And On That Note...

Well here we are, June 26, the day that I head off to camp and leave this blog at the mercy of the guest posters.

I'm very excited for camp today, I'm pretty sure that I've been bouncing off the walls for about a week, and today I've been even worse. Maybe it isn't such a great idea to let me drive to camp...I'm so excited, I might just floor the gas pedal which would NOT be so great at all...I'll try not to do that...I'd like to get to camp in one piece.

I also performed a solo in church this morning, a very nice arrangement of a hymn that I have always had a soft spot for, Shine, Jesus, Shine. I was very happy to find that it was in a book of trumpet and piano hymn arrangements that I bought last summer and decided that it would make a good solo piece. By the way, it went very well, thank you for asking.

So now that I am about an hour away from leaving, I suppose I should say goodbye now and go have some lunch...I'll miss you guys but don't worry! You haven't seen the last of Sally. I'll be popping in over the course of the next month whenever I come in reach of a computer to update you on my life and travels, but as you recall, the blog will not be lying inactive in my absence! I've got about twenty-five totally AWESOME guest posters to write and share some stuff about themselves on here and I expect that you show them all your very best behavior while I'm gone, LOL. While they're posting comment moderation will be off as they do not have the power to moderate comments, but word verification WILL be on, just to prevent spamming. OK?

Bye, everybody! Have fun with all the guest posts!

-Sally

Have A Holly Jolly Christmas

Well folks, it's Christmas Eve! (Hard to believe isn't it? Time just flies!) And the anticipation is ever building throughout the house. 

Yesterday, my family drove up to my grandparents three hours northwards. So we're spending Christmas with them, my aunt drove up from Boston and another aunt and uncle and two cousins live down the street too.

And the Christmas spirit of frantic-ness has descended upon us! My grandmother has been baking lots, presents are being wrapped and stashed under the tree, stockings will hang on the mantle, and to top the whole season off, I've come down with a cold. Yay. Boo. Not fun the day before Christmas. But all that aside, it's been a great time so far.

And some of the surprises in store for tomorrow having been building for a long time....

Especially my mom's awesome incredible TOTALLY EPIC Christmas present from my dad.

So Mom,

if you happen to be reading this now....i strongly suggest that you STOP. in fact, i COMMAND YOU TO STOP READING NOW.

And now that THAT'S taken care of, I can tell you the story of this epic present.

Last year, we were out caroling with a church group and we happened to drive past a house that had these really nice different colored peace sign lights mounted on the side of the house.  Naturally, my mom noticed and was like 'Oh! Those are nice...I would just love something like that.' And my dad, kept that in his head for a great Christmas present this year.

So earlier this month he bought some thin strips of wood and some white strings of lights and declared to me and XanFan that he was going to build a huge lighted peace sign. And he did. And it's huge. And everyone knows about it except her. It's epic. It's awesome. It's.....quite large. I will HAVE to get some pictures- it'll be one rockin' surprise.

We'll be heading to a Christmas Eve service at the tiny tiny church in a teeny tiny town, but the service will be nice. I just hope I'll be able to sing with this cold of mine...

Holiday Preparations

The holiday season has descended, gifts are being bought and wrapped, advent and christmas services and activities at church have begun, cookie day cookies have been baked, school is busier than ever, preparations for holiday parties are in full swing and the decorations and brightly lit trees are up.

It really IS the most wonderful time of the year.

Pretty lights and decorations,

Excitement building for the coming of the Christ child,

Carols ringing in the air.

We did our tree and decorations yesterday, and I have put together a video for you of what our house no looks like, all dressed up in Christmas.

{This was shot on Photobooth, so everything is backwards. LOL}

'Tis The Season!

Ahhh. Thanksgiving is over, November 2010 is soon to be history, and the holiday season is approaching fast! Why do I love this time of year? Let me spell it out....

1. It's Advent!

Hope, Peace, Love & Joy

and of course, the Christ candle.

I love seeing the Advent candles lit and their stories told every year.

My favorite part of the Christmas season though, is the Christmas Eve services. They are always so pretty with all the candles and quiet readings and songs. Me love.

