Category: Uncategorized (Page 57 of 118)

Today, after cleaning my house and feeding my children a dinner of “let’s eat what we find in the fridge or freezer”, I watched Music of the Heart. It was probably on Lifetime or O or some other sappy channel weeks and weeks ago, and I remembered that it had looked interesting and I recorded it.

Described in the opening credits as being ‘inspired by a documentary’, the film opens with Roberta having been deserted by her husband and feeling devastated and almost suicidal. Encouraged by her mother, she attempts to rebuild her life and a friend recommends her to the head teacher of a school in the tough New York area of East Harlem. Despite a degree in music education, she has little experience in actual music teaching, but she’s taken on as a substitute violin teacher. With a combination of toughness and determination, she manages to inspire a group of kids, and their initially very skeptical parents. The program slowly develops and attracts publicity.

As I was watching this movie, I got choked up more than once. Tears were escaping my eyes. But then my children needed me, so I pushed pause and went to go and look after them. When I came back and watched it again, the same thing happened again.

Ten years later, the string program is still running successfully, but suddenly the school budget is cut and Roberta is out of a job. Determined to fight the cuts, she enlists the support of former pupils, parents and teachers and plans a grand fund-raising concert ‘Fiddlefest’, to raise money so that the program can continue. But with a few weeks to go and all participants furiously rehearsing, they lose the venue. Fortunately,the husband of a publicist friend is a violinist in a string quartet, and he enlists the support of other well-known musicians, including Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman. They arrange for the concert to be mounted at Carnegie Hall. Other famous musicians join in the performance, which is a resounding success.

As I watched those kids practice for their upcoming benefit concert, with great obstacles keep coming up, there I go crying again. It’s not like they aren’t going to succeed, for heaven’s sake. The movie is actually quite predictable, but there I am, wiping away my tears. I mean, MERCIFUL HEAVENS– WHAT IF MERYL STREEP DOESN’T RAISE ENOUGH MONEY AND THEY HAVE TO CUT HER PROGRAM? It would be Mr. Holland’s Opus all over again!

There’s obviously something wrong with me. I cry over everything. Really. All they have to do is show a picture of a puppy and play some music and I’ll practically burst into tears! Remember those etoys commercials? The ones where they played IZ’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow”? Those made me cry every time.

Of course, this is the song they played on ER when Dr. Greene died, too, so I almost ALWAYS cry when I hear this song, now.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch Minnesota Cuke and the search for the magic hairbrush or something like that. Don’t worry, I’ll have my Kleenex ready.

Create your own caption to this picture.

Anytime this song comes on the radio we all break out in song. Well, not really song, but we all sing the

Whohoe, whihoo part.

All of us. Even John.
Love that song! And the lyrics are fun, too.

Yesterday was a hard day. We were overscheduled already, and then we had to cram parent teacher conferences for Cole in there. Since I let Cole go down to Arizona to visit his cousins and he missed school on Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I knew that his grades would not be the best. I didn’t know they would be as bad as they were. Two D’s and an F, to say the least. I had asked Ryan if HE could go to this parent teacher conference, but he ended up sick all day. So, I hauled Cole and John to the dentist at 3:00, go to the Parent Teacher Conference by 4:30, and was pummeled with bad news for almost two hours. My favorite was his English teacher, who was so sweet and nice in saying, “Now I know you didn’t forget to do all these assignments, did you? And you are surely working on your research paper that’s due on Monday, right?” I think my eyes may have bugged out of my face a little bit and I’m very lucky my entire head didn’t explode. Research paper? I got home just in time to meet a friend to go to our book club, thank goodness. Book Club. My night to forget about the kids and their homework issues. And it was indeed fun. I’m so glad I have my girlfriends, who swap stories on everything from divorce proceedings to our church callings. And yes, eventually we even talk about the book!

Today must be just one of those emotional days for me. Chalk it up to hormones, lack of sleep, I don’t know. As I was driving home from Robert’s Crafts today, John Michael Montgomery’s song “The Little Girl” came on. Yes, on the country station. Want to make something of it? Well, I’ve heard this song before, but this time it got to me. Even before the end, I was crying. I guess I knew how it ended, and it made me cry. Here’s the whole song if you haven’t heard it, or it you would like to hear it again. Maybe it will make you cry, too.

Later I choked up when I was watching last week’s episode of the Biggest Loser, and Trent (my favorite member of the blue team) volunteered to be sent home. Crying. I’m oh so glad that none of my kids were watching me bawl about some guy who has to leave the biggest loser ranch. Ok, Paige, get a grip!

