Counting my blessings– with a little help from Ali Matthews

Think of the things you can be thankful for, whether it’s having clean water or a roof over your head. Maybe it’s the support of others that allowed you  to achieve something you never thought you’d be able to accomplish. Perhaps it’s thankfulness for the beautiful creation or the faithful love of a spouse or the caring of a best friend. Today count your blessings.

Here’s a video of Ali Matthew’s song Counting Your Blessings. Go ahead and count yours. Name them too.

The Mighty Uke

Fellow editors were talking online about the ukulele band they play in. One posted a video  titled “The Mighty Uke” which was rather intriguing and a bit amusing, because you see I also own a ukulele.

I watched the video this morning and was amazed at the sounds that could come from it, and how it sounds paired with other instruments. Who would have thought that little instrument had such a history… and such possibilities.

My ukulele

We had a  piano in our home as well as my father’s steel guitar that he used when he took lessons during his school days. That guitar stayed in the back of the closet until my sister Bonnie thought she’d prefer it over piano, and took lessons on it.

My cousin Brenda had a ukulele as well as a guitar. I wasn’t so interested in the guitar at that point, but I was intrigued by the smaller instrument and wanted one so I could learn to play it too. My parents bought one for me. Whether it was a birthday or Christmas gift makes no difference now. A book and felt pick came with it and so I practised until I could play the chords and sing songs along with it.

Brenda and Dale, another cousin, and my sister Mary and I got together a little band.  Then someone got the idea that we should play a few songs for an upcoming reunion. I’m not sure which order that happened in, but all four of us practised at my aunt’s house since Dale also played piano. Mary and Dale took turns playing piano, Brenda was on guitar, and me on the ukulele.

We had a lot of fun while learning a variety of pieces, how to play together and getting our timing right. Our songs included the Sloop, John B; Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet (for our grandmother and her sisters) and several others that Brenda, Mary or Dale may remember.

Though my parents owned a camera, the selection of photos is limited, and there were certainly none of those practice sessions or playing at the reunion, though I do remember us standing on that old white bandstand at the New Hamburg Park years ago. Someone must have brought a keyboard since we couldn’t transport a piano there.

After that reunion we might have played together a time or two, but we didn’t play for any other event. We were teenagers, after all, with other interests and in summers we were all busy on farms with harvest, milking and cucumber picking. Mary continued playing piano and so did I.

I kept my ukulele and played it sometimes when I taught, loaned it for a class years later at Vacation Bible School. I added an autoharp near the end of my college years, and eventually a violin that’s still in our collection. My sisters tease me sometimes about the humorous little tuning song—My dog has fleas—that I played just for fun. And I’ve never forgotten the tuning notes for it.

Got my uke out this morning, but where’s my book and pick?

Watch this video and see the little ukulele’s possibilities.

Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli–The Prayer

 

One of my favourite songs by two very talented soloists

Enjoy!

 

What do you say when you meet a performer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walters Family Dinner Theatre, near Bright, Ontario. Home of a family of musical family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A converted barn serves as a theatre, with attractive surroundings and benches to sit on outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a theatre inside as well. Tables at each end are for the dinner. See the chandelier on the far side to the right? Chandeliers in a barn?

We ate a delicious meal and enjoyed talking with people around the table, including some folks from our hometown area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posters of people who have performed here at Walters Theatre. There’s even a small gift shop at one side.

Rita MacNeil and me

And the star of the show—  singer, songwriter, Rita MacNeil!

The best part was the concert with Rita on stage with her fabulous guitarist, Chris, from PEI, who was also her backup singer. Rita sings with such passion and is a humble woman who despite having written so many songs has not bothered to count them. She said the number doesn’t matter much. What’s important is sharing  those everyday moments in her life that other people also experience.

