Julie A. Duncan

 Twice a year, the orchestra takes a two-week hiatus and that's really my only opportunity to get any work done on my violin. I thought it had been two and half years since I had new strings and re-haired my bow, but apparently it's only been one year and a half. I didn't recognize that until I was standing at Oklahoma Strings to drop off my violin. Oh well. I am sure it needed it anyway. After Jordan and I dropped off the violin, we went to Penn Square mall where we grabbed a bite to eat at the food court and then headed to Red Door Escape Room in the mall. They had a thirty-minute room that is meant for two to four people. We've never done one that short or small and decided to give it a try. We did have to have our three hints, but we escaped! The premise was a cold case. They had recreated everything as it was years ago at the scene of the crime and we were tasked with solving the murder. It was a small room. We quickly looked over everything and Jordan found someth...

 When someone infers that I look old enough for senior citizens discounts, I get a little annoyed. I'm really not a senior citizen quite yet. However, I feel I'm close enough that I should get to go on any fun trips that the group from church goes on! ;-)  Most of the time, the events happen while I'm at work, so I have never been able to go. This one was during the summer, and they were going to one of my favorite places, the Stafford Space Museum in Weatherford. Plus, I'm trying to collect Route 66 stamps and I could get two stamps by going on the trip as an added bonus. When I was asking Jay about costs for the trip, he said they normally stop somewhere for breakfast, like McDonald's. That's one cost I could just skip, and I went ahead and ate breakfast at home, left at 7:30 and was at the church before 8:00. Thirty minutes later, we stopped for breakfast at Ann's - just across the street from my house! This was a full-on stop, not a quick stop. People go...

 I had my third violin lesson today. I will be honest. It's been rough. The first lesson was a lot of talking and deciding what to do. I made it through that one with just a little bit of nervousness. I learned I don't hold the violin high enough and my left elbow should be in and my right elbow should be up. I should be playing on the side of the bow instead of having it flat. The second lesson tried to break down everything I've been doing wrong for thirty years in the matter of an hour. I hold the bow wrong. My left hand is completely wrong. My vibrato, which was the only thing I really thought I was pretty good at, is completely wrong. I need to use the full length of the bow. By the end of the lesson, my brain had such a long checklist of "move this, do this, change this" just to get the violin in place that there wasn't enough brain power to actually read the music. Plus, all during the music, I am thinking about all of the things I'm doing incorrect...

  After church, we met Mom and Dad at Braum's for lunch and then I went with my parents to the Lawton Community Theatre's production of Oliver. I had desperately, okay, maybe not desperately, tried to read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens before the show, but I hadn't checked it out of the library until Wednesday night and just didn't have time to get the 400 page book finished. I got halfway through and actually, three-fourths of the show concentrated on the pages I had read. I was amazed that several of the lines were almost word-for-word from the book. However, there was one part of the book that I had thought rather funny that they didn't do word-for-word and was disappointed. There is a section where Oliver is waking up from a long fight with fever. The doctor is there and it goes something like this: "Ah, my good boy, you must be rather hungry now." "Actually, no, I'm not." "Well, of course, he isn't. I didn't think so. You...

 We had the privilege of attending Shaylan Watson and Dallas Woody's marriage today. They were both in our young adult Bible study class and seem to be very devoted to God. It was a small wedding, in the middle of nowhere, or Empire as some call it. Google took us down a gravel road to get there! Jerry and Eleanor, Chris' parents were there. Chris had a younger brother, Brian, who passed away shortly after Greg and I got married. He had three children whom we have seen over the years. His wife remarried after awhile and had several other children. One day last fall, Dallas walked up to us and announced he was semi related to us. He's one of Jennifer's other children. Small world. Chris said he realized that Dallas went to the same church as us (He's been attending Cameron University), but didn't realize we were in the same Sunday School class together. I thought this was a neat alternative to a guest book. You highlight a verse for the couple and write a message...

 I spent a good chunk of last night and this afternoon reading political ads and webpages. The Republican ballot was two pages long!!! There were nine candidates just for the governor and another seven for the state superintendent of education. Our mailbox has been full of flyers for months now. In the end, there were a few upsets, but basically just a thinning down of the candidates. Several runoff elections will be held in August now. Greg only had one page and Jordan, as an independent, only got to vote on the judges. Used to, she could participate in the Democrat primaries, but they voted to not allow that this year. That was rather disappointing. This was her first time to actually vote at the voting place rather than early voting at the courthouse or absentee voting by mail. Afterwards, we ate dinner at Bootleggers.

 Checkout was 10am, so we planned to be out of our Branson digs by 9 am. Clean up was simple and just involved starting a load of towels and taking the trash out.  Mom seriously wanted to steal the macrame footstool but didn't think it fit the vibe of her house. They had a an amazing selection of games to play under the TV. We never were home long enough to play them though. Our first and only stop for the day was the Springfield Route 66 area. Apparently, Springfield is the birthplace of Route 66. In a road-side cafe and hotel, a couple of men met and dreamed up the idea of Route 66. To celebrate that spot, Springfield also installed a music road. This one was really easy to get to so we did it twice. It played America and was a lot of fun. There were also a little park with statues and murals and a museum, but we didn't stop. Our goal was home. After a lunch stop at a Mexican restaurant in Joplin, Missouri, and several hours later, we were home.