Still Lovin' this Blog

I love the way this girl writes. If I could chose someone to emulate in writing it would probably be her. She's intelligent, funny and doesn't have any problem saying what's on her mind.

Here's an example:

An Open Letter to My Future Husband

To My Future Husband,

I think about you often and I must admit it hurts sometimes not to have you here. I truly believe that waiting for you is probably the greatest lesson in delayed gratification that I will probably ever learn. I sometimes feel that you aren’t out there at all . . . that there will never be someone that will appreciate all the things that make me who I am. Please don’t misunderstand. It is not the waiting that is hard. It is the feelings of isolation and longing. It is the doubt and the fear that occasionally show up when I least expect it. However, I realize that none of this should be dwelled upon because God has chosen us for each other and I will find you when He feels it is time. So I keep my faith in Him and patiently I wait. I fill my empty moments with friends, family, poetry, and prayer. I have made a daily commitment to pray for you even though it isn’t clear to me who you are. I pray for you to find closeness with God. I pray for you to have the strength to make it through whatever trials and tribulations that may come your way. I pray that He gives you courage to do what you know is right and guide you to always make wise decisions. I pray that God will bless your day, your family, your work, and your friends. . . and I pray that He will guard your heart for me just as He guards mine for you. I can’t deny that there have been others that have appeared in my life and challenged my patience and my desire to find you. However they have never been able to deter me. I see them as only preparation for the great love we will one day share and I consider them all lessons learned. It’s hard sometimes, this wait . . .this search. But it has made me independent. Living alone, I have learned to handle whatever comes my way all by myself. I don’t have the luxury of falling apart because I don’t have anyone there to put me back together. But it’s hard to be strong all the time. You don’t even know how many times I’ve wanted you here to share my burdens and say to me, “don’t worry, I’ve got it,” and lighten my load just once. Understand that I wouldn’t expect you to say that ALL of the time. What I do expect is the two of us handling life’s ups and downs together. As the saying goes “a burden shared is a burden halved.” It’s funny, I always thought I’d be married by age 23. I don’t know why I chose this particular number, maybe it was because my mother was married at that point in her life. However, as I look back, I am glad that we didn’t find each other that early in my life. You see, I wasn’t ready then. There were things about myself that needed working on. There were experiences that I needed to have. There were obstacles I needed to overcome. There were lessons I needed to learn. And now I am content in knowing that each day we are apart is an extra day for me to work on myself. It is an extra day to pull out all those insecurities and fears that are sometimes too much a part of me. It is an extra day for me to be certain that all old wounds and scars are completely healed. It is an extra day for me to work on becoming the woman God wants me to be and the woman that you need and desire in your life. I feel that because of our wait, I’ll be able to come to you healed and whole. The longer it takes the more prepared for you I will be. Because of this, I don’t mind waiting because I know that I will be ready, and I know that you will be well worth the wait.

Love,
Your Future Wife, Shana

School is out for summer!

I am very thankful to have made it through my first year of teaching elementary students! The talent show went pretty smoothly and helping out with field day was fun! Too bad I forgot sunscreen for my arms. Now I really have some tan lines. I think my ears are even a bit pink, and you can see where I missed putting sunscreen on my face. At least I was smart enough to do that, otherwise I'd really be in trouble. Thanks to anyone who listened, gave advice, and were just plain supportive this year; I really appreciate it. Next school year will be even better, and full of more fun adventures.

Random thoughts lead to big revelations!

I wrote this in response to another blog, but realized it was too long for a comment, and decided to make it a topic here.

I think happiness is relative. Some days you are having a fabulous day, others just seem neither happy nor sad (a blah day if you will), and still others are just plain awful. I have noticed with myself, and this is something I've been doing since I was a kid, that I don't give myself enough credit. I never feel worthy to even exist sometimes. But I've realized, very slowly, that this is not true. I think it's just the perfectionist in me saying those things. But I think perhaps I could be happier if I give myself some compliments when I do do well here and there. If I do that, maybe I'll be better at accepting them, and even giving them more to others.

