Mary's Muse

Miss R.

What a change has taken place with our Miss Responsibility!  She morphed from a shy, retiring young girl into a young woman with a voice and ambitions before our very eyes.  She has ideas.  She has vision.  And she has that voice. 

We just attended a summer acting camp musical revue in which she soloed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  She was phenomenal.  Her voice matured over the past year or two.  No longer is there a slightly nasal, childish sound coming out.  Now, her tones come out strong and confident.  She quickly shook off the uneasiness she might have felt ~ I could see a slight shrug of her shoulders as she appeared on stage ~ and took on a confident, can-do posture.

People called her amazing.  Even fellow actors.  And this all started with participation in church choirs.  We are so proud of and happy for her.  Can't wait to see what the coming high school years will bring.

Concentration

Epimethius has been complaining that he can't concentrate when he writes papers.  Today, I found him in our office listening to rock music.  The switch immediately flipped in my brain.  I know I can't read and make sense of much of anything when I'm rocking and singing to even such light listening as Boston.  I catch myself asking, "Wait. What did  you say again?"  When you are bombarded with words that go to your music your mind is split.  It may *want* to listen to what another person is saying or to understand what you are reading, but it also wants to sing along or at the very least, figure out what the vocalist is tyring to get across.  And the thumping beat of the music to include words is just too enticing.

New rule:  I will only allow classical during school/homework hours.  So, I offered Epimethius a CD to listen to while he writes.  At first, he turned it off.  But when I came back upstairs, it was playing.  The CD has finished now and he's still writing.  That tells me a ton.

I've also recently been introduced to Music to Inspire Positive Thinking.  I thought it might be nice to pop it in the CD player in the car on a road trip with everyone or in the kitchen during chore time.  I listened to a few clips on Amazon.  I was not impressed. The music is digitalized and all very much the same. Boring! Sounds too new-agey for me. This would definitely not inspire me to think positively.  Rather, I'd get crotchety listening to this for any length of time.  We'll stick to listening to the original masters: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Handel, Hayden, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and so many more  that we would be hard-pressed, through a whole year's worth of school, to become bored with too few selections or too similar music.

Harmonizing is like having a fashion sense...

If you have a plain melody (bottom or top), you need to harmonize (top or bottom) with patterns, color, and splash.  If, on the other hand, the melody is patterned, the harmony must be simple and plain.

 

Still Homesick

Is this crazy or what?  I'm a tried and true red-blooded American.  So why am I homesick for England?  Well, there are several reasons.  First, it was incredibly family-friendly.  Let's just do a quick scan of some of the fun things we did that I miss.

• Warwick Castle includes authentic period indoor tours, outdoor trebuchet demonstrations, archery shows, birds of prey, jousting, iceskating.  Full of history.  Tons of fun.
• Leeds Castle we had so much fun outdoors that we never made it inside!  This castle has gorgeous grounds with two mazes and gardens galore.
• Ickworth House has an outdoors almost as fun as Leeds.  We walked a long path that led to a little chapel in a sheep field.  They also had a shaded place for kids to play close to a picnic area.
• Oxford Museum of Natural History was so much fun and free to boot!
• Pitt Rivers Museum was another museum we visited in Oxford.
• Walsingham has Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Shrine and the Slipper Chapel.

When we moved back ot the U.S., we thought that we were moving to a child-friendly, family-friendly state.  Not true.  *Family* activities for which you can buy a membership here include three people.  If you have any more than one child, you pay ... MASSIVELY.

While driving in England can tax your brain and your patience, gardening does not.  I so love that.  Basically, you buy some seeds and plant them.  The earth is rich.  Rain waters seeds steadily.  And you have a lush garden before you know it.  Yes, weeds can take over if  you're not careful.  They'll take over no matter where you live.

I would so like to be relocated to England again, even if it means letting go of half of what we own.   We missed Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and ever so many little things. We never managed to navigate through Cambridge. We never ice skated at Warwick.  We barely missed the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.  Oh, and to think that I had a chance to see Mr. Darcy's house from Pride and Prejudice and missed it!  Three years was not enough.