Goodbye Friend

You may remember me posting this picture a few posts ago. This is a picture of Finney. She came into our family 13 years ago. Ever since she came, our family has never been the same. She has brought more joy, laughs, comfort and peace than I could have ever hoped for. I found out last night that she needed to be put to sleep. She had not been eating or drinking the past couple of days. My dad took her to the vet. They found out that she had cancer all over and was bleeding internally. My dad decided that it would be better to have her put to sleep than to continue living in pain. I am grateful that she won't be in as much pain now, but sad to not have her with us. It's amazing how much Finney has become a member of the family. She filled in areas that no one else could. I am grateful for the many wonderful years we were able to have her in our lives. She was a one of a kind friend. One that will truly be missed, but I will look forward to seeing her again. It's amazing how much I've learned from Finny. The importance of greeting people when you see them, of never giving up an opportunity to socialize and acquire food. To stop, enjoy and smell the flowers, and rocks, and trees and grass, etc, To protect the ones you love. To cuddle whenever possible. To take every opportunity to sleep in the warmest part in the bed or house. To sun bath. To love going on walks and get excited about the possibility of exercise. To forgive immediately. To just sit and listen. To always be cautious of wood floors. To enjoy car rides with the ones you love. That to truly enjoy a present you must relish in every part of it, including the wrapping paper. To let others know you love them every opportunity and chance you can.

Angels Among Us

10 years ago (sometime around now), my family drove up to Utah to spend Thanksgiving with family. On our drive back home the van we were driving blew a tire. The van rolled several times. The majority of those in the van sustained some serious injuries. That day was full of many miracles for us though. We were protected and helped in every way we possibly could have been. From this, I have learned that the although the Lord has us endure many challenges, he is there for us to help us get through life in every possible way. Life changed dramatically for us as we had to endure and support each other through surgeries, physical therapy, new disabilities, and patience with the recovery time. I remember one day, when we were finally back in Arizona, I was driving some where before Christmas (probably buying more Christmas tree lights) and the song "Angels Among Us" by Alabama began to be played on the radio. I am aware now that this song came out a long time before this, but for me this was the first time I had heard it. I remember just crying as I listened to it because it explained exactly what I was feeling at that time in my life. This song has a special meaning to me, especially at this time of year. I created this clip with various pictures I have, to say thank you for a few of the "angels" in my life. I know that we meet people every day who are placed in our life to help us.

One of these socks is not like the other

I tend to wear fun, different socks when I am having a hard day to help me out a little bit. Last Saturday I had wanted to wear my "frog" socks. These are great as they are also slipper socks and have frog feet on the bottom to prevent slippage. I hadn't really gotten around to sorting or putting my clothes away after doing laundry that week. All my clothes were still in my laundry basket. I reached in grabbed one frog sock and then another sock and went on my way. Later that afternoon is when I realized that I was wearing two different socks. I just laughed about it, as I'm sure many of you have worn two different socks as well and not realized it. (at least they were the same color) But the only problem of wearing two different socks is that you need to wear a similar pair again because you still have another same unmatched pair that is still clean. Yesterday was an unmatched day for me again. I realize that it's fun to wear unmatched socks. It reminds me of being young and wanting to develop more independence, thus dressing yourself and creating your own fashion style. I think this would also delete the hassle of having to match socks when you are putting away laundry.

Thanksgiving Memories

(9The coolest dog, Finney, celebrating Christmas 1999.)

For some reason I woke up early and wide awake this morning (5am). I decided that since there wasn't much I could do that early, I would go to the gym. I was thinking it would be crowded because everyone would want to work out before having their BIG feast. I was wrong. There was really no one there. After I went to Harmon's Grocery store to get a newspaper. I want to keep the tradition of circling everything I want in today's paper and then mailing it to my parent's to help them with Christmas shopping:) When I got to the store the guy delivering the papers was just starting to stock the stand. He had a cart full of papers that he was unloading. As I was talking to him and waiting for a paper, I began to notice the sweet smell of newspapers that I seem to like. I think this is smell brings more of sweet memories as I would work with my dad, brother and sisters on delivering newspapers to homes on the holidays and weekends. Thanksgiving was a day I thought needed to be dread as it was supposedly the biggest newspaper of the year. This paper was huge and heavy. We would get up REALLY early in the morning just to wait for the paper to be delivered. This was a fun time for us kids as our dad would provide us a feast of the best pop, sweets and food while delivering the papers. I think this was more to help us stay awake and not get car sick. I remember how cold it was standing out there putting the papers together, shivering, talking and shivering some more. I also remember how we would laugh a lot (or maybe it was more me, I can't remember) due to us being really tired. We would also listen to old songs on the radio. I love the oldies station because of this. We would try to get the job done as quickly as possible so we could go home to our warm beds and sleep.

