The 11 Chords Used in Barbershop Arrangements & Ways to Remember Them

I've been a member of Acappella Omaha--a chorus chapter of Sweet Adelines International--for more than 18 years and have taken advantage of many of the educational symposiums and other offerings the organization provides. Just recently, I enrolled in an Arrange-by-Mail course offered by long-time arranger Kay Brommert, and supplemented by an arranger's workbook the organization offers. I wish I had done this years ago! It's been very interesting and I'm finding I'm really enjoying the challenge of all the music theory. This in no way means I've internalized even half of it, but I'm finding creative ways to work on such, and I decided to share my latest here in case helpful to anyone. This is a copy of my hand-written notes describing the unique characteristics of each of the eleven chords used in barbershop arrangements. I heard recently some school curriculum plans are eliminating cursive, so I'm also sharing in hopes of celebrating this more efficient form of hand-writing, which should be kept alive for so many reasons, I may have to blog about it someday...anyway, happy reading and learning!

Today's Quote:

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
-- Confucius

How to Repurpose Old Light Fixtures to Enhance Patio and Garden Areas

There is an biannual event in the Omaha area called "Junkstock", where folks have repurposed old junk into something beautiful or quirky or even junkier, but with pizazz...at least that's what I hear. My husband Bret and I have never made it to this event...probably because we have enough junk of our own which we hang onto so long (you know, because we might be able to do something creative with it!) that--if anything--we should be a vendor at one of these events! 

After I posted something about Junkstock on my Facebook page, I started thinking of old repurposing projects I hadn't gotten to, and the broken chandelier from my childhood home came to mind. My folks had tossed it our way with a "maybe you can do something with this" years ago, and it's been sitting in our basement storage with several of the crystals falling off and the fixture itself in a twisted mangled mess from loose screws on several of the arms. All this talk of junk suddenly inspired me to tackle this project! Here's a step-by-step--by way of Vine videos--of how this went from junk to something fun and unique...


















I found some simpler copper-colored solar lights which didn't compete so much with the cut crystals, so here's what the final fixture ended up looking like:


Shortly after finishing this project, Bret and I were in a Nebraska Habitat for Humanity ReStore and stumbled upon a couple old pendulum lights for $3 apiece, so I repurposed those into outdoor lighting as well.

Who knows--if I keep going, maybe I'll have a booth someday at Junkstock...or just some cool lights in our garden! 

What old junk have you repurposed into something fun? I'd love to hear from you in the Comments section below--and don't forget to include pictures. Peace, love and junk, man...peace, love and junk.

Today's Quote:
"OLD is the new NEW."
-- ReHouse Architectural Salvage

It Can Wait: The Art of Knowing When to 'Sit on It'!

While I don't always like to think of myself as a driver personality, I do have 'achiever' in my top five strengths (see StrengthsFinder.com), so I'm more naturally wired to get things done!

I really have to work on patience sometimes as there are always people and protocols which can be perceived as getting in the way of progress. Sometimes I can see the logic, but other times the hold ups are for reasons unknown. Something I've had to work on at times in my life is the waiting part...waiting to speak...waiting to act...waiting for protocols...waiting for red tape...waiting for approval...waiting to respond...waiting to address problems, etc., which brings me to today's topic: It Can Wait: The Art of Knowing When to 'Sit on It'!

Not everything needs to be addressed immediately...or even ever...I've noted--in the times I've been able to 'sit on it'--some things resolve themselves! 

For example, I've learned to 'sit on it' when I receive an email with someone stressed out about something--especially when it has a baiting feel (like if I answer, I'll get drawn into an argument). More than a few times, I've found allowing the other person to review what they've written with fresh eyes the next day often results in their retracting or restating what information they're really looking for in a more professional manner. Either way, further communication usually takes a more positive healthy upswing, which is better for everyone involved.

Since communication is my number one strength (see StrengthsFinder.com), I have no problem talking about whatever challenge is being faced, and tackling it head on for the best solutions. I can agree to disagree agreeably, and I've found this open communication allows everyone to know where each other stands at any given time. 

