If you’ve been following my tweets, you know that I’ve been entranced by Yann Tiersen’s music. One song in particular has engaged me to listen to this short piece over and over again and even learn how to play it.
As you know, my baby grand is left at my parents home. The only time I get to practice on the piano is when I would work close by, which is maybe once a week. After work, I would stop by and practice half an hour at a time. Altogether, it wasn’t enough because I had to quickly relearn what I taught myself from the week before. One day, I decided to practice the song for 3 hours straight and finally, I learned it. It took me a total of 5 hours to learn this lovely simple piano piece.
This is how Comptine D’un Autre Etre L’apres Midi came out after the 3 hour session. Be forewarned: My piano has not been tuned in over a decade and the acoustics in the room does not translate too well on video.
I could have played faster as I prefer a faster tempo for this piece. But my fingers started cramping. I must have played the song about 50 times. My whole family knew the song all too well enough to discern a misplaced note.
Seeing as I haven’t learned a song on the guitar yet and I have still yet to accomplish something on my list of resolutions, I am inclined to count this as 1 song learned this year (even if it wasn’t on a guitar). I want to learn more songs on the piano but we shall see. I get distracted easily when I’m visiting my parents.
One song down, two to go.
Filed under: Accomplish
I wish I had a lemon tree. I also wish I had a yard to plant a lemon tree. Then I wouldn’t have to go to the store each week to stock my home with a few for cooking.
Recently, I discovered lemons aren’t just used for cooking. My first indication of alternative uses for lemons was when my mom used them to get rid of the fishy smell in her hands whenever she worked with shrimp or seafood.
Then, I read a magazine article demonstrating the other uses for lemons – mainly as a cleaning agent that can leave a lovely fragrance around the house. You can use lemons for…
- Copper Bottom Pots/Pans – Dip cut side of lemon in salt and rub on spots.
- Countertops – Dip cut side of lemon in baking soda and clean non-marble and non-stainless steel type countertops. Wipe with wet sponge and dry.
- Dishes – Add a teaspoon of lemon juice to dishwasher to increase grease-cutting power to dishwasher detergent.
- Faucets – Combat lime scale by rubbing lemon juice onto the taps. Let it sit overnight and wipe with damp cloth
- Garbage disposal – Run used lemons through garbage disposal to clean it and give it a nice smell.
- Grout – Add lemon juice acts as a natural bleaching agent and can remove stains from grout.
- Laundry – Again, as a natural bleaching agent, lemons brighten whites. Add 1/2 c lemon juice to rinse cycle for normal size load
- Plastic Food Storage Containers – I’ve always had this problem when storing spaghetti or anything with a tomato base. Luckily, lemons can remove the stains.
As someone who has tested some of these alternative uses, I can confidently say that lemons are a miracle fruit. After cleaning with lemons, I had myself a nice tall glass of fresh-sqeezed lemonade. (more…)
FYI: Saturday, March 28 from 8:30p-9:30p (local time) is Earth Hour. We’ve all heard about Earth Day. But what is Earth Hour? It is an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Australia that requests people around the world to turn off their lights and unplug electrical appliances in an effort to save energy and raise awareness on global warming.
WWF Australia created Earth Hour in 2007 based on the success Thailand had in 2005 with the same concept. 2.2 million homes and businesses in Syndey, Australia participated in this event. In 2008, the event gained worldwide recognition with 50 million people from 35 countries participating in the event. Even the Google homepage last year turned their background black. It was reported that the energy saved around the world had lowered carbon dioxide emissions.
For 2009, it’s estimated more than 80 countries have committed to Earth Hour. And this time around, WWF Australia’s Earth Hour campaign has turned into a global election, if you will. Turning off your lights counts as a vote against global warming. The votes will then be presented to the world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Denmark at the end of this year.
Sources: www.earthhour.org and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour
P.S. If you’ve received a forwarded email about this from a friend like I have, then you already know the author of the email suggests using candles to see in the dark. Ummm…hello? Candles produce CO2 and they defeat the whole purpose of the campaign. So if you decide to participate in this worldwide event, try not to light a candle.
Remember how I was considering driving all the way to Capitola just to meet one of my favorite authors? I did. Or should I say my husband and I did. We arrived late at Capitola Book Cafe to a packed house and Chris Moore was already taking questions from the audience. A few things I learned about him:
- I finally learned the inspiration for his book Lust Lizard of Melancholy Grove – a bunch of unmedicated friends.
- The fictional town of Pine Cove was based on the small coastal town of Cambria, CA
- His book The Stupidest Angel was written to meet a deadline and meant to be released before the Christmas season. Now I know why I didn’t like that book as much.
- He carried a fruit bat charm around when writing Island of the Sequined Love Nun.
- I learned that Christopher Moore is as witty in person as he is on paper.
Even though we arrived late and didn’t get a seat, we were fortunate enough to be standing in the right spot to be close to the front of the line for his book signing. I brought four books for him to sign, Fool, Bloodsucking Fiends, A Dirty Job, and You Suck – three of them personalized to me. My hubby was there to capture the moment.
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- You can see my stack of books
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- He was quite tall but he didn’t HAVE to bend down to my level
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- “To Nina. You Suck – Not you.” Gee, Thanks.
Afterward, we went to Marianne’s for some ice cream.
BTW, you can listen to Chris Moore’s NPR interview here from last week.
Wow. I’ve been away from salsa for at least one month. I’m glad I was able to go yesterday since the guy to girl ratio was really unbalanced. But I’m also glad I went because my friend was the female teacher- who did a fabulous job as usual. I always have fun going to these salsa lessons, especially when it’s absolutely free. It’s pretty easy to learn, the moves make me feel sexy, and you can work up a sweat. Lessons here are very similar but not exactly the same environment as the salsa lessons you get at dance clubs. Obviously, salsa lessons at clubs you have to pay for. The clubs are also darker and you get to practice the moves you learn in a dance club situation. Here, the lights are bright and you still get to practice your moves afterwards without the dance club feel. I think it would be fun to go out sometime to a real salsa dance club to either watch really good salsa dancers or to dance with other salsa enthusiasts. One of these days I will…….but I don’t think my husband would want me to go unless he goes, too. He’ll just have to come out to Salsa Thursdays more often.
Here is my friend being teacher on a different night! Girl, shake that booty!
Filed under: Accomplish
New Year’s Resolution:
- Start a Blog
- Find a dentist
- Get a Digital SLR
- Organize my sanctuary (actually almost done but I’m gonna cross it out, anyway.)
- Update clinic wardrobe
- Get new cellular phone
- Sell my school books and other junk
- Go snowboarding at least once this season
- Make a beanie, scarf, mittens, and socks – under Stephanie’s tutelage.
- Finally go on our honeymoon, preferably in the Pacific Southwest, but that’s never gonna happen. I guess the Carribean is the next best.
Making a list of 10 is better than listing every single thing I wanted to accomplish this year. That number would be in the hundreds. I’d rather be happier accomplishing everything on my list rather than being disappointed in only getting half of the things crossed of the list.
By the way…
Welcome to my blog! Resolution #1 just got crossed off. And along the way, I hope to cross some more off this list. I wasn’t really good at writing in my diary when I was young so I suspect I won’t be as good at updating my blog either – but I will try my best. So why have one? I guess I was inspired by my husband’s blog and other food blogs and wedding blogs I’ve come across over time. They all had something to share with the world and I wanted to do the same in return.
