Grandbebe’s annual Christmas PJ Party with Nonna and Poppa~
1.7 seconds after they got through the front door, this is what I saw.
The PJ party included, but was not limited to cookies for baking and Toys R Us for shopping and Good Times for eating and food playing. There was hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream and popcorn and movies and 7up and cookies and cousins and the-best-way-to-spread-Christmas-cheer-is-singing-LOUD-for-all-to-hear and the Christmas story and making ornaments for Nonna’s tree and the annual reindeer-head print using little-but-growing hands and feet and paint (what the heck am I thinking!??) and watching Gilligan’s Island, of all things and sleepy little heads nodding off anywhere from between 9 pm and 2 in the morning (Guini and Hunter are almost always the hold-outs). And somehow they still wake up at the butt-crack of dawn no matter how late the festivities and little monkeys jumping on beds and o-my-goodness: I was born for this!
I snapped these while talking to my mom on the phone while the kids ate breakfast with Grandpa.
The employees at Toys R Us did not seem nearly as joyously enchanted with our little monkeys as we were. It was merry mischief.
“It’s a great time to be a family.” Microsoft Windows 7. I couldn’t agree more. In light of a certain recent family wedding, this made me smile.
I love the father-daughter who sang one of my fav songs, “Home is Wherever I’m with You,” and their cuteness did not go unnoticed by Hyundai (who used Pomplamoose last year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g947151eKQo).
This year they used Jorge and Alexa Narvaez. SO CUTE!!
And then, for all you Star Wars lovers, “Nadar Did You know?” Classic!
I am actually running around like a crazy woman doing wedding stuff, Thanksgiving stuff, wedding stuff, company-coming prep, wedding stuff, and etc…
One of me and the girls’ all-time fav songs from my best-ever movie::
And a teeny-sneak-peek into one of today’s projects.
Now off to the chapel to decorate…
Am I deliriously happy for Dessa and Ryan? I am. Will I live through the extreme joyousness? I will. Do I love it all, all the craziness, and zany, over-the-top preparation and celebrating? I do. I really do. For real!
Yes. I saw it on Pinterest.** So follow me already.
Social media. Smart phones. Pinterest…It’s so…social. And smart. But there are drawbacks…
But I ADORE Pinterest and am actually having fun “getting acquainted” with the styles and taste and heart of some young women I have sort of known. And I get majorly inspired. The young woman of today are crazy-amazing. There is a creative-anointing on them for home-making and caring for their families that probably hasn’t been seen since King Lemuel’s mother explained the whole virtuous woman thing to him (Proverbs 31). They are unashamedly putting their husbands and children first, cooking healthy, making the home beautiful and glowing with gorgeousness themselves (my own daughters are great examples of this), all the while running a business or three on the side.
If there is one small I thing I hope doesn’t happen (yet I see danger lurking) is that in all the ways social media, texts, Tweets, email bells, and online surfing can fill up the days, I hope moms and their kids will still actually interact face to face and not just on Facebook. I hope husbands and wives talk and make wild love more than they text. I hope grandparents will get to hug their grandbebes more than they get to have Skype sessions with them. I hope people will remember to unplug for no good reason, other than to be, just be, where they are and with the people they are with.
Penelope (1966) starring Natalie Wood
During a tedious wedding project, I watched a colorful, pretty-delightful-romp of a movie with Natalie Wood in the title role. It had a tiny bit of slapstick-Greenwhich Village-Bohemian-1960s-artsy thing. It had a banking executive and some high-society jewels and a yellow Givenchy suit to-die-for all based around Penelope, an engaging and intelligent, yet somewhat ditzy girl who pretty much enchanted every man in the movie. “Picture a girl who walks with the rhythm of a lady tiger, Picture a girl who talks with the sweetness of a honey bee…this is Penelope” the opening credits song explained. And I actually grabbed a pencil to capture these words, which made me think of Facebook and all of the ways and options we can communicate with these days.
Penelope: I never open my mail. I usually stick it away in a drawer and then I actually forget about it or it gets lost.
Banker: Don’t you lose a lot of friends that way?
Penelope: Oh no. It’s just the opposite. You see, if you write me a letter and I answer it, then you have to answer mine. Then I answer your second letter and you have to write me a third in answer to my second. Then I have to write you a third and you have to send me a fourth. And pretty soon we’re so busy writing letters to each other, we haven’t had time to be friends.
