Keal Family Letter, July 2005

Hello Friends and Family. Happy Hazy Hot and Humid July to you all. We’ve been trying to battle the heat here in Lenhartsville. We recently went out and bought a second air conditioner which is now in the kids room, so that they can be more comfortable. Our old air conditioner is in my studio, and we just use a fan to blow it into our bedroom at night.

Well, our biggest news is that Tirah now has a full-time job. She is the softline supervisor at Jo-ann Fabrics in Allentown, which means that she is in charge of all the fabrics in the store. This has been her first week on the job, and so far she’s been enjoying it.
After almost a year of just living on savings, welfare, my small amounts of income, the enormous help of my family, and the grace of God, we decided that it was time that one of us got a full-time job. My music career is going to take longer to start up than just a year.
So now I’m Mr. Mom, and having lots of fun taking care of the kiddoes.
This situation works well for many reasons:
Since I’m the one at home, I have a more flexible schedule that will allow for the occasional work that I have, such as piano lessons, recording sessions, gigs, etc.
At this point in my life, my skills and experience include carpentry, music, and parenting, and I don’t want to go back into carpentry.
Tirah, being an extrovert, naturally has skills that most employers want, namely: being able to work well with people. Whereas I’m an introvert, which is not a “skill” a lot of employers want. She’s also had experience in retail. And she loves to sew.
Out of the two of us, I tend to be the more patient and organized one, which works well for me being the parent at home with two toddlers.
Tirah’s schedule flip-flops between a morning shift (8-ish to 3-ish) and an evening schedule (3-ish to 10-ish). We’ve actually really been enjoying the evening schedule because it means that Tirah can spend good Mom time with the kids in the morning, while I get some work done on music. Then she goes off to work, the kids go down for naps, and I get some more work done on music. The downside is that the kids only get one parent for the bed-time routine. We may start doing family worship in the morning. Anyway, then I get some more work done from about 8 to 10 until Tirah comes home.
Basically, when Tirah works evening shift, our day is upside-down. Whereas most people have family time in the evening, we have it in the morning,
Because of the occasional evening shift, and weekend shift, our social life will be limited, and we’ll have to work really hard to make sure we get enough time for our marriage.
Our life will be a lot more busy now, but it will help us to get to where we want to go, and I’m sure is all part of the Lord’s Master Plan.

Cirdan is now a one-year-old. He can cruise around on his feet while holding on to furniture. He can stand completely on his own for up to 20 seconds, and is very proud of himself. He’s become quite the little climber, and we have to watch him carefully or we’ll turn around and he’ll be up on top of something like a coffee table. He’s developing this little toothy grin, and quite a sense of humor. He shows signs of recognizing words that we say to him, like “juice” and “outside” and “binky” and “cracker.” And he loves to wrestle with Thea... who sometimes likes to wrestle back.

Thea continues to improve her speaking abilities, and shows signs of understanding the basics of any conversation that we have in her presence. She’s become a very cute little Mom for her bears. She has five little beanie-baby size teddy bears which are her babies. She nurses them, changes their diapers, and comforts them when they cry. (Amusingly; when she says she wants her bears, it often comes out sounding like, “I want my beers.” )
Thea’s favorite things these days are swinging in the swing outside, pushing her bears around in her little stroller, going in the car, singing songs, talking, watering the garden, and watching the backhoes in town (our town is getting a sewer system, so there have been backhoes all over town for the last several months). In general she loves doing what the grown-ups are doing.

Well, after four years of marriage and 2 and a half years of parenting, we finally had our first trip to the emergency room. Thea dislocated her elbow. Apparently it’s a pretty common injury for children under age 5. Thea wanted to go one way and Mama was trying to get her to go the other way and “pop.” It sure didn’t help Tirah, who already struggles with feeling like she’s a bad mother, but it was relieving for her to hear that it’s a very common injury. The technical term is an elbow subluxation. So we took her into the emergency room. The doctor was great, and warned Tirah that Thea would cry, and then “pop” he relocated her elbow, and within minutes Thea was waving her arm around and showing off her little “I got an X-ray and lived to tell about it” stickers to every passing stranger. All the nurses at the hospital fell in love with her, and when Tirah and Thea finally came out, Thea was plastered with about 10 colorful little stickers and yelling “My arm ih aaaaall better!”

Exciting things are happening in my music career! I’m happy to announce.... no... wait... I won’t tell you. You’ll have to find out by signing up to receive my music newsletter! There’s nothing scary about my music newsletter guys. There’s no catch, I won’t trap you into buying CDs or anything. It’s just a newsletter like this one, except it’s all about my music career. It will let you know about performances, new CDs, whatever is happening in my life as a musician. It is informative, entertaining, and useful. Useful to you, and to me, because it’s important for me to be able to communicate directly with my fan base.
It’s very easy to sign up. There’s a little box on the top right hand side of the home page of my website, and you just write in your email address. So go on now... go sign up... that’s right.... keep going. Here, I’ll make it easy for you: www.solomonkeal.com.

Here. I’ll make it even MORE easy for you. If you really don’t want to go all the way to my website, then this family newsletter is your official invitation to join my music newsletter. All you have to do is reply to this email, and say “yes” or “sign me up” or “O.K. Solomon” or some such appropriate comment, and I’LL sign you up FOR you! It doesn’t get much easier than that.

So... would you like to receive my music newsletter? (this is the part where you reply, “yes”)

Well enough shameless self-promotion (I am getting better at it), that’s about the jist of our life right now. We all hope your lives are wonderful, and may the Lord bring you peace.

Love,

Solomon - Executive Partner and Head of the Music and Household Departments.
Tirah - Executive Partner and Head of the Finance and Marriage Departments.
Thea - Communications Officer, Head of the Imitations Department, and Local Excavation Supervisor.
Cirdan - Morale Officer and Head of the Exploration Department.