I had a haircut scheduled. Fiona was supposed to be doing her driving road test in a few days. It was March 17th, 2020. A week later my hair was longer than ever, and it would continue to grow for
Done?
Are we done raising children? It almost feels like it. This is the third year with all three older kids living and working far from home. Fiona turned 16 this week and is incredibly self-sufficient, living 90 minutes from home.
My big kid’s big job
Erin was poised to finish her Masters in Violin Performance at New England Conservatory this past May. We anticipated that she would eventually land a full-time orchestra position, but the classical music world being what it is, we knew that
Will school ever be the whole story?
Although she’s only equivalent to Grade 9 by age and this semester is taking three academic Grade 12 courses, school has ended up being fairly unchallenging for Fiona. She picked up a DL Spanish course in October to fill her
Big summers
The big kids had big summers this year. We knew Erin’s would be big. She had been offered a Tanglewood fellowship. This meant spending the summer in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts playing in an amazing orchestra and performing at the
A New School Year
First we drove Erin to Spokane. She flew out of the airport there with two giant suitcases (weighing 49.5 and 50.0 lbs respectively), her heavy messenger bag (carrying all the stuff that she unpacked from her suitcases to get them down
Licensed!
Sophie did it, she powered through the “L” (learner’s) phase of getting a driver’s license, and got to the “N” (new driver) stage. As I wrote a year and a half ago, things are not exactly set up well, nor
Brahms Concerto
Fiona and I made a whirlwind trip to Vancouver. For me it was the second in as many weekends. Erin had pulled up her roots in Montreal, and was making a stop in the Vancouver area before heading home to the
Accomplishments
Over the past few years the focus of my blog (well, it’s arguable whether it has any focus at all) has moved away from the specifics of what my children are up to. That’s been the natural result of them
Getting ready for school
We’ve started the paperwork, the “Request for Transfer” into the bricks-and-mortar high school that Fiona wants to attend next year. Actually, she has started the paperwork; for whatever reason this kid loves filling out forms and isn’t afraid of a
House progress
I really love our Nelson house. When we bought it I was sold on it as an investment, a fixer-upper, but I think I’m falling in love now. It has a really nice feel to the living space. It’s open
The school year, times 4
For the first time all four of my kids are officially enrolled in school. Fiona (12) is enrolled one-quarter time, taking two courses at the local school. She’s doing math and science for two hours on each of Monday and
The Other House
We took possession of the Nelson house about four weeks ago. Sophie and Noah are more or less living there for the summer. Sophie is working full-time at a café. Noah is (theoretically at least) working on the house, though he
Letter from college
Normally it would be odd for a parent receive an unsolicited email from one of her now-adult children’s university professors. This is different though, because this prof has been Erin’s violin teacher for four years. That includes the very first year, when
A foot in both places
Yesterday we went to court. Thankfully we ended up being spectators only. The occasion was the seeking of approval by a foreclosing banking institution for the sale of a real estate property to us. A property in Nelson, comprising an old