Anything is Possible!

With Love, Hope, and Perseverance

Tag Archives: choir


by 35 Comments

SoCS: A Year of Change

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “my year.” Use “my year” as the theme of your post. Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

2024 was our year of changes – for my country and my family. It’s still hard to talk, write, or think about the election, so I’ll likely stick to the personal change of moving to Pilot Mountain, NC after living almost 40 years in Wilmington. I traded the ocean for the mountains. Seems like more people are moving to Wilmington and even Florida to retire. But the mountains were calling and I had to go.

I might have mentioned that I miss my old neighborhood and friends, but it was worth the move to be closer to my kids and grands. It was a surprise how much I enjoyed talking with a couple of longtime friends on the phone this past week. Surprising, since I have embraced my inner introvert and generally don’t like to talk on the phone.

Speaking of inner introvert, my inner ear kept me home a lot over the holidays with vertigo. It got better briefly, then worse after I went to church and sang Thursday night. I’ve read that loud prolonged noise can make vertigo (and of course tinnitus) worse.

Thankfully, I’m about 75% better now and go to physical therapy Thursday. It was disappointing to miss the Christmas Eve service where I’d hoped to sing in the choir. Having been gifted with a halfway decent singing voice, I wondered why God was making allowing me to miss Christmas Eve and other choir opportunities. Doesn’t God want me to share my voice?

On Christmas morning, David, who had gone to the 11pm service said they had trumpet, and it was quite loud. I remember now feeling more and more bothered by the loud organ (and loud noise in general) when singing in choir in Wilmington. The trumpet setting on the Wilmington church organ was like nails on a chalkboard.

Maybe God has been shielding me from more damage to my hearing, as David suggested.

Or maybe it’s a coincidence, except I don’t really believe in those anymore.

My year ahead will hopefully include more artwork which has taken a backseat, home cooking, and gardening. I’m also planning to focus on my health. My friend from high school, Elaine, died on December 17. She taught GED classes in prison and was a person of light, integrity, and insight. I’m hoping I can make it to her Celebration of Life service today.

We don’t know how much time we have. Hopefully, my year ahead will include more quality time with loved ones, like hiking with my daughter and granddaughter:

A song that came along in the stream: Changes by David Bowie

Below are some recent photos I’ve managed to take.

Remembrance Candles – Blue Christmas Service Thursday
Clinging Raindrops
Blanket Hills with Dog Hair
Sunset through Trees
Squirrel escaping with full tummy
The Christmas Village Inherited from my Parents

~~~

For more about Stream of Consciousness Saturday,

visit our host, Linda Hill

by clicking HERE.


by 17 Comments

SoCS: Indian Food, Self Care, and the Christmas Village

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “food.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

One of my goals for the new year is to cook more at home since we don’t have many restaurants in our small town. The vegan cafe has sadly gone out of business and there are no Indian restaurants that I know of, even in Mount Airy 20 minutes away. I tried to make Indian food yesterday. It wasn’t bad with cauliflower, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and plenty of curry, cayenne, and some exotic smelling Garam Masala I bought on sale… but it just doesn’t taste as good as the Indian restaurants I’ve been to. Maybe I’m missing some secret ingredient. But I shall persevere!

I’m focusing right now on self-care since I have a sore throat and plenty of singing ahead. My new church is joining another church to sing six songs from Handel’s Messiah on Dec. 22 and I’ve also been singing in choir. So that’s one reason there was a lot of spice in the soup last night. Listening to healing meditations on youtube and not watching anything stressful on TV are also parts of my self care. We’ll see what happens….

Here’s a short healing meditation:

Thursday was my birthday, and we went out for lunch at the Thai Cafe in Mount Airy. That was mostly good. I love the basil rolls. Then, my daughter Ayla helped me set up the Christmas Village that belonged to my parents. I tried and tried to sell the village after they died, but no one wanted to buy it. (I felt I didn’t have room for it.) Then Ayla said, “Don’t sell it! It’s a family heirloom!” So now I have room for it, and she got to help me unpack it. There’s some food for thought.

I still have lots of accessories to add.

Main Street in Pilot Mountain feels like a village. Thursday night we took Marley to the coffee shop for a pup cup. I got a warm birthday brownie. David got ice cream.

Is there something for Marley?
Marley’s waiting for the last bite.

~~~

For more info on SoCS,

visit our host, Linda Hill

by clicking HERE.


by 21 Comments

SoCS: Wild Animals, Church Music, and Eagle Wings

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wild animal.” Choose a wild animal (or many wild animals) and use it any way you’d like in your post. Enjoy!

