A Childhood Memory

I was trying to figure out recently where my "early bird" tendencies originated from and it sparked a memory from decades past to resurface. I remember waking up around the time my Mom would wake up. Most of the time she would beat me to waking but more often than not her moving around would wake me too. I remember she would get up between 5:30 and 6:00am to enjoy a cup (or two if she could sneak it in) of coffee before the rest of the house started stirring. She would sit in the dark, or near dark, and just relax and sip. Occasionally I would encroach on this solitude and sit in an adjacent chair and talk. I have no recollection of any of the specific conversations but the overall memory and mood are worth savoring.

Knoxville Symphony Orchestra - Shakespeare in Love

Due to lack of date and general moodiness I chose to pass along the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra tickets to Shakespeare in Love to my dear friends Todd and Donna Covert. Below is Todd's account of the performance.

Hippity hop, bippity bop, we’re off to see the show. Which show? Why Shakespeare with the KSO, don’t you know.

We were told to expect McDowell, but would it be Andie or Malcolm? Sadly, ‘twas a sesquicentennial of a composer unheard for 149 of those 150 years. Seems his specialty was music lacking tension or melody or interest. It was like being trapped in the world’s largest, slowest elevator. Perhaps in another 150 years, no one will still be listening to MacDowell.

The music improved when they whipped out the Tchaikovsky. The orchestra laid the wood(s) to that crazy jazz sound. Unlike MacDowell, who we shall call the Sleeping Composer, the big T actually had a great sense of dynamics, drama and purpose. It really was the highlight of the evening. The KSO sounded fantastic. Donna particularly loved the bass and double bass players. Several of them sat on stools in order to finger their instruments. Due to being perched high up, they were forced into frantic attacks on the pages of the score. Hop, grab, page, turn, leap, finger, bow, bow, bow!!! She was right. It was riveting. Ye gods! What if they missed the page? Or the stool? They were pros. Never once did they miss, not even a beat. But all things come to an end and Tchaikovsky’s music did as well.

At the intermission, we chatted with Frank and Jere Murphy. Frank has managed to regain three, possibly four pounds and no longer appears emaciated. Jere was as lovely as always. Donna and I looked around and were thrilled to be amongst the youngest in attendance. Then, the second act began and the actors made their appearance.

For reasons shrouded in the mists of theatre, it was decided to have be-tuxedoed actors read from A Midsummer Night’s Dream whilst the KSO played Mendelssohn’s music to accompany the play. The actors were seated facing the audience and with their backs to the KSO. This very confrontational arrangement distracted greatly from the music. Further, the readings themselves were odd as the actors played various characters from the play. It wasn’t exactly clear who was whom. And while they gave a game effort, the staging just did not work and wasn’t helped by the actors acting while seated and waiting to read.

The musicianship was excellent and Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky sounded fantastic. Hippity hop, bippity bop. We went to see the show. Shakespeare we love, MacDowell we dread. Home we went and so to bed.

Todd

The next big challenge

So I started this challenge a smidge over a week ago and am not through with it. I did want to do an intermediate post though because who knows when it will be complete. I decided to tackle THE OFFICE. First step was to move everything out of the office. This was no small feat since it was the room I moved everything into when I bought the house. I chose the adjacent dining/living room as the repository for office limbo as you can see here.

Next step was to attack the room and the hideous wallpaper border. Ok, I admit I have seen worse but there was no way this was staying. If I am remembering correctly, the previous homeowners just kept the room like it was from the people they bought the house from. I can't hate the previous homeowners then so I will have to hate the grand-previous homeowners. Get it? Grand-previous = Grandparent? Anyway, so here is what it looked like...
And what I found out is that I hate hate hate residential "paper" wallpaper. I am not sure if the wall was primed at all but what I am sure of is that the wallpaper took off a lot of the top layer of drywall. This next shot is an action "drying" shot of patching compound drying (goes from pinkish/purple to white). It took almost all day to just prep the room for painting.

