Spring: Shall We Go for a Walk Today?

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Spring: Our Town

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Spring: Our Yard

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When I tried to zoom in on a leaf, just coming out, with my auto-focus camera, the above is what I got: background in focus, desired leaf blurry.
With some experimenting, I learned that if I put my hand behind the leaf and pressed the shoot button half way down, the camera focused on the leaf. Taking my hand away from behind the leaf, I snapped the photo and got my leaf.

I've wanted these flowers ever since I first saw them. Coming soon! Yay!

(Before spring came)

(After spring came)

"In the natural world God has placed in the hands of the children of men the key to unlock the treasure house of His Word. The unseen is illustrated by the seen; divine wisdom, eternal truth, infinite grace, are understood by the things God has made." (White, Ellen G. Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students. 187-188.)

Have lessons from God's Word been reinforced to you through nature--gardening, hiking, drawing, swimming, studying? Have you seen a whale and marveled at Jonah's experience? Have you found yourself on a fishing boat, all of a sudden relating to the disciples in every moment of your day? (I have!) I would love to hear about the things you've learned! Do post a comment and tell me the treasures of knowledge you've gleaned from our Creator's work in nature.

Eat Your Vegetables

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When you're a music student, in graduate school, pinching all your pennies and all your hours to get the absolute most out of each--consider yourself privileged, dear reader, that I am writing to you!--you sometimes shy away from going to yet another concert.
But you're husband is in it, the choir is good, and you need more recital credit anyway so it's homework, right?
You know you have to sit alone, so at the last minute, after the gift of supper at the cafeteria which you don't budget for but accept gladly, you call your girl-friend and ask if per chance she can leave her homework for an hour or so for an evening of music. It's for the visiting high school students, you say, but we're welcome and it should be fun.
She says yes. And it's the best choir performance you've heard since coming to school here. You know they're good, and you know you're spoiled rotten to hear them sing all the time, but this--this performance is exquisite, incredible, beyond belief. It's heart-stopping beautiful. Indescribably so.
Afterward, you go home and search for a good recording of the Frostiana pieces they sang--The Pasture, A Girl's Garden. All you manage to find on YouTube put together can't match the quality of the choir you've just heard, but you do stumble across a piece called Eat Your Vegetables.
It gets played over and over. You laugh. Your husband laughs too as soon as he hears it. You can't believe anyone wrote something that brilliant. You tell choir director husband that if he ever needs a secular piece, he should choose that one.
Next day, weary from the last couple of late music nights, you see the sign at the grocery store: "One-day produce sale."
You don't want to go grocery shopping until tomorrow, but you simply must go tonight after all. You know to eat your vegetables, and you know to buy them at a good price whenever they'll give ito you. Avocados? .48 each. Strawberries? .98 per package. Orange sweet potatoes? .38 per pound. Onions? .33 per pound.
Do you know we went without buying avocados for a year or more because they were always more than a dollar each? Do you know what it feels like to go without avocados for that long, and then buy eight in one night, when last week's green ones are still ripening in your basket at home?
It's pure privilege. It cannot be described in words.
You stock up. You call at least one friend. You thank God again for providing everything for all this scholarly time when the budget is small. You thank Him also for the musical food that floods the soul, knowing this privilege doesn't follow you everywhere you go. You thank Him for twice-daily family worships, for a solid spiritual leader in your home.
And you trust that whatever is ahead in the coming months, especially those just following your comprehensive exams, He will always provide exactly like He has always provided.

A Little (and growing) School in Alaska

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Have you ever wondered what it's like to go to school in Alaska in the winter? With no indoor play area? You'll catch a glimpse of what it's like when you watch this video. You'll also catch a glimpse of Grandpa-in-law, and even though you won't see him, you can picture twin-brother-in-law in his element. (Or THE elements, as the case may be.)

Valentine's Day in the Lunch Room

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For the last couple of days, talk in the lunch room has tentatively circled around the big Valentine's day--who's single, who's not, who hates the day single or not, who spends inordinate amounts of time making Valentine's cards for a sweetheart regardless of hate for the day....

"I've been alone for almost all the Valentine's days in my entire life," one friend lamented.

"Yeah, me too," I said.

Which is a true statement. Before the Valentine's day in 2009, I did spend them all by myself. Counting today, three out of twenty-eight with a sweetheart still leaves almost all of them without one.

I'm glad they laughed. It might have been a bit cheeky to say that with my husband sitting right next to me, committed to being my Valentine for life and celebrating with me come Thursday, but I did mean it to be funny.

And I hope they all--and you all--have a wonderful Valentine's day, even if you have your house to yourself to curl up with a favorite book {oh, wait, I mean Studies in Twentieth Century Music homework} like I do.

I Like Life, Life Likes Me

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You're thinking we must really love pancakes to make that many all at once. Well, we do. But I especially love not wasting food, so when the recipe said 2 tablespoons baking powder when it should have said 2 teaspoons baking powder, I had to take some drastic measures. Especially when I had decided to make a double batch so that there would be leftovers.

The two batches turned into six batches, and you would be amazed at how much better they tasted as six batches instead of two. Yes, I penciled in the correction for next time!

You know what else I love? YouTube. You might not think I'm a YouTube kind of girl, but I have discovered something. I can stay home while the bread bakes (another thing I love, but that I didn't do today) and do my listening/watching music homework on YouTube instead of spending that two hours in the library.

I also love the Naxos Music Library my school subscribes to. Another way to study at home instead of going back to school for a late evening.

But do you know what I don't love? Listening to freely atonal music. Watching ballet. Listening to twelve-tone music.

Will it be totally crazy, then, if I say I love analyzing freely atonal and twelve-tone music? Or the music that goes to the ballet? It's so wonderfully full of math, REALLY creative compositional technique (get out your scissors and glue...literally), and the catchy spark of imagination.

I love reading Henry Cowell, and imagining his new system of notation that would include a new-fangled "two-elevenths" notes. I love to imagine getting good enough to pick out the overtone series expressed rhythmically instead of harmonically through the multiple voices of a piece of music.

Is there anything better?

Well, yes. There's my husband, and the flowers he brought me a few days ago, the dishes he keeps washing when I don't want to, the music he writes, the total thoroughness with which he does all his work.

And of course, there's also my Savior, who forgives my stumblings (including my intentional ones), gives victory over thoughts the devil would love to have me dwell on, and pleads my case before His Father's throne--pleads with His own blood.