The Princess' Grand Tale

There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
-C.S. Lewis

Once Upon a Time...
There was a father chaperoning his daughter, the Princess, to the Fine Arts National Competition, but there were no pianos on which she could practice, so he took her to a piano merchant so she could practice on the pianos there. Afterward, the father told his wife that they absolutely needed to get the Princess a grand piano.

I have always wanted to do that for the Princess, but finances and space were factors that we had not been able to overcome. Once I talked with a woman whose homeschooled daughter won a full scholarship at Reinhardt University, a fairly nearby private college well known for its music program. She was advised by her teacher to get her daughter a grand piano, so they put a second mortgage on their house and they placed the full-size grand in their living room, which was said in a way that I was sure they did not have much living room left to live in. However, since her daughter won a full scholarship, she saw it as a worthwhile investment. I so very much wanted to do this too, but this conversation was a few years ago at at time that we were particularly strapped for money so I knew a grand piano for us just was not going to be happening for a long while. Still in the back of my mind, I hoped for this.

Then I seriously began learning about what elements that makes a good piano, because I really did not know. (I am so thankful for the Internet at times like this.) After I felt a bit more confident about what to look for as to how it should be built, I began looking for a used baby grand with a reputable name that we could afford and fit into our living room. I was more interested in American made, however the Princess' piano teacher has a Kawai upright, which does have nice warm tones and told me that Reinhardt also just bought Kawai pianos. Of course, most people will say that a Steinway is what is mostly used in competitions here.

I found an American made Mason and Hamlin baby grand on Craigslist that I felt was worth the trip to see and hear. When I called Bob Rosenfeld, I learned that he did not just have the one piano but several. He is a piano collector, of sorts, but now he has lung cancer and his wife is having serious issues with her eyes, so he is selling off his collection. He asked me a bit about my daughter's playing and said he had a piano for her, but that I probably had never heard of it.

I immediate thought "Just what we need: another piano that no one has heard of." Whenever we tell people we have an Opus II upright piano, they all say that they have never heard of that brand. Even our piano technician has never seen one, except for ours. We bought it brand new at Steinway Piano Galleries in November 2005, when the Princess was four and a half years old. We call that story the Blue Note Christmas.

However, I made an appointment at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday for us to see what he had. I also called my piano tuner/technician to see how much he would charge look it over and when he was available, which he was not that for that day. My husband's flight was delayed twice the night before so he did not walk into our door until 3:00 a.m. The Princess still had a cold and was coughing a lot. I still had some tummy trouble left over from whatever the antibiotic had done to my digestive tract after the periodontal surgery. None of us was in good shape, so I thought about cancelling, but we went and I reminded the Princess to not get close to the man because he did not need a cold while battling lung cancer.

The Long Journey to a Far Away Land

Before I even placed the address on my GPS, I had an idea where we had to go and knew it would take about an hour to get there. It was pretty much my stomping territory not far from the Princess' piano teacher. However, when I saw it flagged on the map, I knew exactly where it was. I have driven past that home many times taking the Princess to her piano lesson from the Home Learning Center and back again. It has had a "for sale by owner" sign up ever since I can remember in front of their pond and two fake black and white cows. I had never seen the house, even in the winter because it is well-hidden from the road by trees and bushes, but once we entered the driveway, I could see the all brick home shaded by lovely trees and how well the landscaping was done. The road curves there and the house is a bit close for my taste, but it is not seen because of the wall of greenery that keeps their home secluded from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it is a very busy road that will probably be widened in a few more years, and the traffic is noisy at the front of the house.

A Wise Adviser Guides the Princess in Her Choice
As I wrote previously, the first thing Mr. Rosenfeld did was take us to a large barn behind the house that had a few stables on one side, but no animals, and a cement floor. It also had several covered pianos, at least five if I am recalling that correctly. All of them were far bigger than we would have room for. He uncovered the very first one, a nine foot, 100 year old, concert grand Steinway perfectly tuned and invited the Princess to sit saying he wanted to see her play. She was impressed that the old piano played rather well and had good key action. He was rather impressed with how her hands floated over the keys and told her he knew exactly which of his pianos would be the best for her. We covered up the old Steinway and were led back to the house.

In the garage, only because they had just had a water leak and part of the interior needed some work, was about five or six more pianos and he told us there were more in the house. These were smaller, baby grands and an upright or two. He led us straight to the Petrof.

Since he had mentioned the Petrof when we talked on the phone, I had done some research. He had been quite honest when he told me that it was well known in Europe and used in many schools there. Petrof has been made in Czechoslovakia since 1864. These pianos are well known for their warm tone and bell-like clarity particularly on the high notes. I fell in love with Petrof as soon as I heard the first video I found online of one being played, but in person...ah!

My daughter played it and my husband was already sold. A bit later I asked the Princess to play the Mason and Hamlin beside it. The Petrof looked brand new and the Mason and Hamlin looked older. The Petrof just sounded so much better: brighter, clearer, yet warm. She said she liked the Petrof the best. We were told that the Petrof's original owner was a doctor and it had only been played a few times. I asked Mr. Rosenfeld why had not played it himself and he said that his hands had been so shaky and that the cancer treatments make him weak. He did not say how long the piano had been in his possession, but he did play it a little for us.

I was concerned a bit because we did not have an third party expert opinion there, but...well, Mr. Rosenfeld seemed like a man who likes fine things, knows his pianos, and did whatever it took to keep these pianos in pristine condition, and this one actually looked brand new. My husband, being the better judge of character than I am, felt that he was trustworthy and honest about the pianos he had.

My husband is also the real haggler in the family, which did not use to be my thing, but I have since grown. Still my husband did not even start to bargain nor did I, probably because Mr. Rosenfeld kept coming down in price on his own even though he told us several times that we could sell it for more and that replacement value is around $70,000. He was not the type of person to sell a piano just to sell it. He really wanted that piano to go to someone like the Princess who would play it and he really wanted to see the Princess have that piano, which would have made me a bit suspicious usually and I thought it might be better to try other pianos to compare—although I know that usually leads to me being more indecisive—but I just felt at peace like God had led us there. In fact, when I asked my Lord in that moment, I thought I could hear angels singing as if all of heaven was saying, "Yes!" I just felt the Lord had provided and set this all up for us, for that particular piano, for that moment. And as if it was another sign that is was our piano in waiting for us, it was made in 2001, the Princess' birth year.

When he first mentioned the Petrof on the phone, I looked up his listing on Craigslist. At the time he had it listed for $12,800, which I thought would have been a fair for-sale-by-owner price for a 2001 Petrof IV, when I look for comparisons on the Internet, but he changed the listing to $10,800, which was better. He talked himself down to $8,000 with delivery and threw in some free music he had in boxes, so the Princess would have music that would be familiar to the restaurant patrons, because he really was impressed with her. I wrote out the check on the account that would not cover it until Monday and told him I would call when the money was transferred and available. We quickly picked a few pieces of sheet music, but we realized that he was tiring, so we decided it was time to go. He promised to go through the music and send more along with the piano that would most likely be delivered on Wednesday.