However, not everybody is able to this, so I have to be sensitive to those who can't handle such direct honesty. My observations and interactions have taught me there are actually people who would rather go through life totally oblivious to anything they perceive as negative. These are the same people who come to me to address certain issues as it stresses them out too much to deal with it. This can make me unpopular--or popular--depending on how my efforts are received, but I've always found I can take being unpopular if it means shining light on an issue ends in a better working environment for all involved.

If I perceive a molehill has been made into a mountain, however, I'm also comfortable illuminating that possibility for whoever's asking me to handle something. Just because I'm a friend or colleague doesn't mean I'll ever be great at sugar-coating. People can count on me to be straight with them, but I do try to be positive in my interactions as much as possible--whatever the situation. Nevertheless, as I progress in life, I'm finding more and more that we humans have a tendency to take ourselves and others too seriously at times, and that's usually not the healthiest mode of operation, if given a choice. 

I've observed other leaders who have mastered the art of sitting on it, and feel it's a better mode of operation than addressing every little thing that may need tweaking. People usually know when they've goofed something up. Why not praise them for what they're doing right and get more of that?

Has there been a time recently when you wished you'd been better at sitting on it rather than addressing it? If you're comfortable sharing in the Comments section below, I'd love to hear your story and learn from your experience as well. Maybe we can help each other know better when 'it can wait'!

Today's Quote:
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” 
― Benjamin Franklin

The Importance of Vacations--Even for the Unemployed

Whether an actual 'vacation' our 'staycation', an occasional break from the dailyness of life can prove beneficial to any human. I happen to be between jobs after my position was eliminated following a subsidiary merger. I have been exploring several fee-for-service earning options in the interim, but so far, nothing close to a living is being made. That plus daily combing through hundreds of emails relating to the job hunt--PLUS volunteer tasks which occasionally feel like a full-time job--often make for a busier life than I had before! 

That's why--for the first time in our 29 years together--my husband Bret and I made the decision to take advantage of one of his work-related trips, add a couple extra days, have me tag along and call it a working vacation--we're on it right now, as I write this. Why am I writing instead of touring our Nation's Capitol? Because my self-imposed end-of-month deadline has turned into the beginning of the next month! 

I'm also waiting for Bret to finish payroll and ensure there are no fires to put out. He's a school principal and we're in Washington, DC for him to accept a National award his school won.

I'm finding it interesting how hard it is for me to leave my 'work' behind. This may also be due to 'achiever' being in my top five (see StrengthsFinder.com). However, walking for miles, photo-documenting monuments and reading museum plaques can also feed my achiever, so I'm sure it'll take my mind off life for awhile...

Break here while we visit the Ronald Reagan/International Trade Center, Holocaust Museum, National Monument, World War I Memorial, World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, etc.

Wow. What a day! By the time we made it back to the hotel at nearly 8 PM, we were soaking wet from several on again off again rain showers and one HUGE downpour, during which both our phones buzzed flash flood warnings! However, without the rain, my comments would remain the same. Wow. What a day! Just one day of sight-seeing has made this trip worthwhile. If you've never been and get the chance to visit DC--take it.

I'm very thankful for this opportunity as I hadn't realized how much we both needed to just get away from the heaviness of life for awhile. Knowing how hard it is to make something like this happen when you're unemployed makes me doubly grateful. Vacations--even the very cheapest of sorts if money is scarce--truly are important, for the physical and mental renewal we all need to maintain a healthy human experience. The next chance you have for such a break, I hope you'll take it!

Today's Quote: 

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." 

-- Maya Angelou

The Human Addiction to Drama: Well, I Never--!

What is it about we humans, that we get so easily bored with normalcy? If things are going too well in our lives, we look for things to worry about or pies to stick our fingers in which may cause upset... 

