Still hobbling around.

Just in case you were wondering. Limping, naturally enough, provokes the hip on the opposite side. Which strains both knees. Rather like when Firstborn had two cats, before moving to Florida, and had them declawed and fixed at a go. Poor cats did not know what body part to favor.

After work I drove to the temple. I was hoping, at least a little, that I would walk out at the end of an evening of service with a non-cranky body. In this I was disappointed. But the time I spent in the house of the Lord was exquisitely instructive.

We are encouraged by our church leaders to liken the scriptures to our own lives. Last night I saw the connection between a verse I have nodded at in passing, over the past 38 years, and something that happened this week. One of those ohhh... moments that bring recognition and understanding and tears to the eyes.

This is not likely to be one of those weekends in which I run around checking out shops and crossing items off my list. I will bake a birthday pie for Squishy. We will get Lorelai started and to the service station and probably a new battery put in.

He will lift down two large, awkward, and heavy containers from the shelf in my closet (one-handed, if he's anything like Beloved) so I may sort through the contents. And I will finish his birthday present.

I will go to church tomorrow and try to figure out my new calling. And I will stay off my foot as much as possible. Perhaps this is meant to be a time to slow down and ponder. (It's certainly preferable to hugging the commode and throwing up all the way from my toes.)

Now to figure out something for breakfast.

Oh my foot!

For those of you who did not live through the Victorian period, that was a reasonably common expression of annoyance.

I do not know what my feet might be trying to tell me. I'm pretty sure that they are being metaphorical. And I have not a clue where to find my secret agent decoder ring.

As I stepped out of the elevator on the parking level last night, both feet immediately began to express their displeasure with my sneakers, the flooring, and the state of the world in general.

I am sitting up in bed, trying to figure out what to eat, what to wear, and what to do after work tonight. I don't know if I've pulled a muscle in my foot, if one of those minuscule bones has broken, if it's an excess of lactic acid after Wednesday night's massage, if this is temporary, or if it's part of the new normal. Time to get the foot roller and see if I can get the aching to go away.

But in the meantime I am hungry and distractible. And my pillow just beat me up.

Or next Wednesday.

Yes. Next Wednesday works. But in Denton???  Denton and Dallas and Fort Worth form a roughly equilateral triangle 35 miles on a side. I have already printed off the Google map. It says 55 miles but only 35 minutes to get there? I think some numbers might be playing leapfrog.

And then no mortgage payment until October.

Last night's massage was the poster child for *intense*. More from the emotional and spiritual aspect than the physical. I am hoping to get to the temple before next week's massage and check my perceptions in the peace and quiet there.

Meanwhile, my sinuses are remarkably clear. My ankles are fairly quiet. I am ravenous. And incredibly tired but in what feels like a healthy way. I cried buckets and buckets last night, releasing old griefs. The veil felt very thin.

I read a little in my French BOM and worked on The Ash Grove some more. And then I slept like a rock.

It will be interesting to see how the day plays out.

Maybe Friday. Maybe Tuesday.

Got a call from the mortgage company yesterday while I was at lunch. She called my cell phone. I just happened to look down after washing my dishes to see the green circle which means an incoming call. (Coincidence being Heaven's way of remaining anonymous.) Underwriting only needed that one copy, my July bank statement front and back including any blank pages, and we could close on Friday. Or on Monday. I gently reminded her that that was Labor Day.

After lunch I faxed the last of the paperwork. And now we wait. I need to take a good hard squint at my workflow for the rest of the week and make sure there are no major projects due on Thursday or Friday. Or Tuesday.

Yesterday was blessedly productive, and the result of fervent prayer. I mailed out masses of envelopes that I had printed off late Friday afternoon which were dated for yesterday, so I couldn't upload them at the time. Decimated my pending folders for both attorneys and cheerfully forwarded other stuff to the secretary who had been on vacation last week. Whittled down my email inbox.

Lorelai wouldn't start yesterday. She was a little reluctant when I tanked her on Saturday night. So glad I decided to keep the truck. I transferred everything into the Tardis and drove to work.