2. Secrets and Surprises

Yeah...I live opening presents as much as the next person, but really, I enjoy planning for what I'm going to give others a lot more. I really like doing gifts for my family and friends and I love to watch them being opened. Surprises are so much fun!!!

3. Cookie Day

One of the great traditions in my Dad's side of the family is to get together one Saturday and simply bake cookies all day! It's great fun and I can't wait for it on Saturday!

4. Holiday Party

One of the other things my family has done each year (Except last year because of my mom being in school and stuff and having no time...) is host a holiday party. We invite a bunch of people over, cook some yummy snacks and...PARTY!!!!!!! Who doesn't like the sound of that?

5. Christmas Pageant

Another church tradition is the kid's Christmas pageant. I've assistant directed for the past two years after many many many years in the actual pageant. We've used the same pageant for many years though and it was getting old so last year my associate pastor and I sat down and, well, wrote a new one which I will be directing. :)

I'm very pleased with it. It's called 'So You Think You Know The Christmas Story'.

It's funny, and will be great.

Here's a snapshot of part of one scene...enjoy!

Scene Four: Angel Conference 

Narrator 2: So what happens next?

Narrator 1: Take a guess, I bet you can figure it out!

Narrator 2: Um....Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem?

Donkey: Don't forget me! I went too!

Narrator 1: Hang on donkey. The reason we left you out is that Luke says nothing about a donkey. But, I guess you can come along if you want. 

All participants (Excluding littlest angels) sing 'O Little Town Of Bethlehem'
Narrator 2: Well, it says that this scene is about an angel conference. Does that mean that Gabriel is going to tell everybody that they are going to have a baby?

Narrator 1: No, it's more like a meeting. Would you like to call it to order?

Narrator 2: Yes please. ALL ANGELS REPORT TO THE HEAVENLY REALM! ALL ANGELS TO THE HEAVENLY REALM!

Angels all file in to the center of the chancel except for Gabriel
Angel 1: Well, since it seems that Gabriel is running late from one of his important errands, 

Angel 2: Let's have some entertainment while we wait.

Littlest Angels file up and sing 'Go Tell It On The Mountain'

Angel 3: That was really great. And Gabriel still isn't back!

Angel 4: Well, let's discuss. Why is it always Gabriel who gets to deliver all of the good news?

Angel 5: Yesterday, I was sent to deliver bad news. 

Angel 1:  I had to deliver bad news too. A few days ago, I had to go tell a town that someone poisoned all of their avocados!

Angel 2: I think it's because we're girls.

Angel 3: The Angel Office is completely prejudiced! 

Angel 4: We should go on strike!

Angel 5: Gabriel will just have to give in to us.

All angels: YEAH!

Angels grab signs from side that say 'No more bad news!' and 'We want good news!' and begin to chant the same.

Gabriel enters
Gabriel: What is going on in here?

Angels: No more bad news, we want good news!

Gabriel: Oh. You're on strike again. Holy cow! What is it this time?

Cow: Moo.

Angel 1: We're tired of always sending the bad news to people.

Angel 2: Yeah, you get to send all the good news because you're a boy!

Gabriel: OK....calm down. I have a message to deliver tonight to some shepherds. You can all come if you want.

 

What is YOUR favorite part(s) of the holidays? Comment with your answer!

Feeling Fall

Today is one of those days that feels decidedly fall-like.

It's between 54º and 60º outside, so there's a bite to the air.

The air itself even smells different. I'm not exactly sure what exactly it smells like, but it has the distinctive markings of autumn.

It's a day for sweatpants and long-sleeved shirts,

For steaming mugs of hot chocolate,

And bowls of buttery popcorn.

A day for church in the morning, a chilly soccer game of XanFan's in the early afternoon, Geometry homework and hot lentil soup for supper.

A day of low gray clouds and cold breezes rippling the grass as you watch from inside.

A day for turning up the radio and curling up by the fireplace.

Some people hate these kinds of days.

But me?

i couldn't be happier.

Tag (x2)

Yesterday Eldarwen posted a couple tags, neither of which I had done before, and she tagged anyone who wanted to do them!

