Sweet smell of a summer's eve

The air on this warm Memorial Day evening smells sweet as summer. Temperate, with a slight breeze that kicks up every so often, and carries with it a scent of nothing in particular, but in summary raises memories of similar nights years ago. Driving my convertible at dusk, when the sky isn't yet dark, but the street lights are on, and the warm wind blows through my hair - a feeling of freedom! 

One day I'll feel it again in another convertible. But for now it's nice to know Summer is on it's way.

Go, upstate NY! Sawyer wins the Voice!

This is the first time my family and I have watched "The Voice," and we watched faithfully every Monday and Tuesday night!  And what a treat it has been.  A terrific season filled with diversity and super talented artists!  We are looking forward to saying - "I saw him/her on The Voice!" when the get big and famous!  

Our family's love of music has always been a part of our lives.  My husband's passion for the soul of music & lyrics probably began with Eddie Vedder - we have every PJ album ever released!  But has been continually evolving and growing.  His passion for music parallels my passion for performing arts in film, television, and stage.  And our children have enjoyed art, music and performing (to a limited audience of family and friends, and dance school parents) while hopefully gaining appreciation for the arts we share.

The show came at a perfect time for us, I think - in the dead of Winter when a cold Monday and Tuesday night were perfect times to sit together and enjoy the show, it's process, the coaches' guidance, and the heart & soul of musical performing.  Our 10 year old daughter is very interested in performing, and we hope this showed her the talent, beauty and commitment involved with the arts.

The 4 coaches also seemed perfect for my family this season - Adam for a few of us, but Maroon5's "Animal" has been my 6 yr old son's favorite song this Winter and he was excited that "that's the singer?! Cool!"   Christina is just a super talented voice!  Blake hits on our recently renewed interest in Country music... we watched the CMA's this year as a family, too, as well as the Grand Ole Opry concert episode from ABC's hit show, "Nashville."  All thoroughly enjoyed by the 4 of us!

And while we all felt so many of the people on "The Voice" were talented - truly sad to see some artists from the top 20 not make it early on, and super excited to see them back for the final show - the final 6 contestants were amazing.  By last nights 4, we would have liked any of them to win, and in our eyes they all already one.  From a performing standpoint - it was wonderful to see their dreams coming true.  To perform with some greats!  To have musical greats write songs for you to perform.
I mean, WHAT!?!?  AMAZING!

Performing on stage... hours of practice, rehearsals, stage design for each song.  It again impresses me the extent of what goes in to these weekly performance shows.  The efforts of ALL involved in front and behind the scenes.   True appreciation for it all!

The final four were all unique and not a main-stream style which gave us hope in the future of music.  If the public is voting these guys in each week, it means maybe melodic music with lyrics that move us and that we can carry around in our heads for hours or days will be back to grace our radios and iPods!  (We also hope to see India, Kimberly Nichole too! Amazing powerhouses!)

We truly appreciate and admire all 4 finalists - blues from the vocal strength of Megan Linsey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDubPCd0Hs - she is a star born now... career solidified!); gentle heart-felt Joshua Davis; truly blessed, complete embodiment of the music by Koryn Hawthorne; and the humble, old soul in the young boy from Upstate NY, Sawyer Fredricks.
Seeing the young kid from upstate NY be recognized by America as a super musical star with his different look and musicality is why I think I really wanted him to win all along!  It's the dream. And thank you world!  What a deserved soul!  Who will make music proud while not losing himself along the way - you can just tell!

Here's to all the performers!  It takes guts. Something I've struggled with my whole life - hiding behind another career justifying that the paycheck was more important than my dreams. So I give huge kudos to everyone who can take a chance, and put themselves out there and live a dream! Life's too short to not aim high and go for it!

The Royals - E! it took a while but the final 2 episodes really got there!

At the start, this show was sort of like that odd thing that doesn't sit quite right with you, but you can't stop looking at it.  There was something that didn't flow for me - I wasn't sure if it was because there was a "King" of England, or that the Queen was so damned gorgeous.  I mean, really?!  But I kept saying, "of course it's this way - they need something to pull in the audience....sex, drugs and rock & roll."  And the crazy twin siblings rebelling against the formality of their predestined monarchy lives... a bit overplayed.  But again, it's an hour-long show - gotta cram it in somehow.  So I wondered was it the writing, the cast, the over-done-ness of it all?  And then the last 3 episodes started to get good.  So I say, if you tried it and can't quite get into it... hang in there.  The season ends with a couple twists that make the thought of a future season a bit intriguing!  Thanks E!  Besides, I'm just happy the industry is getting scripted television back in the game!  YAY!

wonder...

