ememby

Music Monday: College Songs 3

Posted on November 12, 2012 | 4 comments

This coming weekend is the weekend away with some of my college friends and to celebrate that, I thought I would revisit some more music from our college years (related posts: College Songs, College Songs 2).

Only Time | Enya
I discovered Enya in college and her music was perfect for studying… just like the Braveheart soundtrack. A month or so ago I was at a coffee shop reading and created an Enya station on Pandora and oh my goodness did it take me right back to the dorm room (or coffee kitchen), listening to my discman (remember when you could only listen to one album at a time when you were on the go?).

Against the Wind | Maire Brennan
My studying music also included a couple Celtic Women CDs (this one and this one were my favorites) and hearing any of the songs again after over a decade again immediately makes me feel all sorts of anxiety about needing to study or write a paper – which is both comforting and worrisome.

Only Wanna Be With You | Hootie & The Blowfish
Poor Darius Rucker, I, like everyone else in the world thought that Hootie was his actual name, or at least his nickname. But I do just love Hootie… and I love to say that word, hootie… also, the drummer with his long hair cracks me up and this video in general.

3 A.M. | Matchbox Twenty (back when they were Matchbox 20)
A band that as survived the test of time… I wonder how sick of this song they are, I’d imagine they still play it at concerts. I remember this CD very clearly and pulling it out to listen to for the first time when my shipment of free CDs from BMG came (anyone else sign up for the 12 free CDs from BMG like a dozen times? I had a CD purchasing problem.).

I’ll Be | Edwin McCain
Edwin McCain had pretty fabulous hair back in the day. I do love this song and thought it was so sad he didn’t have more hits but a quick search reminded me of Could Not Ask for More so I was proven wrong, he had two hits. Really, when you have lyrics like “the rain falls angry on the tin roof” you can’t expect to have long-term success.

Let Us Pray | Steven Curtis Chapman
I remembered this song with the thought that maybe I was going to make fun of it a little but then it started playing on YouTube and it made me want to dance. I need to play it for the kids tonight… I think they will love it.

Lead of Love | Caedmon’s Call
I cannot recall if I have ever seen Caedmon’s Call in concert, but I know I certainly have more than my fair share of their music and this was the first song I fell in love with. I didn’t really listen to Christian music before I went to Calvin – just Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman at youth rallies, who are great in their own way but Caedman’s Call really appealed to me the same way pop music did… more than just “God” music that you listened to because you were a good little Christian.

Barely Breathing | Duncan Sheik
I see Glee did a cover of this song but I prefer the original. The lyrics… they might have been incredibly poignant for any heartbroken 20-something. But isn’t every 20-something heartbroken at some point, we are all a little overly-emotional at that stage of life.

I Don’t Want to Wait | Paula Cole
If you were a female in her early 20s in the late 90s, this song is likely pretty near and dear to your heart. And you fall on one side of the Pacey vs. Dawson spectrum (if you picked Pacey, we could be BFFs).

One Sweet World | Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds
When they came to Calvin my freshman year and I went to the concert with Sparky Mark (so named because I felt no spark for the poor guy but did not let that stop me from going to the concert with him because I wasn’t about to miss out due to a lack of attraction), Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds open with this song. This concert (nearly 3 hours of acoustic Dave and Tim) and David Gray in Minneapolis (a concert that sold out in five minutes in an old theater – Heidi and I were in the balcony and could feel the whole floor swaying from the people and the music – and back with he toured with just his drummer) are my two favorite concerts that I’ve ever been to – what’s your favorite? Or what songs bring you back your college years?

4 Comments

Posted in Music

Instagram | 28

Posted on November 8, 2012 | 6 comments

This is one of those forever weeks – I am surprised today is not Friday but sadly, there is a whole day left to the remainder of this week! Weekends feel so short and weeks feel so long, wish it were the opposite. How does one get two-day work weeks and 5-day weekends? Now my dad will gloat that everyday is a weekend to him – someday I will be retired.

The sun was on fire one of our morning drives last week – times like that I wish I had more than my measly camera phone.

See, so pretty.

I’m a little in love with large velcro rollers. Minimal effort, big impact. Having long hair is fun while it lasts… Simon is counting the days until I can chop and donate it!

