Wacky Wednesday

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings. Edward Gardner

Yesterday we just kept moving. Ditz & I are developing some really bad eating habits ~ well Ditz is. Mine are already pretty ingrained but there is literally no time to stop & eat. And it was hot! Stinking, steamy hot. I looked at the hill we had to hike up & just thanked God that this was our last flute lesson for the year. Jan, the optimist, gave Ditz some fun music to keep her occupied over the holidays...so why do I have a sneaking suspicion that child isn't going to touch an instrument all summer?

So Ditz has her certificate & her breakdown, which is really interesting now I can look at it properly because it is now obvious that if she'd sorted out her scales she would have done much, much better. lol. Ditz got lovely accolades about her actual playing: warm expressive tone quality, excellent tone & breath control, excellent dynamics & musically phrased [for the Largo], & under general comments: You play musically & with strong clear tones, your scales let you down today. Which is pretty much what Jan has always said about Ditz's playing from the very first time she blew into a flute. She gets a great flute sound. We just figure all that hot air's got to be good for something!

We detoured home for Ditz's violin & went on to her violin lesson. Her violin teacher wishes Ditz was as enamoured of the violin as she is of the flute & singing but having begged & begged to learn Ditz has found the violin much harder & more frustrating than she either expected or likes & she is only really persisting because I think it is really helping her musically in other areas. Besides it gives her another clef she understands. Oh, & it gives her something to do, you know. Like don't mention 'bored' around me. Three instruments & you want to tell me you've nothing to do?

Home so Ditz could change; at which point we discovered her brother had helped himself to her black uniform socks & departed for Western Australia, which is two time zones & thousands of miles away! We were already tight for time & I was starching a shirt we weren't sure we needed when Ditz began wailing. Food? What food? We rushed for the next boat so we could detour for socks.

I handed Ditz the refedex & told her to look up the street I needed. It had already been a long day & Ditz wasn't listening so it took several tries to get the right street. Sad experience has taught me Ditz is not a reliable navigator [though she's getting better] so I had to double check but at least this was a local concert & fairly easy to find. Liddy, of course, would have known exactly where to go & the shortest way there but I require a little more leeway.

As this was a school break up concert I sat on the grass with all the parents & grandparents for the first half of the concert so I could listen to the kids sing but 2 males decided to stand right in front of me & network & most of the time I couldn't see anything anyway as parents converged around the stage with video cameras & phone cameras & blocked the view for everyone else. As this is a rather elite private school I wasn't very impressed. Nor was I impressed that everyone talked all the way through the concert & no~one would join in the singing. Eventually I just went & sat in the car & read until it got too dark to see & then I went to sleep. Can't take me anywhere. I will sleep at the drop of a hat these days.

I woke as the kids were swarming out the gates & poked my head out to look for Ditz ~& a good thing too. She'd lost the car & was giddy with relief when she spotted me. Still we got the earlier boat & that is always a good thing but by the time we got home we'd both lost our appetite & just had a snack of sorts. It would not matter if it were a one off but unfortunately it is happening more & more often because of all the travelling with music & we don't like sandwiches. What I need are some good snack ideas that won't go funny in a lunch box. So anyone who has got good healthy snack ideas feel free.

Bearing in mind that the whole exam thing has done Ditz's head in & having promised her we won't do them next year I went ahead & ordered Beautiful Feet's History of Classical Music for next year. This has a time line of the major composers, a set of cds, & a study guide & I figure it will fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge. Maybe a year of theory will make the practical exams look much more attractive? Maybe.

Hi 5!

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. Charles Caleb Colton.

I must say AMEB is fast. Ditz's flute teacher rang tonight with
her results. No surprises.

Yes she passed ~ by the skin of her teeth. C+. A pass is a pass & we're not proud. I had to laugh though at the breakdown. Her scales need more work. Hello? Tell us something we don't know. Her playing itself got huge accolades though again, her counting needs work. Don't we know it! Ditz does not like to count. When she first began band the hardest thing for her was to play at time because she thought everybody else was too slow so took off just as fast as she could play & would be bars & bars ahead while the conductor rolled his eyes & I cringed. Ditz likes her music fast & all year the Largo has been driving her to distraction. Week after week I listened to Jan painstakingly take Ditz through it bar by excruciating bar while Ditz chafed at its slowness but the work paid off. When it counted she played it really, really well. Naturally the Largo is the piece I liked best & Ditz liked least & therefore practised least.

