a star in my garden

     Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
                                                                        Lord Byron



My 17th Birthday

There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents ... and only one for birthday presents, you know.
- Lewis Carroll

Light

Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space.  It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe.  It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished. 

~Michael Strassfeld



holding on

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.
Henry Ellis

delayed

I have all sorts of photo's I want to be able to put up, but my laptop is in getting de-virused, so I'm stuck with the big, extremely slow clunker that we hide in the basement.
There is no way I will be able to get my pictures on to this beast, and then have enough time to load them to blogger.

I REALLY want to be able to get some pictures up.
I took some really good ones on my trip to New York and I need to get them off my camera and up here before I explode with impatience.

frightening, but worth it.

Our eggs have hatched!

And let's just say the mother is very protective.

I put myself in harms way to get these photo's,

but seeing the growth in these little wonders is definitely worth it.

I'm excited to see the changes that are continuing to happen to these little babies.

mile stones

Everyone has moments that stick out in their memory forever. Moments that mark an achievement or small(or big) triumphs.

This week I reached a places, that I didn't think would happen for me.
On Monday my piano teacher presented me with my new set of Grade 8 RCM books.

This feels like something I need a party for!
It's not like I'm near ready to take that exam, but I'm ready to start learning pieces of that difficultly.

My piano story is one filled with strange twists and turns, joys and despairs.
I started piano lessons when I was 5, with a 15-year-old friend of the family.
That's when I learned where middle C is, and the other note names, and finger numbers.
After a year or so of that, I think I started lessons with my neighbour across the street, who gave lessons out of her house.
She moved away, when I was about 8, and I started taking lessons with her sister, who also lived across the street and gave lessons out of her home studio.
At around 9-years-old, I got sick of my lessons.
Things started to become harder, and I wasn't getting it, and the easier stuff I found boring and unchallenging.
So I quit.
I had never taken an exam, played in Kiwanis, or even got into graded books at that point.

I just kind of forgot about the whole thing for a few years.
Then when I was 13, I decided I might as well try it again.
And I loved it.
Now I was ready for the things I had found challenging before. Things had become easier, and more fun to play beyond just hitting the notes.
I took my grade 4 piano at age 14. And I felt really dumb, since at that point I was way "behind" all my friends my age who played piano.
I did well on my exam, but then lessons after that started not working as well.
My teacher had me playing the same 3(not long) pieces for a year, each time saying they were perfect, but I should play them for her again.
Then this past summer she moved away, so I decided it was time to find a new teacher.
I'm pretty sure I would have wanted to, even if she hadn't moved away.

Now. Here I am, with my Grade 8 books.
The exact same level as my friends who have been playing and taking lessons without breaks.

It feels good.
It feels like something that just should be.

Being a girl.

I don't think that at anytime anyone should ever be able to say, "you know, you just don't expect that from a girl."

The word Girl shouldn't be be used as a limitation.

We are now at a place where we shouldn't have to fall back on gender specific roles.
A Girl can wear dresses, get dirty, play with bugs, have a collection of barbies, want to be a police officer and a mom when she grows up.
A person can't be labeled by what the world thinks a girls', or boys' role should be.

Women have pushed through many stereotypes and restrictions.
But obviously there are still more to get rid of.

When someone tells me that catching and saving a spider isn't "something you expect from a girl", I feel like there is something wrong with that.

Sure men a women have equal rights, in North American anyways, but there is still a gap that needs to be bridged.

I am proud to play in the mud, pick up spiders, have my stuffed animals lined up on my bed, love purple and be a girl.

I don't think anyone should ever 'not expect' something from me.
I am who I am, and I will continue to change and break rules for as long as I'm able.

Imagination

Imagination is the eye of the soul.
Joseph Joubert

new life, just outside my window

Spring is definitely in the air.

We've had some lovely warm days, but now it's cold and rainy again today.

I had a lovely Easter weekend with my friends and family.

My friends are basically my family too. The girls I spent Good Friday and Saturday with have been my best friends since forever.

We were all homeschooled together, but now they've all moved on to highschool, ballet school in Toronto, college, and this coming year university.

It isn't often that we get time to be together, but this weekend we tried to make the most of it.

When I was younger I remember how excited I was when a family of robins made their nest right outside our dinning room window.

This year, after many years with out them, they are back!

