Thanks Mills

So I read Mills latest blog and I got thinking. What I would like to have at some point in my life is a big house. Off topic? hahaha no.
If I had a big house I could have all of my friends over. We could spend long winter days there, curled up eating foreign fruits and good things lol. Crabs and lobsters, pomegranates and grapes and oranges, venison and maybe some medallions (pork : P ). We'd eat amazing desserts like french silk pie and other delicious European sweets. We'd read books and listen to music and sing and play instruments. We'd laugh and argue and hug. We'd uplift and forgive one another more times than we could count. No one would be left out and we'd go on adventures discovering the beauty of winter outside in the trees and places that surround my house. We'd stay up late drinking hot chocolate and tea, watching the snow fall out in the dark.
A Christmas tree would be cut down and dragged into the great room of my house lined with windows with heavy drapes that were always pulled back. The tree would be placed in the center of the room. It's ceiling a great dome, allowing the tree to be as tall as we pleased. A great fresco painting would exist on the ceiling all of it leading to the center where a great flurry of stars would mass and explode outward. The top of the tree with its Angel Moroni would stand just below this. He would be at least a foot tall, made with the perfect metal so as to shimmer and shine for all to see. Christmas lights wrapped around the trunk and draped amid the branches would make it glow from within.
Old ornaments would be hung. Delicate ones of spun glass and porcelain. Wooden ones and woven ones. Ornaments recently made and ornaments handed down for generations.
They would all come from there many homes for one week. We would hide ourselves in the mountains for a while to remember the past and dream of the future.
Books would be stacked by chairs in great piles. Cd's and movies would be littered on tables.
The fire place would be on the opposite side from the front entry. It would be big enough to fit a grown man or two with a beautifully sculpted mantle decorated with pictures of families and cards from loved ones.
We would all come to spend a week in this house, and we would bring all of the decorations and new recipes to try out. We'd go outside on adventures the old fashion way with sleighs and horses and the like with dozens of blankets.
The front entry would be large enough to hold fifty people easily with rows and rows of shoe shelves and coat hooks. A great closet with snow shoes and ice skates brought to the house years ago and well worn from past visits would branch to the side. The walls would all be circular. The front door would be the height of two men. It would have panels of ornate carvings with figures from long ago. On the far side would be the door to the rest of the house. It would be unadorned and without decoration except for a great wreath hung from the top. All of it would be made from the wilderness outside with berries and winter flowers and pine boughs. Through this door you would enter into the great central room.
Its panels of glass windows would be lined with great couches and chairs. Some would face in and others out towards the glass. All would be luxurious in material and perfect in its comfort. For those tired of soft lounging chairs made of sturdy wood or beautiful stone would be interspersed. Great thick lap blankets or soft light throw blankets would be placed near each. A table would be on the other side. Between each setting would be a larger table of a variety of material. All would coexist beautifully in unexpected but wonderful combinations. Connecting wall to ceiling would be colored glass of all shades. The panels would be diamond cut and about two inches across and three inches long. Each would be a different color and there would be no order in its placement. After this the fresco would begin with the deepest black becoming a dark blue near the center that would be accented more and more with star and cloud.
The entry door would be facing West, the fireplace facing East. At North and South would be two french doors. The North made of a dark mahogany wood, the other with a pale, pale aspen. Each would depict in its carvings characteristics of its direction.
Behind these doors hallways branched off. Along these hallways doors would be placed leading into each set of rooms. The wall of the hallways would match the wood of their North or South entry doors. The doors along the hallways would each be individual and none would be similar in any way to the next.
Each occupant would be placed in a suite that matched their character well enough so as to make them comfortable.
These hallways would end in another door. This door would be taller and grander than all those in the hallway and would hold either a grand library on the North or a musical room on the South. The library would be magnificent in size and almost perfect in its knowledge, holding books on the technical things in life and also the unknown and fantastical. The music room would hold any instrument imaginable with hundreds of thousands of musical texts. Each would hold more chairs and couches for comfortable study or performing. At the opposite end of the library and music room would be another door.
These doors would either lead to the kitchens on the North side or the storage and cleaning rooms on the South. All of these rooms and suites would be circular in shape except the hallways ( : P ).
So you can think of this house sort of like a snowflake. There would be one grand circle holding it together with three branches coming from it. All of these branches would be like bubbles coming from it that would connect to more bubbles. So maybe not like a snowflake : P
Oh and each room would have it's own fireplace.
Oh and connected to the kitchen and such would be an underground tunnel leading to the barn where animals would be kept, though dogs and cats would be hugely welcomed in the main house.
Oh and all those who help take care of the house and everything in it would get big pay and be a part of the family.
I think we'll need more than a week to spend here... and maybe everyone could bring their families.... It's gonna be a big house.
I pray one day I will be able to build something like this.
This is the second house I've made up, but the other one wasn't nearly as good as this one.
Well, you're all welcome to come whenever you want.