I'm sort of going on a tangent here, but it's easier to be hard on yourself, to allow life to get you down, to be nasty, to stay the same and keep up harmful ways than it is to be the opposite. I have been working to get myself back to a place of acceptance where I realize life is the journey that I am on now. It's not as easy as when we were students with worries about homework and grades etc. I (and people in general) have been a student for so long, life after school has seemed foreign to me. I didn't realize that after graduation I'd have to go through another stage of life. This consisting of finding my place in the world once I had the education to play a contributive role in the symphony of life.

I've come to realize, perhaps even matured, that I should live life day by day. Every day is a new beginning to start anew. It’s awesome. If one day is bad, that doesn’t mean the next day will be. What a great gift God has given us to have each day start fresh, with a clean slate! It is my hope that by making the effort to be more positive, it will eventually become habit, and I won't be so hard on myself for my numerous faults and annoyances.

One day I was walking down the hallway at school, and mid-thought I turn to the art teacher putting up artwork. I said, "Isn't teaching to some extent teaching habit?" Think about it, in grade school you learn to use scissors. If you use the scissors wrong you could injure yourself, others, or have a badly shaped cut-out. If you learned to use them correctly then you can make wonderful artwork, use them to open packages etc, the outcome being positive. But you have to practice at cutting, coloring, singing whatever you are doing in life in order to reach the designated goal. After a while, your practice becomes habit and you don't even have to think about how, it just is. Seriously do you ever think about how you learned to cut, color, sing to the radio, dance to a song, to read? Not really, because it's habit. So in conclusion then, making an effort to be more positive should result in a more positive me eventually. The goal for me is to be more accepting of myself, and in turn I think this will help my relationships with other people just be better in general.

It's like the priest said at a wedding I went to back in the day. "Love is a decision. You make the decision to love. Marriage is about making a decision and a commitment to love the person you are with everyday." Love is also a habit, like exercising everyday, brushing your teeth, or being positive. Isn't it good to know that if you feel down, you do have some control over it? You can make an effort every day to be positive, and eventually it will be so habitual it will be a part of you, just as easy as pie that you won't even realize it. Learning is about making good habits a part of your life. Maybe you knew this already, but I didn't bring this thought to fruition until I started thinking about how to teach lil' kiddos. I had to think, how did I learn to sing? How did I learn to find the beat in music? How did I learn to jump rope or to use scissors? Things we take for granted are the things little kids learn; they are habits. We learn to make good choices for our lives, utilizing good habits so that they are built-in life-skills that we use for the rest of our lives!

One more month!

Claudine has one more month until she gets married to Irv. I'm so excited for her. She is so happy. This is her picture from the shower this Sunday.



Here's to you Claudine!

Look at LeLu!

I finally took LeLu to be groomed this week. Her hair was worse than I expected underneath. Luckily I found a place who groomed cats. I really liked the results, and wanted to share them here.



Before


After

Ich Trage Meine Minne

Today I was randomly going through my 'long lost' collection of art songs. I was strolling down memory lane, and happened upon this song. I performed it during my Senior Recital, and if I could make my VHS, digital I would, that way you could hear it. The words are much more menaingful with the song (in my opinion). I'm not sure why but I relate most to German and French music. German, however, definitely beats the cake when it comes to Lieder. Yummy! I miss voice lessons :(

Ich Trage Meine Minne

Karl Henckell poem
Richard Strauss music

Ich trage meine Minne vor Wonne stumm
im Herzen und im Sinne mit mir herum.
Ja, daß ich dich gefunden, du liebes Kind,
das freut mich alle Tage, die mir beschieden sind.
   
Und ob auch der Himmel trübe, kohlschwarz die Nacht,
hell leuchtet meiner Liebe goldsonnige Pracht.
Und lügt auch die Welt in Sünden, so tut mir's weh,
die arge muß erblinden vor deiner Unschuld Schnee.

---

I carry my love, mute with rapture,
In my heart and my mind wherever I go.
Yes, our encounter, dearest one,
Cheers through all the days alloted to me.

Though skies are grim, And jet-black is the night,
Brightly shines my love's sun-like splendour.
And though deceitful is the sinful world, and it grieves me,
Its wretchedness will be blinded by your snow-like innocence.

