Thankful Thursdays

I thankful for amazing musicians that use their gifts to glorify God. One of my favorites, Tommy Walker with a great Christmas medley.

Enjoy!

Wacky Wednesday

So in an effort to blog more I have cool titles like today is Wacky Wednesday. Because lets face it Wednesdays can just be nuts. Here in the middle of the week the night mare that was Monday is only a memory And the glimmer of hope that Friday will be is just to far away. Now, of course, there's no guarantee that I'll actually blog more, but hey I'll try, you never know do you!?!?!

Anyway the other thing that made today wacky is the song I woke up hearing this morning. No it wasn't a Steam Powered Giraffe song ... well I guess I should clarify when I woke up at 2a.m. this morning the song running through my head versus the song that woke me up at 630 which was Brass Goggles by Steam Powered Giraffe.

Make Believe - Steam Powered Giraffe

My summer was filled with fun, by meeting the singing automatons, the Steam Powered Giraffe.
The video below was done on their last day of performances at the zoo. Sadly, I couldn't be there, though it would have been crazy fun! Michael Reed, one of the pet humans, has a little problem with his guitar and the results. Entertaining... Love how quick thinking Rabbit is.




Here appears to be one of (if not the first performance of Make Believe with a bonus track of Little Birdie. Of course, Rabbit improvises here as well.  Gotta love his creativity!!



If you like to know what Rabbit is suppose to say then this video is the one to watch.

All She Wants...

So today was a fun time celebrating October birthdays in the department... I won't bore you with all the details but this song came up in conversation...

ENJOY!!!

Oh how the mind works

This morning coming to work I was listening to John Williams and Indiana Jones music was one which made me think of this video:

See You Around

This past Sunday at about 1:30 am a dear friend went home to be with the Lord. It's been a tough week dealing with this lost.  Today driving home I was listing to Petra when this song came on and reminded me of some of the foundational truths.  That we shall be together again where there will be no more fears and no more tears.
And for our Spanish  speaking friends....

Friday night and here I sit

Here I sit on a Friday night, watching old reruns of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Isn't that pathetic!?!? It's okay, I've come to accept that is the story of my life these days. This was a busy week with lots of highs and lows.

I got to spend some quality time with a couple of good friends this week. I took pictures at the APU Baseball game Wednesday night. They won 12-2. You can check out my pictures from the game here: http://www.apu.edu/athletics/baseball/stories/18353/

This week I received one of the best requests for assistance I think I've ever received.  I almost cried from laughing to hard.  Here it is for your reading pleasure.  Of course, the very creative author asked me to name names.


The Office that shall remain nameless wishes to extend an invitation for you to conduct a private screening and primer on the wonders of Google docs.   Items of concern most particular to the nature of our work will benefit from your tutelage as you share the vast areas of your expertise.   Your audience will consist of captivated and motivated learners, eager to bask in the highlight of Holly.  That just trips over the tongue, doesn't it?  The Highlights of Holly.....I'll work on that.

In turn, not only will you receive the sincere gratitude of your audience, though small in number but mighty with enthusiasm, you will be treated with a small token of our appreciation. 

After receiving your anticipated acceptance of this offer, I will be happy to schedule the date and time for our "Highlights with Holly Hour".  (There!  How does that sound?)

Eagerly awaiting your reply.......

Of course, I said yes, after all I can hardly wait for my "treat."  It is an office of wonderful people that are a joy to be with and I love the opportunity to talk about Google Docs and helping people see how it will fit for their work.

I've used this video several times, but it's the one that wakes me up every morning.  Which is a really bad song to hear on Mondays, let me tell you. But it's Friday and time to celebrate! (It looks like my original video doesn't exist anymore, but here's a live performance)

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I’m blown away at the fact that this is the third day of December and only 28 days left in 2011. I remember as a kid complaining about how long summer was and my dad would tell me, just wait the older you get the faster the time will go by.  Was he ever right?  Hard to believe he’s been gone 17 years this month.

Things have been busy, of course.  I’ve been doing a lot of photography. My baby girl, Lily, is getting to be more and more fun, her Mom and I are going to need to be more creative since she is no longer satisfied sitting in one place looking cute. I did a family photo shoot the beginning of November and the pictures came out GREAT. I was so please. Of course there was APU football, women’s soccer and volleyball that presented some great challenges and some nice opportunities. I did pictures for one of the departments at the beginning of the school year and hopefully will be doing pictures for our Campus Safety in the near future as well. 

