— 1 —

Holy British choral music, Batman! A YouTube video off of Unapologetically Episcopalian fed into the UK School Choir of the Year competition videos.

This is from Ysgol Y Strade and the way they performed made me weep from the sheer beauty and the harmonies. The solo is in English but they do the rest in Welsh and perform it more beautifully than I’ve ever heard it sung in English.

Their inspirational song was “Clap Yo Hands” by Gershwin which they also did in Welsh. Gershwin is difficult in English so I have a huge appreciation for them translating it. I also love that a staid school choir instantaneously morphed into an African-American church choir.

The other two schools that made it to the finals are also breathtaking but Ysgol Y Strade just captivated me to the point of tears. Here are the others for comparison:

Their inspriational piece didn’t go over well so I’m not embedding it.

This is the choir that won:

This is the song that clinched it.

— 2 —

My monsters have vet appointments this week. I took Cullen/Edda (who is trying to sleep on my hands as I type this) on Wednesday and Finian/Freya will go tomorrow. Both Cullen and Edda got relatively clean bills of health though Cullen needs a teeth cleaning. We’re hoping he can wait until August/September when they have a special where they’ll do it for 10% off. (Cullen’s name, BTW, has absolutely nothing to do with Twilight. I had him long before I had ever heard of the Stephenie Meyer books.)

— 3 —

Just a tip: if a parent has an autistic kid, they’ve probably read all the studies and know that a gluten-free diet sometimes works. Seriously, it’s getting hard not to slap people who ask me if I’ve heard about a gluten-free diet when I tell them that Daniel is autistic. I was talking to a parishioner last night who has an autistic grandson and she expressed the same frustration. Autism is one of those disorders which affects everyone differently. For some people, the GAPS diet is a miracle. For others, it does nothing. I’m also about to mangle the next person who (not knowing Daniel is autistic) tells me that they’re not vaccinating because they don’t want their kid to develop autism. The 1998 study positing that was disproven and the doctor was stricken from the British Medical Register (a.k.a. lost his license to practice medicine).

— 4 —

Daniel loves being “watered”. Jon was watering today while Daniel was playing in his wading pool (which has a sprinkler function attached) and he accidentally splashed Daniel with the water from the watering head on the sprinkler only to have Daniel squeal and giggle. He had to go grab some stuff at the church and asked if I could “water the bear” while he was gone. Too funny! We knew he was aquatic but maybe this will help him grow?

— 5 —

The Proposition 29 vote is still too close to definitively call right now. About 55,000 votes separate “yes” and “no” with all the absentee ballots from people like me left to count. They shared a statistic on the news last that about 50% of Sacramento County voters requested absentee ballots and about 18,000 people in San Joaquin County requested them. If this is the trend across the state, it will be July before we actually know anything. California residents, you can go to the Secretary of State website if you want to see how a candidate or ballot measure did.

— 6 —

I’m still plugging along on planning Brett’s Blogathon. Head over to his site to see my progress and donate a few bucks to his adoption fund while you’re at it.

— 7 —

I have found a website that describes my life. Kendra @ The Nerdy Wife introduced me to Honest Toddler on Twitter and I found their blog. One entry describes the mom “drinking room temperature white wine out of a ceramic mug” and while I’m not that bad (mostly because I can’t drink), this is how I look after a day like the one described in by that entry:

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