Rachel is in the states and we are having a great time together. So far we have had a very busy few days catching up and doing fun things that are cheaper here in America. Did you know that it costs close to $50 to get just your nails done in Scotland? And that doesn't even include your feet! On Saturday we went and got our toes and hands manicured. While my feet were getting massaged by the water jets in the tub I accidentally got my foot a little too close to the jet. Before I knew it I had sprayed water on the woman who was doing my toes! I felt just HORRIBLE- Rachel thought it was hilarious.
We went home and had lunch with Erik and hung around the rest of the day watching "platinum weddings" and getting ready for our evening out. We saw this one woman getting married and it cost her father $2 MILLION dollars!!! Isn't that insane? $106,000 for linens.
Anyway, that night we went into the city for drinks and dinner. Erik was nice enough to pick us up at the metro around 1 am! Poor guy...good husband.
Sunday we met my voice class for a simulcast of La Boheme put on by the Washington National Opera. It was not good. It was far too modern for my likes. You know how they say that Rent is a take off of La Boheme? Well, this production was a take off of Rent. Bizarre-o. Plus, Mimi sucked. At least for the first half.
I took my first Sight Singing/Ear Training test yesterday. I got a 99%! Yay! It was much harder than I thought it would be, but I was well prepared. Now I just have to get ready for the written part of the exam tomorrow morning.
A bit of everything
Hi everyone!
Hope things have been well for you all. The Sax household has been busy, as usual, with work, school and the house! I can't believe the infinite amount of work that needs to be done on our house. I suppose we could leave it the way it is and be satisfied with an average house, but we want spectacular! hah!
This weekend Alex (sister-in-law) and I went out to shop for oriental rugs to go under our piano and in the living room. We went to one place and noted the prices for an authentic wool and silk rug...$10,200. YEAH RIGHT! Who can afford that? Who wants to afford that? We ended up at Lowe's and found a pretty artificial rug with low pile for $138.00. Much better! I am more than a little bummed that we have to wait 7 days to put down rugs and furniture. The polyurethane is taking longer than we thought, but better to wait than to have dented floors!
Alex and I also figured out Christmas and birthday presents for Erik and a few other people. She also helped me pick out our very 1st anniversary gift. I think he will like it. :)
Marc and Cynthia are stopping through tonight and Thursday (my guess is they are on their way up to CT). I don't know where we will house them, but we'll find some room.
On Friday my dearest friend from Scotland flies in for 10 days!!!! I am so excited and have been buying weird little presents so we can celebrate her birthday in style. For her last birthday we were in Thailand together and spent the day snorkeling and speed boating around the islands. Oh, how I wish we were there right now!
Hope things have been well for you all. The Sax household has been busy, as usual, with work, school and the house! I can't believe the infinite amount of work that needs to be done on our house. I suppose we could leave it the way it is and be satisfied with an average house, but we want spectacular! hah!
This weekend Alex (sister-in-law) and I went out to shop for oriental rugs to go under our piano and in the living room. We went to one place and noted the prices for an authentic wool and silk rug...$10,200. YEAH RIGHT! Who can afford that? Who wants to afford that? We ended up at Lowe's and found a pretty artificial rug with low pile for $138.00. Much better! I am more than a little bummed that we have to wait 7 days to put down rugs and furniture. The polyurethane is taking longer than we thought, but better to wait than to have dented floors!
Alex and I also figured out Christmas and birthday presents for Erik and a few other people. She also helped me pick out our very 1st anniversary gift. I think he will like it. :)
Marc and Cynthia are stopping through tonight and Thursday (my guess is they are on their way up to CT). I don't know where we will house them, but we'll find some room.
On Friday my dearest friend from Scotland flies in for 10 days!!!! I am so excited and have been buying weird little presents so we can celebrate her birthday in style. For her last birthday we were in Thailand together and spent the day snorkeling and speed boating around the islands. Oh, how I wish we were there right now!
DONE!!!
The stained dining room:
Half and Half:
The only casualty of the whole process...my ankle!
Finished!
The last row is IN!
The happy husband!
Now...he looks dead. The floors just about killed him.
Half and Half:
The only casualty of the whole process...my ankle!
Finished!
The last row is IN!
The happy husband!
Now...he looks dead. The floors just about killed him.
DURING!
These pictures were taken over 2 weekends and took a LOT of time.
