♪♫I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine...♫♪

Recognize the lyrics? It's Natasha Bedingfield's Pocket Full of Sunshine. Got a few reasons for those lyrics this week. First of all, I was watching the movie Easy A on showtime the other morning, and now honestly every time something happy has come up this darn song springs into my head. I have a love/hate relationship with the song. In the movie the lead female gets this card in the mail from her grandma and it is a music card that plays the song and the first time she opens it she closes it right away and says something about it being a terrible song. Then there's this weekend montage that shows her gradually being more obsessed with the card until she singing into her hairbrush and dancing around the room performing along with the musical card, and then the card dies because she's played it so much. I found this song really irritating the first time I heard it. But honestly, it's kind of genius. It is SO INCREDIBLY CATCHY.  Then, I actually took the time to look up the words because I could only ever remember the first two lines and then some of the "take me away" business. It's actually got a good message. The whole, you can't break me down, and wanting to be taken away to a happier existence. This is totally surface level, I'm not going to analyze any deeper meaning. I'm sure there is some, or odd symbolism, or who knows what... but based on surface level 'these are the words that are there' type analysis, actually not a bad theme. Did I mention it was catchy? Yeah, the writers struck gold on that refrain.

Okay, so good things that happened this week. Sunday I went to a friend of mine's new house and picked up 7 large boxes full of liturgical preparation, planning, resource materials and music books, octavos, copies, hymnals etc. Merry Christmas to me! Who wouldn't love 7 large boxes full of music materials to sort through?! Granted I am going through it with a mutual friend of ours and she will hopefully be taking much of it, since I really don't have use for a lot of the things in there. But there are definitely things I do want and can use as well.

I was sitting in my living room last night when at 9:30pm I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. My cell phone just listed the number as "Ohio." Well, I thought to myself, "who do I know in Ohio who would call me at 9:30pm on a weeknight?" and came up empty. I don't know anyone in Ohio. So, I assumed it was wrong number and sent it to voice-mail only to be pleasantly surprised a few minutes later to have my voice-mail tone go off alerting me to new message. You know who apparently lives in Ohio? The president of AMTA, that's who. So naturally I called her back immediately and apologized for screening my calls. She was calling to inform me that I had been selected to receive the scholarship I had applied for at the end of June. It's a $500 scholarship to be used towards continued MT education credits. I want to attend the neurologic music therapy training in October and the registration fee is $520. So I applied to the scholarship figuring that if I got it, that could pay my training registration and then I'd just have to figure out how to get to Colorado and pay for the hotel. I wasn't too confident in my submission since I didn't find out about the scholarship until two days before the applications were due, and I had to write a 2 page scholarly proposal about what I wanted it for and how it would impact my practice as a MT and how I would use what I learned to benefit my clients etc etc. Apparently, my 2 am writing of a 2 page scholarship proposal was pretty good. Some days I really do thank God for giving me the gift of writing well efficiently. Without this very much God-given talent I really don't think I would have made it through HS or College. Amen. So, I hung up the phone and what was the first freaking thing that popped into my head after "YES!"? It was, "I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine..." I wish I was kidding, I'm not. That seriously is the second thing I thought.

Well, anyway, there have also been some downs this week and it's been nice to have this song running through my head because during the down times I really do want to just sing out, "Take me away, to better days. Take me away, A hiding place."

I think that's probably enough blogging for now. So, until next time may we all be able to survive the moments when we feel like yelling out "Take me away" and may we be able to cherish the moments when we have "a pocket full of sunshine."