Saturday Cartoon

Flute, Music and Dance

For those of you who don't know me, I've been a ballerina since I was about 4. I've always had a love of music, and in sixth grade I was apart of the band class. I started out on Clarinet, but part-way through my 7th grade year, I switched over to flute after teaching myself in a single week while my family and I went on an RV trip to Oregon.

Since then, the flute has been my favorite instrument, even when I went on to teach myself a dozen other instruments. Literally. This morning, after going through our shed last weekend, I picked up my flute which was in surprisingly good condition for having sat in the shed for a year. The last time I picked it up, it was to play at my grandmothers funeral. I found a bunch of music too, and a couple of my old books. I opened the case, and spent probably thirty minutes just polishing it back to it's former glory. There are a couple places I can't get to, like around the keys, but I've gotta take it in for a pad replacement and oiling anyway. After that, I sat down, and with Felicity trying very hard to steal the flute away and play with it, I began to play. I started with the basic scales, and after both the flute and myself were warmed up, I played Grand Ol' Flag and the Star Spangled Banner. Beautiful songs to reintroduce myself to the world of flute music. I'm still searching for where I set my sheet music from high school, but I'm sure I will find it, and when I do, I am going to play and play and play! I'm so excited to get myself back into it, and because of the emotion of the last time I played, I thought it would be difficult for me. But I've felt this awesome peace about starting again, like my grandmother is right there telling me it's ok to play again.

This weekend, I will be stage managing the Dance Happy concert of sorts, and I haven't participated in that since I was in it as a very young ballerina. I guess this week is one of new beginnings!

Sunny Sundays

So every Sunday I blog about the things in my life that make me smile. Usually, this isn't a very hard task, but today it seems especially difficult. For various reasons that I'm not going to journal about here.

But I finally did remember some of the things that I truly love. For a start, sunflowers. They're probably my favorite flower, in a tough competition with roses. They're so bright and cheery, it's hard not to like them. Plus, they give you delicious seeds that are fantastic when baked and covered with salt.

Another thing, that I actually just finished, is baking. My house is filled with the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla cake, and while my layers cool down in the fridge, the buttercream frosting ingredients are awaiting me on the counter next to my mixer, waited to be creamed and mixed together to make the best frosting on the planet. This particular cake is for a class tonight. It's our final financial planning class, and we're having a potluck to celebrate, with me making one of my famous cakes. I dug through all of my tips and pans to find stuff I haven't used in a while, and I can honestly say, I think this one is going to be one of my favorite cakes. I went and bought a container of green sprinkles which is going to turn into money signs on the side of the cake. I'm so excited about this particular cake, I'm having problems waiting patiently for the cakes to cool!

Another thing that I am excited about is my hair. Oh yes. Now, I'm not a girly girl who focuses on her hair a lot, but every once in a while I like playing with it and trying something new. I can't cut it, because I'm in a bet with another friend: we're growing out our hair for a year, so neither of us can cut it until December 1st this year. But we said nothing about dying it. -wink wink- Friday, I bleached several strips of my hair, in typical highlighting fashion, and it looked awesome. I had my fire hair back! Very blonde at the roots and getting brassier further towards the ends. But yesterday, I parted my hair, found all those highlights, and dyed them blue! Well, it's not REALLY blue, more of a turquoise… blue/green kind of color. But it's awesome, and I love it. When I came out of the bathroom, I got several strange looks from Felicity, and she was fascinated by my new color, but I think she liked it.

And tomorrow night is another play rehearsal, and that always makes me smile. I've been trying very hard today to stay positive and remember one of the many motto's that I enjoy: "Happiness is Homemade". Keep baking, writing, reading… whatever it is that makes you smile!

Saturday … Afternoon!... Cartoons

Photography Fridays

Oh the gloriousness that is photography. Whether you use a classic camera such as this one, or one of the uber professional ones, taking pictures and saving memories is just… awesome.

There is really no other hobby I love more than writing, but photography and music are vying for second place in my heart. I love taking those candid shots at family reunions, or everyday pictures of my darling daughter and other fluffy four-legged children, but the part I love most is going out into the woods around my mom's house and just… listening.

The beautiful silence of when you first arrive, and then the longer you sit there, you start hearing the chirping birds again, crickets and frogs start up their band, deer walking gracefully through the trees followed by not so graceful fawns. I'm very hard pressed as to choose which part of day is my favorite for picture taking, because there are wonderful things about each time, and of course, not so wonderful things. It's very hard to take night shots without a tripod…

This shot wasn't taken by me, it was actually taken by one of my best friends in the world (literally). He's from Texas, and he comes up to visit once a year. This past weekend was, I believe, his fourth visit up here, and we had a blast, like always.