Understanding Attachments and/or Addictions
We've all had friends and/or family members where we can clearly see what's causing all the challenges in their lives, and we think we have the answer as to how to fix it. If they'd just listen to us, their lives would be so much easier! I laugh at this trait in me as I tend to be very logic-based and am comfortable shining light on the elephant in the room in an effort to offer suggestions on how to escort him out! I'm a chronic problem-solver and enjoy the challenge of finding solutions. However--while my ideas may be just what is needed--they are not always appreciated. I find people often hang onto their stuff pretty tightly--like it's their child or best friend...

It's not that I don't understand attachments like this. I recognize addictions in my own life--if there's chocolate in the house, I'm all over it...if there's a forensics show on television, I'm glued to it...I'm fascinated with what makes people do the things they do, so yes, I'd be slowing down to see the train wreck as much as the next person. I'm sure there are people looking at my life and seeing obvious tweaks which could be made, and that's my point. We all seem to have stuff from which we can't seem to part. A leader in one of the groups with which I meet regularly once said something like this: "Just leave your bag of stuff at the door--it'll be there when you leave. I doubt any of us would want to trade ours for yours and vice versa."

It's true. Sometimes catching a glimpse of others' stuff makes us appreciate the fact we at least don't have that going on in our lives. In this sense, sometimes I feel my unemployment is as much a journey for those around me as it is for me. I don't know anyone who would want to be in my shoes in that respect, but for me, I have a strong faith and feel God is teaching me many things through this experience. Yes, I wish it would end soon...yes, I know patience is one of the things I need to work on...yes, I see the irony in making those two statements side by side! I once said to my husband, "I hope--if I'm going through this for anyone else's benefit--that they gain what they need to out of it sooner rather than later, so I can get back to work!" 

I remember a lecture my husband Bret and I attended, to hear leadership author John Maxwell speak and have a book-signing. Maxwell talked about the days when he was a pastor in counseling sessions with congregants. They would share their trials, he would prescribe solutions and they'd be back the next week with new challenges--like it was an addiction to the drama those problems provided. Maxwell said he finally couldn't do it anymore and moved onto other pursuits. He's certainly found his niche as he's written well over 60 books and sold over 19 million copies. He's a favorite author of ours.

I've been in many leadership positions in my life and continue to learn new things. I recently had a friend ask for my advice in this area, and one key thing I've learned in this day and age of instant messaging, texting, emails and the like is: know when to back away from the keyboard! We often know what actions will stir people up and what will enhance relationships, but we don't always act accordingly. I believe some of that stems from this human addiction to drama, but I also believe we are sometimes moved to illuminate the elephant in the room in an effort to spur future growth. I don't mind doing this on occasion if I see how it can lead to positive improvements, but I recognize my doing so doesn't always make me popular. Because of this, I work very hard to generally be a positive upbeat friendly person, so the suggestions I make can be seen in the helpful spirit in which they are intended. I'm sure there's still a "Well, I Never--!" response here and there, but like Taylor Swift sings, "haters gonna hate-hate-hate-hate-hate..."

What's really rewarding is when I see someone act on my suggestion(s), and learn firsthand my intention was to aid improvement and strive for excellence--not to add drama. For this reason, I strive to maintain a coach-able mindset in myself as I believe a true act of maturity is when we can get out of our own way and grow--no matter what level we are in our lives, careers and hobbies. I'm still striving...

Todays' Quote:
“Perfection does not exist--you can always do better and you can always grow.” 
― Les Brown

What Do You Do When Your Ghost Story is True?!

I don't recall being afraid of the dark, thinking a monster was under my bed, hearing voices, etc. when I was a kid, but I always did enjoy a good ghost story and was fascinated by all kinds of unconventional things...I suppose I still am--to some extent. I remember one of my junior high birthday slumber parties when a bunch of us girls snuck out and went to the Bellevue Cemetery in the middle of the night. If I remember right, we took my dog, Dixie, as our protection. What were we hoping to find? I have no idea! Ghosts or spirits, I suppose, but what we would've done if we'd found any--again, I have no idea. One of the more forgivable freedoms of childhood is the complete absence of forethought. I miss that!

