Here is a video that I remember watching from one of my husbands Steve Covey dvds awhile back. Just the way the music, images and words go together, it is moving and is unforgettable. Please watch, and change the way you think, because after all…life is short.
Here is a song I just heard from Josh Groban and I love it. Since I heard it, I just keep singing this over and over in my head.
This cd that this came from was given to me last year as a gift for Christmas and I just never really played it. I just brought it out to my car the other day as I went to pick up my daughter from school and instantly loved it, as I know you will. I think it could replace a few oldies that I’m tired of hearing at Christmas, like the two front teeth song…if you know what I mean. This has a nice Christmas feel to it and it stays with you. Enjoy!
I have something to show you! I just found these two screen savers and I have to tell you , they are so realistic!!! First of all, I want to live at this place right now! I can’t believe the quality of this screensaver. It is Snow Village 3D and it almost reminded me of Polar Express the way the snow is falling and the scenery and all. Beautiful!
I know this is only a screensaver, but can you picture this as a dvd you could play on your wide flat screen tv that just keeps playing??? I wouldn’t take my eyes off it! And I really think they should make this into an xbox game where you could just walk through the town and go into every store, ice skate and maybe even interact with the people on the street. You know, just kind of taking in the scenery. I’d play it!!!
Anyway, hope you like it! I also attached the screen saver with Santa in his Sleigh flying over the town at night with his reindeer. This also looks real. Check it out! They are both awesome! I’m such a kid at Christmas! 
Here is another one of my favorite music pieces for Christmas. We played this album to death in the 70′s. I would sit on my couch and look out at the snow when I would play this song. So beautiful! Now my kids love this song, too. They should, they heard it enough!
I loved John Denver and felt so bad about his passing. What a great musical artist he was. He seemed as if he could paint a picture with words.
Enjoy!
Here is a video of a beautiful piece of music that everyone should listen to. It is Mannheim Steamroller’s Silent Night. If you haven’t heard this by now, let me warn you, you will be moved. It is like the music just evokes the whole feeling of what Christmas is really all about. It is haunting and it just wells up inside you.
I first heard this back in the 80′s when the group was just starting to be heard on the radio around Christmastime. My brother had the Christmas cd, made a cassette tape copy for me, and I have played it ever since that Christmas every year. I just recently bought the cd so I could have a better copy, and I absolutely love it.
Another reason this is so beautiful to me is that I remember playing this as I was making wreaths for gifts down in my basement one year. It was late at night, I was by myself, and this angelic music started playing. Even though I had heard it many times before, it had a different meaning for me at that very moment.
My mother had passed away that March and I was depressed to say the least, and this music just reminded me of heaven. The violin here sounds like it is crying and it is so moving throughout, especially at the very end with the sounds of the wind and the baby piano. It was as if I was a child all over again and I was missing my mommy. I cried like a baby. Every time I hear this, I feel that all over again. But it is so beautiful, and the music just fades away into happy soft, sleigh bells that bring back hope. That’s when I picture my mother happy in heaven and I’m suddenly comforted.
That’s what this music means to me. But please listen and see what it brings back in memories for you. It is a little slow in the beginning, but it’s perfect because it sets the whole mood. The violin starts around 2:00. I hope you enjoy this beautiful gift.
Here is another popular reblog. I feel it is appropriate right now because of Halloween approaching and the whole cemetery thing. I hope you enjoy this. It really makes you think.
The Forgotten Ones In Autumn
The Forgotten Ones
The view from my second – story bedroom window is a humbling one. It reminds me how precious life is everyday. The view is of a simple cemetery, not quite historical, but dated, none-the-less.
I don’t mind the cemetery at all. Our house is separated from the cemetery by a stockade fence, a steep slope and railroad tracks that sit down below. These tracks are not for an Amtrak, but for an occasional slow-moving train transferring goods. I take comfort in the fact that know no one will ever build over there, and as neighbors to us, they never make a fuss. The geese fly low overhead and it is very peaceful.
The view to me is comforting, almost like an old friend, now. The same stones greet me every morning when I open up my blinds. Sometimes the view can look rather eerie when there is a low fog rolling in, and then sometimes, it can look overwhelmingly beautiful, like just after a snowstorm.
There are times I have been depressed and sat on my bed feeling hopeless about a situation, and then through teary eyes, I’ll glance over at the solemn view, and my mind starts reeling. Someday that will be me, nothing more than a name on a stone. Who will remember me? The things I liked, the friends I knew. The things I’ve done? Will it all have mattered? Did I make a difference? An impression? Then suddenly, my current problem doesn’t seem so important after all. That could be me over there.
Those stones sit there everyday and I see no one. Not one visitor. Maybe on a very, rare occasion, I’ll see a lone person sitting on a stone having lunch like they are sitting with an old friend, or a car will sit there and someone may get out and wander. I mostly see joggers and walkers, and the occasional person walking their dog, only to have it relieve itself on a stone. Now. that’s a memory I wish not to have when I am gone.
