Nah...Creativity Stinks...

Clearly I need medical help.

Setting a goal to write in my blog that I meant to keep?  And announcing it?  Like a challenge?  So people can text me and say that they READ it.  Sheesh!  I don't even LIKE being creative...takes too much time...it's too messy...doesn't fit in my schedule boxes.  Buncha artsy fartsy nonsense, am I right????  (Say yes, it IS my blog, after all.)

Yeah, I'm not buying it either. 

See I do things like go to a rehearsal for the worship team at my church this weekend...(I'm not singing...nope...just WATCHING...just to be clear)...they make me happy with all that silly-talking-to-my-soul junk.  And then that stuff just STICKS in there...making me happy.  And I fall asleep hearing their voices...remembering the frenetic-squirrel-on-red-bull energy of the drummer at 7:30 on Sunday morning...and I smile.  I wake with one of their more poignant songs on my head,

Or

I watch from afar as my brother, Mr. BakerMan, builds his chocolate dynasty, one mouth watering chocolate delight at a time.  Struggling with lunch ideas and new tastes and ways to shape the chocolate, while his love, my brother-in-law, uses his painter's eye and hands to make the bones of the shop, the display cases, the wall, a beautiful backdrop for BakerMan's chocolate...and I pray as they work on this birth of a dream that takes so much time and yet is going to be a wonderful reflection of their creativity together...

Or

I talk to my friend, the Composer, late, late at night, the only real time we can find for each other.  And I hear the absolute passion he has for his various crafts and I laugh with him as he tells me his latest project with excitement.  He always seems to consider how much work it all is, and still find the energy to get it going.  There is always a current project and then a bucket list FULL of more projects that are going to keep him busy and creative until the end of time...

and I think, "CRAP, I really have to write something today".

Being surrounded by creativity and actually embracing it is a new thing for me.  These people who have been in my life forever all of a sudden impact me differently...and I realize, it's part of who I am ...It's almost like it leaks out.  Ooozing stuff I want to say...thoughts, unformed, that I have to wrestle with to put on the page, but they are GOING on the page.  And I realize, possibly, I don't HAVE anything to say except...maybe

"Wow, look at the sky, y'all...what a glorious day today is going to be".

So I look at pictures and wonder, once again, at the beauty of my kids...and joy of my family...and thoughts form...stories...ideas...songs.  I hear all their songs...see all their pictures...go over all their words once again...and am inspired within my own realm for just a minute.

 Maybe, I have another post or two before I give it all up.  We shall see.

See ya around...

God's Grace in Chaos...

If you know me at all, you know this has been a tough week.  Actually if you know me at all, you know that there have been no "easy" weeks in a really long time.

And yet, things happen by accident that have God's fingerprints all over them.

As you may know, I'm one of those people who always has a song in my head...I'm usually humming or whistling...and if I discover a song that I like, I'll sing it 90,000 times trying to perfect inside my own head.

I rarely do this on purpose and I often have to stop singing to carry on a conversation...especially when I'm stressed or nervous.

Over the last few weeks this song has been on my lips more often than not.  My girls have sung it with me as it became part of the fabric of our interactions...

Last night, while washing dishes, I discovered that not only did they KNOW it, but they held the melody well...AND at least one of them had been taking over the harmony fairly regularly.

This morning, while doing hair in the best acoustic-al room of my house, I asked if I could record them...well, us.  No matter that it only sounds like one alto, there are two of us and we switch parts in the midst of the song.  I am surprised how alike we sound...I am blessed that they all will sing with me when I just need it.

God is so good.

See ya around...

Geeeee-tarrrr....

Ah the Guitar!  I love the guitar.

Now, make no mistake...I do not PLAY the guitar.  As a person who sings, but has no particular talent for instruments, (although I can honk a mean pitch pipe, if I do say so myself.) I have ALWAYS loved the guitar...or rather "the guy with the guitar" who would show up places so that I could sing along.

I don't know for certain what my first memory of "the guy with the guitar" was...but I will tell you that by the time I was 9 or 10, I had a friend whose Dad always threw those parties where "the guy with the guitar" would show up. As these parties happened at least monthly, I had a lot of exposure. To this day, my musical tastes are affected by those folksy ballads.

Now, my Dad was one of those "guys with a guitar" for a good portion of my childhood.  My Dad was a pretty interesting person, musically.  Never really trained...I'm not positive that he didn't have piano lessons as a little kid but nothing beyond that...but give him a piano and he could pick out anything.  Sometime in the late 1970s, he got "into" the guitar.

He played and played and played until, just like the piano, he could pick out anything.  So, when, at about 9 years old, I WANTED a guitar, he was ALL over it.  Got me a little guitar...got me lessons...sat next to me and played...showed me how to tune the guitar to itself...all kinds of things.  I specifically remember learning to play "Peaceful, Easy Feeling".

But then, I stopped.  I don't remember any major life changing event the made me stop...my memories of the guitar just fade away.  By the time I was 12, I KNOW I was not playing at all because I remember watching a friend who really COULD play and thinking, "Wish I could play..."  And it's pretty much been that way ever since.

