There are times in my life where I get frustrated with my idle brain, and I snap and decide I need to get back into learning things. That happened again recently, so I decided to try a couple of things. Last Tuesday was the day – I started back at guitar lessons and started dance lessons with Mer.

I have had a guitar for about fourteen years now, and when we first married, Mer and I took lessons together. I had a year or so of lessons, and got to where I could play about a dozen chords and knew a few strum patterns for my right hand. Then, I stopped taking lessons, and I started putzing around with other instruments. So, over the last decade, I have managed to stall at getting better on guitar, and not really gotten good at any of the other half-dozen instruments that I have in my music room. I decided to go back to square one, and I asked a colleague of mine who plays guitar if he would give me lessons. He agreed, and we had out first get-to-know-you lesson on Tuesday. I think Matt (my teacher) was pleased with what I already knew, and I liked Matt’s teaching style and the fact he listened to what I like for music, so I think it is going to work out well.

Tuesday night, Mer and I had our first dance lessons. Years ago, my brother took swing dance lessons, I got to see him dance swing a few times. It looked like a ton of fun, and I have wanted to try it for awhile now. Mer and I are at the age where some of our former students are getting married, especially this upcoming summer. The potential for dancing at receptions seemed to me like a good excuse to finally take some lessons, and happily Mer agreed. We found a ballroom in downtown Cuyahoga Falls, only about ten minutes away. We had an introductory (short and free) lesson last week, but out first real lesson was Tuesday evening. We met our instructor, Dominique, and he turned out to be a lot of fun. He knows what he is doing, and he laughs a lot. We had a good time with him. We learned three slow-dance steps, and four swing steps. Sadly, we did not write them down, so once we went to practice the steps on Thursday, we remembered the slow-dance steps, but could only remember three of the four swing steps. I’m sure we’ll pick it up once we go over it again, but Mer and I both agreed we need to write the steps down, if only to help us remember once we get home. The basic steps have been fairly easy to learn, so we may actually be able to dance a few dances at our first wedding of the season, which is in a month. Dancing with Mer is much fun, and I wish I had started years ago. Bully for me in finally getting my butt on the dance floor.