Christmas means music. I didn’t do a choir at church this year, when I should have been planning all of that, I was extremely tired. But we are still doing lots of music and having fun with a new guitarist on the team. 

Work has been good, lots of challenges. But I’m enjoying my new office, though I miss the beauty of East Campus and ready access to our students. I need to find the balance of enjoying my solitude in my office and spending time with the students.

One of my new projects is Bible 360. It came out of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is a relatively new Christian talking about wanting to read all the way through the Bible, starting at the beginning. And although I think it is important to read the all the Bible, I struggle with the concept. I don’t think God necessarily wants us to read every chapter of the Bible in a year as much as He wants us to read the Bible every day of the year.  So the idea with Bible 360, is read one chapter of the Bible a day. Reading the New Testament, Proverbs and about half of the Psalms. I finished the schedule today.  I’ll use the website and the church’s facebook page to post the schedule as well as have schedules that people can have and put in their Bibles. I’m excited about it and hope it can involve more than just my church family.  I need to write the January posts so they can be ready to go. 

I had hoped to introduce this song tomorrow, but we just weren’t ready. But it’s a great song…

So impulsive!

OK. So I heard of this website called flavors.me It allows you to tie websites, social networking into one place.  Kind of cool and like a dork I signed up for the pro!  I don’t know why!?!?  It just seemed like a good idea at the time.  Now… I’m asking myself WHY!?!?!?  Thankfully, it wasn’t too expensive, but still.  I’m such a dork sometimes.

Anyway, I’m thinking about moving “magnusonhouse.com” to point at flavors.me/hollymag321 

So when you go to magnusonhouse.com you’ll have links to all my websites and a preview of what I have to say.  Exciting right?

I haven’t posted a video in a while, here’s another one from one of my favorite groups Chicago

Wednesday Morning Chuckle… or Not

 

Been awhile since I shared one of these forwarded emails, but this one made me chuckle…

Groaners: Three Prayers

1. Here's one direct from my son who at four years old had started attending a Christian daycare. The evening of his
third day there, he insisted on saying "grace" at dinner. This was his prayer:
"Gone is great! Gone is good! Let us spank him for our food.
Amen."
(By Kas Healy)

2. One particular four-year-old prayed:
"And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

3. A teacher was drilling his young students on the Westminster Confession of Faith. The first question in the
catechism is "What is the chief end of man?" The answer: "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

One youngster seemed quite sure of himself as he anxiously waved his hand for recognition.
When the teacher called his name, he proudly blurted out,

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and annoy Him forever!"

He was possibly more right than we'd care to admit.

Here’s one of my favorite songs on Prayer:

You’re the Inspiration

Getting ready to start a new week.  Thankfully, shouldn’t be as crazy as last week, but it will be busy.  The start of a school year is always exciting.  This year we’ve had a busier than normal summer which has made preparing for fall extra difficult.  But it will be exciting!

Training week was a success.  It started out great with Tom Moon, the director of e-learning from In-N-Out.  It was a great time. We ended the week with a worship time and a devotion by our CIO.  It was a great morning.  It was nice for me to sit back and play keyboards.  I kind of miss those days.

This weekend was relatively quiet. Did an orientation for Haggard School of Theology, a photo shoot with my favorite girl, church today and trying to stay cool.  Which has been difficult.

Tomorrow is busy with 4 sessions, one of which will require me to drive to LA.  Not excited about that one!  The week will get easier.

As far as the title of today’s blog, I’ve been in a Chicago mood the past few days and this is one of many favorites.

This one is from the original recording with Peter Cetera, check out the styles from the 80s.  I never dressed like that, my parents would have killed me!  Enjoy!

Tomorrow is the day!!

It’s hard to believe that it’s finally here! Tomorrow Mark and I take off for regions unknown. Hopefully things will go smoothly and I don’t kill Mark!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to blog through out the trip.  I’m looking forward to many photo ops! 

I’m in U2 mood tonight so I here’s one of my favorites:

New lens

I love taking pictures at APU's football games, the only problem is once it gets dark the quality of my photos go now. So for the past several months I have been putting money away (mainly from a photo job I do from time to time). Then for graduation I got some money, well to make a long story short I was able to buy my new lens! It is really nice! Though I had a scare today when it stopped autofocusing. Thankfully my super hero Staphon figured it out, of course completely on accident, but I don't care, it's working again.