Ghost stories or not, I remember two off-the-wall things I believed in my younger childhood which are still burned in my memory: 1) I thought I could drift from room to room without walking (basically, I thought I could fly); and 2) I thought I could look at a photograph and see whatever actions were happening which led up to the moment the photo was taken (basically, I thought I saw movies in my pictures). I've since decided I must've dreamed these things, but I've dreamed many things which I've since completely forgotten. These two things are more like memories to me...I know, weird! 

I learned at an early age to be okay with not being like everybody else, and I try to let others be who they are as well. That doesn't make me an enabler and doesn't mean I ignore the elephant in the room if something needs addressing. In fact, I'd say I have a bit of a drive for problem-solving, so if that means illuminating something and looking for ways to solve whatever challenge comes my way, I do try to be loving and logical in my approach. The downside of this is I sometimes have folks complain to me about other folks' behavior, because they know I am more comfortable addressing things head on...if you've ever taken the StrengthsFinder survey, the fact communication is my number one will mean something to you.

Communication being my number one means I'm comfortable sharing many of my life experiences in hopes it might help others...which brings me to three things which happened in our home recently, which I cannot explain--our own 'ghost story' of sorts! 

The first happened when my folks were over after having dinner out with my husband Bret and me. They had come into our house to shoot a happy birthday video for my great niece, Quinn. After we shot the video with my LG3 phone on a tripod, I played it back and the four of us watched it on my small phone screen. Then we decided to watch a recent video I had taken of my father playing clarinet in a fundraising concert at their church. When we were watching this video, the light in our front entryway began flickering like crazy! Now, we've had that light flicker before in the few years we've had my late grandmother's grandfather clock near it, and I've just decided it was Grandma's spirit saying "hello" when I go to wind the clock every week, so I usually say "Hi Grandma" when I open the clock to wind it. Bret has checked the wiring, bulbs, etc. to ensure we didn't have a maintenance problem with this particular light, but everything seemed fine--until my dad's clarinet filled the room. Dad said he thinks Grandma was applauding! That was a few weeks ago and we haven't had any flickering since...

The second unexplained thing happened when I went to look at the posted birthday message we made for Quinn on our big screen computer, and saw LOTS of orbs! Click here and see what you see.

The third other-worldly thing happened a week later, when my husband was out of town and I was sitting on our bed with our three dogs, trying to make a little Vine of each of the dogs to send to Bret in case he was missing them. If you're not familiar with Vine, it's an app which takes six-second videos by pressing your finger on the screen to capture video and lifting your finger to stop. 

My first shot was of Bushido, our black and tan Shiba Inu, who was lying on his side by my legs. His head was down, so I said "Bushido" while I was already capturing video and it ended up being too long, so I deleted my first attempt. The second time I called his name and waited until his head was raising and turning before pressing my finger on the screen to begin shooting while saying "Are you being a good boy?" This Vine of Bushido shows him turning and looking clear past me--like something was behind me--but this wasn't the weirdest part... 

I then turned to Mojo, our black and tan soft-coated Pommeranian, who was already looking at me, so I pressed my Vine screen and said in a lower quieter voice, "good boy". I didn't know until the replay that this is where an EVP shows up, almost sounding like it took some of my energy and voice intonation from when I said "boy" and says something I'm hearing clear as day (because I know what I said and what I didn't say) as a derogatory comment I won't print! Click here to see what you hear. 

The third Vine shot I took was of Toby, our small orange sable triple-coated Pommeranian, who also was already looking my direction. In that shot I say "Hi Papa" because again, this was supposed to be a night-night Vine for my husband.

I'm curious as to whether anyone else hears what I hear in the Mojo clip as so far, no one in my family has, but they do acknowledge hearing something unexplained, and I had just shared the flickering light story and pointed out the orbs the week before. I like to think no one's heard it the same way I did because my family doesn't want to hear such foul language flung at me--especially by disgruntled spirits! To be honest, I had just woken Bushido up twice for a silly Vine video, so he himself could've been thinking such a thought, but a dog-loving spirit who cusses like a sailor at stupid human behavior makes more sense.

