Category Archives: Music

7 Quick Takes: My Week, Requests for Help, and World Series Musings

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Relief. Jon is home after being gone since Monday to our denomination’s pastor’s conference. It’s good to have him home and I’m not just saying that because I now have someone to do the laundry/dishes/cat care. I’ve had a sick kid since Tuesday night and had to haul butt to UCD Pediatrics Urgent Care yesterday — it’s good to not be handling this alone.

— 2 —

The sick kid. Daniel refused to go to sleep on time on Sunday and Monday nights. I thought that it was probably due to Jon being gone on Monday night but he went down super early on Tuesday night which would have been great had I not been hit with restless leg syndrome. (Fibromyalgia, you suck!) Wednesday, he got sent home from school with a fever of 100F and I got the call right as I was putting my feet in the warm water for my pedicure. (I know… #firstworldproblems) His temperature started spiking so that it was 102F by mid-afternoon and I called the advice nurse at UCD Pediatrics Urgent Care to ask what they wanted me to do. The answer: “GET. UP. HERE. NOW!!!!” Diagnosis: a bad ear infection in his left ear and an upper respiratory infection which was setting off his asthma. He’s on antibiotics and I was alternating Motrin and Tylenol to lower his fever. I’m hoping he’ll be back to school tomorrow.

— 3 —

Forty to Forever. From my Facebook wall:

OK… I’m the social media person for the Forty to Forever fundraiser and we’re trying to raise money for families adopting kids internationally who have special needs. We need two things:

1.) We desperately need churches who are willing to sponsor families with prayer and also with funding to a degree. This doesn’t have to be costly and there is information on the website about what to do. If you ladies could talk to you church councils/pro-life groups/ missions people/women’s ministries/whoever, I’d greatly appreciate it. If you can’t find the answer to one of your questions, let me know and I’ll get the information for you. You can find most of what you need here.

2.) We need people who can commit to being prayer warriors and praying for us/the families/the kids one day a week during Lent. (We could also really use it right now.) It’s a fifteen minutes per week commitment and if it would help, I can send you prayers, a litany, or whatever you need in terms of help in how to pray. The page for sign-ups is here.

The website is http://www.fortytoforever.com/ and we’re also present on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks!

— 4 —

NaNoWriMo fundraiser. I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo this year and I’m pondering the idea of making it into a fundraiser for Brett. I’m thinking of offering to let people read my manuscript for a $10 donation. What say you, readers?

— 5 —

World Series. The Cards just took Game 2 and I was happy that they showed up to play tonight instead of sending their middle school doppelgangers. (Obviously, I’m rooting for them and not Boston.) The series goes to St. Louis next and I’m hoping the Cards do better on their home field.

— 6 —

Orphans. Do you see these two cute children?

L-R: Brett and Iris
BrettIris

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and their dossier is on its way to Iris’ country.

— 7 —

World Series fun. You have to love it when the *ORCHESTRAS* from the cities of the World Series teams start trash-talking. 🙂

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: How My Childhood Impacted Who I Am Today

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This week’s topic: how my childhood impacted who I am today.

This should be an interesting list.

[+] I am compassionate because my mom modeled it on a daily basis. She’s the one who would give money to people with “out of work” signs and buy the ingredients for a separate Thanksgiving dinner for the food pantry. I also had lots of service opportunities through school and Girl Scouts.

[+] I am creative because I had parents who encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, draw, and write stories. My mom has “books” that I made when I was 5 and 6.

[+] I am shy because I was bullied in school and consequently am really wary around people until I know I can trust them.

[+] I am good at thinking on my feet because of Girl Scouts, particularly my Senior troop. We got to do lots of activities where we had to think through all the steps independently and they taught me how to rely on my own everywhere from a job interview to the wilderness.

[+] I am focused because I wanted to be the best at everything and my classmates in middle schoo; and high school gave me a run for my money.

[+] I am a blogger because I was bored one afternoon in February 1997 (I think it was the 10th) and heard about this site called Geocities that allowed you to build your own personal website. I started blogging three years later.

[+] I am a Christian because I was blessed to have a neighbor who read me the Gospel when I was 6 years old and showed me what it was to be a godly woman. She was one of the Scripture readers at my wedding and I miss her so much! (She lives in Oregon now. The last time I saw her was 7 years ago when I was in Oregon for my grandfather’s funeral.)

