Collecting Musicals

I thought that we’d do faerie tales this year, and musicals (big ones) next year, but … I think we might be a while on faerie tales, yet!  I had *NO* idea how many versions/movies there were, out there!!  In fact, I just found THREE more Cinderellas… and it took us waaaaaay longer to do Red Riding Hood than I expected!

Still, I have to start collecting Musicals for our net thing.  And if I don’t sit down and list them… I’ll miss something, I just know it.

  Music Man – Carousel
- Fiddler on the Roof –
My Fair Lady – Evita
Phantom of the Opera – King & I
Sound of Music – State Fair
Wizard of Oz – Fantastiks – Oliver
Annie – Grease – Bye Bye Birdie
South Pacific – Annie Get your Gun
Man of LaMancha – Brigadoon
Hello, Dolly – Camelot – Mame
Meet me in St. Louis – Guys & Dolls
Oklahoma – Showboat
- Finnian’s Rainbow –
Porgy & Bess – Chicago
Les Miserables – Joseph/Dreamcoat
Hairspray – Little Shop of Horrors
Sweeney Todd – Cabaret
- West Side Story –
A Chorus Line – 1776
42nd Street – Jesus Christ Superstar
Pajama Game – Damn Yankees
Anything Goes – Godspell – Cats…

Adding to the Chart

So first I did a timeline of the ‘churches’ (or, Church Eras) of Revelations.  Then I did a timeline of the Six Month Suggestion (or, Seal Judgments/Beginning of Sorrows).  Then, when the SMS was over, I did a summary, putting it all together from AD36 thru AD2010.  Then – I think it was in January of this year, but feel free to correct me – I had to add to the timeline the ‘span of almost a half an hour’ (or, three years).  Then I went back and researched the magnetosphere breech, the delayed solar maximum, and other solar events, and added them to the timeline, as well.  Which was really interesting, too.

Well, about a week ago, I did a ‘Signs in the Sky’ edition that covered all of the eclipses and alignments between 2003 and 2013 that occurred a) within 7 days of Shavuot(Pentecost), and b) were in Leo in proximity to the Plieades.  Nobody much looked at or was interested in it, but it was VITAL stuff… stuff I hadn’t noticed before that was extremely significant, and my geekage levels were pretty high, regardless or response.

And this morning?  I couldn’t sleep.  So I got up at four (ish) and emptied/filled the dishwasher.  Washed five dozen eggs.  Cleaned the fridge.  Read a book.  And then came in here, and had this… I don’t know, ‘inspiration’ (for lack of a better word) that I need to take the eclipse/alignment events and plug them into my Revelation chart.   I think the actual goal was to make a sheet that I could post and reference, for myself, but then I realized that if I’m going to the trouble to update a chart, I should probably share it here, too.  Just because there may be a person or two interested in seeing it.

click to enlarge…  Cuz it was bigger when I made/saved it!

And of course there’s nothing in 2014, for solar or alignments around Shavuot/Pesach, so these three in a row are very interesting.  Their timing is interesting, too – during the ‘half an hour’, for those three years?  Hoo, yeah.  I love seeing things in chart form – it makes life so much simpler for me.

Anyhow, so in order to keep up with stuff, I’ve updated the chart… and of course, I’m watching for a this year fulfillment of Rev 7:9-end, so that would have to be the fall feasts, most likely.  Either that, or we’ll be going into the Trump judgments, which doesn’t really sound all that exciting to me… but we shall see!

PS:  Just for fun, how about if I add one more chart?  The upcoming fall feasts:

Rosh Hashana	Sep 5-6, 2013	The Jewish New Year
Yom Kippur	Sep 14, 2013	Day of Atonement
Sukkot	Sep 19-25, 2013	Feast of Tabernacles
Shmini Atzeret	Sep 26, 2013	Eighth Day of Assembly
Simchat Torah	Sep 27, 2013	Day of Celebrating the Torah

I’m so geeked… again!  Rosh Ha’Shana is THREE days after my birthday (threes are good numbers!) and Simchat Torah is 9/27… twenty-seven being *my* number.  LOVE that!!  Personal thrill-age added, here…  but anyhow, there it is!