As we were leaving, he began telling us about five acres of property he had close to Reinhardt University with a waterfall of which he owned both sides. My husband said he would like to see it. The price was too high for us and just plain too high, but that will probably not be the final price, so...who knows? My husband is intrigued, but I was just thinking about the next step with the piano.

Searching for Fairy Magic
On Monday, I called Steinway Piano Gallery to get some background on our Opus II that no one has ever heard of, since we bought it there, because we would like to list it for sale with some info on it. I talked to someone, not sure if he was a salesman, manager or owner, but he was rather helpful and informative. He told me that business had been sold since the original owners who made Opus II their house brand with focus on solid-made entry-level affordability. However—and this gets confusing so stay with me here—"Opus" was a trademark owned by Steinway, the American piano manufacturer, which has no ties with Steinway Piano Galleries, the store, other than the store sells Steinway pianos, as well as other brands. The owner of the trademark was not using it, but still owned it. I would think the "Steinway" in the store's name would be a bigger trademark issue.

Opus pianos were only sold for a few years and then the name was changed to Cristofori, which is the name of the inventor of the piano. So, I actually have a Cristofori V430 French Cherry Console but with the Opus name. That was very helpful because even though this model is no longer made, at least I can find them on the Internet for comparative pricing.

Somehow we went from there to why I was selling it and I explained that we had bought a Petrof grand. The man said he used to sell them. Since he was willing to share his piano knowledge, I learned something about our new piano too. I knew that Petrof had come under state ownership in 1948 and that some felt the quality was not consistent until it was reprivatized between 1991 and 1998, which made me happy that we have a 2001. However, he also explained something I did not know. Petrof pianos were less expensive, some even say under priced, possibly because Czechoslovakia changed from their own currency to the Euro in May 2004. Afterward, Petrofs when up in price. The IV is a now retired model, but to replace it with the same size Petrof piano, the P 173 Breeze, which has been improved some, looks like it would cost around $69,000 to $79,000. I have even seen an original retail list price of $79,000 on a 1998 P IV that was sold used for $17,999 recently at a piano store. Regardless of what it was or what it would cost to replace it or what others are selling for, I think it was worth what we paid for it and necessary for the Princess—there is just something more special about playing a grand.

The man proceed to ask me where I had purchased the new one and I told him from a man in the Woodstock area. "Not Bob Rosenfield." I corrected him with "Rosenfeld" and asked why. Then he said he was not going to say anything on that, so then I was second guessing this purchase...and again the Lord was telling me all is well.

The Princess' Slipper
Having purchased the 2001 Petrof IV with delivery set on Wednesday, I began third guessing all of it, but when I would go to my Lord, I still felt that was our piano, actually my daughter's piano. We went to church on Sunday as everyone was feeling a bit better and that evening my husband flew out to work. I would be handling arranging the living and fitting in the very big piano into our shrinking living room.

I looked up the dimensions again. It is just a tad under 5'8" (172 cm) long and around 5' (152cm) in length. Although generally thought of as a baby grand by many, it is kind of on the cusp, and others would say it is a parlor grand or medium grand or even just a grand. I began measuring our space and moving furniture on Monday, because the next day we had errands and I did not want to try to do it all last minute on Wednesday when I did not know when the delivery would be.

There were only three places—corners of the room, really—where this would work, we had originally thought, but the measurements ruled one out immediately. Besides it would be in sunlight, but just in the earliest hour or two have the sun was over the horizon, thanks to our front porch, and we could have drawn the drapes at night. The second corner was where her Opus already was, which would have made it a bit too close to the fireplace that we do use in the winter. The upright does not have that problem as it is against the wall and not sticking out near the fireplace. So, by the process of elimination, the very best fit was in the corner near the steps going up to the dining room. The piano is would be the very first thing people will see when they walked into the door.

We moved everything over towards the eliminated corners to give the piano movers as much room as we could to maneuver, so the following picture is before we rearranged the furniture. They arrived in the afternoon and they really needed a fourth man. Because of my lovely rock tiered garden in the front and the five steps up to the porch, it was not easy to line it up on the ramp and the ramp was too steep for just three men to push up a 750 pound piano. The Princess and I both gabbed a strap and pulled with them and we got it. I must say here, though, watching a piano being moved and set up is a harrowing affair, to say the least!

I asked the piano mover, who is also the piano technician that Mr. Rosenfeld uses, how long he had known him, because Bob had told me already. Twenty years he has been tuning and moving his pianos. I then mentioned that I noticed Bob is rather particular about his pianos so he must be a rather good technician and mover. He agreed that Bob was particular. At that point, I thought that Mr. Rosenfeld has probably been trading and selling pianos for years and Steinway Piano Galleries sees him as competition.

Living Happily Ever After?

It is so amazing how that same piano looked so much smaller in those big spaces with other pianos around and now it looked huge taking about a fifth of my living room space! However, I decided I really like it where we decided to place it because divides the walkway from the front door to the dining room or to the living room and it pulls over the rest of the living room closer to the fireplace, without having to move the TV. It looks cozier but not too crowded that it is uncomfortable, at least for me. There is a bit of a problem: we also still have the Opus in the living room. So for now, my couch is angled between the two pianos so that one end is a bit behind the curved side of the Petrof and the other is in front of the Opus, not against the wall where I would prefer it and would be if the Opus was not there. However there is plenty of space to get round and, well...I like it. The grand is worth it.

It is kind of funny, really. The digital piano is often set up in our dining room, so basically all three pianos are within about ten feet of each other right now. (My Roland keyboard is still downstairs.) But the funnier thing is...well, you will have to read the next post for that one.

My Lord, thank you for this beautiful addition to our lives. My daughter plays it so well. You truly are a God of Wonders!

When Mountains Are Moving

With the right attitude, human beings can move mountains. With the wrong attitude, they can be crushed by the smallest grain of sand.
-Jim Rohn

Saturday Morning
I found a used American made Mason and Hamlin piano on Craigslist and called the number. A elderly man with a low voice answered and he was quick to inform me that he had several pianos for sale and was asking me in depth for what we were looking. I made an appointment for us to see his pianos on Saturday morning, even though my husband's plane delay gave him very little sleep and me even less with my tummy troubles and the Princess still had a pretty bad symptoms from her cold. However, my husband decided he had enough time to go to our favorite farm for raw cow milk thinking that would cure my tummy troubles and yes, it did help so very much!

The man was of Jewish descent and the one thing my husband has learned from working in a Jewish company is that they appreciate value and family and usually bargaining, but this man has lung cancer and his wife is going blind, so he was more interested in selling off the pianos and his little farm/homestead property. When I got the address from him, I knew exactly where he was even though I had never seen the house because it is camouflaged with landscaping from the busy road. Even though it is an hour from our house, I had driven past his house every week during the school year going the back way to taking the Princess from the Homeschool Learning Center to her piano lesson. He has had a "For Sale by Owner" sign on his property ever since I can remember, but then he really was not as motivated to sell it as he is now.