(Translations by W. Lyman and K. Maunsbach)

A random top 10 list

Top 10 things I want to to do before I die (not in order, just in order of when I thought of them):

1. Travel to exotic places all over the world
2. Learn how to make a ceramic pot on 'the wheel'
3. Get married and have children
4. Go to nursing school and finish the B.S.N. I already have half finished.
5. Improve on the top 10 things that annoy me about myself
6. Learn how to Salsa dance with my s.o.
7. Learn how to cook more (healthy) ethnic dishes
8. Tour with a choir to Europe (again)
9. Learn how to paint contemporary art
10. Go sky diving and bungie jumping

10 ten things that annoy me about myself ( some of these I discovered while forced to stay at home for a week, dr.'s orders).

1. My innate ability to leave shoes everywhere around the house
2. Always leaving cups in the living room (or on the computer desk)
3. The fact that I can't magically wake up ready and happy to go to work everyday
4. Having allerigies, and catching every sickness from the kids I teach
5. My ability to have a favorite song, and not know the CD title or artist
6. Being depressed on Sunday's right before going back to work
7. My tibia that keeps throbbing just because it 'feels like it'
8. No matter how much I clean behind my ears, they never seem clean enough to me
9. My back problems from myriads of car accidents (I'm always tense)
10. The ups and downs moods I go through sometimes

10 ten things I accomplished so far:

1. Masters and Bachelor's degrees from T.S.U.
2. Buying a house (and finally getting a new car after college)
3. Finding a job in teaching and loving it (my first position was crazy!)
4. Getting into District Choir, Placing 2nd at a vocal solo competition, singing scholarship at TSU
5. Went to Europe (Salzburg, Munich, and Budapest) with Cantoria
6. Going back to Church after searching for a home church for 2 years
7. Piano scholarship and piano accompanying since 5th grade
8. Traveled some cities in the states with SWC (Select Women's Choir), [could still travel much more]
9. My HS choir (that I taught) earned I's at State everytime we went!
10. Earning Kodaly Certification Level 1 (going for 2 and 3 soon!)

Top ten other goals I have right now:

1. Lose 5-10 pounds or at least find a way to work around my tibia so I can run/exercise consistently again
2. Plan a canoe trip for July (in the works)
3. Plan to attend Kodaly II classes this summer
4. Be a good bridesmaid for Liz's wedding in July
5. Make new friends, but keep the old (sorry I had to do it)
6. Push myself to be a better Christian (I'm so lazy!)
7. Making commitments to myself and keeping them
8. Doing what I can to stay out of 'being in a slump'
9. Find new and creative activities to do with my time (and friends) that don't cost big bucks
10. Read, Read, and Read

De-stressing through art

Do you ever find yourself bored with life? Lately I guess I’ve just been exhausted and generally unmotivated. It could be the students are wearing me out. It could be that I’m depressed about not being able to run or lift weights like I was doing with the marathon. It could be that I just need a break to recooperate from whatever is constantly wearing me down. Maybe I’m not challenged enough, or maybe I’m challenged too much.

Yesterday at school, one of the classes was on a field trip. I went to the art teacher to tell her the ‘good news.’ We were reveling in some extra free time. I’m so burnt out on grading right now (don’t worry it will be done in plenty of time), that I decided to copy two styles of painting she had on a poster. One was an impressionist flower pot, the other a cubist style flower pot. While I didn’t understand the cubist style as much, in the end I liked my rendition of it the most. I think I will give it to my mom to add to her water color collection of mine from 7th grade. (Mom apparently made an art gallery of watercolors I made in a fun class I took back in the day.)

The art teacher said I did a good job on my ‘paintings’ (construction paper and tempra paint), and said I should take art classes and become dual certified. Could you imagine trying to teach art and music? I’d never have a life, between art shows and concerts. Whew. I might look into taking some painting class or something. It would be fun. It’s also soothing to do something ‘for fun’ assuming there is no pressure involved. I think if you don’t ‘have’ to do something it makes it that much more motivating to than if you are forced or feel required.