bullet blog

• ‘ello.
• It’s Monday.
• I posted a fantastic Monday pic on FB, today.
• ((for the occasion.))
• Lemme see if I can get it for you.
• There he is!
• Anyhoooo… what a weekend!
• Saturday was the baby shower.
• It… I… should not be allowed out in public.
• Is it me being too much,
• or everyone else not being… at all?
• I don’t know, but I feel like an idiot, afterwards.
• Ah, well.  It doesn’t much bother me, these days.
• Like we don’t all know I’m weird and exuberant?
• Oh!  I didn’t tell you how Thursday went!
• ((With the woman at the park?))
• I was the ONLY one to show up – go figure!
• I don’t think she liked me.
• Which doesn’t matter, because she’s WAY too connected
• To be looking to be connected.
• Most of these chicks are.
• It’s kinda funny.
• Brian says they’re just trying to get more attention.
• Me?
• When I say I have no connections, I *MEAN* it!!
• Yes, well… now I’m starting to think I shouldn’t connect
• ((after all.))
• Yes, yes, I know, I know… I just sometimes relapse into a human.
• It’s a weakness.  I’m working on it.
• Anyhow, we WORKED this weekend!
• Saturday I mowed and Brian got the plow on,
• and we plowed up the garden
• transplanted the blueberry bushes
• moved the baby chicks OUT of my house
• ((((((((((( YES!!!!!!! ))))))))))))))
• … into the primary department in the coop.
• Where critters belong.
  
• I did fifty million  (aka THREE) loads of laundry
•  —  you KNOW for me, that’s a TON  –
• and hung out the clothes for the FIRST time this year!
• We cleaned up a lot, around here.
• Then Sunday we cleaned rabbits from the winter.
• ((which is THE nastiest job, ever))
• Then Brian worked on my car (it had some issues)
• And got the log splitter running…
• … which was when my family came over.
• It was a TOTAL blessing, because they helped split/haul wood.
• EVERYONE – even the little kids.
• We hooked a trailer to the lawn tractor, and loaded it up.
• THREE huge loads of wood, and then we stacked it.
• The men ran the splitter and hoisted the HUGE pieces,
• The women stacked the cords of split wood,
• and the kids made a fireman’s line and loaded the trailer.
• It was awesome – I got pictures.
• (((naturally!)))
• It. Was. HOT., though!!
• And we had hot dogs on the grill for supper.
• Would’ve been nice if the hot tub were running…
• but instead, we had the sprinkler on in the front yard for kids.
• They’d move some wood, then go run and play and cool off.
• It was a good, productive day.
• It would’ve taken us (just my gang) two more days!
• But now that tree that fell (and was taken down)
• Is cut up and ((((mostly)))) moved.
• Next up will be cleaning compost/critter houses.
• Second nastiest job in the entire world, by the way.
• That’ll happen NEXT weekend, though.
• Big storms headed toward Michigan, they’re saying.
• S’okay… we had a beautiful weekend before it,
• so I can’t complain!
• Anyhoooo, I haven’t done a bullet blog in a while.
• So here’s one.
• ((Like you didn’t notice…?))
• Oh, and did I mention BOOK SALE
• … at our ‘home’ library this weekend????
• We were very excited about it.
• This week, all week, are mandatory dance meetings.
• Families are split in groups and scheduled for one night.
• I think that means costumes/recital n’ rehearsal talks.
• Should be interesting, with the new studio.
• But… yeah.  I should go, now.
• This is getting long, again!
• Talk to you later, k?
• Have a great day!!

Bunch o’ things coming down the pipe:

NASA: Meteor slams into Moon, explosion visible on Earth
A massive explosion from a meteor which crashed into the Moon was visible to the naked eye on Earth, NASA says. A boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, causing an explosion so bright anyone looking up at the right moment would have spotted it, NASA said. NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the Moon in the eight years the monitoring program has run the National Geographic reports. About 300 lunar impacts have been logged over the years but this latest impact, from March 17, is considered much, much brighter than anything else observed. It is understood the space rock left a 20m-wide crater after it slammed into the Moon’s surface at 90,000km/h. “We have seen a couple of others in the ‘wow’ category but not this bright,” said Robert Suggs, manager of NASA’s Lunar Impact Monitoring Program at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The blast lasted only about a single second and shone like a 4th magnitude star—making it bright enough to see with just the unaided eye. –Herald Sun
aNNa’S NoTe:  That’s symbolic of a warning.  FYI.  The moon is symbolic of mankind in the heavens.  This is a wake-up call.

 MASSIVE ASTEROID FLY-BY ON MAY 31st
It’s 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth, it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby. Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT. Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated from. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be the result of a comet that flew too close to the sun, said Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. It might also have leaked out of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she said. We will know more after the asteroid zips closer to Earth … There is no chance that asteroid 1998 QE2 could collide with Earth this go-around, and its next close approach won’t be until 2119. Still, Mainzer said the size of the asteroid, and its potential for mass destruction, should remind us that there are some scary things flying around in space. –LA Times
aNNa’S NoTe:  The last time we had a ‘near pass’, there were other untracked meteors with it, one hitting Russia.  And it wasn’t that long ago.  So… heads up.

