Here are two settings of a Gregorian chant which I love. Apparently I'm on a bit of a Latin kick right now. But it is beautiful and the words absolutely swell through me and make my heart soar.
O Magnum Mysterium - Tomás Luis de Victoria - New York Polyphony
O Magnum Mysterium - Morten Lauridsen - Kings College
O magnum mysterium, et admirabile saramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in præsepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia.
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger. Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia!
Well, I have succeeded in the second baking fail of my life. I was asked to make a cake for a funeral dinner for tomorrow so I decided to make an oatmeal cake with coconut on top. Of course, the coconut topping broiled much quicker than I thought it would so it burnt crispy. Luckily, the whole top scraped right off, and I did it a second time and watched it closely the whole time. Dexter must have thought I looked kooky sitting on the kitchen floor staring at the broiler.
The virtual prayer night for Central went pretty well tonight. About 5 people logged in for the hour, and we had some good posting going on. Really enjoyed this video about prayer that I found:
Also, one of the prompts was to list things that are true of God's character (recognize that Mom?) and give Him glory for that list. So I provided the list that I have been compiling over the years and had people add to it. I really appreciated seeing others' posts.
We discussed what it means to be the body and prayed about how to love well. Then we listened to this song and asked God where we are called to be His body right now... who are we supposed to love specifically...
In other news, I don't have jury duty tomorrow so I will be going to my doctor's appointment as scheduled. So. That's good. I'm guessing that if I get called in, it will be on Wednesday. But we shall see. Praying that it is not Friday because I already have big plans for that day. Well. Off to bed so I can greet the day well tomorrow.
This morning I woke up much happier than how I felt when I went to bed. I've decided wheat elimination is hard on the soul. Emotions run high when you don't get your usual gluten.
I tried a gluten free bar for breakfast which was good, but the star of the morning was my coffee. I think I will always love coffee more than nearly every other food type. Except potatoes. Because... obvi.
Kelsey and I received the strangest envelopes in the mail today.
Fairly certain they are from Drew, and this furthers our Pug Pranks. Not sure yet as to how we will retaliate.
We spent our afternoon out on the town. Kels wanted to price compare FitBits and get some shorts, and I kind of tagged along. I ended up finding another white vase (I'm collecting), and it was 90 cents so that's pretty good!
Kels made us steak for supper, and we watched Aladdin. I don't know if I said that we watched Mulan yesterday, but I have been in the mood to watch Disney movies over... the ones that I don't really remember anyway. Mulan was better than I remember, but I didn't like Aladdin as much as I remembered.
Now we're packing for our trips, and I'm procrastinating about it because that's what I do when I have to do a big pack. So instead, I'm listening to The Cure and Bryan Adams and other classics because I can.
Hoping for a wonderful week at camp. Praying that it is all prepared and I don't have massive amounts of prep waiting for me tomorrow. I don't know why, but I am feeling so nervous about the future; money, circumstance, etc. I KNOW who holds my future. But I'm praying for more solid faith in the face of anxiety that I cannot seem to settle. Listening to this song on repeat as I do so:
Day one out of seven was not a success for the morning routine. I will try again tomorrow.
I did not sleep well at all. Maybe got 4-5 hours? from 4:30 on... Not my favorite kind of night. Hopefully tonight will be better. I was awakened by Kels and our friend from college, RaeLee. She stopped by and surprised us. So I tried to pull my achy self together. I hope I did an okay job. They were kind and brought lunch to me. I tried to get stuff done today. But it was hard.
I did go with Kels, and we got everything that I needed for Water Night. I think I have almost everything set at this point besides making a few notecards for the teaching part, setting up, and blowing up the bowling set. It's getting so close!! Nervous. We also got nails to hang up the decor that has been just sitting around our house. So here is one photo of that. More to come, I'm sure.
I don't have as thick of a skin as I like to portray to others. I'm feeling not like myself... a little down. Makes sense to me as the insomnia is back in the picture. This is how I used to feel more.
I uploaded a new video to my channel today. You can watch by clicking here: take a walk with me.
The day didn't happen like I planned. As it often does. I guess my body just needed to let down from all the hustle of the past couple days. It had me stuck in bed exhausted and aching. My brain fog was way up so actually getting any planning done was pretty much out. So I will have to work twice as hard tomorrow...
For now, I'm just watching my video about choosing to be joyful over and listening to music that echoes the things I know are true. Such as:
Saturday
I can't really remember much of Saturday morning. I think I made sure of some things planning wise? and opened a closet for Dan at the church. Since we are recovering from the flood, we are trying to open everything and dry it all out. The closet wasn't touched, thank goodness, and I was so happy that the vast majority of art supplies were safe.
