Irish Flute Lessons

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I've mentioned before that Sunshine takes several classes at our local Irish music school, and Mr M has taken fiddle lessons there as well. This fall, it's my turn to take a class. I'm taking a beginning tin whistle/Irish flute class. My intent is to play the Irish flute (the pic above is a basic keyless Irish flute), but apparently learning on the tin whistle (picture below) is the easy way to go.

I actually wanted to take the class last fall, but since I was due to have River very soon after classes started, I decided I should be patient and wait.

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I started a couple weeks ago, and it's been pretty interesting. The fingerings are fairly similar to flute and oboe fingerings, so they were super easy to learn. The challenge is learning the music. Irish music has a lot of repetition in it, so that helps, but a big part of learning the songs is listening and playing by ear. Despite playing instruments since kindergarten, I have never learned to play by ear (which is why I specifically looked for a Suzuki teacher for Sunshine when she first started violin lessons). I've also never been very successful at memorizing music. If you watch a session, most of the players are playing without sheet music in front of them.

Since the fingerings aren't a challenge, I'm focusing on memorizing the song we're working on. As I play I'm also trying to feel or hear what notes come next. That's the hard part. It's not at all intuitive for me, though it is for Sunshine- she's proven quite adept at playing by ear.

Can you play by ear?

Queen Farmhouse Bed

I was decluttering the house, but I put that on hiatus for a couple weeks while I built several pieces of furniture to help with organizing things. This is one of the pieces I built.

I decluttered the basement a month or so ago and decided it was finally time for the basement bedroom to have an actual bed- we've been using it for storage and exercise space. I liked the plans for the queen Farmhouse bed on Ana White's site, so decided to go with that one.

I initially planned on putting this bed in the basement bedroom, but as it came together I decided it really needed to go in our bedroom and our old log bed could go into the basement bedroom.

I mostly followed the plans, but I added height to the leg posts to accommodate under the bed storage. I also changed how I attached the cleats to make them a bit more sturdy and I used 2x8's for the side rails because I wanted to make sure they were super strong.

Untreated 4x4 posts are hard to find here- I had to go to a lumber yard instead of Lowes, and my only option was fir, not pine, so the cost was higher. Some commenters on the plan post had no problem finding pine 4x4 posts, but that was definitely not the case here.

As I purchased the wood I realized this bed was going to be heavy and sturdy. That's not a bad thing, it just ended up being a bit heftier than I anticipated.

Before I could assemble the bed, I worked on the headboard, footboard, and side rails. I built the head and footboards, then wood puttied the nail holes and knot holes. I finished all the pieces with a really good sanding.

Here's a good example of why you should always pay attention to how you're putting things together:

Luckily I caught it right away and was able to change it up before the glue dried and made fixing it a problem. Much better!

I didn't want the heads of my lag screws showing, so I counter-sunk them, then glued small pieces of dowel in the holes. Wood plugs look so much nicer than exposed screw heads.

I clamped the headboard and footboard to each leg to make sure all the wood stayed in contact. If I hadn't clamped everything there would be gaps between the legs and the panels.

Headboard all built and ready to be painted.

After a coat of primer to seal the knot holes, I painted everything. I mixed my chalk paints together until I had a nice cream color. I only did one coat of paint, mostly because I ran out of time and needed to finish it up and I thought it looked fine how it was. After the paint dried I waxed all the pieces with a mixture of clear and dark wax. I could have just used the dark, but I was afraid of running out and I have to order it online and didn't have time to wait for a shipment. The wax added some depth to the paint and gave it all a nice smooth finish.

I thought about using metal hardware like this or this to attach the side rails to the header and footer, but I was concerned about the weight of the wood and the strength of the metal, so I didn't use them. Maybe in the future if we need to take it apart and put it back together I'll add them in, but I think my current solution works well.  The plan I used to build the pieces for the bed was vague about how to assemble it, but I found better directions in this plan. The main changes I made was to use heavy lag bolts to attach the cleats to the headboard legs and I used metal pins in the ends of the side rails to make a more secure attachment to the head and footboard legs. I cut a 2' length of 1/2" threaded (because that's what they had- non-threaded would have worked as well) pipe into 6" pieces with my Dremel, then drilled holes in the side rails and legs. The hard part was making the holes all match up. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of that process, so you'll just have to use your imagination :)

lag bolts attaching the cleat to the headboard leg

the ends of the cleats are screwed into the board that goes across the length of the footboard. 

