Merry Christmas to all of my faithful readers/followers! You guy's are awesome for sticking through with me even when the posts were only random thoughts and hardly worth reading.
And for even commenting when there wasn't anything to comment on! So...
Have you ever thought about the twelve days of Christmas?
When you start to think about it you realize that the anonymous "True Love" does not seem to be very wise with their money. After all have you ever thought about the cost of having 12 partridges, 12 pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 30 french hens, 36 calling birds, 40 golden rings, 42 geese a~laying, 42 swans a~swimming, 40 maids a~milking, 36 ladies dancing, 30 lords a~leaping, 22 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming all shipped to your true love?
Not to mention all of the accessories that are needed: Cages for the 130 birds(that does not include some for the the partridges and swans), a pond for the swans to "a~swim" in, A barn+40 cows+40 stools and buckets for the "a~milking" maids, 22 pipes for the pipers and 12 drums.
Thanksgiving A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving we invited 2 families and a grandmother over for Thanksgiving dinner. One family had a relative pass away and couldn't come. The other family wasn't sure. And the grandmother got sick the day before and couldn't come. We tried another family but they couldn't come. Oh well. Then it turned out that Family #2 could come after all!!! Well Thanksgiving day they came over and stayed most of the day and we had a WONDERFUL time talking to them and getting to know them better.
Football Then something wonderful happened!!! They invited us over to their house to see a football game the next day!!! Now for most people this would not be that big of a deal but for 8 crazy football fans who have never even seen one game this is a BIG deal!!! After all our favorite team was going to play and they were going to win we were sure! We were SOOO exited!!! So we went to our friends house and watched the game and our team pulled through for us and won!!!
Christmas Time Then the day after that we drove around looking for a tree farm, didn't find one and settled on going to Lowes. Now for most people this would not be that big of a deal but for a family who has always gotten a tree from a farm this was a new experience!!! So we looked around, picked one came home and set it up and broke more ornaments than I think we have ever broken(we finally decided that this was not the year for breakable ornaments and just decorated with the more durable ones!!! Then we had a few gift cards we were going to use on Christmas gifts so we headed out to shop!!! Now for most people this would not be that big of a deal but for a family who has always gotten all of their clothes and such from the thrift store(and love shopping there) going out toa "real" store is a big event! Well we went and looked and laughed and had a wonderful time seeing the sights.
And that is the story of Thanksgiving, Football and Christmas Time with my wonderful, fun and hilarious family!!!
I'm probably the person in our family who complains most about the pets. "They're dirty, they eat everything, etc."
But the other day when Jessica told me that Coca had been missing for several days I realized just how much I liked him.
He would always come and greet me when I walked outside and what did I do? I would yell: "Shoo, shoo, you dirty cat!"
He was so funny when he would waddle across the yard to the porch everyday at breakfast. Not anymore.
Sweet "Tubby" as we so fondly called him has run away and I miss him.
I look out the window sometimes hoping to see him waddling across the yard to me but he isn't. If he ever does I will run to greet him and give him a big bowl of food because I've missed him and that's what he always liked best.
Last night I heard a cat meowing out in the woods so I got a flashlight and ran out to go see if I could find the cat but it was only Susan our other cat that is not lost.
I have a statue of a cat that looks just like he did that I keep to remember him by. Some people may think it's silly, but it's not. It's sad that our favorite cat has disappeared.
I pray now that he will come back to the family who loved him most.
(Pretend that this published on November 10th) Rachel is a good sister. I am not. Rachel writes sweet posts about why she's glad to be my twin. I get the flu and lay in bed for a week and moan and groan. Rachel cleans our bedroom and keeps things tidy. I play violin all day and make messes. But besides all those differences we get along just capital.
Today I will do something I was supposed to do a LONG time ago. That is tell about my sister Emily's blog. His Handiwork It is a blog designed to tell about God's wonderful creation. Right now she is working through astronomy; very interesting. She works very hard to keep it up and I think she does a very good job. So head on over there and look around and say "Hi"!!!
True, I am not a very good sister because the other day I asked Jess how old she was because I thought she was 19!!! Much to my relief she told me that she was only 16 about to be 17(if she were 19 I would be 17). But to day is her 17th birthday so I will tell you how great she is.
First of all she is always the brave older sister even when we get roped into doing crazy things like play that song at the bluegrass festival that none of us knew.
And then the time at that wedding that we played at where she had to play harmony all by herself because I got SOOO lost and couldn't find my place again.
And she does fun things like order tons of wheat berries by the truck load.
And she lets me play my friends instruments even when I shouldn't. Sometimes she even joins the fun.
And she hosts Film Festivals that are SOOO much FUN even when she has to speak in front of 200+ people.
I have a new background for my blog. Isn't it cute??? I decided to go with something cute and perky for a change. So I tried to choose something that my sister Rachel would choose. She always puts something like fluffy baby chickson her blog so that's what I did. It was either the paw printsor the coffee-bean imprint. Well and there was the option of barbed wire or the fish skeleton silhouette. Oh, and I could either have the Wine and Cheese photo or the Spices~At~Market one. So many options!!! What will I choose!?!?!?!
It will be the paw prints!!! Just kidding I didn't really want ANY of those! Just the paw prints!
I LOVE sheetmusic!!! Of course I do. Who doesn't??? It tells you how to play all of your favorite pieces. That if you can find it. And that is why I love IMSLP.org!!! For about a year and half I sat in my room with my violin; confined to hymns, Christmas songs and bluegrass fiddle tunes. There's nothing wrong with those pieces but if you love Classical music as much as I do you get kind of bored and playing the violin isn't as much fun as all your friends at church and biblestudy(who play The Great Classics)make it out to be .