That is, it would make more sense to believers, which I guess I have to be now--though I'm not crazy about being put in any category at this point. If you're curious, I was raised Presbyterian, but I do feel we're all on our own spiritual journeys in life, and I acknowledge this would be a major comfort-stretcher for some.

I guess the reason I heard it so clearly is Vine now allows you to cut your shots shorter if you'd like and the way it gives you to do that is it plays whatever shot you're on in the editing tools over and over and over, so you're very familiar with all the sights and sounds of that few seconds of video after a few loops of it goes by. When I first heard this 'glitch', I was going to try to edit it out, but then in that process, it was playing over and over and it dawned on me what I was hearing. Then I was sufficiently freaked out, turned my electronics off and didn't fall asleep until two hours later, around 1 AM! Needless to say, Bret didn't get his night-night video that night. 

In the light of day, I listened again and made the decision not to edit it at all, but to upload it to my Vine account as is. I sent a light-hearted "Spirit Diary II" email with this next week's happenings to my family, and somehow felt better. 

I have to admit I thought it was kind of fun to think we had spirits of family members, pets and/or passed friends hanging out with us at BRIN Cottage, but I need to make the distinction I really don't care to invite any ill-tempered behavior or language--family or not--and the bedrooms and bathrooms really should be off limits for obvious reasons!

I'd love to hear what true ghost stories you might have in the Comments section below. Somehow, it helps to know we're not alone...in our 'we're-not-alone'-ness!

Today's Quote:
"The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it."
-- William Butler Yeats, The Celtic Twilight

Choosing Quality of Life--and Embracing Changes for the Better--Rarely Results in Regret

My husband Bret and I were at my folks' house recently to help with some heavy lifting tasks. Naturally, my bodybuilding husband was more help with that than I was! While we were there, I started asking questions about some of the photos of ancestors my mother has framed and on display. The more we were talking, I began to ask about specific people I remembered from my childhood, and my mother started digging out boxes of old photos which have been passed down from generation to generation. It was such fun hearing stories about relatives my folks knew, and even more interesting learning more about some whom I had also been blessed to know.

A recurring element in many of the family stories I've heard over the years has been the recognition of simpler times, far more conservative values and an appreciation of the struggles of those who came before us. When I picked up a picture of my maternal grandmother as a young woman, my mother reminded me that photo had been taken shortly after the first time she had ever gotten her hair cut (and I get the idea this was especially a comfort-stretcher for her father). The drama of women cutting off their long tresses struck me as particularly funny and sad at the same time. It reminded me of Downton Abbey, a PBS series set in the 1920's, when one of the main characters--Lady Mary--was the first at Downton to have her hair bobbed. As someone whose favorite personal hairstyle preference has always been short (even when I've worn it other lengths for variety), I'm happy our society has moved past an insistence on women maintaining long hair!

As we continued to sift through dozens of photos, seeing several people on horses and then others standing by cars which would be considered antiques today, the reality of all the modern conveniences and technological advances created in my folks' and my lifetimes came to mind. They remember childhoods spent sitting by the radio for entertainment, phone numbers with words in them, using outhouses at relatives' homes, paying a nickel to spend Saturday at the movies and lugging around really big cameras. I remember black and white television with three channels you could only change by walking up to the set, record albums you could stack on a player with a needle magnifying every scratch or speck of dust, reel-to-reel tape recorders, Super 8 movie cameras and typewriters. 

To think of life without microwaves, computers, flat screen televisions, cell phones, fax machines and loads of other gadgets upon which we've come to depend is a sad thought indeed. It's a good reminder to appreciate inventors, researchers, scientists, engineers and the like for all life's changes we've come to love. Do you have other fun nostalgic stories and/or favorite inventions you'd hate to live without? Please feel free to share them in the Comments section below and we can all appreciate life's upgrades together!

Today's Quote:

"Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different."

-- C.S. Lewis