Singing in a Choir

Me - Choir, wow! I absolutely love singing. My Mom, and Dad and sister and I are always singing, but I have never sang in front of people who are not in my family. I am really scared of singing in public. However, this year for the first time I can actually be in the school choir and I am. So far  I love it, but we have not had a concert yet. I have choir every Friday, and all of us in the choir love it.. We have learned around 7 songs so far. I am worried that I will forget the words and stand there looking like a total fool at the concert. Everyone in my family thinks I have a great voice, and that I will not forget the words at the concert. My favorite song so far is Driedel. I knew that song before I started choir too. My favorite new song is When the Lights All Shine. My Mom, Grandma and sister like it too. Everyone thinks it's a really pretty song. My music teacher thinks all the parents will be crying into snotty tissues when the hear that song. We will be having two concerts this school year. The first will be around the holidays. I can't wait to have my family come and hear me sing in the choir. I am really excited about it, and hopefully, they are looking forward to it.

Mom - We love music and singing in our house. We are always going around singing. My kids and my husband are always making fun of me because they are always saying things that remind me of songs, and I will just break into song at any moment. Sometimes, I even break into songs that are just totally made up. The only time I was ever in an organized choir in school was when I was in the fourth grade. It was fun, and I enjoyed it. However, the following year we were moving so the music teacher would not let me be in the choir. We were supposed to be moving in January, but the date kept getting pushed back. We ended up not moving until June when the school year was over. So I ended up not being in the choir for no reason. After that, I just was never in the choir again. When I was a freshman in high school, I either wanted to choose choir or a cooking class as my elective. I chose the cooking the class. That is one of my biggest regrets of my high school years especially now that I watch Glee and they always seem to be having so much fun. I realize, of course, that life is not exactly like Glee where you get to do a different big musical number each week with great costumes and scenery. However, even just the joy of  being able to do something I enjoy with other people who enjoy it as well would be enough, and I am sorry I never got to do that.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

Raising Hope vs. Up All Night

Me - Raising Hope, wow!  Up All Night, wow! I love love love Raising Hope. I also love Up All Night. Raising Hope is so hilarious. MawMaw, Hope's great grandmother, is  my favorite character because she is really funny. Hope is also one of my favorite characters because she is one of the cutest babies in the whole world. Raising Hope is one of my favorite shows in the world. Up All Night is funny, but not as funny as Raising Hope. On Up All Night, their baby, Amy is my  favorite character. She is really really cute too. I also like the Mom's boss, Ava. She is funny. She wanted to give Amy a baby wallet for a present. I have to say although I think they are both very funny and very good shows, I like Raising Hope a little more and Hope is a lot cuter. We always watch Raising Hope episodes as soon as they are on, but we watch episodes of Up All Night when we get around to them, and we are currently three episodes behind.

Mom - My girls love babies and  little kids so we like to watch shows featuring babies. We have been watching Raising Hope since it began, and it is hilarious. So when the new show Up All Night came along we were eager to watch that too. However, I have to say while it has its funny moments as well so far I just don't find it as funny as Raising Hope. Maybe, it's that I don't know anyone like the characters on Raising Hope that makes them so funny. Although my life is not completely like any of the characters on Up All Night either,I feel like they are more like me or people I know or have known. Maybe, because of that when they act stupid or say or do stupid things, I don't find it as funny. I feel like they ought to know better than that. Maybe, it's a kind of reverse prejudice. I expect them not to know what they are doing on Raising Hope because they are more lower class, and I expect them to know what they are doing on Up All Night because they are more middle class. Over all, the characters are funnier on Raising Hope too. There is Hope;  her Dad, Jimmy; her grandfather, Burt; her grandmother, Virginia; her great grandmother, MawMaw; and Sabrina, Jimmy's co-worker and crush. Not one of them is not funny. On Up All Night there is baby Amy; her Dad, Chris; her Mom, Reagan; and her Mom's boss, Ava. All of the characters can be funny at times, but at other times all of them can be annoying especially Ava. While the babies playing the babies on both shows are cute, the babies playing Hope are even a little cuter. So over all, I would definitely have to say that while for the moment I am still watching both shows, I would definitely prefer and recommend Raising Hope.

And that's our view. Tune in Friday for another topic.