It would be a wonderful property to walk into with an all brick home, large stalled barn, pond and whatever else he had in the back that we could not see all on about five acres, except that the road is very busy and noisy and close to the house, even though unseen even in winter, and it is too far out of range for what we can afford in a county with high property taxes, but would if I could, I think.

Anyway, he asked the Princess to play on 100 year old Steinway concert piano in the barn, which has a cement floor and did not have any animals in it, although he has some in the back. She played and he watched. Then he said that he knew just the piano for her.... I apologize for the teaser, but I will tell the rest of this story later this week, because it deserves an entire post of its own.

Sunday
Finally, both the Princess and I were feeling a bit better so we went to church. We found out that associate pastor, whose real passion is the school, is planning to break off from our church. Nothing bad, I think it just that both cannot grow in the space we have. Also our fairly new Praise and Worship Pastor got a very good job offer in his home city of Chicago, so they are moving back there. All that was a surprise as we were not there for the church meeting when all this was discussed.

We got home and rested, all of us trying to recuperate from different things. My husband, having napped, was about to go out to mow the lawn and that is when the Queen Mother called and she was not in a good mood at all.

Neighbors have been calling the Queen Mother and informing her of many things that we did not feel she needed to know. One was the estate sale. We did not exactly tell her we had an "estate sale," because we knew that how upset it would make her if people were in the house without us being there, but we had told her that we had experts pricing the items so that she would feel that we were not giving things away.

She said that she had wanted furniture that her husband had made, to put where I do not know. Now that would have been two large glass cases for her collectibles they called end tables, a huge TV stand made for a corner with shelves for her collectibles, a large glass encased coffee table for her collectibles, a huge corner curio cabinet for some of her dolls and another corner curio cabinet for all her Hummel figurines and that is just what was in the living room. Need I say more?

Then she wanted to know what this and that sold for because she was sure that they were worth something. My husband reminded her that she had told him that she did not want to know. "Well, I do NOW!" He told her honestly that we simply did not know what the items sold for because they were not cataloged individually. She persisted to corner him, so he told her that everything was around $10,000 to us and that the car was $5,500, but he did not tell her that the first figure he quoted also included the car. He probably missed the opportunity to never have her talk to us again, but he was thinking of her well being.

So, we have a buyer who is very eager to move in, as I mentioned in a previous post. After having the termite treatment and damage repaired, we allowed the keys to go to her. The Queen Mother now knows this because the neighbors have told her that the buyer is in and out and having all kinds of work done to the house, like cleaning the carpets and the air conditioner replaced and such. The closing is on Thursday this week and we felt this woman was not only a serious buyer but that she is motivated by terrible situation requiring her to move as court ordered in her divorce. She is not moved in and promised she would not until the closing, but she is having work done that she understands will be forfeit if the closing does not go through.

The Queen Mother then wanted to know what the house was selling for. My husband told her and she said she felt it was $15,000 too low. He explained that we had two realtors and the bank appraiser all put it around that price, but to get the price she thought we should, we would have had to replace the air conditioner; replace all the windows; replace the (horribly) outdated stove and refrigerator; paint all the interior; pressure wash all the outside and the driveway; and spruce up the landscaping. Then when it was done, we would most likely would have had to pay a realtor fees to sell it. So maybe we could have sold it for more money like she wanted, but it would have been the same or less to us. Not to mention that we would be having to go back and forth to check on the work, let people in the house to do the work, and possibly do some of the work ourselves. It would be another couple of months at least and there would not be enough profit difference to make it worth doing that way...especially when God provided a buyer who did all the footwork to get closing as soon as possible.

The Queen Mother was still not happy when the conversation ended...and my husband left last night to fly back to where he was last week, without mowing the lawn, of course.

Monday (Today)
The Princess still has a cough, but I think I am better. I still am eating light, but not having problems after eating like I was.

We watched the solar eclipse this afternoon with our solar glasses. It peaked in our area at 2:30 p.m. It was not total in our area, so there was a small sliver left that the moon did not cover, but it was still quite impressive, especially since it was a clear day, only slightly cloudy. It is strange to have it seem like twilight yet have the sun so high in the sky, not softening close to the horizon with pink clouds.

However, what interested me were the pockets of light that is filtered through the leaves of the trees that had the same shape, So cool! The first one is when the sun was about half covered and the other two was when we reached our peak for our area which are just slivers.

And I have to say here that while people talk about people acting like lunatics during full moons, they have not met Sharii during a solar eclipse. Yes, he looks all sweet and just lounging around in these pictures BUT he attacked the plants and even me several times and I have the claw marks in my leg to prove it. He tore up into the peach tree then ran up the trunk of the front oak like a crazed maniac. That cat seriously should be caged during solar eclipses! No wonder Midnight finds other places to be far away from him, because she is usually his target.

My Lord, I know that I have been guilty of not talking to You before placing my expectations on other people, but I just ask that You draw my mother-in-law in closely to You so that she has peace and begins to hear Your Words in her heart. Thank you for our healing and the many blessings we are seeing right now. About Sharii...well, my Lord, help him to use that energy to keep away pests instead of attacking the ones who love him.

Sleepless in Georgia

God gave us sleep to remind us we are not Him. -Charles Spurgeon

This is what my after-hours life looks like sometimes. My husband was working in another state all week and planned to fly home for the weekend, so he booked a flight on Friday evening. He would have been home around 10:00 p.m., which is rather later than usual, but that was delayed to around 12:30 a.m. and then again to around 3:00 a.m. So, I heard him come in and lie down and begin his rhythmic soft snore on time just five minutes later. I envy how that man can fall asleep deeply in just five minutes, something he trained himself to do before we met.

I probably would have fallen back to sleep, but ever since I took the antibiotics after the oral surgery, which I finished nearly two weeks ago, I have had some tummy trouble even though I have been having yogurt twice a day at the very least to replenish my probiotics. So, here I am at my computer after making five trips to the bathroom between 3:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. and giving up on going back to bed to actually sleep. However, in fairness, I have had this habit, ever since my pregnancy with the Princess to wake at around 3:00 a.m. and go the bathroom and/or drink some water and then usually go back to sleep...unless I am disturbed by something. That something could be an exciting thought, a worry, my Lord speaking to me, back pain, or just being too warm or too cold. So, I may slip easily back to sleep for weeks or now and then I may be up from that time I woke up, or I may have a problem with sleeping after 3:00 a.m. for several days in a row, like when I was pregnant.

Also, I just do not sleep the same when my husband is away as when he is home. In my subconscious, I know that I am the only adult here to handle whatever comes up. I usually cannot fall asleep until later than I like and I often am up earlier than I should be. When he is home on the weekends, I fall into my better schedule of going to bed when I like to the most and getting up early. When he is gone a lot and especially if he is gone for a weekend as well, I tend to get run down. And on rare occasions when he is gone for weeks, I have a hard time adjusting to him being here again and his snoring. I have used an app that of a cat purring for an hour or two to help me not miss him so much and to help me keep sleeping well when he came back.