(1) Would you rather have a cat or dog? A cat! Though I can't have either :(

 

(2) Do you like to cook? Yes, I find it quite fun and I like baking too.

 

 (3) What would you do with 1 million dollars? I have no idea. I'd probably start by buying some instruments.....

(4) Do you prefer being outside in the sunshine or inside reading? Both, it depends on my mood.

 

(5) Do you read my blog often? Um...what?

 

(6) Do you like big houses or little houses? Well, compared to many my house is on the bigger side but it's far from huge. I think it's the perfect size, so somewhere in the middle.

 

(7) Do you like starting your own tags or getting tagged? Getting tagged!

(8) If I dropped $10 by accident would you (a) return it to me? (b) go to a store and by as much stuff as you can get? or (c) donate it to charity? I'd return it of course!

 

(9) Do you like Janette Oke books better or Laura Ingalls Wilder? I've never heard of Janette Oke, but I love Laura Ingalls :)

 

(10) Brownies or cupcakes? Mmm...I can't decide.

 

(11) Have you ever had some beverage come out of your nose? Not a liquid of some sort, but my parents have mentioned that when I was little, some spaghetti came out my nose once.

(12) What's one embarrassing thing that has happened to you? 

Last April when I flipped out at my social studies and LA teacher when she picked up my pro trumpet....

 
and the second tag...
 

1.What's your favorite book of the Bible? I happen to like Psalms a lot.
 

2.What's your life verse? I dunno...

3.What's your favorite Bible name? Bartholomew. It makes me smile. :)

4.Ruth or Esther? I'll say Ruth though Esther is also awesome.

5.Abraham or Noah? Noah.

6. Who's your favorite disciple? The Beloved Disciple who we never learn the true identity of.

7.What's your favorite story in the Bible? Noah's Ark and the Creation

8.What's your favorite hymn? You expect ME the MUSICIAN to choose ONE? Are you out of your MIND?

9.Who's your favorite Christan author? No clue.

 

10.What is your favorite miracle that God performed? Me likes the Resurrection.

 

Anyone who wants to do these tags is welcome to them! 

Wind

And blustery it is indeed! The wind is whistling and blowing and is quite cold here at the campground. We went up to the pool where it was just a calm breeze and nice and warm, but me and my dad and aunt came back here to get the sailboat ready, but the way it looks now, it's too windy for a safe sail on our 17 footer. It's days like today that if we went out on the water, we'd want to rechristen our boat 'Scream' instead of 'Whisper'. It's an ongoing joke in the family.

But this windy, windy day also reminds me of a class for confirmation where we spoke about metaphors for God. And the one I liked best was God as wind, because the wind is ALWAYS there. Even when we can't feel it. And isn't that how you want to think of God? Always there, always present?

One thing's for sure if we take this to be true.

God is very, very, present with me today. ;)

Dance And Confirmation

The dance was soooo much fun! It was cool to actually be all dress up for a dance (never happened before cause everything else is informal) Like Eldarwen asked in comment, I'll try and get a pic up of my outfit soon :) However, at first glance, nobody recognized me! (my teachers seemed to have a hard time believing that it was really me) Let me tell you why...

On any normal day, this is how you'll find me: Wearing either flip-flops or my awesome plaid converse, a pair of jeans and some kind of cute top. Purple band around my wrist, often my treble clef necklace and a pair of earrings. Wavy brown hair falling around my shoulders, and I wear glasses too. But this is how I was at the dance: A pair of strappy black (heeled) sandals and a sparkly, floaty, blue and black dress. I wear a simple blue necklace and a cute pair of silver earrings. I'm actually wearing makeup. But here's the thing that was getting people: I wore my hair up for once in my life and I wasn't wearing glasses (which resulted in a killer headache and not being able to see all that well). But yeah. That was the dance.

Today is confirmation at church (already???) and I'm pretty excited. We (the confimands) get to lead the whole service which will be fun and one of them is actually doing the sermon! Should be interesting. After we are having a picnic :)

Finally, tomorrow's the big last day! Field trip and graduation, here I come!

Church Was Kinda Strange Today...

