So it's been a while...yet again.

I am taking a summer class - Elementary Statistics - with my husband. We are actually enjoying it. He has to take it and I'm just doing it for an elective. I loved algebra in high school, and this stuff is so much algebra. It just comes naturally, which is really nice. All of my political science classes are very analytical, very thought-provoking. It's nice to take a class that I'm enjoying without having to think too hard to do well.

I'm also taking an English elective online. It's entitled Studies in Fiction. We are reading many books that I have never heard of, writing many papers, and just generally having to analyze a whole lot of stuff! It's kind of turning into a difficult class...unfortunately.

My dad, Panhandle Poet, has been writing a lot about music lately. Growing up, music was completely ingrained into me. I took piano lessons for umpteen years, always had a piano, always had music in general around me. Mom and Dad both are very musical, and my younger brother and I both, thankfully, inherited this lovely talent. Some of my most favorite memories are sitting at the piano with Dad behind me on the guitar, just singing and playing. We could do it for hours! It didn't even matter what...hymns from the hymn book, Eagles, George Strait, Steven Curtis Chapman, all different stuff. Sometimes, he'd just sit there and name off stuff for me to play while he listened. He and Mom were my biggest fans and playing for them was always fun. Now that I'm married and in a different town, playing the piano for them has become a challenge. I don't ever feel prepared or good enough anymore because I don't get to practice as often. It's a quandry I haven't quite figured out how to solve yet. Someday, I want to make a cd of me playing or playing/singing for them...it'd be a great tribute to all their hard work, sacrifice, and time spent on me and my piano-playing fingers. Someday...

Deepest apologies

My deepest apologies for being so lax in keeping this thing up. Life is crazy right now, and some things just don't seem to have priority.

I've been working on cleaning out our house. Granted, we just got married this past August, but I have been amazed at how much STUFF we have and have accumulated over these past months. We are both such pack-rats that it is ridiculous what we keep and what needs to be thrown out. With my sister-in-law coming to live with us in August and the baby coming in a month, it's time for things to get cleaned out, organized, and back to normal!

I am such an organized person, in most things, that this mess really has been driving me nuts since we got married, I just haven't ever found the time to fix it. I thought moving into these apartments would help. It did, just not enough. Our storage unit is full, closets are full, boxes under the bed are full...there's just no more room!

How do people do it when they've lived in a house for 30 years?