I will say that once I am asleep, I really hate being wakened for any reason. I am usually a deep sleeper, probably because I sleep less hours than what is considered normally needed for most people. I find I had to really concentrate on fighting off a foul mood the rare times my poor child would wake me in the middle of the night because she was sick. However, I blame most of that on an abused childhood, where being wakened in the night never came to any good for me.

This week the Princess came down with a cold that has made her sleeping times do all kinds of flip flops. I heard her coughing and sneezing until 1:30 a.m. one night and then I was able to fall asleep too, without waking until 5:00 a.m. and then again around 7:00. After the second night of sleeping only a few hours because she was up most of it, I found her snoozing so peacefully in the evening and knew that she would not sleep the third night much better, of course, neither would I nor did I.

I used to really hate sleeping in until after daylight and I still am not that fond of it. I like having quiet dark mornings to think things over with the clarity of a rested brain that make the problems, whatever problems that seemed so big when I was too tired the night before to work out, have a truer perspective. Early mornings are just naturally the time I like to spend listening to my Lord, because I usually fall asleep praying at night. As daylight approaches, I want to be in motion getting things done for the day.

My husband likes to stay up late and wake after the sun is up, when he can. I used to stay up with him to fall asleep on the couch watching whatever on TV, but I really do not do waking up just to go to bed well because I usually am awake for an hour listening to my snoring husband, who like clockwork was out in five.

Although the Princess rarely has the insomnia with which she previously struggled for a couple of years, we still have kept the "no screens after 9:00 p.m." policy even during homeschool breaks that allow her to make exceptions once or twice a week, usually on a weekend. Her bedtime is 10:00 p.m. although she views that as just a guideline most of the time and might stretch it to 10:30. As long as she is able to sleep and is rested in the morning, we all are happy. When she had insomnia, our schedules were constantly at the mercy of it and her brain just could not engage with homeschooling well. She has since quoted to me (several times) how many hours of sleep a teenager needs and why. So, now she sleeps long hours and gets started in the morning a bit later than I would like, but we have discussed and agreed on a schedule for homeschooling that I am hoping she will try to stick with. The girl is constantly swinging back and forth between extremes, which wears me out enough that one would think I would sleep solid at least five to six hours, but then there is still that 3:00 thing that I got stuck with during and after my pregnancy so long ago now.

My Lord, thank you for restful and uninterrupted sleep and all the more of it!

Losing Christianity to Hollywood's New Normal

I tried to fit you in the walls inside my mind.
I try to keep you safely in between the lines.
I try to put you in the box that I've designed.
I try to pull you down so we are eye to eye.
When did I forget that you've always been the king of the world?
~King of the World by Natalie Grant

Two days ago I allowed the Princess to watch Stranger Things on Netflix, which is a sci-fi based thriller and drama series filmed here in Georgia. The Atlanta area has been becoming the southern Hollywood for filming many popular films and series. The second, third, and forth movie of the Hunger Games was done here at least in part, but we are most known for The Walking Dead, which I tried not to like at all but I confess I do, although some parts are far too realistic with the gory violence and, as almost all shows these days, there is at least the suggestion of homosexuality, although there have not been explicit sex scenes thankfully. I particularly like Hershel and his family, who tried to keep their Christian faith throughout the conflict of his family dealing with walking dead and other people.

Typically, zombies and vampires and werewolves and homosexuality are the kinds of things that hold no appeal for me at all. The many facets of imaginings for post apocalyptic worlds though...the worst conditions bringing out the truest human nature, exposing the heart and soul, usually without God or faith involved and the creation of a new normal in created societies of the survivors holds a strange fascination for me. I always remind myself that this is likely how it would be if there was no God or at least if people did not recognize God at all and it seems that mankind has been going in that direction.

I wonder if Christianity is going to be at all recognizable in the next hundred years, actually. Although Christians probably always have done this, it is far more openly practiced today: Christians seem to fit God around them, like a warm blanket to shield them from the cold and cruelty of the world, but not try really fit into Him so they are warm and strong from within Him.

Anyway, while watching the show the Princess immediately recognized a former classmate, Shannon Purser, from the Living Science Homeschool Learning Center. My husband remembered talking with her father on the senior retreat and how her parents had taken her to acting workshops and classes and auditions for years. Stranger Things was the first role she had landed in 2016. Her character was supportive and short lived, literally! She has had two other roles in other shows since then. Shannon has also been honored with a nomination for Best Drama Guest Actress in the 2017 Emmy Awards for her role in Stranger Things.

All sounds great for Shannon, who still identifies herself as a Christian. However, when I read a bit more I found that in April of this year Shannon announced that she is bi-sexual. Her reasoning and probably how she comes "to terms with it and my faith" is found in another quote: “As a person, I’ve always been really passionate about being really inclusive and letting people know that they are loved.”

How do Christians get twisted into thinking loving people inclusively equates to homosexuality being just another form of love is what churns in my spirit! It is written that God is Love, but it is NOT written that love is God. Not all forms of "love" come from God and Christianity spoke out against homosexuality so much that people, even Christians today, could be convinced it was hate speech! But the sin is the sin. God hates the sin...period. God hates all sin, but I think that the sins He hates the most are the ones done in the name of Christianity. If homosexuality is sinful, how can that be reconciled with God (other than confession and repentance, of course)? Just believe it is not sinful even if God says it is? Coming to terms to accept homosexuality is just compromising one's faith to make an allowance for the sin.

The Princess and I had quite a discussion about all this after I looked up what Shannon has openly shared, because she has had a few Christian friends, who are struggling with gender confusion, so she felt the need to defend Shannon. She knew Shannon as a mentor in the Servant Leader program, as was the practice for the school. The Princess felt that we are supposed to love people no matter what...and that is the hook. That is exactly what is used against us. That is why Christians are the bad guys when we point out a sin like this.

I reminded my daughter that I went out of the way to be sure she could have some time with one of her gender confused friends that I had gotten to know and liked from that same school for a few years before I knew about his struggle. I really hated what he was into, what he was thinking he was, and talking about such issues with my daughter, but then I realized he needed her friendship as she would say she did not agree with him and give him good advice about talking with his parents, but did not respond with judgement. The boy was also sensitive for being small for his age, probably from undernourishment. He had been adopted from an orphanage oversees and the children are treated so badly there, but particularly he was because he had a cleft palate and did not get fed enough. I have a friend who knows several parents who have adopted from Russia and she tells me that all the children seem to have seriously identity issues. The horrors of how a godless society treats human beings, even babies, is a reality rather than a make them believe TV show.

