New Years Eve

 

In thinking back of all the

amazing blessings of 2013

I feel so very thankful

for this magical year

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many things I am thankful for

is that I discovered the music of Krishna Das

and memorized the Hanuman Chalisa

 

That's why Steven gave me this

monkey mask for Christmas :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our belated Christmas present to each other

will be this dragon statue which

we will place out beside

the Sandalphon Circle

where our fountain is

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragon Song

Sacred Dragon
Sing your love song
Fill the world with magic
We will sing along
Teach us how to look at everything
Through the eyes of mystery and joy
We are changing
We can fly
Breathe the fire of love
Love will never die
Dragon Beautiful
Dragon Luminous
Dragon Guardian
Love is singing us

 

 

We will be entering into the New Year

in just a few hours

 

 

 

 

I am excited to sing my love song in 2014

and fill my world with magic

looking at everything

through the eyes of mystery and joy

loving all the changes

breathing the fire of love 

into everything I do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Love You

Zoe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun Holidays

 

 

We had a very magical Solstice Day

 

 

First of all there was

a heart in the sunrise sky

Then all my kids and grandkids

came over to open Christmas presents

 

 

Steven and I had fun buying animals for presents this year

carved wooden turtle
malachite giraffe head
monkey hand grabber
solar powered waving cat
pyrite ammonite
butterfly sarong
raven puppet
frog box

then instead of putting names on the gift boxes we let
everyone draw a card to see what order to go in
for picking a present

Oona got the lowest number so she picked first and I was 
super thrilled when she picked the very present I would have chosen
for her then Faith went next and again I was super thrilled when she
got the very present I would have chosen to give to her!


Everyone got the perfect present!

Seth gave us each an animal mask

 
The funniest one was the horse mask he gave to Otis
and here's a very short video of Otis the horse
walking around on Remi's new stilts

 

 

 

On Christmas Eve Eve we saw

a real reindeer in Fort Collins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Magical Holidays to You

MERRY CHRISTMAS HAPPY HANNUKAH

and HAPPY NEW YEAR of the HORSE

 

I Love You

Zoe

I Love Trash

 

 

My husband Steven is quite amazing

in so many ways but one of my
favorite things about him is how
he can turn trash into treasures

Several years ago we took out all

the carpet in our upstairs and have
been enjoying the plywood floor

Okay maybe enjoying is not a good word,

but plywood has been much better that
old, smelly carpet, that's for sure

We planned to put laminate flooring down eventually

 

No hurry

 

One day when we were dumping a

pick-up load of trash at the landfill,
a guy pulled up next to us with a
pick-up load of laminate flooring

Steven asked him if we could have it

and he said sure so we loaded
it all into our pick-up

We ended up bringing home a bigger

load from the landfill than we
took to the landfill

And now finally years later we

have started putting our new floor
down and it looks really beautiful

Another treasure that my incredible husband

saved from the garbage is the laptop that
I am writing on this very minute

Someone had thrown it in the recycle bin because

it didn't work but Amazing Steven spent
hours fixing it and now it is my laptop
that I love so much

In fact I love it so much that I was very rarely

ever getting on the desktop anymore
so that will be going to a new home

I thought I needed the desktop to

paint my animal paintings on but the
laptop does just fine for that and I
don't even have to use a mouse

See?

 

 

Not only is my wonderful husband a miracle worker

for finding treasures in the trash but he also finds
incredible deals on Craig's list

Like our new electric fireplace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come on over

sit in front of the fireplace
and have a cup of vegan eggnog

Happy Holidays to You!

I Love You
Zoe

Happy December New Moon

This is a happy new moon blog

because it's the new moon and

I haven't written on my blog for awhile

 

We had a fun Thanksgiving

 

Took our little RV named Antelope

up to Rocky Mountain National Park

and camped in Moraine Campground

with our angel fairy cat Koyuki

 

We had a wonderful dinner of

tofu turkey and all the traditional

Thanksgiving stuff vegan style

 

And we had Hanuman wine

 

Too much of it actually...

We drank the whole bottle!

It was wonderful to hear the

elk bugling all night long

 

 

And I had fun making this video

The next day we went to the Stanley and

did our first Christmas shopping in their gift store

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know how many years it's been

since we went shopping on Black Friday

but we sure had fun shopping in Estes Park

 

Especially since that was the first time

we have been there since the flood

 

Watching the parade was a great celebration because

we were so thankful that Hiway 34 is open and we 

can go up to our favorite place in the world again

 

I got the Christmas decorations out today and put them up

 

It didn't take me very long because I only have a few

 

I like for Christmas to be simple and I keep

looking for new ways to simplify

 

Happy New Moon to You

 

I Love You

Zoe

Happy October

This last week-end I played piano for
11 singers at their All State Auditions
and I had a really great time and all
the singers sang so beautifully.

I had one really unusual experience that I thought
would be fun to write about since it's been quite awhile
since I wrote anything on my blog.

Well, before I write about that experience
let me tell you about my experience of
playing for ASA last year.

Well, actually let me go back about 15 years
and tell you about what I thought would be the
last time I would ever play for ASA.

