"She’s got a smile that it seems to me reminds me of childhood memories where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky…"-Sweet Child of Mine, Guns and Roses Another old friend appeared on my journey through the best albums--Appetite for Destruction by Guns N Roses. From the opening notes of "Welcome to the Jungle" to the closing of "Rocket Queen", this album instantly transported me back to the halls of Central School in the 5th grade and skating around the rink on Friday nights at the Rockin' Roller Rink. The "cool" boys in my grade were obsessed with this album and their mullets and worn t-shirts from this album stayed with us for years.
My favorite song on this album is definitely still "Sweet Child of Mine." The killer guitar work and the mix of a great melody and the edgy vocals make it fun to listen to. It also happens to make me thing of the Adam Sandler Movie "Big Daddy" that makes me laugh. I am also still a big fan of "Paradise city" as it reminds me of nights in college drinking and playing cards. The biggest thought that went through my mind as I listened to this album is that we all think we are the "baddest" group of adolescents that has ever existed. However, listening to this record as an adult I realized that Guns and Roses was not nearly as edgy as I once thought they were. I see this happen each and every year as I teach a new group of middle school students--they are really mostly the same but I'll let them wait until they are grown up to figure it out :)
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"The starting point of discovering who you are, your gifts, your talents, your dreams is being comfortable with yourself. Spend time along. Write in a journal." -Robin S. Sharma For the past several years, I have tried (and failed) to take online courses. It seems like every time I try to get started, I stop when "real life" gets in the way. When I saw the class "Art Journaling for Scaredy Cats" by Tangie Baxter being offered, I thought it might just be the right one for me to finish. (I'm starting to sense that finish might be a theme on my journey this year.)
Art journaling is something I have silently stalked in the digital scrapbooking community and on pinterest for years. I love the way that the Art Journaling community brings feelings and emotions to life through their beautiful art work. I love how it is generally quirky but also heartfelt, but I have been at a loss as to how to start or what my goal is in trying to create this type of a page. Thank goodness I signed up for this course-I LOVED IT! First and foremost Tangie is an amazing teacher--passionate, talented, and generous with both her expertise and products. Early on in the class, she talked about how it takes us 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, so it is entirely ok if I am not great at this at the beginning. This definitely gave me the freedom to jump in and simply start creating. Above you can see the pages i made in the class and I love them all. I love that I can turn on some tunes and enjoy letting go for 20 minutes or a half hour and create something real. I will definitely keep working on art journal pages and I am already signed up for Tangies next class--learning about making mixed media art in Photoshop! My art may not be amazing, but is mine and I am definitely proud of it! "Meh"-Jaxon (when he isn't impressed) I knew at some point, I would find an album on this journey that just didn't do it for me. Boston "Boston" was this album. Every song felt the same and to me they were as exciting as watching paint dry.
The only song from this album that I added to my play list was "More than a feeling" because it brought back lots of nights at the Rocking Roller Rink. Otherwise, Meh. Next please! "A Symphony is no joke." -Johannes Brahms Music as a huge part of my life growing up. Each Sunday morning in church, I loved to open up the Lutheran Book of Worship and read the music as beautiful hymns filled our church. I participated in choir from early elementary school until I graduated. I played the French Horn in band and the Trombone (with keys!) in jazz band. I loved the creative release that music brand to my heart. My parents exposed us to a huge variety of musical experiences each year as they splurged to buy tickets to the community concerts that came to our small rural county.
Once I left home, music slowly left my life. As I worked through college, I no longer had the time to partake in this joy and as my career began free time was not around to find a place for music. Over the years, music has slowly become an occasional song on the radio and a dance party in the kitchen. Well, tonight that changed and I am so glad it did! I won tickets to the Colorado Symphony by sharing a like on Facebook from Mindspark Education. After a long week at parent conferences, I wasn't sure I really wanted to go, but decided to push through my hesitation to have a date night with Luke. When we arrived at the concert hall, we turned in our vouchers and our clerk asked what seats we wanted. I had no idea--I had never been to a symphony. I told her to pick for us and she suggested Dress Circle two so that we could watch the pianists hands as he played. Sounded good to us! The first half of the concert featured Rachmaninoff's Concerto Number 2 for piano. Before the piece even began, I was in awe of what I didn't know. The concert master came out to tune the band and I wondered what that was all about. When the conductor and pianist came to the stage, the room erupted--it was near magic. Then the music began and my heart filled with joy and my face erupted into a smile that went from ear to ear. Suddenly all of those childhood memories of music came back and I fell into a gentle pattern of appreciating each beat and the lyrical melodies that filled the concert hall. During intermission, Luke and I both were in awe of what we had just experienced. We both wondered why we had never thought to do this before--it was amazing. The second half of the concert featured "The Right of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky. Before the symphony began playing, the conductor told the audience that it would sound like these two pieces were from different universes and very different times, but in reality had been written a mere 10 years apart. He then proceeded to have the musicians demonstrate how the composer had layered simple melodies strategically to make a master piece that would leave us on edge. The piece began and we went on a 40 minute adventure into Russia and by the end, I was exhausted. They complicated layers of the music had left you on edge. It was amazing. I can't wait to go back to they symphony! It was a great adventure! Want to hear the tunes? Click HERE! "Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours."-Elton John Elton John. As soon as you say this name, a former student instantly pops into my mind. As a 7th grader, he was simply convinced that Elton John was the greatest "old" singer of all time and the best singer songwriter EVER. Now, as a huge Billy Joel fan, I could not let this claim remain unchallenged. And over the course of the next several years (even after he left my classroom), our debate has raged on. Tonight, I realized he was a pretty smart guy.