I called Squishy on the drive home, but he was working until 9:00. And I am booked through Thursday night. Lorelai will just have to sit at the curb until Friday night or sometime Saturday.

I will use significantly more gas this week than I had planned; thankfully, that won't mean ramen noodles until payday as it once would. So blessed!

If I have a mortgage in my own name, that means I'm officially a grownup. Right?

Scary thought.

A change is as good...

Or, perhaps, the more things change...

I went to a fireside last night, in Arlington, surrounded by old friends, to listen to another friend (from Firstborn's ward and m-i-l to her best friend). She told the story of how she got to her happily ever after, a third marriage that is joyful and has weathered two decades. She had us in stitches.

I came home and read my French BOM; worked with Olive on the fingering for The Ash Grove; and made some audible progress on chords with my left hand while increasing the smoothness on rolls with my right hand. So maybe those three days of not touching my music were a source of blessings and not a reason to feel slothful.

At church yesterday, I was sustained and set apart as the new ward librarian. I love books. I love the sister with whom I will be serving. We will get it figured out. My friend Wes gave me a jaw-droppingly amazing and tender blessing when he set me apart.

In all the years I have been serving in the church, I've never had a blessing quite like that. Too personal and sacred to share here. I will put my thoughts and impressions into my journal, and my kids and grandkids can read about it after I'm gone.

The weekend was too short. Absolutely lovely and healing and refreshing and nowhere near long enough.

Sorry. Fell into a book.

I took "The Chamber" with me to jury duty on Thursday and finished it around midnight last night. Which means that I have neglected my music for three consecutive days. I also barely read my French BOM; ordinarily it does not require four days to finish a chapter.

I had a lot of fun yesterday. Mostly figuring out where the local versions of my favorite stores are in relation to one another. Whole Foods is across Preston from Trader Joe's.

Paper Source caught my eye when I was leaving Trader Joe's last weekend. It is across Park and opened for business on Friday. Fine papers for invitations. Fancy gift bags. Luscious ribbons. Some gifts. Some craft supplies. I'll be back.

Central Market is just around the corner from Fabrique, the fancy fabric shop I took Fourthborn to a couple of years ago, which has moved across the freeway and a little farther west since then.

Most of the things I am interested in can be found along Preston Road, from Willow where I turn for the temple to 121 where I drive for teriyaki salmon and macaroni salad. I didn't spend a lot of money yesterday. But I made great progress on my mental map.

And now I need to read my Sunday School lesson and figure out breakfast. Church is in an hour and a half. I'm nowhere near ready.

Knitting's done.

I do need to weave in some ends. And find my blocking wires. And my blocking mats. And a big enough stretch of unoccupied flat surface to git 'er done. But my first Knit Swirl is off the needles.

I went to the court today but was dismissed with about 20% of the original jury pool after three hours. Most folks would have gone home, and if they'd sent me to a JP court near home, I would not have headed back downtown. As it was, I stopped in at the deli in our building and picked up chicken fried steak and a double order of mashed potatoes and gravy. And then I got to work and made up, a little, for yesterday's mildly frustrating work flow.

Trying to remember if I have one or two suits left to answer tomorrow.

I am trying to get enough gumption to practice my music, but I think I will just read my scriptures and call it a night. Had a very healing massage last night; am having some amusingly bizarre side effects. So I'm rather more tired than usual.

The day from where?

The good news is that by the grace of Heaven I was able to reconstruct a 200+ page appendix to a document that I accidentally deleted just before we were supposed to file it electronically.

The good news is that it only took me an hour and a half to do so, check and recheck my work and check it again.

The good news is that I did not cry all the way home from sheer relief and gratitude.

The good news us that I did not cause or participate in any accidents on the way home.

The good news is that I had money to tank Lorelai.

The good news is that I found the last pint of Chocolate Therapy in the grocery store.

The good news is that Mel and Squishy were home so I could do a drive-by hugging and take them some stuff.

The good news is that I left before the twin I'm not ready to speak to showed up.

The good news is that the other twin is coming by after work today and taking the canoes out of the back yard.

The good news is that the Yard Dude comes today, and when I come home after Knit Night the lawn will look and smell wonderful.

The good news is that tonight is Knit Night.