However, my point is that here is a young woman, who was raised in a Christian environment, now she is actively encouraging LGBT Christians to speak out. I do not hate her, but feel very sorry for her. She wants to support and be supportive to other Christians in ongoing sexual sin. However, I think this will only compound her sin to add causing a fellow Christian to stumble. The world says if they are consenting adults then it is okay...but is that what God says? People can read the same words in the Bible and twist them to say what they want, but when the Holy Spirit lives in a person, He is not silent when we are going against God. Even as the world is embracing LGBT's more and more, they still have more emotional struggles and a high suicide rate. Yet, who do they blame for those problems? Mostly the Christians who believe in morals. They are promoting a religious communism as if everyone everywhere should compromise their morals to accept homosexuality so then they will no longer have emotional problems.

But the other side of that is if everyone heard and listened to God then we would not have this problem either. The struggle with the flesh is only the physical manifestation of the struggle within the spiritual realms and the soul.

Shannon Purser, I am so sorry that the world has diminished the vastness of God's love to the point that you are trying to fulfill your need to love and be loved with homosexuality, but it is not for you to come "to terms with it and your faith." You already know that they oppose each other unless you change your faith, unless you try to fit God in the walls inside your mind, try to keep God safely in between the lines, try to put God in the box that you've designed, try to pull God down so you are eye to eye, forget that God has always been the King of the world, and that He loves you more than whatever homosexuality could possibly give you.

My Lord, when did we make You so small?

In the Wake of The 2017 National Fine Arts Competition

The best substitute for experience is being sixteen. ~Raymond Duncan

Teenagers are so complicated. They are sure they are right about everything about which they think they are right and they just do not know what they do not know, so they do not know when they might be wrong and they do not know that they are wrong until...they are there cornered in the inescapable reality of it. My daughter had such a reality check with the competition. The Princess realized immediately after watching a few teens play that she should have stepped up her game. There was really serious competition for her and that is when she confirmed (out loud, if you can believe that) what her father and I had been saying all along: she should have practiced more.

Now in fairness, it was not all her fault, but still it was also. She was acting on advice she was given by Guitar Guy, who told her that she would do better to not play the same piece she had done for the state competition. So, the Princess was determined not to play Mozart's Tarantella for the national competition and tried to learn another piece in time for it. She should have inquired further because she would have found out that all of the competitors played the same piece as they did for the state competitions. They do not expect them ever to try to learn another piece because there is barely enough time after the state competitions.

The Princess did it, but that was her second mistake. She did not really commit to practicing it enough to do it as well as she should have and could have. The real shame was that the Tarantella was her best piece ever, which showcases her very best strengths: nibble, quick fingers with crisp notes. The piece the Princess played is a good piece, but she just did not love to play it like she did the Tarantella, which is funny because she is not fond of Mozart in general and she just really plays Bach.

She was given one superior rating and two excellent ratings, hard to take when the girl had not received anything lower an superior for seven years. She was disappointed but not devastated. Of the 40 some competitors in classical piano, she fell in about halfway, which I thought was still rather good considering the circumstances, but she was hopeful she would be higher up. My husband, being there with her, was able to observe the competitors and most were older than she is and perhaps more experienced. I am still sure that she could have been in the top ten at least with the Tarantella, perhaps higher.

However, she learned something from that competition that will stick with her better than my reminding her to practice. She learned that if she wants to win a competition like that she will have to commit to it and seriously practice.

Last year at this time, I was working on boosting her self-confidence in the aftermath of the J-void incident. Playing at the restaurant helped a great deal. She has actually been paid to play the piano! That reinforced her self-worth, in her eyes. However, typical of teenagers, she then swung over into arrogance as in her mother did not know anything because she was good enough to earn money, which she would throw back at me whenever I would encourage her to learn more songs and to practice to be better for playing at the restaurant.

So, I have come to view this little reality tap back as maybe just what she needed and God provided, although it is hard to watch as a parent. I want her to succeed, of course, but I also want her to learn that she needs to go after the things she really wants, to be self-motivated. I want her to think well of herself but not to think everything she does is good enough, as if she does not need to try to improve. Those are very hard lessons to learn, but fine tuning is what God does.

The Princess wants to try again next year, which is a very good sign.

My Lord, I thought about all the parents who were mostly likely praying the same prayer for their children competing and I knew that there were going to be many more who would not place than there would be who did. I wanted my daughter to be one of the few, like all the parents. I do thank You for the lessons my daughter has learned from the experience and pray that You keep guiding her.

Teenager Extremism

I never sleep on planes. -The Princess

Since I have had a few days to myself, I realize how much I have been living the life of teenager extremes for about seven or eight years now, because it started when she was a tween. There's a lot of never's and I cannot do it or I don't know how (if she does not want to) and I can do it (if it is something I don't want her to do and she does). There is also a lot of "I am that____(whatever)" when she hears, sees, or reads something that portrays a dark humor.

And just silly things any teenager does without thinking, like she sent a picture of parts of a gun to a friend that is a boy, as all but one of her friends are boys. In context, she is taking an online hunting course in which this was appropriate, but I found sending a picture of a percussion lock which shows and names just three parts of the gun: the cock, cap, and nipple, with the caption she added on the picture "Folks, get you a percussion lock like this" to be just...well, she sent it to a boy out of the blue, out of the context, so to me that was inappropriate because a boy would likely add his own take on the context. I immediately confronted her on that and she immediate apologized to the boy for being be inappropriate. She still needs the guide rails she keeps bumping into!

Since January, my husband has been saying "two more years" as if there will magically be a cut off time for her to stop acting like a teenager and have adult maturity on her 18th birthday; he knows better, it is just hope he hangs onto like looking forward to retirement.

It is not enough that I roll my eyes at things 

the Princess says or writes, now my husband too?

Since I see all my daughter's conversations being texted, emailed, or through messaging on all her accounts, I get the double dose: what she says directly to me and what she says to her friends that she knows better than to even try to say to me. For instance, she would not say the following to me, but she did text it yesterday to another friend.

Her friend told a couple of stupid jokes and then says he feels she is going to kill him when she gets back. She says he must be psychic. 

Friend: Well hey at least if you do bad Thursday then you'll still have a very important reason to come back. 

The Princess: No. I think it would be worse if I disappeared and you never knew what happened to me. Instead of dying, you would just go through your life constantly wondering, worrying, and searching. But never finding, therefore slowly becoming more disheartened and hopeless.

There is some begging for her not to do such a thing and then...
The Princes: I will consider not doing it.

I call this thing she tends to do, this making everything as bleak as she can, going to the darkside. She often tells me how she knows how to defend herself, as if her petite 110 pound body could become a lethal weapon without any training. Well, she does carry a knife on her most of the time, but still....of late I have threaten to make her watch the Addams Family movie on Netflix, which delights me that she thinks it would be torture. I guess seeing how much she can act like Wednesday would be a nightmare for her. But then if she ever actually watched it, she probably would like it and be worse than she is now.

So, when my husband sent me this picture of her sleeping on the plane....well, they always look so sweet and innocent and everything we hope them to be when they are sleeping.

But, of course, she is not sleeping, just resting her eyes because....

she never sleeps on planes!

