Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Chill Out

It certainly cold out there - and windy.  An abrupt front came crashing through the atmosphere tonight - just before 5:00 pm, there was a tremendous boom!  It was a thunderous sort of storm, one that rained down torrents as we drove home from ballet practice.  And then, just as quickly, the storm had passed and the sun was out - and yet, the temperature was doing a nose dive once more.  Yes, tonight the temperature is supposed to drop to thirty-one degrees, and with all the water about, there should be a bit of freezing going on.  Regardless of the temperature, it'll feel a lot colder with all that wind.  It feels like if Madison were to jump in the air out there, she'd start getting blown away!

Today was that busy day for her again, with piano and ballet.  First, piano:  she's playing more and more complex pieces, playing with two hands a bit more than just chords and a melody.  It was slow-going at first, and this one tune, "Spinning Around," is supposed to be our theme song for the week.  It features chords on the left hand, and harmonizing notes as well.  All the kids in the class were pretty slow on the draw for this one, but hopefully by next week, they'll all be doing well.  Practice, practice, practice!

Ballet was next - and there's a spring recital coming up.  Also, Friday, there's a make-up class.  It turns out that Friday is going to be a very busy day!  After school, there'll be ballet - and after that, she's going with her piano class (and the other kids at the music school there) to a "Winter Wonderland" celebration.  It's just a chance to have a little party, and enjoy each other's company without playing any instruments.  The choice of the location was always a mystery, known only to our teacher.  But over the past few weeks, she gave out clues - and students inched closer to guessing the surprise place.  But I don't think anyone would have guessed it:  we're going to meet at Bethesda Waterpark in Lawrenceville, a park we've never been to before.  It's all indoors, so it'll be an interesting experience should the temperatures remain so chilly outside.  Madison, of course, is very much looking forward to it.

While she was at ballet, Mommy unloaded an arsenal of coupons, and we went to Target.  We got a whole bunch of cleaning supplies - a wagonload.  It was like we were about to go on the Oregon Trail. We'll have enough toilet paper to last us a while.  Or, until we decide to roll someone's house.  Two things of significance were released today:  one was "Wreck-it Ralph."  We had a coupon for $7.00 off, and the thing was already marked down to $19.99 on Blu-Ray.  So you can see we saved a lot on that, and a lot of other things too.  The other item that was released today was They Might Be Giants' new release, "Nanobots."  I've only heard it twice, but it sounds great - it's somewhat nostalgic in that it sounds like some of their early stuff, which is what drew us to them in the first place.

Dinner at home was delicious again:  pork chops!  Have not had those in quite some time, and it was a welcome return to the house.  Our movie time was short, but Madison was wanting to watch that short cartoon about St. Patrick's Day - you know the one on Veggie Tales?  "Oh, mighty metaphor!"  It's an educational cartoon about Patrick himself, and although I'm not 100% sure about the facts behind his life, we find the cartoon short pretty entertaining!

Tonight was bath night, which helped to warm her up a bit.  Things were a little long on that end, so between that, dinner and the two practices, it was pretty much time for bed when she was out.  No problem though - she got to bed early, and will have a good night's rest for sure.  That is, if the wind doesn't wake her up.  It's so amazing out there - very breezy.  Actually, "breezy" is too light of a word - how about gale force winds?

When Madison went to bed, Mommy and Daddy picked up on their St. Patrick's Day movie marathon by watching "The Quiet Man."  It was a longer movie, but a pretty decent one.  The scenery was green and beautiful, of course.  Much more beautiful than the movie, "Top O' the Morning," which made a few references to this color or that color - and yet it was a black and white movie!  Being that Ireland is such a color-specific country, you need to splurge and go for the color print.  Anyway, as for "The Quiet Man," it was good to see everyone getting along at the end.  But for a while, Daddy was really flustered at Maureen O'Hara's character.  Without getting too much into the story, we eventually hear her problem with John Wayne's character is that he doesn't fully understand the Irish culture.  Which, of course, she doesn't explain to him.  

Why not just come out and say it!  The answer, of course, is that if she "just said so," then there wouldn't be a movie.  Or, at least the movie would have been forty-five minutes shorter.  Anyway, don't get me wrong:  we were glad we watched it.  Daddy was wanting to watch this one for a while now, and it was nice to sit with Mommy on the couch and snuggle under the blankets, as the wind whipped around outside.  The movie title may have been "The Quiet Man," but it was certainly anything but that outside!

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