<p>Yup – jude, that’s about the size of it!</p>
<p>jude - amen! China, Europe, South America, and Africa for the kids, yardwork for the parents. To be fair, some of it was covered by the hard-earned scholarships.</p>
<p>Dinner tonight: salad – baby greens, tomato, celery, green pepper, bean sprouts, walnuts, sunflower seeds – with pita bread, hummus, and slices of cheddar cheese. Dessert was rice pudding.</p>
<p>This means H had a gig tonight and wasn’t around to cook dinner.</p>
<p>(It had been a while since we’d had a food post. I’ll try to do better tomorrow!)</p>
<p>Your food posts are always welcome! owlice, you must have missed our discussions of the lovely dish: the dishwasher salmon. </p>
<p>BTW, I did check the recipes - my dishwasher will not do the trick. Too much on the energy-saving side!</p>
<p>Gosh, I missed so much today in the V-Lounge!
Fish tales, travel, food, AP exams, more food, towels, did I say food???</p>
<p>D is just too tired and busy to deal with all those AP exams…too bad her school relies so much on the funding from them because she doesn’t think she did very well. I don’t know how the school expects these kids to do well on the exams when they have absolutely loaded them with projects, regular tests, performances, etc. when there’s only 2 weeks left before graduation…NUTS! I told her not to worry so much about getting good grades this last quarter, but she just can’t help herself.</p>
<p>Thank you as always for letting me rant. Are their any milk and cookies tonight?</p>
<p>My daughter has hit the hay, or I’d ask where she found the nutella gelato she still raves about, mythmom. I think it was either San Gimignano or Montecatini Terme. She was there in July, it was beastly hot, and she had the time of her life touring with her choir, making friends from around the world. A highlight: singing “O Mio Babbino Caro” on the Ponte Vecchio. </p>
<p>Studying violin in Florence…how romantic and lovely to think about. Has your son seen the film “The Red Violin”? </p>
<p>Smokin’ salmon in the dishwasher? I’m the one who almost burned down the house last week re-heating a bagel in the microwave so I don’t know if I can be trusted with dishwasher baking. The fire extinguisher needs a recharge before I can get that adventurous.</p>
<p>I agree, 2forcollege. There is too darn much coming at these kids right now. Finals, AP exams, projects, rehearsals, and all the end-of-HS stuff on top of colleges clambering for decisions and filled out forms, and looking for a JOB…it’s crazy.</p>
<p>2forcollege: When my kids were little instead of having hot chocolate they drank hot vanilla milk which was heated milk with lots of sugar and vanilla, cooked enough so the alcohol from the vanilla extract cooked off. I can’t remember how it got started, but it was the drink of choice after playing in the snow, maybe because the whiteness of the milk was a cognate for the snow.</p>
<p>I give you a mug of warm vanilla milk with still runny chocolate chip cookies, and with all that tryptophan, you should have a good night’s sleep.</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi: Yes, he owns the DVD and has a reddish violin. It’s a little goth, the blood in the varnish, but yes, oh so romantic.</p>
<p>But if you ask me Joshua Bell can’t hold a candle to Hilary Hahn who plays so well it sometimes just makes my jaw drop open.</p>
<p>He is sure to be able to ferret out the best gelato quite on his own. He’s talented that way. And he still talks about the gelato from his trip to Rome.</p>
<p>D claims that Parisian French ice cream is better, but lately all I’ve heard about is the hard cider at the pubs in London. </p>
<p>I made it! She comes back in two weeks from her semester abroad!</p>
<p>jnsq: How do you burn a bagel in a microwave? Did you really have to use your fire extinguisher? Seriously, I am glad that you didn’t burn down the house.</p>
<p>To add to the end of the year frenzy, my S has local scholarship interviews. For one, he and other finalists are invited to lunch at a local restaurant with members of the group giving the money. During the lunch they each have to stand up and give a 5 minute speech telling about their accomplishments, college and future plans, etc. My stomach ties up in a knot just thinking about it. How do they expect the kids to be able to enjoy this meal? Guess it just continues to prove the old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch.</p>
<p>mythmom: I am so happy for your S and his summer in Florence with his violin. The violin is such a wondrous, expressive instrument. My kids took Suzuki violin, and I learned right along with them, like a good Suzuki mom should. Then when they quit, I kept right on going. Haven’t played in years, though, because our house is very small and the noise can be very distracting to others. When our nest becomes empty in September, I can start playing again. I can chalk up at least one good thing about my S going away in September!</p>
<p>Wow gladmom! You’re really cool! H started but quit violin immediately, so S was on his own at Suzuki. But he started playing piano at 4 1/2 so he could really read music by the time he started violin at 7. So it was really Suzuki in name only, but I know all the Suzuki pieces up through book six when he just got random pieces from non-Suzuki teacher.</p>
<p>I am so happy I can really sing because I am not very talented at instruments, though I can play several poorly.</p>
<p>Mythmom, singing is the best, because your instrument is always with you. I plan to take my voice box with me when we go hiking in California this summer. The violin will stay home. </p>
