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I was 40 when we got our first home computer.  The thing was state of the art, with a 400MB hard drive, and the latest version of Windows 3.1, and it totally intimidated me. I was so sure I would do something wrong and blow up the bloomin' thing.  But I kept at it, learning a little here and there, and between trial and error and picking the brains of friends I met online who were computer geeks, I got pretty good with the machine. Even learned to be a passable web designer/developer and that's how I make a living 13+ years later.

Since then I've made it a practice to regularly try something new. I buy a new food item almost every time I visit a grocery store (hint: don't mess with the African horned melon.  It tastes like an old cucumber, I don't know what those things are supposed to be good for!), and I take a road I haven't been on before every now and then, just to see where it goes.

Back when the kids were little and fuel was cheap, that's how I occupied them for many a long afternoon. We'd pile into the Suburban for an "explore" to see the back roads of Floyd and Montgomery counties. I learned to maneuver Big Red through tight switchbacks and across low water bridges. Once we even crossed a wide creek in it!

Last week I began a new journey. I bought a beautiful hammered dulcimer, an instrument I've been wishing to own for a couple of years now. It's rather large and bulky, about 4 feet wide, and it's crisscrossed with strings that you hit with (you guessed it!) hammers made of wood and leather.  Beautiful sound, somewhere between a harpsichord and a banjo.

I thought you would enjoy hearing a couple of selections played on the instrument by a real professional. I think it will be awhile before I'm proficient enough to perform outside the home with mine