Today, I became an uncle yet again. Kyndal Grace Hazelton was born at 3:46pm weighing in at 7lbs 10oz and measuring 19.5″.  It has been a long haul but she arrived safely.  Calls at 12:30am… 3:00am…7:45am.  Finally, Charnel’s water was broken around 11 this morning.  We have two little girls and a Bandit sharing the house with us for the next few days.  Two special healthy little ones arriving in less than a weeks time… WHAT A BLESSING!

A touch of sadness also.  Ma2’s mother passed away Saturday at the age of 88.  But I am sure that Mrs. Foster is now with Emily and  Mr. Foster in a place where there is no longer any pain or suffering.  May HE watch over the family and may Jonathan return from his deployment safely.

I have the final piece of my Weekender gig coming soon.  In the next four months, I will put the spit and polish to the lineup of “Songs I Have Learned” including finding 4 male voices to fill the finale out.  One I have asked (any other interested gentlemen out there? Two other fellow tangenteers are (I will assume) out of the question.  One from a distance perspective; the other admits that he “doesn’t sing.”

Our 5th bundle of joy arrived on October 7, 2011.  His name is Luke James, and he was born at exactly 8 am, weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 19.5 inches long.  He is healthy and a very happy easy-going baby.  He seems to have his days and nights mixed up though, which I suspected based on his movements when he was still in the womb.  We are enjoying him immensely, and so are his 3 sisters and his brother.  I am recovering from the c-section pretty well, and I will write more about Luke’s first days at home when it doesn’t hurt to sit in a chair for longer than 10 minutes.  I would love to put up a hundred pictures of gorgeous little Luke, but my bunny chewed my camera cord, and I can’t get any pictures off my camera.  I hope to have this situation remedied soon, but I depend on Hubby for all my tech-related needs, and Hubby is exhausted staying up with the baby at night, taking care of me and the kids during the day while also keeping up with his responsibilities at both of his jobs.  It just seems mean and commanding of me to place more demands on him now, so I will have to somehow be patient about the picture taking and sharing.  I wonder how long I can last; Luke is one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen!!!

**UPDATE**

Hubby devised a way to transfer my pictures using my ebook reader – genius!  So anyway, here is a picture of swaddled Luke at 1 day old:

This is a video I think all ought to see.  I am not going to say anything about it other than it focuses on a topic that is rather controversial among the population.  I don’t want to say any more lest I cause someone who might come across this to put on blinders before even watching (I don’t believe my regular readers would do such a thing).  This site will put it in a somewhat small window- I would encourage you to actually go to the main site: 180movie.com to watch it, or select the 720p version and make it full-screen.

There is a parental advisory on this for disturbing images.  Running time is about 33 minutes.

WOW!  I learned at my weekly voice lesson that the local community theatre’s production of A Christmas Story already has two dates sold out!  Not sure if a show has had sold out dates two months ahead in this area, but this is the first I know of.  K will be playing the role of Ralphie’s mother and her little man will be playing a little boy… no lines but he is already being instructed to develop the character to give himself some business on stage.

Now that I am five months out from my weekend gig, I have begun to plow through my books to find new things (or old things that are worth digging out) to not let my list become a lesson in tedium.  I dug out a favorite that I have never before been able to get because of range… (guess which part gave me fits).  Two octave range from a low A-flat to a floating high A-flat.  Poor K was commenting from the keyboard on the 5 flat key to the 4 (or is it 5) sharp key.  I probable should also pick some unfamiliar pieces just to take me out of my comfort zone.  I also visited an old friend that will be a part of the evening.  I really do not want to add too much to the program but if it goes from 45 minutes to 120 minutes before February…  NAH!  No one wants to see me on stage THAT long  😉

More on my life soon, but in the meantime I saw this and just *had* to post it here considering the season, the animal people some of my readers are, and- oh just watch it already! 🙂  I give you…

To quote a funny movie, Drop Dead Gorgeous, “I’m like, due or something.”  That’s the response that’s been popping into my head whenever my husband wants to make plans for our family.  I am 38 weeks pregnant, and I don’t feel like doing anything.  I just want to lay in bed, get up to eat, then lay in bed some more.  And I do sleep when I’m laying down, so I must be tired and needing the sleep.  But this is weird for me.  I haven’t been bored in years, and now I feel bored, not because I have nothing to do but because I don’t feel like doing anything.  It’s so annoying!  There is so much to do around the house to get ready for the baby, and I don’t feel like doing any of it.  On top of that, I feel badly not having the desire to entertain my 4 kids, but luckily they’re very good at self-entertaining and their oldest sister has been amazing with spending fun time with them every day while I rest.  But I don’t remember feeling like this with my other pregnancies.  I do feel tired, but this lack-of-motivation-to-do-anything thing is getting old!  Then again, this is the first pregnancy I’ve had being in my 30’s.  Maybe that has something to do with it?

Tuesday September 27 2011 was an amazing day.  Our entire family was up before the crack of dawn because it was my husband’s big day in Findlay Ohio – his meeting and official interview with the church conference that was going to decide if they agreed with the local church board’s recommendation that my husband be their new pastor.  We allowed plenty of extra time that morning because we weren’t sure what bumps we might encounter while rousing 4 kids out of bed while it was still dark outside.  But it went perfectly – all the kids were agreeable and all were ready before it was time to leave, unprecedented!  No one complained about going to the babysitter’s; actually, they seemed excited about it.  My husband and I dropped off the kids, and as we turned onto the long country road that would take us most of the way there, I noticed a stunning effect of the sunrise.  A beam of orange light was coming down from the clouds – not in the east where the rest of the sunrise was visible, but off to the west.  It was really more like a column of soft orange light – an orange rainbow.  It was beautiful, unlike anything either of us had ever seen, and we enjoyed it together until it faded into the dawning of the new day.