The good news is that I might get to spend a little time with LittleBit beforehand.

The good news is that Heaven is still in the business of hearing and answering prayers. Even when childbirth words are the punctuation. I have never been more sure that God knows me, individually, and loves and blesses me despite my faults, than I was yesterday.

I am, nevertheless, hoping for a less exciting day than parts of yesterday were.

I should be reading my scriptures.

It's been a good weekend. Only half the items on my list accomplished, but enough that I felt I used my time wisely.

This was a good Sabbath. Yesterday I attended Kora's baptism. Today I was invited in with the family to her brother Ky's ordination as a deacon. I've cried a lot of happy tears this weekend. Pretty sure that Beloved was there yesterday. He really loved that family. He was probably there again today, but I was already crying do I couldn't tell you one way or the other.

I just wish he'd warn me. He only seems to show up when I'm out of tissues. (I did think ahead before church today, but I didn't take my purse with my for the ordination. I left it in the Relief Society room.)

First Sunday in the new building. Three minutes to get to church. Significantly longer to find the RS room. This building is laid out differently than any other I've been in. The WIFI was a little iffy, so I couldn't access the manual online in RS, but I brought the very last spare one home with me afterwards. I read the Sunday School lesson last night and the RS lesson online here at home this morning. If I am translated overnight, you'll know why. (Those of us who have callings that take us out of Gospel Doctrine or RS are supposed to keep up on our own. I didn't even pretend to try when I was serving in Primary. The calling would no doubt have been easier if I had.)

I've accepted a new calling. I was hoping to get a clear witness that it was inspired, before I did, but nada. And I'm feeling the Spirit often in other respects. So I hope that after I've been sustained by the congregation and set apart, that witness will come. This slogging through a calling and trying to figure out the why of it, gets old really fast. I want to be useful. I have some of the skills to succeed in this new calling. I will no doubt learn more. But it would be so nice to know that this is precisely where and what Heaven needs me to be.

I started trying to learn chords tonight. Not pretty. Quite possibly funny. Will try again tomorrow night. As a banjo player I'm a pretty good knitter.

Careful what you ask for.

Finally spoke with someone on the refi. Underwriting was not convinced that the checks I wrote had actually cleared. (I suppose because the copies I got, and forwarded, only showed the fronts.)

So I took some PT, came home and got the monthly bills from the mortgage company that showed a steadily declining balance, and six months of bank statements that showed the checks coming out each month, identified by Blah Blah Blah Home Mortgage and the check number and a matching dollar amount. And then I wrote a cover letter and took it all to a branch and had them fax it for me.

Yes. I could have waited for the end of the day and gathered the paperwork and faxed it from work today. But I suddenly lost patience with the whole process and wanted to do something to move it along. And I also wanted some quality time with my knitting. Which I got. Two loads of laundry done and three episodes of Downton Abbey. This, after sorting and filing a three-inch stack of paperwork relating to the estate. So it was a productive day.

No music practice, though. It was still almost midnight when I dragged myself to bed. I read three verses of scripture and called it a night. Did not sleep as well as I have been and am a little congested this morning. So I'll go back to my new regular nightly routine tonight. It seems to bless my body every bit as much as my spirit.

Three cheers for Friday! I am looking forward to a productive day at work and a quiet evening at home. Another Primary baptism tomorrow morning but no other commitments. Maybe some cooking and baking. Hopefully a few more bushels of stuff gone through and dealt with.

Word from the refi people was to not make this month's payment, as they would only have to redo the paperwork with fresh numbers. OK. Weird, but OK. I'm hanging onto that check in case somebody changes his or her mind.

Breakfast. And maybe half a row of knitting before I have to hop in the car and go.

H-U-N-G-R-Y

Caught myself finger spelling that yesterday afternoon. Repeatedly. My appetite is a little erratic this week, so it's hard to know how much to take for lunch.

We have had buckets and buckets of rain the past two nights. My friend Trish had a scary drive home on Tuesday. I opted for skipping Knit Night in favor of coming straight home. Last night I had about a quarter mile of deluge before it let up.

