Life's Little Pleasures

I think it's nice when something really small makes me happy and reminds me of how wonderful it is to be alive. I usually have several of these moments a day (well, on good days anyway) and laugh at myself intermittently for how odd I am sometimes.

For example, I bought myself some new deodorant today. I like to try out all of the different scents, so I bought a stick called "tropical satin" this time. Apparently it's supposed to moisturize the underarm area as well as act as an anti-perspirant. I know, modern science is amazing, right? So anyway, I just took a shower after working out, and I decided to try the new deodorant. It smelled really nice, it felt smooth as it was going on, and it made me feel pretty. I did a little "I feel pretty" dance and decided to write a post about it since I haven't posted in a while.

But honestly, I can't be the only one who rejoices about silly little things. What are your little pleasures?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I remember that at about this time last year, I was losing my mind over the stress of being the music director for Oliver!. I remember quite clearly thinking that no amount of money was worth the stress and agony I was going through. But I somehow managed to pull everything together, and the show was a huge success. So when they asked me this year if I'd like to be the music director for Peter Pan, I figured that since I already had one show under my belt and I actually had some music contacts this time around that things would be easy. Stupid stupid stupid!

Not only is the pit twice as large for Peter Pan, but the scores are nearly illegible. A few people who had given me a tentative yes are now giving me a resounding no after receiving their music. My almost cello player sent me an email saying that the company should be paying us to even use their scores! Do you know how hard it is to find cellists, violinists, bassoonists, oboists, and harpists in this area who are willing to play music in absurdly difficult key signatures for 2 rehearsals and 2 shows for $125?! I'm having a hard enough time myself merely trying to teach the kids how to sing the darn stuff. The lyrics and notes in my score are different from in theirs, and the lyrics are different from both in the actual script. It's a nightmare. When the director told me that she had to beg the company to let us do Peter Pan because they don't sell licenses to the show anymore, I should have taken that as a huge warning sign. It's a nightmare.

In the interest of keeping my sanity, I am going to post my favorite song of the moment.



Much better.

It Sucks to be Me

Actually, it really doesn't suck at all to be me. I wrote a pretty long post this past weekend, but it turned out to be kind of depressing and too personal. Watching this video is much better than reading about that crap.

I have never seen Avenue Q, but it's supposed to be hilarious. My husband seemed to think that this video was funny the first time I played it for him, but I think that his amusement died after I played it for the tenth time while wallowing in self-pity.

The good thing is that life seems to be getting back to normal, whatever that is.

Bubbly

I know that I have been really bad about posting lately, but sometimes it's hard for me to come up with things to write about. It's not that I don't have thoughts and opinions. I want to put down my thoughts but am wary of them being posted to the Internet and then used against me. My husband is reading over my shoulder and laughing maniacally right now, increasing my level of concern. So anyway, that's why I haven't been posting very much. Perhaps a good thing to do would be for me to actually sit down and try to come up with a list of topics that I wouldn't mind sharing with the world, but I really don't have time for that. I'm afraid you'll have to live with my little random postings for now. I will try to be better about posting during the month of November though.

I love this song by Colbie Caillat. Her voice has a nice timbre that complements the guitar quite well.

What's My Band Playing?

The school year is now in full swing, and my rehearsals for band and chorus have begun. My students are starting to dust off their instruments and are attempting to play the music I have chosen for them. Choosing music is actually a rather difficult task. There aren't many good pieces written for middle school, especially for chorus. Don't get me wrong, there are some very pretty melodies written for middle school chorus that have all the right voice ranges for that age group, but I have a policy where I do not give the students anything to sing that I would be ashamed to sing in front of an audience myself. Trite lyrics just don't fly in my book. Every fall and spring, I am sent CD's of sample music that makes me cringe. Take this, for example:

This Old Hammer

The site won't let me give you the page directly, so you're going to have to do a little work. Type in "This Old Hammer Roger Emerson". If you dare, please click on "see and hear the music" where you can hear an audio sample of this... thing. Umm, my chorus would laugh in my face if I gave this to them. Wait, I take that back. They like and respect me too much to do that, but they SHOULD laugh. It makes me shiver. Whenever I get mad at the Philosopher King, I just pop that CD in for us both to enjoy.

Picking out band music is not nearly as painful. I gave my band the music to "Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. Middle school kids seem to love Grieg. His music is fun, his name is fun to pronounce, and there are some great arrangements out there for kiddies. Anyway, their eyes got really big when I passed out the music today. Granted, there are a lot of notes, but once they actually started to play those notes I had them in the palm of my hand. As one of my students told me yesterday in chorus, "Man, you have GREAT taste in music!" And that's why I'm the master ;)

Newfie Screech

As you can probably tell, these pictures aren't all in order. The ones towards the bottom were taken before the wedding, and most of the other ones were taken after the wedding and during the reception, except for the one random picture of Matt in the car. The whole trip was quite beautiful.

Always Room for One More

It has certainly been a while since I have posted anything, and I sincerely apologize! Life has been a little crazy lately. The Philosopher King and I have moved to the town in which I work. I am now about a 7 minute drive away from school, and we are out of the city. We are renting a house rather than an apartment, and although it's a little rough around the edges, we are much happier. We have a nice backyard and a back porch! Life is good.

We had barely begun to unpack our stuff when it was time for us to travel to Newfoundland for Nate and Michelle's wedding. I tried to take lots of pictures, and I will be posting some of them here. I wanted to make Megan feel like she had been there, so I'm going to send all of the pictures to her. Megan, we also have a little package for you, because you were certainly missed!

