If you are interested in seeing my customer's quilts go to: http://www.miriamsquilts.blogspot.com/

Monday, August 19, 2013

Fun Halloween Decoration

I ran across this fun Halloween decoration idea today.  Wouldn't this be fun to sit out on an end table or shelf during October??  This person bought these this way, but I think I'll hit D.I. and find some old books and paint them up.  I'm lovin' it. 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Piano Lessons Renewed

I have taught piano lessons for years...and years (perhaps 30ish).  I took a break when we moved to Roosevelt, I was burned out.  Decided to start a new endeavor and learned how to longarm quilt.  I've been doing that about 5 years now, and I've gotten to the point that I don't have to think so hard any more to put out a nice quilt for a customer.  When a friend approached me about teaching her daughter piano lessons; instead of groaning inside, it sounded fun again.  A good indication that I could return to it.  The past 2 years I've casually taught just a few students, I decided to just keep things easy and uncomplicated.  (I have a very bad habit of thinking outside of the box and turning little endeavors into massive projects.)
 Here I am again, turning something nice and easy into a massive project :)  I just can't help myself.  Google is the devil!  I was online a few months ago just flitting around, and decided to see if Pinterest had anything fun with piano lesson ideas.  They do!  But the best part was that I found a piano teaching site that has changed how I want to teach this next year.  I've spent the past 2 months in every spare minute I had reading all their past posts, and searching other sites and googling hundreds of piano teaching topics, I'm going to be the FUNNEST PIANO TEACHER IN THE STATE!!!  We're talking lead sheets, composing original compositions, games galore, monthly incentive programs, a studio blog (I hope, haven't gotten that part done yet), mash-ups, fun sight reading, silly things in my front yard each week to welcome students, interesting performance ideas, goofy practice ideas each lesson.  The list goes on and on.  I'm still trying to organize my massive piles of notes.  I've just pulled out a bunch of my teaching aides that I haven't looked at in almost 10 years to remind me what I have and reorganize them.
These photos don't even show the stuff that is in by my piano or downstairs in the storage room that I haven't gone through yet.  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but I will get it up and running and it is going to be sooo cool.  I wish I'd had a teacher like me when I was taking lessons :)

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Yard updates.

 We spent several hours at our old house/rental today.  The cement edging was put in a week ago and it looks good.  We had to go and clean up the sod that was cut away in the prep for the cement. 
 I always regret it when I let a contractor do something when I'm not there.  Overall, it is good, but there are two spots that he didn't do it like I wanted it.  In the above photo he curved in behind two above ground sprinkler heads.  We'll be putting grass in along the rest of the fence there and with it the way it is you would have to mow and trim around those two sprinklers.  Not what I told him.  We planted 6 plants to fill in areas where we'd taken out plants that were creating a mess.  You can see a couple here.  They look small and inadequate now, but when they grow it'll be pretty.
 The bush on the right is another new addition.  After speaking to the renters they started watering the lawn better and it was looking quite nice a few weeks ago....today it's looking dry again.  We're going to do things differently with the next renters.  Live and learn. 
 I'm going to move 3 large boulders that are in another area of the yard and put them in front of this tree to fill in that area a bit better.  The next step is to lay down weed fabric and have our local landscaper bring in rock to cover all the dirt in the planting bed areas.  Try to get this to look nice, but keep it easy so that it takes little effort for renters (or us) to maintain it. 
 My mother asked about how my flowers were doing at our home.  They FINALLY started to grow and fill in.  Still not terrific...I think I need to add some more stuff to the soil.  They sat and did nothing for weeks and weeks, the center island and around the post on the left still aren't really great, but it's better than it was.  I had such visions for this and it's been a bit disappointing that it hasn't lived up to them, .... next year :)  I didn't get to it this year but plan to put in artificial plants in the two planter boxes (under the window on the left, and under the fake shutters above the garage).  That will look nifty. 
I've been amazed how much these new bushes have grown just this summer, especially those bright green ones in the back.  I love to have splashes of red here and there, in my yard as well as decorating in the house.