[silence as these words hang in the air]
Penelope: Isn’t that true?
Banker concedes: Yes.
The first couple of minutes are the totally-groovy-1960s opening song. Right about 5:29 you can catch a glimpse of the gorgeous Natalie in the yellow Givenchy suit. wearing a red wig. Worth the look!
I am pondering. Just want to make sure I am communicating correctly, in the most honest and advantageous way. In the most friendly, truly friend-ly way possible. With true friends.
White Christmas, 1954. Les Clark (maybe??) and Vera Ellen dancing. I truly believe she was THE inspiration for the Barbie doll which showed up just a few years later. Yes, she had a 19″ waist, but she lived in utter depression and in a hermit-lifestyle almost her whole life. But the girl could dance!
Dancing, 1954. But the music?? NOT your father’s {original} music. It SO works!
Yes, I treated myself today. It is sunny and gorgeous. A singing kind of morning. Even on my old vinyl, the girl’s smooooooooooooth voice is still o-my-gosh!
“Close to You” was my first Carpenter song ever, one of the greatest songs of all time. “Good-Bye to Love” was my favorite song when I was eleven. With the possible exception of “Top of the World,” which was “re-written” for church-singing (and I sang with Jayne and JJ Dixon in Cedar Rapids and later with Cheryl Bardwell in Robert, Lousiana I do believe), I love almost every song they have ever done like crazy. I just think I over-heard/sang “Top of the…” too many times and Karen’s mournful, deep heart stuff is her true genius.
Yes, I can listen on iTunes, too. But the records really, really take me back…Yesterday Once More.
Dave gets top mention in a “comically capable cast.”
Just sayin’.
Um…should they have put this article about “Is He Dead” next to the funeral notices? Dave just asked me…O, my…think I better point it out.
UPDATE:
I wrote to dailypost@localcolormag.com and just suggested that perhaps moving the article about the play to a different location in their magazine might be a better idea?
Tristan (world’s greatest drummer) recently went in to the recording studio with his friend, Sean Blancherd, and some other guys and here is what I know from the website:
The Thought Process:
Sean Blanchard – Bass
Tristan Kelley – Drums
Brer Rabbit – Vox
Special Guest:
Jon Wirtz – Keys
The Thought Process started as just that, a thought that bassist Sean Blanchard has had over the past few years while playing and touring with some other amazing artists. “What would it sound like if certain styles of music were mixed over the bass grooves that were filling up my computer?” The two styles that kept coming into play, hip hop and jazz. Thus, The Thought Process was born.
Groove oriented story telling, melodies, in the pocket drum and bass, with an intellectual vocal vibe.credits
released 25 October 2011
Available for immediate download today.
I am so {obviously} not the hip-hop demographic, but I wholly love good lyric and jazz just folds me in, melts me a little.
Plus? So proud of Tristan!
In other music and the arts news…
Dave and Tara have a single or two coming out soon, as well! We have been waaaaaaaaiting for this!
One of my all-time favorite songs, “A Million Stars” is going to be such a blessing to you!! It is to me.
And – my best friend and full-time lover [Dave Rhoades, of course], is debuting in Prairie Playhouses’ “Is He Dead?” A New Mark Twain Comedy.
I love the arts. I love my {talented} family and God has surrounded me with light and color and melody and song. The hills are alive with the sound of music….
Congratulations on the very awesome release today, Tristan!
Our family vacations were almost always trips to Busch Stadium in St. Louis to watch them play. I rarely follow baseball these days, but when you get a late season chance and there is baseball in October, I am there!
Yes. I pulled out the Burt Bacharach albums (old vinyls – LPs!) and listened while I worked.
With all the great music there is to listen to, it isn’t often I get to Burt, but he has undeniably written a truckload of great stuff in my lifetime. “Wives and Lovers, “Walk on By,” and “Any Day Now,” to name a few. Also, “What’s New Pussycat?” and “What the World Needs Now is Love.” I love “One Less Bell to Answer, ” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.” Of course he wrote, “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” Great songs! “I Say a Little Prayer,” is fun and “Alfie” was a big hit.
This is my all-time favorite Burt song, though it is much less know. And it is newer, not on my vinyls. It is from the movie (“the” movie) “Grace of My Heart.”