Music

So I'm kind of in love with music

"Something Told the Wild Geese"

Something told the wild geese it was time to go
Though the fields lay golden something whispered snow
Leaves were green and stirring
Berries luster glossed
But beneath warm feathers something cautioned something cautioned frost

All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice
But each wild breast stiffened at remembered Ice

Something told the wild geese it was time to fly
Summer sun was on their wings
Winter, winter, winter in their cry


I love this song. I sang it in the choir I sang with in middle school. I've been thinking of it lately, trying to remember the tune during the orchards and remembered ice. I've been humming it lately along with


"Carol of Joy"

Green leaves all fallen, withered and dry;
Brief sunset fading, dim winter sky.
Lengthening shadows, Dark closing in…
Then, through the stillness, carols begin!

Oh fallen world, to you is the song—
Death holds you fast and night tarries long.
Jesus is born, your curse to destroy!
Sweet to your ears, a carol of Joy!

Pale moon ascending, solemn and slow;
Cold barren hillside, shrouded in snow;
Deep, empty valley veiled by the night;
Hear angel music—hopeful and bright!

Oh fearful world, to you is the song—
Peace with your God, and pardon for wrong!
Tidings for sinners, burdened and bound—
A carol of joy! A Saviour is found!

Earth wrapped in sorrow, lift up your eyes!
Thrill to the chorus filling the skies!
Look up sad hearted—witness God’s love!
Join in the carol swelling above!

Oh friendless world, to you is the song!
All Heaven’s joy to you may belong!
You who are lonely, laden, forlorn—
Oh fallen world! Oh friendless world!
To you,
A Saviour is born!

Hearing this song in my inner ear is more powerful than any song I have ever sung. The beginning makes me think of families. Mothers and daughters and lovers and children; our tender ones crying out in pain at the death of a loved one. And then, oh the glory of the sound, the sound of hope that rises up above the earth to caress the heart of God. The thought of the same voices that moments ago have lamented and wailed are now listening to the angels sing in all their glory, proclaiming joy. It is truly magnificent.

The sky is a pale gray today. The wind that comes in through the window is cold. Bare branches shoot out into the pure gray. (String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op.44/1: II. Menuetto: Un Poco Allegr) Ghosts of images are building in my mind. Swimming around this music. It takes shape in my inner eye. A white stag. Antlers tall and majestic. He stands in a valley. The sky above him is filled with low brooding clouds that cut the surrounding mountains in half. The grass beneath him is dead with frost. He turns and begins to make the climb up. Soon he is there. He disappears in the clouds that cling so tightly to the mountains.

What?

I wake up late since I have no place I have to go today. No one is home. Suzanne is probably out picking up Mom from work.
The news is on. Breaking news. Seventy-eight people are known to be dead. Terror washes over India. The attackers are targeting people with British or American passports. Luckily, no Americans are known to be dead. How could the news reporter say that? Now, he didn't say "Luckily" but that's what it felt like when he said it. Seventy-eight people are dead, but so far none of them are Americans so it's okay. Now, I'm not saying that when anyone is killed the U.S. Government should step in and "take care of it", but why is it not as bad just because no one from our country is dead? Why can't we, as humans, care? Why can't we do all that we can to help those two-hundred people who are injured? What would give me hope is the news person announcing that a group of people have banded together and are on their way right now to try to do something good in Mumbai.
But no one is.
No one will do anything until there are some dead Americans. Is that the only thing that will make us do anything good for anyone, dead people?
I thank the people out there in Mumbai who are taking pictures and sending in videos to the major news companies. At least they are getting the word out about the horror of human anger.
May I search for a way to make a difference in this world, not because people are dieing, but because people are living and they deserve better.

Old one

So while I was setting this blog up I was looking through my drafts in my email and poof, I glanced over some old stories I wrote forever ago and a line from one of them caught my eye. "I hold life in my hands." A memory rushes to fill my mind. Sitting at the computer as I do now, expressing my feelings in the only way I know. Music and singing is a way to do so, but it is not enough. At least, not for me. Writing has always been the only way I have been able to find an outlet for the feelings I don't, and sometimes can't, share with anyone. So here, in this blog, I will share some of those feelings.

I hold life in my hands. It's my first step to such a bright future. I thought such light and happiness was in my future, but i never realized that at some point it would have to start seeping into my life. I laugh at myself now... I have been such a fool in this life. I'm going to let myself have happiness. Just because it has been long in coming doesn't mean it was never going to come, or that i was going to go through high school without it. One thing is still with me, the fear that it will not last. Every time this fear rears its gruesome head it seems false. But I cannot deny it. It will keep me in its grip for a while yet.