Yesterday I was thinking about how when I was young it was almost a tradition for a few of us in my family to head over to a family friend's home (the Brauer's) Wednesday evening to help her make pies and clean. We made so many pies, and then we would celebrate Thanksgiving with them the following day. This was a fun time as we would also be able to watch movies on their HUGE TV.

I also remember a Thanksgiving where my brother invited me to go to Wal-Mart with him the day before. When asked why he said "because everyone was going to be there." It was a fun time, I think we both were just burned out as well with college papers and exams. We laughed as we were hoping to have to park in the back of the parking lot and stand in a long line. Instead we got the closest parking spot we had ever had before, and there was no line when we were ready to check out.

I've also been thinking about how it is almost a tradition for our family to go to KMart on Thanksgiving and check out their specials, and indulge in bread sticks. With this memory I feel that pizza has become associated with Thanksgiving as well. My dad one year took my brother, sister and I to a store and bought us a pizza to eat before we went to a friend's home to have Thanksgiving dinner. We were so stuffed before we went to the Thanksgiving dinner. My dad told us to not tell mom that we had pizza before. For some reason I feel like that was the best pizza. I think it was because we were hungry and it was fun to eat pizza on Thanksgiving. I also remember a few years ago when it was only my mom, brother and I for Thanksgiving. My mom told me that I would be in charge of Thanksgiving. So since I was in charge, I decided that we would have pizza. I had found a pizza recipe I could have. It was such a good dinner. We had BBQ chicken pizza.

So on this Thanksgiving, I would like to thank my family for all the sweet and cherished memories that you have given to me revolving around Thanksgiving Day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Did you know...

Did you know that the word "holiday" was originally a simplified version of the words "holy" and "day."

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Here is a picture of my nephews Jonathan and Taylor posing for the picture in their form of being "scared." We went to a museum that had these "stuffed" animals everywhere. It was a cool place to explore. But alas, this post is not about nephews or animals. That will be another topic for another post.

At church I have the responsibility of providing a "music moment" to the women each week. This can be in various forms as to understanding music theory better, learning to express feelings through music or backgrounds regarding songs. This past week I found a great article regarding the background to the hymn "Prayer of Thanksgiving" or also known as "We Gather Together." To me this was really interesting as music takes on more meaning when I understand the situation that assisted in creating the song. So here is the story to "We Gather Together:"

A Hymn's Long Journey Home
The surprising origins of "We Gather Together," a Thanksgiving standard.

BY MELANIE KIRKPATRICK
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Its mention of God makes it verboten in schools today. But not too many years ago this was the season when teachers would lead their students in the great ecumenical Thanksgiving hymn, "We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing." It's a singable melody, and the stirring lyrics speak directly of the Pilgrims' experience in overcoming religious persecution.

Or do they? With the exception of Native Americans, we're all the descendants of those who came to the New World from somewhere else. So too, it turns out, did "We Gather Together," whose origins are Dutch and speak of religious persecution that predates the first Thanksgiving. It's appropriate that a hymn we sing to celebrate a quintessentially American holiday is, like most of us, a transplant.

The melody can be traced back to 1597 and is probably older than that. It started out as a folk song, whose secular lyrics set a decidedly nonreligious tone. "Wilder dan wilt, wie sal mij temmen," the song began, or "Wilder than wild, who will tame me?" Folk melodies have a way of wanting to be sung--think "Greensleeves," which has numerous sets of lyrics associated with it--and "Wilder dan wilt" was no exception.

Its transformation into the hymn about overcoming religious oppression began on Jan. 24, 1597. That was the date of the Battle of Turnhout, in which Prince Maurice of Orange defeated the Spanish occupiers of a town in what is now the Netherlands. It appears likely that Dutch Protestants--who were forbidden from practicing their religion under the Catholic King Philip II of Spain--celebrated the victory by borrowing the familiar folk melody and giving it new words. Hence "Wilt heden nu treden" or, loosely translated, "We gather together"--a phrase that itself connoted a heretofore forbidden act: Dutch Protestants joining together in worship. Its first appearance in print was in a 1626 collection of Dutch patriotic songs, "Nederlandtsch Gedencklanck."

