Carols

I love Christmas carols. That is probably the main reason I have music symbols on my background now (although don't be surprised if I change it again). I went to get Bria from Fairwood today, and on the way back she felt like carolling so we--she, Elizabeth H. (who's going to the airport from our house tomorrow), and I--did. We stopped at Evan and Jill's (Lindsay, Jill, and Mrs. F.-from-on-the-hill were there) and Uncle Alden and Aunt Lorraine's. We sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" in parts, and it was so much fun that we'll just HAVE to do it again. Fun, fun, fun.....fun..........(long yawn).... yzswde yu67hg.


(That was my head hitting the keyboard when I fell asleep. I simply must try to do my blogging earlier.)

Guess what I did today!

I actually, factually skated!!! That's right, our pond is open and ready for business!!! Daddy got out the snowblower late this afternoon and now as much of the pond as possible is cleared off. (Parts around the edges couldn't be done because water seeped up from under the ice into the snow creating a slushy mess that is too much for the ol' snowblower to handle.)

I also went sledding down the hill onto the pond. Unfortunately, I found out on my second trip that I have gotten to big to ride my sled on my stomach. It's a short little thing and when I went over either my chest would bump the front painfully or I would wrench my back trying to prevent my chest from bumping painfully. The wrenching was just about as painful. Oh, well, too bad. I am a bit sad about it because my sled is very fast, but we have plenty of sleds that are big enough. I guess I'll just ride those now.

Next I skied down the slopes behind our house, where the seemingly endless array of pine and hemlock trees necessitated a dodging motion not unlike that used in the slalom. I almost hit a tree a couple times, but my cat-like reflexes prevented any serious accident. The closest call came when I was going to fast to stop at the bottom and, dodging the house, sped right down the sledding hill and across the pond. I lay flat on my back on the other side for several minutes before I was able to catch my breath and walk back to the warmth of the house.

After a few minutes of recovery over a steaming mug of hot cocoa, I was once again ready for adventure. The cocoa had made me quite warm, so I felt like swimming. Since our pool is covered (obviously!) and our pond is frozen, I decided to just practice my jumps on the diving board so I would be ready in the spring. I managed a quadruple flip--a personal record! I would estimate that I was nine feet in the air, but that may be an exaggeration. After all, I can't really see how high I am when I am turning so fast in the air!

As you may imagine, I was quite cold after being out in the cold in my swim suit, even though I wore a turtleneck with it. I decided the best way to warm up would be by exercise. Naturally, the best way to get exercise in New Hampshire this time of year is from shovelling. Daddy had already blown all the snow off both the driveway and the pond, so I shovelled the hill that leads to the pond since it and the yard were the only snowy places I could immediately think of. It was only afterward that I realized I had ruined our sledding path. Cara practically exploded when I told her what I had done, and I didn't even dare tell Ryan after that. The poor boy had been so looking forward to sledding, and now I'm the only one who had the opportunity. I guess both he and Cara will have to wait for the next snow.

I was so upset after being yelled at that I had to take my frustration out on something, so I decided to try snowball baseball. I rigged up a system for throwing snowballs that I consider quite ingenious, but which is too complicated to describe here. Unfortunately, the effort in building it was primarily wasted, as the snowballs never failed to explode upon colliding with the bat. I gave up after about twenty-five tries.

Then I woke up. I was back on the pond and had just finished sledding and had been knocked out by a sudden bump or wrench--which one I am not sure. Actually that's not true either. THE WHOLE THING IS A LIE!! That includes that last sentence as well, because the first two paragraphs ARE true. But that's not a lie, and I said the whole thing was a lie. Okay, I think I'd better stop now before I confuse myself!

Christmas is coming!

So sorry about the dreadful irregularity of my blogging. I tend to spend most of my time free from school doing other things, and what time I DO spend blogging I usually spend on either my template or reading other people's blogs. Nevertheless, here I am again to thrill you all.

Speaking of my template, what does the color of my background look like to you? On my computer it looks gold, but on my mom's it looks a bit peachy. Say what you like, peach is not a color that goes with Christmas in MY humble opinion. So if more than, say, one third of the commenters (and there will be many, WON'T THERE!?!?!) are seeing peach instead of gold, I'll change my background.

Last night, when I was putting up some Christmas lights, I had to get a couple extension cords in order to reach from the lights to the plug. I plugged one in and then picked up the rather tangled mess of cords on the floor. As I did so, I stuck my finger in between the prongs of the second extension cord. My heart jumped as I realized that I was just about to be electrocuted! Fortunately the logical remainder of my brain reminded me pretty quickly that, "No, if you were going to be electrocuted it would already have happened." And then: "Besides, the prongs go into the electric socket, not the other way around." Which all shows just how tired I must have been. (It was pretty late.) The whole episode led me to think: life would be incredible dangerous if the people who started the current electrical system did make the prongs come out of the wall with the electric current. And did the first guy to try to start an electrical system do it that way? If he did, it's no wonder I've never heard of him.

