Budget Cut Blues....Also know as they can't play music in school

It's a sad day in my hometown as I am sure it is in a lot of hometowns. People are voting on where to lop off the pound of flesh that is needed to cover budget short falls. I know that my little slice of heaven is not so different from any other square of love but.....Well heck it hurts. In some respects my expecting life to bump along merrily and stop when I need to get some rest is such a self centered notion....... life does revolve around me doesn't it?........well my life at least

(I even have my own theme music.) It shakes the tree a little to find that everyone else thinks it revolves around them, come on people.....How can that be? I bet it is the reality TV craze that has done it. Even our President has joked about having his own reality TV show. See he feels it too.

Somehow cutting budgets and dropping music and computer classes doesn't jibe with the town that I chose to raise my children in. In my must see TV of life, the camera would pan to the younger chubby me running into my 3rd grade classroom Waiting for something..... empty of Art until I heard a wonderful musician who came to my school Mr. Natalie. (I pray I have spelt his name right because, He did right by me.) Mr. Natalie played for an auditorium full of kids and let us all know that there was a world of music and arts out there if we only had the desire to try. The instruments were so shiny and so intricate I couldn't wait to get my sweaty 9 year old fingerprints all over the shine. Mr. Natalie was my music teacher all through grade school up till I reached high school I played any instrument he put in front of me and felt grateful for the chance. I was able to play onstage and not embarrass myself because of him and more because of the Tax payers of my town who payed him. I didn't do drugs or end up pregnant (even when it looked like those were places I could be headed) because I knew that my theme music was not a tragedy or a horror but a life affirming girly flick. I had value and I could play even when I couldn't do other things. Music lead to art and other forms of expression, but I firmly believe that it all started with music and that first chance to play.

Walking through the halls of the grade school where my children learn and live a life I am now removed from I remember the smells of the music room. The rosin for the bows and the cork grease for the reed instruments. Their school is now challenged with what to remove. There is such pain over this because there is no easy answers. Everyone has a different agenda over what is important to them because the world revolves around us all. All I ask is that it is a fair cut and everyone feels the pain. I will take my share knowing that you also feel the hurt and perhaps that will unite us to work towards better solutions in the future. I wish I had some happy ending that I could tie onto all of this. Perhaps a lottery ticket found on the side of the road that could be used to keep the music playing at the grade school. Pan the cameras over the grade school band playing for the senior center while every dog that needs to find a home in the now open shelter is loving, sweet and adopted by lonely single mothers. I bet some indie film developer could make a feel good hit out of it.

The smell of.......

There are certain smells I love and would do anything to protect. Yet, we all agree there are smells that even now you could imagine and gag from. Chicken waste.....yuck.....A full diaper Genie.......A trash can in hot sun with 4 day old shrimp shells....ugg...stale beer... feeling a little sick here. Good smells are more subtle. I love the smell of oil paint drying on a canvas. My eldest told me that it is akin to the smell of apple orchard in the fall, which is another great smell. Back in art school my best friend, who shall remain nameless (Cheryl), said that her paints looked good enough to eat. I totally agree because they certainly smell good enough. The opening of my paint box always makes my mouth water ever so slightly.....kinda gross. (I am not promoting the eating of oil base paint and have never tried them......They will make you sick!) The Caswell and Massey Soap Black Current may smell good enough to eat but it's still soap. (Not that I would know anything about that and there was no"Dare"involved.) The BookBarn on a sunny day, Colchester Bakery, fresh cut grass, cookies or apple pie baking. Stop and think about the last time you entered a house on a really cold day when the oven is on, the smell like a blanket around you. I know why Americans eat so many cookies. I associate well being with warm cookies. Everyone talks about the smell of babies and after I had mine I realized just how far I would go to protect that smell. It is primal. Recently, I was sitting at a baby shower with my youngest on my lap. He has just left toddlerville and the world that awaits is still a little scary. I was talking to another mom reminiscing about baby smells. Including my son I told them both that I loved smelling behind his ears because the baby smell still lingered there and I took a good big sniff.....My son inclined his head to our friend and said....."Want some?"

Caught

A wave, colds, balls, fish, with drawers down, captured, encased, seized, stuck, fingered, seen, baited, accurately represented, Pointed out.

Here are a few photos I have "caught" in the past month.

I couldn't wait to share them with everyone so, enjoy, Deb

Lawn Care and How I Don't

My husband is the master of our mower. He knows it's ins and outs. I will use a weed whacker on occasion but I have left off using most power tools since I had a incident with an outdoor extension cord. (when I say "an" it really wasn't one but three outdoor extension cords and a electric hedge trimmer and it was last year). Now flash forward past my hedge clipping issues to this past week when due to a illness that left my sweetheart out of commission for a week, I was left to look at weeds and grass that tickled my ankles and threatened my knees. I had an idea...... Flash forward 10 tense minutes where I managed to remove the mower from my crowded garage, filled it with gas.....so far so good. I mean how hard could this be, then walked it out onto the back forty. I started her up and mowed.....I mowed that yard to within an inch of it's grassy life. The mower sputtered and then died just as I finished the last row. Perfect timing, There was even a thunderstorm rolling in just as I put the mower in the garage. (Dang....I was Queen of the World). I went inside and the glow of my exertions lasted until the sun shone the next day on my freshly butchered lawn. There were spots where the lawn was not mowed and grass poked up ready to seed, then bare patches where I cut to close.....and the edges, well I am not going to say anything about the edges. That's when I started thinking that the difference between MY cutting the lawn and my husband cutting the lawn was the difference between going to a barber to have your hair cut and having your mom cut it. When I told my sweetheart that he laughed and said "It just takes some practice." I am not interested in practicing......... I think I will just buy another extension cord. I already have plenty of practice with the hedge trimmers. Hopefully, The forth time is a charm.