Make Up

Me - Makeup, wow! I am not very much into makeup. I have a lot of makeup, but I don't wear it a lot.  However, I do like it. I love getting my nails done, but I am not very good at doing them myself. I also like lipstick. I like most colors of lipstick except for black. I also like eyeshadow, but only in colors like green and yellow and pink. I like mascara, but I have a hard time getting it on because I blink a lot. I like blush but only pink blush. Over all, I don't wear a lot of makeup right now, but maybe when I am older I will.

Mom - I have never been much in to makeup. When I was in high school, I didn't wear any except for once or twice on my birthday or something. When I was in college, I didn't wear any either. When I was out of school and working I wore a minimum of make up usually a little eye shadow,  some lip gloss or lipstick and some eye  liner. For special  occasions maybe a little more makeup like adding rouge and mascara or something. For really special occasions, like my wedding I would have someone else do my makeup. I much prefer that because as I have already said I am not much into make up myself.  When I was younger, I knew some girls who really needed makeup. They looked so much better with their makeup on then they did with it off. I wasn't sure if it was because they really were  so much prettier with makeup on than with it off or because I was just so used to seeing them with their makeup on. However, either way, I never wanted to be one of those girls. I never wanted to depend on makeup to look good. It was so much easier when I was younger though. When I was younger, when I  looked in the mirror, and I wasn't wearing any makeup, I was still pleased with what I saw. Now, that I am older, not as much. Sometimes, now when I look at my face in the mirror, I don't always like what I see. I feel like I look so much older and so much more tired. However, even so I still don't like makeup all that much, and I still don't wear a lot of it.

And that's our view. Tune in Monday for another topic.

Grandparents

Me - Grandparents, wow! I have 3 living grandparents. My father's mother died before I was born, and I am named for her. I am really close with my mother's mother. She helps me do my nails, and we have a lot of fun together. My grandmother and I are phone buddies which means we always call each  other up and talk on the phone. My mother's father and I don't get along as well as my grandma and I but I love him and sometimes we do. My grandfather and I were in a show together. It was a show where some people lip synched and some sang. My grandfather has been in a lot of shows, and I would like to be too. He has also been in commercials and movies. My family (my Dad, my Mom, my sister and I) once auditioned for local commercial, but we didn't get it. My Dad's father we call Poppy. He lives in Maryland so I don't see him very much especially now that my Aunt lives with him, and we have no place to stay down there. I love him even if I can't visit him anymore. I love all my grandparents even my grandmother who I never met.

Mom - The world feels a little different when you don't have any grandparents left. If your lucky enough to have grandparents like I did, noone else in the world will ever spoil you in the same way, and I am not talking only about material things. I was lucky enough to have 4 grandparents until I was 4, 3 grandparents until I was in my 20's, 2 grandparents until I was in my 30's, and 1 grandparents until I was in my 40's. My maternal grandfather died when I was 4, he used to buy my little toys and give me the rings from his cigars to wear as jewelry. My maternal grandmother lived until I was graduated from college. We traveled all over together sometimes with my brother and my cousin, sometimes not. We went to much of Europe and twice to Israel as well as places in the U.S. including Washington, D.C. and Florida. She introduced me to foods like  Israeli falfel,  and Swiss fondue, places like the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coloseum and the Dead Sea, and things like Venetian lace, Murano glass and Dutch Delft. From my paternal grandfather, I inherited my great memory. He was very set in his ways and some people thought he could be difficult, but he and I were always close. For me, he would exchange airplane tickets  and change hotel reservations and spend all day in an airport just so I could see my favorite baseball player pitch for the Yankees against the Mariners in the old Kingdome. I was also the only one he would give up watching his favorite financial program for one night so I could watch a hockey game. He lived to see my wedding, but not much after. My paternal grandmother and I loved going to New York together. We stood on-line at the tickets booth in Times Square and got tickets to a show. We saw "Singin' in the Rain", "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "West Side Story" among others. The last show I saw with her was "Mamma Mia" She was already in her 80's then. She lived long enough to see the birth of both of my daughters. She and my older daughter were really close, but by the time my younger daughter was born, she was already fading fast, and she died before my daughter was 1. So now, I don't have any grandparents left and while I cherish my wonderful memories of all of them, I still miss them all and in some ways the world feels a little bit sadder and lonelier without them.