Somewhere along the way, where the guitars went was lost on me.  Guitars are not like pianos...pianos are REALLY hard to move and get rid of...guitars...not so much.  All I knew was that we'd HAD guitars in Pennsylvania and Florida, but by the time we got to California, we didn't have them anymore.

Now, my dad had been making noise for about 2 years about wanting to get a guitar again...but he hadn't been able to find a nice enough cheap one.  Christmas of 2008, mom and I found a little guitar ornament...with the promise that we WOULD find one.  By Christmas of 2009, I'd found one.  Costco had a little Fender on sale for $99...so I got one for our family and mom and I went in together and got one for Dad.

You should have seen my dad with that guitar.  It was a complete surprise.  He was SHOCKED...And completely entranced.  With the opening of the guitar, we lost him for the next couple of hours.  He sat there and plucked...and strummed and tuned and plucked some more.  He was re-figuring out all the songs he used to know and trying out all the chords he'd forgotten.  I honestly don't think that I've seen him THAT excited about a gift someone else gave him, and I was SO happy.

His excitement really struck a fire in us...and we practiced and practiced and were starting to get calluses on our fingers...

As for Dad, he took the guitar home and continued playing until February, when he died...

That guitar was the first thing that I saw when I walked into the RV after arriving in Arizona after his death.

I don't want to lose this post to the melancholy into which it seems to be headed...because for the most part, this will not be melancholy...but I wanted to be clear WHY we quit playing for awhile.

During the week that we were in Arizona for his memorial, the guitar played another role.  See, my cousin came.  Now I hadn't seen my cousin in 13-15 years...but it turned out that he had something from Dad.  Dad had given my cousin our guitars some 20 years before, so he showed up with my Dad's guitar from my childhood...and the guitar my little 9 year old self played.  It was pretty cool...and pretty gut wrenching...and memory jogging.

My brother and I had a great time playing with those guitars.  He got to hear the story of our Christmas gift.  He had a few stories of his own.  And I shared the teeny tiny bit that I'd learned at that point...



When it was time to go home, Uncle BakerMan and I had decided that he would take Dad's old guitar and I would take my little-girl-guitar and the one we'd bought Dad at Christmas...that would give me 3 for the 3 girls so that we could play.

Right.

Well, as I said...the guitar has played a pretty big role in my life this last 9 months.  Thankfully, we had to wait until April, when mom got here, for Dad's guitars...but our guitar was sitting right where I'd left it, in my bedroom.  Can't tell you how many times I just sat there and looked at it.  Can't tell you how many times I told one girl or another, "Not right now" and sadly, even scolded them for strumming it while it stood on it's stand.  Can't tell you how many times I've grieved while I watched the dust collect.

Last week was actually a really hard guitar week.  I wished that I knew how to play it over and over because then I could take it camping.  I mean, what could be better than a girl, a guitar and a campfire?

So, this week I made a decision. For crying out loud...how is a dusty guitar a "good" memory of my Dad? So I took them ALL out...dusted them off...found a place to put them RIGHT OUT in plain site. AND.


And, I started the girls learning the teeny tiny bit that I know.  And played a little myself.

Time for some new memories...

Some of them a little wistful...


Some of them downright funny...


All of them linked SO HARD in my mind.

Miss you, Daddy.

See ya around...

Another life...

You know that Grandma has been with us since April and except for a couple of weeks ago when she visited my brothers, we've had her all to ourselves...well, it turns out that we'll have to share her once again.

Last week, our family lost another of our favorite people. My great Aunt Nina passed away on Thursday morning. Wow, has this been a crazy year or what? Mom is heading up to Washington on Thursday to celebrate Aunt Nina's life with our family and to visit all and sundry in our great pacific northwest family...(oooh, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get letters about that one...for the record not a single one of them is named "Sundry".)

So as the "video"/"picture" girl...I've been sharing a bunch of memories with my cousin John (he's a second or a removed or something but you get the idea) as he weeds through pictures and posts them. Some of them are so funny and some are sweet...

This is, from right to left, Aunt Nina, Nina's daughter and My Grandma Marie...all looking very "June Cleaver-y" to me...they are all gone now...



And here is another of of Aunt Nina, Grandma Marie and their brother, my Uncle Karl...also all gone...



As straight-laced as they all seem in those shots, there are also a few of these nuggets that were found...anybody else thinking...WOW!



But in light of all the other pictures...this is the one that stopped me. This is the one that made me the saddest and the gladdest...This is one of those..."I wanna do that" pictures that remind me how great my WHOLE family has always been...

Johnny titled it, "Mom and her girls---practicing for church"



What a great memory for those kids. What a wonderful moment, caught on film. I'm sure it was a typical "rehearsal"...someone was probably off key...someone was MORE than likely fidgeting or acting up in some way...someone else was probably impatient about something...but the picture of the moment...that flash of light caught the togetherness of a family. The togetherness that I KNOW carried on in her life and gave her children and the rest of her family joy. Lots of it.

After seeing that picture the other day...I put MY mom to good use. The woman can PLAY the piano...so I made her. And she made US learn a new song...and then Bear made HER play an old song for us...one that is full of meaning for us because it's played a part in the last two funerals, Grandma Marie and Daddy...and I just recorded the moments...in memory of Nina...but FOR me.

