A Little Culture for the Left-brained Family Members

My parents met in October their freshman year of college. They were married the next July. They had me the following July. Then my brother came 2 years later and dad graduated from college. Mom wasn't able to finish college. My sister arrived 18 months after my brother while dad was busy in medical school. The next brother came 3 years later, just as my dad was graduating from medical school. The last brother arrived during my dad's residency program. That's 5 kids in 11 years, all while the husband was either finishing college, medical school or residency. That did not leave mom much free time to pursue anything but raising children; using her out-of-this world awesome sewing, cooking, homemaking skills to save money; fulfilling many different church callings; teaching her children about different cultures and art; making sure everyone's homework was done; dealing with a medically-complex child much on her own because dad was busy; and many other things.

So, as soon as most of us were out the door and on our own, it was finally Mom's time to pursue her passions. Some things were not new (her knitting really took off and now she teaches classes at an annual knitting conference and Boise) and others were new. One of those new pursuits was learning to play the harp. She started 15 years ago (I think). She didn't play for groups much at first, but now she plays with an ensemble the performs quite frequently.

It's great that we live close enough that we can go listen to the group play. After last night's performance, Dave said "I'm amazed at the number of songs that they had to know how to play." Now maybe he understands why there are varsity letters available for the arts. We all really enjoyed listening to the music.