Westward Ho!

So husband and I took a road trip to find a new home. While on the trip, I took along Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel. I loved reading about ladies' experiences on the same terrain I was driving. (7 hours in NE gives one lots time to ruminate about those poor women's travels and trials.) When we arrived in Ft. Collins I 1) thought it was beautiful, 2) was glad to be rid of the Midwest's humidity, and 3) decided that that was the point in the journey where in the 19th century I would have told my husband I refused to go any farther west in an oxen-pulled wagon. I am not going over the mountains in any sort of animal-pulled wagon ever. All this to say, I was both amazed and horrified by these women, their families, and the things they endured in the hope of finding a better financial/living situation. It makes me being disappointed in my new, mediocre apartment as a college student seem a bit pathetic, really. Still, while I don't love it, I am glad we can check "apartment to live in while in FC" off our list of things to accomplish in the next month.

Paying attention in MUS115 was a good idea after all!

A week ago I had the most wonderful conversation with a teenager. While visiting me at work, her family seemed smitten with the parlor organ. Noticing the music book's small size, this teenage girl asked about it, and this launched us into an exciting conversation about Sunday Schools, revivals, and 19th century hymnody.
I think we reached the high point/nerd threshold when we talked about how hymns' texts and tunes were written to be interchangeable. I taught her about metrical and tune indices, and she was actually excited to learn that the TUNE NAME is the thing in caps and number and dot combinations like 8.6.8.6. (CM) describe the beats in each phrase.
I was so happy for the rest of the day. I love talking about hymnody, but I haven't really done so since college. In fact, the only reason I know this stuff is because I took too many church music classes. (Thank you Greg Scheer.) Anyway, I guess sometimes you do get to use the "useless" information you absorb in school.

Tambourine Trauma

I was not meant to be a percussionist. I know this because I played the tambourine for church (while singing) yesterday, and I was definitely the weakest link. I played too slowly because I was concentrating too hard on other things. This slowed down the entire ensemble. My director was very frustrated. However, as far as lasting trauma goes I think I win. This lovely bruise is a result of repeated collision with said tambourine. In an effort to preserve the side of my leg which was sore and puffy after Thursday's rehearsal, I decided to use the back of my leg as my smacking place. Obviously I am now aware that there are a lot of blood vessels in that part of my leg. The funny thing is that while this is by far the coolest, biggest bruise I've ever gotten, it itches, but it doesn't hurt much.