Wednesday, January 18, 2006

here comes the rain again

Well. I woke up at 4:30 this morning, flopped around until 5:30, gave up sleeping as a hopeless endeavor, and came out to the living room to tidy up, do some laundry, make some coffee, read my BIBLE WITH NO INTERRUPTIONS and in general have some alone time.

I will pay for this substantially later on, I know, but for now, it's all good.

I love having a laptop with a wireless connection!

My new thing:

South Sound Classical Choir! I love this so far. I've been to two rehearsals and we're doing some lovely works:
  1. Awake The Harp, Haydn (from The Creation)
  2. O Domine Jesu Christe, Palestrina
  3. How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place, Brahms
  4. Zion's Walls, Copland
  5. The Last Words of David, Thompson
  6. Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace, St. Francis of Assisi, music by Rutter
  7. Libera Me, Faure (MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE - incredibly rich melody in Dm)
  8. "See, the conqu'ring hero comes!" from Judas Maccabeus, Handel (you might recognize the tune in your hymnal as Thine Be the Glory)
  9. "Sing unto God" (also from Judas Maccabeus)
  10. In Paradisum (from Requiem), another Faure.
57 people in this choir, and it is bone-chillingly beautiful. The choir already knows Awake the Harp and Zion's Walls, but the other 8 songs they are just beginning to learn so I'm not too far out of it. Fortunately I sightread well and I'm a pretty quick study. Still, this isn't going to be a cakewalk; I am way (!) out of vocal shape. Where did my breath support go?! It'll come back, though.

And another nice thing is I'm being exposed to composers I'd only heard of (Faure) and now I want to hear more more more.

Now, technically I think our rainy streak ended at 27 days, because Sunday at SeaTac they didn't get enough to measure. BUT it rained in Puyallup. So though "officially" the streak has ended for Seattle, it hasn't quit here; although yesterday there was some occasional (very occasional) sunshine. And oh yes, rain. Looking out the window right now in the early morning light: ground is wet, but I don't see any drops splashing in the puddles in front of my house right now. So as of yesterday, 3o days of rain in Puyallup. Gads. I need a light box, therapy, something. I mean, for a California girl, I'm pretty acclimated to the Pac NW now, but this is getting very challenging. I'm having pity on those with S.A.D. I can fully understand the desire to move to Tuscon. Get back, Jo Jo. (gratuitous Beatles reference).

Hm. almost 8 am. Still silent in the recesses of the house. Better grab myself another cuppa before A wakes up and filches his 75% of the Daily Brew. (Sideline comment: I love the word filch. And I love the character Argus Filch in the HP series - well no, not the character, but his name is just so darn appropriate, KWIM? Argus, the mythological creature of thousands of eyes; Filch, to take, steal, commandeer, what-have-you.....and you have the perfect name of the caretaker at Hogwarts who snoops around the halls and corridors looking for students who have fanged frisbees, dungbombs, etc.) That was a long parenthetical aside, boy howdy.

This am is our monthly Chapter meeting of the WSMTA. Business meeting at 9:30, then I have a student coming at 10:30 to demonstrate the adjudications process with Dr J. My lovely student will play one of her pieces, then Dr. J. will demonstrate how/what an adjudicator will do. This will be very helpful for both me and my student: adjudications are new to me this year, as well as my student. So we get a free trial run, so to speak. Plus my student gets to skip classes at school, always a benefit! :) I think I'll get her a McD's Arch Card for her willingness to be a guinea pig.

I've babbled on long enough; time to refill my St. Elmo, CO mug and start the wakeup process of the rest of the family. Yeah, we get up late around here. Lazy Homeschooling family, u know.
I always sing the Silly Song "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" but make some changes:
We are the homeschoolers who don't do anything--
We just stay at home and lie around---
If you ask us to do anything...
We'll just tell you.....
We don't do anything!!

What a laugh though, our schedule is packed with lots of things! :)

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