On the other end of the spectrum, we have laughter. Saturday night, my friend Tess invited a few of her fun girlfriends (me being one of them) out for a girl’s night out. We all went to see Rockapella in concert. You may remember them from their days on PBS, singing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.”

It was a fun concert, and we enjoyed the music. There’s something about men singing a’ccapella that is just beautiful. A few of the women in our group especially liked their bass, a tall good looking black man. -Whew- Anyway, during the concert, Tess whispered something to her friend, Michelle, and the both of them just started laughing. When the concert was over, she shared her little “joke.” “Can you imagine,” she said, “if someone were to throw some panties up on stage during that one song?! That would be hysterical.” We all laughed about that one, and I said, “Oh yes, I always keep some extras in my purse for just such an occasion!” We laughed and laughed and commented on how HARD it would be to actually get your underwear off (if you were wearing it) in order to toss it up on the stage. And as Mormons, that would make things just a little bit more interesting, right?
Tess could not get over the hilarity of that image in her mind. We went to dinner at Los Hermanos, and about half way through dinner, she started cracking up again for no reason. What’s so funny? We asked. She could barely speak, she was laughing so hard. “I just keep thinking about throwing the underwear up on stage!” We all laughed again. And yes, it’s still making me chuckle. I’m not sure if she told her husband that one, or not, but I could always send him a link to this blog post, right?

So emotions are funny things. Sometimes they creep up on you unexpected like. They give our lives depth and color, don’t they. Sometimes annoying, but I’d rather be emotional than not.

Warning–this is another post about my silly dreams. So, if disjointed dream stories annoy you, click away now.

That said, I’ve been having the most vivid “right before I wake up” dreams lately. I mean I’ve always been a dreamer, but for the past few days I’ve been waking up with very specific dream memories. Last night I dreamed I went to get my haircut. Not just any haircut, however, this was a combination hair salon/ car detail place run by some Greek immigrants. So, I dropped off my van on the outside, told them I wanted the wash and vacuum option, then went inside to get my hair cut. Brilliant idea, isn’t it? I’ve also thought that the Orthodontist should team up with an oil change place so that you could get your child’s teeth adjusted while getting your oil changed! Isn’t that brilliant? Anyway, back to my dream…In my dream, these people, even though they were Greek, were speaking German. I guess that’s from my experience with many immigrants from all over who once they lived in Germany, they had to learn German–more or less. So, since these dream people were speaking German, I was also speaking German. They complemented me on my German, in fact. “Hast du in Deutschland gewohnst?” they asked.
“Ja, aber es ist 16 Jahre vor!” I replied.
“Ach, so! Dein Deutsch is noch gut.” They said.
“Vielen Dank!” I said. (And if you are a German speaker, you are probably cringing right now, as my German REALLY isn’t good anymore, and I appologize for putting you through such a painful experience.)

Now, it’s been a good 16 years since I have exercised my brain in speaking German, and it’s a wonder my brain didn’t explode. But in my dream, I was conjugating those verbs, using ‘Sie’ and ‘du’ appropriately, and coming up with words I haven’t thought about or used in quite some time.

Which makes me wonder–does my brain still have all that German knowledge all stored up, just waiting to use? I hope so.

Another item of business–My administrator switched my blog to a new server (or something like that), and a friend of mine emailed me yesterday asking me where my blog was…she couldn’t find me! I sent her a link and then she was able to get her, but I’m wondering if any of you faithful readers (I know there are at least three of you) had difficulty getting here. Are the links still working? Is anybody out there even reading this? Sometimes I wonder.

This morning at around 10:00 I got the urge. No, not that kind of urge, you silly. I got the urge to do something, Anything, to change things around and spice up the house. It’s probably because I’ve spent so much time inside, lately. That would be due to the 2 feet of snow and the 21 degree temps outside. We don’t do a lot of outside socializing in the winter. So, cooped up as I am, and not really able to go out and buy anything new, although I have got my eye on some new chairs. Something like this would be nice.

Or these

But I don’t really have it in the budget for new furniture, so I decided at 10:00 this morning that I would MOVE around the furniture I have. So, I set about moving the living room couch and loveseat to the family room, and the family room couch and loveseat to the living room. That’s no small feat for one person, but I did it. Well, John helped push a little bit.

And I like it. It’s not a major transformation or anything, and I didn’t have time to put the living room back together right, but it will do for a while. Just to change things up, you know.

This is what I have to do in the dead of winter to keep from going crazy, I guess.

And no sugar. All day. Yea for me.