I don't know how long I'll get to keep my mommy...but I never ever want to lose the moments.

The one she taught us "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (1:59)



And part of one we made her play, well BEAR made her play, again and again..."Until Then" (1:54)





Aunt Nina...you will be missed. We love you.

See ya around...

Worship Camp...

Well, it's over. The worship camp that my kids went to last week is over. I sit here pondering my next words because the camp...the show...the production of the whole thing was so stunning that I do not want to take the chance that you will take my words as simply a proud momma spouting superlatives and think, "yeah, yeah, Stack, we know, kid's performance, yada yada".

So I'm going to appeal to the performers that I know who read this blog. This is to all of you who have ever rehearsed for a performance, practiced choreography, memorized lines, had stage fright, sang ONE song in front of an audience in a choral group or in the choir. To those who were ever behind the scenes taking care of lights or mics or costume changes or writing programs or any of the other myriad of things that go on behind the scenes in ANY performance. And then I'd like to add to that list, those of you who I know have done these things with children.

How long would it take in rehearsal time alone, to put together a show with 12 numbers in it? Okay, 12 numbers and 20 Speakers, 7 dancers, 20 Soloists and at least 2 Silent Actors (although there were more)? How 'bout all of that coming out of a group of somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100 kids that ranged in ages from Kindergarten to 7th grade and had NEVER worked together before the first morning of the camp? How long would you estimate that to take?

My experience with similar stuff took WEEKS...sometimes months.

They did it in five, three hour days of a Summer CAMP.

And it was amazing. Every song was good. Every song had choreography of some sort and some of them quite a lot. At the beginning of every song, kids had to move up and down the risers, and shift around to their places and there was not a single mishap.

And the individual kids who did solo performances? Every single one of them did a GREAT job. They stood where they should, they put their shoulders back and they SANG, and DANCED, and ACTED...and if a few of them were a little nervous (or even a lot) they pulled it off and blessed us all with their visible joy, beautiful voices, and funny lines.

I have been thinking about it all night. I don't know the three (correction, there were four) ladies who took on this task personally. But I am stunned at the result. Even with the huge amount of support that they received from the parents in the church for the nitty gritty tasks, I believe in my heart that only through the grace of God could such a feat be accomplished in so short a time.

Watching it I was reminded of the Bible story of Gideon. He was the one that the Lord wanted to fight a battle but told him that his army was too large. So through a series a events Gideon whittled down his army to a mere 300 men. Using only those 300 men, horns, jars and torches, the Lord defeated the Midianites. Judges 7.

I am so thankful that all who were involved took on the task and I am humbled by their faith to do it. I'll admit the very human part of me, who has done it, makes me feel just a little proud of them for their accomplishment...I don't believe ANYONE could have done it better and that the Lord chose very well, when he chose them.

As for my kid's parts? They LOVED it. I asked them early on how this experience compared to other summer camps in the past and they both agreed (only Bean and Bear were old enough) that, although there was a lot of work to do, it was AWESOME!

Here is Miss Bean singing HER solo. If I'm granted permission I will post more...if not, those of you who get our year end DVD will probably see it there.



Praise the Lord for these women who ministered to our children this week...for hearing God's voice and rising to His challenge to teach with joy, thank you for touching my kids in this way...

See ya around...

Music???

November 2009

Okay, back in November, maybe even before, I knew that I wanted to take the kids caroling for Christmas. Back then I had big dreams...maybe getting a few of the neighbor kids in on it and going to an elderly care center or some such.

But singing with children is an interesting thing. Well singing with, and getting them to sing, isn't really that big a deal...but getting them to be able to stay on their note while someone else sings harmony is a tough thing to teach...especially if there are only 2 of you singing. When it was just Beanie and I singing, it was impossible. But over the years, my parents would come...or S.P. and Camera King...or Dr. Bo's family (6 GIRLS, 2 BOYS...there is lots of singing potential there) and we'd have the opportunity to have more than one person sing melody while those of us that could would do some harmony or other.

This year was kind of fun because Beanie and I had a bunch of practice with the little worship team we did at church and Bear was old enough to want to sing, too. So Bean and Bear would concentrate on singing together while I harmonized in the background. And, of course, if her sisters were doing it, there was no keeping Monkey Face out of it.

I thought I'd show you a "rehearsal" of The First Noel that we were working on...it should be noted that *I* was flat on the high note...something has gone wrong with my soprano over the last few years...eventually I'll warm up enough to hit the high notes, but it takes awhile...but they were so cute with the blame placing...



This next one is the one "in which the children REVOLT". This is the second or third time that we'd pitched it BADLY...in this case too low...and they had just had it with REAL singing. I'm so glad I had the camera on...SUCH fun.



By the time Christmas rolled around...we'd had some illnesses and it was COLD and so all my big plans boiled down to a single night of caroling on Christmas day with some of the girls around the neighborhood...there were 9 of us traipsing around in the sub-freezing weather, singin our little hearts out. It really was a lot of fun. Wish I'd gotten pictures, but at least I have the memory.

See ya around...