Here's a picture of it:





Isn't it pretty? It is a tamron 70-200mm with a f2.8 this will give me much better shots at the football games and baseball and even basketball or volleyball! Now with now school I can play more! It will also be pretty cool for my vacation this summer.

I am trying a new program on the iPad to do my blogging, it is suppose to allow me upload YouTube videos. Not seeing how that is working.



Enjoy Stormy Monday with Eric Clapton

Well, not a bad program, I need to check out the web site to see if I am missing something. Enjoy a little Eric Clapton.

Hmmm... I don't see a place to add my categories... Another bummer... Found the place for category setting.


Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A New Tool

Today I was finally able to catch up on emails and one was from my friend, Dave.  He asked if I used a blogging client to do my blogs and shared some he had heard about, one of which is Qumana. So I decided to try it out.

It is available for both Mac, Windows, and Linux.  The interface is OK, not super exciting but it is clean looking. It will be interesting to see how it handles YouTube videos. Seems half the time when I copy and paste the iframe code from YouTube into the WordPress interface it just disappears.  Which I find extremely annoying! So here's a little song for Monday!!

Be Our Guest

I think my all time favorite Disney movies was Beauty and the Beast. I'm not sure why, maybe it was the love story (nah that can't be it) the music, which was truly amazing. Or maybe it was the first movie I took my little Timmy to.  He did really well watching the movie and when we would go to Disneyland he wanted to see the Beast.  Oh the memories of when Disneyland was truly fun.

So why am I talking about old Disney movies of recent times??  I added a guestbook to the blog today.  Not sure why...  there's only a couple of people to sign it... HA!  So I'm begging you PLEASE SIGN THE GUEST BOOK!!  Of course, I'm probably going to get slammed with those lovely SPAMMERS!  So dislike the Spammers.  I've yet to figure out why they think they are doing anything to future their cause.  So annoying, so incredibly annoying.  So how knows how long the guestbook will last.

Regardless, this has been a productive week as well as a productive month.  For the second month at the gym my average visit cost me 67 cents!!!!

...So "It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now, we invite you to relax. Let us pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents..."

Merry Christmas to All and to All A Good Night!

Christmas is almost done. It's hard to believe.  I'm tired, mainly because I'm sick.  I've got this stupid cough, the type that aches all the way to my head.  I hate being sick, but what am I going to do.  Make sure I've got all my music for tomorrow and crawl into bed.  Oh there will be some drugs involved before I crawl into bed trust me.
I hope all have had a Merry Christmas.  I hope you've taken time to reflect on what Christmas is all about.  Sadly, I'm not sure I have as much as I should have.  I've let the busyness of lfie keep me distracted.  But as the writer of Lamentations writes in chapter 3:  The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (22-23). Each day I have the opportunity to take time to reflect. In the meantime, one of my favorite Christmas memories growing up was watching this Bing Crosby Christmas special with David Bowie

Twelve Days of Christmas

I'm passing on a post from Amy Deardon, a writer "friend" of mine. Even though we've never met, we've shared many emails.  I look forward to someday meeting her in person.  She has an amazing story of how she came to the Lord.  She ha written a very fun book that is a mix of end times and Biblical history.  You can learn more about Amy, her books, and her story at: http://www.amydeardon.com/

Last week she shared this story about the Christian Code in the 12 Days of Christmas on her blog: http://amydeardon.blogspot.com/ Here's what she shared...

There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me. What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?

This week, I found out.

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

Not Lost, Just Misplaced

OK, so it's been almost a week since I posted anything.  And trust me my life has not been boring.  Lots of interesting things.  So let's see if I can give a basic run down of the past week:

Wednesday - Received a hysterical email that I need to share, it was entitled Creative Photography.  Some great albeit creepy pictures.  Heard Tim perform at the Brass Coffeehouse Christmas concert.  Really fun, posted some videos of his group performing on Facebook.

Thursday - Took the day off from work, slept in a little but not nearly enough. Took Mark to the doctor.  Watched Mark meltdown when he found out he had to get 3 shots and a TB test. He also got his first experience with "Turn your head and cough" (yes, he'd have a fit if he knew I told that story)  Of course, I also got the "I don't want to talk about it"   Had lunch at Mongolian Barbq (YUMMMYYY!) Got my new lens (it's sooo cool) had a wonderful chat with a dear friend. Had choir practice, which was great.

