How Things Are Going...

...Well, we're planning my mother's 80th birthday party. The birthday has already happened, but with other stuff (including the birth of her most recent great-grandchild) going on, it got busy. 

So my SIL texts me and says, "What are we doing for your mom's b-day? [Brother] has no idea."

Well. It was HIS idea. And he even set the menu! After consulting with Sis, and agreeing that Brother was a MORON, I texted back with a repeat of the menu and we have it all straightened out. 

I dropped off some cake totes to my mom (shower, baby, which I thankfully didn't have to attend!), and we discussed it. She asked, "Are you letting [Brother] pay for all the main course?" Well. Yeah. You're dumb enough to forget what you said you'd do, you get to pay for it. 

Besides, I'm doing cupcakes, tortellini salad, baked beans and likely something else. For years, I've organized these things - time for someone else to step up... 

I'm making small cupcakes. Mom likes cupcakes. And I'm using these Russian frosting tips. I have 3 of the tips set aside - the complete set is something like 20 tips, and there are no numbers on them, so we have to figure out a way to identify them all, and lucky me - I get to play with all of 'em to see what they make! Mom and I talked, and she prefers the smaller ones - cupcakes, I mean - particularly since this is a LOT of frosting! I'm going to practice, and we'll see how they come out. I'll just fiddle with some waxed paper. I want to get a feel for them. All I should have to do is make a batch of frosting, tint some green and tint some pink, and maybe coral. She likes pink. So - roses and tulips. 

Clean Eating...

I'm working toward clean eating. Or at least cleaner than I used to eat. One of the things is that I have to clean out my kitchen. Today, at the store, I saw this. 

Look at the ingredients lists. I've circled them. Yes, the Daisy costs more. But look at the INGREDIENT in it. 

The store brand is more economical. And the ingredients include something double-starred that says "an ingredient not normally included in sour cream." Yikes... What the heck?? Bad enough that one of the ingredients is cellulose. That's wood fiber, folks. 

I have also cleaned out my cleaning equipment. I've gotten rid of the toxic stuff. I use vinegar and water for windows, I use Thieves Fruit & Vegetable wash on the produce I buy. I use Thieves cleaner for the rest of the cleaning. I use a natural dish soap. 

I've also cleaned out my personal care products. Got rid of everything that I found with formaldehyde (nail polish), parabens, phthalates, triclosan, SLS, toluene, and propylene glycol. 

And yeah - left my shelves pretty bare. But the stuff I'm using? At least I know I'm doing the best I can to "detox" - and I know that in today's world, it's impossible to totally eliminate toxins from your body. But I can do what I can do. 

And it can start with something as simple as sour cream. 

It's a Dog's Butt...

So Quinn's at it again... There's a cyst that's bothering her. I'm using an essential oil and ointment to calm it down. The vet doesn't want to do surgery on it because of the location. 

Tonight, she got a treatment with Young Living Essential Oils Animal Scents line. I cleaned it off, used Puriclean, then used InfectAway and finally, Mendwell. I sealed it all in with just a dab of Animal Scents Ointment. And yeah - she's in the "inner tube of shame," so in order to assuage her doggie dignity, I gave her a smidgen of cheese. 

Her dignity will be further affronted when Hubby trims away some of the hair, so that the area has air circulation. Even though I'm "sealing in" the beneficial oils, the Elkhound double coat is pretty dense, and it can be a problem with wounds healing. 

She's in the bathroom, only mildly offended. Tippi sniffed, but left her rear end alone. 

Each of them got a little head-rub with Lavender, since there are fireworks going off, but they're not as bothered as they were on the 4th of July. Of course, the entire neighborhood wasn't shooting them off tonight either!

I'm hoping that the essential oils work. Many oils are good for animals and many oils are good for the skin (human and canine). Essential Oils have been used a lot. It's something you do have to get your dog used to, and some dogs - they just don't like them. Like humans, they all have opinions. 

I've been gradually introducing them to the dogs, and I think they're at least getting used to them. 

Random Picture...

So I went into the bathroom this morning to brush my teeth. This is my furry grey bathmat (who had her head up and was smiling till she saw the phone...). And somehow, it hit me... She's going on 10 - she'll be 10 in January. 

Our Elkhound group has had a lot of losses lately. The dogs - they don't live forever, and that 15 or so years? Goes by in a blink. And with Tippi? It's less than that because we didn't get her till she was around 2. So we're in the dark with the actual history of her mom and dad, and any potential health problems. 