My Lord, I wonder if we all seem like immature teenagers to You. If You also think we look so sweet and innocent when we are sleeping. If You hope that we will mature to be what You hope we will be. If so, my Lord, I am even more thankful that You are my Lord and watching over us.

As It Happens...

It is not how busy you are, but why you are busy — the bee is praised, the mosquito is swatted. ~Author Unknown

I started this post two weeks ago and had to tweak the time references twice and I decided to break it up in subtitles to make it easier for...well, I wish I could say for my readers, but in honesty it was for me, because life is just speeding up and we are close to having it change course to a different pace again soon.

The Florida Estate
Two weekends ago was the estate sale for the Queen Mother's things and it was rather pitiful. My husband was there the weekend before it and went back the weekend after it. I was hoping we would get about twice of what we did, but summer estate sales do not do as well in Florida as when the snow birds are there. Plus most of the things were collectibles that do not sell well at all. We did sell the car for fair market value, which is very important as less would have caused us legal issues with Medicaid.

We also have a really motivated buyer for the house, which we are doing without a real estate agent. The woman buying it just finalize her divorce and from that day only has 30 days to move out. There are criminal charges against her husband for abuse, actually he choked her so there was intention to murder her, and was court ordered to buy out her half of the equity in their house. She is doing all the foot work for buying our house. My husband had to go to Florida this the last weekend in July to pick up all the things we were keeping for the Queen Mother in her closet as well as correct the title on the car because he signed it in the wrong spot and then drive back on Sunday so he could drive me to my periodontal surgery that Monday. The buyer, my husband calls her a force of nature, actually had the purchase agreement made out by an attorney and somehow had the house and termite inspectors there on that Saturday, which is unusual for them to work weekends.

The Force of Nature has a very good friend that lives across the street who can look after her ten-year-old son and her work is so close she can practically walk to it, when she had been driving for 45 minutes to an hour in traffic. We had several people seriously interested in the house even though we did not have a sign out, just word of mouth by people in the neighborhood, but she was the most motivated and she had experience with buying houses without a realtor, so she was willing to do the foot work understanding that it was difficult for us because we live out of state. Termite damage was found and so they will treat and repair it at our cost, but after talking with the Queen Mother, we now know that they had termites there years before and it was treated, but probably not repaired as there was no active termites found this time. Closing is at the end of August, but the Force of Nature may need to move in before that and we are working it out with her.

The Periodontal Surgery
The last week of July the upcoming periodontal surgery was looming in my thoughts, especially after getting the call one week in advance. During that call I was told the amount I would owe. Now I had been given two quotes previous to scheduling the surgery. One was surprisingly affordable and the other was more expensive by four times, and it was discussed as recommended but it was not said that it was absolutely needed...at least that is where I understood it be over a month back. However, having conferred with my orthodontist, they both agreed that it would be better if I had more gum material in the front of my lower teeth, especially since I would be going into braces.

I was not particularly happy about the price or the extra work and such things usually cause me to have anxiety, but as I felt that trying to settle into my nerves, I just said, "Jesus." My Lord reminded me that He is blessing me and that He has all this. I consciously decided that I was not going to worry about it and I would just deal with things as they come. I did not take any Valerian all week and I was not even nervous when I walked into the room for my surgery on Monday morning. I was actually looking forward to be lightly sedated and I was awake for much of it. In fact, the doctor was done nearly an hour earlier than expected. He said that everything was straightforward and clean. God has been blessing me as He promised.

I used my polarizers on both of my cheeks immediately afterward and went to sleep with them for most of the day and all the night. Believe it or not, I honestly had no pain and no swelling. Although I have used these polarizers for many things over the years, I am still surprised that they worked so well. I will say that the periodontist used a form fitting hard "bandage" over the two of surgery sites, but not on the one where the back tooth was removed, however I had no pain at all after the anesthetics wore off EXCEPT in one place where I did not have surgery! I mean, the doctor packed in bone grafting material where he removed the tooth not all that gently even though I was completely numb and I still had no pain at all at that site. The ONLY pain I have had is below the surgery site across the front, more like the top of the chin, and I think that is caused by the "bandage" digging into that sensitive area where the back side of below the lip meets the gum. It began hurting before I left the office and icing only made it feel worse. It still feels bruised a week later. I have my post-op appointment on Wednesday so I am thinking that I might have to deal with some tenderness at the surgery sites when that stuff is taken off, but I think my chin area will then heal.

Of course, I can only eat soft foods, which is getting old. I miss my salads! Not much in fresh foods are soft enough to not mess with the "bandages," and I have been having yogurt and/or cottage cheese at least twice a day to four times to take with the antibiotic and replenish the gut probiotics it kills off. I did a very happy dance as I took the last pill of that this morning!

The Competition
While I am still recuperating (mostly from the meds) this Sunday, my husband and my daughter were dropped off at the airport to start their trip to California for competing in the National Fine Arts Festival in Anaheim, California. They registered today and she is scheduled to play on Thursday at 2:20 p.m. Mountain Time, which is 5:20 my time.

My husband told me that they are expecting 20,000 in total attendance! Wow! I do not know how many of them are registered to compete and I do not know how many pianists are competing in classical piano, but I am hoping that the Princess shines her brightest and places well.

The Rain
I am so thankful for the rain we had here last night. My plants were just so very drought stressed and I am the only one that waters them...and I have not really felt like pulling the hoses all around the house this week. Granted, I am not in much pain, but the meds have taken their toll with my energy, plus I was advised not to do much physically so that it would hinder the healing process.

My Lord, whew! So much has been going on! But right now I want to concentrate on the next thing and that is that my daughter does well at this competition. Let her know in her heart that You are there with her.

Not-Yet's and Not-Ever's

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

My daughter has friends who are raised quite differently than she has been. Many of her friends label us as over protective because they are allowed to do things that our daughter is not. Some things are just not-yet's and others are not-ever's, at least while she lives in our home.

One not-yet is getting her driver's license. Although many of her friends have gotten or are getting their driver's permits at fifteen years old so that they can get their licenses at sixteen, my husband and I decided years ago that we would not rush into getting her license just because she legally could, although our state has a tiered system with three stages depending on age and other provisions. There are several factors that play into this:

• Local driving is far away from Atlanta traffic, but many people here commute and by the time they drive that distance, they are short on patience and have a whole different idea of what a speed limit is other than what is posted on the signs. 
• The Atlanta area is one of the worst in the country for teenagers causing accidents and there are several reasons for that, but probably the main reason is that they are teenagers and do not take driving as seriously as they should and easily get distracted thanks to latest in tech. 
• Another reason is related to illegal immigrants...they are not licensed or insured so there are many stories of accidents when a number of them jump out of the vehicle and ran away from the accident and that the vehicle itself was not registered so there is no way to find them. 
• Such events have caused steep increases in our vehicle insurance over the past few years and adding a teen driver to the policy is not something we are eager to do. 
• Lastly, waiting until she is seventeen also means we do not have to pay for a driving course as the tiered laws requires presently. It is enough that our car insurance doubles either way!