The auditions were in Berthoud that year.
I only had one singer to play for and that morning we got about
2 feet of snow. So Steven drove me to Berthoud and we got stuck
in the snow and someone had to get us unstuck and then when we
finally got to ASA they had cancelled the auditions.
That's how I remember it anyway. Maybe it wasn't quite like
that, but I said to myself I am never playing for ASA again.

So, last year when 3 singers asked me to play for them I said
no, I don't play for ASA anymore. But they didn't have anyone
so I relunctantly and grudgingly agreed to. Then, two days before
ASA I fell down and broke my pinkie and my first thought was
"Great! Now I don't have to play for ASA!"
So I called around to several accompanists
and no one else could do it.
Can you believe it?
I ended up having to play the auditions with a broken pinkie!

After all that, I decided to say Yes this year and play for ASA
and enjoy doing it and have a wonderful time. Which I did.
Except for my experience of playing the haunted piano...

Isaac's audition was in Room #4, a big room with a grand piano.
I had already planned to use the soft pedal on his Schubert piece
because the notes in the right hand were fast moving all the way
through and I didn't want to cover up his beautiful singing. 
So I soft pedaled.

And all of a sudden the notes I was playing in the left hand
were not the notes I was playing! They were dissonant notes
and the whole piece began to sound bitonal and very weird!
I kept looking at the keys to make sure I was playing the right ones
and I was truly playing all the right keys, in fact I didn't miss a
single note in the whole song. But it sounded like a horror movie.
And Isaac is amazing. He didn't let on like anything was wrong at all.
He sang beautifully while I was over there freaking out and I'm
sure making all kinds of weird faces. Afterwards I was informed
that when you hold the soft pedal down the keyboard shifts
the keys or something on the bottom half, so no one ever uses it.

I wonder why they didn't have a sign up to warn people?

Well, anyway, I came out of the room saying

"THAT PIANO IS POSSESSED!"

All in all it was a fun scary Halloween experience.


And now on a totally different subject
here is a picture of my new journal
which I got at the same garage sale
where I got my harmonium

Good timing because I am now
memorizing the Ganesh Chalisa

What is really cool is that The Hanuman Chalisa fits perfectly
with the melody for my Monkey Song and I love  to sing it that way

So now while I am learning the Ganesh Chalisa
I am putting it to the melody of my Elephant Song

Today is October 28 and
guess what wonderful thing
happened 3 years ago

Our Dear Sweet Fairy Cat Koyuki
came to live with us

Happy October to You

I Love You
Zoe

My New Harmonium

 

A few weeks ago I told Steven that when I
have memorized the entire Hanuman Chalisa then I
want to buy a harmonium so I can play it
while I sing the Hanuman Chalisa

I finished memorizing it a few days ago
 

We were looking at harmoniums on ebay
yesterday morning when I got an email
from my friend Lauren saying that her
husband had decided he didn't want to
sell any of his harmoniums right now
so when I told Steven that he said
well I'll find you one on Craig's list
 

So he looked on Craig's list and there was a
harmonium for sale at a garage sale in
Boulder for $175 and the sale was only
going to be one day (today) from 10-2
 

I looked in my cash box and I had $178
 

So we drove to Boulder, got to the

garage sale just a few minutes after it opened,
walked in and saw this beautiful harmonium,
fell in love with it and said we'll take it
 

Just another example of how
magical life is
 

Two Magical Synchronicities

 

 

We were hiking the other day
from Bear Lake to Glacier Gorge and
as we started out I looked at the time
 

it was 10:16

When we got to Bierstadt Lake
I looked at the time
 

it was 11:16

When we got to Glacier Gorge
parking lot I looked at the time
 

it was 12:16

I thought, Wow that is so unusual!
I wonder what the significance of those numbers is?

Later that afternoon
Steven found a fountain on Craig's List
(we have been looking for the perfect one

for several months)

When I saw the fountain I immediately loved it
even though it was well worn, and needed
painting and a new pump

It has 3 levels and each one
has 16 raised ridges

That's the significance of the three 16's!!

We brought the top half home first and
within just a few minutes of setting it up
in our Sandalphon Circle I looked out the window
and 3 baby deers were checking it out!

Here's the other magical synchronicity

This morning I was outside singing
my Sacred Animal Songs by our little waterfall
and when I finished I set my iphone up
and made a video of Nuthatch Song

I was hoping maybe a little nuthatch
would come along to be in the video

That didn't happen but one did
sing along near the end

I came inside to pick my
Sacred Animal Song of the day
so I could make a piano video
of it like I have been lately

and...

Can you believe?!!

Nuthatch!

So instead of making a piano video
I just used the singing one that I
had just made :)

 

 Nuthatch teaches us grounding
and to have faith in ourselves

Being grounded simply means
we are fully present and
focused in the NOW moment
experiencing peaceful awareness
connected to All that Is
and in the Flow

 

Here is what I wrote in my journal this morning

 

Breathe

 

Life Loves You

 

This now moment is how

life shows its Love for You

 

Breathe deep breaths of Love

for this NOW moment

Love Youself deeply through

your Love for this now moment

You are here now
and You Are LOVE

 

Happy Magical Day!

 

I Love You

Zoe