Ain't It Beautiful?

Remember the other day when I said I'd ordered a string winder for my guitar?  The one I bought was what Amazon calls an add on item.  If I understand right, you can add it on to an order of $25 or more and it'll ship for free.  Of course, I'm not going to pay $6.95 shipping for a $2.95 item, so naturally I did what any native born Texian would do.  I threw a new flag into my shopping cart.

It arrived today.  Ain't it just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

I still need to get a pole, but Walmart should have them, especially since it's getting close to July.  It also came with a sticker,

which will go on my car very soon.

And I ordered a spare set of bridge pins for my guitar, given my tendency to lose things.

For those of you not into guitarish things, bridge pins hold your strings in place on the opposite end from the tuners.  Like picks and strings, they are one of those things it's good to have extras of.

I tossed in an extra pack of wax beads for my stamps, just because I wanted it.

Not that I needed any more, because I still have plenty.  I just wanted some more. The irony is, everything I ordered to get free shipping has already arrived, and the one thing I really needed hasn't.  Go figure.

Now, about that guitar...I was watching this one guy on YouTube.  He had what I thought was going to be a video series of beginner lessons.  However, after watching lesson 1 -- which taught the two chords I know -- I looked all over his channel for lesson 2, but never found it.  I did a bit more searching and found a guy named Steve Stine.  He's got a playlist of beginner videos that are truly for beginners.  He's very thorough.  He teaches the names of the guitar parts, how to hold the guitar, how to put your fingers on the strings -- everything.  He is also short, sweet, and to the point.  One thing I really don't like is someone who makes a 20 minute video to teach a 30 second lesson.  Spare me all the yapping.  Just show me what I need to know.

Kind of like those recipes on blogs, where the author is going to tell you her entire life story before getting to the actual recipe.  Usually, by the time I'm done scrolling, I'm too tired to cook whatever it is I went there to get the recipe for.

Anyway, one of the guitar lessons is how to start strumming.  He suggests listening to songs and practicing strumming to the rhythm, just to get a feel for it.  You put your left hand on the strings to mute them, while strumming with your right.  He calls this scratching.  I did this for my practicing this afternoon.  And this was the song I chose:



Good thing I was home alone, because I was really getting into it.  If someone had walked in on me, they'd have thought I was on something.   Something not good.  Something very not good indeed.

If you get that reference, we can be friends.  If you don't, we can still be friends.  You'll just be confused a lot.  Oh, and speaking of, Cody's roommate loves the Jayne hat.  Cody sent me a picture of him wearing it.  So, that's cool. 

That's it for now.  I know this post is kind of short, but I have a letter I need to finish so I can get it into the mail tomorrow. 

Goodnight.