HAPPY NEW YEAR -- 2009!

Once I started to think of what my resolution for this year should be, I couldn't stop at just one. So here are the top five --

#5 Learn some new embellishment techniques

#4 Wear aprons -- this means sewing some funky ones that will put fun into function

#3 Play the piano once a day -- at least the keys will stay dusted

#2 Drink more water -- always a good idea

#1 Post regularly on this blog!


A quick story about #3 ... when I was a little girl in the late 1950s, we lived on a 100-acre farm in NW Ohio where my father grew wheat, oats, corn, and soy beans. Even though he also worked a night job, there wasn't much disposable income.

My mother wanted a piano ... so she had to be creative in finding the funds for such a luxury ... while deciding what to sacrifice to get it.

I don't remember the details of the transaction (I was about 5 at the time) but do know that one day some man came to our house with a piano and drove away in my parents' car. My mother had answered a newspaper ad where he had wanted to trade a used piano for a car. (Or, an "un-used" piano ... his children refused to practice...) A win-win solution since he got a car and we had a piano in our living room but still had the pickup truck for transportation and farm chores.

Mom was always singing, with or without the radio; now she had a piano and "our" formal music education began. She would sit at the back of the room during my piano lessons -- today I realize she was actually auditing and practicing and learning along with me. I was somewhat of a convenient means to her end.

I am sure that the car has many years ago gone to the "big parking lot in the sky," but I still have that piano and many memories which include more than piano lessons and recitals and practicing. In high school I was one of the accompanists for both the high school and church choirs and even gave piano lessons at a local music store my senior year.

Thanks, Mom, for knowing how to set priorities ... and giving me the gift of music ....