Finding the Greatest hits CD was impossible unless I wanted to purchase it. This is SO frustrating in the age of paying for multiple streaming services. But you know what, good for him--he gets to make more money :) Instead of investing, I looked up the order of the original album and found songs on the more current version of his greatest hits album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Once I had my playlist prepared, I once again fell in love with Elton's showmanship and amazing delivery of lyrics. Never a huge fan, I realized shortly into the playlist that I actually loved almost every song on the album. I had forgotten that "Candle in the Wind" was actually written for Marlyn Monroe as I had only ever really listened to the version he did for Princess Di. The heartfelt lyrics really left me contemplating the implications of asking people to give up their identities. My favorite song of the album had to be "Don't Go Breaking my heart." I just love the fun beat and the love story it tells. I added it to three different playlists on my current rotation because it made me so happy. This album rocks and I am so glad I listened to it. And next time I see this student, I might just have to let him win. :) (And I want the sunglasses from the album cover--they are amazing!) "There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If you are not failing, you are not innovating enough." -Elon Musk As a kid, I loved watching the Space Shuttle Launch. I remember our whole class gathering around a television to watch the countdown from T-10 and cheering when the shuttle cleared the Launch Pad. I remember the horror of the challenger explosion and the heart break of losing those brave astronauts.
This week, I got to relive that same emotion and joy as I streamed Space X launching their Falcon Heavy. With 15 minutes to launch, we started watching the life stream (Watch a recap here). As the time went on, the kids got more and more excited to see if it would leave the launch pad and if Starman would make it to Mars. There was a ton of excitement to see if the drone ship would work or if the boosters would really land vertically. The greatest part of this experience was sharing it with my students. It was fun to see them do the countdown and then wait on pins and needles to see if each of the boosters would land as planned. It was fun to keep seeing Star Man and the car and it was AMAZING when my kids said playing David Bowie was a waste of a good song since no one can hear in space! (Yes! They learned something this year!) I still desperately want to go to a live launch, but this was a great start to make progress on this goal. With the success of this mission, America once again is falling in love with space exploration which means more great launches are on the horizon! "True country music is honesty, sincerity, and real life to the hilt." -Garth Brooks Another old friend came by for a visit this afternoon as I graded and scrapbooked. This was my first country album that was not a hand me down. It was 1990 and I was a 6th grader. Again, the Columbia house CD club featured this album and I figured I "Needed" to own it since all of the cool 8th grade girls were listening to it.
What hit me most while listening to this album was how many iterations Garth Brooks has gone through as an artist. This album is his roots--honkey tonk and ballad country. Unlike later albums that are filled with artistic production pieces, what carries this album is the easy melodies and the lyrics that we can relate to. My favorites on this album are still "Two of a Kind" and "Friends in Low Places." As a kid, I had very little realization of what either of these songs actually meant. As I listened to "Two of a kind" I laughed at how it captures that relationships are work and a heck of a lot of fun when you have to make up. "Friends in Low Places" is an instant happy song for me, but I now relate so much as I learn to navigate living in the city as a country girl at heart. I'll never be fancy, and that is perfectly okay. My biggest surprise in this listen was the beauty of "The Victim of the game." Life catches us off guard so many times--we are so invested in something or something that we miss the signs that a game is beating us. The beautiful melodies and sweet vocals remind us that we all get burned, but it is up to us to pick up the pieces and play again. As an aside, I do have to say, finding this album took a while--I almost went to dig out the actual CD because it wasn't in any of my go too sites. Thank goodness Alexa helped me remember that Garth is on Amazon Music. Too sad that so many listeners are missing out! "My motto: 'No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing."-Roger Ebert Every February, Movies come front and center in the space between the Golden Globes and the Oscars. Over the past several years, our movie watching has become SUPER heavy in super hero and sci-fi (Thanks in large part to living with my boys who're geeks). So, when I made my list, I thought that watching all of the "Best Movies" from the Oscars in my life time would help me branch out and grow my movie watching repertoire.
I set up a netflix DVD account (since so few are available on streaming) and filled it with 40 films. This weekend seemed like the time to watch the first one 1979's Kramer vs Kramer. As we settled in to watch, I giggled as I saw how young Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman were. As the movie delved into the awfulness of divorce and an ensuing battle, Luke asked me a question, "You do realize that all of these movies are going to be super serious, right?" Duh! I hadn't thought of that until that moment and I realized that I really don't feel like finishing this item on my list. I have enough stress/anxiety/drama in real life--I don't want to relax by watching more. I do want to put a movie item on my list but I am going to rethink it instead so it includes FUN and HAPPY movies! Stay tuned for my new item and help me say farewell to this one! |
AuthorAlmost 40 and tired of the treadmill, I am going to LIVE each day as a new adventure while finishing todo items on my life list. Mom, wife, teacher, geek! Archives
May 2020
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