Go to Canadian Writers Who Are Christian and see my post there tomorrow. For your pleasure, a song on Youtube, sung by Rita, one she performed at the concert we attended.

photos copyright of C. Wilker

video by Youtube

We’re All Travellers

I remember a trip home some years ago from a visit with my husband’s aunt who lived in Indiana. A short time after we crossed the Canadian border, we encountered one of the last fierce winter storms of that year. When we finally reached a visitor centre, we turned off the highway and waited it out inside a warm building.  We were tired from a day on the road. We had enjoyed our US visit and appreciated our stay with our gracious hostess, and now we just wanted to go home. To our home city, to our own house with a comfortable bed, familiar people around us.

As the weather warms up, people plan for camping and vacations,amd so there are more people on the road or waiting in airports to get places. Think not only of vacations as travelling opportunities, but what we do each day of our lives. That’s a journey too. A journey that sometimes is easy and other times more difficult. Who travels with you on that journey?

Carolyn Arends, a Canadian Christian songwriter and performer, sings Travelers (The Airport Song). Listen and enjoy!

Prayers for our time

Reflecting on the challenges to fellow humans around the world, in Japan and New Zealand, but also to those enduring difficult times here at home, I am reminded again that there is a God who loves us and is with us through our tears and our joys. One to whom we can go and ask for wisdom and strength in our trials and to thank for our blessings.

Charlotte Church and Josh Groban sing The Prayer.

 

We’re All Travellers

I remember a trip home some years ago from a visit with my husband’s aunt who lived in Indiana. A short time after we crossed the Canadian border, we encountered one of the last fierce winter storms of that year. When we finally reached a visitor centre, we turned off the highway and waited it out inside a warm building.  We were tired from a day on the road. We had enjoyed our US visit and appreciated our stay with our gracious hostess, and now we just wanted to go home. To our home city, to our own house with a comfortable bed, familiar people around us.

This song is for anyone who has been stuck in an airport or anywhere else, waiting to continue on to a destination. Whatever that destination might be and whatever the journey.

Carolyn Arends, a Canadian Christian songwriter and performer, sings Travelers (The Airport Song). Listen and enjoy!

Plain Language– What’s it all about?

In a college class I recently taught— Introduction to Professional Writing and Presentations— one of the topics we covered was plain language. We discussed what plain language is all about and its purpose. I’ve also discussed this matter with my creative writing class at Rockway Senior’s Centre in our city.

What is plain language? Writing in ordinary words so that our audience understands our message. Writing without jargon, without wordiness, and using too many words to say something that can be said in fewer. Writing so our message is accessible to as many people as possible.

A member of the Editors’ Association of Canada posted a link on our  listserv this week to Writing. Matters blog.  E-Write’s  Leslie O’Flahavan and Marilynne Rudick wrote their December 30th blog post on Plain Language. How I wish I had that to show my students.

The  European Commission offers its guide book to plain language in all 23 languages represented by the commission. In that December post is a link to a video showing a Brussels-based choir known as the Hot Air Vocal Ensemble. The choir  sings about the merits of plain language.  Although I pointed out the Plain Language website,  my students would also have enjoyed seeing this video. Maybe some of them will check out my blog and see it afterall.

Listen to the ensemble here.

Carolling, carolling

A group of us went out to sing carold to shut-ins from our church. We went to a private home and also to one of the long-term care centres in our city.  We sang a variety of carols, some we chose to sing and also one that the person we were visiting requested. Always at the end of the visit, just before we say our good-byes, is We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

A carol that our Sunday school children like— a carol I have always enjoyed since we learned it in school— is  T’was in the Moon of Wintertime. The carol was written in 1643 by a Jesuit priest, Jean de Brébeuf, when he worked with the Huron people. Choosing symbols like hunters would made more sense to the people. Sadly he and his men were tortured and killed when the Iroquois drove the Hurons from their homeland. The carol— originally titled ” Jesous Ahatonhia” meaning Jesus, he is born— resurfaced in Quebec, where the Hurons had resettled. At that time the carol was translated into English from French.

Surprise chorus at shopping mall

A fellow blogger shared this video of a suprise event that took place in a mall where she was shopping. Here it is for your enjoyment.