The weather forecast is less than favorable for planting so I've been staring whistfully out the window all morning... Have you ever seen such blue? The Indigo Buntings have been around the feeders for about a week and a half... I've tried to get them on film so many times to no avail. I turned around and there he was... posing in the bird cage feeder (yes, he can get out, lol)! 

and then... not to be outdone by a flashy finch...

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend :)

 

I don't usually comment on music other than the reference to Bach in my profile. I feel the need for it across the board, from classic to funk and back again but I'm totally taken with Amy Winehouse! I've read reviews, some good and some bad but most agree, as do I.... major talent... I love her voice, writting style/composition and even her 'I don't give a @#*& attitude, lol! I only hope we don't watch her send her talent to the bottom of the bottle :(

Here's one of her better reviews;

You can also read it at: http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/4/6/amyWinehouseBringsDownTheHouse

Amy Winehouse brings down the house
By Katie Taylor
----------------------------------------

She is a smoother Macy Gray. An edgier Kelly Clarkson. An urban Norah Jones. She is Motown meets R&B meets jazz meets pop. Amy Winehouse, the latest Brit to break onto the American music scene, is a sound all her own.
Her distinctive music has already won her critical acclaim in Britain, where she won the "British Female Solo Artist Award" and released a multi-platinum debut album. Now releasing her second record "Back to Black" in the U.S., Winehouse is part of what has been deemed the third British Invasion, which includes such Brit musicians as Snow Patrol, KT Tunstall, James Blunt, James Morrison, Natasha Bedingfield, Corinne Bayley Ray and Joss Stone. But this skinny, Jewish Brit doesn't look or sing like anyone else crossing the pond. With Rapunzel-length black curly hair, a throw-back-disco bee hive, huge naked lady tattoos down both her arms, black Egyptian eye make-up and a thick English accent, Amy Winehouse's splash onto the American music scene is well-deserved.
Although some British superstars haven't translated to U.S. audiences (Robbie Williams standing as one of the most dramatic examples), America is embracing Winehouse's unique vocals and full-band back-up right alongside her orthidontically challenged cousins. Inspired by the 1960s doo-wop girl-groups, Winehouse is a modern jazz and R&B artist with a retro sound. Her list of influences is as broad as her vocal range and includes Busta Rhymes, the Shangri-las, Elvis, Sarah Vaughn and Nas. She samples "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in her song "Tears Dry on Their Own"; four tracks later, her song "You Know I'm No Good" features Ghostface Killah.
Her inimitable sound is coupled with her dark, honest, catchy and autobiographical lyrics. Winehouse wrote or co-wrote every song on "Back to Black" and claims her soul is in her music. In response to gossip about her drug and alcohol use, Winehouse said, "If you read the stories, that's cool, but there's not much I can say about myself that the music doesn't." In her hit single "Rehab," Winehouse croons, "They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said no, no no." Later in the song, as a tribute to ‘60s icons Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway, she denounces rehab: "I'd rather be at home with Ray/ I ain't got seventy days/ Cuz there's nothing, nothing you can teach me/ That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway." In her equally dark single, "You Know I'm No Good," Winehouse laments, "I cheated myself/ Like I knew I would/ I told you I was trouble/ You know that I'm no good." The themes of alcohol and relationships pepper her lyrics, as do unrequited love, sex, loneliness and lost romantic bliss, yet she attacks these common song themes in an edgy, blunt and candid manner.
And Winehouse's music is just as honest as the words she sings. With raw talent to spare, Winehouse's live acoustic recordings outshine her studio recordings - there's no need for mixing or auto-correction. She performs with a ten-plus piece orchestra and recorded her album with a full live band instead of electronically adding instruments (which, sadly, has become the norm for most pop music). She brings the authenticity of jazz music, the funk of R&B and the memorable lyrics and melodies of pop to the table, and she looks good while she doing it all.
"Back to Black" debuted in Billboard's Top Ten upon its U.S. release, and her American shows have been sold out for months. With one of the richest, most unique albums on the charts, this girl is a rising star - get ready for Winehouse to bring down the house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD5sahXoj0U