We took Jack to his very first movie [in the theater] – Ice Age: Continental Drift. These are the lovely photos we have to document the experience, but since we have none of Liam’s first movie, I’d call it a win! He was pretty good for the movie but asked a TON of questions – thankfully the theater was pretty empty on a Thursday morning.

Liam was Jango Fett for Halloween – after making costumes last year, I was all for buying one this year. He was all for being a Star Wars character, too bad I had to explain to everyone who Jango Fett is… Angry Birds were universally recognized last year.

Little brother loses out and has to rewear Liam’s old costume… in reality he was thrilled but doesn’t the little brother always get the short end of the stick?

Why does my hair always do cute things when I am home for the night? I did this fun, oh-so-shiny bun after the kids went to bed on Halloween night. At least I can share the fun with Instagram and my lovely blog visitors – you guys are so pretty.

Liam approves of Spoonlickers. I do not approve of his new face for photos. He thinks he’s pretty neato, clearly.

The boys on our way north last weekend. Liam was suitably excited, Jack did not want to smile for the camera. Too bad, buddy, still taking your picture.

We saw snow, then it went away, and then it came back again and then it went away. I am an excellent observationist and storyteller.

The boys were super excited to get new swim goggles. Did they actually where them in the water park? Nope.

Saturday, after dinner, we drove into town for some libations. Simon picked them well. The boys slept upstairs. We watched Juno downstairs. Everyone was happy.

This is Liam’s interpretation of flying that I asked him to do so I could try and score a free ticket from Southwest Airlines.

Again, Jack is not willing to cooperate for the photo, but they really did have fun.

Sunset on the way home – the end!

6 Comments

Posted in Instagram, Life in general

Tuesday Randoms

Posted on November 6, 2012 | 4 comments

I voted today. I have not always voted because I have not always cared. But today I voted. Because I believe that if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the outcome, whichever way you vote. And I like to complain. It’s a special gift.
Though there are two bathroom stalls in our office building’s women’s restroom, people post-training from the gym, regularly change in the main part of the bathroom (i.e., not in on of the UNoccupied stalls). Why? Do they want to be seen naked by the general public who may be entering the restroom or walking by as the door opens? Myself, I prefer to change where there is no risk of someone seeing me, but perhaps I am a prude or too modest.
I like to imagine I can do fancy calligraphy and then I try it and it looks like the attempts of a third-grader (no offense, third graders).
Some people I may or may not be married to always beat me at Words with Friends, this makes me determined to trounce them sometime.
Ceelo had a jheri-curled wig on last night’s episode of The Voice. Every time he talked to one of the performers, they would inadvertently touch their own hair and can you blame them? I think he does things like that to see if anyone will ever call him out. They do not. [Also, Google jheri curl and be entertained by the images that come up, they are fierce.]
I watched the CMAs last week. I suppose I will take live performance music almost any way I can get it (though I refuse to watch other performance shows outside of The Voice). I do not get the draw of Hunter Hayes, Luke Bryan or Little Big Town (who sing a song called Pontoon which I feel like is a metaphor for something but I cannot get past the song title). I do still love Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, The Band Perry and Zac Brown Band – judge away.
We were listening to a song on XM radio on Sunday and the name of the guest artist that was featured with Lifehouse was cut off so you could only read “Na..” and I said to Simon, “Who is that British singer whose name starts with Na? She was on Chelsea Lately that one time.” Simon was no help to me and just laughed that I thought he would know (in retrospect, I was barking up the wrong tree, but Stef would have been able to tell me, I think). SoundHound told me it was Natasha Bedingfield and the song is Between the Raindrops.
I am kind of loving the show Nashville. So many familiar faces. One of the former Lucky characters from General Hospital, the wonderful Connie Britton, that guy who used to be on Who’s Line… (sorry guy, don’t know your name), and the love-to-hate-her Hayden Panettiere who is awesomely unlikeable.
We have nothing planned for this coming weekend except small group and I am so excited! We’ve had a lot of plans and it’s nice to be unscheduled.
Thanksgiving is in TWO weekends (ruh oh); GWA (Girl’s Weekend Away) is next weekend (happiest of happy days). And then it is holiday madness. I am woefully unprepared.
As I posted on Facebook, Jack ate a frozen waffle for breakfast this morning. Which expands the list of things he will eat for breakfast (outside of cinnamon rolls and donuts, which, let’s face it, aren’t that much worse than frozen waffles but we do not regularly have them – also, Jack will not eat homemade cinnamon rolls, only those we have purchased at a restaurant or store – WHAT IN THE WORLD) to THREE things. Toast (with Vegamite or butter/cinnamon sugar), Fruit Loops and frozen waffles. I don’t think he is a picky eater because of texture issues, I think he is just that stubborn about food.
A year ago I went away for the weekend with my friend Tracey; ironically (or perhaps just coincidentally) we went to the same northern Michigan city where the fam and I went last weekend… this makes me laugh; apparently I am starting a new tradition of going to Boyne the first weekend in November every year, it’s a tradition I wouldn’t mind.