I think Ditz has shocked herself. I don't think she thought she was good enough & unfortunately if she doesn't find challenges bracing she looks for ways to avoid them. Those she takes on she tackles with perseverance. Grade 3 was a stretch for her too. Jan said it would be at the beginning of the year & how easy it is to forget that she really hasn't been playing for all that long & she started in a school band. If she had done grade 2 she would have aced it. She really had to work hard to do the grade 3 work. Just reading the stuff is a challenge!

So I'm pretty stoked for the kid, ya know.

Ditz has also won herself some tickets to the premier of Bolt ~ which is in town. At night. On Monday. Yes I will have to drive her in. It will cost me more in petrol & parking than the tickets are worth but she is so excited & I do think she needs to do some silly things just for fun. Especially because I was right. The next round of Abba Mania is about to begin with the attendant logistics problems but I will be limiting what Ditz can do. At this time of the year my budget just can't carry the cost of too many extras.

Tomorrow Ditz has flute & it's great she can face Jan with a pass. She's been trying to wriggle out of this lesson all week but funnily enough she stopped protesting once she knew she'd passed her exam.

Flute, violin, choir concert at one of the schools , which I have to find in peak hour. *sigh* I'm travelling more for music than I ever did for soccer. The Wave is finished. We have a bit of Mara still to go but we may do that as bedtime reading. Knowing perfectly well that the schools have wound down for the year & are no longer doing any learning I'm not pushing Ditz too hard, just enough to tie up our loose ends before we break. I need to stop. My life is not fun when it gets this out of control. I want to garden & harass the cat & contemplate my navel on the deck, count the raindrops, read something that actually requires my brain to work, wander along the waterfront & through the mangroves & if I don't leave the island or drive a car for 6 weeks I won't be the one weeping. No I can't see that happening either but I'm the eternal optimist.

Talking with God.

You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic.
Doris Egan, House M.D., House vs. God, 2006

I like to talk. Ask my friends. I like the to~ing & fro~ing, the exchange of ideas. I like witty conversations, repartee & acute observations.

Conversation is a two way street so for years prayer was hugely frustrating. It was like talking to myself & that was terribly boring. I'm just not that interesting & I always knew beforehand what I was going to say. It took me years to learn that if I would just shut up for a moment God would talk back.

God has a problem with me. I'm not a good listener. I struggle to stay focused & pay attention. I'm time deprived & time deprivation means my prayer times tend to be rushed. This is not good news. I have learnt if I want God to really speak to me I need to shut up, focus & listen & that takes time. It takes time to divest myself of the worries & frustrations of the day. It takes time to get myself out of the way so I can hear God.

However I did always expect to be answered, one way or another, sooner or later. I remember telling God shortly after Liddy was born that she needed a sister. [I'm pretty sure Liddy's not with me on this one because she got Ditz & she rather fancied being an only child. Yeah, I know, go figure!] Six years I waited for an answer on that one. Sarah waited longer, & Hannah. They must have been patient women because I can assure you watching Liddy get older every year & more & more like a Queen Bee did absolutely zilch for my patience.

If I talk about answers to prayer like this I don't get too many raised eyebrows. God likes to give us the desires of our hearts when they line up with His desires for us. Besides He knew I was going to have a soccer fiend & a singing aficionado; I couldn't run both of them everywhere at the same time hence the gap.

When my father died I was whirled in a frenzy between the hospital, my home & my mother's house. There were hordes of people & the memorial service to deal with & when crisis hits I go to bed & sleep. Seriously. Sad I know. I finally got home & opened up my bible randomly. My eyes fell on these verses from Psalm 68. Father of the fatherless & protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. You'd have trouble convincing me that wasn't a timely word from God but plenty of people have had God speak to them from His word.

