Not to us, O LORD, not to us...

As most of you know, I am a huge fan of soundtracks. And I also love pieces that include choral parts...and I also like Latin songs...provided that the lyrics are good of course.:-)
So it's no surprise that when I heard 'Non Nobis Domine' by Patrick Doyle (For Kenneth Branagh's Henry V) on a cd called Cinema Choral Classics, I really liked it. Not only is song very moving to listen to, the tune is extremely hummable, the lyrics are short, and so easy to remember, and the the lyrics are very good at that!:
'Non nobis Domine, non nobis Domine, sed nomine tuo da gloriam'
'Not to us, O LORD, not to us O LORD, but in your name be found the glory.'

I was impressed by the fact that the lyrics of the song seemed to be a prayer, and I began to wonder about Patrick Doyle...
So I liked the song, and I watched the scene from the movie in which the song is sung, I wondered whether the song was in Shakespeare's original play, and if not, then I thought that Doyle and Branagh had made a very good addition to the script by including this song.
I returned the cd to the library, and that was the end of it for a few weeks. I still sugn the song to myself, and quoted it to Brandon, and I just kept it in my head.
Then, last night, we were all sitting in the living room finding the chapters that were included in that nights reading from the Bible. We were reading a set of Psalms - 111 through 118, I think.
I was flipping through the pages, deciding which to read, when my eyes lighted on the first verse of Psalm 115:

'Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.'

Well, you can imagine that I just stared for a few seconds! Those were the words I had been singing! The lyrics of 'Non Nobis Domine' were straight out of the Psalms! Of course I read that one, but the whoel time I wished I still had the recording of the song.

So I was thinking: "What better way to start out the new year, than to be reminded again that whatever happens to me in 2009, and whatever I do, 'not to me, O LORD, not to me - but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.'"
And looking back, to remember to give the glory to God for everything that I've done and been through this past year: two surgeries, becoming the owner of a car, starting to drive, participating in a theater camp and play, writing and participating in a Christmas pageant, and above all, simply living another year - I think I just need to reflect more and remember that all the glory belongs to God.

Happy New Year, and may you be richly blessed by Him who is able to do great and marvelous things beyond what we can possibly hope or imagine - namely, God!

Merry Christmas! ...the day after...:-)

Well, hi!
I hope that you (whoever it is that is reading this:-)) had a very blessed and wonderful Christmas!
A little about my Christmas:
First off, I was technically the first and last one up on Christmas morning. The first because after getting home from the Frejofsky Christmas gathering at Uncle Bill and Aunt Chris' house, and going to the 10:00 PM service with Grammy Pieplow, I stayed up until 4 AM working on a joke gift for Uncle Wayne. (More on that later.:-))
Then I was awakened by Eva, Levi and Shane cavorting about on my bed and informing me that it was time for breakfast and that Mommy would get mad if I didn't come. It was indeed tiem for breakfast, past it, actually I'm afraid, but that's yet another reason why we don't open presents on Christmas morning. I asked Daddy about that on Christmas Eve, actually, and the answer he gave was perfectly presented on the following day. Anyhow, we had breakfast...brunch, actually, and made last minute preparations to head over to Grammy Pieplows. Daddy and Mommy helped me with the joke gift, and we eventually got to Grammy and Grampy Frejofsky's as around 4, I think. Mommy had wanted to be there at 2...
We had dinner, Mommy and Daddy got into a theological discussion with Grammy and Stacey (my oldest cousin), and then at...I'm not sure what time exactly, we opened gifts.

...More later...

Silly pictures from the night of the wedding...

This is a picture which I meant to post with the description of Josh and Amanda's wedding, but didn't.:-)
But it is a very good picture I think...Michael looking cool...:-)


And then after we got home to take our pictures...
Levi, Shane and I (in the first picture,) and then Levi and I try out our Three Stooges poses.:-)


As for this jolly joker, I have no idea what he was doing when the picture was taken.:-)

Skating at the Kent State Ice Arena

On Friday night, while preparing to start the rehearsal for the play, my mom got a call from a lady from the homeschool group. Now this lady happens to work for a dentist who some members of my family have gone to, and apparently, every year, this dentist and his brother rent the Kent State ice arena and host like a company friends and family night/Christmas party.
So Mrs. Bedard was calling to invite us to come to skate on the following night (Saturday, the 19th.)
Of course we couldn't turn down such an offer like that, so we went. I really enjoyed it!
Here are some pictures:

Last Friday

Last Friday, we ran through the Christmas Pageant with some families from house church. The Grabers, (minus Josh and Amanda, of course, who were on their honeymoon,) the majority of the Carmichael kids, and Mrs. Thorn and Nancy.
I had woven the accounts of Matthew and Luke together with some prophecy and a tiny amount of added dialog narration, and put it all together into a stageplay script. I had worked on this script for a few weeks leading up to the day.
On Thursday night, Daddy brought home the long awaited curtains. They give our stage area a much more refined feel, I think, this is not the best picture imaginable...:-):


On the appointed day, I printed off the scrips and began to highlight parts.

