Dancing, Singing, and Plantains

 Greetings everyone!

I am attempting to keep up the Wednesday blogging tradition here, despite the fact that dance is over for the year, so we are home today.  There are many things I could and should be checking off the list, but I'm going to take a few minutes to check in with you all here.  The closest Starbucks is 25 minutes from our house (which is probably a good thing as it will force-break me of my $5 cold brew habit) so I'm contenting myself with a home brewed iced coffee

and a homemade banana flaxseed muffin

Not a bad combo!

So the last weekend and the days leading up to it were somewhat consumed with preparing for the girls' dress rehearsal (Saturday) and dance recital (Sunday).  Dance mom is a big job... there are a lot of details to think about-- hair, makeup, tights, proper footwear that isn't too small (a constant problem this year), and skin-colored leotards to wear under costumes for self-conscious 11 and 12-year-olds who don't want to change in front of everyone backstage.  But it was all completely worth the work!

There are so many things to say about the whole event-- how much they all improved this year, how polished all their dances were, how hard they worked... and little J overcame some pretty intense stage fright and when she was finished she was all smiles and so very proud of herself.  And of course they're all just getting so big and mature and capable.  Just a wonderful and emotional day.

These girls had a wonderful, wonderful teacher this year and all improved so much and bonded pretty tightly with her.  There were some tears as we said goodbye with the realization that we might not be dancing with her next year.  The drive is quite long and we were making the trek every week from our new house to finish out the year so the girls could dance this recital for which they had worked so hard.  But continuing to drive may not be in the cards... however, we are all pretty motivated to stay in touch with this special teacher so we shall see what the future brings!!

Later that evening, N was our babysitter while M and I went out to sing!  A church gig that we both participated in pre-pandemic had not been happening since March 2020.  This was the first Sunday that the choir returned and we all were just thrilled to be singing together again!

Both M and I have been cantoring here throughout the pandemic, but it was such a treat to sing there together, and with our other much-missed friends.  All the goose bumps and all the feels on those organ hymns with descants!  It was a pretty awesome day.

When I went to the grocery store to pick up flowers to give to the girls after their recital, they were selling peonies much to my delight!  Each girl received a bouquet and they have been filling our home with their beautiful blossoms and scent all week.  Very happy!

Monday and Tuesday I had completely off from teaching.  I was thinking to myself that I couldn't remember the last time I had a weekday totally off.  It felt pretty great.  There was lots of baking-- an apple pie pictured above, and the aforementioned banana flaxseed muffins.  I am not one to let old fruit go to waste!  There have been other busy things to attend to-- grocery shopping and meal planning (the ever-present chore), putting the finishing touches on my students' final video recital (the second of two this spring), and taking N to get her second vaccination shot!

Brave girl!

In two weeks she will be fully protected!!  Woo hoo!!!!

She did very well with the shots overall.  She woke up this morning with a slight fever and some aches but I gave her one dose of Tylenol and that was all she needed.  She has been doing all her normal violin practicing and Pre-Algebra equation solving and card game playing and even played badminton outside with her sisters for over an hour.  So she seems pretty much normal!

Speaking of grocery shopping and meal planning, that has been one adjustment to living here... the nearest grocery store is a 17 minute drive, and that's the super expensive one (Big Y).  My go-to for low prices, Market Basket, is 25 minutes away, and Hannaford is 20.  I know I kind of sound like an old person complaining about such a thing, but I'm a city girl I guess, and got spoiled by having a Stop and Shop that was a five-minute walk from our old house.  The pandemic had already taught me to shop for two weeks of food at a time, so that's no problem, but it's hard to have to spend almost an hour of travel time on top of a chore that already takes me nearly an entire day between meal planning, listing, actually shopping, hauling all the groceries inside when I get home, and putting everything away.  Hannaford To Go has become my friend on the shopping days when I just can't even.  And that has been two out of the three shopping days that we've had since we moved here.  I still have to drive to pick up the order, but at least someone does the actual walking through the store for me.  This last time, I told the girls they couldn't have apple pie and ice cream until they helped me bring all the groceries inside and put them all away.  It took the five of us working together about 15 minutes, where it can take me hours if I'm doing it myself with lots of interruptions from hungry children.  I tell you, I martyr myself really unnecessarily sometimes.  Asking for slave labor... I mean help... from your children is the way to go!!!

One other issue with Hannaford To Go is that sometimes the substitutions they make for out-of-stock items are just ridiculous.  This time they gave me plantains instead of bananas... which as you may know is not at all the same thing.

So what do I do with a gigantic bag of plantains???  Ideas anyone??

I think that's it for this week... hope you are all well!