kindred spirit diaries

the tide rises, the tide falls

My two daughters and I decided this year to perform a trio in the annual music festival. Alright, truth be told, my older daughter and I decided to do a trio and then convinced my younger daughter to join in. She wasn't keen, but the song is beautiful, so she acquiesced.

It has been quite a path to travel with my daughters, two of my best friends. When we had the first 2/3 of the song learned, we treated my mother with a concert over speaker-phone. Little did we know that the players on the other end of the head-set my husband was using to play an on-line game with could also hear us. Apparently, the players had all been yelling (common behaviour), when one of the players asked, "What on earth are you listening to?" and then they all fell silent until the end of the game. Nothing like a world-wide audience!

Tonight we practiced with our accompanist. One of the last times, as we perform in three days! Standing there, I tried to remember everything... stand up straight, hands at side, breathe, sing, remember your vowel sounds, come in louder here, crescendo, decrescendo, take a DEEP breath because you're going to have to hold it forever here, quiet here... and WHAT PITCH IS THAT LAST NOTE AGAIN?? I actually remembered everything... ok, not the bow at the end, but at least I didn't high-five my girls like I did at our last practice!

I love singing with my girls. I love hearing our voices weave in and out and then meld together. Granted, we make our fair share of blunders, but the laughter that we share binds us together as family... and as friends.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the title of the post is our song... I just can't seem to get it out of my head! :)

Cars and Bugs... What a Mix!

Alrighty... I finally gave up on creating that PERFECT pen name and opted for my own trusty one! But I am here at last!

The first story I need to share involves my best friend from high school, Sarina, (still one of my best friends today) and her younger sister, Denise. They lived on a farm south of us and one day while I was visiting, we decided to take the family car for a drive down their lane. We didn't ask for permission for this, and none of us had our licenses yet. However, we all had our learner's and we felt that we could take a short drive down the meandering lane and return without having anyone find out.  

And everything was... until a grasshopper (we had swarms of them that year) hopped in the window and landed on the armrest right beside Denise, the driver. Terrified of bugs, she immediately crawled over Sarina and myself to get as far away from the offending bug as she could! Unfortunately, in her haste she forgot to put the car in park, and we rolled inexorably on. I kept urging Sarina to slide over into the driver's seat as she was closest, while Denise was almost in hysterics beside me. Sarina absolutely refused to get any closer to the bug, and as the car drifted off the road into the wheat field, I took matters into my own hands, crawled over Sarina, and stopped the car.

After backing out, we surveyed the damage. The car, it seemed, was unscathed. The wheat, however, was sorrowfully bent over in two parallel rows. Trying to hide the damage, we stood the broken wheat up as best as we could, and then hurried the car home before anything else happened!