Gracie ponders

 Do you know how some days you can just get stuff done? I can go a week and procrastinate and then I just get in a zone, where everything comes together, and I am on a roll.  Of course for all of this to happen, all the planets have to be in alignment and I have to be left alone.

Well, yesterday was just one of those days.   North Carolina August summers are quite toasty.  It is normally not just hot, but the humidity is normally around 90 % With no wind in sight. A few days ago a cool front passed thru and we actually turned off the a.c Thursday evening and opened the windows to a breeze and 60 degree

temps.  Yesterday morning,  we had that tiny feel of AHhhhh Autumn!  I worked out early with my daughter and her friend at the gym and got home and told myself that I was going to paint my porch furniture and work in my yard.

My husband and I have a wide variety of music preferences.  His music tastes are almost strangely varied. if someone had looked thru his c.d. Or albums years ago, they would have assumed that it was several family member’s collections instead of just one guys every genre music choices. Yesterday I got our Bose speaker set up, and hooked up my pandora to my Van Morrison station that I have tweeked with several thumbs ups👍 And a few thumbs downs 👎.

Pretty soon, I was in a painting, tunes jamming zone.  I love late sixties, Early seventies music. All of it.  I am the youngest of four kids. when I was born, my sister was 17, and my two brothers were 13 and 15.   Being born in a home with 3 teenagers meant that I was around hi-fi components, records strewn on the living room rug and for one year a complete band set up in our living room. one of my brothers was an incredible pianist. He took lessons briefly, but had a natural born talent.  He was in a band, or what was called back then, “a combo”.  The combo practiced twice a week in the living room!  I grew up in a very musical family. everyone played piano. My father was in many musicals and in the mid forties, while attending Duke university, he was president of the Duke glee club.  I did not take piano lessons like my siblings, but  my thing was dancing.  At two years old , I was rocking out with the teenage hippy band in our living room. That is where I learned to as Ray Charles said, “Shake a tail feather”.   My sister’s Carole King, Tapestry 8 track was listened to probably 200 times by me.

Great temps, low humidity, and the Stones , Credence Clearwater revival, Dire Straits,  James Taylor, Jim Croce, The Eagles, Carly Simon etc are what take me back to when times were fun and rocking in the Jones family living room. My brothers and sister taught me all of the latest dance moves, and then when their boyfriends, friends or girlfriends would come over they would put music on and say, watch my little sister dance to this!  Well, that’s why today, I’m not shy at all, or hesitant at Weddings etc to get up and just dance dance dance. My son is the same way!

I never really listened to much Van Morrison, until a couple of years ago. My yoga instructor plays – Into the Mystic by Van, a northern Irish singer songwriter, during our yoga sessions and I fell in love with the song .

soooo , yesterday thanks to Van Morrison and his awesome pandora channel, my porch is clean, my furniture is painted, my vegetable garden is weeded, and there is not a fallen pine cone in my yard. I had the tunes cranking which inspired my husband to clean the garage etc, because:

when you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this

When no ones in a hurry there’ll be days like this

When you don’t need an answer there’ll be days like this

When you feel like painting and doing a little dancing… there’ll be days like this

I thanked God yesterday for the perfect weather, the ability to get things done and for my health and ability to enjoy an easy day. I’m always thankful that music can take me on a journey down a road of memories. Sometimes those memories are joyous melodies and some transport to sadder memories. Music is a piece of art that fills my life and transcends my soul straight to my heart.