Sunday, May 31, 2009

Oh yeah

I almost forgot. Rose and I were taking tickets for the musical on Friday night and visited just a few minutes with Aunt Louise. Rose was telling her that she was 18 now, so was an adult, and Aunt Louise assured her that she wasn't truly an adult until she took her mother out for supper and paid for it. So Rose took me out to supper tonight. She was wanting sushi, but we found three sushi restaurants downtown - all were closed. So we had Vietnamese food. It was excellent.

Rose drove part way to Gravelbourg and partway back. She's getting more practice in, but really needs more before she goes for her license. It's spring so we cleaned out the van too. It really needed it.

Another year older...

yes - and deeper in debt.
I think I have everything in place for the property I'm buying. It closes, Lord willing, on June 15.

My birthday was last week - as was Rose's, and Walter P's. I had everyone over for supper on Wednesday to celebrate. I had made black forest cake for Walter - it was a big hit; and angel food cake for Rose. Loopie had made a lemon cake for me. So there was lots of dessert. We had hamburgers and three or four kinds of salad for main course. It was good.

It was the musical at Western this past weekend. Fiddler on the Roof. Tate was the main character - did a great job. The whole thing was very well done. Glad it's over though. I only helped with costumes, which wasn't too big a job. (Value Village had their half-price sale on Monday and we took full advantage.)

Rose and I went to Gravelbourg for their grand opening of their new building today. Saw lots of people I haven't seen for years, and had good visits with many of them. Was called Nancy once (by someone who honestly thought I was Nancy; not just getting the name wrong); and was called Ruth once (by someone who, when I said it was May, said - you changed your name?). I assured both gentlemen that Ruth and Nancy were my much older sisters, and yes, there is a family resemblence, isn't there? The guy who called me Nancy was a little reassured because he thought I had looked younger than he remembered Nancy looking.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Joys of Theory

I can now decipher and comply with instructions such as:

"Write the dominant seventh chord in root position for each of the following minor keys. Use half notes in chorale style. (Remember to raise the leading note). "

Or

"Write the harmonic minor scale that has A as its sub-dominant. Write it ascending only, using a key signature, marking the semi-tones with a slur, in the tenor clef and 5/4 time, beginning on the sub-mediant, beam notes correctly as necessary, add appropriate bar lines and rests in the final bar (if necessary) to make it musically correct."

What's next? Figured bass (a short-hand method for writing chords that was used during the Baroque period), Cadences (actually, I'm nearly done Cadences), Transposition, Open Score, Melody Writing, and Simple Analysis. Then on to Theory 4.

I can't say it's exciting - except for the thought of being nearly done. However I am learning lots.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Missing Bram

For the past week every time I've tried to phone Bram he's not been home. I'm really missing him. He finally phoned me tonight and I was able to visit with him a bit. But I had to hang up after a little while because I was starting to cry. I really miss him a lot. Lord willing, I'll see him when he comes down for Rose's grad. It's just so hard being away from him. I'm very thankful that I get to spend so much time with Rose, but that doesn't mean that I'm not missing Bram. Having one doesn't make me miss the other any less.

More Frost

OK, I've moved my tomatoes in every night this week - and back out every morning. According to the weather office, I need to move them back in again tonight.

Oh well, at some time it will be spring. Until then, it just not quite as warm as I'd like. (But still warmer than Yellowknife).

Monday, May 18, 2009

Frost

is in tonight's forecast - so I moved the tomatoes in for the night. Will move them back out tomorrow morning, hopefully.

Long Weekend

Rose is sleeping on my couch. I'll wake her up in a bit, but let her sleep a while longer. My TO DO list today includes:
  • mowing the lawn (something I've never done - I always either had brothers, a husband or a son to do that.) However, there's a first time for everything.
  • finish transplanting my tomatoes. Rose and I did most of them Saturday but I needed to buy another planter - which I picked up yesterday.
  • work some more on my theory (lesson tomorrow).

Rose and I may decide to go to Moose Jaw to the spa today as well. We'll see.

I had an exciting time on Friday. I was walking across Fourth Avenue on the way to work. A car had stopped to let me cross and I was doing the little thank you wave to the driver when she was rear ended by the car behind, who hadn't noticed that she had stopped. Apparently she had been reaching for her cell phone in her purse on the floor. The front car just missed me by inches and that driver passed out for a few seconds. The back car wasn't drivable. I stopped shaking by noon.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Looking for Suggestions

In my Grade 9 English class, I always have my students "learn" a passage of scripture appropriate to the theme that we're covering. (I don't say the word "memorize" because it scares some kids off. "I can't memorize, that's too hard." However they can "learn" it.)

For example, when the theme was survival, and the book we were reading was Into Thin Air, talking about climbing Everest, they learned Psalm 121. We have just finished a theme on love and relationships, with Romeo and Juliet, and I had them learn I Corinthians 13:4-8a.

My final theme for the year is Identity and Choices. I'm doing literature circles, where the students are reading one of three books and sharing sometimes with students reading the same novel and sometimes with students reading a different novel. Each of the novels has a protagonist living in a non-home environment (living on the streets in downtown Toronto, living on an island off the coast of Alaska in an alternative justice program, and living alone in the bush in Northern Ontario after running away from home). Each main character is going through and has gone through tough times and develops their character through the book through the help of some significant adults in their lives. Any suggestions for a scripture passage for my students to learn that would relate to this?

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Thankful

A lot has happened in the past week. My wonderful sister-in-law arranged a mortgage for me, and it looks like I've got my downpayment arranged as well; thanks to the generosity of my family. We've had an opportunity to see all of the suites, and we'll see the garage tonight. It feels like I've been busy all day at work, and then things to arrange every evening in order to purchase this property. I'm still amazed at how the Lord has had everything work out so smoothly.

Quizzing went very well over the weekend. Our team ended up sixth on the A consolation side - which is pretty good. Thomas and Alex also got their Club 145 awards. This meant that they had memorized all 145 "key verses" in the book of Luke. I copied out the references for each verse on slips of paper (ie. 1:37), they drew 15 of them out of a hat and quoted them. For five of the 15 verses, they had to know them just from the reference, but for the remainder they could "finish the verse", where I gave them the first few words. It's quite an amazing feat!

This week is the final week of this six-week grading period, so I'm also busy marking so I can have marks in tomorrow. Because I'm a really great procrastinator, I have more to do now than I should have if I had been doing a little every day. However, it will all get done.

Because I've been unable to practice piano due to my repetitive strain injury, I've started working on theory. (I have to say that learning theory isn't very exciting; important, maybe, but exciting - no!). I was working on Grade 3 theory, but when my teacher saw how much I had done, she said that I could likely write my Grade 4 exam in August if I work hard at it. There are only 4 grades of theory - so I'd be done with it then. I'd just have harmony, history and pedagogy to do after that. It'll be very nice to be that much further along towards my goal.