It's tantalizing to think that the English Pilgrims--in exile in Holland, the only place in Europe where they could worship freely--might have been familiar with "Wilt heden nu treden." There's no record that they were, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. Some of them spoke Dutch, attended Dutch churches and even became Dutch citizens. "It's possible, I'd even go so far as to say it's probable, that the Pilgrims knew the tune," says John Kemp of Plimouth Plantation, the living-history museum of 17th-century America.

But to the Pilgrim mindset, "We Gather Together" would have been a secular song. It wasn't the direct word of the Bible, which meant they would not have sung it at church. The Pilgrims, like the Dutch Calvinists, sang only Psalms in worship and then without musical accompaniment or even harmony, which they considered "man glorifying in man's art," says Mr. Kemp. They saw any song except a Psalm as a violation of the commandment against idolatry.

So how did "We Gather Together" get from a 17th-century Dutch songbook to 20th-century American churches and schoolrooms?

One answer is Dutch settlers, who brought it with them to the New World, perhaps as early as the 1620s. The hymn stayed alive in the Dutch-American community throughout the centuries, says Emily Brink of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Mich. In 1937, when the Christian Reformed Church in North America--a denomination that began with Dutch immigrants who sang only Psalms--made the then-controversial decision to permit hymns to be sung at church, "We Gather Together" was chosen as the opening hymn in the first hymnal.

Another answer has to do with a Viennese choirmaster by the name of Eduard Kremser, whose arrangement of "We Gather Together" was published in Leipzig, Germany, in 1877. Enter Theodore Baker, an American scholar studying in Leipzig. Baker translated the hymn into English in 1894 as a "prayer of Thanksgiving" to be sung by a choir.

From there it was an easy step to congregational singing. According to the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, which maintains a database of popular hymns, "We Gather Together's" first appearance in an American hymnal was in 1903. Over the next three decades it showed up in an assortment of hymnals in the Northeast and Midwest and in school songbooks. Its "big break" came in 1935, says Carl Daw, executive director of the Hymn Society, when it was added to the national hymnal of the Methodist-Episcopal Church.

The association with Thanksgiving helped popularize the hymn, and the country's experience with war also contributed to its spread. "By World War I, we started to see ourselves in this hymn," says Michael Hawn, professor of sacred music at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology. Even more so in World War II, when "the wicked oppressing" would have resonated with a public engaged in the fight against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. "People take stock of themselves at Thanksgiving," he says. "We've all survived some turbulent times."

"We Gather Together" has all the elements that make a hymn great, says Prof. Hawn. Its melody is accessible, it has a catchy "incipit" or opening phrase, and it has a message that unfolds through the stanzas and carries the congregation with it to an uplifting conclusion: "O, Lord, make us free!"

On Thanksgiving Day, that's a sentiment that all Americans, wherever we are gathered, can share.
Ms. Kirkpatrick is the associate editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Oh Christmas Tree...

I have FINALLY finished putting up my Christmas tree! This was a fun project to work on all week, as I tried to figure out what to place on my first Christmas tree. I purchased a 7 foot lighted palm tree in the summer, and have been counting down the days till I could put it up. I wanted to have something up this Christmas that reminded me of Arizona.

I had a lot of ideas as I was planning on putting it together. I don't have the ornaments that were given to me while growing up because they are still in Arizona with my parents. I am going to let my mom and dad hang them on their fabulous tree this year. I also was originally going to place my rubber chicken on the top, wearing a Santa's hat and having a red bell in his mouth. It would have been a tree topper everyone would have remembered. But I miscalculated the height of my apartment. I thought I had an 8 foot ceiling, but after I put my tree up realized that it was shorter. The rubber chicken would not fit. I will have to wait till I move into a taller place. I finally decided to decorate it with red and silver ornaments with a splash of gingerbread cookie ornaments. I originally thought to place just a hula skirt on the bottom, but after doing this discovered that it just didn't look right. I added a snow blanket, and it was just the touch it needed. It looks so pretty and I wish I could have captured it the way it looks when they are the only lights turned on. But I can't figure out how to turn my flash off my camera. (I would have a picture with me in it as well, but don't know how to set the camera to do this either.)

My mom sent me a package when my sister drove up at the end of summer. My mom gave me a present early in case I couldn't make it home to Arizona for Christmas this year. The wrapping that she chose for it matches my decor perfectly:) I have been really good not to peek. Although it I am really curious as to what she may have given to me this year. Doesn't the present looks like a package that floated onto a desert island.