Some little bird is chirping right outside my window. Just heard something bigger and louder at the front of the house. Little bird is now silent. No telling if it's hiding from the second or if it's flown to the front of the house to sing counterpoint.

Still waiting on a closing date for the refi. Still waiting for the official word on whether I should make the August payment on the current mortgage. Should know by noon. Lunch may be spent dashing in Lorelai to a branch bank to drop off the payment before their cutoff hour.

A little more progress on the jacket last night. Also on the high E on my recorder. And in strengthening my fingers on the banjo. Two steps back in terms of creating a healthy dinner. Not tasty. Too salty, even with modifications. Not quite filling enough. And my ankles are still swollen and red this morning. But thankfully no hives.

I have a pretty strong case of the Idawannas. I need to open a new case for SemperFi. And I would really rather turn off all the lights and take a nap and spend the day knitting. Not an option.

Thankfully this is a problem that a good shower and the right food can fix.

Time management for the easily distracted.

Last night was a nice balance between company and solitude. Dinner with the empty nesters. Soup was good, notwithstanding the zucchini (yes, I am praising with faint damns).

Dessert was a visual treat, and two of the components were well done (ice cream, cajeta) while the third was woefully *over*done (crepes which resembled nothing so much as artfully folded shoe leather).

I could have used a hacksaw to cut the crepes. Or a steak knife. I'm not kidding. Thankfully I did not break a crown, but the chewing was very slow going. Definitely not worth $6.75.

Came home and wrangled the trash bin out to the curb after gingerly lifting the lid to toss in the bag from Lorelai. Whew! Not looking forward to adding the last bag from inside the house when I go to work this morning. So very very thankful to be a legal secretary and not a sanitation worker.

In the spirit of Family Home Evening, I read my scriptures first. Then recorder practice, where I made a little progress on the high E. I'm hitting it right better than half of the time.

And then I went out to the living room and got out the banjo, figuring that I would run through the practice exercises and call it a night. But those went well enough that I felt a bit brave. So I tried some pinches, and they were far less giggle-producing than the last try. I really got into it!

I was so jazzed after that, that I had to knit half a row in order to calm down enough to get to sleep.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am (musical like) my mother after all. Woohoo!

Moby Dick.

Now decaying in a trash can near you. Younger Twin and his eldest came over after church yesterday and helped me triage the freezer and the freezing compartments of both refrigerators. They took the good stuff home, with my blessing. Grandson cheerfully schlepped the freezer burned stuff out to the trash can.

Tomorrow is trash day. That can will be ripe by the time the truck gets here. It was 105°F in the garage while we were working. All the cats in my neighborhood will be singing the Trash Can Blues when I get home tonight. It's likely to be as bad as when we came home from MD Anderson last year to find that the freezer door had come open and everything was ruined.

If Beloved had lived, we would have long since gone through all this meat and fish. I ate more meat in that brief year than I had probably consumed during the previous decade.

Saturday night, after music practice and scripture study, I still had a few ounces of energy left. So I opened one of the drawers in the desk by my bed and cleaned it out. Easy peasy.

I opened the next one. Discovered two rifle cleaning kits and miscellaneous ammo. Started a giveaway bag. Also several partial packages of batteries, all now transferred to the junk drawer in the kitchen with their cousins.

Opened a third drawer. Light bulbs. Lots and lots more light bulbs. Enough to fill a third plastic dishpan. And I just happened to know where one was. I will now have to wait for my next OCD eruption (politicians have bimbo eruptions; I get smacked upside the head by the Categorization Fairy) to take the two previously organized dishpans of light bulbs out of the linen closet and re-sort all three by type.

I did not tackle the fourth and final drawer on Saturday night. Yesterday I dumped its contents into a box lid and dragged the desk out into the hall along with the small bookcase which has resided upon it for the past several months. The shallow black bookcase now fills the space perfectly. And the hall where it stood is that much more navigable. The boys hauled off the desk and small bookcase and most of the fisherman themed knickknacks.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the box of geriatric sparklers and related items I found in the back of the closet. Because I'm certainly not keeping them. I do not need Chinese New Year going off in my boudoir and ruining a perfectly good night's sleep.

