I bought myself a guitar. It came yesterday by UPS. I took a picture of it to share, but my check for renewing my plus account at DD hasn't arrived in England yet, so my Hamipiks folder is not available to me. I'm sending a link to the picture from Costco instead.
I taught myself to play the guitar way back when I was about 14, on an 18 dollar guitar I bought with my allowance. Then later I was loaned a guitar by a family memeber for many years. But when I moved to Sacramento, I asked him if he wanted it back and he said yes. So for the last 7 years I have been guitarless.
I decided I missed having one around to play, so after some not so insignificant agonizing and looking around for one, (about a year's worth) I bought this one.
I spent yesterday slowly tuning it up, bits at a time, not wanting to break any strings, using a web site that plays the tones for each string.
That made me think of the first real thing I ever did on a computer back in... I would say 1984 or so. We had a Commodor 64 computer and I typed in about 150 lines of code that I found in a Family Computing magazine to create a tuner for my guitar. It was the most basic of programs, but it worked!
Now there are dozens of sites with tuners on line. Times have changed eh?
Anyway, I played a bit yesterday only to discover I have forgotten a couple of chords, so I had to look them up in my music book. I guess 7 years is long enough to get pretty rusty. It will take some time to toughen up my fingers, so I plan to do a little bit every day so I don't get blisters. If you get blisters, you can't play AT ALL for a while.
Patience.
Anyway.....
The banana bread turned out divine by the way.
Here's what I did:
4 medium bananas, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup apple butter (or applesauce)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
Mix that all up
Add
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Don't overmix.
Add some nuts if you like or raisins or dried cranberries or if you are feeling the need for them, chocolate chips... (oh yes trust me, you want to try that sometime)
Pour into a large loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or so.
Okay, off I go. Stuff is lined up on my "to do" list.