After the great accomplishment of getting everything removed, patched, and sanded I was ready to paint. To those that have been around me for years you already know that I normally don't paint things white. It not only bores me but it is aggravating because white paint doesn't cover well in my experience. I had little choice though since I was working with a whole scheme in mind for the room. Let me set the scene...months ago while flipping through the Land of Nod catalog, I spied some super awesome wallpaper that was freehand looking drawings of picture frames so that you could color on the walls. I immediately logged that away in my little brain and knew that the office would be where I could pull something like that off. The dilemma was really about what accent color I wanted in the room and where. I have been liking the bright greens a lot lately and kept gravitating back to it. The next question was, what gets the green? Well another bit of inspiration hits me, this time on the internet with an RSS feed. They showed this white bedroom with a blue ceiling...that's it! So on the ceiling went the "lime green" paint. Here is an in progress shot which is the last I have for you right now.

There has been more progress on the room since this photo was taken. New bookcases were assembled (you can see them in boxes in the living room pictures) and added to my existing bookcases to make a wall of bookcases. I also made a stand up table in the middle of the room out of 3 small bookcases and custom cut, frosted and tempered piece of glass from clearview glass company. In addition, the ceiling fan was switched out to a less '80s style with help from a coworker. I moved my desk back in as well as all of the books. I need a file cabinet and something to put my printer and scanner on near my desk. These are the details that are slowing me down right now. I will try to wrap it all up this weekend and get a final photo on the blog. Until then you will have to use your superb imagery skills to imagine.

Feel free to stop by and draw on my walls any time you catch me home.

Bloggers In Love...

Ok so it isn't quite that but it does involve "bloggers" and it does involve "love" but it is the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's performance of "Shakespeare in Love" on February 25th. They are giving/have given ...not quite sure of when the cut off is, tickets to bloggers that have blogged at least once a month. I found this out via my friend and neighbor Frank Murphy's blog/twitter announcement.

I actually qualified for tickets...yes I managed at least one posting a month. :) Now all I have to do is figure out someone to take with me!

The painting saga continues

I am finally done with the bedroom painting. I have some in progress shots. Even in the "done" photo it didn't have the curtains hung. The curtains are the same color as the quilt. Oh and there is one thing that I seem to do more often than not, paint the ceiling the same color as the walls so I don't have to be as careful. I did the same thing in the bedroom. ...lazy.

Oh and don't be overly impressed by the painting on the wall, I saw it on a website and "copied" it. I will attach it to the bottom of the post.

A visit with Santa

John and I headed over to Knoxville Center Mall to visit with one of Santa's helper before Christmas. John of course had a long discussion with Santa who was very accomodating. This year John had a list to go over and also wanted to ask Santa who came to the house and took the "list" he made from the silver envelope ornament on the tree. Santa said that elves came. John wasn't sure if it was an elf or Santa himself.


In addition to Santa, there were also trips to the train, play area for kids and little vehicles you can pay a dollar to ride. I chose to only document the train.

Fountain City Parade 2009

Every year the Fountain City Optimist Club puts on a parade through North Knoxville and for the past 4 years or so John and I have gone. This year was no exception. I would like to share some of the parade festivities with you all. Since I stink at figuring out where the pictures are going to finally end up on the post, I will explain here and you can check out the photos as they sporadically show up.

First there is the start of the parade. ...aww, aren't the scouts cute?



I always love the Shriners. I should taunt them next year by wearing my Shriner hat that I bought at an antique store.



Ok, this one I just laughed as they passed by. I wish I had gotten the name of the baton/dance studio but didn't so we will have to just giggle anyway. Ok, the "leader/instructor" was freaky scary looking. I swear I gone back in time. Following her and mixed in among small young girls was a confident young man who was probably seeking the same later for a date. He was out there twirling with the rest in his white sweat suit, dyed hair and BLACK shoes.































The one thing I missed this year was the "candy cane queens".

The culmination was Santa of course riding a fire engine instead of reindeer.