The trouble is we actually don't expect to be literally answered. Now if you are ultra conservative you may find this next part a little difficult to deal with so be warned. Our little island church uses lay preachers because we often don't have an ordained man of the cloth. That's just the way it is & as a competent speaker [see, there's a reason I was made talking so much] I would give the occasional message. I can assure you that this is so fraught making & so prone to spiritual attacks that only madmen would take it on. So much so that I would literally rant at God from beginning to end. Yes, we have that sort of a relationship. I figure I'm in good company. There was David & Job & Jacob. Firstly it would be about what God wanted talked about & when we got that sorted out I would start fretting about the logistics. The thing was, every time I reached the end of my tether, every time I couldn't figure out which way to turn, every time I got stuck theologically, God spoke. Got spoke literally not figuratively. I heard His voice.

Yep, it raises eyebrows. Obviously I'm mad. But why are people so surprised? We say we believe in God. We believe he is real. Real people talk. They even talk back when addressed. Now I can assure you, sitting in front of a blank computer screen ranting that Christmas has been done to death & what on earth is there left to talk about I was not expecting to be answered. I certainly did not expect to hear what I did. I can work my way into an internal tizz faster than anyone I know so I was fizzing away plenty when God spoke. 'Like this, Dear Heart.' No~one but no~one calls me Dear Heart! Seriously we are not the sentimental sort. And the message? It was on repentance.

One thing I know for sure is it is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Awful, full of awe. I have never felt so loved, so accepted. There are no words in the English language to adequately describe a conversation with God. Oh, I can describe the experience but that does in no way convey the experience. I know now how badly I want to go home. I know how far man has fallen from Grace. I know what Paul meant when he said no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

I listen more carefully these days. I pay more attention. I have tasted of the Lord & He is good. Always. Advent; the time before God spoke His son. What is He saying to you this year?

Biscuits & magazines.

Cookies, only poor cousins to a true biscuit.


It has rained so much that now we are home Ditz resorted to the kitchen. Bearing in mind the child can't do fractions on paper & her math has been a bugbear all year she calmly proceeded to double her recipe & proportionally replace walnuts with white choc chips. Nothing wrong with her practical math! Every ingredient she used she had to change a fraction. Nope, I had nothing to do with this ~ except give permission to use the last of the flour. Ditz also had to estimate if she had enough left in the jar to make her biscuits. There really is nothing wrong with her brains when she cares to use them. If only she would use them more often! Yes, the biscuits are very yummy.





I want Ditz to finish up Mara of the Nile & The Wave this week, do a math test & wind up the science then she can put up the tree. That has been Ditz's job for years & years though she is less keen now she is older than she used to be.







Meanwhile, behind the scenes while I've been running myself ragged with Ditz, Liddy has very sweetly sorted out a problem for me.


For several years I've received a subscription to An Encouraging Word. This is an ultra conservative Christian Women's magazine & those who know me well tend to raise their eyebrows at it but while I don't always agree with everything in it I very much appreciate the biblical basis & sound teaching. Nor have I ever found it to be legalistic. I also got the companion mag, A Homeschool Digest. Those who have read here for a while, through 2 crashed blogs, know that I travel a lot & that I go nowhere without reading material. These mags were great for short reads on the boat as regular women's mags drive me completely batty with all the gossip & body obsessiveness. They were the only magazines we subscribed to & the only money I generally spent on myself so when my magazine didn't arrive when expected I contacted the Aussie suppliers.

The Aussie suppliers are no longer supplying & the supply depot has reverted to the States. Ouch. I e~mailed. Time passed. I e~mailed again but I was busy [when am I not] & 12 months later it suddenly occurred to me that the magazines still hadn't arrived! Now I know this is a small home business & that it would have been very easy to lose an overseas subscriber in the shuffle, especially as they had terrible sickness in the family, so I was prepared to wait...& wait. Well, actually, I kept forgetting. Heck I've hardly been home the last month & my whole year has been crazy.