Friday - Busy day at work, Ladies Homemade Cookie/Candy Exchange at church.  Played with my camera and actually shot on the manual setting and got some REALLY cool pictures.  Received a text message that simply said, "Pull my finger Magnuson"  Yes, there's more to the story, but not sharing that now...  HA HA

Saturday - Erwin worked half the day, Mark had bowling, I got my hair colored, not a super exciting day but it was good.

Sunday - Church, 3rd week of advent and our 3rd installment of the Advent Monologues. Our Magi did an amazing job!  I was so pleased.  Other than the monologues have been a little long, they've been good. Tim didn't want to sing with the choir, he kept saying "I'd rather conduct" so I said, "do it"  He did a great job!  Some ways I'm a little sad to see him change his major from Music to Computer Science. But he needs to walk his path, and I do believe he's making good decisions and he'll be happy in the long run.

Sunday afternoon was our traditional Christmas Caroling and Chili dinner.  Of course the 80 degree temperatures made it interesting.  We still had fun and people enjoyed it.  The chili was good too.

So, that sums up the week except for today.  Had a training at 9 this morning, which quite honestly I hate Monday morning trainings.  I'm just not in a good mood before 10 AM.  And things didn't go well.  But I got a lovely email informing me that I would be receiving animals for Christmas so the day became much brighter.

And the evening end with me sliding into the playoffs of the MagnusonHouse and Friends Fantasy Football league.  I had to beat by brother-in-law by 17 points to edge him out for the 8th spot in the playoff.  Of course, next week I play the #1 seed, one of my favorite people, even though, I haven't heard from him in MONTHS/YEARS who can be loud and obnoxious but I still love him!  And this time I don't have to worry about it being in the PC, by the guidelines of the Respect and Esteem training way.  He's no longer a co-worker. So I can LOVE YA KENNY!!!  But I hope I BEAT you next week!!!!

What adventures are in store for the week?  No idea, but I'm going to try to enjoy each moment as they come!

And here's a little Christmas Cheer!

An email that made me smile...

This week has been pretty good. Solved some issues a couple of which were just really weird. But this email today cracked me up.
Last night as I was leaving another APU faithful employee was getting into her car. She seemed to be as tired as I felt. We exchange a brief conversation and got into our cars. I really like this person and felt bad for her and how tired she looked on a Monday.

This afternoon she sent me the following email...

Holly….you made me chuckle so last night….and I have passed on your comment to a few friends today….

I haven’t given your name, just that “my friend said”….

“Today was pretty productive, I feel like I might have made a difference in the world…..last week, I think I was pretty much a burden on society.” I’m still laughing (smiley face didn't copy)

I'm really glad she included what I had said... for the life of me I couldn't remember.  This short term memory lost is really starting to bug me.

I'm glad I made her laugh.  She's another one of those "neat" people that I don't see nearly often enough. She has a great husband that works at the University as well and a brother-in-law well...  her brother-in-law total other story.  We tended to "fight" with each other on band trips until he made some "smart" comment, "You're starting to sound like my ex-wife!"  At that point Mr. Wolfe, the band director, was ducking for cover!  Ah yes... the memories of high school band trips!

But I digress... again...

So thanks to for sharing the email and making me smile.

For you a little Mannheim Steamroller - Joy to the World!

For Women Who Do too much...

I have zero advice, could probably use some because yes, I am indeed a woman who does too much.  Friday I had a little bit of a melt down and a friend of mine called to check on me.  It really surprised me because he had some fun stuff happening with his family so it really impressed me that he took the time to check on me.  So as I try to be more appreciative of the people in my life I sent him and email thanking him for taking the time and wanted to express how much it meant to me.  In his response he reminded me that I was just exhausted and he started listing all the stuff I do.  I got tired just reading the list and he didn't even mention my church stuff which during the Christmas season is just a killer as well. It was a much needed reminder not to beat myself up.

So for my faithful readers (both of you) take time to appreciate the people in your life.  Let them know how much they mean to you. The one thing that God has been really impressing on me the past several months is the importance of relationships. I do love people, even though large groups of people tend to exhaust me very quickly, I feel relationships are important. And I'm trying to foster good relationships rather than run from them out of fear of being hurt.

And for your listing pleasure another fun song and video from Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Wizards in Wonderland