Thursday, December 27, 2007

Music vs. TV? Music Wins.




I often have this little exercise with myself. “If I could keep only music or TV in my life, which would I choose?” Takes about a New York second to answer “Music.”

In the spirit of that, there are two two albums lately that are occupying a lot of playtime on my iPod. The first is Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Music Hall. It's an acoustic performance full of emotion and raw instrumental talent. Dave collaborates with Tim on a lot of his solo work and while they still play lots of Dave Matthews Band material, I’ve found that his solo stuff with Tim has a different flavor to it. On this, they play a number of songs that I’d not heard from Dave before and they instantly hooked me. Songs such as Oh and Eh Hee and The Maker. I love it when that happens.

Moving me even more than Dave’s latest is the soundtrack to the movie Into the Wild, comprised of songs primarily written and performed by Eddie Vedder, frontman for Pearl Jam. He’s never sounded better and it’s a CD worth picking up, even if you have no interest in the movie or book, which are both worth watching and reading, while you’re at it. Trust me, listen to Long Nights or Hard Sun and tell me those songs had no impact on you. I dare you. . .

You can have my TV. Take it, in fact. But you’ll get my iPod when you pry it from my cold, dead hand. . .

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Teach Your Children Well

Now that it’s Christmas time, and he’s old enough to begin to comprehend, we’ve been teaching our four-year old about the fact that other boys and girls might not have the things that he and his sister have. We’re doing the Salvation Army Adopt-A-Family for Christmas and have been explaining to Alex how that works.

Apparently, he’s getting it.

Last night, as we were putting him to bed, we were telling him about how we’d be stopping at a holiday toy drive this morning where I work to drop off some new toys. We explained that it’s for kids who don’t always get toys for Christmas.

Then, unprompted, came this comment from him:

“I want to give some monies to the boys and girls from my piggy bank.” At which point, he walked over and grabbed his piggy bank off the bookshelf. We helped him pull out some change and put it in an envelope, while at the same time shooting each other looks that said “Can’t believe he said that on his own.”

Teach them young and teach them well.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Have You Put Up Your Christmas Treat?


We’re all in the car the other night coming home from the Y and were looking at Xmas lights on houses along one of our main roads. Alex promptly tells us that "We need to put up our Christmas ‘Treat’ or Santa won’t come to our house."

I looked at Jen and said "did he just say Christmas Treat?" So, we asked him to repeat it. He said it again.

Jen said "No, Alex, it’s a Christmas tree." "No, Mom", he said firmly, "it’s a Christmas treat!"

So, needless to say, we’re going to try to put up our Christmas Treat in the corner of the living room this weekend.
Hope you've all done the same!