Gardening still keeps me busy--fall is the time for clearing out, cleaning up, and reorganizing the flower beds. Then there is mowing the lawn, as much to mulch up the fallen leaves as to cut the grass, which is growing slower these shorter days. (It is now dark when we get up in the morning.)
The roses are moved (gardening keeps Kevin busy too, as he did all the digging here). I've loved having them in front of the house, but now that the tree is getting larger, there was too much shade. They will be happier in their new spots by the fence. And I planted new daffodil, crocus, and hyacinth bulbs in the yard, looking forward to their spring blooming!
And of course, the thing that keeps me busiest is parenting. We're at the stage where my advice and comments are not welcome, where "I can do it myself!" is just as fervent as at the two-year-old stage. And almost as untrue. 
Then humility comes back, with an apology, and then niceness. Parenting seems to be a roller coaster experience.
I was reading in the newspaper last night and this short piece caught my eye: The Sound of Music: Tune up your brain.
And of course, the thing that keeps me busiest is parenting. We're at the stage where my advice and comments are not welcome, where "I can do it myself!" is just as fervent as at the two-year-old stage. And almost as untrue. Then humility comes back, with an apology, and then niceness. Parenting seems to be a roller coaster experience.
I was reading in the newspaper last night and this short piece caught my eye: The Sound of Music: Tune up your brain. "You know those seemingly endless hours your parents made you spend practicing the piano or learning to play the violin?
"Time to say thank you, because all that practice did more than tune up your recital skills. It may have made the language areas of your brain more efficient, too. If you never took music lessons, here's why you should start.
"Researchers recently asked a group of musicians and nonmusicians to listen to--and reproduce--tone sequences. Not surprisingly, the musicians performed better on the task. But this was a surprise: As the musicians reproduced the tones, scans of their brains showed major activity in areas linked to language, leading researachers to conclude that building music skills may bolster language areas of the brain as well. In other words, studying music is like doing push-ups for your brain."
Maybe that's because music IS another language! (But they are right--it is very beneficial.)
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