Here you go Lisa… you can access these from anywhere!
Milton_Elementary_School_Newsletter — this one is the RTF
Milton_Elementary_School_Newsletter — and this is the MS Word
This post will be deleted after you’re all set!
Latest Entries »
(Milton Mills, NH) Dreams of new windows and a fresh coat of paint for a local porch wall were smashed when an altercation with a local homeowner turned violent today. Homeowner Jeremy Burke of Milton Mills is now in custody after reports of the altercation were reported to local police.
Local Wall prior to rampage.
In a statement released late this afternoon, investigators indicate the altercation began several days ago when Burke’s foot went through a portion of the porch floor attached to the wall. Evidence on the scene indicates that during attempts to negotiate with the wall, Burke discovered that the wall had been secretly harboring significant quantities of mold, spiders and slugs, mostly embedded in the water-logged insulation place against the OSB used by a prior homeowner as a temporary repair. Upon discovering this information, Burke appears to have undergone some form of psychotic break and is reported to have attacked the wall with wrecking bars, a sledge hammer, and multiple power saws.
Aftermath
Officials on the scene indicate that that the wall’s remains are currently piled on the scene pending availability of appropriate disposal vehicles and have requested that local residents remain clear of the demolition zone pending conclusion of the investigation and disposal of the remains. Although the wall was a total loss, Burke suffered only minor scrapes, although it appears that a ruptured wallet may be a possibility. Burke was not available for comment at the time of publication.
In addition to the devastation to the wall, countless numbers of insects, spiders and slugs were left homeless as the result of this senseless tragedy. In an interview earlier today, former resident Slimy Sluggo stated “It just doesn’t seem fair. We all were just innocently living our lives in this wonderful damp, unventilated spot. I mean, is it our fault someone used wood that is such good food for us or forgot to put any vents in to let things dry out?” Authorities on the scene indicate that many of the former residents are refusing to leave on there own. Plans are currently underway to encourage them to move on later today.
Slimy Sluggo
In related news, shares in Home Depot increased 10% in anticipation of a likely spike in sales.
Plans for reconstruction of the wall have not been announced pending notification of Burke’s wife and family. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested memorial contributions be made directly to the Porch Wall Reconstruction fund.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
10:00 AM — Woke up late after a long night last night. Was rather shocked that the sun was out and the skies were completely cloud-free. Once the sun gets off that outside wall, it ought to be a great day to get some serious painting done on my house. I love my old house! It is so rewarding to be slowly restoring a piece of history, and I’m saving so much money doing the work myself!
2:00 PM — Wasted way too much time on that first cup of coffee. Damned Facebook! But the sun is still out and I just checked the radar … no rain within 100 miles. Time to get set up to paint!
2:30 PM — Got all set up to paint and started spraying and not 5 minutes later a freak thunderstorm dropped torrents of rain on the house. Sun was out the whole time, but the primer all washed off. Might be a good day to get some inside repairs taken care of instead.
3:00 PM — Got the nifty water filter in under the kitchen sink. Funny, the directions didn’t say anything about tightening the connections into the filter. Oh, well. It’s just a few gallons of water inside the cabinet. I’m sure it will dry.
3:05 PM — Noticed a bit of a urine smell by the toilet. I’ve been meaning to pull that thing up and replace the wax ring. I think I’ll go check and see what the weather looks like, then I may tackle the nasty toilet job since the wife and kids are gone and we don’t have a second toilet.
3:30 PM — Outside wall stayed dry, so as soon as the roof dries off and quits dripping on the ladder, I think I’ll be able to paint. Meantime, I’m off to tackle the toilet.
3:45 PM — Got the toliet pulled. Pretty gross, but doesn’t look like there was a leak. Should be able to get it all cleaned up and remounted pretty quickly, but first I’m going out to check and see if things are drying up outside.
3:50 PM — Crap. Diarrhea.
4:00 PM — Went out to check on the weather again. Put my foot through the porch floor on the way in. Looks like there might be a couple of rotten boards to deal with. Toilet’s ready to put in, though.
4:10 PM — I don’t understand how nuts and bolts can just disappear. Toliet is set in place, but the nuts for the toliet bolts are MIA. I swear I left them… oh, crap … more diarrhea.
4:15 PM — Found the source of the urine smell. 4 year old appears to have started collecting his pee in the baby potty. That thing is awfully uncomfortable to sit on….
4:30 PM — Found the nuts. They were sitting right next to the toilet on the floor. Good news, though. Diarrhea seems to have cleared.
4:45 PM — Took a closer look at the porch. Whole damned wall and floor is rotten. To top it off, I stepped on a rusty nail. Might be time for a tetanus shot. Got most of the nail out, but it looks like there are a couple of little pieces left in the wound. Maybe I’ll try and clean it out later, but right now, I need to paint.
5:00 PM — Off to the ER. I guess the ladder wasn’t quite dry and I slipped off from about 10 feet up. Probably would have been OK, but on the way back in, I fell all the way through the damned porch floor and now I have a nail in my ass as well. Oh, and now the toilet is leaking and the damned diarrhea is back.