The church in the distance rings out the time at 9:00, 12:00 and 6:00, and I think to myself, how odd that is , especially for those in the cemetery who don’t care about the time anymore. And the stones sit there day after day, alone in the rain…in the snow…surrounded in leaves…and then sometimes, the miniature flags come out, like for Memorial Day. It looks slightly alive for awhile.
I wonder when the cemetery was first new, how many family members must have come to visit here. Year after year, with flowers and small gifts. I can picture groups of families, probably crying and hanging on to each other. Ill bet it was very busy for a long time… and then it just slowly got forgotten. People got older and passed on, moved away or something. The visiting stops and the stones just sit there and look like they are waiting. Waiting for someone to just remember them. The people there. They were here once, talking and laughing. They had families and memories and pasts. How sad. I don’t want this to be me someday, but I guess it will be inevitable.
So, one day, I’ve promised to buy a rose or two. I’ll walk through the plots and read the names and imagine the lives of the ones that lie there. I’ll place a rose on top of a stone, stand back and smile… and maybe, I will even say a prayer.
Then, I will say
to myself, “No, you are not forgotten…not today”.
The Forgotten Ones In Winter
Well, I’m up at 4:00 this a.m. and looking around at music online (like everyone else, right?) because I happened to see a cd in a Victorian catalog I just knew I should look into. As an artist, I’m always on the lookout for music that is perfect for getting the creative juices flowing. Not only because of the peacefulness it brings, but also for the nice memories the music stirs up of days gone by, a great combination for any cd.
I found two that really caught my eye and I listened to the samples and I believe they are simply “must haves” for everyone that host Thanksgiving get-togethers. These cd’s really bring out the spirit of Thanksgiving, and you’ll know what I mean when you listen to the samples.
The two I found…so far..are “We Gather Together” a cd by Craig Duncan.
"We Gather Together" By Craig Duncan
The dulcimer and mandolin are used here, with other beautiful instruments, a clear giveaway, that this will be a great cd! I looked on Amazon for this one,but it said this cd would not be available until October 11 and I didn’t see any link where I could listen to samples, so I looked further.
I found this at clevershoppers.com and you could listen to samples as well. I believe the price was about $9.99. Please look it up. You will not be disappointed.
The other cd is called “Thanksgiving” A Windham Hill Collection. Music By George Winston.
"Thanksgiving" A Windham Hill Collection
This one you can listen to on Amazon and the price is also in the $10.00 range. You will also see that there is a vast collection of Windham Hill favorites for every holiday, and that’s great! The reviews are all good reviews, and this leads me to think that I just may start a collection soon!
I believe I found a sample on you tube. Listen:
There it is. Look these two music cds up and you might just be in for a treat. Put your feet up, turn up the volume and you’re in for the perfect escape from the world… for a while, anyway. Enjoy!
Early in the summer, my daughters and I went to the park not far from us that is right on the water. We love to go there when the air is still and it’s not too hot. Then it is perfect. If you go during the week, it’s even a bigger plus because you don’t get all the noise from kids and loud motorcycles and such. Just perfect quiet. The boats glide out over the water and the only noise you hear is the water hitting the rocks on the wall.
What I really think is neat when I go there, are the strange trees that are just grouped together in the picnic area. They are not too tall, very light in leaves, and their trunks are “wavy”. I think they are beautiful, but I’ve never seen trees like this. I keep telling myself that it was probably the wind that made their trunks grow like that, when they were growing. I don’t really know. Anyway, they make for some very interesting pictures…as you see here.
The Very Interesting Trees
Now this day that I brought my camera, I did the usual shots of the kids, the water and then the trees. Although the trees were beautiful, there was something else in those pictures that was just as beautiful, that I captured almost by mistake. Look closely….. Do you see it???
The Other Beautiful Picture
Yes, that picture was perfect. I could not have taken a better picture. I hope my husband and I are just like this couple here in the years to come. So cute!
So, next time you take a picture, look closely…you might just find another treasure there. I did! :)
Reblogging this post. I had forgotten this one until the other day. Nice memories of this song and I love the artist, or shold I say “artists”, Don McLean and Vincent Van Gogh.:) Enjoy…again.
There is a cemetery down the road from my house. It’s not like the one that sits across the railroad tracks behind my house that I can see. This one has more statues of angels that you can see from the road as you pass by. It always bothered me that I could never really stop long enough to study the faces or the poses of the stone angels keeping watch. I kept telling myself I was going to go there one day and just take pictures of the solemn statues, that even though are haunting, look somewhat beautiful and even peaceful. And so one cloudy day, I did just that. My daughter came with me and drove me around that cemetery and stopped when I needed her to, to take just the right photo. Here are those photos. See if you don’t get the same feeling, that they are beautiful, but haunting as well.
In Deep Thought
I'll Watch Over You
For The Babies
Grieving
Mother and Child
Beautiful Angel 1
Beautiful Angel 2
I am so glad I decided to finally take these photos. Just beautiful.