BAM! Take that carpet foam staples!
The aftermath of pulling up the carpet...
I suggested we leave the rosin paper down as our floors. I thought pink floors looked nice. Don't you?
When we still thought we were going to finish that day.
The first three rows!
i was tired. Peace people. come help us.
After we pulled up the dining room carpet we discovered, oh I don't know, 10,000 staples.
Doesn't erik look nice next to pink?
BAM! Take that carpet foam staples!
The aftermath of pulling up the carpet...
I suggested we leave the rosin paper down as our floors. I thought pink floors looked nice. Don't you?
When we still thought we were going to finish that day.
The first three rows!
i was tired. Peace people. come help us.
After we pulled up the dining room carpet we discovered, oh I don't know, 10,000 staples.
Doesn't erik look nice next to pink?
Floor Pictures!
Hi Everyone!
Here are some "before" pictures of our floor process. enjoy :) Ask questions if you have them...erik would love to answer them!
BEFORE:
Here are some "before" pictures of our floor process. enjoy :) Ask questions if you have them...erik would love to answer them!
BEFORE:
Pavoratti!
I can't believe the man that made me want to sing has passed away. I fell in love with Pavoratti when I was a child and my parents would listen to the 3 tenors. The warmth in his sound and the way he controlled the orchestra and conductor was amazing. One could identify his voice among millions. I was in high school when I picked up my first Opera Biography- Luciano Pavoratti's. While it was a little egotistical and not very helpful for a young singer, it still gave me insight into the opera world.
Did you know that before every show he would have to find a bent nail in the floor to pick up and carry on stage with him? Sometimes it would take until 10 seconds before his entrance to find one. 20 people used to scurry around backstage trying to find one. If he didn't find one he couldn't perform...or at least not well. What a funny little thing to be obsessed with!?
Later in his life a 2nd biography came out. I was disheartened to see that he had left the wife he raved about in his 1st and ended up married to a nubile young woman who had no hand in helping him establish his career. He was a notorious womanizer and glorious eater. They had to make special costumes for him after the age of 40. He said he loved to eat as much as he loved to sing, maybe better.
While I may not have cared for his life choices, I certainly respect the discipline he had for his art and voice. What an amazing instrument to be blessed with.
Many thanks to the man who showed me what artistry at its best sounded like.
From the New York Post
Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti, regarded as the greatest tenor of our time, died early today at his home in Italy following a bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.
Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, said that the singer died at his villa in Modena, Italy, at 5 a.m. local time.
"The maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life," Robson said. "In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness."
Instantly recognizable by his black beard, tuxedo-busting girth and trademark white handkerchief in his right hand, Pavarotti won the admiration of opera buffs and pop fans alike. His was a wide-ranging celebrity that even Placido Domingo and José Carreras - his partners in the "Three Tenors" concerts - have not achieved.
For opera fans, the beauty of Pavarotti's voice made him the ideal interpreter of Italian arias, Neapolitan songs and Christmas classics.
Pavarotti, who was as much at ease singing with sopranos as he was with James Brown, scoffed at accusations that he was sacrificing his art in favor of commercialism when in July 1990, he helped launch the "Three Tenors" concert in connection with soccer's World Cup held in Italy that summer.
His life would go on to resemble an opera-like tragedy when, in 1996, he split with Adua Veroni, his wife of 35 years and mother of their three daughters, and took up with his 26-year-old secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, whom he wed in 2003.
Following cancer surgery in New York in July 2006, Pavarotti retreated to his birthplace of Modena. Taken to a hospital there with a fever last month, Pavarotti was released on Aug. 25 after undergoing more than two weeks of treatment.
The son of a baker who was an amateur opera singer, Pavarotti was born on Oct. 12, 1935, in Modena.
Like most Italian boys, he had dreams of being a soccer player. When that failed, Pavarotti's parents urged him to find a job. For a short time, he worked as an insurance salesman and teacher.
After taking on singing as a hobby, Pavarotti caught his big break thanks to another Italian opera great, Giuseppe di Stefano, who dropped out of a London performance of "La Boheme" in 1963.
Pavarotti served as a stand-in - and a star, the likes not seen since Enrico Caruso, was born.
Pavarotti was known as the "King of the High C's" for the ease in which he tossed off difficult notes. In fact, it was his ability to hit nine glorious high C's in quick succession that first turned him into an international superstar singing the aria "Ah! Mes amis," in Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" at the Metropolitan Opera in 1972.
