Saying Thanks, Breaking Rules, and Smiling
My friend, Michelle who writes the blog, Crow's Feet has given me the Kreativ Blogger award. This is what I have to say about that.
Thank you, Michelle. It was very kind of you to think of me. According to the rules of the award, I am to now write seven things that my readers may find of interest about me. I'm going to bend that rule a little bit. You know me. I'm such a rebel. I wanted to share seven things that made me smile recently, so hopefully they will be of interest to you as well.
1. My son's girlfriend was over visiting here on Saturday. I was in the kitchen fixing dinner when she called me into the living room where she was. She had a laptop computer open in front of her.
"Look at this," she said. She motioned toward the computer screen in front of her indicating that I should look at it. "He's throwing snowballs at me!"
The "he" she was referring to me was my son. He was in his bedroom on his desktop computer. They were both logged into the online computer game, Runescape, and were "throwing snowballs" at each other in the game. Now, let me remind you that we had plenty of real snow outside on the ground in our yard that day that they could have gone out and thrown at each other. However, instead, here were my teenage son and his girlfriend in two different rooms of our house on two different computers playing a computer game where they could throw pretend snowballs at each other. HA HA HA HA HA!
I also thought it very amusing that she was here to visit him, but that they weren't even in the same room. They could have just as easily thrown virtual snowballs at each other from their computers if she had stayed at home at her own house. She didn't need to come here to sit in our living room to do it. Dating sure has changed since I was their age!
2. We went to Toledo on Sunday to hear my son play with the Toledo Youth Symphony. The kids did a great job. That made me smile, of course. I wasn't able to make a video of it to play for you here, and I'll talk about that in a minute. I do still have two videos from the last time he played with them which was in November for their Holiday Pops Concert. I haven't taken the time to post them here before now, but maybe you will enjoy them. They certainly make me smile.
The first video is a medley of songs from the Walt Disney movie production of Aladdin. My son got to play his really green electric bass for that performance. He's over on the right on the stage in his usual spot.
The next video is the John Sousa number, Stars and Stripes Forever performed by the entire Toledo Youth Orchestra. My son is hard to see in this one, but he is one of the bass players on the right side of the stage whose instrument is wearing a Santa hat.
3. Now as to why I wasn't able to make a video of this past weekend's performance, let me explain. Yes, I remembered to take the camera with me. Yes, I remembered to take extra batteries with me. So what was the problem you may want to know. Well, I did manage to get just a little snippet of their first song on the camera, but then the batteries in the camera died on me. I did a quick switch with the batteries I had brought with me. Those batteries were dead too! Hmm...that seemed strange. I was certain I had recharged these batteries earlier in the week. Oh well, I couldn't do anything about it, so I just sat back and enjoyed the concert.
After the concert, we were rejoined by my son. I explained to him that I wasn't able to make a video of his concert because the camera batteries were dead. He said, "Oh, I brought some extra ones for you in case you needed them." He then pulled said batteries out of his pants pocket. Of course, that did me no good at all since the concert was already over. When I needed them was when he was up on the stage. Those batteries in his pants pocket didn't do me much good at all when I was down in the theater seats in the audience and he was up on stage wearing said pants, of course.
Oh, and what about my extra batteries that I brought with me that I thought I had charged? Upon further investigation, we discovered that my son and his girlfriend had used the batteries I had charged in the Wii video game controllers a couple of days before the concert. The batteries I brought with me were the dead batteries that had been replaced in their game controllers with the ones I had charged.
So the whole batteries debacle made me laugh because sometimes you have to laugh or you will cry.
4. During the concert, at one point one of the musicians in the youth symphony played a wonderful solo part on his violin. After he finished, my husband said, "That was some fine fiddling."
My son's girlfriend who isn't in the Youth Symphony but who also plays the violin said, "He wasn't playing a fiddle, he was wearing shoes. That was a violin." Well, that just made me laugh. Have I mentioned how much I love this girl?
5. We are in the midst of a large winter storm here. We are supposed to get about four inches of snow today (which I think we have already gotten and then some). I'd take pictures to show you, but I'm so sick of looking at it that I really don't want to take any more pictures of it. You've all seen snow before---well most of you have. It's white and it's cold, and we have a whole bunch of it outside right now. Just use your imagination, OK?
Overnight tonight we are supposed to get another five to seven inches with another inch or so to follow tomorrow morning. Then we are to get some winds to add the lovely "blowing and drifting" phenomenon to the equation.
Anyway let me get to the part about all this snow falling down outside that made me happy, my son found out early this morning that his school was closed today due to the weather. A short while later, my husband who works as a school psychologist (albeit with a different school system than the one my son attends) got the message that he too would be staying home and did not need to report to work today due to the weather.
Most of you know that snow does not make me smile much or make me happy. However, my son and husband were both happy to be getting the day off. I was happy for them and also relieved that I wouldn't have to worry about them being on the roads. So that's #5.
6. I, however, was still scheduled to go into work at the library this evening and was not looking forward to that. The roads were and still are really bad right now. The city plows are out, of course, but the snow is coming down so fast and so heavy that they aren't keeping up with it and the roads are a real mess.
After lunch, I got the call from one of my coworkers that the library was closing early, and I wouldn't have to report tonight for work after all. Woot! Woot! Well, there's another reason to be happy. I have the evening off!!
7. We're having pizza for supper tonight with sausage and mushrooms and extra cheese on it just the way I like it. Now THAT sounds like a great reason to smile to me!
As for the final "rule" attached to this award, I am now supposed to pass the prize and this meme on to seven more bloggers who I think deserve it. I'm breaking that rule too. Instead of choosing seven bloggers, I am passing it on to all of the bloggers in my blog list over there in the sidebar. Any of you who would like to claim this award and list seven interesting things about yourself on your blog, I now officially give you this award because all of you are creative folks. Those who would rather not pick up this award and would like to just go on about your business writing about what you usually write about on your blog, well, that's quite fine with me too!
