Grapes, heaters and irrigation

As you may be able to tell, I've been a bit of a mope of late, even though I have my dream life here and everything. There are some rather stressful things going on, but mostly it boils down to the true principle that wherever you go, there you are. You can take the Valerie out of the depressing place, but you can't take the depressed place out of the Valerie.

I got a blessing recently and it was short and simple. It said: 1) pray a lot--several times a day, every time you are frustrated, sad, tired, ready to scream, ready to binge, etc., and 2) get enough rest. I spent quite a bit of time today on my knees while Noah and Lucy took turns climbing up my backside (using my legs as stairs) and walking across my back to leap gleefully onto the bed.

Prayer and sleep. Good advice for anyone, yet so hard to do sometimes, when the brownies are between me and the bedroom where I mean to go and pray. I fall prey to clinging to the false god of chocolate and sugar. I can see Elijah mocking me in the day of judgment as he did the priests of Baal--"How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Chocolate, then follow him. . . call ye on the name of your chocolate god, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." (And the god that answers with stomachache, let him be accursed.) (Ref: 1 King 18:21, with presumptuous changes)

Time outside does much to help my ailing mental health. Two days ago I spent hours pulling wild grapevines out of two large pine trees and redirecting them over our rameumptom, which apparently was a wooden thing designed to have a slide attached, but the slide never got attached, so now it is just a perilously wiggly contraption the baby likes to climb up (and fall off of). Now it is covered in wires and grape vines, hopefully she'll be deterred. Three of us (David, me and Elaine) named it that independently of one another, so it must truly be one. I'll take pics for Sunday.

Our chicks arrived on Tuesday and are peeping in Elaine's garage under a heat lamp. We went over today and harrassed them with petting and grabbing. Helping Noah, I had flashbacks of murdering a hamster when I was the same age (it died after I left, so I didn't know of my crime until years later). I told Elaine to watch the chicks after we left, and spent the whole visit pleading, "Not tight, Noah, not tight!" They were cute and dumb, like chicks are. Soon they'll be ugly and dumb, and then kind of homey and dumb. Then some of them will be dinner.

It's been raining so we haven't done a ton outside. The irrigation water was to have been turned on last week and it never really came in, just a trickle, and I've been purposefully wandering the property testing spigots and popping in Rainbirds to see where was getting what by way of water, then making some changes, then repeating the process. Turns out there was a leak up the street and they'd had it turned off again to fix it. When I went to turn it on today we now have the opposite problem with some outlets we can't totally shut off. With all the rain, it's been a wet day.

The Lord has given me my dream situation even though we can't buy right now, and that really is a sign that He hears my prayers and helps things come together for my good even when everything isn't ready to fall into place. That doesn't keep me from moping about how I want to own this house, which is completely ungrateful and dumb. But I was cured of that on Wednesday when the heater broke, and the landlords had to spend all day on the phone with various people (it happened after they switched out our electrical meter). Then they had to shell out $600 (It's a pretty fancy heater) to fix it, then they had to spend the next day scrambling to solve our irrigation problems.

All of a sudden I realized that in some situations, a renter is the customer, and the landlord becomes the servant (and the checkbook). If that kind of surprise expenditure is what homeownership is about, and I hear that it is, we have no business owning a home right now, and I'm content (today).

I've done a lot more research into voice teaching and the short explanation is there are a lot of gimmicky teachers out there (with recording keepsakes, SLS "certification" - total garbage), and I didn't want to compete on that territory. I decided I will run my voice studio as straight classical training, the way I think one ought to be run, and market it the best I can (explaining why one would prefer "old school"), but I need to have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward getting students, and over the years, maybe build up to a decent-sized studio.

I do believe that old cliche that if you are classically trained, you can sing anything, and that trying to start with pop, country, rock, and even musical theater is like sticking a branch in the ground and calling it a tree rather than having real vocal roots that grow into that branch. Even the lead singer from Iron Maiden was classically trained, among many, many non-classical others.

I am impressed with folks on American Idol the few times I've seen it, but I also see that some things are vocally very difficult for them that would be no problem if they had a little Bel Canto under their belts. And I really believe it is not so much about talent, it's about training and work. If everyone studied singing like everyone studied math, we'd have a world of fabulous singers, all talent aside. Also, now that I'm practicing much more myself (piano and singing), I am remembering how to sing and play am enjoying music much more than I did as an occassional, rusty performer.

I also don't know how much fun it would be to teach a bunch of teens that want to be the next American Idol. But, the one student I have now, who is a classically trained ballet dancer and wants to be a classical singer, and is serious about her study, has a lovely tone, and I'm willing to wait if I can get a studio full of those.

Which leads me back to having to try more immediate ways to help out financially. I'm continuing to push on doors, but this time, mainly ones that allow me to stay home if I can.

I left off posting daily because I wanted to write in my journal. Guess what, big surprise, I haven't. So, I'm going to try to post here more often. It's better than sulking with a pan of brownies.