Please forgive, my dear readers, the unexplained silence of the past weeks. You see, along with a few dramatic alterations I've made to my life, a recent series of slightly consternation-causing events have been thrust upon me as well.

        I know, I know, you came on here to find out the cause of the unusual titling of this post....when you've read to the end, comment if you read the post simply because of the title.

       Okay, to get right down to it. At the start of this year I made two decisions which radically changed the order of my day. The first, more dramatic rather than necessarily traumatic, was my decision to get rid of my bed. You may be asking, "Now why would you do a thing like that?" Fear not my friends, I have no plans to become an Ascetic nor am I contemplating reducing my wardrobe to a solitary weave of fabric and color. I didn't get rid of my bed because I slept too much, because I considered it carnal, or because I wanted to get another one. I did it simply because I desired for other purposes, footage it occupied.

    For months, the bed had been bothering me. I wanted a desk, but there was only so much space in my room. Plus I wanted to move all my music operations, including violin, banjo, and my stacks of music into my room, but both of those things weren't going to happen. It was either/or, and even one, was doubtful, with the great hulking bed glowing in it's voluminous corner, or should I say, third, of the room.

      I got the idea when a friend of mind got rid of her bed for a different reason, and after I realized that I could sleep just as comfortably on the floor as anywhere else with three pillows and a blanket. The thought had simply never occurred to me.

    Get rid of my bed, I might as well contemplate the removal of the skyscraper sized dust bunny beneath my bookshelf. It just wasn't an option that crossed my mind...I'm indebted to my friend for the brilliant solution.

  The deed was done on January 2nd, my brothers hustled in and, each in his own singular fashion, disassembled my bed and removed it from the premises. I shall say I wasted no time in purchasing a desk and relocating my musical goods. I've been very happy with my room. I can now, roll up my "bed" and stuff it in the closet every morning and I love having all my music accoutrements in one place. That change has been very satisfactory. I can enter my room with the smugness of a carpenter who has just built a very sturdy house for himself.



       So that was the dramatic decision of 2018. Let me tell you about the traumatic one.

  I got rid of my laptop.

     Yep....you heard me. I know what you're thinking, I'm enough of a regressive that I refuse to get a smartphone....and now, I just got of the one "mobile" electronic device I do have. It's been hard, I'll admit, but after getting rid of it, I really understood how much the deed needed to be done. Okay, I didn't toss it in the dumpster. I gave it to my mother and asked her to hide it in a place I'd never find it, so I wasn't tempted to dust it off in a moment of weakness. You see, now that I'm done with school, I really don't need to spend that much time on the computer. Everything that needs to be done can happen here where I am now at the general family computer in the common area, where I can't hide away and watch movies which was exactly what I was spending my spare time doing. Not a good thing, people. And thinking about it, how many really good movies out there are there? Yep, it definitely wasn't healthy. I was staying up late, neglecting my family, music, and friends and all around, wasting my life. I had prayed, attempted to stop before, but with the computer there, I'd always come back. God helped me see that prayer wasn't a substitute for obedience. Active steps needed to be taken to obey and He made it clear that for this season, at least, the computer needed to disappear.

   For days after I'd determined to do it, I struggled with the decision, but after one very late night, I quickly packed up my computer (so quickly in fact, that my mother had to go back and dig out something I'd forgotten to take out of the bag after she'd hidden it) and handed it to my mother before I had time to reconsider. My addiction was like the ring from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I hated to give it up, but was so much happier once I did...it was like a weight taken off my shoulders. I've been absent of late because I have been trying to catch up on all the things I let slide over the past few months such as my writing and composing as well as regular music practice and learning new songs.

    And there it is, what more can I say? Let me know if you agree with my drastic decisions and the reasons behind them.

        I want to close by sharing with you the song I'm working on now. I've chosen Gabriela Benackova as my study as I'm learning Anonin Dvorak's beautiful aria Song to The Moon from his opera Rusalka. Czech is the hardest language I've had to sing yet, pronunciation wise. I must say, I can't make heads or tails phonetically of the connection between the way a Czech word is spelled and the way it's spoken. Ah - well, that's what pronunciation guides and voice teachers are for. :)

      Enjoy this lovely song...maybe I'll video the finished product when I've learned it and share it with you all. For now, have a lovely week, and do at least one thing you've wanted to do, and know you ought to, but haven't due to your own inhibitions.  

