*Great* Music

So, this post was going to be about food, wasn't it? Oh, well. I'm very fickle - and I have changed my mind once again. We all know what good food is, don't we? It's a big subject, with lots of opinions, tastes, and varieties. Wanna know something similar? Music. I figure it's an appropriate topic as we enter the Christmas season. :)

Bad music makes you want to squeeze your ears until your head explodes, and, in my opinion (which doesn't have to be shared), is anything that makes your body vibrate with the bass. Good music can influence your emotions - make you happy or sad - and your actions - make you want to dance or cry, or sometimes, better music can make you do both. But great music... well, that's different for everyone.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Influences:

Star of Munster, an Irish reel

For me, great music, the best music, makes my heart physically hurt when I listen to it. It fills me with indescribable joy and sadness in the same instant.

(Just to clarify, we're talking the actual music here, not the lyrics. Great songs can have wonderful lyrics and still be bad music. The opposite is also true.)

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Influences:

"Greengrass" - Irish/bluegrass

The instruments that make up great music for me are fiddle (sometimes violin; yes, I am aware they're technically the same instrument), guitar, bagpipes, and flute. I'm sure there are probably more, and, of course, my opinions about music changes as I grow. But my current favorites fit the criteria for great music. I find myself holding my breath as each song starts. All three are by the same people, Keith & Kristyn Getty, an Irish couple who have amazing hearts for God and use their musical talents for His ministry. Their Christmas songs combine their homeland's most famous reels with traditional lyrics. I absolutely love them - I hope you will, too. :)

Two of them are up; the last won't work. :( It's What Child is This? and has Spanish influences throughout the song. Well, they're the first three songs on the Joy: An Irish Christmas CD; if you want to give someone an amazing Christmas present, there it is. :) What's great music to you?

~Charli Rae 

|Job 39:19-25|

Happy Thanksgiving!

"What if you woke up tomorrow...

...with only the things you thanked God for today?"

~Unknown

I am thankful for~

{jesus}

Especially entering the season in which we celebrate His birth. If He hadn't have been born, He wouldn't have died, and my sin would still be mine. Because of Him I can be truly thankful!

{family}

Oh, they have to deal with so much. My dad has a job outside of the house for the first time in nearly a year (which none of us like, but are thankful for) so that we can celebrate this Thanksgiving. Mom has two more weeks of hard studying left before she's ALL OURS for Christmas break (mua-ha-ha-ha). Ben started writing a new story idea yesterday (which I am very thankful for because now he's too busy to pester me about Cheruthedra, the book that we're writing together). And Alyx... well, she has to deal with my snoring all night long. :P

{friends}

Each one of 'em has a funny story that starts off the friendship. Danielle (16 in 24 days!) has been one of my best friends since we were 5yrs, when I came as close to spraining my ankle as a 5year-old can and she helped me back to our campsite. Breanna (16) I met a few days after I was born - her family came up to visit ours in Georgia - and I don't actually remember meeting Noah (13). Ellie (15) and I corresponded through over 5000 emails (yes, we counted) and exactly one letter over three years before I finally met her this past June. Katie (14) used to be so quiet before we moved into the neighborhood... now she's just as crazy as we are. :) Ashley (17) is probably the sweetest girl on the planet, and I have no idea how we started hanging out, but she's been a great role model and manages to (sometimes) keep me out of trouble. Kennedy (15) was a chance meeting - my mom embarrassed me in front of her on a cruise, then we kept bumping into each other, and now we started a habit of visiting each other every so often (they live in PA). And Josh (16) had to undergo three long years of verbal and physical abuse before I finally accepted him as a friend.

There. That was probably more than you wanted to know.

{food}

Always a good one! In fact, I'm sure the next post will be one completely devoted to it!

{travel}

I am so blessed in this area - our family has traveled more in the past five years than most people get to travel in their entire lives! We've been across the country up to Seattle, WA several times by plane, twice by car, and once up the east coast. I love road trips. Planes are okay - good if you wanna get there fast, but you don't see much. Boats... no.

I'm also thankful for a lot more - horses, books, tea, mechanical pencils, scented candles, clean kitchens, sewing machines, music, bandannas - but I could go on forever. And I will, but not on this blog. Instead, I want to hear from you. What things are you most thankful for?

~Charli Rae 

|Job 39:19-25|

*Sigh*...

{What she knows her blog to be:}

Unimaginative. Irregular. Dull. Stand-offish.


{What she wishes her blog could be:}

Inspirational. Original. Creative. Easy to relate to.


{Problems going from 'is' to 'will be':}

She's lazy. She's unadventurous. She rarely tries new things. She's hesitant to share things for fear that they will be scorned.

{Boy, does she have a lot to work on...}

~Charli Rae 

|Job 39:19-25|

What a picture's worth

Randomness.

Oh, good golly. It's been a week. Sorry, my faithful {few} followers. I still have nothing important to say.

What's gone on since my last post? Well...

Sometime early in the week, my sewing machine broke down. 

:(

Saturday I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for a fall festival, won the cake walk and brought five of the fifteen back home. They were good. 

:) 

Saturday evening, I remembered that I was going to go to a Bryan Davis book signing and was too late.

:(

Sunday morning, Mom and I missed out on church to help out at a Freedom Ride dressage show. Lots more fun than I thought it would be - even though I was one of three volunteers than showed up. I got to dress up two horses, run around in front of a ton of people, watch people ride horses and got extremely jealous...

:) / :(

Monday in guitar lesson we started on Christmas songs. I'm one of those crazy people who never stop listening to Christmas music, even in the middle of July.

:)

And that's pretty much it. Everything else is normal and boring. Still no brilliant ideas for Pepper Grey. 

~Charli Rae

|Job 39:19-25|

(Oh, PS - poll is coming on Monday. Please answer!!)

Pepper Grey

So it isn't the 'new idea' I pitched it to be two posts ago, but I have been  'dreaming it up'. I had part of the story before; now I have most of the first act. (For those of you who don't have English majors for fathers, all stories have three acts.) I was going to try and get as much of those three acts as planned out as possible. Here's how that went...

{I actually do have more than that, but I'm too lazy to update the video.}

Anyway, I'm getting itchy. Now that I'm not writing RO - or anything else, for that matter - I'm going Cr@zY! I have to write something! And that something is Pepper Grey. Even though I'm not as prepared as I want to be. Even though there's a huge blank spot between the catalyst and the break-into-two (you saw that, didn't you?). 

The problem is... (oh, yes, there's another problem)... I have no idea how to start it.

That first sticky note wasn't the first scene. It's the list of things I need to include in the first couple scenes. Now, normally it's not a problem for me to start a story (it's finishing that I obviously struggle with). A good action sequence, clever dialogue, a crazy dream; all good starters, but none fit. This story is a type that I have never written before. The action isn't sword-fist-bow-POW! kind of action. The dialogue belongs to an every-day family in modern day Wyoming. And all crazy dreams that the main character could have simply don't further the story.

Any ideas?

~Charli Rae

|Job 39:19-25|