Glanalaw - delighting in pure song

Saturday afternoon I went for a long walk - about five miles.  Once you get out of the subdivision the area I live in is really pretty, so I took my camera to document.  Here are some pictures! This made me think of Anne Shirley - "why are the roads red?" Sunset with construction. He tried to follow me, but I lured him off with some small children and escaped. (Yesterday I took another long walk - I went to Kentucky.  No, really.  It's only about 2 miles away!  Unfortunately I set out in a light drizzle and when I was about 3 miles out suddenly they announced a severe weather alert over some loudspeaker... I had to rush back in the dark and rain.  I saw some fantastic lightning though!  Still I think in future I'll not walk that far if there's a storm threatening.)

My friend Lisa had a birthday yesterday and I knew immediately what I wanted to take to her party:   grasshopper brownies  from one of my favourite food blogs,  Smitten Kitchen .  A dense, fudge-y brownie topped with mint-flavoured white chocolate ganache and bittersweet ganache.  I made them once back in January for my English class and everyone loved them, but they're so incredibly rich that I never make them unless I have lots of other people to help me eat them! I never knew why these were called "grasshopper" brownies, but I posted about them on Facebook and my uncle says that according to Wikipedia "A typical grasshopper cocktail consists of equal parts Crème de menthe, Crème de cacao and fresh cream, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass.") Then he added, "If I mix one with Kahlua instead of the Creme de menthe, I call it a "Cricket"!"  So I guess the "grasshopper" refers to the chocolate-mint (and...

1.  I'm always slightly disappointed when I wake up to a grey, misty morning - and then it turns out to be hot and sunny later on.  I want autumn to be here for real! 2.  Part of my graduate assistantship is grading papers for the undergraduate music literature and history classes.  I really wish I were allowed to talk about it more, because some of their answers are hilarious!  But that's probably breaking confidentiality so I won't share details. 3.  Except for this one: six students in my first batch of quizzes thought Gregorian chant was sung in Sanskrit.  I'm not even kidding. 4.  I ate my lunch at 10:30 this morning.  Which means I'll be starving by 5 o'clock dinner at church... 5.  Wouldn't it be nice if we really could apparate?  That would save all the hassle of trying to find a parking space. 6.  Went for a run Monday evening.  My legs still have not recovered! 7.  In a pinch, double-pointed need...

I used to hate oatmeal.  Despise it.  Unfortunately for me (or perhaps fortunately for the building of my character) my family went through a period when oatmeal was about the only thing we could afford for breakfast.  I fought it tooth and nail.  But my mother was just as stubborn.  We had a rule that if you didn't eat a meal, you'd get the same food, cold, for the next meal, and the next, until it was eaten.  So I would pick at my oatmeal at breakfast... stare gloomily at the same bowl (now cold) at lunch, and poke at the dismal mess with a spoon at dinner.  Sometimes it would make a fourth appearance at breakfast the next morning.  I think it took me close to a year to learn to eat it the first time, and I still didn't like it. But recently I've started actually craving oatmeal.  Some mornings it just seems like the right thing to do.  I don't understand this, but I don't fight it! I like it a little dressed up, though.  It'...

1.  Drove to Jackson on Thursday for a dress rehearsal.  (And a fantastic choral concert.) 2.  Slept in.  Graded papers.  Lunch with my best friend's dad, tea with my voice teacher. 3.  Performed Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale".  (This is the show we did in the spring; we had a repeat performance as part of a conference on the legacy of the King James Version, which is having its 400th anniversary this year.) I was "Time".  My main reflections on the part are that men's dress trousers were not made to fit my body, and I never ever want to wear white "clown" makeup again.  (The pocket watch was cool though!) 4.  Drove back to Clarksville.  (Saturday morning.) 5.  Sang downtown for the "Franklin Frolic" with the rest of the Austin Peay opera workshop class. 6.  Drove back to Jackson. 7.  Final performance of Winter's Tale.  Complete with technical difficulties and Mr Anderton, the director, doing h...

I'm still alive, I promise.  The semester is finally getting into full swing and I find myself exhausted most of the time.  Something about waking up at 6:30 (or earlier) every morning and not getting home at night until around 7 (or later), probably. I finally got my work assignments - assisting my voice teacher, grading papers for the music history and literature classes, and manning the listening library.  At the moment the last is the easiest - because nearly all the time no one is there, and one can sit and do homework or listen to music or, probably, sleep, uninterrupted.  I suspect it will make for excellent knitting time.  I haven't graded any papers yet but I look forward to it - music history and lit were favourite classes when I took them, so it'll be fun to review.  I'm trying to decide if it makes me a nerd to admit that I was slightly disappointed to hear that I don't get to grade the essays, just the multiple-choice sections! This is the ...

Since moving to Clarksville, I've been making use of the public transport system.  This is new for me, mostly because I've never lived in a place with an actually accessible transport system.  But here, I ride the bus. I live about a 20-25 minute drive from my school, complete with too many stoplights and people who don't know how to share the road.  There is also a shortage of parking at school.  So taking the bus is a less-frustrating way to get where I need to go! It goes like this.  I don't actually live on the bus route, so I have to drive a little bit to get there.  I like this drive though.  It's on windy back roads and it only takes me six minutes.  (But I have to pretend it takes twelve because I'm usually late getting out the door.)  I park at Wal-Mart, where my bus stop is, and hop on. The bus takes a winding and circuitous route to the centre of town.  It's about a forty minute ride, which is almost twice as much time as d...

A couple of weeks ago I came across this blog post , in which the author states that children should be raised entirely by their parents (and especially by the mother); she also condemns the practise of nannying and says it is not something Christian families should consider, or Christian young women do. As a young, Christian woman myself, who has moreover spent the past summer as a nanny, naturally this caused me to stop and think.  Are her claims correct (and more importantly, biblical?)  Was I wrong to spend my summer caring for someone else's children?  The issue has been bothering me ever since, but I think I've come to a conclusion, so I'm going to inflict my musings on all of you :) First, let me say what I do  agree with "Lady Lydia" about: a child's parents, if at all possible, should be its primary caregivers.  I don't believe a mother should, if not financially obliged, leave her child with a nanny or at daycare all day, every day, and not s...