I missed my magazines & had reread the ones I had to death but eventually Liddy noticed the big brown envelopes were no longer arriving in the mail. Enquires revealed I'd been waiting 12 months. I know, I know. My sense of time is just not that good. Liddy started nagging me to sort it out. Huh! When? I think she reads them on the sly myself but she won't admit it & says she doesn't like them but she certainly read the article on Wess Stafford. Anyway while I was going crazy driving Ditz in & out of Brisbane Liddy e~mailed herself. She won't let us read the whole e~mail; she says she got a little shirty but she certainly gave them a sob story about how little we have & how much I enjoyed their mags & could they pretty please sort the problem out! Wow! I am happy to report that the problem is sorted & back issues are on their way. I should have them in time for our annual break with mum & given that it invariably rains in January they will indeed be a blessing.

'Don't ever say I don't love you & do things for you,' Liddy told me as she showed me the e~mail. Would I say something like that? I love my Liddy. I really, really do. She's one of my practical children & I need practical people in my life.

Rain for Christmas?

“Rain hangs about the place, like a friendly ghost. if it's not coming down in delicate droplets, then it's in buckets; and if neither, it tends to lurk suspiciously in the atmosphere.”
Barbara Acton-Bond

I wake early. I like beginnings. I like being alone, the house quite silent, the cat rubbing about my ankles...only it wasn't so quiet this morning. It was thundering & lightening & the rain was pouring over the house like a waterfall. Puddles; we have puddles like duck ponds all up & down the road.

The cat sat on my chest & just looked at me. He does not like the rain & he knows as well as I do the day will just steam up & there will be myriads of mosquitoes & sand flies biting.

The Geisha bush is sagging under its weight of water soaked blossom. I have more weeds than I have garden. Every morning I step outside & pinch weeds from the path but the whole garden smells fresh & clean. I finally feel as if I can think about Christmas: sort out Ditz's room so we can put her school things away & set up the tree; find the garland to hang our cards on: write the family newsletter & send out my cards; think about who needs what for presents. Ditz, who put her size 9 clodhoppers through her good bedsheets, will get bedding & maybe blinds but she is the only one who is easy. The others are working & far more capable than I am of buying what they need & I find it so hard to think of useful things they need.

Then there is the food. I hate thinking about food & I really need to. Cheesecake or trifle or do what my horde loves best & plan for both? Cold cuts or roast lamb? Salads definitely. It's too hot to think of anything else. Nuts & chocolate ~ lots of chocolate. Yikes. I so don't do this sort of thing well.

Christmas carols in the church hall on the 19th. The girls & I go every year & brave the tiny wooden hall steaming like an oven & home to every mozzie on the island but a truly wonderful night out minus the glitz & panache of the big mainland events. It is so nice & homey & when they sing *You better watch out* they waggle their fingers at Ditz & wink at her, Ditz being one of the few children in the audience. Which reminds me, time to study up on the names of Santa's reindeer. Every year the kids are asked & every year everyone knows one or two but no~one knows them all.

It is even starting to feel like Christmas. The kids are wandering about in their cozzies & towels dripping ice creams down the street. People are putting up their outside lights & there is Christmas music in the stores. Liddy has had her Christmas party for work & everything is winding up for the year. Soon it will be the holidays & the long summer days of December/Janurary, somnolent in the heat, ripe with mangoes, peaches, nectarines, dripping sweet seedless sultana grapes, sticky with tropical heat, pregnant with the turbulent rumblings of summer storms. The smell of barbequing sausages & onions will waft across the land.
Ooooh....
Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust, esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side, singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts and thongs .

Jingle bells, jingle bells..

Oh yes we have our own version of this song.

With translation if you need it lol.

A lot of hot air about nothing.

Blow, blow,... William Shakespheare.

Done.

I have my happy, bubbly Ditz back but whether she has passed that wretched exam or not is open to speculation. Ditz says not. Her accompanist thinks yes. When the accompanist came out she was rather shocked, rehearsals being what they were. Ditz lifted for the occasion as she so often does & played her first 2 set pieces with accompaniment really well. The Rondo had 4 bars Ditz just couldn't get together though the rest of it was fine & it was only one of the pieces she had to look at rather than one of her set pieces, so less important. Ditz swears no~one told her she had to sight read but I just don't think she was listening, which happens a lot with Ditz. Her solo piece she says she blew but as none of us actually heard it who knows & apparently the examiner asked about the scales in a way Ditz isn't used to & totally confused her. That being said I expect Ditz will score high on her actual playing & flunk out on the theory. She seems to have survived the experience quite well & I am really happy she did the exam & overcame her dread/dislike/fear/whatever. If there is ever a next time she will be much better prepared in herself to attempt the exam.

