Monday, April 14, 2025

Lines from musicals that are nice to hold on to right now.

I always have a song in my head and fairly often they're from musicals. These days, here's a few songs/lines from songs that are nice to get in your head:

Do You Hear The People Sing? -Les Mis
I love how the chorus builds from basically a whisper to something really beautiful and powerful by the end.
"Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes"
AND this line: "beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?" 

The Story of Tonight -Hamilton
"Raise a glass to freedom
Something they can never take away
No matter what they tell you
Raise a glass to the four of us
Tomorrow, there'll be more of us
Telling the story of tonight"

That "tomorrow there'll be more of us" gets me

You Can't Stop The Beat - Hairspray
It's just hopeful and catchy mostly, but encompasses the whole of the musical- we're moving on from bigotry and prejudice and where we're headed is joy and dancing.

"And you can try to stop my dancin' feet
But I just cannot stand still
'Cause the world keeps spinning
'Round and 'round
And my heart's keeping time
To the speed of sound
I was lost 'til I heard the drums
Then I found my way
'Cause you can't stop the beat"


Defying Gravity - Wicked
(because obvioussslyyy)
"I'm through accepting limits
'Cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But 'til I try, I'll never know
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love, I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost"
AND
"And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me'
Tell them how I am defying gravity

Show Yourself - Frozen 2
Listen, Frozen 2 was really good and there's some pretty lovely songs in there. 
This part with Elsa and her momma:
"Show yourself, step into your power
Grow yourself into something new
You are the one you've been waiting for
All of my life (All of your life)"

And also since I'm thinking of Frozen 2, The Next Right Thing is also a good one to sing:
"But a tiny voice whispers in my mind
'You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing'"
AND THEN:
"I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make
So I'll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing
And with the dawn, what comes then
When it's clear that everything will never be the same again?
Then I'll make the choice
To hear that voice
And do the next right thing"
(so like basically the whole song)




Musical chairs.

Last year Aaron had the coolest birthday party- glowstick costume dance party in the church basement. Like 20-30 kids danced to all their favorite hits, ate some kid snacks, and played games. The cheap Amazon strobe lights we found made it even cooler.

We took a little break from dancing (aka running around the basement to music) to play some games. Musical chairs seemed like an obvious pick since we already had the music. Turns out these kids hadn't really played musical chairs before and they for sure were not prepared for someone to lose each round. We soon had several crying children and it was a whole thing. 

So, that was good to learn.

  

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

You're the best fing I ever see-ed

 Here's a list of cute mispronunciations that Clara has (that I can think of right now) that I'll be sad when she finally says correctly and some fun phrases:

  • "i-fream" (ice cream)
  • "you're the best (insert something you could be the best of) I eva see-ed"
  • when someone asks her my name she says it's: "pastor kelli"
  • she used to call penguins "pingos" and I haven't checked to see if she's got that one figured out yet, I hope not
  • dunna- dinner
  • anytime she see a duck she says, "look it's my duck fwends"
  • "that's a haul" (reserved for rides in the car 8 minutes or more)
  • "all betta?" what she says when I'm sad or sick and she hands me stuffies to make me better
  • "poop on a roof"- she made this up months ago and still says it alllll the time
  • "swirl" (squirrel). One time she came running to me sobbing because "a swirl surprised me!!"
  • "dose" (those, but used in place of your) For example, everytime she does something that I don't think I taught her, usually kinda naughty, I ask her who taught her that. She always responds with, "dose mom" (also I feel like this is a toddler version of a your mom joke)
There's more I bet!

Thursday, April 3, 2025

A different person.

23 years ago today one of my best friends in the world died. He was the very best. Full of life, joy, faith, and he was like cool and like this brother I didn't know I really wanted to have.

If I could go back in time and somehow prevent him from dying, I would, every time. 

I also don't think I would recognize myself today if he hadn't died. I'm a different person because of the way this tragedy and loss touched me as a high schooler.

I don’t know what to do with that, but I think about it all the time. 

(To be clear, I'm not at all an "everything happens for a reason" person. Especially because of loss. Just in case you thought I was inferring it, I wasn't.) 



Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Apples, peanuts, and crafts at Grandma's house

My grandma did daycare for us for my whole childhood. We'd come over in the morning still in our jammies and would leave right before dinner. I spent a lot of time with my grandma.

There's a bunch of things I could say about how fun and special that was, but today I want to talk about crafts. 

She made some fun crafts.

We'd make our own paper dolls, or draw pictures of ourselves and glue yarn on for big hair, or we'd trace ourselves on big butcher paper and draw in our face and clothes.  

We took paper doilies and made fancy valentine's for the people we liked extra. 

We made paper chains to countdown for Christmas, while listening to the Gene Autry Christmas cassette and eating chips and cheese and drinking hot chocolate.

I remember cutting an apple in half and it made that star in the middle and then we'd paint it and stamp them on paper. Maybe we only did that once, but I remember it was pretty special.

She also would show us how if you opened up the peanut shell, you'd see Abraham Lincoln. It's true. Ish. That's actually less of a craft and more related to foods making cool shapes, but you can see how my brain thought it made sense to include here. 

When I was older I kept doing crafts at grandma's house. Like every day. I'd sit in the guest room at the big craft table watching Nickelodeon and drawing things or painting things. One time my cousin Alexis and I took our developing skills and became young entrepreneurs: we made sets of stationary (which was basically sets of paper that we took from a drawer) and puzzles we designed out of paper, and then sold them to my grandma and great-grandma for a dollar. We made $1 each that day. They told us after the second time that they weren't going to keep buying things from us at those prices.

I love my grandma and she helped me be way more creative.  


Lutheran Amen

A lot of Lutherans can be a lil reserved and stoic and don't like to be all showy in their approval and when they're moved. If you find yourself in a crowd of a bunch of Lutherans that have just heard something particularly profound, instead of a bunch of loud "amens" (though every now and then I hear someone try one out) what you'll hear is a "hmmm." 

It can be translated to: 
  • that was a good point
  • that was deep
  • I hadn't thought of it that way
  • yes, thank you
  • interesting (but actually, not a Minnesotan interesting)
Basically, amen. 

If you ever get that response from a room of Lutherans, you really moved them. Just so you know, because you probably wouldn't know.