The Touch of the Master's Hand

I came across this lovely poem by Myra Brooks Welch yesterday for the first time in years. Hope you enjoy it!

Photo found at http://www.mystudios.com/manet/1860/musician/violin.html

 The Touch of the Master's Hand

 "Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But he held it up with a smile.
"What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar - now who'll make it two
Two dollars, and who'll make it three? 

"Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
Going for three". . . but no!
From the room far back a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet,
As sweet as an angel sings.

The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: "What am I bidden for the old violin?"
And he held it up with the bow;
"A thousand dollars - and who'll make it two?
Two thousand - and who'll make it three?
Three thousand once, three thousand twice
And going - and gone," said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand -
What changed its worth?" The man replied:
"The touch of the masters hand."
And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and torn with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd.
Much like the old violin.

A "mess of pottage," a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on,
He's going once, and going twice -
He's going - and almost gone!
But the MASTER comes, and the foolish crowd,
Never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul, and the change that's wrought
By the touch of the MASTER'S hand.

~Myra B. Welch

Guess?

Can you guess what I photographed this leg through? Put on those thinking caps!

Childhood Pics

Well, slow news day, but I found some old pics from my childhood and thought I'd share.

I used to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to ride this bouncy horse. I'd ride it until someone made me get off and go do something else. Still love horses to this day, and used to ride in rodeos and gymkhanas when we lived in Spain. *Sigh* I miss it!

Here I am at about 14 months old. It wasn't actually Halloween at the time, but I guess I liked to play with that pumpkin!

 

I was born in Paris, France, and here I am, half asleep, with a Paris doll that I received one Christmas. I still have that doll, although she's missing many of her accessories, and shoes, and socks, and jacket...

Dueling Dragons

Just looking through some photos and found these screen shots  from a video I took while riding the Dueling Dragons roller coaster at Universal Studios. Enjoy the "ride!"

Here we are just getting started...

About to take the first big drop of the ride...

 

Shadows...

 

A topsy turvy view of the world at high speed

 

Here they come--right at us!

 
 

A drunk bird's eye view...

 

The last thing we remember seeing...

(kidding, of course)

 

Here's a shot I took of the coaster from the ground. You can see where the coasters meet and look as if they are going to crash into one another. Always gets a lot of screams!

Photos! (and Art)

This very large, friendly butterfly was flying around my house one day last June and I couldn't resist taking its picture. Not sure what kind it is.

I saw this unusual-looking (to me) grasshopper at a rest stop on the way to my mom's house last year.

This, I believe, is a Cuban Tree frog. He hung out in this plant outside my living room window for days.

This is my attempt at art for today. It started out as a diamond and began to take on 3-dimensional characteristics, so I decided to put a "picture" in the center and tried to make the outside diamonds a picture frame. Bear with me, I'm still learning. ;-)

My Artistic Bone Revisited

Good evening, and Happy New Year 2010! One of the things I intend to pursue this year is exploring my creativity. As a child I used to draw all the time. I don't know why I ever stopped. Maybe it was one of those things that gets put aside for the serious business of being an adult. Whatever the reason, it saddens me now that I did not stay with it because I always feel more relaxed and at peace when I am creating something, whether it is something I'm drawing, painting, or writing. So, with that said, here are a few of my recent attempts at drawing. It's been forever and a day it seems since I did anything, so it's pretty basic, but still not bad considering how long its been. Hope you enjoy them. I seem to be in a flower/plant mood...

January 1, 2010

December 30, 2009 - The Punk Palm

December 30, 2009 - Sunflower

2009 in Review

I've never actually written a year in review before, so this should be interesting. I didn't even have anything in particular I wanted to say before starting to write. 

Overall, I would say 2009 has been a remarkable year for me. It had its crappy moments, but it had far more wonderful, inspirational and glorious moments, which are the only ones I will talk about here. A few months from this year stand out for me:

February - I traveled with a friend to Gainesville for a networking meeting and got to meet many, many wonderful, vibrant and intelligent people, and network and brainstorm ideas with them. It was a great opportunity for me to get to know my then relatively new friend a lot better. She's a great southern gal with quite a gift for gab (she calls it storytelling), and she's also got one of the biggest hearts around. I am proud to call her a friend and mentor.

March - My baby cousin gave birth to her first child, a boy, on March 30. She is loving motherhood, and because her husband is a photographer and web page designer, their son's life is well-documented on the family website.

June - During the month of June, PBS introduced me (and millions of others) to David Garrett, a phenomenal violin virtuoso from Germany. I was hooked immediately and have a been a huge fan ever since. I had never seen anyone play the violin the way he did and with such passion! If you've ever seen him perform, you know what I mean. He has truly been an inspirational person for me this year! David's mission is to bring classical music to the younger generations. He was classically trained from the age of 4 until he was about 19 when he left Germany and his wildly successful classical music career, to move to New York to study at the Juilliard School. He also wanted to use this time to find himself and have some semblance of a "normal" life, since his entire childhood had been spent in training/studying the violin, and performing, and not too much else.

While at Juilliard, David was exposed to rock and roll and other genres of music for pretty much the first time. For awhile he lost himself in absorbing all of the new sounds he was hearing and the violin was put aside. He did eventually resume playing the violin, and those other music genres had not only broadened his musical horizons and made him a more well-rounded musician, they had also changed his playing style and repertoire (somewhat,) but I think for the better. 

Through playing classic rock and roll pieces on his violin (such as Kashmir, Smooth Criminal, Thunderstruck, Nothing Else Matters, etc), he has been able to not only show to a lot of people, for perhaps the first time, that a violin can actually be a rock and roll instrument, but, most importantly for him, he has also been able to reach a younger audience and introduce them to his first love, classical music. Not bait and switch, mind you, but just show them what else is out there.

July/August - These two months were kind of bittersweet for me. Several colleagues left us for new horizons and opportunities (of their own accord, not victims of the economy), but all the same, we all got together for two last hurrah's (one party was simply not enough) and to celebrate our friendships, even though we were all going to be "scattered to the four winds" geography-wise. It's a beautiful thing to be so moved by a singular colleague's departure, let alone seven of them.

October - I had the opportunity to see David Garrett perform in person and was blown away all over again! He is a very generous performer and gives 1000% of himself in concert and the audience just goes wild! I also got to meet several of David's fans. We have stayed in touch since then, and I now consider them my friends. David will be back in April 2010 and I will get to see him twice more then! I cannot wait! Here are a few pictures I took at his concert:

 

 

November - My brother lost his job due to a "workforce reduction" on November 4. Interesting day. Yes, my brother lost his job, and he was a little upset at the loss of income, but he was not devastated. He was, in fact, kind of relieved because that was no longer the place for him to be, career-wise. He is now free to pursue another path that he might not have pursued if he had not been "pushed" out of the nest, as it were. It was interesting that it happened on the 4th, because that would have been our father's birthday. My brother felt like maybe it was somehow dad's gift from beyond the grave, to free him from that job since he was afraid to take that step himself. So, not happy per se, but still a new beginning and worthy of being mentioned here.

Other happy occasions: My mom and I both celebrated birthdays in November!

December - The best thing to happen to me in December has been the vacation I am currently enjoying. I return to work on Monday, but much more refreshed and focused than I had been before I took the break. I am looking forward to 2010 and all of its possibilities. I want to stretch myself more and pursue things that interest me much more so than I did this year, but more on that in another post. 

Thank you for reading! Hope to see you back again!

Happy New Year, Everyone!