So far, we've been lucky, though she REALLY needs to lose weight. And no, we don't feed her a lot. She gets fed 3x/day, and in total gets about 1 1/4 cup of high-quality dog food. It's not a lot of food. She got really heavy after she was spayed, and it wasn't because she was getting treats. I don't use a lot of treats. Even in training, I was breaking those things up - practically into molecules!! It's like the weight just gloms onto her. 

Kind of like what it does to me... Hmmmmm. Maybe I was an Elkhound in a prior life??

So anyway. It hit me. One day (sooner than I want - no matter how long she lives), I won't have my furry grey bathmat. She won't be here. My heart actually dropped. 

I've had a few special dogs in my life. She's one of them. 

Ecce - EEEK!

For those of you not conversant with liturgical music OR "Church Latin" - this is in reference to our newest piece, which our lovely choirmaster said we could "just do one day."

Winter vista

He gave it to us one weekend and alluded to how we could do it the NEXT weekend, except for now, I'm the only alto that shows up with any consistency. I wasn't going to be at church yesterday (more on that later) and so he said he'd wait a bit.

In the meantime, Hubby got the piece in Sibelius, since I can't play piano and I needed to learn this thing PRONTO.

Oy. Oh. My. God. Good. Grief. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiikes!!

First, there's no apparent YouTube version of this particular arrangement of that venerable motet Ecce Panis Angelorum (translation: Bread of the Holy Spirit). We have Gregorian Chant and another version (God knows whose) but nothing by James H. Rogers. This piece is so old that Tom was able to get it free from the Library of Congress. Yes, THE Library of Congress will provide you with music out of copyright and, appparently, ancient. 

Around about measure 14, the alto part starts, fairly innocent and, I admit, kinda boring. We hang out on the G for a while. Then it gets interesting because we follow the baritones. The first hint of "issue" is around measure 23. I have to hit a B. A LOW, low B. Mind you, I'm still mostly soprano and my lowest audible note is usually middle-C. This is the note below middle-C. So we start "in the basement" with this particular phrase, and round about measure 28, we go from a G (above middle-C) to a quick rest, to an E... the E above middle-C. Almost a one-octave jump UP the scale. And there's no sliding - you've gotta nail the G, breathe and then crank on that batch of Es - there are 6 of 'em right in a row, then after #6, in the same measure, you go to the low E (still above middle-C). 

Whew. I've run it through a couple of times, both "cold" and "warmed-up" after a couple of rounds of Lacrimosa - which, believe me, is quite the warm-up. I squeaked like a 4th grader with his first clarinet when I tried to grab that E note. 

The only thing I can think of is to try to, at that point, switch to my lower register and see if that works. But I still have that mid-measure switcheroo to the higher register from the higher E to the lower E. 

Oh, and here's fun. This is the verse: In figuris praesignatur, praesignatur. Cum Isaac immolatur.  In "praesignatur" imagine the a and e tied together; I can't figure it out in Blogger and my brain is tired trying to wrap itself around this piece of music. 

Is this penance? I'd be less freaked out if there was another alto. And I feel for Hubby. Tom is the "other tenor" but if it's a difficult piece, he's playing and letting Hubby carry the tenor load. And the tenor part is up in the rafters a bit, too. 

Come to think of it, I could probably "fake" it since at that point, the soprano line is the same as the alto line. And the sopranos are a loud bunch. They vastly outnumber me, even when Roberta joins me (she's an opera singer, so her "alto" is a bit more florid than mine). There are 4 of them to 1 of me. Four LOUD women. Sweethearts, but loud nonetheless. 

It'll all happen. It always does. But sometimes not before scaring the crap out of me.

Did I mention that I haven't even STARTED on the Exultet for Easter? Well, I've at least got till mid-April on that. 

Snow...

Knee-high to a short person

So this weekend, it got up to my knees. I helped shovel the front sidewalk, and I knocked some snow off the various feeders. I have to take the big camera outside to get decent shots. My neighbor has some interesting icicles on the house. At least with the big camera, I can get in tight without violating his privacy. 

We have at this moment, beautiful sunshine. The snow sparkles like diamonds in its piles. It's gorgeous. And 8*F with a "feels like" of -4*F. It should be clear over the next week or so, and might actually "warm up" to the 30s if we're lucky.

Break out the wool socks and Birkenstock sandals!! 