Wild animals are not necessarily wild to each other. People can act as wild as (other) animals sometimes. Elephants grieve the loss of their loved ones in ways that we can see. Whale mothers carry their dead babies for days or weeks, not wanting to let go. Dolphins, Chimpanzees, and birds have been seen using tools. Wolves use strategic pack coordination in hunting. What makes them wild and humans not wild?

You can read about the emotional lives of “wild” animals

HERE in Greater Good Magazine

Today, penguins have been on my mind. Our choir director used to call us penguins because we dressed out in black and white choir garb. He has a collection of stuffed penguins on the organ. Now, his body is becoming overwhelmed by cancer. He’s been moved to hospice. It’s real now.

Chris has been a big part of my life for years of Wednesday night choir practice. His strange sense of humor made practice interesting. When Mama Cat was living at the church in the pre-pandemic years, Chris was the main person to feed her. She had a reputation as being mean, like a wild animal, but she was really scared. Her first expression of affection to a human was to rub against Chris’s legs. During the pandemic, when we were not having church, Mama Cat came to live with me. She’s not wild anymore.

Since Chris has been sick, I’ve been picking most of the music for Sunday mornings and playing my guitar to lead the congregation in singing. We tried a couple of hymns acapella, but that is risky. My guitar skills are very basic and much softer than Chris’s organ playing, but the guitar helps us be on key as I find the confidence to sing loud and clear enough to lead the singing.

On Tuesday, after seeing the scripture readings, I emailed my suggestions for Sunday’s music. Our priest added a suggestion from the hymn book. I started to feel a little overwhelmed. Sometimes it’s hard to find the guitar chords for traditional hymns so I’ve been leaning toward more contemporary songs. Now, I’d have to look for the chords and see how hard they were. I started to respond in an email that I was feeling a little overwhelmed. But I got a nudge. I checked one of my songbooks with chords and found the hymn there. The chords were easy! No problem.

Yesterday, I was praying. I started by giving thanks for the blessings of my life. I suddenly realized that with all the blessings – David, retirement, security, and relatively good health – I realized that preparing and leading music at church for a while is the least I can do. This is a temporary situation. Life is temporary. I can do this ministry with love and gratitude.

Animals act wild when overwhelmed by fear or maybe hunger. They act on instinct to protect themselves. The same thing can happen with us humans. We get anxious or confused. I think, this is too much. It’s not going to work. My stomach tightens and not in a good way. But if I take a deep breath, pray, and get more information, things work out. I also want to remember that most things are not life and death situations, except when they really are.

Here are some old and new photos:

Feral Mama Cat
Domestic Mama Cat
Me with Penguin Friends
Our Good Shepherd Window
Light beam on church pew
Church windows reflecting sunset

I can’t get the “Eagles Wings” song chorus out of my head and that’s okay.

It goes like (this with God saying):

And I will raise you up on eagles wings,

Bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun,

And hold you in the palm of my hand.

Here’s our choir singing it a few years ago with Chris playing the organ.

~~~

Update: Chris passed away this morning. I’m very sad, but thankful he did not suffer long.

~~~

For more information about Stream of Consciousness Saturday

and more wild animal posts,

visit our host, Linda Hill

by clicking HERE.


by 16 Comments

Too Responsible?

SOC badge with butterfly

I’ve complained a lot about being too busy. This past week I fixed it some. I had three things, really four things, to do in the evening this past week after work. So I just said no to one of them. My husband went without me, and he was fine with that. His mother was visiting from Connecticut and that was a nice treat for her, and for everyone else to meet her.

When I’m too busy, it’s okay to say no. I like having one thing to do in the evening per week, like Wednesday evening church potluck and choir practice. Choir practice energizes me, it feeds my soul to sing. I can handle two things after work, especially if they are not two nights in a row. Three is too many. Especially three in a row.

It’s possible to do three things in a row, three nights in a row, after working each day. But it’s not healthy for me. It doesn’t seem to bother my husband. But I need some down time. Actually, I need to do things like laundry, and reading and writing blogs. So I can say, I had to work, and I won’t be lying. I actually did have some work to catch up on for my paying job, the job that pays the bills for now, on the night I said no to going out.

During the month of December, I have a lot of vacation time to use from the job that pays my bills for now. If I don’t take some of it, I will lose it. We can carry over 18o hours to next year. I have more than that accrued, and I need to make sure I take it. It will give me more time for writing, art, reading blogs and puttering around the house. I have 400 hours of sick time built up at my job. I can carry  this over, but will never be paid for it if I don’t use it.

Do you think I’m too responsible?

I’ve very grateful for all that “sick time.” I really am. I wish I could give it to someone, but I can’t. I am grateful that I haven’t had to use it for something catastrophic. I wonder if it should be called something other than “sick time.” I guess that’s why some companies are going to “paid time off.”

