Winners are Grinners

Wow two posts in one day! :)

As mentioned in an earlier post, Tyler's flippaball team, the Sacred Heart Seals made the finals of their grade last week. So yesterday was Finals Day. Both Chris and I took some time off work to be there. It was particularly important for Chris to be there as he has the loudest voice and can got through the noise to give the kids instructions. They got away to a good start by scoring the first two goals but then the opposition came back with three in a row. Half time 2-3. Plenty of instructions from the sideline and the defence picked up. At full-time it was 5-5. So into Golden Time they went and we scored! The kids were SO excited to win. The school gets a trophy and the kids all get certificates which will be handed to them at school assembly on Monday. Tyler got to choose tea and so off to Maccas we went.

Chris coaching (Tyler's the one with his arms up)

Sacred Heart Seals - Winners of the B grade Flippaball final 2011

What's an election?

Scene: The three of us - me, Chris and Tyler - sitting on the couch. Chris and I are talking about remembering to vote in the election.

Tyler: What's an election?

Chris: Well it's when we vote for who we want to be the the government.

Me: He won't understand the concept of government.

Chris: OK, well it's when we choose the person we want to run the country.

Tyler: You mean he has to run right around the country?

Work those flabs!

It’s been an interesting week, full of birthdays (my Mum, Dad and I all have birthdays within one week of each other), singing opportunities and another session with the voice therapist.

The therapy session was intense and I felt quite wrung-out by the end of it. Lots more breathing and focusing on the muscles involved. I discovered that I am a tactile person when it comes to understanding these things – I need to actually feel what is happening – and so I spent time with my hand placed on various parts of my therapist’s mid-section, trying not to be depressed that she has abs and I have flabs!  We discussed the fact that we girls tend not to breathe freely because we are too busy holding our tummies in. All I can say is that if anyone is standing at right-angles to me when I’m letting it all hang out it they may find themselves thinking about having jelly or blancmange for dessert that evening. NB: I have never eaten blancmange, but I’ve always wanted to use it in a sentence. Excellent, another item crossed off the bucket list.

The evening after my session I was in charge of the programme for the Music Circleof the local Womens Club to which I belong (and which my brother-in-law somewhat unkindly but, it must be admitted, truthfully calls the ‘Grey Hair & Glasses Society’. Actually ten years ago it would have been more accurate to say ‘Wisteria Rinse & Glasses Society’, but I digress). As well as organising the programme of items, I was also performing a duet, an arrangement of Silent Night.

After work, I had a quick run-through. And discovered that instead of being all lovely and free after my therapy session, my voice had….gone into hiding. I could barely reach an F5. I walked into the kitchen and my other half, for whom classical music is something other people listen to while he listens to Glen Campbell, said “You wouldn’t have been happy with that”. Well that ratcheted up the stress-levels to a bicycle-clip factor of 8.5 in a heartbeat. What to do? I contemplated not doing it at all and then decided that with a combination of steaming, gentle warm-up exercises and a real focus on getting the sound forward, I could manage. And thankfully, I did. It certainly wasn’t as good as it should have been, but neither was it a disaster and fortunately the middle and lower register filled out nicely and blended well with my singing partner.  I emailed my therapist the next day to tell her what had happened and we both agreed that it was probably a combination of a long day, intense concentration during our session and the stress of organising the programme.

I sang again on Friday at a function, this time all was well. A rendition of Flanders & Swan’s ‘A Word on my Ear’ which is always great fun. Although it’s surprisingly difficult to sing off-key deliberately!

Work those flabs!

It’s been an interesting week, full of birthdays (my Mum, Dad and I all have birthdays within one week of each other), singing opportunities and another session with the voice therapist.

The therapy session was intense and I felt quite wrung-out by the end of it. Lots more breathing and focusing on the muscles involved. I discovered that I am a tactile person when it comes to understanding these things – I need to actually feel what is happening – and so I spent time with my hand placed on various parts of my therapist’s mid-section, trying not to be depressed that she has abs and I have flabs!  We discussed the fact that we girls tend not to breathe freely because we are too busy holding our tummies in. All I can say is that if anyone is standing at right-angles to me when I’m letting it all hang out it they may find themselves thinking about having jelly or blancmange for dessert that evening. NB: I have never eaten blancmange, but I’ve always wanted to use it in a sentence. Excellent, another item crossed off the bucket list.

The evening after my session I was in charge of the programme for the Music Circle of the local Womens Club to which I belong (and which my brother-in-law somewhat unkindly but, it must be admitted, truthfully calls the ‘Grey Hair & Glasses Society’. Actually ten years ago it would have been more accurate to say ‘Wisteria Rinse & Glasses Society’, but I digress). As well as organising the programme of items, I was also performing a duet, an arrangement of Silent Night.

After work, I had a quick run-through. And discovered that instead of being all lovely and free after my therapy session, my voice had….gone into hiding. I could barely reach an F5. I walked into the kitchen and my other half, for whom classical music is something other people listen to while he listens to Glen Campbell, said “You wouldn’t have been happy with that”. Well that ratcheted up the stress-levels to a bicycle-clip factor of 8.5 in a heartbeat. What to do? I contemplated not doing it at all and then decided that with a combination of steaming, gentle warm-up exercises and a real focus on getting the sound forward, I could manage. And thankfully, I did. It certainly wasn’t as good as it should have been, but neither was it a disaster and fortunately the middle and lower register filled out nicely and blended well with my singing partner.  I emailed my therapist the next day to tell her what had happened and we both agreed that it was probably a combination of a long day, intense concentration during our session and the stress of organising the programme.