I'm still cool with winter (did ya see that pun there???) but I dug out a picture and put it on my desk. It's one Hubby took of a Swallowtail butterfly (I think) on a lupine. It's very beautiful, as are 99.9999% of his pictures, and it's just sitting on my desk reminding me that, yes, spring will be here, and you'll see me crabbing about the heat and humidity.

Speaking of which, I have to check the guitars. The Seagulls are in cases, but the Sigma isn't. There's probably enough humidity in the house, though I wish it was a tad bit more. Gotta fill the in-case humidifiers and figure out how to keep the Sigma from any damage,though I doubt it'll be harmed. It's not on top of a heat vent, and it's old. I mean, close to 40 years old if it's a day, and often, older guitars weather this lack of humidity better just because the wood is already more dried out than the newer ones.

That's on my list for Tuesday. Along with dropping "pee-pads" off to my friend Deb in Lab Rescue, remembering to grab Dead Brother's old cell phones for the domestic violence program, and grabbing the bag of archive materials to deliver to my Zonta meeting. Oh, and the check for the fundraiser. 

So much for an "easy" day off... 

The Shower...

Cupcakes for shower

Pardon the upcoming rant, but I just can't hold it in any longer. First, I did end up doing the cupcakes for the shower, which was totally NBD (no big deal) because I can do 36 cupcakes standing on my head. In a blizzard. 

I got the couple a cake plate that "does tricks." It's Gorham crystal, and no, it's not fussy; check out the link. It turns from a cake plate to a punch bowl, and then if you just use the bottom portion, it's a chip and dip set-up.

At the last minute, the shower location was switched. The original restaurant had a sewer blow-out. Urgh.... So everyone was contacted and we all went off to the other location. We had to park street-side, and clamber over drifts, but that was ok, I guess. My niece helped haul in stuff, and she and my sister rode with me. Our plan had always been to ride together because the parking at the original restaurant was miniscule. 

We got in, said hi to my SIL, her sister, and various guests that we knew. Made excuses for my mom -- by the way, it turns out she's got a sinus infection and upper respiratory infection. Which I told  her she probably had about 3 days ago, but who listens to me??

And we sat. And sat. And sat. My cousin texted the bride, and comes back to report "she's partying with her bridesmaids." What????????????

Finally, she strolls in with nary a word of apology and waltzes up to the head table as if it's perfectly normal to be ONE HOUR LATE for your own shower. Chattering away with her buds as if they were out on a girl's excursion. 

My niece tried, prior to the bride's appearance to make excuses, but after she saw how she came in, the conclusion was, "Yeah, that's just ignorant..."

I don't know how it's done in your family, but in ours, the bride would, when opening gifts, say, "Ok, this is from Aunt Nancy; oh, what a nice... [insert name of present here]" as she opened the gifts. She did that, but sotto voce -- nobody heard her except her 2 bridesmaids on either side. She did pose with each gift. 

And then the gift-opening was done. My nephew made the "thanks for coming, here's the wedding info" speech. And the bride never moved off her chair to come around to the 30 people who had waited patiently for her arrival in the first place to say hello, or anything. 

I don't care what year it is. Manners are manners. And she has none. 

My aunt (mom's sister) has early Alzheimer's and it's always dicey when she goes out. Yesterday was one of her good days. She said to my sister and me: "Wow - it's a good thing your mom WASN'T here - she'd have blown a gasket." 

Yep. 

Knitting...

Worked a few more repeats of the Nephew Afghan. Didn't do anything on the Teal Sock #2 or even look at another project. 

I just want the afghan over. I figure if I can do at least 2 repeats a night (4 rows per repeat, so 8 rows a night), I should have it done in about a week. At the latest, I want it done by the end of February and I should make that deadline. 

Male Cardinal

Random Picture...

So I put a "winter vista" up at the top of the post; that's outside my office. I am anxious for the warm-up later this week - I don't work on Saturday, though I have a yoga seminar that afternoon. Maybe I can drag Hubby out with the snow shoes if it doesn't all melt to mud. 

This is out in my front yard. It's my FB picture, and one of my friends described this little guy as a "bright red Hershey's Kiss with a tail." He was sitting and sunning in the -30* temps, eating his seeds. He was a cutie - I have a whole series of him on the platform feeder and on the ground --- er, snow. 

Cardinals are gorgeous - male or female. They're very fun to watch and their chirp is distinctive and melodic.