May 16, 2007
Wiccans Keep the Faith With a Religion Under Wraps
By NEELA BANERJEE
DUMFRIES, Va. - Above the woman's fireplace hangs her wedding picture, taken in a Lutheran church years ago.
Below it, on the mantelpiece, is a small Wiccan altar: two candles, a tiny cauldron, four stones to represent the
elements of nature and a small amethyst representing her spirit.
The wedding portrait is always there. But whenever someone comes to visit, the woman sweeps the altar away. Raised
Southern Baptist in Virginia and now a stay-at-home mother of two in this Washington suburb, she has told almost no
one - not her relatives, her friends or the other mothers in her children's playgroups - that she is Wiccan.
Among the most popular religions to have flowered since the 1960s, Wicca - a form of paganism - still faces a
struggle for acceptance, experts on the religion and Wiccans themselves said. In April, Wiccans won an important
victory when the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a lawsuit and agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of
approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans' headstones.
But Wicca in the civilian world is largely a religion in hiding. Wiccans fear losing their friends and jobs if people find
out about their faith.
"I would love to be able to say ‘Accept us for who we are,' but I can't, mainly because of my kids," said the suburban
mother, who agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity. "Children can be cruel, and their parents can be even
more cruel, and I don't want my kids picked on for the choice their mommy made."
She worries that because most people know little about Wicca, they will assume she worships Satan. She fears that her
family and friends will abandon her and that the community will ostracize her.
David Steinmetz, professor of the history of Christianity at Duke Divinity School, said, "Wiccans have so many things
stacked against them, from what the Bible says about the practice of magic to the history in this country of witch trials,
that the image of them adds up to something so contrary to the consensus about genuine religion that still shapes
American society."
Wiccans worship the divine in nature. Some practice it privately in their homes, and others worship with large
congregations. Most people do not grow up Wiccan but come to it from another religion.
"It's a very open religion," said Helen A. Berger, a sociology professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
"Each person can do what they want, and they don't have to belong to a group. They take things from a number of
different sources, like Eastern religions, Celtic practices. You are the ultimate authority of your own experience."
But its symbols and practices elicit suspicion from outsiders, Wiccans and religion scholars say.
Many Wiccans practice some form of magic or witchcraft, which they say is a way of affecting one's destiny, but which
many outsiders see as evil. The Wiccan pentacle, a five-pointed star inside a circle, is often confused with symbols of
Satanism. (The five points of the star represent the elements of nature - earth, air, fire and water - and the spirit,
within the eternal circle of life.)
It is unclear how many Wiccans and other pagans there are. The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey by the
City University of New York found that Wicca was the country's fastest-growing religion, with 134,000 adherents,
compared with 8,000 in 1990. The actual number may be greater, Ms. Berger said. Some people may have been
unwilling to identify themselves as pagan or Wiccan for the survey. Others combine paganism with other religions.
Wiccans face less backlash now than in the past. The Internet provides information about Wicca, and the popularity of
the Harry Potter novels has made magic seem a force for good, scholars and Wiccans say.
David and Jeanet Ewing, coordinators of two pagan groups in the Washington area, estimate that at least 1,000
Wiccans and other pagans live in Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. At least half actively hide
their faith from their relatives, Ms. Ewing said. Many also hide their faith from their employers, Mr. Ewing said.
One such person is a 58-year-old former Roman Catholic who has been an auditor for 30 years in what he calls "one of
the most buttoned-down departments in one of the most sacrosanct agencies" of the federal government.
"I put on this Joe Taxpayer suit, and it's like living two lives," he said. "A minority would have a problem with me, but
it would be a big problem. They would assume we are doing weird things, illegal, immoral things, at all hours. They
wouldn't want to really know what we do, but they would go with their presuppositions instead."
The auditor said that by "coming out of the broom closet," he risked ostracism at work and perhaps being pushed into
early retirement, which would affect his pension. "I don't even want to contemplate it," he said.
A New York marketing executive finds the city so secular that being passionate about religion is often met with a
smirk, and it would be worse if people knew he was Wiccan, he said. "In my personal and private life, I like to be taken
seriously," he said. "Pagans are associated with the '70s and hippies and counterculture. New York is a Type A city,
and it's all about getting ahead, and the kooky ones don't get ahead."
Members of other religions, including Jews and Catholics, have sometimes been forced to mask their faith in the past
because of religious bias, Professor Steinmetz said. But it is rare, he added, for people to keep their religion from
parents and grandparents, as many Wiccans do.
The Virginia mother has not told her mother or grandmother that she is a Wiccan. "I have a deep-seated fear that they
will say, ‘I can't be a part of this, you're raising your kids as evil,' " she said.
She attends classes about Wicca on Friday nights, and she has yet to caution her older child, a preschooler, not to tell
anyone about them.
"My son says, ‘Yeah, Mommy's going to witch school,' " she said. "I'm just waiting for the day he says that in front of a
teacher."
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/us/16wiccan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Just a quick note to say I'm OK. Mother's Day is a very busy holiday for florists so I've been recouping from that and yesterday I came down with something. Migraine and a very unhappy stomach :( Feeling a bit better today so I'll be back in a bit! Miss you guys xxx ooo

(from an e-mail I received from a friend - no author listed)

This is for the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's okay honey, Mommy's here."
Who have sat in rocking chairs for hours on end soothing crying babies who can't be comforted.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.
For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for the mothers whose priceless art collections are hanging on their refrigerator doors.
And for all the mothers who froze their buns on metal bleachers at football or soccer games instead of watching from the warmth of their cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see me, Mom?" they could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair when they stomp their feet and scream for ice cream before dinner. And for all the mothers who count to ten instead, but realize how child abuse happens.

This is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the (grand) mothers who wanted to, but just couldn't find the words.

This is for all the mothers who go hungry, so their children can eat. For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for every mother whose head turns automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home -- or even away at college.

This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to school with stomach aches assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please pick them up. Right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.

This is for all the step-mothers who raised another woman's child or children, and gave their time, attention, and love... sometimes totally unappreciated!

For all the mothers who bite their lips until they bleed when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green.

For all the mothers of the victims of recent school shootings, and the mothers of those who did the shooting.

For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to be peaceful, and now pray they come home safely from a war.

What makes a good Mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips?
The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time? Or is it in her heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time? The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby? The panic, years later, that comes again at 2 A.M. when you just want to hear their key in the door and know they are safe again in your home? Or the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?

The emotions of motherhood are universal and so our thoughts are for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation...
And mature mothers learning to let go.

For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

Single mothers and married mothers.

Mothers with money, mothers without.

This is for you all.

For all of us.

Hang in there.

In the end we can only do the best we can.

Tell them every day that we love them.

.......And keep praying!