It is Fun to Play Hard and Eat Right

We heard the greatest thing today at school from some program called Fuel Up for 60! They said that we have to play at least 60 minutes a day! That's a whole hour for you guys who can't tell time. How cool is that?! Now when my Mom says to turn off the TV, I can say, Well Mom, I'll just have to go PLAY! And not only do we have to play everyday but they said we have to eat good food to fuel up our bodies with energy. So, when I come back in, I'll say, Hey Mom, how about some of those righteous Quesadillas? They are healthy since she makes them on whole wheat tortillas and uses real cheese, and they taste, fantastic!
Right now, the snow is killer where I live and sledding down the hill near our house is awesome. Yesterday, I was talking to my cousin who lives down south and he said that they don't even have to wear coats! He was riding his rip-stick all over the neighborhood and I was snowboarding down my street at the same time! Sometimes I wish we could change places. But, whatever, it is fun outside with my buds. And when I come in all tired and worn out, Mom has good food waiting for me in the kitchen. I can fix them myself if she 's not around but I really like it best when she makes them she's just got a way, that's special.

Palomar Printing suggests that you check out the good folks of Worcester East Middle School, at:
http://www.greatschools.org/massachusetts/worcester/1891-Worcester-East-Middle-School/
and the great program, Fuel Up For 60, at:
http://www.fueluptoplay60.com/about-fuel-up-to-play.html

Christmas Choral Concerts fill us with nostalgia and "put music in the air".

Every year when Christmas rolled around, music became prominent in our lives. Our Church would begin at advent and have wonderful musical corals to lead us into the month of celebration. Opportunities to hear choirs were such valuable and enjoyable events. When we would go home we would be filled with inspiration and would gather around the piano. Our Grandma would play Christmas carols and I would get to turn the sheet music when she would nod at me. All of us kids would beg for our favorite song to be sung next and then, when it was our turn, have a hard time deciding which one, that actually would be. Our voices would rise together in a strange but wonderful, multi-generational harmony and our broad smiles would only dim at the end, when we sang the solemn and beautiful, Silent Night.
Although these memories will last forever, unfortunately, as the years went by at our house, there wasn't anyone left to play our piano. So, Daddy began to buy Christmas albums; a new one every year, there for awhile. He chose combination ones with the biggest stars, Bing, Andy and Perry all crooning the greatest songs. I can still picture the covers now, each year printed with a different colored bow, tied perfectly and symmetrically in the middle. They were gift wrapped and appropriately so, for they were terrific presents for us! We played them on our little phonograph over and over, enjoying them year after year despite their scratches and gravely sound. Those records would be spinning through all of the decorating and creating the background for all of the holiday meals. Those carols encouraged us to sing along and enhanced the Christmas spirit in our home as only music can.
I admit that those record player days were, a pretty long time ago. Since the early 60's, we have seen quite an evolution in music technology. I can still remember how we thought we'd hit the big time with our new Marantz amplifier and strobe light regulated, turntable. Our automobiles were revolutionized by groovy 8 track tape players, seemingly, only out long enough for us all to buy them before they morphed into cassette players before our very eyes. Yet again, we all fell for it – why, well, I guess, because, we love music! Sadly, just about as soon as we had converted all of our records to tapes and carefully, stored our beloved albums, (vertically, in a temperature controlled, out of the way, closet) and bought fantastic cassette sound systems for our cars, CD players came on the scene. Again,our lives were changed with their great, new, digital sound!
Could now, at last, our Christmas carols, remembered from yesteryear, recorded from old scratched records, discarded to make way for these new CDs, sound like the real thing again, sound like the old days, sound like us, around the piano? Well, if they could, it wouldn't be for long. The industry topped itself in no time, amazing us with the unbelievable, MP-3 player - the sound of the future! Again, we rushed toward the new horizon and for the past few years, have all been running out to buy the latest and greatest models, yet finding it rather hard to keep up and hard to know, just what to buy. MP-3 players are continually getting better and becoming more and more improved! They are getting smaller or getting bigger, they are getting Internet capable or combing music with phones or music with cameras or combining everything with everything, all at once, and all crammed into one tiny, little package! It is truly hard to fathom, how very lucky, we are. There are even these things called apps and there are more and more of them each day. There are apps for almost everything! We need these apps. What does one of the commercials say?....Something like, 'there are apps to let you be you'.
Now, we are free to go anywhere and our music seamlessly follows us. We can instantaneously, pull up any song, right out of thin air. And because we have these really great headphones, we can listen most any time, most anywhere. It is so convenient that what we are listening to doesn't have to clash with that of the fellow's across the table. We don't have to worry about the other guy, anymore.
We are lucky. We almost have it all. It is just that, as I look around, it seems that we are listening to our music, alone.
I am wondering, despite all of these great improvements in sound quality, availability and portability, is all this fantastic technology really making us feel any better? Is it able to make us feel like like we did when we gathered together around the piano? I am wondering, is there an app for that?