Or my favorite T-shirts.

Carmina Piranha

I'm not sure how the mobile app will arrange the photos. The fish is one that Squishy brought home for his parents from his mission to Brazil. Yes, that is a real piranha. No, it doesn't match my decor, notwithstanding all the fishy memorabilia Beloved left behind.

So this morning I put it in a box with some mail addressed to the kids, and a few other things, and I ran it over to their new place while I was out and about. I also dropped off another small load of stuff at Salvation Army.

Deposited the 21 cent check from Verizon and a roll of dimes into my mad money account. Not sure what I'm saving for next. Maybe the doll who will embody "joy". Maybe a really good keyboard. Maybe a dobro or a cello(!). Maybe a Book of Mormon cruise.

It took trips to both Home Depot and Lowe's, but I found new knobs for the linen closet. I could have gotten new knobs that were identical to the old ones, just shinier. But when I saw these smaller ones with the red inserts, I was smitten. I will probably pick up two more, for the vanity in the guest bathroom.

The new knobs only serve to emphasize how badly in need of refinishing both the vanity and the closet doors are. All in good time.

I also bought a Waterpik last night at Costco. Two, actually. One is a travel size and will join the travel iron in or in my carry-on bag.

All the errands but one were finished before noon. I had a couple of documents photocopied on the way home from the baptism of two of my Primary kids. And then I got a three and a half hour nap.

And that was my Saturday. Banjo practice was visual and auditory but not kinesthetic. I made a good deal of progress at following along with the tablature during the video. Brain is more than a little fried.

A delicious day.

Beginning with yesterday's breakfast in bed and continuing until bedtime. I was blessed to keep the day more or less in balance.

Enough to eat, even if I rather regretted having polished off the Nutella on Wednesday. A simple dinner and no errands, followed by a load of darks washed and put away. (All but matching the socks.)

A batch of brownies baked, cooled, and divided into snack bags for upcoming lunches. Finished the chapter in Alma that I had been slogging through, and one more.

Great fun with Olive. A somewhat shorter session with the banjo, working over the exercises I began on Wednesday. At that point my hands were tired from holding my Livre de Mormon.

A few pages in an old Jack Weyland novel. Bills paid. Documents gathered to support my application for the transfer of the homestead credit from Beloved's name.

One of my sinuses feels as if there were a feather up there. Or possibly an entire chicken. But WRR is playing the Hallelujah Chorus, and it sounds glorious. I'm singing along with the the sopranos one octave lower. And I have my 1-900 speaking voice.

Without checking the pollen count, it's probably safe to assume that ragweed season has arrived, chez Ravelled. Or maybe it is just part of the cleansing process which follows a massage. I was a good kid and drank plenty of water yesterday.

I think I will tackle those socks. Honk!

Breakfast in bed.

I heartily recommend it. This goes way beyond a happy meal. I'd call it downright giddy. Three eggs with Tillamook. Buttermilk Eggos. Our own pomegranate jelly. Rather too much of the latter, but I'm celebrating the most recent sheaf of paperwork from the mortgage company. All is well in their little corner of Zion. I will have to call them later and find out if we have a date for closing.

Had a fantabulous massage last night. My ankles, sinuses, and kidneys are all grumbling this morning in consequence, but there's no real pain, just the chug-chug-chugging of bits that are functioning more as they are intended and less as they are accustomed. So, grumbling.

I came home, got out the banjo, and was thrilled to discover that it was still in tune. I turned off the DVD player and practiced the first four exercises for nearly an hour. Then I played Olive for half an hour or more, going back through old lessons.

It's taking me three days to get through this one chapter of Alma, which is not Alma's fault in the slightest. (It's not like that boring but necessary treatise on Nephite coinage which establishes that Zeezrom was offering a month and a half's wages as an incentive to deny the Christ. Senine, schmeenine.)

That's all for today. I need to finish this insanely good breakfast and get ready for work. I don't know if I said it here yesterday. Probably not, because I think I realized it on the drive to work. I finally feel like me again. First time in months. I will never be the me I was before Beloved came into my life, and I'm glad. But I'm learning and discovering again. And I love that.