During his later years, Pavarotti, who kept an apartment on the Upper West Side, would refer to The Met as "my home."
Sweat-equity
Hi Everyone,
The "sweat-equity" has begun in the Sax household with the installation of new hardwood floors. As a couple who is very green we decided to restore some old flooring that Erik's piano teacher was replacing. This has been a month long process with Erik doing most of the work. Here are the steps that we took to even BEGIN the installation:
1. Sorting the wood. This involved many hours of Erik inspecting and creating "A","B" and "C" wood. "A" being excellent, "B" being needs work, and "C"...not worth it!
2. Knocking out the old nails. This was a pain in the behind. Erik knocked those nails as hard as we could and then I would stand on the boards and pull them out with a hammer.
3. Sanding the poly and stain off. My arms weren't strong enough, so Erik did this all himself.
4. Organizing our wood piles inside to "acclimate" them to our house temp.
Then the real work began.
We started the installation on Friday, August 24th. We spent Friday night ripping up the carpet and prepping the subfloor. What a pain. The folks in the house before us decided that in order to keep the carpet padding down they needed to use 10,000 staples. Jerks! It took us about 5 hours to get to the point where we could lay down flooring.
Saturday we woke up EARLY as sin and got into Home Depot, rented the pneumatic nailer, and started the installation process. Things were looking good until we looked back at our pile of wood and realized we were running out, FAST. We didn't even finish the dining room before we ran out of wood.
Thankfully, that meant that we could take a break!
We ordered more wood, picked it up on Thursday and discovered that the edges don't come mitered on unfinished floors. So, another step for us to do. Joy. We sanded and routered the edges and we think they came out pretty well. It took us all day Saturday and Sunday to get through the living room and over to the kitchen door.
We stopped Sunday night when...
...I went to go saw a piece of wood and slipped on some scrap wood in the garage. I sprained my ankle. I am able to walk, but am slow and pained. Poor Erik had to wake up on Monday morning and finish the floors himself.
Despite the tedious prep, injuries, and sore muscles the floors are INSTALLED!!! Now all we have to do is stain and poly. Let's hope that our ankles and other body parts stay aligned!
We'll have pictures up as soon as I get Erik to help me figure out how to do them!
The "sweat-equity" has begun in the Sax household with the installation of new hardwood floors. As a couple who is very green we decided to restore some old flooring that Erik's piano teacher was replacing. This has been a month long process with Erik doing most of the work. Here are the steps that we took to even BEGIN the installation:
1. Sorting the wood. This involved many hours of Erik inspecting and creating "A","B" and "C" wood. "A" being excellent, "B" being needs work, and "C"...not worth it!
2. Knocking out the old nails. This was a pain in the behind. Erik knocked those nails as hard as we could and then I would stand on the boards and pull them out with a hammer.
3. Sanding the poly and stain off. My arms weren't strong enough, so Erik did this all himself.
4. Organizing our wood piles inside to "acclimate" them to our house temp.
Then the real work began.
We started the installation on Friday, August 24th. We spent Friday night ripping up the carpet and prepping the subfloor. What a pain. The folks in the house before us decided that in order to keep the carpet padding down they needed to use 10,000 staples. Jerks! It took us about 5 hours to get to the point where we could lay down flooring.
Saturday we woke up EARLY as sin and got into Home Depot, rented the pneumatic nailer, and started the installation process. Things were looking good until we looked back at our pile of wood and realized we were running out, FAST. We didn't even finish the dining room before we ran out of wood.
Thankfully, that meant that we could take a break!
We ordered more wood, picked it up on Thursday and discovered that the edges don't come mitered on unfinished floors. So, another step for us to do. Joy. We sanded and routered the edges and we think they came out pretty well. It took us all day Saturday and Sunday to get through the living room and over to the kitchen door.
We stopped Sunday night when...
...I went to go saw a piece of wood and slipped on some scrap wood in the garage. I sprained my ankle. I am able to walk, but am slow and pained. Poor Erik had to wake up on Monday morning and finish the floors himself.
Despite the tedious prep, injuries, and sore muscles the floors are INSTALLED!!! Now all we have to do is stain and poly. Let's hope that our ankles and other body parts stay aligned!
We'll have pictures up as soon as I get Erik to help me figure out how to do them!
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