Did you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you were born someone else?  Born into a different family?  Born with different talents?  Born at a different time?  Made different choices in your current life?

At a crossroads in my life currently, this has been a recurring thought, as I attempt to figure out again what I want to be when I grow up... and wondering what might have been.

Now, not being someone who likes to dwell (or maybe more accurately someone who realizes I can dwell, but doesn't want to) I tend to let the thought be fleeting, and attempt to find a way to turn those thoughts into a treatment for a screenplay! :)   I am longing to join a creative writing team on a project that would go big, and fill my days with laughter!

But for now, I continue to keep notes on my many thoughts - no matter how odd they may be - and duly write my next chapter...

A little retrospective on old sayings...

My daughter asked me the other day what "my2centsworth" meant.   I explained it's an old saying that means you're giving your opinion, and it may, or may not be wanted...but it made me think... what has happened to a lot of old sayings?

These days, 2 cents is barely even acknowledged, much less considered to have any value at all - 2 cents!  Preposterous!  These days it'd be more like '50 cents worth'... or even '$1 worth' could be seen as having a nominal value at best.  Who values the "all mighty dollar" still? 

How about when you heard folks say someone wasn't "making ends meet?"  I admit, when I was young, I thought it was "meat" since it seemed to imply someone was poor, so they couldn't even get meat on the table.  

Sometimes that was us, so I often struggled with thinking are we, or aren't we "poor?" 
There seemed to be people who were doing "better," and also some doing "worse" so it seemed we were in the middle, even if we didn't 'make ends meat.'  

But I learned later on that it meant the ends of a loaf of bread.  Folks who could "afford" to leave the ends in the bag, perhaps, were fortunate, and wealthy. They didn't have to eat the ends, so they would meet in the bag.  Those who couldn't "afford" to waste food wouldn't 'make ends meet' because they'd eat the ends, too.   

Now this gave me pause, too, because the ends always seemed a great slice to eat to me - for toast, peanut butter, tuna or egg salad - the ends were sturdy and held up like a roll in my opinion.  I guess I've been a bread connoisseur for years.  But for some reason this was symbolic of wealth.  And I remember thinking, when I was on my own, I'd let the ends meet so I could find wealth... be wealthy.  (I confess, I soon let that go - because I like the ends!)

Well, now it seems waste of all kinds is a common situation for folks.  Does it symbolize wealth anymore?  Or gluttony?  Ignorance?   Wealth, or at least the perception of it, seems to be demonstrated through waste...of food, money through gas guzzling SUVs or even time as we stare at phones, sacrificing human interactions.   It's been going on for so long, sometimes I think folks don't even realize... or we do realize, but we want to seem "wealthy" so wasting something must show we are.  

While all of these are unfortunate, the loaf of bread brings me closest to waste of food each day and year in America, while simultaneously people are starving right here too. 

"According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 15.8 million children under 18 in the United States live in households where they are unable to consistently access enough nutritious food necessary for a healthy life.[1]   Although food insecurity is harmful to any individual, it can be particularly devastating among children due to their increased vulnerability and the potential for long-term consequences."

The amount of waste Americans produce each day is exorbitant.  The overall poverty rate was 14.5%, with 14.7 million or approximately 20% of children in the US living in poverty in 2013 [2,3].

While this was lower than noted in prior years, it's still abominable.

An estimated 50 million Americans do not have access to enough food [4] and yet 
food is the largest single source of waste in the U.S.   
More food ends up in landfills than plastic and than paper.

"According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 20% of what goes into municipal landfills is food.  Food waste tipped the scale at 35 million tons in 2012!  

