Keal Family Letter, May 2005

Hello Friends and Family! Happy May to you all. We are all doing pretty well here in Lenhartsville.

Cirdan will be 11 months old on the 13th of this month! He can now pull himself up to a standing position. He's crawling all over the house. He can crawl all the way up the stairs. And he still crawls all the way up the stairs even thought he has already fallen down the stairs (very scary and sad, but he's a tough little boy) He's got several teeth, I forget how many, but at least four. He is, as ever, the cutest, most smiley little almost-1-year-old that exists!

Thea is 2 years and 3 months. She talks a mile a minute. And she loves singing! Last night we had a conjugial love class here at our house. Part way through the class we all heard, very audibly over the baby monitor, Thea singing the ABCs! It was very cute. She knows many different songs now; partly thanks to the little kid's music class, Do Re Mi, run by my mom and Tirah, and partly thanks to the fact that Tirah is always singing to her and teaching her new songs. She can say the entire alphabet with help, and she can almost sing the entire alphabet without help, including the "now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?"
I was watching Thea running outside the other day, (she's loves being "oup-guide" as she calls it), and I couldn't help thinking, "when did you learn to run?!" The other day, we were having lunch and she pointed to a jar on the table and said very clearly, "mayonnaise." I remember thinking, "when did you learn that word?!" It's amazing, the learning curve of a child. They just soak things up! And you have to watch closely in order to catch all of the wonderful moments.

Tirah is doing well. Little by little she feels more and more comfortable living in Kempton and socializing with people in our Society, Last night at the conjugial love class, Lawson (our pastor) made fun of her during something he was saying, not in a cruel, picking on her way, but rather in a "you're one of us now" sort of way. Tirah was saying how it was such a surprisingly nice feeling, to feel like she was one of the gang so much that people could make fun of her. It sounds strange, but I think we can all relate to that ironic difference between someone making fun of of you because they don't like you, and someone making fun of you because they really love you and feel close enough to you that they can be informal with you.

This past month we have been entirely TV free! For the whole month of April, we packed the TV into the attic and decided to stop worshipping that false god. Very symbolically we moved our worship center into the hole in our living room left by the absent TV... replacing a false god with the Real God. It's been wonderful. We've been spending more time outside, more time with the kids, more time working on our marriage, more time reading books, playing games, having family worship... essentially all the things we really want to be doing instead of wasting our time in front of the TV. Technically, starting tomorrow, we can bring the TV back down, but we intend to bring it down and hide it in the corner, and only bring it out occasionally, and we will give it another trial month, and if we go back to worshipping the false god, then it goes back to the attic.

My music business is slowly inching forward. The Big News is that my music is now being played on Whisperings: Solo Piano Radio. (www.solopianoradio.com) It's a community of solo piano artists that have a radio station, and do group tours, and in general work together to make a living in the jungle that is the music industry.
I also have a blog page now, (www.solomonthoughts.blogspot.com) where I will be posting my thoughts about being a husband, father, musician, and New Church person.
I now have a functional home recording studio, so I can not only start hiring myself out as a recording engineer, but I am going to begin recording my Christmas album any day now. I also now have a portable digital piano, so I can start doing more gigs.
Peter and I are planning a New Church Societies Solomon Keal Tour. Phase One will be doing local tours this summer to societies that are only a day-trip away from Kempton. Phase Two is to do a North East societies tour this fall. Phase Three is to do a South and West societies tour next summer.
I will be playing some background music at the General Church Assembly in June. And I will be doing a concert here in Kempton on June 25th.

Well, that's all for now.
Have a great day!

- Solomon