4 Comments

Posted in Random

Check this one off the list

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

On my list of things I want to do before I turn 35 next year (speaking of, I have less than a year to complete this list – uh oh), one was going to Great Wolf Lodge with the boys and this past weekend we made plans for just such a thing, opting instead to go to Avalanche Bay at Boyne Mountain. My lovely husband took care of planning and booking everything – which is just about a perfect vacation to me – not having to worry about the details (more perfect would be having it completely paid for by someone else + about ten more days + a nanny; but I’m very happy with how it went).

Saturday morning, bright and early, we left and headed north. Near Cadillac we noticed something more than frost on the trees and the grass surrounding the highway… that’s right, November 3, our first snow sighting of the year.

Our official check in wasn’t supposed to be until 5 so we planned a detour to visit some friends who opened a B&B/gastro pub outside of Traverse City – if you find yourself on M22 in Maple City, check out Little Traverse Inn and tell them Michelle and Simon sent you – you will not be disappointed (also, anyone want to plan a weekend getaway with us – we know a great place to stay). After lunch, we got a tour of the rooms and the boys checked out the porch chairs…

After that we headed further north to our final destination, still not telling the boys what our plan for the weekend was. We didn’t tell them until Saturday morning that we were going anywhere and when we asked Liam to guess where we were going, he shouted, “Las Vegas!?” Um, no.

We pulled into Boyne Mountain, got checked in and were planning on saving the ultimate surprise (the water park) until after we got the boys changed into their swimsuits. Sadly, a well-meaning handyman, asked the kids in the elevator on our way to our room if they were going to the water park and therefore let the cat out of the bag. Stupid handyman.

Near-total-surprise or not, the boys were beyond thrilled with the weekend… they could have spent endless hours swimming around, going down slides and jumping into our arms from the side of the pool. The first day we spent a couple hours at the water park before dinner (McDonald’s – another treat) and then headed back to our room where the boys wiped out in their upstairs loft while we watched TV downstairs. The excitement got the best of them and they were up in the wee hours of the morning (Jack very angry that Simon and I were then sleeping in “his” bed after we moved him to a nest of cushions and blankets on the floor – he awoke at 3:00 with a loud, “Hey – why are you in my bed, I don’t like that!”). Simon kept them at bay with the television downstairs until 7 when he could go get us some Starbucks. The children were ready to go, in their suits and goggles with only 3 hours to wait until the water park opened…

I discovered the first day that I really don’t enjoy water slides – it had been ages since I had been on one and I had forgotten how little I like the unknown element of sending yourself plummeting into a tube of water, blind to the twists and turns to come (plus I wear contacts so I can’t go with my eyes open). I could not sure out why I had a gnawing in my gut and a racing heart while we waited in line for Vertigo and then Liam and I got on our double tube and entered the dark tube and my brain screamed: YOU HATE THIS, YOU BIG DUMMY! Neither of my little boys share my dislike, which is good for them, but bad for me since they could have gone on slide after slide, without stopping (and pretty much did) so I had to suck it up and get over my aversion as they needed a parent with them and why let Simon enjoy all their glee? That is the hallmark of parenting right there – doing things you don’t want to do because it will be a good experience for your kids and trying to avoid them having your hang ups about things. Speaking of avoiding your hang ups about things, Liam was desperate to ride the faux wave thing shown below and we finally relented and let him try it, knowing the worst thing that could happen would be that he was frustrated and got a mouth-full of water. There he is on his boogie board after a successful first attempt which we don’t have documentation of because we couldn’t get the phone out in time (it was successful but brief)…