10:00 PM — What a night. Good news is the ankle isn’t broken. Doc says it’s just a ruptured tendon, should be better in 12 weeks or so. Had to have the remains of that nail in my foot surgically removed, but the nail in my backside came out cleanly. One of the ER nurses was nice enough to give me one of those donuts they give to people after hemorrhoid surgery to use when I go sit on my damned leaking toilet.
10:15 PM — Water line on that stupid ass filter came loose and started squirting water all over the kitchen floor. Slipped and fell right on the nail wound in my ass.
10: 30 PM — Damnit, forgot to empty the stupid toy potty and the dog spilled it all over the place.
10:35 PM — Just slipped in the dogs freakin mess. Where’s that damned dog! I’m going to bed.
It’s rather hard to believe that yet another Easter season is has come and gone. As the director of a choir in a small parish — that also happens to be my parish — it’s a time of really mixed feelings for me. On one hand, as a member of the parish I serve, it’s EASTER. The symbolism, the liturgy, the meaning — they are all things that touch me deeply and mean a great deal to me. Our “little white church on the hill” does a great job of celebrating the meaning of Holy Week, and our Good Friday service and Easter Vigil are especially meaningful to me on a personal level.
As a church musician, there are also many really wonderful things that happen in our parish. As the cantor, I have the annual honor of performing the Exultat each year at the Easter Vigil, and I also have the privilege of performing with a really good organist, with an historic pipe organ that has been recently fully (and properly) restored. Pretty cool stuff! Then there’s the reality of working in a small parish … and the challenge of finding decent music that my small choir can do, and do fairly well.
I have to preface this next part by saying that I am incredibly proud of my little choir and what they do week in and week out. I’m unbelievably fortunate to have the tremendous level of dedication and commitment that I have from my group. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated at times, and Holy Week and Easter just remind me of our limitations.
My frustrations really boil down to three basic issues: membership, the disconnect between my expectations and reality, and the limited music available for small choirs.
This year will be my 7th Easter as the cantor for St. John’s, and I will readily admit it is the most challenging. When your choir is small to begin with, loosing a member is a big deal, and this year, I lost a member who also happened to be a retired vocal music educator to another parish, and had another member join the ranks of the New Hampshire “Snow Birds” … the retiree’s who live in New Hampshire in the summer, and find somewhere warm to live during the (LONG) cold New Hampshire winters. Add to that some health problems for a member that usually fills in one of those snow bird spots, and another member who recently welcomed three small children into his family, and it’s been rough. So, I’m down 4 members for Easter. Even without the membership challenges of this year, however, Easter is a challenge for all of us that work with small choirs. Then, add to that having my best (and most faithful) soprano coming down with laryngitis just in time to not be able to sing for the Holy Week and Easter services, and, well… Membership is an ongoing challenge in any volunteer group, and I have yet to find a strategy that works for me. But I’ll save my thoughts on that for another day.
One of the biggest challenges I face, and the one that I likely have the most control over, is my own desire to try to match my choir’s performance with my personal feelings about Holy Week and Easter. There are actually two pieces to this; one is centered on my feelings and expectations about the Easter services and what I think we ought to do for these services. The other piece of this one is my own musical training and my own musical experiences. This one is hard. It would be easy to just lower my expectations… “Well, we’re just a small church with a small choir; it’s OK that we don’t sound that good…” Bad idea!
I keep my expectations high no matter what I anticipate will happen. Granted, this has to be tempered with some realism. I’d love to be able to do a huge, SATB masterpiece most weeks, but especially during Holy Week and Easter. But if I know there will only be 4 people in my choir for Good Friday … probably not such a great idea. So when I say I keep my expectations high, I mean only that I try my best to push my group to do better, despite our limitations. I do back my expectations down relating to the literature I select, choosing unison and 2-part literature with an occasional SAB piece thrown in for good measure. Which brings up the third source of frustration — literature.
As anyone who works with a small choir knows, it’s always challenging to find appropriate liturgical music in good unison and 2-part arrangements. Throughout the year, I make things “extra” challenging by trying, as best I can, to tie the anthem into the Lectionary readings. Lent and Easter (and for that matter, Advent and Christmas) just make the problem even worse because of the nature of the music available. Every time I go looking for new music for Lent and Easter, I realize that I’m not the only one that has some delusions of grandeur around the whole Easter season. Try this. Go to www.jwpepper.com and look through the Adult Church Choir music. Music categorized as for Easter: 68 anthems. Apply the difficulty filter and set it to “Easy” — three anthems, two of which are SATB and one is unison/2-part. Set the filter to “Medium-Easy” and a whole two anthems show up; one is scored as SATB, the other gives a choice of SATB and SAB. And if you have the 68 choices listed with voicings — 66 SATB, 9 SAB, 2 2-part, 1 unison, 3 listed as either unison or 2-part. 48 include instrumental parts (meaning entirely separate instrumental parts are available for purchase).
There are certainly ways to deal with all of my frustrations, but I’ll save my thoughts on each of these for separate entries. For now, I’ll just say, I’m glad Easter is over … at least until next year!