This was a long and pretty daunting task, though actually it turned out to not be very hard.

Then at the set time, people started arriving, we had a spaghetti and meatball dinner, and then we went downstairs and set to work.
It took about an hour to decide what roles everyone would have, and after that we began the first run-through. This was very slow, and at times quite tedious, as we ran into stage direction problems, as we missed cues, as we generally had a rollicking good time.:)
Needless to say, we were in no way prepared. Mommy urged me to begin another quicker run-through, but by that point I didn't have the energy get everybody going again (probably due to the fact that I was trying to play a lead role and direct at the same time, which was not a good thing...)(one of the reasons why I was planning to not have a role in the play.:)).

Annie stepped in and ably, (very ably,) took charge and directed the second run-through. It was truly inspiring to watch her work. Especially to me, seeing as I didn't really have what was needed by then to do it. I can't overemphasize what a great thing this was!:)
She turned out to be quite adept at finding problems with (or lack of) stage directions in my script, which was very good. As we went along, she and I were able to confer on things she had noticed in the script, and add much needed revisions to the script. These would be added to the script for the actual performance.
Under Annie's direction we were able to make it pretty much through the second run-through, though Carmichaels had to leave. So between the people still there, we managed it.:)

I had no time to take pictures during, but Hannah did get some so here are a few...

The Casting process: "Does anyone want to be Balaam?":-)

Charlotte and Charlyn (Far left) were eager to volunteer for the roles of the angels.

Sam, (the innkeeper, and a magi), Ben, (Isaiah and Augustus) and Brooke (Mary) preparing for their roles. :)


Maggie - TP and CA (Tax Payer and Choir Angel)
Rachel (Narrator 1), Eva (Narrator 2), Annie (Director Emeritus and Narrator 3) and Nancy (Elizabeth) are visible in the background from left to right.


Chris (A faithful Roman Soldier. (with a cross on his breastplate, that's a little strange, I'll grant you. :-)))

When Herod gives his dastardly orders, his men are quick to obey:


Overall, everyone did very well, and I am really looking forward to the performance!

It's beginning to NOT look like Christmas

9:08 AM
Captain's Log...:-)

Well, no snow today, but we've got 30 degrees and freezing rain...
Cold and dismal.

As I was typing this, I thought of a line from a movie we watched last night. And through that, I was reminded that Christmas isn't something that has to be external. There doesn't have to be snow on the ground for it to be Christmas. There's only one thing that's important, and that's that we are celebrating the incarnation of Christ. He came to save us from our sins, and that's worth rejoicing over!

The spirit of Christmas may be awakened by snow and Christmas carols, but if that's all it is, then it's not much of anything...

Merry Christmas!

Have a holly... tie-dye Christmas?

Merry Christmas from the Peeps!:-)
Our formal attire pictures did not have much color in them, and my Mom wanted more color...I think she got what she was looking for with this arrangement...:-)
I also got to exercise my Gimp skills...:-) (Though its almost impossible to tell...)

Just a few appropriate words...

Well, hello, anyone who has happened upon my little niche.:-)
December is now upon us and the year 2008 is drawing to a close. That's a bit hard to believe isn't it?

Well, the big day finally came! Josh and Amanda were married today. Congratulations and may God richly bless them both in this new season of their lives and their relationship!
The ceremony was absolutely beautiful, and a great testimony to both Josh and Amanda's faith and love of God. All around wonderful.

In less important news, I did a very unwise thing today...I...opened...the...sacred...fruitcake tin! Yes, I did it...and I smelled that heavenly scent wafting up to me...oh my! I really shouldn't have done that...now it will be very hard to keep out of that tin from Grammy...:-)

Hornblower Fan Trailer

Here is a fan trailer I cut together Saturday night for Hornblower 1: The Duel.

Enjoy!


I advise watching it in high quality, which can be seen here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad-hYMmvctY

The Car

Brandon and I got a '99 Chevy Lumina back in October,

and Brandon used it to get his license a couple of weeks back. Here are some pictures of the car and some shots of our first maneuverability:
Our homemade course, from the starting position:

Brandon and I going over last minutes details of the course:

Brandon climbs aboard for his first run:

I take command (With my passenger, Eva):

Photo update for the past month or two...:-)

Hey, this is my fortieth blog entry since the inception of Waiting on the Ramparts!

Anyway, to business:

Here are the pictures I promised from apple processing in October:

Cooking down those apples...


Some pictures in the kitchen of the process...

The finished product! Then there were the pies as well...mmmm....

Snow! (Or, "It's that time of year agin.")

Over the day before yesterday and yesterday, we got an accumulation of snow of about...mmm...I'm going to say three or four inches (in some spots.) So yesterday the four younger kids (I hope that is not too condescending :-)) went out for their first official snow fight. The kids had a snow fight on Sunday at Grabers' house, but they ran out of snow, and got cold quite quickly.:-) It's hard to believe we've passed the half-way point of November. Where has this year gone? Whew! I didn't go out because I actually don't have a winter coat yet. So either I'm going to have to find one downstairs that will suit me, or I'll have to get a new one...