The almost 2 hour drive was most pleasant; my husband and I always enjoy each other’s company.  Plus our spirits were buoyed by the kids’ great behavior that morning and the blessing of the orange rainbow.

My husband’s meeting went well while I explored Findlay by myself a bit.  I found an African Grey Parrot (my favorite kind of bird!) at the pet store, so I played with her for a while and checked out some other stores.  We ate a wonderful lunch, and then my husband got the call – the conference approved him; he is the new pastor of Union Chapel!  Now the waiting is over, and we know for sure the direction that God has been pointing us.  We finished out our day in Findlay with a movie and another peaceful long drive, just the two of us.  As we left the town of Findlay and headed out into the Ohio countryside, there was a full-size, full-color rainbow in all its glory.  Two rainbows in one day (occurring almost 12 hours and dozens of miles apart)?  They seemed to perfectly epitomize God’s blessings on this day for us, beginning with the kids being so great, followed by our long drives going safely and smoothly, and finally, the good news about my husband’s new calling.  Does God speak to people using rainbows?  For sure, He used a rainbow to illustrate his promise that He will never destroy the earth with flood again in Genesis 9:11-15:

 “11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”

And, God loves it when we notice His works of art in nature and offer praise to Him – there are more than a few examples of this in the Bible as well.  My husband and I saw the rainbows as messages to us from God; reassurance to us as we embark on yet another new journey at this stage in our lives, stamps of approval for a very blessed day and extra nods of encouragement from Our Heavenly Father as we might be tempted to be distracted by our uncertainties.

It was a very blessed day spent with my favorite person in the whole world.  I am so proud of him for everything that he is, everything he is becoming, and for his being hand-picked by God to take on this incredibly awesome responsibility.  And to say that I am honored to realize that I am the one who gets to experience this life by his side is a gross understatement.  For these reasons and others, I thank God every day.

Unfortunately, this isn’t either of the rainbows we saw the other day because I didn’t have my camera with me to take pictures.  But I figured that I needed a picture of a beautiful rainbow on this post!  🙂

Well… I finally set the date in which I will put on glorious display that which I have been concentrating on for sometime.  It is just less than 5 months away but it will be here before I know it.  Even with this leg of mine the last 7 months have not been slow… although I am sure others would disagree ;).  I checked the school calendar to see if there was a weekend when there was no school event going on so there would be no excuse for some to not attend 😉

[At my latest blood test on Monday, I was informed that the blood is right where it needs to be.  Not too thick, not too thin, but just right.  Just call me Goldilocks]

Why so long?  I had a feeling there was going to be a wait with not one but two shows in October, the Christmas show in December, the awards night in January, and any other events scheduled in between so February was the first month available.

In the meantime, I will dig through the books, find more material for future use, and focus on the program without making it stale.  I was reminded of some of the splendiferous music from West Side Story the other night courtesy of “Glee.”  Music, yes… choreography not so much.  Plus, I suppose I can look back at the foreign pieces I had glanced at a few months ago.  A small challenge.

I do see ads on television for Jersey Boys (the Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons story… one of the few jukebox musicals I would like to see) set to play the Stranahan in February, too. Maybe it ISN’T that long away.

I did too. As soon as I opened my blog this morning, I saw something wasn’t quite right. What happened to my sunset? The three column design? I wasn’t sure. But I do know it was too early in the morning to investigate. I was set to write about something else, and that is now gone. So much for creative thoughts this morning. Later, I will try to discover what happened to the layout of this little blog site…

Twenty years ago, a resurgence of Star Wars began not on the big screen but on the printed page.  Back in 1991, the franchise itself was in danger of becoming obsolete and forgotten.  It had been 8 years since Return of the Jedi ( long before the Special Editions and bloody prequels came along).  Enter Lucasfilm Publishing who got the ball rolling and eventually leading to Timothy Zahn penning a three volume series chronicling the further adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and all the rest following the events of the final film.

Yesterday, I finally received my copy of the 20th Anniversary edition of said novel: Heir to the Empire.  It has been sometime since I have checked the novel out from the library.  The book itself is gorgeous featuring a silver-colored dustcover with the New Republic emblem prominently displayed.  Underneath the cover is a rendering of the original cover.  Inside in the introductory remarks, the author and his editor provide insight into the story behind the new trilogy.  Something new in the meat of the book is annotations by Zahn providing insight into the development of characters and events.  Names of friends, acquaintances, and contest winners became a part of the Expanded Universe!  I have not yet begun to read the story itself but was captivated by the anecdotes including some flack from fans the author took for introducing such “Earthly” items as hot chocolate into the SW universe.  Also a well-known Trek term was given some highlight but was quickly defended.

I must say that I am throughly enjoying the book and I haven’t even started it yet!

Ok… ok… should I or shouldn’t I comment on the OTHER big Star Wars event that happened yesterday.  All right I will.  For the first time, the entire cinematic saga (Episodes I-VI) are available on Blu-Ray.  Personally, I have no problem with the release itself.  I just grow weary of George Lucas changing the movies for each new release.  I accepted the Special Edition releases of the original films prior to the much-inferior (IMHO) prequels.  Now it seems that he adds pointless bits every 10 years or so.  I agree with those who state that they are his movies and can do what he likes with them but do not like the “inclusion for the sake of inclusion.”  Aliens being included via the wonder of CGI that were not there before.  And the most awful inclusion of all: