The Streetpoet

The boys often like to play on the piano at Papa’s house. I’m hoping someday they will learn how to play and sight read music, but so far they’ve learned to play gently, to wash their hands first, and to only use their fingers. 😉

Seth and Jerome were playing the piano together the other night and it had a discordant sound to it. Seth turned to me and said “It is sad.” We’ve learned that music is very powerful, and they are very sensitive to it.

A few minutes later Seth was playing the highest keys and Jerome had started playing one note at a time with one finger and “walking” up the keyboard. Seth said “Mommy, Jerome’s finger is coming!” 🙂

I love the perspective they give me on life!

I remember standing in front of my grandmother’s refrigerator as a little girl and studying her magnet collection.

I don’t know when she started collecting them, but when she went any place new she would buy a magnet.

My Grandmother never seemed to be a fun-loving person to me, but her magnets told me something about her that she did not portray to me. Every one of them looked like a toy or something out of a book, and she would let us take them down and play with them and tell us about the places where she got them.

I used to collect marbles. Not because I could play them well, but because I enjoyed staring into the colored glass and I loved the feel of them and the sound of them knocking together.

Maybe that’s why I absolutely love making marble magnets! I just finished an order today for the gift shop at the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster, CA. The gal there sent me some of her pictures of the local flora and I used some of mine and she sells them in her shop.

So I’d like to think that maybe someone like my grandmother will buy a marble desert flower magnet to remember her journey through the high desert of California and take it home to let her granddaughter look at it, hold it, see how strong the magnet is, and maybe she will tell her about her trip…and a little about herself.

Well…almost.

With a tripod and a remote control for the shutter we grabbed these images today.

I was wondering if this one would make a good Christmas card…?

Thank you for these, Peter!

I gave Ian to Seth and my camera to Jerome and he shot these for us. He’s pretty good!

And Ian got his first swing today!

It’s a very hot weekend. We took those pictures then all dashed inside to the air-conditioning and not even Seth asked to go back out to play in the dirt! But what he has enjoyed doing inside on these hot, hot days is look at google’s images of tractors! He’ll spend an enormous amount of time browsing the pictures of tractors and asking what kind they are. We ask him what he wants to do when he grows up and he says “Ride an excavator and drive it.” 🙂

I played my first card game of hearts last night with Mom and Dad and Peter! My brain never did engage and I’m still not sure how to play, but we had fun and I’d like to try again. It reminded me of the double dates we used to do together. Anna came over too and played Candyland and Memory with the boys!

Regina came over for lunch today! It’s such an amazing blessing to have her here…I still have to remind myself that she’s not just visiting! I’m so grateful to have her in our lives.

Maybe one of these days she’ll let me take her picture? Hint, hint! 😉 Love ya, Gigi!