Christmas was really great - for the first time in several years. Then, I took a mini-vacation the week between Christmas and New Year's, taking vacation days on Wednesday and Thursday. That rocked and I'm very sad that it's almost over.
New Year's Eve was nice, too - we had a small get-together, nothing big, but it was fun.
New Year's Day was a real treat ... I didn't get up till noon (very rare for me), and decided to sit on the couch and knit. While looking for something to watch on TV, I found a channel that was having an all day Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.
Whoa. I used to be a BVS nut - when I first discovered the show I didn't have cable, and I even got cable just to watch that show. I hadn't seen it since sometime before the show ended (it had gotten kind of strange after Buffy died and was brought back to life, and I think I moved and didn't have cable again), but sometimes I thought it would be fun to see it again (the earlier seasons), and had searched for re-runs before, but never found them.
So I was pretty psyched, and watched it all day long. Literally. From noon till 9:00 that night, just sitting on the couch knitting and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Weird.
Greg was much more productive, as he began sprucing up the downstairs bathroom with some great artwork:
He says he's no artist and has never done anything like that before, but - well - you couldn't tell by this. It looks absolutely fantastic!
Saturday there was a band practice, and this is new news to some. My brother and nieces did something really awesome this Christmas. They gave me my sister-in-law's electric violin.
It wasn't even my Christmas present, they just wanted to give it to me, because they said that no one was going to play it at their house, and they'd like to see it find a home where it would get played and enjoyed.
Well, they did. As I've been known to say repeatedly in the last week, this changed everything. First of all, it is so much easier to play. Second of all, there is so much more one can do with an electric violin - achieve different sounds and like that.
We'd talked about me rejoining the band on several occasions, playing fiddle, but I was always reluctant, for a bunch of reasons. I didn't think I was good enough, I often still had the acoustic fiddle sounding like a screaming cat. Amplifying it was tricky - I knew I could get a bridge mic, but I didn't have one, they were expensive, and I was concerned about how it would sound (maybe just like a much louder screaming cat?)
With the introduction of the electric violin, I've lost the screaming cat sound, and since it's made to be powered, there was nothing new or extra to buy (well, not that had to be bought ...). It has a very nice sound, and I found I could play a lot better than I thought I could (because I didn't have to mince around trying to not sound like a screaming cat). That's not to say I'm all that great at it, but it sounds better than I've managed to date, I think I'm more or less acceptable, and with steady practice can improve on that.
As for nothing that 'had to' be bought, well ... I'm already eyeing my own amp and effects pedal. What can I say ... it's too fun. So, I'm back in the band, and working out fiddle parts to as many songs as I can. But it's a good time, because I'm not the only one ... we have a new drummer, who is just learning all the songs, and most of the songs are changing a lot, so basically everyone's learning them anew. It's sounding great so far, and is only going to get better from here.
I think that's all the updated news, so I think I'll go rest my fingers. Five hours of playing last night took their toll. But I'll work up to it, I'm sure.
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