the ends of the cleats and the end board rest on the lower board of the footboard

Because of the size and weight of this bed, I assembled it in our room. Mr M was at work, so I assembled it by myself. It took twice as long as it should have and I have some battle scars. This was the first time I've ever hit my thumb full-on with a hammer. Glancing hits are nowhere near as painful as direct hits. This has to be one of the most painful injuries I've had in a really long time. The throbbing didn't go away for a couple days and is still quite painful. The swelling of the soft tissues has started to decrease, but the swelling in my cuticle area has gotten worse and I still can't bend my thumb very far.  I'm sure I'll be losing my nail at some point- I'm just not sure when. And I've realized just how important our opposable thumbs are. Have you tried tying your shoes without using one of your thumbs? It's hard!

48 hrs after I whacked it with the hammer. it actually looks worse now, even though it hurts less

Anyway, after lots of sweating and adjusting and shifting and balancing, I finally got the bed put together.

I may eventually cut down the headboard posts a bit (it stands 5' tall), but I am NOT taking the bed apart again any time soon, so it's staying as-is for now.

Because of the way the bed is built, there's no way a normal bedskirt would work, so I intended to attach a dust ruffle to the backside of the side rails and footboard before I installed the stretchers and mattress. However, I was running short on time and wanted to get the bed finished, so I skipped that part. Some day soon I'll spend some time rolling around on the floor under the bed while I staple the fabric to the wood.

stretchers in. I should have attached the dust ruffle before I put them in

plywood on top of the stretchers to support the mattress (we don't have a box spring)

I made the bed with a new quilt, but I think the color is a little too close, yet not close enough, to the color on the walls. Does that make any sense? I have another quilt that I purchased for the guest room that I need to try out and see if it looks better. We've had some cloudy days so I haven't been able to get a good picture of the other quilt.

I'm really happy with our new bed! It's very solid and secure and I like how the paint turned out. I actually dislike painting, except for the creative process of getting the color and finish just right. That part I like. The rest is tedious and messy :)

While I was moving things around, I also changed out the rug. I moved our blue one to the basement and brought a new gray one into our room.

Next up: painting the white nightstand to match the gray one on the other side of the bed and getting some artwork and a mirror on the walls. I'm also looking for a chair to put in the corner by the window at the foot of the bed. The new bed takes up less room than the old log bed, so there's actually room for a chair now.

Sunday Funny

I've been decluttering our basement, and that involved sorting through some boxes of paper that I'd been saving.

I found a piece of paper with a couple funny Sunshine-isms tucked in an empty notebook. I'm not sure how old these are, but they're at least a few years old, so she was probably 3 or 4 (still Little Miss Sunshine). Here's one:

Mr M: "Where's my hug?"

Little Miss Sunshine: "It's in my armpits."

Exploring Tennessee

While we were in Tennessee for the half marathon, we stayed in a cabin just outside Great Smoky Mountains national park. Staying in a cabin meant we had kitchen facilities for food prep (way more convenient than trying to find acceptable food options in a small town) and we had more space than a hotel room provides. Though I will say our cabin was populated by many spiders and the water smelled of sulphur, despite it being in a golf course community. Either we got used to the smell or it lessened as time went on because it wasn't quite as noticeable by the time we left.

Exploring the park and surrounding areas was quite fun. This was our first visit to Tennessee, so we tried to visit as much as we could in the limited time available.

On our drive to the cabin, we passed through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, which are super touristy areas. We didn't stop, but headed straight for the mountains.

Our first sight-seeing stop was Fort Loudon State Park. It's a reconstructed fort dating back to 1756, when it was used by the British during the French and Indian war.

We visited on a Thursday in late September, so the park rangers were all out doing maintenance work and we weren't able to go in the visitor's center. We did check out the fort though.

outer stockade

love the pose :)

cannon in the corners

most of the buildings were barracks, from what we could see

nice view of the river

We stopped by a working dairy, but just missed the cheese making tour. We did watch a very informative video about robot milking of dairy cows. Mr M and I have both worked in dairies and found the idea of using automated systems for milking fascinating. Sunshine and River weren't nearly as riveted :)

we're guessing they use the giant cow in parades

The next day we drove the Cades Cove loop of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and got Sunshine started on her Junior Ranger booklet. The Cades Cove area has a large number of preserved buildings that visitors can go inside and inspect. We had a hard time imagining traveling the distances we had just traveled by car on paved roads on horseback or in a buggy over dirt tracks. Thank goodness for modern conveniences! The coves in the mountains are flatter areas that have space for farming. We drove through other parts of the park that were not nearly as flat as this area.

panoramic view of part of Cades Cove

old-time musician playing on the porch of the visitor's center in Cades Cove.