Her friends may get the not-yet's better than our not-ever's. A seventeen year old boy with which the Princess has been friends for a few years is leaving for college at the beginning of August. He wanted to spend some time with her so he offered to pick her up to drive her to the skating rink he likes that is about a 45-minute drive away. Now we expect attractions at this age but the Princess will not ever be allowed to date and being alone with a young man in a car...that sounds like a date to me. Of course, that is never going to happen. 

We have strict rules about going out with friends and courting. We have done things with her friends that are boys, like hiked in a park or gone to a movie, but I was there with them. The Princess does not have but one good friend that is a girl and that would be because she finds most girls fickle, boy-crazy, and shallow, except for this one. 

She just does not connect with girls. Even as a young child, she liked playing with boys and doing the stuff boys were into more...and this when she would dress in a fancy dress for church and often for dinner just because! She was a tomboy and a girly-girl, depending on the setting and her mood. For a few years, when she was middle school age, I could barely get her in a dress except for recitals. Now she is swinging back to her former loves, although she does not dress for dinner, but now and then she will wear a dress or skirt to church or just because.

Anyway, when she was younger, I mostly had to worry about what she and the boys were going to dig up in the backyard or injuries from sword fighting and she has always had this fascination with all kinds of knives, like boys tend to do. Although she is aware that some of her friends are attracted to her, she rarely will talk to us about it. The bad experience with J-Void left its mark on us all, so I think that one side of her does not want to like a boy or even been liked by a boy, but the other...well, she is still a teenage girl. We see the conflict she tries to hide.

Our rules have some flexibility depending on the situation and persons involved and we do invite God's say in the matter. However, the Princess is never to get into a car alone with a boy or go off anywhere alone with a boy at any time...period! She is allowed to go with a mixed group of friends as long as there is a responsible chaperone. We, at times, will allow her to do something with a boy as long as one of her parents is with her or we really know and trust the chaperone.

We do not need to know everyone in the group, but when it comes down to a one-on-one situation, we like to meet the boy and his parents if possible, just to be sure we all are on the same page. We did not do this with J-Void because....well, they both were only fourteen at the time. From our point of view, they were too young for courtship.

Now that the Princess is sixteen (and still too young, but it is not unexpected at this age), should a boy profess his interest in her as anything more than a friend and she feel the same, we will treat it as a courting situation. We are not there yet, although we have had some boys expressing their feelings for her, she has been more careful to reciprocate since J-Void. When we think it is a mutual attraction, then we will handle it as a courtship, in that we be more involved with their time together and work on getting to know the parents also.

Although the Princess has been made aware of these rules most of her life, I think it is still difficult for her to see the pictures of the girls from her youth group in their formal dresses with their dates for homecomings and proms. One girl in particular has had the same boyfriend for over a year, yet her mother has said that she is immature for her age to me several times, so I am still wondering why she allows her to date...? Anyway, a few times the Princess has asked why she does not feel anything towards any boy other than friendship, as if she thinks she has something wrong with her. It breaks my heart that she thinks that about herself, but I just tell her it is because she has not yet met the one God has chosen for her.

I know that this may be hoping for too much, but I am still hoping that God's chosen mate for my daughter will be a man who recognizes that our strict rules are not against him but for him and that appreciates that we all worked to guard her virtue and her heart for him. That would be ideal, but I will try not to have that expectation. Still, I have heard God tell me that He has selected her husband, the one we have been praying about for all these years, and that we are going to love him. In someways I cannot wait to meet him and in others...well, that it changes so much that I am also not in a hurry to see change. I will trust God's timing.

My Lord, I look forward to my daughter coming into adulthood, but it is a bittersweet feeling. Please give us all patience and help us to really hear You as we all grow through this process.

The Downsides of Upgrading Phones

Sooner or later, you will need to make friends with Disappointment. ~Dr. SunWolf

For many years I had a prepay flip phone. I had a plan that is no longer offered, but as long as I paid it the balance so that it was $100 once a year I was grandfathered in to pay 10 cents a minute for calls and 10 cents per text. I did not text and the most I ever paid in one year was around $50, most years between $20-$30. We still had a home land line and I did most of my chats on that. My cell phone was for meeting up with people at the right place and time and emergencies. The phone number was switched over to me from an old work phone number my husband had.

Now I am not particularly sentimental about phones, but phone numbers...well, that is another story. We have tried to keep the first number my daughter memorized when she was turning four years old. My husband was offered to go to the tech conference at Disney World that year. In preparation, my daughter and I began taking long walks to build her stamina and while we walked we worked on her memorizing her address and her daddy's phone number, because even though I could not imagine her getting separated from us by anything, I wanted to be sure that she knew our address, our full names, and how to contact us by phone.

So, we had that number ported to my prepay flip phone, which was no small feat that that time. I used the same phone with the same number for several years.

About three years ago, we decided to let go of the landline and go cellular only. So I got a smart phone, Samsung Galaxy S5, that I loved! The Princess got the prepay flip phone. She was not allowed to text or just chat on it, but it was to be used for meeting up with us at the right place and time.

We replaced the $20 flip phone I previously had for several years because it fell out of her pocket as she was riding her bike and a car ran over it. I keep thinking that one was a replacement of another that got ruined or lost, but she does not remember. Anyway, the last time we needed to replace it, there were no prepay flip phones, instead there was a $30 small touch screen phone that had wi-fi capability and very little storage by today's standards; I think it qualifies as the cheapest "smart phone" possible. She cracked the screen in the first six months, and she could have replaced it with her allowance or gift money, but she decided to just live with it.

A few years ago, my husband and I never had it in our minds that she would be allowed to have a smart phone as a teenager, but that is when we had a land line. Things have changed, tech has changed, and our plans had to change also.

My husband just bought a phone earlier this year to be his personal phone, as he felt his work phone was becoming the company way of keeping surveillance on their employees. He is definitely an iPhone guy, but I like Android. He tried to convinced me to get a new phone then also. Now I was still quite happy with my Galaxy s5 except for one thing: not enough internal storage. I use my phone to help me stay on track with my life and chores, save money, and monitor and limit the Princess' online activity so it has several shopping apps, Instagram, a bill reminder app (very necessary with all the additional stuff from the Queen Mother), and a few games that give me something to do when I am waiting with nothing to do. The 16 gig internal space was just not enough anymore and what apps I could move to the external card would move back to internal with every update. At least once a week to daily, I was moving over pictures and apps to the external card so all my apps would work...so that my phone would work...so that my life would work.

You may recall that we also had found a senior friendly flip phone for the Queen Mother and she was added to our service plan. That made three on the plan.

I was ready to give in and the prepay was coming due the first week of July, so I decided to just do it. The Princess would get my Galaxy s5 and I would get the Galaxy s8, which has 64 gig internal storage with the ability to add an external card, but I was not as thrilled about it because of the curved edges being harder to protect  You see, I do not go for the pretty phone cases but for ones that will really protect the phone. My s5 did not even have a scratch!

