Ta-Dah!

Who wouldn't like to be "Lost" on the North Shore of Oahu?

Okay, so Bill and I made the whole extended family drive out to never never land on the north shore of Oahu so we could see the beach where they filmed the first season of the tv show Lost.  We gave a year of our tv life to this show, the least we could do was to try the drive.  My sister put the kibosh on it when the road turned to mud and the rented Suburban was about to get stuck.  It was a drive my dad would have taken and perhaps have busted an axel in the pop-up trailer.  Alas, the wreckage of Oceanic flight 815 was no longer there on the beach. Even without Jack and Kate I think the scenery was worth it.

Ta-Dah, is for the unveiling of my new website:

www.kotrbapianostudio.com

I hope you will like it.  It has all the studio info and schedule for my students as well as some other fun features and links.  I also have some information for new students about Suzuki Piano.  I made it myself, getting an iPage account and using wordpress software.  I have to confess to being very pleased with myself--I started from ground zero and learned how to do this.  It only required one ichat (worthless), one phone call to a help desk (turns out what was mixed up was their fault), and two emails to Thomas Hasch at expand2web who was so polite to respond to my a little knowledge is a dangerous thing questions within ten minutes.  Very impressive costumer service. The process was very trial and error, or to quote my dad again, "brute strength and awkwardness."   It took me more than a few hours, but I was sick anyway so gardening was out of the question.

The other ta-dah?  Bill's new office!  My faithful husband has been working from home and traveling for over two years now.  Like all jobs, his has ups and downs. The traveling is tough. He is gone some almost every week. Being a single parent is never easy, but you do know where you stand.  If it is to be, it is up to me. . . that is my slogan.

The thing is. . . sometimes having him home was tricky too.  You see, his Blackberry doesn't get reception under the steps in the cold unfinished basement where we set up the card table with his computer and printer. His "office" between Playmobil town and the xylophone and the boxes of Christmas lights was just not very comfortable and he often ended up migrating up to our bedroom and the living room for conference calls.  The upside of this is that he was often able to make the beds while hooked up to his bluetooth.  The down side was that I was unable to dry my hair after my shower.  I was also very glad at those times that he didn't do video conferencing. No one looks good on Skype without make-up.

Don't get me wrong.  I love having him around.  His flexibility to drive the kids to school or go for a walk during a break in the morning is awesome.  There just some part of me that can't cope with him pacing back and forth on a call in the living room chit chatting to an unseen customer just when I was gonna roll out my yoga mat and put on a Tara Stiles video.

These are the confessions of a selfish introvert who just NEEDS SOME SPACE to think and plan and get her stuff done.  Separation of church and state has nothing on separation of home and business.  It just feels wrong to co-mingle. . .

So, his mama didn't raise no dummies, it didn't take him that long to get the hint.  The problem with finishing a basement is that you have to break it to fix it.  We needed to move the office area into his shop.  Bill is a wonderful craftsman.  He made and finished all the oak and cherry frames in our house and made the cabinetry in Calvin's room.  He does beautiful work.  The thing is our lives are different now than when he was collecting power tools and clamps and jigs.  We can't spare a prime room in our house for a shop any more than I could justify having a quilting and scrapbooking room.

The good news is, he now has a very nice office where there once was an overflowing wood shop.  It has nice carpet, brand new from a mistake in his sister's renovation and it has a nice window looking out to the pond.  The old Ikea diaper changing table is a printer stand.  He can put the Blackberry in the window for crystal clear reception. We moved the old sofa in there so he has a comfy warm place to sit.

The little space heater will make it the toastiest place in the house. It's so nice, in fact, I think it would be a lovely place for me to take my laptop to drink coffee, and chit chat with him while I blog and do lessons plans and invoices in the morning.  Since the reception is so good in there I can talk to my mom on the phone a little too.  The diaper table can double for laundry folding.  It wouldn't take much to hook up a DVD so I could do my exercises on that nice new carpet.  Hey, with the sofa bed in there my mom could stay in there when she visits!  What a great idea!

Just kidding.  I love you Bill. Enjoy your new "office."

Tra la la.  Enjoy the website! The link at the top in the new banner will get you there too. Visit often and let me know if something doesn't work.