babysitting - dropped necklace

Arg, am sicker today. Jeff and I are going to the cottage for the long weekend, back Monday night.

Allison, John (Allison's hubby), Jodi, & I watched the last Seinfeld episode last night. What did you all think of it? We were pretty disappointed, I must confess.

Did some babysitting yesterday. I love being an aunt. I took Sara to the local market where I bought her an orange popsicle. Then we went shopping at The Children's Bookstore (bought Beauty & The Beast (Jan Brett version) picture book, and a make-your-own-necklace kit) and then got an icecream cone at Laura Secord's. She got strawberry, I got orange sherbet. I don't often get Sara sweet treats because I know her parents aren't keen on that sort of thing, but *I* felt like getting an icecream cone, and I couldn't very well get one for myself without getting one for Sara, could I?? As we sat at an outside table, licking our icecream and admiring our purchases (I bought an air pump for my bike from Sporting Life), I asked what her favourite season of the year was. She thought for a minute, then said, "Summer." I asked her why, and she said, "Because that's when all the flowers are growing and there are popsicles and icecream." Which is a very good answer, I think. After icecream, we went home and Sara worked on her necklace. She was very patient threading the colourful plastic beads onto the plastic lace. I kept telling her to be careful, that the beads would slide off if she let one end go. She was very careful, and when she was done, she passed it to me so I could knot it into a necklace. And do you know what I did?

I DROPPED THE NECKLACE!!! Half the beads slid off the lace and went rolling across the floor, beads that Sara had just spend about twenty minutes laboriously threading onto the lace. AAAAUUUUUUUGGGHH! I FELT LIKE THE WORSE AUNT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! As I scrambled to collect all the beads again, I told her how sorry I was, how it was an accident and I wasn't careful, how I would help her put the necklace back together again so it wouldn't take too long. I felt really, really awful. And then Sara, my wonderful 3-year-old niece, came over to kneel beside me and said, very gently, "Auntie Debbie, you're putting them on in the wrong order. Here, let me do it." She wasn't mad, didn't chastize me, didn't cry. She just started threading the beads onto the lace string again. I felt like hugging her to pieces, of course, but I didn't in case I made her drop the necklace. Anyway, this time I added knots on either side of the line of beads right away even before I picked up the string to tie into a necklace, which Sara wore proudly to show Mommy.

:-) I love being an aunt.

Thanks to Phil Allcock, who responded to my guitar blatherings a couple days ago with the following advice: "As an alternative to doing it with barres (which is a Good Thing to learn anyway, especially if you start playing electric guitar in the future!)
one trick we've used in the past to give 2 guitars different sounds is simply to capo one of them up a few frets and then play it in the
corresponding transposed key e.g one plays in Dm, the other in Am capo 5. This will achieve much the same effect as the barres but with
less strain on the fingers (and probably clearer notes if fingerpicking). Also, try using different picking patterns, half-speed patterns on one
or for that matter different sounding guitars (steel, nylon, 12 string etc)."
Check out the website of Phil's band, Phoenix.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

p.s. I'm very behind in email, and I humbly apologize if I haven't answered yours yet.