My Piano

I love my piano! My piano was given to me by someone from my old ward at church. I was called to be the choir pianist. Since I didn't have a piano to practice the songs on, I was given a key to the church building so I could go over there to practice whenever I could. After doing that for several months, one of the ladies in the choir approached me after practice one Sunday and told me that her family was inheriting a new piano and if I wanted their old one I could have it. Well, of course I wanted it! This happened a couple of years ago, and my piano has now lived with me in three different homes.

When I moved in with Anna and Mark, they happily made room for the piano. (You can tell from the picture that it is a monster piano! It's an old fashioned upright, which means it's VERY big and VERY heavy.) Well, it turns out that Matt loves to play the piano. He crawls over to it, pulls himself up and goes to town. It's so cute. He also loves when I play the piano. He either crawls underneath to watch my feet work the pedals or else he just sits there and stares at my fingers.

Black Friday

I went shopping last Friday (a.k.a. "Black Friday" in the retail business). I don't know why, but I love to fight the crowds, throw a few elbows, and buy things I don't really need simply because it's such a good deal. It gives me such a rush! Here's a breakdown of how my morning went:

3:00 am -- Alarm rings for the first time; I hit snooze and go back to sleep.
3:09 am -- Alarm rings again. I think "Why did I set my alarm so early?" I hit
snooze and go back to sleep.
3:18 am -- Alarm rings again. I can hear Anna moving around, so I figure I should get up.
3:35 am -- I'm standing outside, scraping ice off my car windows, wondering if I have lost my mind and thinking I should just go back inside to bed.
4:00 am -- I arrive at Best Buy where there is a line of people that already stretches around the building and into the black abyss of the dirty, stinky, alley behind the store.
4:02 am -- While walking across the parking lot to the end of the line, I notice a group of young 20-something males who are obviously drunk. They are yelling something like "Rebates! We don't want any rebates!"
4:03 am -- I find Anna and join her in line. Right away, we make friends with the people immediately in front and behind us.
4:05 am -- The deep freeze sets in.
4:15 am -- A nice man with a large box of donuts comes down the line. Anna and I both take one. They are plain glazed. Yum!
4:30 am -- I am slowly freezing from the outside in. I take my thick red knit hat out of my purse and pull it way down over my ears.
4:45 am -- A store employee (who is wearing a t-shirt with no coat) passes out a list of rules such as "no line jumping" and a map of the store so that you can find what you're looking for once you get inside.
5:00 am -- The doors open, and we go in.
5:18 am -- I am in the checkout line with everything I came to get.
5:23 am -- I'm in my car headed to Target to start the whole process over again...

I must express how impressed I was with Best Buy. I do the early morning shopping thing every year on the day after Thanksgiving, and no other store has been so organized as Best Buy was this year.

Target was much less organized than Best Buy. A brawl almost broke out when they opened the doors at 6:00 and a whole bunch of people tried to line jump. There was yelling, pushing, and police involvement, but it never came to blows.

Kohls was next on my list, but it had opened at 5:00, and by the time I got there it was already after 6:30. I went in, but one look at the line, which wrapped completely around the store, sent me on my way. I got back home a little after 7:00 and was back in bed.

I don't know why, but I look forward to doing this every year. I did kind of miss Valarie this time because the last few years we have done this together. But she did call me when I was on my way home from Kohls. She was shopping in Florida, where she said the weather is much nicer and the crowds are much smaller than in Ohio.

Now the Christmas season has officially begun!

Thanksgiving

I had a great Thanksgiving. I was a little nervous in the days leading up to it because this year I have no family nearby, so I thought it would just be depressing. It wasn't. Anna, of course, invited me to her family's get together, but I declined. I was also invited to my friend Karen's apartment to have dinner with a small group of people. I opted not to go there either. Instead I stayed home alone, watched Legally Blonde and cooked myself a steak. That was my Thanksgiving dinner. As most of you probably know, I'm not the biggest fan of turkey, stuffing, and all the other traditional Thanksgiving food, and my steak was really yummy! I had a really great day. It was totally relaxing!

The end of an era!!!

Can I just say how exciting it is to be so close to graduating? I registered for next semester's classes, and I was like "I just registered for the last time ever!" In about 3 weeks I'll get to apply for graduation. I can't wait! I had a little scare there for a minute when my practicum (which is basically an internship) wasn't set yet, and I only had 2 days until the deadline. But I got that worked out. I'll be working with the children's librarian at the Hilliard branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Hooray! Plus, I just finished one of my classes this semester; the other one will be done in about 5 weeks. It truly is the end of an era. The "era" being my educational career. I have been in school since I was five years old! That means I have been going to school for more years than I am willing to admit. In approximately 5 months time, I will be Master Tracy. How exciting! (At least for me, if not for the rest of the world.)