I'm not sure if it was the same guy, but there was a banjo player along the course of the half marathon. After we passed him, one of the runners near me commented "NOW I feel like I'm running a race in Tennessee." Gotta love those stereotypes...

old mill that is still used to grind grain into flour- you could watch them grind it inside then buy bags to take home

causeway/aquaduct that redirected a stream so it could power the mill- you can see the end of it in the mill photo above

the door to the blacksmith shop had hinges made of horseshoes

my dad does some blacksmithing, so we thought the hinges were pretty cool.

we saw other hinges that were made completely of wood- I thought I took a picture of them, but I can't find it now 

We also checked out the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, where we read about the history of the area and inspected more preserved buildings. The old barns smelled like our old barn in Ohio, when we were growing up. My sister and I decided it was a mixture of old hay/straw and old wood.

checking out the evolution of tools found in the area

Sunshine thought the large bowl was neat

some of the buildings they've brought to the Heritage Center- houses, cantilever barns, a moonshine still, and more

After the race, we headed back to Cades Cove for a photo op.

Then we hiked to Laurel Falls for another photo op. The falls were a bit crowded, but still pretty.

River was not excited about the hike up- he was hot and sweaty from being strapped to daddy, who was hot and sweaty 

view on the way down from the falls- the fog and rain clouds moving in

Then we went to Clingman's Dome, which turned out to be a short (1 mile round trip) but really steep hike. Way steeper than we expected, but we made it. It was so foggy when we reached the top that we didn't actually climb the ramp to the very top, since we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. We were able to get some photos standing in front of it though.

look how thick that fog is!

so glad we brought our rain jackets on this trip

the Appalachian Trail crosses the trail to Clingman's Dome

view on the way down from Clingman's Dome

Taking pics of our bibs and medals at each of those locations earned my sister and I the Trifecta (and a discount on a future race):

We also turned in Sunshine's Junior Ranger booklet and she received another pin to add to her vest.

Our last stop as we headed home was a covered bridge in Emerts Cove. It was in much better condition and much fancier than the ones we remembered from Ohio, but we hadn't seen one in years and were excited to see this one.

note the separate footpath on the left side

cool ironwork in all the windows

There's no way we could see everything in just a couple days, but we did see a decent amount. I haven't decided yet if I'll be running the half next year (there's a lot of things up in the air right now and planning that far in advance isn't very practical right now), but if I do, there's definitely more things to see and do.

Have you been to the Great Smoky Mountains?

Great Smoky Mountains Half Marathon

sunrise while waiting for the race to start

Saturday I ran my fifth half marathon. It's been a year and nine months since the fourth one, so it felt a lot like my first one. Because I haven't been able to run as much as I'd like since giving birth to River (almost a year ago!) I knew I was going into this race undertrained. My longest run was the the short 15k I did last month, and the majority of my training has been in the 3-4 mile range, or shorter.

If it had just been a matter of undertraining, I wouldn't have been too concerned, since realistically, most of my long races have been done while I was undertrained. The main issue was that I got sick about three weeks before this race and it took a lot longer than I expected to recover. Not running for a month and still feeling the effects of being ill definitely affected my stamina.

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This was the first year this race was put on. The organizers have several races they put on just outside various national parks. Most of them are out west, but this one wasn't super far away, so I decided last year that it would be a good "first half after giving birth" race. I figured a year would be plenty of time to get back in shape, especially since I'd stayed active throughout the whole pregnancy. I ran a four mile race when 8 months pregnant and was building furniture almost to the day River was born. If only that had been the case...