Until one day...
The International Music Score Library Project walks into your life. The free public domain music library. Online since February 16, 2006 · 29,567 works · 73,532 scores · 1,135 recordings · 4,223 composers · 37 performers It was "love at first pageview"!!! That is where I get almost all my classical sheetmusic now!!! Everything from Canon in D to Polonaise de Concert!!! Before you know it you are playing fun pieces you never even knew existed!!!
I found this book the other day at the library. When I first picked it up I thought that it looked kind of boring but I got it anyway(no clue why). Well on the way home I started looking at it and read a little bit of the introduction; I LOVED it!!! It is a book about Antonio Stradivari and 6 of the instruments that he made. Of course I didn't get to read the whole thing because we had to return it to the library(one of the many, many bad things about being a slow reader) but have no doubt, I will get it again!!!
No, it's not really seagrass but this photo reminded me of being at the beach with the sun setting over the dunes so that's why I titled this post what I did. And I took about a billion of these photos (okay, maybe not a billion but a lot) so I might post some more later.
Aaron Copland is fun!!! I've always been a little prejudice about him because he was slightly more recent (1944)and I have never really liked music from that time period because it always seemed to sound well... "messy" I guess could describe it. You know, odd harmony at times, different sections of the orchestra seem to be almost fighting against each other to be heard, things like that.
Yes I know that that is what the composer wanted but I have always liked how Vivaldi, Bach and all the other composers like them kept all their instruments together, playing happily. And don't even get me started on how unpredictable Brahms' music is!
But I will be prejudice no more! It all started when I would play violin with my friend Ren. She would always ask me if I had ever heard "Rodeo". Well I hadn't but then the other day my mom found THIS website. THIS is "Rodeo". You have to listen to it! And another pretty one that he wrote is Appalachian Spring. After I heard those songs I got a Aaron Copland CD at the library and I am enjoying listening to it. I am also enjoying not having to blog everyday but I will try to get so more of the camping photos up soon!
It is interesting how taking a photo from a different angle can change your view of it. These two photos were taken from the same place on the trail but the camera was turned at a different angle for each one. In the first one the trail looks shorter and in the second the trail looks so much longer. It is neat how you can change little things to make your viewers see things so differently.
P.S. We've been on a camping trip in the Smokey Mountains this week so I have LOTS of photos to post as soon as I get the chance.
This is the first photo we ever posted on this blog.
And this is the first photo I posted when I decided to post for a year.
And this was yesterdays post; my last one. Sniff...
I can't decide which one was my favorite from the whole year so please comment on the post you liked best and tell me if it was your favorite.
And now for...
my "speech."
Well this is it. My good bye. And as I don't have very many parting words to say, I borrowed a few from a friend who also posted photos for a year and who has better grammar they I do(you can see his photos HERE).
Here they are (edited slightly):
(Evan) Today I have posted for a 1 year and I'm done. As I was thinking about the experience of posting per day… I reflected a little on the frustration of *needing* to post a photo. I felt like it forced me sometimes to put up photos of lesser quality, or without any story of how it was made or why I liked it. I don't want to do that any more. So as of today, now that I've reached my milestone, I'm going to stop *needing* to post a photo every day. If I have photos, I'll post them every now and then. But I won't dig back in my archives(or borrow someone else'), and dress up some old photo just to keep up the "high score." I'm only going to post a photo if I really think it's quality, and I'll also really take the time to write something good to go along with it(or try).
(Erin again) Here is the deal: I found posting every day to be just a wee bit exhausting. I mean every day I had to find the time to get on the computer, open up the page,pick a photo(that was REALLY hard), think of a title(or a least try),etc.
And I'm also going to try to limit my computer time a bit more. I may end up posting often or you may never hear from me again. Only time will tell.
I'm also thinking of expanding my blog (just a wee bit). Seeing as how I LOVE music so much it will end up being more of a photography/music blog. Is that okay with everyone???
And in honor of that: does everyone know what a "Wolf Tone" is???
When we go to the pool we always have "Splash Contests." This is a picture of Rachel's splash. Surprisingly she did not win. I was the one who won but no one got a picture of that.
Aha!!! It's another "Sky Photo!!!" How exiting!!! This was taken the nigh of the Film Festival when it was still light outside. I got so busy that the next time I looked up there it 10:00 at night and pitch dark outside.
I'm running out of photos!!! I haven't been on a photo-shoot in a while so I'm posting photos that look a like a lot but I am going to try to go out today and find a nice photo for my 1 year mile-marker that is coming up in a few days!!! We will see!!!
But i think that it is officially FALL!!! Don't you??? I mean it's September, the trees are starting to change colors and... there are only 102 days left until our church's Lessons and Carols Service(my favorite time of the year)!!! So come on, let's get EXCITED!!!
This is the first glimpse I ever got of my violin.
The lady we were thinking of buying it from sent this to us and I looked at it and was like "What an odd color! And it doesn't have fine-tuners! I don't really want it!"
But we went and looked at it anyway. She pulled up in the parking lot of the YMCA where she worked and got out, open up her trunk and pulled out the case.
The violin hadn't been played in years so it was horribly out of tune but I remember playing just a little bit -open strings- and I said " That's it! I LOVE this instrument!!! I want to play this violin for the rest of my days!!!"
And so ends the story of how I got my violin almost a year ago.
