I’m Sending Out My Mind to You and You and You
Scrivener December 25th, 2007
Merry Christmas to all my friends and readers who celebrate Christmas and seasons greetings to everyone!
The girls and I have just finished opening presents. I got them each their very own tool box and then a bunch of tools to go in them, since they’ve both been asking to spend time building stuff with me. Eldest has plans for building some sort of shelving unit in her room, which hopefully I can get her to articulate just a bit more clearly and then we’ll work on that soon. Youngest helped me put together the new Ikea bedside tables last month, which meant that a 30 minute job took about four hours, but it was lots of fun and quite a good educational opportunity–following step-by-step directions, fine motor skills, lots and lots of counting, matching real objects with line drawings, the physics of a drawer pull, spatial reasoning, and so on–and since then she’s been asking for more projects like that, “but bigger.” There has been talk of building a tree house/fort-thing of some sort in the backyard come spring, too, so that should be a great way for us to spend time together productively engaged and learning new skills, for all of us. So I got them tools as a way of kicking off that time together as much as anything, rather than just getting them more stuff that they won’t care about any more in three weeks.
I also got Eldest a cheap digital camera. She sees me taking so many pictures that she’s been begging for her own camera for a couple of years now and I’ve been saying for a while that when I can get a decent camera for under $100, I’d do it, so when I saw I could get her a 7.1 megapixel Nikon Coolpix for $99, I got it. I’m hoping that we can spend have some photowalk outings together and spend some time learning to be better photographers together.
And of course, I got them books and a few little toys, mostly puzzles and craft things from the dollar bins at Michaels. Other than the camera, the present they are most immediately excited about is the one DVD they got: the 20th anniversary edition of The Princess Bride. Their lists to Santa were filled with princess and Barbie items (though they did add tools to the list entirely on their own), so even though I didn’t get them any of those I can still say I got them something princess.
And now my gift to you all: I’ve put together a mix. Even though none of it is holiday music, consider it my holiday gift to y’all. Because I don’t have the software necessary to zip the files, you’ll have to download each mp3 separately.
I’m Sending Out My Mind to You and You and You Mix:
Lull, Andrew Bird - 5.2 MB
Solace for the Lonely, RobinElla - 3.4 MB
Hand On Your Heart, Jose Gonzalez - 3.6 MB
Peng!, Iron & Wine -3.4 MB
I Am What I Am, Adrian Belew - 4 MB
Nail in the Sky, Howe Gelb - 2.8 MB
Wasp Nest, The National - 3.2 MB
The Lone Wolf, Kathleen Edward - 4.7 MB
I Am A Cinematographer, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - 2.8 MB
10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road, Jim White - 4.5 MB
Don’t Worry Honey, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, Anders Parker - 4.1 MB
There Are Too Many Birds, Arthur & Yu - 5.1 MB
The Apple Tree, Peter and The Wolf - 2.1 MB
Cool Kids Keep, The American Analog Set - 3.6 MB
Radiation Vibe, Hem - 3.6 MB
Miss Sarajevo, Passengers - 5.3 MB
I’m not certain whether the cover art that I put together will automatically be encoded with the songs, but if it’s not, you can grab the jpeg here.
It’s not exactly one of Beth’s omnibus Friday mix tapes, I limited myself to only as much time as I would have if I was physically burning this onto a CD to send to each and every one of you. Hopefully some of this is new to many of you. I did not specifically choose these songs to be any sort of statement about my current state of mind or anything, so resist the urge to read this list as autobiographical, even though as I was listening to it the last time through before uploading it, I realized that the urge would probably be there for many of you. This is just a halfway mellow music mix, which I put together as much as anything because I have wanted to put “I Am What I Am” into a mix for ages and keep not quite managing to do so.
Oh, and by the way, yes, that is Luciano Pavarotti singing on the last track of the mix. With U2, who put out this album of fake soundtrack music under the name Passengers a while back. Most of the album is only alright, but I do love “Miss Sarajevo” (and “Elvis Ate America” is pretty good too).
Happy holidays!!!
Christmas/Solstice blessings to you and the girls, and thanks for the lovely musical gift.
I’ve been meaning to tell you that I have another, much earlier version of the Sigur Rós song, which I will send by other media.
Christmas greetings, and peace, to you and the girls. I love that they both wanted tools and that you will spend time with them building things. And thanks for the mix! I can’t wait to listen.
Thank you so much!
I tried to leave a comment below about the service, but the form won’t load, so I’ll say here how wonderful that service sounds and how glad I am you were able to be there with the girls.
merry christmas! i think the tools are the greatest gifts — they will have them forever, and keep learning that they can do things for themselves.
YAY! I plan to waste valuable office hours downloading these today when I (finally) get to work.
Your Christmas sounds lovely. Your girls are so lucky. I love The Princess Bride, and I know they will, too.
BTW, I’m in desperate need of bookshelves in my home office. Think Scriveners & Daughters could come by and build some for me?
Happy Boxing Day! And I’m looking forward to the mix, and really enjoying Bishop Allen, who I picked up on through you via Phantom.
Thank you!!
Miss Sarajevo is my favorite U2 song. When we heard U2 in concert two years ago, Bono sang all of the Pavrotti parts.. yes Bono - and his tenor was flawless. I was stunned! It is a gorgeous song with wonderful lyrics.
What a great idea. I can’t wait to hear the other songs.
Btw, glad you straightened me out on who linked who for what re: 365.
No matter what, glad we all found you!
And kudos on raising girls who will BUILD!!
I love to hear what people give their kids. I did the tool box thing one year, but only now that I am remodeling am I aquiring the skills to use most of the stuff. And this had lead to a few cool things I have bought for myself - a mitre saw and a jigsaw, for instance. My older son got a bass and amp and the younger one a GPS. They also got bikes and games. All fun stuff.
And, hey, you have a Knoxville artist in your mix.
Those are awesome gifts for the girls, especially the tools! I wish someone had gotten me tools when I was younger; most girls outgrow the princess thing (though Princess Bride is timeless), but tools are valuable and those will be some great memories there as you build things together. I’m impressed how you’re raising daughters who can indulge their “girly” sides but also realize how capable they are of doing anything they set their minds to.