A little Christmas season update (mostly for Bria's benefit): The ice on our pond is frozen solid, although we haven't skated yet. We have our icicle lights up on the porch as well as regular lights on our circular stairway. We have our 9-foot tree up and trimmed with the lights on it, as well as a small tree from the backyard that Ryan and I cut down last Friday. We have wrapping paper all over the holiday table (the table in our dining room that we bring up for Sandford holiday meals) and our nativity set on the bookcase. In short, the whole house is looking pretty festive. I've got a little over half my shopping done, and I know what I'm getting for most of the little under half that I have to do. In fact, the only thing missing is Bria herself, and that problem will soon be remedied.....

"It's Christmas time in the city..."

Governor Lynch of the good ol' Granite State may not be the greatest governor, but he sure can conduct. Well, OK, he can't really, but he sure knows how to try! Yes, I have seen John Lynch try his hand at conducting a full orchestra. Those of you who don't believe me can read Bria's blog and those of you that have already read her blog already do believe me, so I guess I'm pretty well covered. The fact is, Gov. John Lynch was invited by the New Hampshire Philharmonic to try his hand at conducting "Jingle Bells Forever" in front of a large audience: a nicely packed Palace Theatre-full of people. (By the way, did you know that John Lynch and his wife have attended the Palace Theatre since 1975?!?!?! Why, that's before I was born! It's before Bria was born! It's before Lisa was born! It's before Derrick, Chad, Lindsay....) Our illustrious governor agreed, and sure enough, he tried. But he did little more than that. He kept the beat almost perfectly, I must admit, but he occassionally seemed to get tired and would hardly move his hands until a sudden crash of a symbol would send his body back into convulsions (well, ok, that's a gross exaggeration).

On the whole, I enjoyed the whole concert quite thoroughly. The evening started off with a merry .... actually, I can never remember the name but it's the one that goes, "Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling, 'Yoohoo!' Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!" After a couple pieces featuring the winner of the NH Philharmonic's youth competition as a soloist, the first half ended with some of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." The second half started with something like "Brazilian Sleigh Bells" then went into a medley of American Christmas songs ("White Christmas", "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", etc.) I think my favorite part of the night was either the American medley or the carol sing-along that came after it. The sing-along was at least one of the top two best parts of the night, although some of the orchestra's intros were a bit hard to follow, and some people came in in the wrong place. It was especially enjoyable to hear so many people singing "Joy to the world! The Savior reigns!" and going right through the first verses of four or five other Christmas songs that contain such obviously Christian lyrics.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the songs played on the radio. Bria scanned throught the FM channels on the way home, hoping to find some good Christmas music to listen to. We listened to -- and enjoyed-- a fifties-ish rendition of "Here Comes Santa Claus." Then that station turned to rock, so we tried another channel. That channel was playing "Here Comes Santa Claus." It was fairly near the end, but we turned the radion off anyway because of the obnoxious voices of the singers. That radio station was playing songs by request, and apparently someone had requested "Here Comes Santa Claus", because the exact same rendition of that song was just starting when we turned the radio back on. We scanned again, and what should the next Christmas channel be playing but...."Here Comes Santa Claus!" Aaaaarrrrrrgh! We finally found a couple other songs, but the total count of songs we had listened to when we got home was still something like this: "Jingle Bells": 1; "White Christmas": 1; "Here Comes Santa Claus": 5.


P.s. In case anyone doesn't check the comments below, and would like to know who wrote "The Melancholy Pig", the answer is Lewis Carroll.

Poetry

It's interesting to note that, although I would not consider myself a fan of poetry, I have plenty of poems I like: "The Raven", "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven", "Barbara Fritchie", "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Hunt"....the list goes on and includes a very wide range.

On the other hand I have a list of poems I don't like too, especially such sad ones--although beautifully written--as "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "The Highwayman."

Here's one that I do like: "The Melancholy Pig."

There was a Pig that sat alone,
Beside a ruined Pump.
By day and night he made his moan:
It would have stirred a heart of stone
To see him wring his hoofs and groan
Because he could not jump.

Purely out of curiosity, I would like to know how many of my readers know who wrote this little beauty. If you don't know--and ONLY if you don't know--try guessing at it and see if you can get it.

P.s. I looked around online for a couple minutes to try to find a clever quotation to use as the title for my post, and although I didn't find a quotation that would fit, I came across this one:

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.— Ashleigh Brilliant

Very good advice, especially for people like me who tend to get depressed after playing any sports (except Ping-pong and Badminton) for long with their closest friend who lives in New York and NEVER posts.