[+] I am addicted to georgraphy because I had a first grade teacher who handed me a map and explained how it all worked. I knew all my state capitals before the year was up. Playing “Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego” obsessively in second grade also helped.

[+] I am a good cook because my mom had my brother and I “helping” her from the time we could pull chairs to the counter. It took her three times as long at first but we could follow a recipe by the time we were 7 and cook dinner by the time we were 9.

[+} I am a classical music lover because my mom had it on all the time. She also did the “You-Sing-It Messiah” with me in high school and college. By the time my awesome Music Appreciation class rolled around in high school, I knew more than most of my clasmates.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else was impacted by their childhoods.

7 Quick Takes: Stylite Monks, Acapella Wonderfulness, and Prayer Requests

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Stylite monk in Georgia. I remember reading about stylite saints in college and it’s interesting to know that they still exist. It’s a fascinating article and they mention St. Simeon Stylite who was on his pillar for 33 years and used to chew out those who came to him for advice (at least according to the hagiography I read in college).

— 2 —

Sandwiches are beautiful/Sandwiches are fine/I like sandwiches/I eat them all the time. A man told his girlfriend, after she made him a sandwich, that she was three hundred sandwiches away from an engagement ring. The woman decided to blog about her sandwich-making exploits and just got featured on a bunch of news sites. Her adventure has been decried as “anti-feminist” and “1950’s housewife” but I think the way she is going about it is actually kind of cool. She’s blogging new and interesting recipes and figures that if she doesn’t have an engagement ring by the end of it, she’ll at least know how to make a bunch of different foods.

— 3 —

NaNoWriMo. Because I totally don’t have enough on my plate already, I’m thinking of doing NaNoWriMo this year. I’m thinking of doing a murder mystery again and this means that I need to get my editing project done in the next month and start compiling plot points, characters, setting, etc. Oh yes… I also need to remember to back up my progress daily so I don’t lose it if my hard drive fails like last year.

— 4 —

Amazing. Priest’s Wife shared the first video with me. This choral music snob found it amazing! (The song is “One Thing Remains” by Kristian Stanfill.) The second video (“In Christ Alone”) was featured as well.

— 5 —

This makes me smile. This video of Jimmy Fallon and The Roots has been going around Facebook today. I love how they’re playing preschool rhythm instruments and the Muppets are interspersed between them.

— 6 —

Horrible. Last night, a Dodgers fan was stabbed outside of AT&T Park. (AT&T Park is where the Giants play.) It follows the beating of a Giants fan outside of Dodgers Stadium 2 1/2 years ago. Seriously y’all, if you have to engage in violence to prove your superiority in baseball rivalries, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!!!

— 7 —

Orphans. Do you see these two sweet children?

L-R: Brett and Iris
BrettIris

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are compiling their dossier to send to her country.

— Bonus —

Prayers for the Fuller twins. Please keep praying for Thomas’ twin sons that they can stay in utero until 24 weeks at least. Our prayers have gotten them to 22.5 weeks and the longer they can stay in the womb, the better.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: High School Back Then

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This week’s topic: high school back then.

Yeah, high school left serious welts on my psyche so I’m trying to come up with good things.

OK… highlights of high school:

[+] AP classes. Yes, I am a nerd. 🙂 I was “that girl” who took the most challenging classes she could (except for math — math and I didn’t get along until I was done with calculus) and this meant 2 AP classes a year when I was a junior and senior. My US History class was set up as a “college class”. We had “lecture” one day and they opened up the dividers between classrooms so all 4 classes could have the same “lecture” and then the next day or two would be “small group” where we would discuss the lecture with our actual teacher. It was brutal at the time but really prepped me for college. AP Biology was fun — we dissected minks and it was interesting. AP French was kind of the default for the 4th year of French at my high school and it was a language so I loved it. My AP English teacher had a saying that “everyone needs to bring something to the party” and it was one of those classes where you had better have done the reading and be ready to contribute.

[+] Music Appreciation. I took the *BEST* Music Appreciation class with a teacher who had a passion for communicating it to his students and who got even the slackers to dress up and haul butt to ballets, symphony concerts, and operas. It was pretty common to see one of the slackers at a concert in a shirt and tie and to think “dang… they clean up well!” I saw some amazing ballet, was close enough to the pianist at one symphony concerts to see that his socks didn’t match, and saw “I Pagliacci” and “La Boheme”. I mean, I was a pianist and classical vocalist so a lot of it, I would have learned anyway but my teacher taught others how to read music! He also got me (Miss “Terrified of Solos”) up and doing a duet with one of the other girls in my class. It was also good to get class credit for participating in the “You-Sing-It Messiah” with the San Jose Symphonic Choir.

