Blog Revival

Remember how I said back in March that I’d like to post more than once that month?  And then do you remember how I ended up posting twice that month?  Practically a miracle.

Then, remember how I didn’t post at all in April (until April 21st)?

Not so miraculous.

Anyway, I sense a blog revival coming on.  And, in companion to the revival of my blog I have been enjoying a revival of my iPod.  I recently took on the task of organizing my songs into playlists, or as I like to call it, Via Delarosa 2011.  5 short hours after I began I finally had a semi-organized iPod and was finally able to enjoy so many of my songs I’d forgotten I had.

Here’s a few of the songs which are on repeat right now:

1. Carry Your Name

Christy Nockels?  Greatness.  Passion CD?  Greatness.  Singing this in the car at the top of my lungs?  Bliss.

2.  Glorious Day

and

3. You are Faithful

Both from the ‘God of Victory’ album.  These are both songs that were written by the worship team at the church I attended the past three years.  One of the hardest parts of moving was leaving my church, but having all these songs on CD offers me so many fantastic opportunities to worship- even if it is only in my car.

4. Rollin’ in the Deep

By Adele.  Oh my.  Oh. My. OH. MY. You should also listen to the WHOLE ALBUM.  Oh my.

5. Little Too Much

By Natasha Beddingfield.  I ran across this song when I saw the preview for the new movie Something Borrowed.  I loved the trailer for the movie so much that not only did I buy this song (and the whole rest of the album) I also read the book.  And then I read the sequel to the book.

Obsessed much?

 

Y’all enjoy!

A Really Good Friday

Reposted from April 2, 2010

 

‘Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, "This man is calling Elijah." And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"’

Matthew 27:27-54 (ESV)

Carmen Miranda Wants Her Moves Back

Due to my gullibility servant’s heart, I have (somehow) recently taken on the job of Children’s Choir at my church.  I’m not really sure how it all went down, or how it was decided that I was qualified to run a few minutes of choir practice every Sunday night, although I seem to recall my music minister throwing around words like “fun” and “ministry” and “God” which made it all seem totally easy and perfectly normal for me to try to wrangle a group of 18 children ranging in age from 4-12 for an hour once a week.  How it came about is still a bit of a mystery to me, but there’s no doubt it’s definitely happening.

Let me just say that, as a person who has no children of her own but was once one, Sunday nights are hard times for anyone to concentrate- the weekend is almost over and you just want to cram all the fun you can handle into those last few hours before reality sets back in.  I get it, I totally understand.  However, my understanding does not stop me from feeling that there is a slight possibility that the children in my choir are sneaking behind their parents’ backs on Sunday afternoons and eating several spoonfuls of sugar before coming to church on Sunday nights.  It’s just a sneaking suspicion, but it’s either that or they’re all just TOO EXCITED! AND HAPPY! TO BE! AT CHOIR TOGETHER!!!!  My money’s on the sugar.

Other than a slightly wired feel to each rehearsal, we have a very cute little musical all picked out and I am so excited to see it coming together.  While I personally never had much of a church choir growing up because our little church was too tiny, I have sung in many a choir in my day and the most important thing to any great show-stopping group is the perfect combination of catchy music and rockin’ dance moves.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not talking full out ‘Glee’ dance routine- including, but not limited to any combination of pyrotechnics, laser light shows and live bands.  I’m talking about a nice little choir who has mastered the art of the box step (Not that I’m encouraging dancing amongst the children, mind you).

Anyway, one of the songs in this year’s musical is called “The Fruit That Is Rooted In You” all about the fruit of the Spirit and it has been stuck in my head for two full days.  Count ‘em- TWO- 1, 2 days.  It’s a precious little song with music in the style ala Carmen Miranda:

 

SO, so good.

(Not to be confused with the musical stylings of Charo). 

The whole thing is golden, but the highlight, for me personally, begins at 1:05.

There’s so much that is so right in this video.  But, I need to pause for a moment to point out two important details: 1. What the heck kinda workout is Charo doing because I am missing out? 2. Where do you think you find men’s high-waisted pants made out of jewel-toned glitter fabric?

Let’s just say I was already dreading the costume’s and choreography we’d need in order to do our own Carmen/Charo tribute song justice when I came across this video of our song, and a little jewel in its own right:

And then it hit me.  All this time I had been worried about the costumes I should have spent worrying about the choreography.

The Good News:  Choreography?  Between Carmen, Charo and Corrie the Choreographer we should be in business.

The Bad News?  High-Waisted, Jewel-Toned Glitter Pants? Never gonna happen.

The Even Worse News?  This song is going to be stuck in my head until May.

Marching Right Along

Well.

(I’m guessing that’s not a long enough to be considered a complete post)

I promise I didn’t forget I have a blog… I only forgot what it looks like.

Actually, anytime I would come to check on my blog roll I would scroll down far enough to see the “Little Mermaid” picture and, without fail, the orange hair would stress me out.  It’s safe to guess that this post is merely a way of getting that picture out of my daily routine.

In case you all have forgotten to check your calendars lately, it’s March.  March!  Yikes.

Anyway, as a way of jumping back into the habit of blogging I am going to share five favorites from my life right now.

 

 

Five Favorites:

1. Boots Moisturizer

So perfect for my sad winter skin.  It goes on thick enough that you feel it making a difference, but is NEVER greasy.  A miracle in a bottle. Seriously.

