Back in the day, my most often used phrase was "Man, I need a nap." It's been supplanted by the phrase above. And it's not just me, either. We're all pretty much worn out at this point. My friend told me one day last week, "Becky, I just sat on my couch and cried. I don't even know why I was crying!"
Because you're exhausted and overwhelmed. I know, because I'm exhausted and overwhelmed, and I don't even have a small child at home! I can't imagine trying to raise a child in that environment these days. I remember what it was like when Cody was little, and it was tough enough 25 years ago.
When he was two-ish, I was trying to explain to a production manager how difficult it was finding child care -- especially on second shift. He just shrugged and said, "That's not my problem," and walked away. It has gotten so much worse since then.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't expect corporate America to be your Sugar Daddy, or your mommy and daddy, but you need to recognize that the majority of your work force -- especially in these low paying jobs -- is going to be women, most of whom will have children, and many of whom will be single moms. If you don't want to keep running off your employees, try to be a little less callous about their family concerns, will ya?
In the meantime, I need to give you a piano update. I'm still working my way back through the Level 1 book with those videos I found. In one of the videos, Mr. Let's Play Piano said to watch the other videos he's done on the same songs. See, the Alfred books have three versions -- Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, Alfred's Self Teaching Adult Piano Course, and Alfred's All-In-One Piano course. The only difference is that the All-In-One has theory lessons included. With the other two, you'd have to buy a separate theory book, but based on Amazon reviews, the music in all three is exactly identical.
He's done playlists for all three of those books, and said his videos are unscripted. He says whatever comes to mind at the moment, so he might say something in one that he doesn't say in another. He recommended watching all the videos he does for each song, so, I went back and started over...again...I didn't get very far before I said, "Forget this!" I'm not working my way through that book again. This is my third time as it is. What I'm going to do is just start where I am, and watch all the videos for each song from here on out. I figure at this point, if there's something I haven't learned yet, I'm just not going to.
Another thing he suggested was to go through more than one method book concurrently. Different courses teach things in different ways, and since people learn in different ways, one course might be more conducive to learning a concept than another.
I looked through his list of method books he'd done playlists for, and chose this series.
I'd thought these were the ones I'd learned from as a kid, when I took that one year of lessons, but it turns out they weren't. I thought briefly about sending them back, but decided to keep them anyway.
I did a bit more research, still trying to find the books I'd used in my childhood, and came up with this one:
That giant note looked familiar, so on a whim, I ordered it, too. It arrived today, and immediately I turned to the first song, and that's when I knew!
Yes! I remember this song vividly! It's the series! The ones Mrs. Duchamp used with us! It's like a little piece of my childhood found me again.
The plan is to go through these books together, and if I can work up the nerve, film myself and share the journey with you.
And finally, yes, this crazy cat was sleeping like this:
Her feet in my lap, her body draped over the arm of the chair, and her head on the side table.
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