[+] Proving my Junior English teacher wrong. My teacher for Junior Honors English was a wench. She took particular joy in torturing particular students in each class and I was one of her favorite targets. One of my friends actually took a couple of my essays to her AP English teacher who read them and told her that my English teacher was batcrap crazy. She refused to give me a recommendation for AP English which I took anyway… and I got straight A’s in the class while her pets dropped out in the first week because they couldn’t deal with having to regurgitate the 8 books we had to read over the summer for timed writings. I’m not the bigger person so I *did* mention sweetly that I got straight A’s in AP English to her at graduation though I refrained from calling her the things I wanted to call her.

I think I’ll go nurse my re-opened wounds now.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else did in high school.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XV)

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Five Favorites

One

Mater Eucharistiae CD. I first heard about this CD on Facebook (I think) and was blown away by it. The “Te Deum” is amazing and their arrangement of Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus” is breathtaking. I sang in the UCSC Women’s Chorale in college and have a fondness for women doing chant so I downloaded it off of iTunes. If you order it from them here, they get a larger share of the profits which goes to help build their new priory outside Austin, TX.

Mater Eucharistiae CD

I also just found out that someone I know from a couple Facebook groups is a postulant with them. Small world.

Two

This song. Twelve years ago today, there was an impromptu prayer service called and the entire student body and faculty of my seminary (probably 150+ people) crowded into Schenk Chapel with some of us sitting and some of us standing. Our seminary president remembers it as one of the really formative times of his tenure and most of us students do as well, bringing it up on Facebook every year on this day. We alternated prayers with choruses of “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying” and this Taizé chant:

Three

Sleep. I love sleep. I’m not getting much of it though and I’m trying not to nap today so that maybe I can get my sleep schedule back on track. I almost fell asleep today while getting my haircut — that takes some doing! If I’m not careful, I may fall asleep during my mani/pedi tomorrow.

Four

Grammar Nerd Jokes. I am a complete grammar nazi so I loved these jokes. With #11 though, I thought it was cruel to make a grammar nazi do math.

Five

The Giants winning. It’s been a bad season for them and I’m unfortunately married to a fan of their big rivals. I think baseball needs to come up in the pre-marital counseling next time…

Go love up Grace (who is guest-hosting this week) and the others.

7 Quick Takes: Prayer Set to Pop Music, Back to School Night, and News on Kaia

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

More than one way to pray. Mayim Bialik (“Amy Farrah Fowler” on The Big Bang Theory) linked up this video of the Listen Up! Jewish Vocal Band singing the Adon Olam to the tune of the Cup Song from “Pitch Perfect”. (There’s also a video of how they made the video.)

I remember teaching various “graces” to tunes like “Zippety Doodah” and “The Addams Family” theme song so it’s not surprising that you can fit various prayers into songs. “Amazing Grace” is another one that works well. I also remember figuring out how to set the Lutheran table grace (the linked version is all fancy, done in canon and then in 4-part harmony) to the tune of “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors when Jon and I were off doing errands in Watertown, back when he was pastoring in Minnesota.

— 2 —

Camp song fun. The actions for the Cup Song remind me of the camp song, “It’s Not Hard I Tell You So”:

(And yes, I was totally the CIT and counselor who led the really off-the-wall camp songs. Fortunately for me, no recorded proof of this exists because I’d be paying major dollars to keep those quiet.)

— 3 —

Jim Gaffigan’s video “Mr. Universe”. I’ve been listening/watching “Mr. Universe” while I go to sleep lately. It’s positively lovely and it’s clean comedy. (I have it on at 2 a.m. as I’m typing this.) My tabby has been getting grumpy about this because it means that I’m not positioned correctly for him to climb on my side and displace my hips. Currently, he’s talking about McDonalds and is making me crave a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, some fries. and a Coke. (Yes, I’ve seen Supersize Me. I don’t think I ate anything from there for 5 years after that.)

— 4 —

Orphans Do you see these two darling children?

L-R: Brett and Iris
BrettIris

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are in the homestudy stage.

Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 5 —

Miss Kaia. I haven’t forgotten about Kaia.