We should probably just add all Boots products my list of favorites.

 

2. Adele’s new album ‘21’

Love Adele.  LOVE.  Love.

 

3. My Target Sunglasses.

They save my eyesight on a daily basis, now that the sun is staying out longer.

 

4. My BlackBerry charger. 

My phone dies nearly everyday.  Everyday. And it’s not because I’m gibbering away on it 24/7, it’s just because it hates me.

 

5. My Kindle.

Oh, my Kindle.  I can’t even begin to describe to you all the ways it has changed my life.  Let’s just say, in the interest of time, it’s changed my life in a lot of ways.

 

**Bonus Thing I Love: My return to blogging. 

 

Let’s hope I can break the 2011 curse and blog more than once this month!

Ariel’s Bad Hair Day

My freshman year of college could very easily been known as “the year of the amateur hairdo”. 

My dorm room was the 18-year-old version of a perpetual beauty shop. 

We were forever cutting and coloring and crimping one another’s hair (If I ever had a male reader it’s safe to assume I just lost him with that sentence).  It was an interesting time, when our new found freedom combined with our frugal spending habits combined to make some of us a little shall-we-say ‘loose’ in our styling standards.  Some of us (read: ME) began to think a little too highly of our styling skills.  I may or may not have believed myself to be the Ken Paves of my dorm hallway.

It all began when my friend Jennifer ask me to cut her hair on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  Her previous cut had grown out and it was time for a change.  I first made her swear that she would not cut me out of her life if I failed and then proceeded to cut her hair.  It turned out I could cut in a semi-straight line and instantly became the Vidal Sassoon of room 315.

Unfortunately, as my client-base increased so did the need for me to have actual hair dressing skills.  Late one Monday night my friend Katy came home from Target with a beautiful box of auburn hair dye.  We all ‘oohed and aaahed’ over how beautiful she was sure to be once her hair was dyed and I began the process of coloring her hair.  We went through all the steps, waited the prescribed amount and then she went to wash it out.  I headed over to her room when I heard the hair-dryer blowing and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Katy’s hair had turned Little Mermaid orange.

It was too late that night to run out and buy more hair dye so Katy was forced to live with it for a day.  Even though she was not to happy with me, she was still speaking to me.  I’ll never forget the hat she was forced to wear for the next day.  It was like a fisherman’s hat, with a brim, so she could show as little hair as possible, and she had two little braided pig tails peeking out from under it.  I’ll also never forget going to our college group later that night and our college minister took one look at Katy’s new magenta locks and said “Who did that to you?!?”.

After we told him that I (the John Frieda wanna-be) had performed the dye job, he asked Katy: “and you’re still speaking to her????”

We went straight to a Target and bought a new bottle of hair color.  Katy even trusted me enough to perform the new dye job (under the watchful eye of our friends).  Although I have rarely been as nervous as I was trying to fix her hair we did end up getting it back to a color found on planet earth, a very pretty brown color.

I am happy to report that Katy still speaks to me.  Even to this day.

Or, at least, she did before she read this friendly little reminder.

Resolute

Happy New Year!

Have you guys made any New Year’s Resolutions?  Because, I have not.

Last year I really did sit down and think it over and set reachable goals.  The reachable part is important for me because most years January 1st rolls around and I say I’m going to jog 30 minutes a day.  I typically fail at my resolution by sometime around 5:30 January 1st.  So, it just seems to make more sense to be as footloose and fancy free as possible!

I don’t have any resolutions, but I’m excited for the new year.  Let’s face facts, anything would be better than the swift kick-in-the-pants 2010 delivered to me.  But, it’s all good- 2011 is gonna be awesome!  Or, more likely- 2011 is gonna have it’s fair share of hurts and sadness, but I’m hoping it’s tempered by some fun and joy and hope.

What about you?  Did you make any resolutions that will inevitably put me to shame?

The Merriest Of Christmases

I’ve been thinking a lot this season about the manger birth of Christ all those years ago.  Obviously, I think about it every year, but some years the sweetness and truth of the story pierces my heart in a new way.  What I can’t get out of my head this year is that the King of Kings was born in a manger.  It is so precious to me that God chose to come into the world in such a lowly manner.  He could have been born in a golden throne room (this, clearly, would have been my choice), but instead He came into the world surrounded by livestock.

Recently, on the news, I heard one of those stories about a baby whose mother gave birth and then left her child in a dumpster.  I think about that sweet innocent baby and wonder how it will ever know how cherished it is- how special and important he or she is in the eyes of God.  This season, it seems to me that Christ came as He did so that none of us can look at Him and think He’s unreachable.  He didn’t come to save someone “better than” or “richer than” you.  He came to save you and me.  And he was born in the lowest imaginable location so even that baby, brought into the world under the saddest of conditions, can know that Christ understands us.  Our fears and sorrows, our joys and weaknesses.  He understands.  One of my favorite lines in the hymn ‘O Holy Night’ says “the King of Kings lay in a lowly manger, in all our trials born to be our friend.  He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger.”  It’s sometimes mind blowing, but I still believe it’s true.

The lowly infant born in the manger truly is the King of Kings.  I hope He’s the King of your life. 

 

And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for ALL the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." Luke 2:10-12 ESV (emphasis- mine)