Notes From Grain Bin B

Because it has the best acoustics on the farm, this grain bin (where we currently store old furniture) has been re-purposed...


Here are:

Jon, friend, Justin, Kevin, Michelle, and Dominic

singing Alma Redemptoris:

(They say to be clear that this was sung without their music)

And here are the boys in the same vaulted chamber

singing Irish folk song, Dúlamán...

Check out the English Translation of this Celtic song!
I guarantee the boys don't know how this translates.
But, I think it's pretty funny that the gist is: Look out, girls!
The opening lines are:

Oh gentle daughter, here come the wooing men
Oh gentle mother, put the wheels in motion for me.

(l-r: Dominic, Justin, Michelle, Kevin, Jon)

Kevvy is driving the boys back to Omaha this evening and returning Tuesday. We'll get Jon and Dominic back after Jon's graduation in a month!

Eine Kleine Haus Musik

Today is Jon and Dominic's last day at home before heading back to boarding school in Omaha. Our friend, Alena, is visiting and it's raining cats and dogs outside, so everyone is stuck in the house, which is not typical, but everyone is making do. I asked Jon to play some music for me to share and he chose this song, "Mirkwood," which was written by a very talented friend of the boys' (I have to give this young man credit! Bravo, Christoper Goering!). It's my new theme song. Since he didn't have the music, Jon just played the beginning and the end, the parts that he remembered. I panned around a little to show you some typical silliness. Doesn't rattle Jon a bit. He's been so inoculated to distraction, Jon could play the piano during an earthquake and not skip a beat!

=sigh= I'll miss my Jon tinkering away on the piano. I'll miss Dominic's silly faces. Knowing that they're in a healthy place for their bodies, minds and souls is good consolation, but the days can't pass quickly enough until Thanksgiving vacation.

But we're all always close in heart and prayer ~ now, when we're temporarily separated, later, when the children will venture off to build their own lives, and finally, when we'll inevitably be in different camps of the Communion of Saints. It's one of the greatest comforts of our Faith to know we're never really far away from each other when Christ links us.




And here is our church choir singing Jesu Rex Admirabilis. Dominic, Jon, and Kevin were singing bass this day, and Michelle was in the soprano section.

Progress Report

Still meeting ourselves coming around corners, if you know what I mean... It's hard to get on the computer to do much blogging. When I do, it's stolen time. Still, I feel bad for not having the chance to visit in the combox, lately. And I've not had the chance to do much surfing around, outside of my very closest blog buddies. Such a bummer, as this is cherished relaxation/re-energizing time for me! I didn't think I'd say this when summer began... July is not even over yet! But ~ I can't wait for school to start again! I need the rest, doggonit!

(OK, that's out of my system for the time being...)

Back to our scheduled programming. Here's what we're up to right at the moment:

We're not quite finished with our dining room yet... All the sheetrock is up, though ~ walls and ceiling. The painting is just about done, the trim all in place. We just have a bit of finishing work to get through, as well as outlet and switch covers and a new light to choose and install. I promise to post some pictures of the finished product really soon ~ but we had to stall further progress for a couple days this week, in order to help out at church. Our parish is in the process of finishing our new church building and preparing it for the big dedication ceremony in about two weeks. And since my husband...

( Hey, ya know... I hate calling him that ~ "my husband" ~ though that seems to have been the pattern I've stuck myself with... But it seems so stuffy! I think I'll henceforth just call him "Dad." That's generally what he goes by, anyway! But I digress...)

I was saying that since my husband ~ oh, I mean Dad ~ has the week off, we've decided to tackle some church projects before we finish up our home projects. Many, many skilled hands have tackled an amazing amount of work to prepare a fitting place for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Since we don't have the finer technical skills many of our friends do, we thought it best to volunteer for some good grunt work. And that is how we got to paint the dreaded "green room."

You see, there's this particularly large room with a piano in it... And, of course, the piano made it inevitable; we've adopted it as our very own bouncing baby rec room and dedicated it to St. John Bosco. It's going to be tons of fun outfitting it as time goes by with dart boards and games, etc. Unfortunately, though, at some time in its history, some creative spirit painted this room a uniquely noxious shade of leafish green ~ walls and ceiling. Agh! There's no question that before we can get creative in any other way, we have to make the green disappear.

Below are some shots of our room being transformed to white by Jon, Dominic and Michelle. They're getting to be quite the construction/painting/all 'round handy-people work crew! In spite of being so goofy in the process. (Yes, kids, you're pretty durn goofy.) We think Don Bosco must have been looking on well-pleased.

I was downstairs most of the day working on other projects, but I could hear how the children progressed by how how often they paused to play the piano and goof around. As long as their little "recesses" re-energized them, there was no reason to say anything, though sometimes I wondered how anything was getting done at all. At one point, while I chatted with a friend in the vestibule, we heard them sneak into the choir loft to play around with the acoustics. Here's what I captured:

When I came home tonight and downloaded this, they said: "Don't play that! It's awful! Oh, Mom!" But, I say they're being too persnickety. God gave them the wonderful church with a great choir loft and gave them the gift to sing in it, so they should share it, right? Aren't the acoustics great in there? I love hearing them sing together. (You have to encourage them here for me, so I can justify having posted it in spite of their whining. &:o)