And there he is, completely wiping out on his second attempt. And if you think that it appears that he is knackers (a.k.a., nekkid) in the photo below, you would be right, because his swim trunks were around his ankles. He popped up quickly and the lifeguard held up the boogie board to block everyone’s view while he pulled up his trunks. He is thankfully just young enough to not be completely embarrassed that this happened – though I’m sure he’ll appreciate this photo in a couple years and even more that I shared this story here. I would like to thank the parents who stood at the bottom of the exit and gave him high fives for his attempt – he was by far the youngest kid in line to try the water feature.

All-in-all, despite our kids whininess when they didn’t get their way on every detail and their completely craziness when we weren’t in the water (“we were just excited, mom”), I’d call this weekend a great success! Yes, Liam is strong-arming Jack in the photo below, they are really never not wrestling.

Plus we had the following views to enjoy on our car ride home:

Both boys were down for the night by 7:00 and Simon and I were in bed and asleep by 8:30/9:00. More pics to come in my next Instagram post.

In comparison

Posted on November 1, 2012 | 3 comments

Because of Jack’s hand we have really driven home the thought that God made him that way and that God made him special. How much so was really highlighted recently when Liam sadly said from the backseat, “I wish I had a special hand like Jack. What makes me special?” He’s not yet at the age where he sees Jack’s hand has a hindrance or a bad thing (and hopefully he never does) because we have always pointed out the positive associated with it, the specialness. But his statement/question put me in the position of having to figure out what to say to him to make him feel better. To console my sweet six-year-old because he was sad to not have his own “lucky fin.” Can’t say that I ever saw that coming.

I couldn’t say, “Really, you should be happy that you don’t have a small hand like your brother because you won’t have to deal with figuring out different ways to do things, or how to field questions about your hand and stares from strangers (and sometimes friends).” Liam is oblivious to the aspect of Jack’s hand that are not enjoyable, instead, he was focused on wanting that specialness, on it not being fair that his brother has this special thing that he doesn’t have (oh my goodness, no one warns you how much of parenting is soothing hurt feelings and making sure your kids think everything is even). And I (perhaps) forgot that Liam also needs those extra assurances that he is also special, that God made him special, because we make such a big deal out of Jack’s hand. But in this case, he was not comforted by my simply saying that God made him special, too, because He makes everyone special; he pushed me to tell him specifically, what about him physically made him special. I had a God-given moment of genius when I pointed out his belly button, which was different since birth and is now even more different since his little surgery earlier this year and how that was something special about him in how God made him. Thankfully that was enough and he was happy with that assurance, proudly telling his brother, “God made me special, too, because of my belly button.” [Yes, I laughed.]

I have been thinking about that a lot since it happened. Knowing that as they grow, we’ll have to balance how much we talk about Jack being special with also saying the same thing about Liam. Liam needs the same assurances from us as Jack, both boys need to know they are loved and special to us and to God. But I am also struck by Liam latching onto something that most people would see as a negative and by comparison he is left feeling like he is the one missing out [which I think means we have been successful in presenting it as (at the very least) no big deal].

I’ve also been thinking about how, without fail, comparison of ourselves to others will always leave us lacking; feeling inadequate in some way, or like we are missing out. Looking at another person and thinking, “Oh, I wish I had her house/her wardrobe/her body” or “Wow, her kids are listening to her/her husband is so sweet to her/her friends are so wonderful… I wish my kids/husband/friends were more like that” that is the devil right there in your head, telling you that God made a mistake, that you aren’t good enough, that the person you are looking at [and judging] is better than you and that He didn’t make you special. And that is a lie. God doesn’t make mistakes and no one’s life is perfect or more worthy of goodness. We will always feel like we lose out when we put ourselves up for comparison because we see what we want to see, what the other person wants people to see but we seldom see the full story. We don’t know the other person’s pain or struggles; how they are also comparing themselves to their sister/brother/co-worker/stranger at the store and feeling like they don’t measure up. We need to give it up, stop comparing ourselves to others and letting it take the happiness out of our lives. No matter who you are, God made you special.