Music...

Leslie wanted me to post quotes that started with the word Music. So here it is sit down and take some time to read...

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

Music is what feelings sound like.

Music is the poetry of the air. ~Richter

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. ~Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. ~Charlie Parker

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. ~Henry Ward Beecher

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. ~Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. ~Robert FrippMusic is the medicine of the mind. ~John A. Logan

Music is the universal language of mankind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. ~Ezra Pound

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. ~Victor Hugo

Music is an outburst of the soul. ~Frederick Delius

Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. ~Oscar Wilde

Music is what life sounds like. ~Eric Olson

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. ~Alphonse de Lamartine

Music is the shorthand of emotion. ~

Music, when soft voices die vibrates in the memory -~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius

Music is the medicine of the breaking heart. ~Leigh Hunt

Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. ~Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Music is love in search of a word. ~Sidney Lanier

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. ~Jean Paul Richter

Music is a friend of labor for it lightens the task by refreshing the nerves and spirit of the worker. ~William Green

Music is well said to be the speech of angels. ~Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art. ~ Author: Charlie Parker

Music has boundless powers for moving families toward greater spirituality and devotion to the gospel. Latter-day Saints should fill their homes with the sound of worthy music. ~ ~ Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Hymnbook

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable. ~ Martin Luther

Music has charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak. ~ William Congreve

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. ~ Plato

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.~Plato~

Music causes us to think eloquently.~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.~Plato~

Music causes us to think eloquently.~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

And if you read this far I will share my own MUSIC quote that I wrote in my journal October 2, 1985. Music is in me... it is my testimony... it is my soul.

Music - it's the song of the heart.

It's a Melody ready to be sung

Notes finding a pure direction forward

In hopes of finding Harmony

And when intertwined into a rich Symphony

it is a glorious and righteous Song of praise unto the Lord.

Like MUSIC - I should make my life that way also...

Striving each day to live pure and clean and striving forward to perfection and living in complete harmony with Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ to make in the final day a rich symphony of all the righteous souls in the celestial kingdom.

Did you really read this far? Well, Don't be afraid to comment!

What I really need?

So to show Leslie that I read her blog. I went to "search" on the interent and did that "Eva needs" thing and here it is ....

Eva needs a vacation
how true

Eva needs great water
I think we all do

Eva needs to enter the surreal world of facebook
I guess during the vacation I can take a better look? huh?

Eva needs home comforts for good sleep!!
Oh yah, I fell asleep this afternoon on my sweet bed!

Eva needs help
Always!

Eva needs a car
that is for sure!

Eva needs to watch herself
Don't we all? now that could go in many directions....right?

Eva still needs to blink...
Does that mean I'm still alive? especially after all the programs?

Eva needs the attention
Tell it to the noisy students!

Eve needs to keep up with her friends
And I'll add family to that!

Kind of a crazy post but there it is. I won't go into the next page of Eva need because it had "other Eva"'s last names so surely those don't apply to me!

So here are the cuties

My costume: Mrs Claus the director. (silly, huh!) The 2nd grade classes looked so cute today! They followed my every move and sang their hearts out. We got the shipment of 60 bell clusters like yesterday afternoon that were ordered. I had ordered some with one company but they didn't follow through with our order. So then I had to reorder with another company and I was so glad to get a set of bells in each child's hands. It was so cool to see that the kids could follow my steady beat patterns. Staying on the steady beat and sing rhythms at teh same time is hard even for older kids and grown ups to do, but the kids did it. Some of these pictures are blurry. I had a 4th grader taking the pictures and my camera is an old hand-me-down but it works! I wish this was a video but the pictures will have to do.

Here are the awesome little Tambourine players.

This class is very talented and right on the money with their rhythm patterns and were fun to watch . I did put them center stage.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Reindeer ....... can't you tell! (sorry blurry) Look at the girls singing with so much expression! Surely they will be in CHorus next year! They sang their hearts out about how Santa is such a kind person.

"Oh! I'm Gonna give a Gift to Santa Claus this year!"

Here's the real thing

Here is the Bulletin Board on the hall wall outside my room...

Sorry about the angle of the picture, the walls are too close in this hallway, so I had to stand at an angle to get the whole picture in. I changed my original idea a bit from the original pictures. I also didn't want people to think I was advertizing and wanting everyone to go out and buy music CDs for presents. I also changed the caption. I just want them to have fun singing Christmas Songs.
I also added the following "Old" poster that I made 10 or more years ago next to my door to add to the fun.
Now for the 2nd grade musical tomorrow. I think I am really at ease with this one and the kids are doing such a great job! So it should be two great performances tomorrow. I'll let you know.

Now onto December Programs

OK ... so what do you say when the turkey dinner has been eaten and you go home thinking "I am tired" but when you get home you are wide awake??? Well, I have not posted for awhile..... so I shall do that, I guess.