The hat that the way too cute Felicity is wearing is from when I was in "My Fair Lady" at the theater. It no longer, sadly, has the fluff and feathers that it did for the show, but I still have the hat as a reminder. Both Felicity and I love that hat, but I do think that she looks much better with it than I do, but that's just a mothers bias I think. -wink-

Another great shot of Felicity hiding under the coffee table. I'm not entirely sure why she likes it so much, but peek-a-boo has always been one of her favorite games to play. I'm hoping that someday soon it will evolve into hide-and-seek, because that is one of my favorite games ever. Especially to play with children. It's just too much fun! Even though our house is small, we have a lot of places to hide, surprisingly enough, so it will be great fun when that turns into a game.

I think the biggest game of hide-and-seek I've done, is with the kids here at Genesis, an after school club for elementary aged kids, and we had probably twenty or so participants. Now, this club took place in the presbyterian church, and that is not a small church by any means. LOTS of places for cunning 6-10 year olds to hide!

This is on our way to the beach, and Felicity was playing with a pair of sunglasses. Uber cute right? It got so much cuter when she actually put them on, and then struck a pose. The only thing that would have topped that, is if she had been wearing the My Fair Lady hat. That would have just been too gosh darn cute.

This is me and Felicity at False Bay, we're about half-way out, and yes, it really is THAT BIG. HUGE area. It's called false bay because it really is this large bay where all the water flows out at low tide and leaves behind this awesome sand and tide pools that get really warm in the sun. It's a lot of fun to play out there, and we ended up going there twice with Larry and Chris. We even took the dogs out there, and boy, THAT is entertaining to watch.

This is one of the very few pictures of myself that I actually like, but boy, I am so glad that I tan (and tan only) quickly! I look just… white!

Last picture, I promise. We're at South Beach now, and those aren't my feet.

Felicity used to strike that same pose when she was an infant, usually in her sleep. At the time, Chris and I played a lot of Overlord, and we were struck by how similar the poses were. So, we started saying that this is her pose for summoning her minions. I.E. Mom and Dad. I don't think she quite has that figured out yet, but it's cute nonetheless!

Wednesday

Ah, lovely update day. Well, aside from editing some more, there is little to report. Oh wait, I suppose I should tell you all that I have two bookstores willing to buy and sell my book here on the island. No big deal.

Wait, what am I saying? *fangirl squeal* That is just unbelievable! I know that our island is very devoted to using and promoting local artists, but I just assumed that that was for other people, not me. But under the advice of a friend, I went and talked to the owners of two bookstores here, expecting to be told to move along, but I got the exact opposite! They were thrilled with the opportunity to promote me and my book. Can you believe that?! I can barely believe it!

So now I have even more reason to really just grind myself into the editing process instead of slowly going through it like I have been. I love to edit, but I'm a perfectionist, so I have a very steady but almost leisurely pace. It means that I'm satisfied with the end result in less editing runs, but it also takes a bit longer for me to get through a single round, especially the last one.

Anyway. You may be wondering why I have a picture of tea on here. Well, I will answer that question for you. Wednesdays are the days that two of my awesome gal-pals come over for our weekly girl day. We have been doing this for a couple months now, because we never see each other otherwise, and it's always good to stay in contact with your friends. We used to do a girls night out to round out our Wednesdays, but there is just something wrong with a TTC/pregnant woman going to a bar, ha! (As a side note, we're not pregnant yet, and we may never be able to, but more on that later, perhaps it's own post? We'll see.)

We call Wednesday's our Wii Tea day, because we drink tea and eat lots of pastries, and play Wii. We have a lot of fun, and I can't wait until they get here! It's my turn to host it at my house, so I'm busy making sure all of Felicity's little toys are off the floor and I'm making beignets. I made some on Monday to try out my tweaked recipie, and they were AWESOME! So I'm making them again. Yummy!!

Keep on writing (or baking!)!!

FINALLY!

Oh my goodness gracious! I apologize deeply for my abscence. My darling hubby deleted the history from the computer, and I had gotten so used to just clicking on my favorites tab and being taken straight to my Dashboard here, I forgot my password. I couldn't even remember which email I had used to sign up.

But I figured it out! Muwhahaha!

I must say, besides not blogging, I had a fantastic weekend. My friend Larry came up from Texas and we had a blast. This is the third year he's come up to visit, and I can't wait until next time! We went out to the beaches, Chris took him on a hike while I had to be at the theater, he walked around town and window shopped... it was a lot of fun. He took some awesome pictures that I will post on here soon.

Unfortunately, I can't recount the whole weekened for y'all right now. I have a wild and crazy two year old trying to help me type! I do believe it's time for a snack and some Veggie Tales!