After Christmas Hymns

We have played our sacred Christmas playlists all season, and though we tire of the songs eventually, I love the spiritual food they offer. I'm not quite ready to go back to bluegrass and pop yet, so I've gathered together three hours of hymns to listen to. All arrangements are pretty pared down, which is how I like it. If you like the over-puffed choir and electronic embellishment sound, don't click here. If not, do click, you may find your January favorites:

Dancing for Joy: We Danced our Best for Him

Our children performed in tonight's Dancing for Joy production of "We Danced Our Best for Him".  They were terrific and the show altogether was outstanding.  I love the musical selections so much that I came home and bought them.  Here is the link to the We Danced Our Best for Him playlist in case you were there and also want the music.

slumber my darling

Alison+Krauss

Held by Natalie Grant

The holidays were really hard for me when we were waiting for children, and I know that family gatherings are bittersweet for all who have suffered tremendous loss. I'm posting today this video of Natalie Grant's Held from the Awaken album in acknowledgment of holiday sorrows.

I love the song, the lyrics, the singing. I find the video to be too much of 'look at me, I'm so pretty', so my advice is to launch it and listen, but don't watch.

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling.
Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive,
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows.
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held.

If hope if born of suffering,
If this is only the beginning,
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior?

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held.

Music Video Monday

ron paul

Two Classical Music CD Contests & a Brief History of the Bach Family

Two classical music contests await you.

1. Analekta is giving away a Christmas CD, but you had better hurray as today is the last day.

2. I am giving away this Decca recording of Christophe Rousset playing J.S. Bach's Italian Concerto, BWV 971, French Overture, BMV 831, and Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue, BMV 903. The performance is reported to be "one of the best Bach harpsichord recitals". It is indeed pre-listened-to CD and the cover is a bit smudged.

Why am I giving this CD away? Because, though I know I ought to like it, being Bach and all, I really really dislike Harpsichord and/or anything from the Baroque period. I did try, I really did.

Click on the pic to go to a site where you can hear some samples of the CD and find out if it suits you. If so, all you have to do to enter to win it is to post about these contests on your blog and then leave a comment here with a link to your post. Next week I'll number the comments and do a random something-er-other to select the winner.

BTW, did you know that there are 4 Bach composers? They didn't teach that at my school either. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) aka J.S. Bach, is the most commonly known Bach, the prolific composer and patriarch of the musical clan. He had two composer sons: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1754) and Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) aka C.P.E. Bach, and one composer grandson Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759-1854). Now you know.


music

Lakme's Flower Duet

This is our niece, on the left, and her third cousin on the right, singing the Flower Duet, which is one of my all-time favs. On my old phone, it was my ringtone.

weekend

We spent yesterday at the Darrington Bluegrass festival. Last year it was 106 degrees and we melted. This year it was solid pouring drenching rain. We wore raingear and sat under umbrellas and plastic sheets; when it was all over I stripped the kids in the car and wrung water out of their under-things. We were soaked. Fortunately it was not cold, just cool and the music was great. We got to hear Country Current (the Navy bluegrass band) and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. This all was, of course, the day after I stayed up all night reading Harry Potter.

So, we got home last night at 1 am and fell into bed. Today we gathered at my parents' home for a 4-person birthday bash. This was Chickadee's first birthday party EVER and she loved it. Lovely presents were exchanged and cousins played and a good time was had by all. She'll be 6 on Tuesday.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

Dad and Mom and two of my nieces and I went to see Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix tonight. It was my Dad's first fun outing since the accident (the other outings being doctor appointments and a funeral). After the movie we had ice cream and chatted and it felt for a little while like old times.

Comments on the movie:

Professor Umbridge was very well-played as was Luna. All the actors and actresses are looking grown-up; Harry has muscles.

The movie felt very rushed; had one not read the book, many of the scenes would be minimally comprehensible. That being said, it was a really big book to try to squeeze into a movie.

It wasn't the best HP movie, but I did enjoy it. I'm going to try to reread all books 1-6 this week to get warmed up for book 7. It comes out on bluegrass festival day and the next day is a big family get-together, so I won't get to read it until Monday. I'm planning to let the children run amok and just read all day. Just kidding. I'll toss them into the pool and read on the deck. Supervised running amok.

singing table graces

On of my most treasure memories of childhood (aside from the night my Dad snuck blankets out to me when I had fallen asleep in the dog house with the 12 new puppies) was singing our table grace every night before dinner. Part of my pleasure was that my sister has a awesome singing voice and I would close my eyes and pretend I was her. The other part was just the joy that comes from a family singing together.

Among others, we sang

For health and strength
and daily food
we give Thee thanks
oh Lord.

and

This is the Day!
This is the Day!
That the Lord has made.
That the Lord has made.
We will rejoice.
We will rejoice.
And be glad in it.
And be glad in it.

and occasionally the Protestant Doxology, though there was some debate as to whether or not this was suitable outside of church.


We've been teaching these to our children and they too love it. We hold hands, and one of us prays, and then we sing.

I'm curious, does anyone regularly sing their table grace?





:: this post was entered in Scribbet's June Write Away contest

Feelin' the Love

It's been a delicious week as people have stopped by to see the kids' pictures and rejoice with us. There is even a shower in the works and wishlists being assembled. We are feeling, as ever, grateful and blessed.

Lots of people have asked when I think we'll be going back. My completely unreliable and unscientific gut feeling is that on July 20 we will once again depart and our court appointment will be early in the week of July 23-29th. This will put us in Moscow the second week of August and home around the 11th of that month.

Why do I think it will be July 20th? because the Darrington Bluegrass Festival, which we love, will be that weekend and one of our favorite groups -- Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver -- will be playing. So that pretty much assures us that we will be out of town.

In the meantime, we are working a lot and not sleeping well at all as we toss and turn thinking about all there is to do: deal with the FOUR exterior doorways that have no landings or stairs (plywood is looking real good right about now), finish painting (still), clean up the carpenter's dust, get the carpet and the last toilet and sink installed, line up a pediatric eye specialist and a pediatric orthopedic doctor, register with the school district as home-schoolers, figure out booster and car seats, ignore the fact that our old car (one-car family here) is about to retire, furnish the the kid's room, acquire toys and clothes, get the barn and basement kid-safe, clean up all the old nails from the construction site, and avoid the 98 essays (actual number) in my In-box by Blogging! Oh yes, and Jamie is studying for a big exam tomorrow and an even bigger one in early June. And of course there is the usual spring stuff: prune, mow, storms off/screens on.

So, with that in mind, the lack of blogs in the next month should not be a surprise. Check in at the end of May, when we might have better guesstimates of our timeline.

Best,

Suzanne