We had a wonderful dinner. There was 13 of us for dinner and we actually fit 12 around the dinner table. There was Leslie's family of seven, Kirk, Lucy, Gerry, Mike, Natalija, and myself. Little Luke sat in a high chair. Everything was delicious and most of the things were the traditional thanksgiving food. Nataljia took pictures to send to Lithuania because she said no one over there eats such a big dinner. After dinner Bryan and Michelle and kids came over from their family's dinner. And after some good visiting, we watched a movie and then talked some more. And I finally went home knowing Leslie wanted to settle the kids down, they were having a sleep over so Leslie and Michelle could go shopping in the morning.

Well, at school the highlight this month was the patriotic program at the Retirement Village. The chorus is in the thick of things learning new songs and having a fun time singing them. We even added more rehearsals. And then I practice with the Bells on the off days. This coming Thursday is a second grade Christmas program. I'm still debating on the title, but I think I will put the word "Christmas" in both the 2nd grade and chorus concerts written programs titles. Something like, "It's Christmas Everywhere" for the Chorus concert and "Merry Christmas Time" for the Second Grade one. I want to see if there are any protests about not staying away from the word Christmas but aren't we celebrating "Christmas"! We wouldn't have a celebration without "Christ."

The Chorus songs include songs from around the World and we are singing "Silent Night" first in Japanese then in English with sign language and one that has "Joy to the World" incorporated in it and then one arranged by MusicK8 that actually tells the Christmas story "Sing We Now of Christmas." When I presented these songs I asked the students if anyone did not want to sing these songs or if I should change the words because they talk of "Christmas"but they all loved them so the music stays. But you know we are also singing Shalom, and an African Noel and Syahamba. I think really I like the music for this concert. A silly pinata song and a silly santa song bring out the lighter side of the season.

In the midst of this more secular program mode I revert to the Sacrament Meeting Program and where I get super spiritual. I just love it when the ward choir sings a song and they go "ooh" and "aah" that was beautiful after singing it in a choiur rehearsal. And so it is ... we are going to sing 5 wonderful songs that the ward choir loves of which I have two arrangements included on my play list from Sally Deford. I still need to work on the order and incorporate the congregation hymns and strings so this weekend is devoted to that, since I cannot go out spending money that I don't hae any extra of.

I also want to work on a bulletin board at school. The background is already blue so I decided to keep somthing in that color scheme. On some wrapping paper I found pictures of snowmen singing and a snowman bass player. I have included the pictures at the bottom of this post. I will enlarge these picture by copying the pictures on a plastic overhead projector film and then get a large piece of some white bulletin board paper and tape it to my white board and trace the pictures the size I need onto the white paper and then I will take the paper down and color it and cut out the figures and post it on the bulletin board with the following caption ....
"Sing a Song! Give Some Cheer! Give a Gift of Music This Year!"

So now there you have it, a few more thoughts... stay healthy until next time "Keep Singing!"

November thoughts

Just a thought... It is November. So take time to jot down on paper the things you are thankful for.

If you have questions, sit down and take time to listen or even watch Elder David Bednar's confernce talk on prayer and take his admonishment that he was given and pray with a thankful heart asking for nothing, but saying thanks for the things we are thankful for such as our life, our home, our family, the church but most of all for our Heavenly Father, our God and for Jesus Christ, our brother and Savior .

Then sit down and take some time, don't be rushed and if you cannot do it in one sitting spend some smaller amounts of time and write down those things, it will surprise how much you are really thankful for.

Try it... and even when your heart is aching you can still be thankful.

Love you all.

My thoughts for the day

Families should work together. Do things together with love. Help each other especially during the hard times. Pay your tithing and serve the Lord, Raise your children in the gospel... these are the messages I basically received from going to the Arizona Regional "Stake Conference" today. I loved Brother Packard's reminiscing about his visit to Arizona. He also urged us all to "vote" for what will keep family and marriage sacred! Go and Vote on Tuesday!!!!

We are having a "voting place" at our school. Of course I have to go to another polling place but that is OK. I will even park somewhere else for the day. I will give up my handicap parking spot for those that may need it because the entrance for the voting is in the parking lot by my room where I normally park. I hope to see many people out voting. The kids at our school will be "voting" in a kids vote. I think I will sing patriotic songs that day at school. I have lots of Power Points to use for that purpose too. I may even find a Tabernacle Choir video rendition of a patriotic song too. (Any suggestions?? Battle Hymn? anyone have a video?)

I hope all my voting children will go out and vote. Lucy has already done so by early voting ballot. She did good! I hope all my friends VOTE too! I love you all!

KEEP AMERICA FREE!