Ordinary Time

Since today was the first Sunday of Advent, we lit our Advent candle and after dinner had our traditional carol sing around the piano. I have always loved this family tradition. What I possibly love even more is that my children love it and we're looking forward to it. They have even lobbied to do some carol singing at our tree trimming party on Saturday because they think it's even more fun with their older brothers and sisters joining in.  And I have to add, that after years of carol singing, often doing all the verses, I am pretty impressed with how many they know from memory. I actually had no idea they all knew all five verses of Good King Wenceslas. 

My radio listening tastes are all over the board. Sometimes it's classical, sometimes is a Christian station (one that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out while driving), sometimes it's the BBC or the French Quebec station we get in the car so I practice my French, and sometimes it's NPR. If I have G. with me, our resident NPR junkie, as I did today, I'll probably turn on NPR... plus I like their Saturday programming.  What I love most about listening to a wide variety of stations is that sometimes I come across things that I would never have known about. This is what happened today while G. and I were going on the exciting errand of getting cat litter. We learned about the musical group the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, who were an integrated, all-female jazz band who performed in the 1940's.  It's a crazy story about a girl's high school marching band turned dance band turned jazz band after stealing the band bus and heading to New York. Th...

Good Friday, the day we remember Jesus dying a horrific death for the sins of the world. The day all seemed lost, but in reality, the day that everything changed. I'm linking to the full Requiem by John Rutter. A requiem is a mass for the dead, and a musical requiem sets the different parts of the mass to music. Rutter doesn't follow a strict mass, but combines them with the Book of Common Prayer. 1. Requiem Aeternam and Kyrie Elieson 2. Out of the Deep (Psalm 130) 3. Pie Jesu 4. Sanctus 5. Agnus Dei 6. The Lord is my Shepherd 7. Lux Aeterna 8. I Will Lift up My Eyes I think it is a beautiful piece of music, and certainly fitting for the day and season. Take the time to listen to it.

When you move to a place where you know no one, it can be difficult to start all over again. This is particularly true if you are a private teacher. Since it seems that the area where we've landed relies heavily on the internet for information, I have decided that I needed to create a Facebook page for my piano studio . So this is what I did last night instead of writing a blog post. For people on Facebook, if you care to, a visit to my new page, and a like would be much appreciated. If I have ever taught you or your child, and you would care to write a positive review, that would be much appreciated as well. ___________________ Vegetable tally... last night we had pasta with pesto. I decided that even though basil is typically classified as an herb, when you use four cups of the stuff it counts as a vegetable. Halfway through the month, and we are at 29 different entries. If you want to quibble about me dividing up lettuce and tomatoes into types, then you drop the total down t...

This is one of the lines to describe the narrator's Christmas in the movie, A Child's Christmas in Wales. (That would be the same movie we always watch on Thanksgiving night, after dinner is over.) I have always found it to sum up a big part of my own family's Christmas as well. Singing Christmas carols and listening to Christmas music is something we do a lot of during the Christmas season. We sing each Sunday of Advent after dinner, we sing on Christmas Eve before we tuck everyone into bed, and we try to invite friends over for an evening of singing as well. This is what we did last night. The H-S family and P. family joined us and we ate cookies and drank eggnog and sang. We have done this for many years, our three families. We have all added children and all of us now have grown children. Some have moved away, some have gotten married, and there is even a quickly growing baby in the mix. I'm sure I'm not the only one of the six adults to find these moments a b...

So by now you all know that we would starve if we were reduced to relying on my photographic ability (or non-ability as the case may be) to support our family. This does not seem to be the case for TM. He likes to take my iPod and take pictures with it. Yes, this is the same device that I have so magnificently failed at. He really wanted me to share some of the pictures he's taken recently. And a picture of his most recent art work. He is all set to turn the heat gun on this and see what happens. (Those crayons are glued on.)

A marginally happier blogger is back today. I'm feeling better, but H. is now down for the count. Poor thing can't catch a break these days. Right now she is sound asleep which is good because she can't keep anything down. But as the doctor who saw the little girls for their ear infections said, if you homeschool, you can always get to school even if you're sick. That is essentially what happened yesterday. As you know, we've been learning about the Silk Road. (It's my newest fascination, so you'll just have to bear with me as I work it our of my system.) With homeschooling, as well as getting to go to school when you're sick, there are also no definite lines between subjects. There are connections everywhere and it is difficult to say where history ends and geography, music, art, and language studies begin. In fact, I believe it is all these other things which make the study of history come alive. Which is why if you had stopped by my house yesterday ...