I am a little disappointed, because I realized right before we got onto the ferry to go to Newfoundland that the batteries in my camera were dead. I tried to replace them when we got to Harbour Breton, but the batteries I received there only worked for 2 pictures. It's a shame, because Harbour Breton was absolutely gorgeous. The good news is that I was able to replace the batteries in time for the wedding.

I have 2 videos to share from the wedding. The sound quality isn't that great, but the first one is of Ben's speech:



The second one is of Michelle and Nathan speaking:



I will share some pictures later. It's time to get back to unpacking!

Walking Towards the Sunrise

This is a song that was written this weekend by Ryan (Matt's cousin), Gus (Ryan's friend), Matt and me. We were at camp when I convinced these boys that we should write a song together. Ryan didn't think we could do it, but I told him that I make all my seventh grade students write songs and that it would be good for him. Ryan and Matt wrote the lyrics, and Gus and I wrote the chords and melody. We stayed up until 2:00 am and then performed it later in the afternoon. I don't think it turned out too bad. We didn't practice very much before we performed it, so Gus and I kind of screwed up the ending. Overall I think we did a pretty good job. It was so much fun!

300

I don't know how much sense this video is going to make if you haven't seen the movie, but I think that this is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Well, not counting the David Hasselhoff video Megan posted today, which was also hilarious... Enjoy!

Somewhere Only We Know

I find myself regularly clicking on this video on YouTube. The piano player is so much fun to watch.

The Crazies are Out

So last night my husband and I were in the kitchen. He had just finished playing a round of golf with one of his buddies, where he picked up some startling information. He said to me, "So it looks like [name of his buddy's friend] is in jail for beating up his girlfriend." I think my mouth dropped open a little bit, and he said, "Does that really surprise you?"

I had to think a minute, because this guy really is a complete jerk. He likes to wave his money around and be something of a playboy. Usually I don't really notice him because I'm too busy thinking about what a complete jerk my husband's buddy is (for those of you who know the story, I'm referring to the groomsman who got kicked out of the wedding party). Still, it did surprise me, shock me in fact. It usually shocks me when people do evil things. People do them all the time, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, but I am.

Since I've been on summer break, I've been reading a lot of news stories on the Internet. This is probably bad for me because it gets me all riled up and then gives me nightmares later. The violence that happens in this country is so sick and disgusting. How can people treat each other like this? What would make a man want to bite off the upper lip and ear of a 3-year-old girl? Why would a group of people torture a boy in a closet, drop his mother's head a few times on some tile and then laugh when she's dead? On July 4th, two kids, ages 1 and 6 were caught in a crossfire and got shot in a park. In another instance, a man lay beat up and tortured in his own basement while his partner was raped upstairs. And what about crimes of indifference? A woman lay bleeding in a store from stab wounds while people walked over her and one person even took a picture with her cell phone. No one tried to help her, and she died. Women get beat up and/or shot by men they trust, and children are abused everyday.

What's wrong with people?! Maybe I'm just naive or overly sensitive, but it really shocks me when I read stories of people intentionally trying to physically hurt other people. These people don't live by the rules of society and shouldn't really be allowed to enjoy the benefits of society, including jail. I say we find some way to put these idiots back into some state of nature and let them fend for themselves where they will be away from society. They won't get the "gangsta coolness" of jailtime if they're out in the desert with no clothes. Of course they'd probably just band together to form their own society and eventually bomb us and stuff... I just wish these people would straighten out and have more appreciation for life!

With a Little Help From My Friends

Well, this is a little embarrassing, but I went back to the Ladies Workout Express yesterday for the first time since I wrote about it on the blog, which was in February. Now that I am on summer break from teaching, I don't really have any excuses to not work out, except that I seriously dislike it. So this time, I've decided to drag along some people with me, because I obviously can't do this by myself. I signed up for the Self Challenge that Self magazine is doing, and I invited some friends to do it with me. My darling husband staunchly refuses to sign up at a coed gym with me, saying that gyms bore him. So I have started jogging outside in the morning in hopes that he will be more inclined to exercise with me. So far, this has been working pretty well. I am hoping that my attempts at physical fitness will be better this year with a little help from my friends! So if you are interested in getting in on the fun (or torture, or whatever you want to call it), feel free to sign up for the Self Challenge on www.self.com and make me your buddy. I'm not really into that whole MySpace stuff, but I sure wouldn't mind some workout buddies, even if they're just online ones!

My Perfect Wedding - Part VI

3 1/2 Days

That's how much more time I am required to spend at school before summer break!!! The end of this school year is drawing mixed emotions from me. On one hand, I am very much ready for a break, but on the other hand, I am going to miss all of the excitement that middle schoolers bring into my life. I enjoy coming home with stories of how completely wacky the kids are. Now what am I supposed to do all day? Play with paper dolls and pretend that they're my students? I can just see how that evening conversation would go...

Philosopher King: So how was your day today?
Me: It was unbelievable. You wouldn't believe all the trouble those kids got into today!
Philosopher King: What kids?
Me: My imaginary students.
Philosopher King: Oh, right...
Me: I was trying to teach them how to swing their eighth notes, and they just couldn't get it. I was trying to be patient, but they lost interest and started talking to each other instead of even trying to do it right. They started laughing and dancing around.
Philosopher King: So what did you do?
Me: I gave them all detentions.
Philosopher King: Really?
Me: No, they're just imaginary. So how was your day?

Exactly. Oh, don't feel too bad for me. I suppose I can stretch out in the sun all summer and read some good books. I suppose that wouldn't be too bad.

My Perfect Wedding - Part V

This picture of Bobbi is one of my favorites!