I have recently decided to quit my job and go back to school full time.
I can’t begin to tell you the relief that comes with that decision. The sensation of relief far out-weighs my terror over how we are going to get our bills paid, and each day I am more convinced that I have made the right decision.
This is going to be an interesting couple of years with both of us as full time students and little hope of any kind of financial aid. We’ll see what happens.
Taking a break from house hunting in the Ballard neighborhood.
Seattle, Washington
Two weeks ago my dad went in to surgery to remove his spleen because of a blood clot. when they got in there they saw that he had pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his abdomen. they just closed him back up without even taking the spleen. they told us he has 3 months to live.
Since then they’ve told us he could have as much as two years. Two years never sounded so good.
I don’t know how to deal with this.
Shortly after our wedding, my husband decided he wanted to learn how to play the bagpipes. He had a set of pipes he had once bought on a whim at a swap meet and then allowed to collect dust for years.
These pipes were old, made in Pakistan – which by most everybody’s account means they are of poor quality. But all that didn’t matter to Mr. H, he wasn’t about to let anyone tell him his pipes were crap, he was going to learn to play them no matter what.
Teacher? We don’t need no stinking teacher. This is Mr. Do-It-Yourself we’re talking about here.
So he set about learning to play the pipes. He spent quite a bit of time online, researching bagpipes, discussing them in bagpipe forums exploring how-to manuals, and practicing. He spent endless hours on the practice chanter (thank heavens for the practice chanter, much less noisy than the pipes), and after several months of trying to go it alone, he met another bagpipe player in one of his classes at school.
Owen is a 19 year old from Alaska who has been playing the bagpipes for years. He offered to teach Aaron for $10 a lesson. You just can’t beat that. From that point, Mr. H’s improvement has been phenomenal.
Well until about a month ago. You see, all this time he has been using these pipes that really are garbage. His bag is full of holes. He spends most of his time online researching seasoning and other options for plugging the holes in his sieve of a bag. The bag is so leaky the seasoning leaks out, so he has a garbage bag and duct tape wrapped around it to keep from staining his clothes. His handle online is ghettopipes. It’s a pretty good name for him.
The pipes have gotten so bad that at this point they no longer hold air at all, they are unplayable. At some point we’re going to have to break down and get him a really good set, but at this point even a replacement bag is out of our price range.
I never thought I would say this, but the one thing I want more than anything right now is to be able to buy my husband a new set of pipes.
