A while back, I offered some free portraits.

Anyone recognize this lovely lady? (Who I must appologize to for not doing her justice...)

This weekend I had the pleasure and privilege of participating in a local choral festival with a fabulous, talented, and accomplished director as well as a wonderful organist and several instrumentalists (harp, oboe, flute, and handbells). We had nearly a hundred voices, most members of church choirs in the area. Although it was a large group, singing with an exceptionally skillful director turns even the hard work parts into a pleasure. One comment this man made has stuck in my brain even more than any of the music or technical tips.

He talked a bit during the first part of the rehearsal about why we were there, and about the experience of singing with each other, music created from our voies working together to create a . His comment was, "If everyone got together and made music with other people once a week, the world would be a very different place."

I think he's right. Choral singing is, as most group musical endeavors are, about more than each person making our own music well. It depends on each voice being in tune with their neighbor and fitting their contribution into the group. It means holding back, perhaps, so one voice doesn't dominate or stand out, or so another part comes forward when its line needs to be heard.

It also means letting go of the distractions of judging each others' performance, allowing those thoughts of how someone else should be doing something better or differently melt away into the unified sound that is the choir. It means giving, not only giving of our talents in performance or worship, but giving of our egos to become a unified group and to allow others to join with us as equals in making that joyful noise.

And that, my friends, is peace and harmony that sticks with me long after the final note has sounded.

Started reading Harry Potter's Philosopher's Stone to Ben this morning. After one chapter, he is enchanted - and wanting to know when he will be old enough to learn how to "magic himself into a cat."

http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-11080?entryID=11569771&lc=en

2:45:15. I don't really care about the time so much as the fact that I never stopped running.

Apparently, "half run, half walk" is a thing people do in half-marathons. That was what most of the people around me were doing. Unfortunately, if all you're doing is running at an uncannily steady pace (only 0:07 difference in the mile pace between the first half and the second!), that means that you're passing those people a LOT. One guy seemed to be switching between running and walking every 30 seconds toward the end, and it started to feel like he was just running to catch up to me, then walking to catch his breath, then running to catch up to me. But every time he'd pass me, he'd run until he was DIRECTLY in front of me, then stop walking. It was amazingly irritating. Some other people were much more polite when we were similarly situated, and I appreciated that a lot.

I wore an awesome hat, which helped way more than I expected. It kept my head warm, but it also generated at least 9 "I love your hat" type comments, and it's silly, but those comments did way more to inspire me than all of the "good job!" comments that all the people along the way - volunteers, police officers controlling traffic, residents of neighborhoods we ran past/through, and people who just happened to be out for a jog or bike in the opposite direction - were handing out.

I felt wonderful for 11 miles. Mile 12 was rough, but mile 13 was just miserable. The backs of my knees started hurting, which I've never experienced before. The only thing keeping me running was the fact that I knew if I stopped running, I wouldn't be able to start again, and it was really important to me to run the whole way. That actually turned out to be a blessing, because as  soon as I crossed the finish line I started walking, and learned two things: 1) I was right that once I stopped running, I wasn't going to be able to start again, and 2) walking actually hurt a lot more than running at that point. My top speed for the walk back to the school bus that shuttled us to the parking lot was probably about 1.5mph.

For any of you who haven't seen them elsewhere, here are the first three images that I've done NaNoDrawMo 2014:

This first one is "Goblin Minion" the card allows you to play it along with another card. While each individual card is wimpy, this quickly allows you to build a formidible force. I kinda feel like that's a good, quick summary of my thoughts on Goblins, so this card is kinda the ultimate Goblin card imnsho.

The Goblin King. No - there's no David Bowie here. Kinda a challenge because I wanted to make him more 'powerful' than the other goblin images, but he still needed to be... well, crappy. Worn clothing, and nothing of real value. The necklace was supposed to be a copper piece with a hole punched through it and worn as a medallion because of its great value. Don't really think that came across.

Big, dopey, and powerful, the Goblin Champion was fun to draw. I enjoyed tweaking his body shape and trying to maintain the biology of the standard goblin while distorting it enough to make this guy a 'champion'.

It has been craaaazy-windy here for the past 36-ish hours. My windchimes are making the most beautiful racket, and i'm so happy I finally decided to hang them up, and that I hung them on the front of the house so I can hear them loud and clear from the bedroom.
Thanks to a weird teeny health thing I'm currently working around (and shall not be discussing because it's not worth it), I spent all day in bed because the thing I take for said thing knocks me out. 
Tomorrow (Monday), Matt and I I gladly hand the gummint  $85 each so we can get in on that tasty, tasty, sexy, TSA Pre-Check action. Never again shall we endure the bullshit of taking off our shoes and jackets at the TSA line; nor will we take our laptops or our ziplocs of liquids, gels, and aerosols out of our bags.  It's about to be all 1997 in this jawn.
YISSSSSS

Thought we'd have net at home yesterday, turns out the tech will come Monday morning instead. Two days without connectivity. We can do this.

I am eating the breakfast I was fantasizing about last night: omelet on lavash. Mmmf.

Last night we watched the second Hunger Games movie. Roberta and I are thoroughly sucked in and eager to see the new movie and we don't want to see the trailer, hear any spoilers from the book, or otherwise know anything about it. My kid is eager to tell us all about the politics of the movies vs. the books and what her Tumblr peeps are disappointed about— but has neither read the books nor seen the movies. I am resolved not to listen to a word until I've formed my own opinion.

We are getting ready for the house painters. Everything smaller than a breadbox must go to the basement. Soon we will be blue and yellow and green and...

It's times like these I wish I had something interesting to say. 

It's just not to be. So here I sit, sipping tea, waiting for my roast chicken to finish roasting and making mental lists of the things I must do tomorrow. 

Life on the edge, yeah, I live it.  

I'm using my voice to text thing so I have no idea if this is working. I just went outside with no pants on because I realized the door had blown open in the wind at the exact same time that Alistair did and out he ran, and then out I ran after him.

The reason I had no pants on is because I have a cold and have been sleeping the entire day and having really weird dreams about pigs and wolves and snow, all while roasting to death because the heat kept coming on, because the door was open. I should be glad I hadn't taken my shirt off too. Too. Delete delete back backspace delete.

Hahahahaha. I'm leaving that in there because it's f****** funny.

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I forgot to mention that Woody Harrelson was in my dream and he was trying to steal my pig. It was a little pig, maybe 20lbs, and I had no idea where it came from and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Do I feed it? Where will it poop and pee? Do I call Animal Control? No, it's midnight for the entire dream. Do I put it outside? Suddenly it's snowing and then there is a wolf, and then another wolf, so I run out and rescue it. Weird, considering I was about to run out pantless into the cold and windy night to catch my cat before he took off.