A Couple of Pictures

I worked on the baby quilt a bunch yesterday, made some cookies, got dinner ready, went with the kids to the book fair at their school, and did some more quilting before I went to bed.

I haven’t hand quilted in a while – my stitches are a clear illustration of that.  Don’t have pictures to show you, but I will at some point.

It took me a while to get going, trying to find a way that felt comfortable now, because my fingers start feeling needles-and-pins-y when I’m doing all sorts of hand work – peeling, chopping, sewing, pinning, writing, tying shoes, braiding my hair – stuff like that.  Sometimes it goes away after a while.  I think my little hand muscles loosen up or something.  I don’t know how it works.  But I know I can compensate, or change the way I’m holding something or doing something, and it’s manageable.

Anyway, I fiddled around a bit and finally got into a good rhythm with the sewing.  And it was so great to be doing that again.  Like harvesting coriander seed, it’s meditative.  Rhythmic.

It makes me happy.

And speaking of things that make me happy, here are the couple of pictures promised by the post title:

Julia, of course, mid-cartwheel.  We were at the ball field the other day.  Alex’s game was over and the coaches were talking to the team in the dugout.  Julia and I were waiting, and Julia, who does not do “patiently” or “sitting still” all that well, was turning endless cartwheels and practicing round-offs.  The sun was going down, and I was catching some great shadows of her against the back of the dugout wall.  No shadow of her in this picture, but it was the best of the cartwheel shots (taken on my phone), so I thought I’d share.

And this…

This is Alex running through his music before the elementary school band and orchestra concert last week.  The five local elementary schools come together for this concert – so five different groups of 4th grade violin, five groups of 5th grade violin, and 5 groups of band kids, all playing together.  It’s pretty remarkable, and I love their music teacher. 

You’ll notice that Alex isn’t playing his violin in that picture (though he is in the violin group and played that instrument as well).  He does fine on violin.  But he doesn’t love it.  He plays it because, as Bill has pointed out, it gives him an in, an opportunity to play his guitar.  So Alex was one of the kids who had a solo that night.  The others were all from the band.  Bill had arranged the second of movement of a Vivaldi concerto for Alex to play on guitar, and Alex’s violin teacher played the orchestra part on keyboard.

We went early so Alex and his teacher could run through the piece.  That’s when I took the above picture.  I like it – Alex with all the music stands and empty chairs behind him.

I only took one picture during the performance – first of all my hands had broken out in a cold sweat just before it was Alex’s turn to play, and because I didn’t want the click of the camera to be a distraction.  And it also occurred to me that I should just sit there and listen, and delight in the moment.

Which I did.

Comments

[Judith]

I have a question and then a request. 1st, I've been making yogurt lately and switched to using organic powdered milk from using regular old (who knows what crap is in it) powdered milk. And now my yogurt is kind of grainy. What's up with that? 2nd the request, please, please, please post a video of the kids playing their guitars!!!!!