 THAT BIG SUNSPOT AND WHAT’S COMING
As Earth’s magnetic field reverberates from one CME strike, a second more potent CME is on the way. It was propelled in our d;irection by sunspot AR1748, which unleashed an M3-class solar flare on May 17th (0858 UT). Although this is not the strongest flare we’ve seen from AR1748, it could be the most geoeffective; the sunspot was almost-squarely facing Earth when the blast occurred. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives. In the video, the CME appears to hit Mercury, but it does not. It is merely passing in front of the innermost planet. The planet in the line of fire is actually Earth.
aNNa’S NoTe:  It’s actually aimed right at the Plieades – the seven stars representing the seven church ages of Revelation.  And this sunspot is the same one giving of X-class flares last week.  It still isn’t quite facing us, yet.  Wonder what a CME coming our way at the same time as the meteor coming our way would do…

It Came, It Came!!

The lap harp came in the mail… and I am SOOO in love with it, already.  It came with a beautiful purple canvas (zippered!) carrying case – like what people have for Bible covers.  It came with twenty-five pieces of music, and a tuning page.  I’m giddy beyond words!!

Okay, maybe I should back up, calm down, and give some detail, right?  Yeah, let’s do that.

So… for YEARS I have wanted a folk harp.  I’m a pianist, but I have a fascination with the violin and with the harp, but have you SEEN the size of a harp?  Or the cost of a concert harp?  It’s not feasible even to consider.  But folk harps are portable, they’re beautiful, they’re… okay, NOT reasonable, but priced more like other instruments, and… well, I love the sound.  We had a folk harp play at our wedding… I’ve loved them THAT long.  Here’s a pic of a folk harp (she has it up on a stool – it doesn’t have legs, to clarify).  See… MUCH smaller than the 47-string harp.

Many, many moons ago, when we were living in England, we went to this mostly-American church off-base (Temple Baptist), and they were meeting in this insanely old ruin of an English chapel (complete with cemetery in the yard)… and as they were preparing to move into a new building, we were all cleaning out the old one, and there was this crazy instrument there.  It was triangle shaped, and had about ten strings, and there were triangle shaped music sheets that you could slide under the strings, and you pluck the strings over the notes to play it.  I *LOVED* that thing, and the pastor let my family take it home, one night (I don’t remember what happened to it, after that, but it was gone within a day or two).  But I never forgot how KEWL that thing was! 

((FuN TRiVia:  I would’ve been 14 or 15, and the choir pianist at AHS, on-base… so I was well established in reading/playing music by then, and LOVED that thing.  That was also about the time that my choir teacher put together the school’s first chamber orchestra, and he asked me to play the violin.  I was head over HEELS with it… but my stepdad said I sounded like a dying cat, and made me give it back and quit the group.))

Anyhow… I was thinking about folk harps the other day… and how I should see what there is, price them… see if anyone on Craigslist had any (yeah, right), and on e-Bay I saw the lap harp, and recognized it as that little instrument from the church in England.   So I typed in ‘lap harp’, and found this one, complete with canvas case, 25 music sheets, and lap harp.  I talked to Brian about it for a first instrument, and he was on-board (because it was less than $50), and it was a good instrument for kids to play with… AND would sate my longing for a harp.  All in one fell swoop!

And it came!!  It came!!!  I’m so geeked… except it didn’t come with a tuning key, and of the 16 strings, the top eight are WAY off.  SO way off, LoL!!  The good news is that my husband is a machinist, and is going to make me a tuning key for it.  But the kids are pretty excited, too.

So I wondered if I could find any music for it on-line.  Here are the sites I found:

http://www.reigningharps.com/ (their archive has even more!)
http://www.makingmusicfun.net/htm/harp_sheet_music_index.htm

I haven’t tried any, yet (tuning issue, remember?)… and frankly, I think some of it is for the 47-string harp, NOT our little 15 string harp… but I think I could transpose and simplify the pieces, if need be.

Anyhow…!  About the same time… I was in 2010 of HomeschoolDen‘s archives (I started at the beginning and am reading all the way thru her blog up to the present… still working on it.  She has SUCH fun ideas!)… and last week (er, 2010) she wrote about getting a glockenspiel for her children as an intro to ear training.  And I was intrigued when I saw what she had, and that it was only $30 on Amazon.com!  Here’s a picture of it… what do you think?  ((And you can’t see, but the carrying case it comes in has legs, to lift it off the table for better sound!))

