Learning to Play the Ukulele Update II

    I've finally managed to sing and play the Hawaiian War Chant simultaneously. Not that I'm doing a quality job on either task, but its a big accomplishment for me all the same. I'm still working on those tricky bar chords I need in order to play Pearly Shells.  I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with the Romeros so I can spread the ukulele madness to yet another branch of the family. Just for the record,  that is only one of many reasons I am looking forward to Christmas with the Romeros.

   While I'm on the subject of the Romeros I have to express gratitude that Lia is such a good blogger. Since they are currently living so far away on the east coast its hard to be as involved in their lives as we would like.  I love being brought up to date on all of the little things she mentions in her blog and its nice to see all the pictures of the kids and their home.  Three thousand miles of distance makes all of the little things seem much more important. Keep up the good work Lia!

    I went to the bee club Christmas party on Tuesday night.  I can't describe it as merely poorly attended as it didn't rise to that level.  There were only eight hardy souls in attendance.  Fortunately the pot luck still turned out well. We had several main courses, a salad, bread and dessert. We just didn't have any options within most of those categories.  I consider myself a serious die hard when it comes to beekeeping. After all, I have a daughter with the middle name "Bee". Poorly attended or not, I was glad I went and I had a good time. The gift exchange also went well.  The person who drew my hand knitted bee skep hat was quit happy with it and was proud to wear it home. I ended up with a salt and pepper shaker set in the form of a bee skep and a bear. It was very cute and even met with Linda's approval. She doesn't allow me to display a lot of my bee knick knacks at home. Many of them are relegated to the bee store where they don't have to be classy to be on display.  Now I am really disappointed in spell check. It was bad enough yesterday when it failed to recognize sticker as a verb. Now it doesn't like the word skep. It actually tried to change it to skip. I think the people who write those programs must not get out much.

Our new salt and pepper shaker

     In order to foster a proper Christmas spirit I broke down and purchased a couple of Christmas CDs.  The first one is entitled "Oy to the World" by the Klezmonauts. It consists of Christmas carols played by a Jewish Klezmer band.  Linda doesn't care for it, but it always makes me smile.  Linda actually liked my second choice, a CD entitled "Celtic Christmas".  It has lots of fiddle and harp Christmas music. Whats not to like?  One more reason to love the iPhone, portable Christmas music whereever I go.