I’m thankful to have holiday time, too! I get two days off for Thanksgiving, but I’m already off on Friday since I cut down to 30 hours a week. So I’ll have to figure that out.

Thank you to all those people who work on holidays. I wish you blessings and happiness, and peace, too!

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt was: “to/too/two.”

If you’d like to join in the Saturday SOC prompt and post, visit Linda’s blog:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/11/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2115/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


by 9 Comments

Opposites Attract, But Similarities Sustain

socs-badge

Opposites do attract. We’re often drawn to partners or friends who have qualities we lack. This can be a good thing, up to a point. If there are too may opposites, there’s going to be trouble.

When we were dating (for the second time) my husband confessed, “I’m allergic to fun.” I thought he was kidding. He works hard and is hard on himself. I can understand this, but my desire for myself is to have more fun. We had lots of fun when we dated, getting to know each other again; the butterflies and excitement of falling in love tends to make us giddy and overlook things.

Fortunately, we also asked a lot of questions to find out if there were any deal breakers. To find out if there was  enough common ground.

But back to the opposites. He says he is not artistic. And he’s not when it comes to free flowing things, improvisation, dance, playful art. I am more artistic. He is more precise. I tend to be scattered. He is more focused. (I’ve come to believe that’s mostly a guy thing.) He is great with numbers, me not so much.

I love to sing. My husband stopped singing in his late teens after being ridiculed. When we found each other again, he didn’t sing at all. But he’s been working on this for a couple years, and now sings in our church choir with me. He knows how I love to sing and wants to be with me enough to overcome his fear of singing. He’s also overcoming his fear of swimming in deep water due to a close call a long time ago.  I love to swim. He was a fire fighter and pilot, so he’s not at all afraid of heights like I am. I get motion sickness at the drop of a hat. But when he gets a chance to fly a plane again, I’ll be there with him, right after I take my Dramamine.

I used to be addicted to TV and movies. My husband doesn’t watch TV and rarely goes to movies. But he did like Interstellar which we saw together. It’s a good thing I took my daughter with me to see Wild. And there’s no way he’ll want to go see Into the Woods. But that’s okay.

Even though opposites attract, similarities are necessary for a happy, long lasting relationship.

My husband and I both love dogs. We  like to grow things in dirt and eat healthy. While we both partied plenty in our younger days, we’re now conservative in our lifestyles, though not our beliefs. We are responsible, frugal and conscientious. We believe in giving back to the community. We search for meaning in spirituality. We’re both Christians, but we’re open minded enough to respect the beliefs of others. We respect each others differences. We listen to each other. We both like garlic.

These are important similarities. Without them, it wouldn’t work.

And it’s working quite well.

 

This week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday Post was the word: “opposite.” If you’d like to join in the fun, visit:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-1015/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!


by 11 Comments

Being Present with Music, Lights, and Jesus

socs-badge

Our Stream of Consciousness prompt for today is: present. Or maybe it was Present. It doesn’t matter.

I’m really going to not think about this much which will make it real stream-of-consciousnessy. It’s hard to not plan ahead at all what I’m going to write. I’ve been painting in the bathroom and have not gotten to work on my memoir on my day off, so I’m really not very present at all. Yet I do enjoy the SoCS thing very much. So let me focus. Deep breath.

Present!  Being in the present moment is a goal. Buying presents during the holiday season makes that even more challenging. Will they like this? Should I spend that much? I don’t want this holy day to be about material presents.

I was talking with my husband about not getting each other material presents, but then I’d wonder if he was going to get me a present anyway, and end up getting him one…….silly stuff. I am going to buy my 21 year old daughter a camera, because she’s got talent, and I’m going to give my son financial help to get here for Christmas Eve, which is really a gift to myself. I’m going to sing in the choir, that’s a present to myself as well as others, I hope……..I just realized I’m not very present right now. I’m thinking about the future. That seems to be what the holiday season is about, as far as time spent thinking about things. There’s a big build up, a frenzy even, to the big day and then a crash or sorts. I don’t like that.

One thing that helps me stay in the present is the gift of music. Singing helps me be present. And looking at Christmas lights!  I love Christmas lights! Now I’m getting excited, like a child about Christmas lights!

Oh, and there’s Jesus.  I’m remembering you, Jesus. For me, that’s what it’s really about anyway. And Christmas lights! sparkly twinkly colorful lights.

What’s the connection between Christmas lights and Jesus?

“A star, a star dancing in the night…………………….

………….He will bring us goodness and light!”

Good presents!

If you squint your eyes and tilt your head from side to side, Christmas lights look like dancing stars.

Here’s the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad7KU9bCTAM

 

If you would like to join in the fun of Saturday Stream of Consciousness, check it out here:

http://lindaghill.com/2014/12/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-december-614/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!