 We watched them build their nest, gathering string and grass through the pouring rain, shaping their new home into a perfect nest.

And now, we can watch the parents flying from their nest, over to the bird feeder and back, always keeping an eye on their soon to be born babies.

The nest is a little to high to peak into, but with enough patience its possible to reach out the window and get a quick snap shot.

Aren't they glorious!

It's amazing how those perfect little eggs will soon become baby birdies.

We have a miracle happening right outside our window!

Effort

I play the flute.
I enjoy playing the flute, and I would like to think that I am also good at playing the flute.
The problem is, I don't always practice enough.

Some weeks I practice perhaps once... the night before my lesson(something that should never happen).
And others I will practice for several 45 minute chunks at various times through out the week.

The thing I find strangest is, that how well I play at my lesson may not seem to relate with the amount of practice I put in that week.
Sometimes, when I only practice the evening before(or morning of), I am able to breeze through all of my scales, my pieces seem well prepared, and everything goes smoothly.
But other weeks I'm not so lucky.
Sometimes, even when I practice more than once, I get stuck on every scale and arpeggio. My pieces fall apart, and my studies sound sight read.
It's a strange phenomenon that I can't seem to comprehend.

Sometimes this motivates me to want to practice more so I never have a problem at a lesson again. But other times it seems to do the opposite.
Instead of playing more, I play less, and then I end up having a great lesson the next week.

I don't know.
That's just something in my life that is a constant mind-boggler.
It's an unexplained mystery.

Growing Up

We all get old too fast.
But in the logic of a four-year-old that is just "what happens".
"God made it so we could grow up on our Birthdays, that's what he wants."

That may be true. But it all seems to go before we realize it's been here at all.

callback, or not

This weekend I received my first call back for a musical, ever.
I was so excited, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to do it.
But alas, the Stage Manger interceded.
She is also the Stage Manger for the other show I am in at the moment, and she made it very clear that I had rehearsal, and needed to be there instead of at call backs.

I was so mad. Actually I still am. Especially since there could have been away that both would have worked for me. If we had adjusted the schedule *slightly* I would have been able to do both.
The most frustrating thing was I was just sitting doing nothing for an hour of the time I could have been at call backs.
It was bad.
And I'm still mad. 

Gentle Reader, I Married Him

This evening I went on a bit of a mother-daughter date.
The new Jane Eyre is playing here for a limited time(only until Thursday!) and this was the last evening I was able to go. Every other evening I'm completely booked!

It was AMAZING! I loved it.
BBC never fails to deliver.
The acting was wonderful, the visuals stunning and the soundtrack was fabulous.

It was so satisfying to go see the movie after reading the 600+ paged book and know exactly what was going on, and exactly when they had left out or changed.

I also thrilled that my mom enjoyed it to. Going to the theatre, I didn't really know what to expect. I never know if my mom is going to be interesting in things the way I am.
I love mommy/daughter dates! I wish we had time to have them more often.

just relax

Yesterday I went to a homeschooling conference in my area. Really the only thing I learned from the whole day is that people are too uptight and should just take a deep breath and let their kids be kids.
Most of the women there feel like they need to have every single moment of "education" planned for their children.
No.
You don't have to PLAN anything. They best kind of learning happens organically and doesn't need to be planned at all.
Parents can't plan what their kids are going to be passionate about, or what their kids are going to hate.
Homeschooling is just as much about the parent learning as the child.
Parents have to learn to find creative ways to make things fun, but you can't plan fun.
You can have ideas, but a list and itinerary aren't going to make your child want to learn.
Learning is a natural thing. Kids need to be guided, sometimes lead and occasionally pushed, but for the most
of the time, they will lead YOU to what they want and need to know.
Every child needs to know how to read, but who can tell you exactly when that needs to happen? If you don't think your kid is up to par with their 'grade level', that's fine. If you are homeschooling, that can just happen when that happens.
There's nothing a child learns before grade 6 that they can't learn in grade 7 or 8.
Everyone wants their kid to be smart, capable, and bright, and they are and will be, if you let them.
You can insist that they learn how to do simple math and learn their alphabet and know how to read, but they shouldn't every say they 'hate it'.
Each kid is different, but contrary to popular belief, kids DO want to learn. They do need help to do that, but for the most part, they can learn on their own, as long as you are there to hold there hand and be there for along the way.