My guitar, my bass and my piano are my therapy. I am not happy without them. Never give them up if they give you joy. Besides, if you are miserable, the ten minutes on weight training/cardio will do nothing. Misery=stress=overeating. Guitar=less stress=better use of time.

As for the kids and the husband, they need to shut it. Sounds like hubby has no hobby that gives him joy the same way. Or he's just jealous that you lose yourself in it.

I snag my 30 minutes a day to practice at night after they are all asleep. One of my friends keeps a travel guitar in his office and practices with headphones at lunch (keeps you out of restaurants every day). My friends finger chords and practice scales as they watch Tv (a major time waster). Listen to the songs you want to play in the car during the communte to fix the progressions in your memory. Once you learn the I vi ii V IV I progressions (ask your teacher about it) a world of beautiful sound will open up. Start with the I IV. E and A- it will open up many songs to you. Seriously. Play the notes of the chords with one finger at a time, in different orders.

I gave my husband a guitar three years ago. He can string open E and A together, which gives him access to other songs. Open G, A and D, if you practice just moving your fingers between the chords, will also open up a bunch of songs for you. Playing guitar relaxes him. Now he understands why I need this music. It is a need, like breathing.

Guitar is an instrument that takes time. It is also a different thought pattern from the piano (which makes it freeing- once you learn the pentatomic minor and major, and can move the patterns all over the fretboard, it will unlock something in you.) It does help to learn moveable chords (ask your teacher about the CAGED system, and practice that moveable E and Moveable A. You will progress exponentially.) The moveable chords (some of which are barre chords) allow you to move your fingers faster and play "in position" up and down the keyboard.

Get some FastFret to help with the string buzz (I swear it will help). Change your strings. Practice that Steven Vai Spyder (now that thing is a freakin' bear!) to help you play in position in angular ways. But never give up that guitar. The sweetness shines out of your letter. It sounds like the guitar silences the perfectionist voice in your head. Everyone needs something they can lose themselves in, something that silences the voice and allows you to live in the moment.

You will play that song. My husband, after three years, is transcribing a song he had always wanted to play. I'm doing that, too. You will be grateful that you kept it up, and you will teach your children that working at something difficult, something that does not come easily, has a value of it's own, that it leads to a personal success and discipline. If you give up because it is not easy or you don't think you are gifted, you teach them only to do easy things, to turn away from the difficult. You are giving them a gift that they will recognize far into the future. You are actually, profoundly, acting as a mother in the best possibly way. I hope you know that.

I hope you sing and play, LW. This is what open mikes are for.

Incidentally, I think that one of the reasons I got through law school with my sanity more or less intact is because I would go to the music room to practice after lectures. It gave my mind a break, gave me an emotional outlet, and probably saved me a lot of money on therapy. My classmates were a lot more stressed out about law school than I was. Now, when I listen to the music I wrote during my law school years, I can hear the stress and worry in some of the pieces - but it was all released in the music rather than bottled up in my cardiovascular system.

Law is a very stressful profession - you know it far better than I do. Parenting is also very stressful at times. You need some kind of stress release, and music is perfect for that. Lots of lawyers take up drinking as their stress release (I saw that in some of my law school classmates); lots of them take up even more self-destructive habits. 10 minutes of music a day is nothing compared to what you could be doing. And the nice thing about the guitar, as opposed to the piano, is that you can play it anywhere. Put it in your car and practice for 15 minutes on your lunch hour. Practice for 15 minutes after you leave work, just sitting in your car in the parking lot. Stop by a quiet park on your way home and play for 15 minutes. Go outside after your kids are asleep and play for 15 minutes.

Another thing - find a music-making group. One of my friends works at a high-tech firm, and some of her coworkers get together on a regular basis at one coworker's house, bring guitars and other musical instruments, and play and sing. Some of them are expert players, some are beginners. My friend is somewhat intermediate. No one cares. I came to one of these once, and there was no piano and I didn't know any of the songs, so they gave me a hand drum, and I provided percussion. I was pretty bad at it. No one cared. The point was to have fun making music, not to compete. No one was aiming for Carnegie Hall. We were just trying to make noise together, and it was good noise. Some of the folks brought their kids, and the kids were singing along - and I thought it was a wonderful thing for the kids to see their parents having fun making music.

One more thing - in some of the relationships I've been in, my significant other was very jealous of the piano and of the role that music played in my life. It does tend to happen.

Sorry to overwhelm you with responses. As you can see, this is a subject that is rather close to my heart. But I can't bear to see a born musician - and you clearly are one - give up music. Please keep playing.