The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[Figgy1]

According to Kenny The Pirate's recent article. Marie from The Aristocats will be getting replaced by Stitch as a meetable character at the Magic Kingdom and it sounds like she won't be seen at Walt Disney World for a while now.
http://www.kennythepirate.com/2016/03/22/is-marie-the-cat-is-leaving-the-magic-kingdom/

I'm so sorry to hear that!!!!! I love Marie but my boys would rather hang with their favorite trouble maker.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

Wonderful picture. I wish my daffodils looked like those. The snow pretty much did them in.

I love hot cross buns. The daffodils are a bonus.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

But you are both..,so I can't imagine why you would get that attitude....if anything, you are even more well-rounded than someone who only plays instruments. I wish I had stuck with band or gotten piano lessons again. I'd have been SO much better off in college.

I don't understand it either other than that when it came down to choosing an All County group (you could only be in Chorus, Orchestra, or band due to overlapping rehearsal times), I chose chorus. Which looking back was absolutely nuts of me because I joined choir and two months later had a major audition, and I made it. Crazy person, I am. But I think because I chose choir, people thought that it meant I wasn't good enough to be in Orchestra. It was middle school; I think people were probably jealous. Not everyone was like that, but there were several snooty people.

Playing an instrument really has benefited me throughout the years, even being in choir and such. For our chorus in college, reading music isn't required, but it's extremely helpful because then I can go over the music and pick out where key changes are, and I'm more aware of where we might be singing something wrong than others, so I can ask for a line to be played and the section realizes where it's going wrong.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

does it have to smell the same? x_x

The smell of good wood burning is awesome. Reminds me of camping.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

*watch

English is a weird language.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

I know...everyone LOVES Adelle. I'm weird.

You're not weird. I can't stand her.

 

[Songbird76]

Yep, again, every family dynamic is different. Sounds like y'all are up to speed and doing what needs to be done.
The way we looked at it was we brought these kids into the world, and love them very much, so we darn well want to, and better, put in the effort up front no matter how inconvenient it might be sometimes.
Granted, some parents do their very best and the poop still hits the fan later down the road. But, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the time, when you put in the effort up front, you don't raise a sub par citizen, and it doesn't come back to bite you, and more importantly them, down the road.

That's it....we're raising them to be good ADULTS. They have to be able to succeed on their own, so we have to teach them how. It's more work with DS because he has more obstacles. We've had him in physical therapy for his motor skills delay, we've had him at the Psychologist to work on emotional/social development, and soccer helps him a bit with both those areas, though we still notice that he is behind. And his social/emotional problems are pretty obvious at school because he's the youngest in his class...he's 6 months to a year younger than most of the kids. At 8, that year makes a HUGE difference. We could hold him back a year so that he's with kids more on his level in that regard, BUT, cognitively, he's ahead of all of the kids who are a year older...he's got the best grades in his class and scores the highest on the national exams for his grade. So if we hold him back a year to catch up socially, he'd be bored out of his gourd with the classwork. It's a struggle. We can't have it both ways, so we just do what we can to help him in the areas where he's weak. He's getting there...he's a work in progress. (aren't we all?) I hope we're doing the right things.

 

[Songbird76]

Bluck!

We as a family do not drink from the same water bottles or glasses. At Disney we just bought one for each of us at a beverage stop or when the kids were small I'd split a cold bottle between two disposable bottles, it was lighter that way anyhow for them. My kids are still like that, they don't share well.

I'm glad it's not just me that thinks it's a bit squidgy. I can't share most things even with my own kids because of germs and such. I'm not a germaphobe, but there are some things that the idea of sharing is gross. But the idea of someone else's child's slobber on my bottle was too much for me!!

 

[MOXOMUMD]

or a fancy old school man.

Zoot suit gangster

 

[Songbird76]

There are both private and public transportation buses that service Disney. The Greater Orlando area actually has a very extensive public transit system. You can actually take a bus from MCO to limited areas within Disney for a couple dollars.

The bus we took was free. We didn't have to pay for it at all. That's why I assume it was on property. But I really don't remember.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

Dinner tonight was Friars nook Mac and cheese
View attachment 134760

Yes please!

 

[Songbird76]

It's all girls calling my house He's getting a cell for his birthday right before we hit the road.

Good idea. Does he need it for school? Over here, a lot of secondary schools are starting to do everything by phone so kids HAVE to have one. They post homework assignments on an app, and grades, and test dates...all the information that kids need is given via the app rather than the teacher writing it on the board like in the old days. Some are even doing the ipad thing instead of paper textbooks. So you have to have some sort of mobile device. I can understand from the perspective of saving trees, and it's handy that the kids can check the homework, even if they are sick one day....that's all nice, but some parents don't want their kids to have a phone/tablet yet at that age and this makes it a necessity. I've always said my kids won't have that stuff until they are old enough to work and pay for it themselves, and for them to not need to be policed as much with who they are talking to, what they are watching, etc. I don't want to HAVE to give them a phone so they can do their homework or read their textbooks!