I sang again on Friday at a function, this time all was well. A rendition of Flanders & Swan’s ‘A Word on my Ear’ which is always great fun. Although it’s surprisingly difficult to sing off-key deliberately!

Novmber = Birthdays

November is birthday month, in that my Mum, my Dad and I all have our birthdays within one week of each other. Both Mum and Dad's were birthdays of significance this year - 70th's. Both parents chose their style of celebration - Dad steadfastly ignoring the opportunity to party up (Hi Dad!) and Mum gathering close family together at a local restaurant. Helen and I arranged a delicious mud cake from Colonial Bakery for her birthday cake and we had a lovely time celebrating.

My birthday was during the week and to be honest I kept forgetting about it due to numerous other events happening in the same week. However my family made sure I didn't forget on the actual day, even though my birthday tea is atually tomorrow (due to the afore-mentioned numerous events). Helen and Mum colluded to get me this fabulous wall decoration that I had coveted since seeing it in E Hayes & Sons. I don't have a present from Chris yet - no, no don't get all huffy on my behalf, there's a good explanation! I am to get either a tablet, an e-reader or a laptop, but which one depends on a fair amount of research about what will work best. Tyler made me a gorgeous card which me a 'supper' birthday :) We had tea at the Lonestar where I scored a free dessert, being the birthday girl.

Other things we have done recently: Visited Tiwai for a family Open Day. It was really good to see where Chris works (although not very close up due to OSH contraints) and Tyler certainly appreciated the candy floss and kid's freebie pack. We also got to see one of only 29 keas in the world, and a fine fellow he was two. Tyler was quite impressed with him and likes to don this mask which was part of the freebie pack.

I've been doing a bit of singing and am getting getting geared up for my debut as a conductor. I'll be blogging about that here.

Tyler has been enjoying his sports this term and yesterday, he helped his Flippa Ball team, the Sacred Heart Seals get into the finals next week, by blocking all except one of the goal attempts by the opposition. Chris said the kids were so excited at the end that here were high fives and squealing and hugs galore.

Today, Tyler and I went to the annual Santa Parade. The weather was perfect and he enjoyed the floats, especially on where his friend's mother was driving and the friend was leaning out of the window grinning and waving furiously, yelling "Tyler!!!!"

Tyler seems to have picked up Chris' penchant for making lists. Last night, after Chris went off to work, I asked him what he wanted to do and he said "I'll make a list" and here's the result.

Beautiful Baroque

I think we all have a era of classical music that appeals to us the most. One where, if we were stuck on that Desert Island of radio fame, and were told that we could choose only music from one era, this would be what would choose.

For me? Baroque all the way baby. Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - quite apart from the quality  of those three, there's thousands of MP3 files right there without even thinking about other Baroque composers. Right from a young age I gravitated to the Baroque composers - both in instrumental music and in vocal. What would Christmas be without Messiah? (And my consequent discovery of Emma Kirby. Sshhhh, don't tell my singing teacher).

Of all the works I studied at High School, what do I remember - and can pretty much sing all arias and choruses of without a score still? Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Which incidentally will stand me in good stead when the choir I belong to, A Capella Singers  performs it next year.It wasn't until recently that I discovered the delights of the Arie Antiche, mostly thanks to the CD of the same name by Cecilia Bartoli. Love her or hate her, she certainly immerses herself in the arias. Deceptively simple they are. (Sorry, channeling Yoda there). My favourite? It changes from week to week. Right now it's Vivaldi's 'Sposa son disprezzata' If I could do that last trill as softly as she does at that pitch I would be a very happy soprano.

Beautiful Baroque

I think we all have a era of classical music that appeals to us the most. One where, if we were stuck on that Desert Island of radio fame, and were told that we could choose only music from one era, this would be what would choose.

For me? Baroque all the way baby. Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - quite apart from the quality  of those three, there's thousands of MP3 files right there without even thinking about other Baroque composers. Right from a young age I gravitated to the Baroque composers - both in instrumental music and in vocal. What would Christmas be without Messiah? (And my consequent discovery of Emma Kirby. Sshhhh, don't tell my singing teacher).

Of all the works I studied at High School, what do I remember - and can pretty much sing all arias and choruses of without a score still? Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Which incidentally will stand me in good stead when the choir I belong to, A Capella Singers  performs it next year.It wasn't until recently that I discovered the delights of the Arie Antiche, mostly thanks to the CD of the same name by Cecilia Bartoli. Love her or hate her, she certainly immerses herself in the arias. Deceptively simple they are. (Sorry, channeling Yoda there). My favourite? It changes from week to week. Right now it's Vivaldi's 'Sposa son disprezzata' If I could do that last trill as softly as she does at that pitch I would be a very happy soprano.

Cupcake fun

On Friday, Tyler brought home his latest choice of Library books. Usually these are of the Zac Power variety but this time he brought home a kid's cook book. "Want to do some baking Mum?" For those of you who don't speak fluent Child, this roughly translates as "You do all the preparation, mixing and baking and I will lick the spoons and scrape the bowl and then do any decorating required until I get bored with it".

The cupcake mixture was a bit different from the one I would normally use and added to the fact that our oven is playing silly buggers at the moment, we ended up with cupcakes that tasted good, but were crunchy on the outside and flat in the middle. Not to worry, the decorating surface was fine.

Tyler chose the colours for the base icing:

Some of our efforts with the newly-discovered icing writing pens

Mum's first effort

Tyler's depiction of Mummy. (Honestly, I don't drink much)

Tyler is now tugging at my arm, requesting that we make popcorn so off we go for another culinary adventure.