Flarp

Three months ago it was Christmas. Now, from this first sentence you may think that this story is going to have something to do with Christmas, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong, but you're not right either. This story in fact, is only tenuously connected to all the holiday cheer, presents, Christmas parties... So maybe I should choose a different opening sentence, but I've already made it this far so I am going to stick with it.

                                                               "Lihya, that was a toot."

Three months ago we opened our larger than average stockings and were not surprised to find our traditional, crackers, cheese, and sausage in addition to about a quart of peanut butter cups at the the toe. I was however, surprised and delighted to find a small cylinder of gooey pink Flarp. I was sent into a fit of laughter and tears even began to squeeze out of my eyes. I couldn't contain myself. My face turned red from lack of air as I immediately opened up the little putty toy and began playing with it. I made such a spectacle of myself that my mother began laughing uncontrollably and the tears came squeezing out of her eyes too.

Why in the world would such a silly play thing, you may ask, invoke such an outrageous reaction? I don't rightly know but let me tell you a story about Flarp.

Just Hopping on to Say Hello

Hello all, I know I have not been active on my blog for a while. Maybe yall can guess why? Yes its true, I'm pulling the "we're in the process of adopting four boys two of which are twins" card.

Since they've moved in things have gone just as I expected. It's been hard, very tiring, amusing, a little hard on the heart strings, and above all else absolutely incredible. I think I have kind of overrun my friends newseed on Facebook with little stories about them. I will share a few of them here just because I know some of my readers don't have Facebook accounts. Don't worry though, when we come to that part I will warn you so those of you who have been following me daily won't have to read it all over again.

I guess the main point of this post is to let yall know that I'm still here, alive and kicking. Well, alive at least. At the moment I am using the little store of energy I have left to write this for yall. I've been sick the past few days and it's just been really blah. Today I went out in the pouring rain to check the mail. It was really exciting and has been the highlight of my day. Understandably, it probably would have been the highlight of the day regardless if I was sick or not. Still, the adrenaline rush I felt walking through the huge puddle that is our yard was nothing like I've felt since the day we spotted the parking lot after a two day hike with only two meals between them.

I've had my birthday since last talking with yall and I've made plans to take a nine day trip up north with my Grandma. We are going to Detroit to see the old home place and go to church. We'll probably take a short jog into Canada too. We'll also spend some time up in Traverse City with family. It's a fifteen hour trip that I am not looking forward to driving, but I am excited to be going. I'll be lugging along some of my school work too and try to get some work in at night before I go to bed. The rest of the time I suppose we'll be busy. I'll write a blog post about our trip when I get back.

Now, here are some Facebook posts for yall and a few pictures. I'll try to get back into Musical Monday as soon as I can. As it is though, it's going to be tough to find a good time to record without little guys playing the accompanying background track.

Musical Monday; Come, Holy Ghost, Our Souls Inspire

Because yesterday was Pentecost here is a video of my favorite Pentecost hymn. It too, like many of the hymns I play, has origins that date way back. The hymnal says this was based on the song Veni, Creator Spritus, meaning "Come Creator Spirit". It is believed to be written by a man named Rhabanus Maurus in the 9th century.

Lyrics
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And lighten with celestial fire;
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost Thy sev'nfold gifts impart.

Musical Monday, Gymnopedie

This week's feature, Gymnopedie No. 1  by Eric Satie, is a song that is very hard to conquer. I have only played this song beautifully, the way it was intended, once. It is not a complicated song by any means and not difficult to play, but it is very difficult to feel. There are many recordings of this online and I guess I'll add mine to the hodge podge now. It's not the best, but hey, you asked for my music.

Below, is a blog post that I wrote about this song but never published for some reason.

Toe Ring - Bartok - Epiphany - Frog

My mother came into my bedroom with her pink and black pajamas on. "Get up! We're going to be late, we have to leave in thirty minutes." Now that my friend, is not the kind of thing a teenage girl wants to hear when she has any place to go besides the kitchen or livingroom.

I rolled out of my bed and fetched my clothes out of the backpack I had not yet unpacked from the day before when I was baby sitting my pastors three young children. A yellow skirt and my blue T-shirt from Wall Mart with an owl and the caption, "It's owl good", exactly not what I was feeling this morning. I had just got out my razor when I was told to get Jubal up.
        I came to his bed and bent down and patted his back. "Jubal, it's time to get up. Good morning." I smiled.
        He was up instantly and the first thing out of his mouth as he stumbled around the room was "Play, play" He rubbed his tummy and almost fell over.
        "No, it's not time to play now. It's time to go potty."
He groggily followed me to the bathroom. Groggy toddlers are so cute. With him sitting on the potty I finished shaving. I gave myself razor burn and missed an entire two and a half inch patch of stubby hair. Ack! So embarrassing.. and here I am telling you all about it.
       Well anyways, all this time Savannah had been making french toast and scrambled eggs. I sent Jubal to Savannah to get something to eat. Savannah was already dressed, had her hair braided, and had her bag packed for later today. How did she do that? I continued my mad rush; scarfed down a couple of bites of toast; spent three minutes looking for my deodorant which should have been on my dresser but was of course in my backpack; found my-toe ring.

Singing with Baby

He loves it when I sing this for him. It always changes because he asks for different things. The song started out being only about what we saw when we went on a walk but then he started wanting to sing about boats and his friends. He is a cutie. At the end you might notise him pointing to the keys. That is because he wants me to sing and he is pointing to the the cracks in between the keys because he wants me to sing about that.

Video: Can You Say No?

Yay! I think I have finally figured out how to put videos in my blog posts! I hope y'all like this one. My baby brother is such a cutie. Well It's not really a video, but it is really close!