All five strings in tune at once!

And they stayed that way while I ran through the practice exercises twice.

Things I am learning: which tuning pegs go with which strings. Kinda important.

That metal strings don't stay put. You tune one, then the next, and by the time you've tuned the fifth, the first ones need to be tweaked. But once you've done that a couple of times, and the strings decide to stay put awhile, and you strum the chord, it's glorious and exhilarating. I wanted to get up and run around in circles.

That the strings are really close together. And it's ridiculously easy to play the wrong note.

That I need to buy a pitch pipe. It would be a lot less annoying than having to get up and manually skip the DVD back while tuning. I think it took four repeats last night before my banjo was in tune. On the other hand, getting up and down to fiddle with the DVD player is good for my joints. If not for my patience. And a DVD player is harder to misplace than a pitch pipe.

That if you buy a second package of banjo picks because you can't remember the safe place in which you put the first package, you will find the first package when you are wrapping things up for the night. When I die, my children will not find money under my mattress. (Sorry.) But they are likely to find small packages of banjo picks in the most unlikely places. Hey, I didn't have a banjo case when I bought that first package.

That my personal attorney is right; you can't play the banjo more than three minutes without grinning.

That wearing lineless bifocals (multifocals, in my case) is perhaps incompatible with seeing the strings in order to play them. If you take out the perhaps. For the moment I am having to hold it more like a dobro or run the risk of my head falling off.

That Earl Scruggs is to banjo what Einstein is to science.

The happiness continued after banjo practice; I finally nailed the timing on one of my recorder exercises. Whether it stays nailed is another story. And I accidentally got the high E right a couple of times.

Knit Night was a blast.

I have a lovely new manicure.

And I'm a little verklempt. I don't think I've worn my nails this short since I had a newborn in the house. I love long nails. My hair may be thinning. My derrière may have dropped. I might have laugh lines you could park a Hummer in. But for the past 15 years I have had gloriously long nails.

French or American manicure when I was in the interpreting program. Variations on the theme of hey-sailor red once I graduated, for over 10 years. Pale, pale pink when I became a temple worker, because again the idea was to not call attention to myself, but I was thoroughly sick of French nails, if only for me.

Banjo Dude #1 said I wouldn't have to cut my nails to play the banjo. He erred. So now I have exceedingly genteel nails. My eighth grade home ec teacher would smile approvingly.

My exceedingly genteel nails and I are going to waft ourselves down the hall and see if I can get more than one string in tune before that section of the DVD is done. I really do need a minion to wrangle the DVD player while I wrangle the banjo.

Learning curve? Significantly longer than my nails.

In financial news, after half a day and the efforts or apologies of several people, I was able to get images of the checks I've written for the mortgage faxed to me so I could fax them to the mortgage company. (The bank account is set up in such a way that I cannot log into it myself as I do for my other accounts.) I tracked down the last two blessedly helpful people in the corporate directory, and also the names of their direct supervisors. One email of profuse thanks to the four of them.

I am one tired mommy.

Please release me, let me go.

They did, in sacrament meeting this morning. I was supposed to conduct Primary today, and all month. Instead, I got to go to Gospel Doctrine class and Relief Society, totally unprepared for either lesson and with a phone that needed recharging, so no access to the manuals or my scriptures or the hymnal.

After church I gleefully double-bagged three notebooks and a couple of other items and ran them over to the home of my replacement.

I was amazed, and touched, by the number of kids who gave me a hug on the fly at the end of sacrament meeting on their way to Primary.

The bishopric has a new calling in mind for me and will let me know next week. I hope it's not leadership. I would like to have a little stretch where I am doing something useful that does not require any additional meetings during the week. I have missed Knit Night. And there is so much to do here at the house.

It was a privilege to serve in the presidency and a blessing to serve these kids.

Next Sunday will be our last to meet at the stake center. The Wylie building is complete. So I will be attending at the building which is less than a quarter mile from the house. If my street went through, it would be two blocks away, and I could walk to church.

Life is good.

Good day. And not over yet.

Mammogram this morning, followed by cinnamon rolls from KolacheMan. I don't miss having kids in school. I do miss running by his shop for those cinnamon rolls after early morning seminary.