And… well, kids LOVE to bang on things.  The noisier, the better.  They like to make music – but don’t necessarily want to take the time to learn the nuances.  So this is actually the perfect instrument to do ear training on… it’s good for learning intervals, working on rhythm, and simple harmony.  And did I mention that everyone thinks this is fun?  But it doesn’t come with *any* music… so I went looking for some, and hit the jackpot:

http://www.fretlessfingerguides.com/violin_songs.html

So I’ve been printing out music for the kids, and preparing for introducing a few more instruments.  ((My hope – eventually – is to do recorder on Monday, glockenspiel on Tuesday, voice on Wednesday, harp on Thursday, and guitar on Friday… with piano practice after breakfast.  Eventually.  We shall see.))  At any rate, we have some new, fun things to play and learn with in the house!

Things I want to Share

Here’s how NYC would look under the skies of other worlds:

This is really kewl, btw.  You want to click on the link  Seriously.

Three X-Class flares in the past 24 hours:

And it’s not even facing us, yet… so it could get interesting!

U.S. Courts rule against German Homeschool Family:

So if you’re here illegally and living off the system, you’re welcome.
If you apply legally and want to be productive, get the heck out.
HSLDA is going to appeal the ruling, but…  ((sigh!))

Plants communicate thru sound waves, did you know that?

Another one for my Nature Notebook, for the kids!

Have American parents got it all wrong?

I think so… and agree with the article quite a lot.

Reading out loud… to older children?  YES!!!

Did you know it makes a HUGE difference?

Patience is a virtue… NOT being taught to kids:

What happens when you study a painting for 3 hours?
Or a poem, read over and over for more insight…?

Me and My Issues

Stop it.  You’re not supposed to be laughing, already.
                     Seriously, stop.
Okay, so it was a silly thing to title this but… enough.

So either tonight or tomorrow night begins Shavuot.  I’m going with tonight, because I’m counting the Omer, and this-evening-to-tomorrow evening are the fiftieth day.  BUT if you went by the Jews, it’s gotta be 6 Sivan, which is tomorrow-night-to-Thursday-night.  Except that’s not Biblical, it’s traditional… and oddly, if you type in ‘Shavuot 2013′ in a Yahoo! search, it comes up as starting tonight.  Which means they got the new moon wrong, too.  Already I’m starting to go cross-eyed.

     We’re doing it tonight-to-tomorrow-night.

Having said ALL that, I’m an idiot… and here’s why:  I went back and read the Shavuot posts here, as a refresher on what we do/why… and I discovered that Ascension Day is the 43rd day of the Omer.  And you know what I did?  I circled the 40th day, because He was on earth 40 days before the Ascension, and I’m an idiot and forgot the three days from His death to resurrection.  So I observed Ascension Day on the wrong day – a-Gain.  Even though I posted about it last year, and the year before that… all AFTER the fact, when I re-figured it out, like I’m doing right now, because I’m an idiot.

You’d THINK that eventually I would remember what I write, what I learn, but it NEVER seems to happen, and I have to re-discover it late in the game EVERY time, because I’m apparently not bright enough to retain important things.  In my defense, I’m trying to do this alone, by myself, with no helps… but still.  I always thought I was at least slightly brighter than this.  Oi, my vey…!  I’m going to have to make a post called ‘Ascension Day’, put it on the sidebar, and have it say, “Hey, Anna!  Guess what?  It’s the FORTY-THIRD day… get it right, for Pete’s sake, this year!”  Actually, I could just link to this, no?

So!  There it is.  6 Sivan is NOT necessarily Shavuot, that’s a screwed up tradition which requires screwing up the new moon.  Shavuot is fifty days to the Omer, and if you count it, you’ll be fine.  Just don’t mess up Ascension Day by circling the 40th on the Omer calendar – it’s the 43rd. 

Got it, Anna?  GOOD.

I just realized that I hate our Hymn of the Month.  I hate the words of the chorus, completely and utterly.  The verse is SO the song of my heart, but the chorus?  It destroys the song.

I am Thine, O Lord, and I’ve heard thy voice
And it’s told Thy love to me…
But I long to rise on the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Doesn’t that sound like me?  But then… THIS happens:

Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou has died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord
To Thy precious bleeding side.

What. The. Heck?!  I don’t want to go to the cross again.  Neither does He – it is Finished, damn it.  Isn’t it?  It’s a Catholic thing to keep Him nailed up on that cross – my Lord isn’t there, anymore, He arose.  And more than that, He’s not bleeding, either!  He already shed that blood for my sins, in a once-for-all act, no?  If it’s over, it’s finished, He’s come back and walked the earth and ASCENDED… I don’t want to go to that cross, I want to go to Him.  This whole thing smacks of a nasty mass-like thing that just turns my mouth all rancid.

And the weird part?  We do our hymns after breakfast.  I was just sitting, reading a book, singing a totally different song when this realization hit me.  Sometimes?  Weird stuff happens, if you know what I mean.