I bought a new computer! Actually I bought it jointly with the business, so it will not be only mine, it will also (hopefully) be connected with the copier so that we can do regular printing on it. Daddy and I went out on Monday and got it, I drove (my first snow driving, whoohoo!!:-)) Fortunately I know my way around Chapel Hill reasonably well.:-)
(And speaking of Chapel Hill, it was driving through the snow and then, (especially,)walking into Deals and being met with "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," followed by other Christmas songs that woke me up to the fact that, to quote a well known *not really* movie, "It's that time of year again.":-))

Articles Coming Soon:
"A(n) (In)formal Expose"
and
"When in the Course of Human Events...?"

News...which is hardly new now

Brandon and I recently bought a car...a few weeks ago now, actually, and Brandon got his driver's license last week...or was it the week before, but very recently.

Hmm...what else...

I'm doing National Novel Writing Month:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/429281

Catching Up

Okay, the last couple of days have been interesting. Like I said a couple of posts ago, we went and got apples. So on Friday, which happened to be my mom's birthday, Grammy and Grampy Frejofsky and Grammy Pieplow came over to celebrate and to process apples.
Here are some pictures:

...which will be up later...

More on the concert

Well here are the autograph scans, and you can read some about the 5 Browns on the page from the program:


About the concert:
I really enjoyed the program, ranging from The Grande Tarentelle by Gottschalk to the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, to selections from The Planets, to Saint-Seans' Danse Macabre.
Overall a great program. But besides the great music and the brilliance of the performance, I really liked the attitude of the players. I'm not sure if 'accessible' is the appropriate word, but that's the first word that comes to mind when I think of The 5 Browns. A lot of times going to see great musicians play, you get the feeling from them that they'd rather, as I said, "stay as far away from you mortals as I can." But I got the feeling from the Browns that you could just walk up to them and start talking to them. One of the five introduced each piece that was played, and at the intermission, before the second half began, they sat down in a row on the stage and had a Q&A session. (Something I'd never seen at a Tuesday Musical concert.) Then afterword they had a meet & greet(and autograph signing:))(Something that you don't see very often at Tuesday Musical concerts...) in the lobby. They had a totally down-to-earth attitude toward the audience, and they seemed to really be enjoying what they were doing. I remarked, "I like concerts where people talk to you." That's kind of a strange sentence, but really, not many classical performers that I've seen really interact much with the audience. With The 5 Browns, I think that they are fulfilling their mission to bring classical music to a younger generation, their generation.

The 5 Browns concert

Last night we took some friends to the first concert of the Tuesday Musical season.
The 5 Browns were performing, and they were spectacular!

Here's a picture Levi took at the meet and greet after the concert.
From left to right, Desirae, Melody, Ryan, Deondra and Gregory Brown.

...and I'm planning on scanning my autographed cd art and posting as well. Also, if I can get hold of my dad's program I'll scan that as well.:-)

Well

Well, since certain people are asking why I have not posted in a long while, I thought I'd say a few suitable words.
The problem is that I haven't a lot to say...

Song of the Week...you know maybe it would be more realistic to have a Song of the Month!:)

Another Joy Williams song...

Song: Do They See Jesus In Me
Artist: Joy Williams
Album: Joy Williams

Is the face that I see in the mirror
the one I want others to see
Do I show in the way that I walk in my life
The love that You've given to me
My heart's desire is to be like You
In all that I do, all I am

Do they see Jesus In Me
Do they recognize Your face
Do I communicate Your love, and Your grace
Do I reflect who You are
In the way I choose to be
Do they see Jesus In Me

It's amazing that you'd ever use me
But use me the way You will
Help me to hold out a heart of
compassionate grace
A heart that You're spirit fills
May I show forgiveness and mercy
The same way You've shown it to me

Now I want to show all the world who You are
The reason I live and breathe
So You'll be the One that they see
When they see me

Well, we went and got apples today, and I got stung by a bee. (Yes, a bee, not a yellow jacket or hornet...(just got to make sure we've got that straight.:-))) It was up my pant leg and stung on the inside of my knee...other than that, a pretty uneventful day, except that I started reading a book about Claus von Stauffenberg.

"He who has the courage to do something must do so in the knowledge that he will go down to history as a traitor. But if he does not do it, he will be a traitor to his own conscience." -Col. Claus von Stauffenberg

In German: "Er, der den Mut hat, etwas zu tun, muß im Wissen so tun, daß er unten zur Geschichte als Traitor geht. Aber, wenn er es nicht tut, ist er ein Traitor zu seiner eigenen Gewissenhaftigkeit."

Reunion Pictures

My family at the reunion:

Dad and Brandon on a mission

Brandon strikes a Keith Emerson pose at the grand ole' piano at Camp Trinity.

Eva

Levi tries reasoning with a firm faced Shane.

...and then puts on his best face for the camera.:-) And I think that's Hannah behind him...I tried to get a picture of her, but she didn't let me...

And, being the photographer, there are no pictures of me...
Grammy Pieplow:




People:



More later...