Brown Paper Packages

I have some favorite things in life. A few of them are the raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens variety, but many are a bit more esoteric than that, and deeply personal to me.

One of them I shall tell you about here.

Because that's what I do here. Tell you about stuff, I mean.

My husband is a musician. A music maker of the talented play by ear kind of guy. I first discovered this about him when we had been dating for just a few weeks. On a dare, and to show what a compassionate kind of guy he is, and I suppose to ensure that the wrapping himself around my heart was complete, he took me "home" one weekend. I was homesick, he was my hero and we made the 5 hour drive from Southern to Northern Utah beginning at midnight one Friday night so I could spend the weekend with my family. Sometime mid-day on the Saturday (after sleeping in a bit) I was wandering down the hallway and heard a lovely melody being played on the piano. I remember thinking to myself that perhaps my sister had decided to really take her lessons seriously and had somehow mastered the instrument in the few months I had been away. I turned the corner into the living room and spotted my boyfriend sitting at the piano, his long fingers tickling the ivory.

I. Was. Smitten.

Musicians really do me under.

Of late, his instrument of choice is the guitar. As he likes to say, he just plays at it.
I tend to think of him as fabulously gifted.

My musician really does me under.

When the big kids were little kids he often sang them off to sleep with a private concert in the hallway near their bedrooms. This was the first tutelage in music appreciation for Ian and Emma and both could sing every word to not only "Puff the Magic Dragon" but also "Bye Bye, Miss American Pie" before they were in kindergarten.

It's these little things that make me happy.

So, music is a constant background in our home. Often that is our own homegrown concert courtesy of the musician I married. He plays, he sings, he entertains with spontaneous improvisational blues performances. I love to listen to him play whether it is in earnest or in free-play, and I find myself still smitten over him. Just nearly everything about him. For years now the show is often complemented with dance performances and do-wop backup by the children. I love that too.

That definitely ties it.