<p>Since I started violin in my 40’s, you can rest assured that I play in a very workmanlike manner. The fiddling stuff is fine for a crowd, but no one really wants to hear me play classical music – painful for them, but loads of fun for me.</p>
<p>I used to play Bach on the guitar, and very complicated things, too, but that was many moons ago.</p>
<p>I really don’t have the muscle memory I should, hence the voice!</p>
<p>I’d listen, I really would.</p>
<p>And gladmom: Listen to Hilary Hahn! Please! She’ll make you cry. I like Bach’s partitas and solo violin pieces best.</p>
<p>Oh, I really need to go to bed. Tomorrow is already today.</p>
<p>Good morning, my fellow vigil Moms. Catching up on the thread made me sad. S has been playing the violin since 8 and had to quit last year - too much going on and his doctor advised him to drop an activity (S was quite stressed and had stomach issues). We have a really old violin (around 90 years old) given to S by a dear friend who has since passed away and we had it restored. This belonged to our friend’s husband who passed away years before S was born. S surprised this friend by playing a piece for her on the restored violin; she was so touched and cried the whole time. She did not know we had it restored.</p>
<p>mythmom - Please tell your S not to miss the Musical Instrument Museum in the Galleria dell’Accademia - amazing Stradivarius violins on display. The Museum is so easy to miss since Michaelangelo’s David is the highlight of the Accademia (is he ever!).</p>
<p>Back to my sugar-free hot chocolate and salt-free scrambled eggs.</p>
<p>mountains: Oh, I’m so sorry to have given you pain. Judith Viorst calls these necessary losses. If your son hadn’t quit the violin there probably wouldn’t be space in his life for what he needs to do.</p>
<p>For instance DS sadly said that he can’t act in a play again, it takes up too much of his practice time. You have to prune the little buds so the main rose is more beautiful.</p>
<p>I’m sure his teacher who is taking all these students won’t let them miss Strads! And as for the David, haha. Who could possibly miss him?</p>
<p>And yuck and yuck to your breakfast, but hats off to you and your discipline.</p>
<p>Good morning, everyone. No violin players in our house. </p>
<p>Mountains - just curious, did giving up the violin/cutting back on the activity help with your S’s stomach issues? I’m wondering because D has a similar problem - although she’s been resisting giving up any of her activities.</p>
<p>Enjoy your healthy breakfast. I haven’t eaten yet - nothing healthy is appealing to me today, and I don’t want to eat something junky - so no food for me.</p>
<p>jnsq - did you really burn salmon in the microwave? I once melted a plastic container in the microwave, but I’ve never set anything on fire. Well, that’s not quite true - I set a frying pan on fire once and panicked a little before putting it out - but I don’t remember how I put it out - I’m sure it did not involve using our fire extinguisher though.</p>
<p>mythmom - blood in the varnish of your S’s violin? You’re right, that’s a little goth. Warm vanilla milk sounds like something D would have enjoyed when she was younger - now, I’m not so sure. Plus, the last thing she needs is something to help her sleep - she’s exhausted, so falling asleep is not a problem. </p>
<p>gladmom - good for you - playing the violin! I have not been tempted to learn my kids’ instruments. Oh, and I can’t sing very well either - although I don’t let that stop me if I’m in the mood.</p>
<p>LIMOMOF2 - Yes, quitting the violin definitely helped his stomach issues and so did prescription meds (we had to take him to a specialist one state over). He used to practise an hour everyday and that helped free up his time … and his stress. </p>
<p>mythmom - It was nostalgia more than sadness. You are so right; S seems to be happy as a calm having more time to devote to writing and plays (and the dreaded video games). </p>
<p>Me? Sing? Even bethie’s mice would run for cover.</p>
<p>Down to one AP test. Chemistry I think. It would be nice if he could get a 4 on it - as he isn’t a science major it would be a nice thing to be able to get out of one the distribution requirements. Calc was yesterday and Gov’t Monday - (i guess same day everywhere) - he tells me he got 4’s. Last year he said he got a 2 on one of the econs and a 4 in stats. Called it dead on, so hopefully he is right this year too. Our school makes you take the test for every AP class you sign up for. Poor #1 son got a 5 in English two years ago. Michigan does not waive freshman english :). Oh well!</p>
<p>I would anticipate very lttle school work being done between now and May 23. I haven’t even thought about the shopping - I am still trying to figure out when we can have the graditation party!</p>
<p>It’s so quiet in the vigil lounge with just us three this morning. Soon it will be buzzing.</p>
<p>Oh no LIMOMOF2: Blood in the varnish of the violin in the movie THE RED VIOLIN. That’s part of the main theme of the movie – that the vioiin is so special because the violin maker used her blood because she had just died in child birth. S’s violin is just an ordinary violin.</p>
<p>mountains: Our sons crossed each other. It has really been making my S so confused to try to hold onto to everything. And it’s been straight through his frosh year. Finally he has agreed to prune that bush and give up his dream (since 4) of becoming a doctor and all the time he spends in theater.</p>
<p>His focus will be music and music with tucking the possibility of law school in the back of his mind. (No extra courses for right now for that.) He is going to double major in English and Music.</p>
<p>kitkat: Good morning to you. I’d like to stay and talk but then I’ll be late for work! And, it’s raining!!! So I probably will be late anyway. Must stop.</p>