The race map showed an overall increase in elevation with multiple hills, but the overall gain was only 364 ft, so I hoped it would be manageable, and I made sure I did some hill work to prepare. The two steepest hills were around mile 9 and mile 10.5, and if I'd been able to keep training I'd have been able to run more of them than I did. Having those hills later in the race made them that much more challenging. If they ran this race backward it would be a lot less challenging, but a lot more enjoyable  and a lot faster :)

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The course was gorgeous. The first 12 miles were run on a quiet country road that was lined with trees. Seriously, the entire first 12 miles was shaded by the trees, which tempered the heat and the sunshine. However, the 13th mile took us off the quiet country road and onto a bike path along the main road. We traded the shade, the sparse traffic, and the hills for sunshine, exhaust fumes, and a mostly flat surface.

The race started out pretty flat and the hills were gentle and not too long and I thought "this isn't too bad". Of course, it couldn't last. The hills got steeper and longer, and the road bed kept slanting in different directions, sometimes at rather extreme angles. There were a few times when we really had to work just to stay on the road.

One thing about this race series is that they're cup-less and generate minimal trash. So you have the option of requesting a hydropouch to use at the aid stations. Some people carried their fluids in camelbacks, hand-carried water bottles, or belt packs instead of using the hydropouch. I thought it worked out fairly well, though it wouldn't sit still on my belt. It was easy to fill and drink out of. My main issue was that the water didn't taste great and was warm, and the Nuun was warm as well. I prefer cold liquids while running and lemon-lime Nuun isn't as good as the tangerine.

I took this photo while I was running, so it turned out blurry. oops. But you get the idea of what the course looked like.

I managed a better photo, a little later on during the race.

As we approached the finish line, we could see that it was on the other side of the four lane highway. At first I thought they must be stopping traffic to let us cross, but I dismissed that idea as impractical and unrealistic. Then I realized that we were crossing under the highway by way of a tunnel. Much less hassle and fuss.

Mr M took this picture of me running past them as they waited close to the finish line. I was almost to the tunnel under the road that turned us around and took us the last little bit to the finish line.

Passing my cheering section just before the finish line.

I knew from the start of the race that my stamina was not where it should be, so I changed up my strategy a bit. Usually I run the first 6 or 7 miles without stopping, then run/walk the rest. I knew I wouldn't be able to do that this time around, so I ran/walked from the beginning of the race. My running intervals decreased and my walking intervals increased as the race went on, but I finished and  it wasn't my slowest half marathon.

My current half marathon goal is 2:30 (well, 2:29, so I can beat my current PR), but I knew that wouldn't happen this time. I was hoping for 2:45, and came close at 2:51:01. It's a bit too close to my slowest race time, but I did the best I could so I'm happy with my time.

Here's the half marathons I've run and their finish times:

	Race	Date	Finish Time
First	Disneyland Half	Sept 2007	2:59:18
Second	Top of Utah Half	Aug 2008	2:29:46
Third	Disney World Half	Jan 2012	2:37:27
Fourth	Disney World Half	Jan 2013	2:32:28
Fifth	Great Smoky Mountains Half	Sept 2014	2:51:01

My sister flew out and joined me in the race and hung out with us while we explored the area. My shoes were off at this point, so I look even shorter than usual. Though honestly, I really am significantly shorter than everyone else in our family :) I got all the recessive short genes and our younger brother got all the recessive tall genes. I'm 5'1" on a really good day and he's 6'7" (unless he's grown some more). The rest of our sibs are in between the two of us.

Like all races, this one relied on volunteers to make it all happen, and the race organizers made it easy for volunteers to get involved. Sunshine was just old enough to volunteer with a parent, so she and Mr M helped wrangle traffic (one of the parking lot exits crossed right over the last section of the course, so they made sure everyone used the other exit) and then they helped take down the finish line. They got cool shirts and a discount on a future race entry out of the deal.

my cheering section

Before and after the race we spent some time exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (more on that in another post). Because this was the first running of the race, there were some hiccups, but nothing too terrible. Like I said, it's a challenging course, but I'd like to run it again when I've trained more conscientiously and can handle the hills better. In the meantime, I'm now contemplating when and where I'll run my next half and how I can improve my training so I'm better prepared.

September half:                     2:51:01        first half marathon since getting pregnant

August 8.5 miles:                  2:06:58       first trail run
August 2 mile:                     ~40 min?    Mud Run with Sunshine
2nd July 5k:                         35:27
July 5k:                                 34:15
June 5k:                                38:11          Ran with jogger
May 5k:                                39:23          Ran with jogger
April 5k:                               37:40          Color Run
March 5k:                            37:33  
February 4.5 miles:            1:49:55        Mud Run
January:                              ---