       Soli Deo Gloria

           ~ Christianna

        It snowed today. A little earlier in the season than usual but it was the usual amount: barely an inch. The news headlined that the south eastern states were hit with more snow than had been received in nearly three decades; but not here.

        The funny thing is that schools are still closed, operations are postponed. Even some stores are closed for barely an inch of snow which will probably disappear completely before nightfall, at least from the streets. I grew up in New Hampshire where the snow fell, the streets were plowed and business went about as usual. Snow just wasn't a big deal up there. It was expected as routinely as the dafodils are expected to sprout and bloom around spring. It began usually in late December or January to really stick around, and it didn't completely  go until late March. Sometimes we had snow laying around until mid-April, and once, it even snowed in May. I've hear that up in some of the high western mountains, the snow isn't completely gone until June. But regardless, where snow is a regular occurrence, it's dealt with. People live their lives as normal. Down here, snow scares people just a little bit, everyone anticipates it. Children are given the day off to pull out their cardboard sleds and coast down a hill where the snow is so scarce that you can  see the tops of the grass. New Englanders come down and laugh, but southerners take every millimeter of snow seriously.

       I guess I realized it's a little like trials can be in one's life. So far in my life my trials have come in millimeters and inches, I've probably had no more than a foot of real trouble in my entire life. And I look over at the people who have troubles piled up to the second story window and wonder how they manage. How do they take it and yet live such joyful lives when a dusting of trouble immobilizes me?

      That's when it really hit me that God gives the grace to each person that he needs to get through his own trials. Half of the reason that North Carolina is blocked up in the event of a smattering of snow is that we don't have the number of plows or necessary equipment to make the roads safe when there's snow. When we might only get an inch of snow, per winter, it's not cost effective to keep snow plows around. When it does, pickup trucks are pressed into service, fitted up with little plows and dispersed to clear the main roads. I still remember the great big orange plows that would come through our street up North, though, they dwarfed the pickup trucks and the plow itself was twice the size of those down here. Up north they were equipped to handle it.

       When we lived up North, we had about six snow shovels and just as many ice scrapers to clear out the driveway and scrape the ice off the car. Down here, we've gotten rid of all our snow shovels and we have to dig out our ice scrapers from a dusty corner of the garage when it actually freezes to the point we can't just send the ice sliding off with windshield wipers.

       When the trials in our lives accumulate to several feet, God will give us snow shovels; when path seems completely blocked, God will send us a snowplow, but as of yet, I haven't needed a snow plow for my troubles when they can all fit in a snow shovel.

      What's my point in all this? Simply that as we start off the new year, with sundry cares and worries that have chased us into 2018, lets stop and remember that God has given us the equipment to deal with what we have. Down here, snow is fun and a little bit of a novelty, nobody bothers with snow plows or shovels because they aren't needed; we have what we need to deal what we have, just like New Englanders are equipped with what they have to the measure of snow they receive. If God fills your proverbial driveway with trials this year, look around, he'll not only send you a snow shovel, but also, a few friends to help you clear it out. If the drifts pile up to your bedroom window and block the door, he'll send a neighbor with a snowblower to clear it away. And, sometimes, when God sends snow, I've realized, I just need to take a deep breath, relax, and build a snowman!

       Alright, that was kind of a funny thing to start the year out with, but I hope it's as encouraging to all my readers as it was to me to muse over this little truth.

       Okay, I want to leave you with a winter song.

       I always get frustrated when people try to drag snow into Christmas, it really has nothing to do with it. Why is "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" associated with Christmas? I don't know because it doesn't even so much as mention the word in the song. And let's not even start with "Let it Snow" anyhow, I'm not going to share either of those today, though they're a couple of examples. The song I'm sharing does pretty much hint that it's talking about Christmas but the subject is basically how to keep cheerful during the cold winter days. I just love the part that goes "All grudges forgot, are put in the pot, all sorrows aside they lay..."

    So whether you already have foot of snow or live in a stuffy state like California where the weather is stuck at the same setting all year(I don't think any Californian's read my blog so I'm clear to slam the state, if you do live in California and are reading this please understand that my dislike of the state doesn't necessarily translate to you), this song is a good one to cheer the spirits on a bleak day or when it's too cold cold to go outside, or all the activities for the day are cancelled because you live in the south like me.

    Enjoy "To Drive The Cold Winter Away," an old English folk carol. I find it rather hard not to get up and dance a jig to this one....when it's performed properly. ;)

     Okay, I'll leave you all to your respective winter days. I'm going to go dig out an ice scraper from a dusty corner. ;)

    ~ Christianna