So church was kinda strange today- but of course you could've got that from the title. What was strange? Well, bell choir messed up horribly in the prelude, this one little girl was like strangling her brother during the children's sermon, during the passing of the peace my brother said to me 'war be with you' instead of he usual 'peace be with you', and during the first hymn the organist just stopped playing and we had to sing without accompaniment for a verse. So it was interesting. Other than that the service ran very smoothly with a good Pentecost sermon. Plus, the last hymn was one of my favorites: In The Midst Of New Dimensions. I first heard it about a year and a half ago when I played along to it in church (on cornet) for our 275th church year celebration. The refrain is especially nice and goes like this:

"God of rainbow, fiery pillar, leading where the eagles soar. We your people, ours the journey, now and ever, now and ever, now and ever more"

So that's that! I'm heading off to a double header softball game soon and then I've got a confirmation class this evening. Busy, busy, busy!

oh it's fridayfridayfridayfriday FRIDAY!!!!!!

YAY!!!! My favorite day of the week has arrived again! After a long week of schoolwork, abominable tests, and busyness in general, it's almost the weekend where I get to finally relax. Except. Not this weekend. *SIGH....* I've got a lot of stuff coming up here's the update:

Tonight- I'm going to my friend Ripplestar's after school (maybe we'll do a conversation post or something)

Tomorrow- I have a make-up trumpet lesson in the morning and in the evening I have my conformation sleepover at the church, and we've been promised not sleep at all.

Sunday- Church (have to do yet another worship reflection), show a movie after church to people who are considering going to the summer camp Pilgrim Lodge, and then that night we've got Jazzapalooza from 5-9!

Monday/Tuesday- Back to school with TOOOOOOOONS of tests.

Wednesday- Job shadow day! Woot!

Thursday- Half day of school, hanging with friends in the afternoon and we're on VACATION!!!!!!!

So yeah. I'm busy.

ALLELUIA!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! HAPPY EASTER! You will notice that I have changed from the Good Friday black blog look to this happy Easter one. Don't worry, the spring birds look will be back up tomorrow! Anyway, I just love Easter church services. There's always brass, lots of flowers on the altar, rejoicing, singing the Hallelujah Chorus and of course the lovely sunrise service. Speaking of the sunrise service, I was up at 5 o'clock to get ready and be at the park at quarter of 6. We do our service at a very nice park, Fort Williams, which is by the ocean and a very nice lighthouse if I do say so myself. It was still quite dark, but the sun came up in time for the service to start, so I was able to see my music! (We had conveniently forgotten a flashlight) I played along to the hymns and during communion, and I was very happy that it was around 52º (F) which was loads better then last year when it was 12º (F). I think it went well, especially considering playing outside. Also there was someone snapping pictures who I later found out was from *gulp* the newspaper. So I guess I'll just have to look for myself in there tomorrow! The regular service was quite nice, but now I'm ready for some yummy couscous! Alleluia! Christ is risen! ALLELUIA!

Snow Tubing and Quiz

PHEW! I just got back from snow tubing with my YM group and it was soooo much fun! :) We went to this great park and you would just fly down the hill. It was great. We also had a great church service today, wish a very interesting sermon!

Anyway, now I'm back from tubing and REALLY craving some french fries, so I just popped some in the oven. Yum! :)

Also, I created this fun quiz today that I think you'll enjoy. Take it and tell me what you got. My result was YELLOW.

What is your TRUE color? Your Result: Yellow   You scored as YELLOW. You are a very happy, go with the flow kind of person. You have a dazzling smile that almost always lights up your face and you love to paint abstract pictures. You are very kind and love helping charities and organizations.
Green
Blue
Purple
Red
Orange
What is your TRUE color? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Miscellaneous

Yeah, random post coming up. I'll start off talking about yesterday. Yesterday afternoon Bella came over and we went sledding. There has been this HUGE snowstorm coming through and it hasn't stopped yet, so the sledding was good. It was really cold and windy, but we were able to make it through a whole hour of fun.