First times are always difficult & when I think about it the poor kid didn't just have the exam to contend with. I have *slow to warm up* kids & Ditz was expected to develop a rapport & play with a woman she'd never met before, an examiner she'd never met before, in a place she'd never been before having had to get up at 4am in order to be there by 8.30am after an hour in the car with me driving clear across town! That included a bridge, a highway & the freeway with the exits, dividing roads, lights & Brisbane signposting ~ or lack thereof! Luckily our accompanist is really well versed in Brisbane & directed us really, really well & I didn't melt down once. Funnily enough seeing so many other kids in the same boat she was in seemed to sort Ditz out & though she is still saying she is quitting flute she lacks conviction. I told her she can quit for the holidays. I think we've all had enough for now.

We also had a lovely e~mail from Alison about how well Ditz did for the QPAC concert & reminded us that just 18 months ago Ditz wouldn't even stand up & sing for her & this year she has soloed several times. The words stunning young performer were used & you should have seen Ditz glow. Lit up like a Christmas tree. Alison's opinion matters.

I would really like to say we are done with school for the year & begin our holidays but there is some tidying up that really needs to be done & technically we aren't finished for another week yet. Just the same we will begin all our Christmas things & that will bring the holidays closer. I would really like to make our cards again this year but think we are too short on time. Pity. We have another concert on Wednesday & then I think we're actually done for the year...almost. Maybe. Why do I have this sinking feeling I am probably wr..wr...wrong?!

Flat out for Australia.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. - Jean Cocteau

The heat is getting to everyone. It hit 30 degrees Celsius today. That's 86 degrees Fahrenheit if you're not metricised yet. 83% humidity & a storm moving in.

Iss found the coolest spot he could & stretched out, too hot to even lift his head when the camera appeared. Unfortunately the heat has hit suddenly & we just aren't used to it.

Being wr..wr...wrong.

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.
~Winston Churchill~

Remember Fonzie? I had a soft spot for Fonzie but there is one particular episode of Happy Days that provided a catchword in our house. You probably remember it. Fonzie has to admit he was wr...wr...wr... wrong!

Oh yes, it was hysterically funny. We laughed ourselves silly but it is not so funny when you are the one who has made the mistake. So I don't have Fonzie's problem with admitting I was wrong but I am at a loss as to how best to fix the problem.

I walked out of Ditz's rehearsal with her accompanist absolutely convinced I have miscalculated very badly. Whether Ditz passes or fails her exam, & she may very well fail it, is beside the point. In trying to keep our umbrella school happy & off our case I have allowed something that we would otherwise probably have by~passed ~ the whole music exam thing. Ugh. It leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I have taken my eyes off what Christ wants for this child & allowed the system to dictate to us. Oops!

Ditz is digging in her heels. She does not want to do this exam. She thinks she does not want to do an instrument at all any more. [I think she will feel differently about it after the holidays.] What should be a pleasure has become sheer drudgery.

Now I know she needs to practise. She needs lessons to learn & at some point she may need to take an exam or two but that time does not have to be now. So I had a chat with Dearest. This close to the exam I figure she should just take it & do her best, which removes the fear of the unknown for the future. We then know exactly what we are dealing with. There is no pressure from us to pass it, though I will be mighty pleased if she does. Obviously!

Pass or fail, next year Ditz can study the grade four pieces & theory, by~pass the exam & return to the band instead with her lessons geared to studying the band pieces as well as the grade work. Ditz is not waxing enthusiastic at this point. Unfortunately with adolescence Ditz is becoming terribly lazy ~ & I've read all the theories about what goes on in a teenager's brain that makes them sleep when they should be awake & awake long after all sane people have gone to bed. I don't know if I missed how pressured the child was feeling with all that's going on in her life at present or if this is just a Ditzyism I should squash flat. I do know that everything in her life has been deadly serious this term & she has had very little that has been *just for fun*. I think I need to rectify that.