So we added the Princess to unlimited phone and texting.... Hold that thought.

Actually, the guy at the store made an error in the phone number we were trying to have port over from the prepay service...the number we have passed along in the family for over a decade. None of us caught it, so she really could not use the phone. It took some time to track down what went wrong and go back to the store to have it corrected, but since Thursday morning it has been up and running.

Back to that thought....I have access to all of her accounts email, Instagram, and Google Hangouts, so I can see everything, but there are three things that I would not see: texting, calls going in and out, and the actual conversation. However, I found a free app that leashes her phone to mine so I see all her text conversations and who is calling her. That is about the best I can do.

Oh, and I cannot tell you how much I really hated getting the Galaxy s8. I would have preferred getting another s5 with more internal storage. I ordered a cover like the one I had for on my s5, but I did not realize it would take three weeks to get it. (I am assuming it is coming from China.) So, I have tried to be careful with the phone, but for whatever reason, Galaxy made the entire phone with a glass skin. Had I looked more at the reviews I would have probably thought hard about going with an iPhone. The glass at the back of the s8 cracks very easily and the entire phone is quite slippery, but I thought all would be well once I got the case. Well, I still do not have a case and tonight I dropped it on a brick walkway and it hit a corner. The front screen is fine, but the back has one crack from the corner to the fingerprint pad. Not terribly bad and the case will cover most of the damage, but it does make the phone less water resistant. As I wrote, my s5 did not even have a scratch after three years, so I am a bit bummed that I did this after having the new phone for only eight days.

I miss my s5! Yes, I do!

My Lord, help me keep my expectations in perspective, one small crack in a phone should not have so much power over my feelings! I have spent too much thought on something I cannot change. Thank you for making heaven a place that does not have such concerns.  

My Thrift Booty....Boots!

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. -Charles Spurgeon

I confess that I have a materialistic side. It rarely will overrule my practical side, but it is there. My compromise: I love to shop in thrift stores. I try to go to one of two Goodwill stores between grocery shopping and the Princess' piano lesson every Tuesday, our errand day, because the two best ones I have found around us are not the ones closest to us but on our errand route closer to where her piano teacher lives. When I say the best, I mean that they usually have far more selection and more of the better stuff. At least, they seem to be better than the one nearest us. I also like to go on Tuesdays because ever since I hit "the speed limit mark," what my husband calls being 55, I get a senior discount of 25% off my entire purchase on Tuesdays only. Actually, some cashiers gave the discount to me when I was still 54 because I was honest about being just a few months short...I guess the whitening hair was giving me away. (At times like this my daughter appreciates having an older mama.)

Typically, I thrift shop without a particular idea of what I would like. Having shopped like this for years, I am pretty efficient at not having to look at every single piece of clothing. Goodwill arranges clothes by colors separating solids and patterns so I usually can walk down the aisles to see what jumps out at me. Textures and color have always drawn my attention more than patterns when it comes to tops and dresses and skirts, although I do have a soft spot for leopard prints. Sweaters are the easiest for me because they are all about texture and color, but I have so many bulky textured sweaters and last winter I did not even unpack any of them as it was a warmer winter. I like petite tops that are shorter and harder to find with a glance and longer dresses and skirts which are easier as they hang lower.

In jeans, it is the opposite; I prefer finding the very rare patterns although I currently do not have any since little wild puppy Mishka nipped and ripped the few I had months ago playing as if I was a stubborn two-legged sheep to be chased and herded quite roughly every time he was awake and I was up walking. (Thankfully, he has grown out of that stage.) I have nearly every color of Gloria Vanderbilt's Amanda stretch jeans ever made, except the bright warm colors, that I wear more in the autumn and winter—my favorite of them, though, I like for summer, a lovely sage that looks refreshingly cool with a white eyelet top. When I look for jeans at thrift stores, it is more of a piece-by-piece search because the textures and colors are so similar that is it about cut and size; I am a straight leg, classic cut on the waist, regular or relaxed fit kind of girl, who hates boot cuts or any flare. I like to tuck my jeans in my boots to show them off and flares make my legs look shorter.

For the Princess, it is harder. She has a more slender build and is really petite, not a borderline petite as I am. She likes earthy, more subtle colors like I do, but typically darker. Currently, her most favorite color is black and next red, although she has yet to select any clothing with red for herself, but if she is given a red t-shirt, she would wear it now and then, if it has a good message. I have noticed that she is also drawn to textures, but more open weaves to wear layered (like I did when I was a young adult). She likes her jeans with flare, which is far harder to find in the right length for her.

It is also hard to find longer skirts and dresses for her; most pool around her around her feet. She does not like much of a heel in dress shoes (and I cannot blame her as I wore heels for years when I was in retail clothing and I avoid wearing them now except for rare special occasions), but this week she got a pair of wintry suede-and-furry lace up boots with a built-in heel that not only looked so cute on her, but she said they were comfortable—and she could run in them, which is has been her acid test for a few years with foot wear. (We still laugh about the Jurassic World movie where the lead woman ran in high-heel dress shoes throughout entire the movie. Yeah, right!)

As to foot wear, I lean towards two kinds. One is barely-there, flat, strappy leather sandals or a walking sandal that is not fancy but comfortable and practical—the latter usually has to be brand new because they develop a permanent foot impression. The other kind is a boot, actually all kinds of boots including booties, but I have a particular soft soft for boots with a western flare.

This week Independence Day was on Tuesday so her piano lesson was moved to Monday and I did not get that nice discount, but I also found some practically-new, fringed black boots that I slipped on and were so comfortable that were probably worth the extra $1.75 I had to pay. I have never had this thought in my mind before, but as I looked down at these boots on my feet: Ohhh, Mama LIKE! I caught the Princess involuntarily smiling when I actually said that out loud and I think that is going to be my new saying for extra special things like this. I may not like flashy clothes, but I cannot pass up a fringed western-style boot with a little bling!

The boots looked new, but sadly unloved. The fringe was a scary mess from being left stored with the throats lopped over, but I was pretty sure that I could do something to fix that. And fix that I did!

First things, first. It really would not do to fix the fringe and still have the throats bending, so I got pool noodles for $1 each at a local dollar store. Then I cut them with a sharp knife to size I wanted for the boots and a few others that I have not shown here. The noodles were really easy to cut!

Next I began working on the boot pictured on the right. I saw that many people on the internet suggest using heat, but that really did not work well. However, since I was really fortunate that these boots were made of real leather, I decided to try saddle soap. Now when I say real leather, that did not include the finer fringe at along the top of the boot which I think is a faux leather because the saddle soap did not soak into that fringe as it did on the real leather fringe on the sides of the boot, but even faux leather does well with saddle soap as it straighten itself out without anything else.

Practically, brand new leather boots for under $7 with about 20 minutes of saddle soaping and about 1/3 of a $1 noodle.

Now this is why I love going to thrift stores! 

Thank you, my Lord, for providing not only what I need but also what I do not particularly need but just like. You always make me smile.