Today I went to church, and I really enjoyed the sermon. There were so few people there because of the storm, so that was really cool. This afternoon I have to transpose a piece of music and clean out my closet. A REAL chore. I actually think that I will try the Horsefeathers Closet Project approach. At least, that might make it a little more fun. :) And then......tomorrow we go back to school. Darn. It's been a nice vacation. BUT........I start clarinet tomorrow, so that is one good thing.

Finally, here's a tag from Dreamstar

RULE: USE ONLY ONE WORD FOR EACH ANSWER

Where is your cell phone? backpack

Significant other? um...

Your mother? office

Your father? island

Your favorite thing? band

Your dream last night? strange

Your favorite drink? cranberry

What room are you in? living

Your hobby? music

Your fear? smashing

Where do you want to be in 6 years? collage

Where were you last night? bedroom

Something that you aren't? bored

Wish list item? camera

Last thing you did? church

What are you wearing? clothes

TV? panasonic

Name one of your pets: none

Friends? best

Your life? good

Your mood? neutral

Missing someone? idk

Drinking? no

Your car? none

Something you're not wearing? shoes

Your favorite store? music

Your favorite color? green

When is the last time you cried? idk

Where do you go to over and over? band

Favorite place to eat? home

 

Favorite place I'd like to be at right now? band

I tag:

ANYONE!

Newspaper, Church and Contest Winner!

Well so you know how I said I played my new trumpet at the church fair yesterday? Yeah. So today in the Sunday paper there was an article about church fairs. And whatdayaknow? I was mentioned! It said "Instead of programmed music, designed to encourage a yuletide spending spree, First Congregational [Church] offered a trumpeter serving up 'The Christmas Song' " Yeah so that was pretty cool, even though I played a lot more songs then just that.

Church was good today, and handbells went well. {Good job Elránia!} And I liked the sermon. After, my mom and I grabbed a bite of lunch at Mister Bagel and then did some shopping. We got some fabrics for the quilt I'm making in Home Ec. and I also got a really cute new haircut. :)

And now the contest:

Thanks everybody who entered! I really think it was fun. Maybe it should become a 3rd Saturday/Sunday of the month event, do you think?

Olive Tree, Silverstar, Dreamstar, Bella, Emma and Breanne all entered and I had a grand ole time reading some of the comments you left. So now. The moment of truth. The winner of the first ever Treble Clef comment contest is......................

Dreamstar!!! With Comment #2!!!!

I put the numbers 1-12 in a bowl and had my dad draw. #2was drawn, and that was Dreamstar!!!!

Dreamstar, You receive a custom avatar, OR a custom award or an award that you've always wanted. Plus as an added bonus, your name will be added to the Comment contest winners board! WA-HOO!!!!!!!

Thanks everybody and be sure to check back every month for comment contests!

Church Fair and Daybook

So where I was all morning was our church fair, which we call the Holly Daze Bazaar. So for the first couple of hours I walked around in a cow costume telling people to donate to Heifer International. But then the cow costume got WAAAAAAY to hot and I was ready to get out of it and stop mooing. But then I somehow got pulled into singing Christmas carols while someone played the piano and violin which was really fun. But after I'd done that for a bit a called my dad and he brought me my trumpet so I to play lot's of Christmas carols for about 2 hours. But then I'd pretty much had it and I was really tired of doing all that standing so I came home. (It was a fun morning) Here's This week's daybook entry:

Want to do the Teen Girl's Daybook? Find out how here.

Date... 11/21

Starting time... 1:24 PM

Mood... happy

Outside my window... It's strangely mild and the sky id=s blue

I'm thinking... about the new blog makeover Olive Tree is making me

I'm reading... My blog LOL I finished my book yesterday and I haven't had time to start another

I'm listening to... My playlist. Sing, Sing, Sing

I'm wearing... jeans and a Nike tee

Yesterday, I... redid my room!

I'm excited for... vacation!

I'm sad because... of nothing!

I'm hungry for...some fudge..

The song stuck inside my head is...Requiem for a Dream

I want... nothing right now.....

I love... Christmas carols

I loathe... tests

This week, my goal is... to learn those crazy hard jazz piano parts

Did I meet last week's goal?... Yep!

Ending time... 1:29 PM