 

[King Capybara 77]

Fortunately we're far enough away from Brussels that it's not TOO bad, BUT there's a definite urgency because we know this isn't the end of it. There were the Paris attacks, the German game that was evacuated right after Paris, and now this, and IS is promising more attacks throughout European cities. So it's kind of inevitable that they will plan something here...probably in Amsterdam or The Hague..possibly Rotterdam. People are sad and worried. We also have a politician here who is anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner in general and he tends to stir things up, so it's making it tense. I imagine with the election going on in the U.S., it's probably similar there. At least as far as the tension going on between parties. But I think the main feeling here is just sadness for the people of Belgium and worry about who/where will be next. Fortunately, I haven't seen anything here with Muslims being threatened or attacked. I live in a neighborhood with a large Muslim population....both my next door neighbors are Muslim, and the kids both have a lot of Muslim kids in their classes and I haven't heard of any of them being bullied. So that's good. In some of the larger cities, there have been problems with riots because of the number of refugees being placed in centers there, but we haven't experienced that where I live. It's about as calm as you can expect it to be after an attack next door, I guess...if that makes sense?

Sometimes i really like living on an insignificant rock in the middle of nowhere.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

I love it! I want to be there so much!

Me too! It's Hawaii.

 

[betty rose]

Those are the worst! Love bugs are pretty harmless, mostly just everywhere. Black flies are vicious!

I'm just grossed out by the love bugs. They don't bother, except for finding them all over and walking on them. We had black flies in Indiana, and I agree those stings hurt.

 

[betty rose]

Me too! It's Hawaii.

I thought it looked familiar.

 

[Figgy1]

Good idea. Does he need it for school? Over here, a lot of secondary schools are starting to do everything by phone so kids HAVE to have one. They post homework assignments on an app, and grades, and test dates...all the information that kids need is given via the app rather than the teacher writing it on the board like in the old days. Some are even doing the ipad thing instead of paper textbooks. So you have to have some sort of mobile device. I can understand from the perspective of saving trees, and it's handy that the kids can check the homework, even if they are sick one day....that's all nice, but some parents don't want their kids to have a phone/tablet yet at that age and this makes it a necessity. I've always said my kids won't have that stuff until they are old enough to work and pay for it themselves, and for them to not need to be policed as much with who they are talking to, what they are watching, etc. I don't want to HAVE to give them a phone so they can do their homework or read their textbooks!

He doesn't need one for school, but it will make it easier to keeps tabs on him

 

[Figgy1]

Sometimes i really like living on an insignificant rock in the middle of nowhere.

I didn't know you lived on Riker's

 

[betty rose]

So then that's even worse! You have YEARS before the new stuff is open...why take away your biggest draws to the park years before the new stuff is ready? It makes no sense from a business standpoint.

As I tell hubby what is closing, he says the same thing about "this makes no business sense".

 

[Songbird76]

I don't understand it either other than that when it came down to choosing an All County group (you could only be in Chorus, Orchestra, or band due to overlapping rehearsal times), I chose chorus. Which looking back was absolutely nuts of me because I joined choir and two months later had a major audition, and I made it. Crazy person, I am. But I think because I chose choir, people thought that it meant I wasn't good enough to be in Orchestra. It was middle school; I think people were probably jealous. Not everyone was like that, but there were several snooty people.

Playing an instrument really has benefited me throughout the years, even being in choir and such. For our chorus in college, reading music isn't required, but it's extremely helpful because then I can go over the music and pick out where key changes are, and I'm more aware of where we might be singing something wrong than others, so I can ask for a line to be played and the section realizes where it's going wrong.

Absolutely! I learned to sightread pretty darn quickly once I got into college. Funny story...the Aural Theory professor was also the vocal Jazz director for the first 2 or 3 years I was in college. I had never been a fan of Jazz music (now it's a favorite), but it was required for my scholarship to audition and participate in at least 2 ensembles, if you were accepted into 2. If not, you had to do the community choir. So I went in for my Jazz audition not really caring whether or not I made it, since it wasn't my genre. The director said "You have a great voice for Jazz, but your sight-reading SUCKS. Come back in a year and MAYBE you'll stand a chance."
I didn't make either of the audition only choirs as a freshman...most women don't. So the next year I made it into both Jazz and the main audition choir, with all the people who already knew how to sight read. It's just kind of expected of you....it's sink or swim. So between the aural theory where we learned the basics, and being in ensembles where it was the norm, I picked it up pretty fast. There are some who are better than I am at it, but in the choir I'm in now, I'm the only professionally trained singer, and the only one who can sight-read and like you said, it's SOOOO helpful. I catch things that the director misses because he can't concentrate on every single voice part at the same time. And I know how to follow the music...most people don't even know what a repeat sign is, much less a Coda, and they don't understand the function of accidentals, so people are always asking me "What does this little thing mean?" The disadvantage of being a singer is that you can't just press the right keys and the right note comes out. It makes sight-singing a bit trickier than sight-reading on an instrument. There's a larger margin of error. But being at least somewhat proficient at sight-singing is soooo helpful and I'm grateful to that professor (who turned out to be one of my favorite profs ever) for being so blunt and telling me how it was. I'm better for it.