Musically, it's been a tender day. Out of nowhere I started singing "The Water Is Wide" while in the shower. I only know the first verse. Which led to a search on YouTube and the happy discovery that Eva Cassidy recorded it during her all too brief career.

So after I finished crying, I put it on FB. Death is a very wide river. And I'm not ready to cross over. I am so grateful for my temple covenants, and that I am finally sealed to Beloved. Some fine day in what I hope is the far distant future, I will step into that water. And Beloved and my Savior will pull me out on the other shore.

I did a little more work on the bookcases that need to be emptied so I can paint that last wall in the dining room. Found my Corrs CD. Listened while I ran errands tonight. Good stuff.

Sold a bagful of DVD's at Entertainmart and bought three new CD's by The Corrs. Went to an ice cream shop that got good reviews on Yelp. They weren't kidding. I will go back. (Sweet Firefly on Custer just north of Lookout in Plano. Hard to find. Worth the effort.) The salted caramel is excellent. At $2.95 for a single scoop in a minuscule foam cup, it had better be!

And now I am home again. Scriptures are read. Time to make some music and call it a night.

There was a girl who got a box.

And banjo was its name-o. B-A-N-J-O! B-A-N-J-O!! B-A-N-J-O!!! and banjo was its name-o.

Huge box. Huge. Tall. Wide. Awkward. Occupying about the same space as an eleven year old but significantly lighter in weight. Took me maybe five minutes to "walk" it from the front desk, through the office, to my own desk. Mellow wanted to be there for the box opening. SemperFi was at lunch. Turns out that I needed Mellow's help to get all the bubble wrap out and then hoist the banjo case up out of the box.

After work I ran it by Guitar Center to have it checked by the man who helped me find and purchase it. He says it's a good one. So today I can recycle the box and the bubble wrap. I offered some of the latter to SemperFi yesterday. We have a major trial coming up. He almost laughed.

It took most of my considerable self-discipline to focus on work for the rest of the day.

I suspect that lugging a banjo from point A to point B may be the only form of weight training I require for the next few weeks. In my other hand I held both my knitting bag (which contained the jacket, a pair of clogs, and three bottles of water) and my tote. It felt like a fairly balanced load.

Pausing to eat dinner was a burden. Bagel and a schmear while doing a bit of bookkeeping. Then banjo DVD for an overview until I could not keep my eyes open one minute longer. The walk back to my room woke me sufficiently to enjoy my scripture study.

And I made sure not to neglect Olive. The past several days I have just gone over the last lesson, trying to get the timing right on one of the melodies. Last night I went back to work on that pesky high E and maybe made a little progress. Maybe.

Major coughing spell this morning, but it didn't last long, and I seem to be breathing much more easily. Maybe I just needed to clear my carburetor?

Hoping for a productive day at work and an undemanding weekend. Mammogram tomorrow. And then a judicious mixture of knitting, puttering, and music.

DC al something or other.

Cue the Carly Simon.

Specifically, her old song "Anticipation." I got a shipping notice email yesterday. And shortly before bedtime the tracking number was functional. My banjo is supposed to arrive before the end of the day!

I'm hoping that means before 5:00pm. Because I'm having it delivered to the office. Twenty-one pounds of box and packing materials and hard case and potential.

I skimmed the beginner's workbook last night before crashing and after scripture study and recorder practice. There's a whole new world in there. I can read musical notation. (At least the treble clef.) But there is an additional symbology I will need to learn. And the jargon? I can see why Tan said to get a teacher.

Massage last night went well. Very few trouble spots. Mostly a matter of replacing the filters and rotating the tires, so to speak. No visible bruising, and I slept like a rock. Notwithstanding my elation over the shipping notice.

Breakfast is calling my name. And I need to leave early enough to pick up a case of bottled water, because I'm completely out. I have just enough tuna mix left over for a sandwich at lunch, and I need to come up with something more immediate. My stomach is warbling along with the radio, but in a different key.

Happy Thursday. Happy first day of August. Happy additional musical adventure fixin' to begin.

Not yet pickin'. Definitely grinnin'.