sleeping.Not used to having the bed to myself. So, as soon as Mark gets up this afternoon, I’m back to bed for a while.

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Onto the other news… We have a guest blogger tomorrow! Maria Rainier, who blogs at First in Education, emailed me a week ago, expressing interest in writing up a post for Writer Mom at Home. I’m more than happy to have her, and I think you’ll love the recipe she has ready to share with us. Watch for it tomorrow morning!