And that's our view. Tune in Friday for another topic.

What I want to be when I grow up/ What I wanted to be when I grew up

Me -Occupations, wow! When I grow up, there are so many things I would like to be. I would like to be a teacher. I would like to be a babysitter. I would like to be a hair stylist. I would like to be a kids doctor. I would like to be an actress. I would like to be a daycare teacher. I would like to be a mother. I would like to be a vet. I  would like to run an obedience school for dogs. There are so many other things I would like to be. Right now, I would most likely to be a midwive. I would love to help deliver babies. I love babies! I would like to hold them when they are born and clean them off and everything. However, I will probably change my mind a million more times before I actually grow up and think of a million other things I would like to be. The only think I definitely know I will be when I grow up is a mother. I can't wait for that.


Mom - It's funny how different your life can turn out from what you think it is going to be. When I was young I wanted to be a teacher. I am not actually sure if that is what I wanted or if that was all I could think of when I had to do a project about what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was in first grade. I remember that I said I wanted to be a teacher because they get to teach kids to read and write. Later, I wanted to be an actress. However, I realized that I would need a little more talent and a lot more guts to do that, and I wasn't willing to spend my whole life waitressing or something waiting for my big break that may never come. I went back to my goal of being a teacher. I was actually even in the teaching program in college, but I decided that I didn't want to be a teacher after all. There are too many different groups of people to deal with being a teacher: teachers, students, parents. I am not good with dealing with different groups of people. In fact, I am not good with dealing with groups of people at all. I am better with dealing with people one on one or in small groups. I ended up being a paralegal. It was all right but not very exciting. I was at least lucky enough to work in a small firm where I got to do a lot of different things instead of being pigeonholed and doing the same boring thing all the time like some paralegals in some of the larger law firms may have to do. I got to do a lot of writing of briefs and letters to clients and things. It wasn't very exciting either though and I so much prefer creative writing. I think I really would have liked to work in publishing, and if not doing my own writing at least being around books and authors all the time. However, when I got out of college to break into publishing, all they cared about was how fast you could type. I could not type very fast so that was that. For the past ten years or so. I have been home with my kids. Despite what some people might think, it is not the easiest job in the world although I agree it is not the hardest either. However, it is definitely the most intrinsically rewarding, and I wouldn't have traded this time with my children for any other job I can think of.

And that's our view. Tune in Monday for another topic.

Poetry

Me - Poetry, wow! I really love poetry. In my closet, I have 3 Shel Silverstein books, but there is a new one which I want to get too. I have also read short poem books based on a certain subject, and larger poem books about as long as Shel Silverstein's but written by other authors. I have even read one or two poem books that are different poems written by different authors in the same book. I have poem book called weather which talks about different seasons and the kind of weather in it. My favorite poem is Shel Silverstein's Sick. It is about a girl who says she has all these sicknesses because she doesn't want to go to school. When she finds out it is Saturday, she suddenly feels better and goes out to play.  I like to write poems too. Some day, I hope to write a poem book as long as Shel Silverstein's. I would still be happy to accomplish that even if it never gets published.Over all, I love reading and writing poetry.

Mom -  Although, I am not really that fond of poetry in high school, and as an English major in college, I had to read a lot of it. I mostly like poetry that rhymes. Some poems I do like include Emily Dickinson's 'I'm nobody! Who are you?' and Emma Wheeler Wilcox's 'Solitude' which contains the famous line "Laugh and the world laughs with you." I once did a report on the latter when I was a senior in high school. I like children's poetry and enjoy reading Shel Silverstein's poems with my girls. We love to recite the opening lines of  "Sick, which is my favorite Shel Silverstein poem as well as Melia's. I also remember enjoying poems by A.A. Milne when I was a child. A.A. Milne is ,of course, more famous for creating Winnie the Pooh.  I remember having a whole book of poetry called something like A Child's Garden of Verse. I like limericks but not the bawdy kind and not ones that use made up a words. It is the only kind of poetry I ever really write although I haven't written any in years. I use to be able to take almost any word and build a limerick around it. That was years ago though. Now, I mostly write this blog, and stories for my younger daughter in another blog called Stories for Dora. I don't write poetry at all.

And that's our view. Tune in Friday for another topic.