7QT Saturday: I am a pitiful blogger

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So I've turned into a pitiful blogger who only ever posts quick takes.  This is my season of life right now, I guess.  Thanks to those of you who are still reading my nonexistent posts.

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Last night we had Panera for dinner... a welcome break after a long and stressful week.  Especially now that it is getting quite cold in these parts, we've done this on a couple of Friday nights when we're too exhausted to cook and just want to be warm by that fireplace.  The girls love it.

Instead of purchasing their $5 cookies for dessert like we did last time, we swung by the grocery store and got some ice cream and cones.  We scooped ourselves some cones at home, sang the ice cream song of course, and had a wonderful Friday night together as a family.

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...and then N did the "I win" dance.

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Speaking of N, she had her first "music show" at school on Friday, and M, L, C and I all got to go since M was working from home that day.  It was super cute... the theme was "Harvest Hoedown" and the kids all wore bandanas and sang fall-ish songs.  Pretty good for kindergarteners only a couple of months into the school year, I'd say.

See her in the back row?  Let's zoom in...

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I don't like being a snobby person, but sometimes I think that when you're a classical musician it comes with the territory just a little bit.  When I came across this video after grading my students' sight-singing today, I just couldn't help but laugh hysterically.

(Warning: this will not be funny to you if you're not a musician, and even then it may not be funny unless you've taught music theory or ear training.  Okay, you've been warned.)

(People use this website, xtranormal, where you can type in text and create these videos.  This is one of many music-teacher-related ones on YouTube.)

To my students' credit, they are nowhere near this unprepared.  Usually.  ;-}

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After a week where I felt like I was far from perfect and downright ineffective at most things that I'm doing right now (teaching, singing, mothering, homemaking, etc.), I was encouraged to read a link posted on Like Mother, Like Daughter's Bits and Pieces this week.

If you clicked over there, I know you're probably wondering what Facebook, pornography and finances have to do with me feeling inadequate.  Well, read this excerpt:

Facebook is most dangerous when it becomes a simulacrum of real experience, a life like mine only pruned and made perfect, with only my wittiest thoughts broadcast to the world, and only my most exciting events documented..... All this stems from a refusal to hope, to look to a good beyond what I already possess.  Hope of its nature involves looking confidently towards a good that is beyond me yet can draw me into itself; it is the confidence of renouncing control, recognizing that I do not have to force my life to be perfect by my own power. A relationship built on hope can transcend the ready-made categories of likes, dislikes, comments, and shares, and can grow through both hardship and joy, confident that the strength to endure and mature is a gift from outside myself, not a function of my power.

I'm not saying anything here of my opinions regarding Facebook or social media or blogging or the internet in general... I'm just sort of taking this quote out of context to show that it had an impact on me.  Sometimes I don't realize how wrapped up I am in appearing perfect until I feel like I'm not.  When I feel not just imperfect but really kind of bad and seriously flawed-- that's a tough pill to swallow.

When I read those words above, however, I took great comfort in the fact that none of us are perfect, even the ones who appear to be so on the internet.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to be our best, but it does mean that the people who really matter in our lives love us best because we are imperfect... and real.  Hanging out with my girls in these past few days has taught me a lot about that.  And I'm so grateful to everyone in my family, and my friends too, who embrace me because I am flawed and fallen.  And we can love each other more deeply because of it.

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Since we started this post on the subject of ice cream, let's end it there too.  Here's my girls after we cashed in their free Jr. Frosty coupons that we got from Grandma in our Halloween buckets.

(That's her "cheese" face-- although it looks like she's in pain, she's actually very happy.)

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