Ditz is naturally rather flighty. She has an easy going sunshiney personality, you know one of those pretty popular girls more interested in the next party than exercising their brains. Add in her ADD & you see I homeschool for very good reasons. *sigh*

So tomorrow we are on a very early boat to have a 2nd rehearsal before driving across town for an exam Ditz has no vested interest in. I need to be very wise just now & I am not feeling at all wise, merely exhausted & as if I have wasted the year. We are on holidays in a little over a week with some fun things already planned & family visiting as well, including, we hope, Ditz's cousin. Given enough sleep & time to think coherently I'm sure both Ditz & I will feel better.

Christmas Summer.

Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. ~Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir

Summer is here. The thermometer stands at 28 C. The humidity is 66%...& rising. More storms are forecast. These are the summers of my childhood; the scorching, steamy days, the thunder & lightening followed by torrential downpours in the evening, the cicadas shirring amongst the gum trees, a vast blue sky...& maniacs on the road. They're all mad just before Christmas.

The summer colours are here too: The lilac of the Geisha bush over the birdbath where the water is tepid & uninviting; the blue of Jacaranda & the vivid red of poinciana, golden sunlight poured out like treacle.

The flesh is bursting on the nectarines & the rich smell of juice fills the air. The cattle cane smells like burnt toffee & the overblown roses smell of decay. The plovers are jealously guarding baby chicks. The butcher birds are filling their larders but in the heat of the day everything is still. A little breeze stirs the water with a tantalising coolness & the promise of refreshing rain.

The house is a haven of coolness, all the windows thrown wide, but even here the light reaches out long fingers & throws rainbows on the ceilings. The wet smell of mud & salt drifts up from the waterfront & soon it will be time to put up the Christmas tree.

I think Christ was born in the summer months. Shepherds bring their sheep down from the hills in winter but the shepherds were watching on the hillside the night that Christ was born. When they go up to their summer pastures with the sheep they don't usually return before the cooler weather ~ but they came for Christ. They came because far from her home town where the birth of a firstborn son would have been welcomed with singers & rejoicing, God sent his heavenly host to sing & rejoice at the birth of Mary's son.

We know the story so well we forget. We forget the price Mary paid, pregnant & unwed. I live in a small community; I know how fast & unkind the gossip can be. We forget the price Joseph paid to raise a son not his own. We forget that Mary was real & pregnant & travelling a long hard journey nearly at full term. The thought makes me shudder. Imagine the heat & dust; the flies! Imagine lumping her bump on the back of a donkey, needing the loo more & more often. Oooh! I remember that feeling! And nowhere at the end of it. Nowhere & the labour pains starting. I know exactly the sort of fizz I'd have been in about then.

We have sanitized Christmas so much ~ removed the smells of the stable [mind you I like the smell of cow dung & it's very good for the roses, but still, I wouldn't want to birth a baby round it.], made a warm glow in the stable. Hm, Mangers & straw & oil lamps; I don't think so. I remember giving birth. It's messy & smelly & there are things that have to be done afterwards. Who did those? Mary? Probably. She would have been *unclean* I guess until after her visit to the temple.

All I can think is Wow! Someone else did that for me while I lay exhausted. That was one strong mama! As I pull out our Nativity scene & set it up & think how pretty it is with the Christmas lights twinkling around it I remind myself that that is not how it was for Mary, or for Joseph, or for Christ. It was much harder, much dirtier. Just the same God's shekinah abided in that place.

Meditations from Sunday's Solitude.

"And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed" Isiah 40:5

We are moving into Advent. We are coming to Christmas & as always I find myself returning again & again to Isiah for ''Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?''

Two words remain:

Shekinah; God's presence, the dwelling place of God.

apaugas: radience.

There are two places you can read about God's Skekinah described; in Ezekiel chapter one & in the gospels. Ezekiel reads like a Tolkien epic. Fantastic but largely incomprehensible. In the gospels God's shekinah is revealed for us. That is the full message of Christmas. Just two words: God's glory, His presence, His radience, revealed to us ~ & in us.