It seems to be only when Presidents Day rolls around that I remember that I'm supposed to be reading presidential biographies! Since last February we've finished one more: "The Nixon Effect" by Douglas E. Schoen in May. Ford is up next.
Nine more biographies to go, which means we should be done about the time that Edith graduates from high school. Sigh.
I've watched more sports in the last 10 days than I have in any other winter in memory.
I don't follow most sports. Yes, I keep up with Ohio State football -- I think Columbus would revoke my residency if I didn't. And I might watch a bit of baseball. But other than that, nah.
This month has been different. First, the Winter Olympics in Beijing started. I don't know why or when it started, but I'm a bit of an Olympics fanatic and can pretty much remember watching every Olympics, winter and summer, since 1992 (Barcelona, Lillehammer, Atlanta, etc.). I would never watch skiing on a normal day, but somehow it mesmerizes me if it's part of the Olympics.
And I don't follow the NFL. At all. Paul watches some of the games, and I reluctantly hear them in the background. But as the Cincinnati Bengals made it further and further, the excitement climbed higher and higher. I watched at least part of the playoff games and watched more of the Super Bowl on Sunday than I have in my entire life. (I still didn't watch the whole thing.) I was disappointed that the Bengals lost 23-20, but not devastated.
I even got to see a little winter sport in person a few weeks ago, when I went to pick up Edith from a birthday at a local ice skating rink (photo above). She might not be Karen Chen, but her roller blading practice has come in handy!
Last week the kids had only two days of school, and it had nothing to do with Covid.
Monday and Tuesday was school as usual. Tuesday was a little unusual in that it reached about 50 degrees. That was the calm before the storm, literally. There was no school on Wednesday because of a teacher work-day, but it rained and rained. Then came the sleet. And then the snow. And more and more snow.
We didn't leave home Thursday or Friday -- even Paul worked from home. Luckily school was canceled the night before. The snow topped a layer of ice, making the driveway especially hard to clear. Nevertheless, we finally left the house on Saturday.
The roads are still a slushy, snowy mess, and they will be for awhile. Spring can't come soon enough.
I have Edith to thank for getting me to sit at the piano again.
We got a piano from someone in our neighborhood several years ago, free to a good home. We paid to have it brought to our house by professional movers and that was that. Every once in a while I would sit and play a few very basic tunes, largely from the beginner books I still had from way back when. I took piano lessons from about 3rd to 5th grade, so there wasn't much I could do, but I was hoping it might spur some interest in the kids.
It must have worked a little. When 9-year-old Edith saw repeated ads for a piano-playing app called Simply Piano, she was intrigued. She asked about trying it out, and we looking at it together. She liked it, and I was hooked.
She practices about 15 minutes a day, while I tend to use it for an hour or more. It's been my go-to method to relax during the chaos of the evenings, and I try to fit some in while the kids are at school. The app has a number of courses to teach different notes, chords and techniques. I flew through the first courses and now, a month into it, I'm getting into some more challenging stuff that I maybe knew two or three decades ago but have since forgotten.
The app includes a good amount of sheet music, but I enjoy the songs that have been arranged so that you, as the piano-learner, can play accompaniment. You can hear the singer and additional music in the background, and the app "listens" to you play and tells you if you're hitting the right notes at the right time. It's effective and addicting.
The app allows for five profiles under one subscription, so Paul also could join in, and Atticus has already tried it a time or two. Edith is quickly getting better, having gone from nothing to playing recognizable songs with both her right and left hands in a matter of weeks. I know the app is not the same as a real in-person teacher, and she may still get that some day. But until that day comes, Simply Piano has been a fun way to resurrect my own beginner piano skills and give Edith a solid foundation for learning notes and playing songs.
