Songs

Supposedly I must list seven songs that are currently occupying my thoughts or mood. I am supposed to then tag seven other people to also list their current seven, etc. etc. But I'm not going to do the second part. I bet you are all very grateful :)

In no particular order:

• Art in Me ~ Jars of Clay: I love the self-titled Jars of Clay album from start to finish, but this is my particular favorite (most of the time - it battles for first with Love Song for A Savior). I'm listing it particularly because it was playing in my car a lot this week, and because I have actually been able to spend a decent amount of time in my studio the past few weeks. More on that later.
• On My Own ~ Eponine in Les Miserables. Particularly the version sung by Lea Salonga: I happen to have had disk two of Les Mis in the cd player in my kitchen for about three weeks or so. This is the third song on the disk, so I listened to it a lot. And I love a good tragedy. So after I would hear it once I would often go back and listen to it again.
• Fidelity ~ Regina Spektor: I got to see the music video for this one a few weeks ago, and the music video made me like the song even more. It starts out with everything in her world being only in black and white. Not like old movies, but as though those were the only two colors she knew how to decorate in. And then she drops this porcelain heart necklace she was wearing and it breaks and all these pure pigments come pouring out of it. The last minute of the song is her playing in it, getting her face smudged in all the beautiful messy colors. Also Regina Spektor sings one of the songs in Prince Caspian that I liked. And yes, there were things in the movie that I liked quite a bit. Just not the movie as a whole. I'm really looking forward to Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
• I Love the Whole World ~ the Discovery Channel commercial that Nick mentioned: It has the line "I love Egyptian kings" as a scientist dusts off a mummy. Enough said. But it has a lot more too, and most importantly it has a joy in and respect for the world. And I like that.
• Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends ~ the new Coldplay album: I only got to buy this yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to decide which song I like best yet. But as a cohesive album I really love it. Not as many lyrics as before, which is really giving the music itself a chance to shine. Gorgeous and exciting melodies. It sounds like they are really growing as a band and not being afraid to push their music to the next level. But hey, I'm not really a music buff so maybe I'm full of it. I like it though, and that's what counts.
• Flying Horses ~ Dispatch: This might sound a bit crazy, but I think of this song as a modern prophecy. You know how in stories and fairy tales creatures are always making ominous predictions in riddles or what not. This song always makes me think of some Loa or Child of Oberon trying to make a prophecy and saying it this way partially because it's the only way it can be said and partially because he wants to have fun and confuse you on purpose.
• The Holly & the Ivy ~ Mediaeval Baebes: This song is just the way I like Christmas Carols. Old and English and sung that way. And I listen to Christmas music all year long provided its good. This past Christmas I made a cd collection entitled "Christmas Songs that are Actually Good". This song was the very first one on the list.

I haven't really been listening to "seven songs and seven songs only!" right now, so those are just the most recent ones that came to mind. But I suppose it gives you an idea of my thought process. Mostly thinking about all this music just makes me want an ipod.

Laugh

Eeyore 2

Demigod

Rumpels has discovered the top of the fridge. It's her new favorite place. She likes to go up there and look down on all of us lesser mortals.

Ninja

"You cannot see me, for I am NINJA!"

Meet Riley

This is Riley. Riley is adorable.

Here is the story. Once upon a time my mum and my brother and I all went to the humane society. We came home with a young kitten. We named him Agarn. Agarn was a wonderful cat. One of the best cats anyone could ask for. We loved him very, very, very much.

Agarn died in 2005. Sometimes I still walk into my parents house and start to say "Hi Agarn!" because he would always be by the door.

About a year later after Agarn came to live with us my dad came home from a hunting trip with a little bouncy talkative black lab puppy whose tail curled all the way around and touched where it began. My dad named her Tootsie.

Tootsie died last fall. I still say hello to her when I walk in the garage door of my parent's house. I can't help it. She was always there to greet me.

In between those two deaths, I got married and moved away. More recently, my mom's best friend for the past twenty years found out that she and her family are moving to Chicago. I'm crying just thinking about the pets I've lost and I have a house full of other pets. My mum is lonely.

So I decided she needed a kitten.

Coincidently, my kitty Rumpels' mum just gave birth to a litter of four. So Nick and I decided to get the very nicest kitten, take it to the vet and get it all checked out, and start it on it's first round of kitten shots.

A few days later we went for a surprise visit. I held the little kitten in my arms and held him out to my mum saying "He heard that you were the best mommy ever and he was hoping you could be his." I don't think she minded too much that her mother's day present was a couple of weeks late.

Villains

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune - often the surfeit of our own behavior - we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, theives, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulturers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence."

William Shakespeare
King Lear

So take a wild guess what book I just finished rereading. ... For the twelfth time...

And in the spirit of that, here is an illustration I did of a scene from about the middle of that book. I actually managed to squeeze it into an assignment for my illustration class in college. I started a second one, just for fun, from the pixy-clover wine scene but as of yet it hasn't been completed. Someday.

Eeyore 1

This is Eeyore. Eeyore is a very cuddly stuffed animal that my dear friend Allison gave me the last time I took care of her animals while she was away. Well, I tried to take care of her animals. One of her fish died. It was very upsetting.

Anyway. This is Eeyore.

This is where Eeyore usually
stays when not actively being cuddled.

This is where Rumpels felt

Eeyore wanted to be one day.

This is where she thought
he should hang out another day.







And on a different week.

And later on.

And again.

Once more...

Twice more...

She's like her mum (me)
(heehee - mum me ... mummy! anyway...)
she has a donkey she's very attached to.
She doesn't do this with anything
else in the house.
Silly Rumpelstiltskitten.

A Few Things I Enjoyed About Last Night

• I got to use the sentence "That is one frood who really doesn't know where his towel is" in a conversation.
• Riding a motorcycle on a warm summer night at about a hundred miles an hour is very very fun.
• Starting next friday night, I get to play on the church softball team. I make no promises about being good at it, but I get to play and hopefully that will be fun.