Kaia

Her mama (and, I think, also her papa) are in her country to spring her from her orphanage either today or tomorrow. Once they’re all back in the States, I’ll update people with details of her actual name and everything.

— 6 —

Back to School Night. Daniel’s preschool had Back to School Night tonight and I went on behalf of Jon. It was good to go because I got the hand-out that Daniel’s teacher has given out to other parents before and that was helpful because it talks a little more about autism and ways to work with the kids. The parents of one of the kids who went off to kindergarten were there (their younger son is also autistic and in the class) so it was good to see them again and talk to them. It was also nice to find out that Daniel’s teacher prays for her kids and their families.

One other cool thing: they have an English class for some of the moms at the preschool and are looking for volunteers to help. I am not fluent in Spanish (the other mom is — she’s Mexican and her husband is Anglo) but I have experience teaching ESL so I’m going to email the principal about helping.

— 7 —

New Music. I realized this week that I had never heard “Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen so I went on YouTube to find it. Can we just say that I think it is freaking awesome? (I predict Jon cringing when he reads that last sentence.) I also realized that I hadn’t heard “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele before (it turns out that I’ve heard part it) so it’s playing on YouTube.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Virtual 5K’s, Harmless Political Fun, and Overheating Laptops

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Slow going. My laptop is overheating despite being on a cooling pad so Facebook is being slow (and of course, I have 15 hours of status updates to read) so I’m switching over here to write a Quick Take every time Facebook has to load more stuff. Whee! This is what I get for not being at my laptop for 12 hours.

— 2 —

Endocrinology grumping. I cleaned up my diet and my A1C got worse. (I didn’t see my other numbers though my liver enzymes apparently continue to be beautiful — thank God for that!) I think my endocrinologist would be an awesome coffee date but she has no clue about what my life entails. I was able to test a little bit after eating lunch today but dinner eluded me because I’m sipping on tea a lot of the time. (I need to move from my Lipton Pure Leaf stuff to Crystal Light or something because the Lipton stuff *will* up my carb load.) My thyroid function is also the lower boundary of normal (thanks Mom!) so we’re going to up my Synthroid by half and see if that makes a difference. There was the usual fight over trying new drugs because my insurance company hates me so she gave me samples while a prior authorization could be worked out and also a discount co-pay card for the meds she wanted to give me. My glucose meter had died so they found me a new one (I use a Freestyle Light) and it had a $15 co-pay card attached for test strips. (They can be between $50-$150 if you have to pay for them at the pharmacy.) I see her again in 3 months and God willing, she’ll be happier with results. I mean, I dropped 10 lbs while sitting on my butt so my dietary changes actually did something.

— 3 —

Wow. For those who are fans of the musical Les Miserables, you have to watch this.

He also does an amazing parody of Disney princesses after their “happy endings”.

— 4 —

Humorous Amazon.Com reviews. Amazon.Com has done the world a favor and has compiled a list of their products with fake reviews. George Takei also should have a decent list on his Facebook page and you might even be able to find him as a reviewer on Amazon.Com’s website.

— 5 —

Some political fun. Al Franken is up for re-election in 2014 for one of Minnesota’s US Senate seats and he is engaging in a little political fun. He is letting people vote on what Minnesota State Fair food he will be eating in a virtual postcard to supporters. Choices are things like alligator, tater tot hot dish, a chocolate-covered pickle, a steak dinner-on-a-stick, ostrich, and walleye-on-a-stick. I’m linking it here because I think it’s creative and it’s some harmless fun where Republicans and Democrats alike can vote on something. It’s the 21st century equivalent of putting him on a dunk tank or a pie-throwing booth.

— 6 —

Run for Little Flowers Giveaway. Katie at Blessed with Full Hands is organizing the Run for Little Flowers again and is having a giveaway. There’s running gear, a $20 gift card (put up by me), and other things available. The virtual 5K raises money for the Little Flower Projects.

— 7 —

More on The Bloggess’ book. Like Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess), I deal with generalized anxiety disorder but I’m not quite as humorous about it. I haven’t told people about swallowing a needle at parties but I tend to be more likely to focus on one or two people and just have a conversation with them. Like her, I also sound so much more normal online than I do in person. I was interviewing a respite worker for Daniel and it was probably one of the more uncomfortable 2-hour blocks of my life. It’s been interesting to read her book because I can totally see myself doing the stuff she has… well, kind of but with less dead animals.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.