Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Running Out of Steam? Or Just Bored?

I have stuff I could write about today, but I've started wondering about this whole blog as diary thing.

Is this really helping me become a better writer?  Yeah, it's giving me a venue in which I can actually rack up the time writing, but is it helping?  Or is it just a platform for me to whine?

Would my time be better spent if I sat at the kitchen table, set the timer for thirty minutes three or four nights a week (or more), and wrote?  Wrote a response to something I read in the paper or online, edited something I wrote previously?

I don't know.  But I feel like this blog isn't so much an outlet as something I do every day, like brush my teeth.  Except I'm not entirely clear what the benefit is. 

So if I don't come back for a few days, it's because I'm either writing offline or analyzing the benefits of blogging.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Visual Thinking

I need to tattoo this on the inside of my eyelids: 

MEN ARE VISUAL CREATURES.

Remember how I went to the remodeling company's office this week?  And how they printed out floor plans and computer renderings of a proposed addition?

Well, tonight I asked Hubster if he wanted to see the printouts.  He said yes, he did.  So I showed them to him.

Now he is obsessing, much as I have been for oh, about two years, about how best to design the space and, most importantly, what it would cost us.

I find it amusing that even though much of the design was my idea, Hubs thought that the remodeller's designer did a good job.  (Thank you, dear... oh he of little faith...)

At least this has opened up a dialogue between us, which is far more than there has been about this subject since I first broached it two (or was it three?) years ago.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

This One TIme? At Band Camp?

Tonight, our town's high school marching band sponsored their annual marching band competition.  I took the kids (all four of them, and yes, I'm counting Hubster as a kid).

I'll admit it, it was 99% for me, 1% for the kids.  J and T in particular; they're very interested in playing the drums, so I thought it might be fun for them to watch real kids playing drums while marching.

Hubster pretty much rolled his eyes the entire time.  Infidel!

So many thoughts about the show:
  • Since we arrived early, the smaller bands were performing.  One had only sixteen musicians, six colorguard, and three drum majors.  Even the marching band from a high school in a nearby city had approximately sixty members (including the colorguard). 
  • Major geek confession:  I actually got teary while walking past the portraits of the senior band members.  As I passed, the announcer said, ", you may now take the field in Class I MAC competition." 
    • I haven't heard that phrase in about twenty-two years.  I got chills, and a huge sense of deja vu.
  • The host school's band is performing as I type.  I would have loved to go back to watch their show (they're about 125 members large), but it's late, and it's kinda cold out there.  And my couch is really comfy and there's wine in the fridge.
  • I am blessed to have had the marching band experience that I did.  In Ohio, people take it much more seriously than they did in New Jersey.  Heck, we took it very seriously.  Why else would we spend two and a half hours practicing Monday through Thursday, Friday nights performing halftime and postgame at the football games, and then all day Saturday at competitions?
  • It was nice to take a walk down memory lane, watching all of the high school kids watching the other bands and hanging out with one another.
  • J decided that he likes the quads best.  T likes the bass drums.  I would love for them to have as positive an experience as I did if they choose to join the marching band.
  • If J and T do decide to join the band, I hope Hubster gets over himself.  He made a comment that he'd rather be grilling burgers on Friday nights instead of on Saturdays like the band fathers were today.  I told him that it wasn't exactly up to him.  Gah.
  • It's not a competition unless some band does Les Miz.  Yes, in 2010, somebody did.  I almost fell off the bleachers laughing when I realized why the opening number sounded so familiar.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Welcome, October

I'm not really in a posting mood tonight.

It's nothing personal; I just don't really have anything exciting to share, and there's no real bee in my bonnet today. 

Well, no bee that I feel like buzzing about.

I'll save that for tomorrow, when I have some energy to go off on my school district's decision to implement full day kindergarten the year T starts.