The enormous amount of wasted food is weighing on our food system. An incredible 40% of the available food supply in the U.S. is never eaten, according to research funded by the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are going hungry and landfills are filling up." [5]

I hope this has all been worth sharing at the rate of 2 cents! :) 

References:
1. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/child-hunger/child-hunger-fact-sheet.html
2. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/14/PovertyAndIncomeEst/ib_poverty2014.pdf
3. DeNavas-Walt, C. & B.D. Proctor. (2014). Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013. U.S. Census Bureau.
4. http://www.epa.gov/foodrecovery/
5. http://harvestpublicmedia.org/article/food-waste-weighing-down-us-food-system

memories

My daughter read my blog entry over my shoulder the other day as I typed, and said she, 'never thought someone like [me] would have a blog.'  I asked her what she meant 'like me' and she couldn't explain, so I'm not sure if she thinks it's cool, or odd, but her next observation made me happy.   She proceeded to read aloud, dramatically emphasizing each word - btw, I can never belittle the dramatics... she gets that from me and I love it!  But as she read, chuckling, she said it sounded like a book.  And that was my 'aha!'  That's what I was going for so I'd succeeded... at least to a 10 year old who is dramatic. :)   She read it like a suspense novel and we both had a good laugh.

It's how I've been helping her with her homework too.  Studying colonial America, I'm hoping by interjecting some realism and humor, she'll relate to it better than I did in school, and remember not only the history with a smile, but our times together as well.  

Sir Walter Raleigh initially unsuccessful left the colony he'd set up to return to Europe for funding to continue exploring.  He returns to find England fighting with Spain.  So we joked in Spanish (which she's also learning).  He then sends John White back in a 2nd attempt, which begged the question - if he was so determined, why did he send John White in his stead?   John White returns 2 years later! [a long time to wait on this end, we commented] and finds no colony... just "CROATOANS" written on a sign posted on tree.  So it remains a mystery. But should it, we joked?  Raleigh clearly knew what he was doing sending someone else... so Raleigh's wife was probably nagging the whole time how Walt was a chicken.  And before White got back, these Croatoans might have eaten the colonists, or convinced them they had food so, to go with them... or was it all a dream by either explorer since after months on a ship, tossing in the waves, hungry and tired, what would you "see" when you hit land, legs and brain still bobbing as if on sea?  In jesting with my 10 year old, it made her think outside the box....and that's all I'm hoping to instill.

Being home with them after school these days has been the best thing that's happened to me in the past year.  My life changes with work, and my present ability to explore other opportunities and interests, as well as continue to fail at cleaning up my house, have been liberating.  Writing more in my blog, continuing to create stories & attempt to polish them in further progress, possibly exhibit my photography... how exciting!  I'm creating and the world is my oyster.  But the extra time I've had with my kids has been a priceless gift.  It's certainly informing my search for the next thing in my life... how to maintain some light fun and laughter in our days, so the memories are ones they'll hold forever with smiles.

The last snow...

I can only hope that today was the last snow storm of the Winter season.  And it dropped more snow than any of the many other storms that have managed to hit religiously, and relentlessly almost every Sunday for the past month and a half.  Winter wasn't going gently into the night... that was for sure.  With clocks springing forward this Sunday, we can only hope there still won't be snow on the ground, with the current predicted temps in the 40's next week... 

As I looked out at the blizzard falling snow today, as it piled up and up slowly and steadily on every static object outside, and as I go to bed knowing the next 2 days are due to be frigid, the predicted warmer days coming does instill a slight sense of melancholy.  For as much as I hate being cold, with my fingers acting as 2 personal ice-packs (until June) for sinus headaches or surprising little ones with a sneak attack on their bare necks, the stillness that accompanies snow fall is quite peaceful.  

There wasn't a bird in sight today, or in earshot. They were tucked deep in the trees, I hope, in their nests, awaiting those 40 something degree days.  The bright and cheerful sounds of a delightful Spring time bird have brightened my spirits the past week.  I joked recently that they sound so lovely, but it's probably the wife bird yelling at the poppa bird...."you told me it was going to be Spring soon.  This doesn't look like spring to me!  We just HAD to leave the South in March. You couldn't wait a couple more weeks. NOOO... we had to go when your brother went. Now look at us...covered in snow. Nothing to eat."  But to us it sounds like "tweet-le, tweet-le, ... chirp chirp." 

But I have faith in nature. The birds have been returning... so I'm certain warmer days are coming.  I was more certain before yesterday when slushy days were upon us... but now cannot believe there is over a foot of snow out there!  But Spring is near!  I hope!