In the afternoon, we prepped things for Olivia's bachelorette party. Washed my hair with a new shampoo that I'm trying out that is CHI Keratin or something like that. I think it was really nice. I used it with a hair mask, heat protectant, and detangler and my hair dried really well under round brush/hair dryer. By five, we were headed for Grand Rapids. The party was nice. We had some fancy snacks, played a couple games, did presents, and then walked downtown to a bar that I think was called Stella's. There was a dj and dancing. A lot of loud and sweaty people... not really my cup of tea. We got back pretty late, but I fell to sleep quickly for once.
Sunday
I felt like I was rushing around this morning, but I really wasn't. It was odd having KidCentral not in the physical KidCentral... We met in the library, and it was very different. I enjoyed connecting with the kids in a different way, but I'm hoping we don't have to do it that way many more times. This has really put on hold a lot of the things I was going to be doing on my To Do list in the area. But anyhow, we had a good, albeit tiring, morning with a combination of eight different kids in the two hours.
Once I got home, I woke Kelsey up gently by putting on some coffee, and I did the dishes while she woke up. Then I made us some brunch and kind of fancied up our table just because. I like having a nice table brunch every once in awhile. :)
Kels was gone the rest of the afternoon, and now she's playing volleyball. I'm sort of lazing about with Dexter trying to lay low, but not so low that I fall asleep. Figuring out what food I might want over my birthday.
I also put live a video that I made about choosing joy amidst suffering. I made it a couple of days ago, but I've been a little timid about putting it up. Today I just thought, you know.. you made it for a reason. So here it is...
Well, I accomplished a lot of short term planning today. I have this week's stuff figured out, and pretty much have the next month figured out, too. I have a couple supplies to find, but other than that, we are set to go on KidServe for June. I'm working on logos right now for the upcoming events. Lots of graphic stuff at the moment.
This afternoon we took Dexter on a mini walk, got some Sunday school supplies, and got nachos. (Had to move Taco Tuesday to Thursday this week.) I watched some Fixer Upper while Kelsey was away to a soccer game. Then we went and got cereal (Meijer has my favourite Mom's Brand Marshmallow O's that used to be only available in Canada!!), and recorded a bit of video for Scooter: Just Dance Dance Off 2K15.
Now it's bed. I'm emotional tonight. I'm guessing something to do with being up to Fairview and Grandma not being there? So I'm just a little touchy. Add in a flair for the dramatic... You get a supercharged B who's a little upset for no specific reason and doesn't really know what to do with her feelings. In this case, as per the usual, I vote for sleeping them off. If sleep comes. Fingers crossed and prayers lifted high.
Also. Timehop informed me that this was my profile picture 3 years ago, so that had me emosh from the beginning of the day...
Also, here's a video of Dexter reacting to The Who being played on the radio while we were on our way back from up north.
Well today went nothing like I planned. High pain, new kind of pain in my chest which can only be described as broken glass in the windpipe, combined with a nasty migraine that wasn't responding to medication. I was faced with this choice of... get out of bed and show up at church but not be worth much OR mad dash to text everyone and make sure everything is covered. It makes me feel so guilty to rely on everyone else, but that is what I had to do this morning. Karol assures me everything went well, but I just still feel pretty bad about it. Trying not to dwell on it and just mentally move on.
I let myself just sleep because I figured if my body could even manage to just collapse into sleep, then I must really need it. All morning I slept and got up at maybe 2 p.m. Groggy, not as sore, but migraine raging on even more intense than before. About this time, Kels headed out, and I cried on the couch whilst petting Dexter for a good ten minutes. And then I simply just had to hear Mom.
We had a chat for a good hour forty five? and it ended up making me feel a lot better. Made myself a baked potato for supper and took a Max-alt esque medication which had me feeling so much better within 15 minutes. It kind of trips me out though... makes it hard for my eyes to focus and such so Mom suggested that I just play the piano or something not potentially dangerous haha. So, I'm not sure that it will interest you, but I'm assuming that the piano is pretty quiet at your house... I used to so enjoy when we would worship as a family so I made this for you. I'm not sure if I will share it at all publicly or if it would even interest other people. What do you think? Anyways.. If you would like to worship with me for a bit, here is Dining Room Worship:
If you would like to view this on YouTube, click here.
Kelsey just got home a bit ago, and now it's off to bed for us. Hoping tomorrow dawns brightly!!
