A Fitting End for the Oscars

 

Photo Credit: Landon Nordeman A-Frame

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Happy Birthday Randy Stonehill! A 71 song salute.

On this Day March 12th, 1951 fellow baby boomer and my favorite singer   Randy Stonehill was born in California. He turns 71 today and to celebrate I will link 71 of my favorite songs (and yes, I have that many)  of his here on this very happy birthday post.  Many of these songs can be found on Spotify.  All of these songs are available for purchase at Bandcamp. Note: Songs are listed from the album they originally appeared. The song is not always being played from that album.

1. Never Can Repay - Born Twice

 

 2. Faithful - Until We Have Wings 

   

 3. Get Me Out of Hollywood- Get me Out of Hollywood

4. Starlings - Return To Paradise 5. Christmas Song For All Year 'Round - Welcome To Paradise  

 6. I Love You - Born Twice  

 7. Norman's Kitchen - Born Twice

8. Bad Fruit -The Sky Is Falling

   

 9. Still Small Voice - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

 10. Christine - Between The Glory And The Flame

 

 11. Can Hell Burn Hot Enough - Until We Have Wings

   

 12. Light Of The World - Equator

   

13. First Prayer - Welcome To Paradise

14. Keep Me Runnin' - Welcome To Paradise

 

15. Stop The World - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

  16. Sunday's Child - Mystery Highway

17. Love Beyond Reason - Love Beyond Reason 18. Ramada Inn (Live) - Until We Have Wings 19. Everything But Love - Stonehill 20. Didn't It Rain - Until We Have Wings 21. One True Love - The Sky Is Falling 22. Until Your Love Broke Through- Love Beyond Reason 23. Celebrate This Heartbeat - Celebrate This Heartbeat 24. The Hope of Glory - The Wild Frontier 25. Modern Myth - Celebrate This Heartbeat 26. Can't Buy A Miracle - Can't Buy A Miracle 27. Leonard Has A Toaster - Lost Art Of Listening 28. Glory And The Flame - Between The Glory And The Flame  

 29. Stand Like Steel - Return To Paradise 30. Hand of God - Thirst

   

 31. Barbie Nation - Wonderama

32. Old Clothes - Until We Have Wings

33. Charlie The Weatherman - Stories 

34. Try Havin' Some Faith - Spirit Walk

35. Turning Thirty - Equator

36. Lazarus Heart - Lazarus Heart

37. This Old Face - Lost Art Of Listening

38. Baby Hates Clowns - Thirst

39. Strong Hand Of Love - Welcome To Paradise

40. Curious - Uncle Stonehill's Hat

41. Die Young - Between The Glory And The Flame

42. Who Will Save The Children - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

43. We Were All So Young - Edge Of The World

44. King Of Hearts

45. That's The Way It Goes (Live) - Edge Of The World

46. Shut De Do (Live) - Equator

 

47. Jesus - Breath Of God  

48. Big Ideas (In The Shrinking World) 49. The Gods Of Men - Love Beyond Reason

50. Broken Places - Spirit Walk 51. Hymn - Love Beyond Reason

52. Billy Frank - The Lost Art Of Listening

 

53. Venezuela - The Sky Is Falling 

54. What Do You Want From Life? - The Wild Frontier

55.Brighter Day - Can't Buy A Miracle 56. Get Together - The Wild Frontier

57. Ready To Go - Welcome To Paradise

58. Sing In Portugese - Wonderama

59.In Jesus Name - Lazarus Heart 60.Last Time I Saw Eden - Spirit Walk 61. Everything You Know (Is Incorrect) - Thirst

62.I've Got News For You (Paradise Sky Version) Welcome To Paradise -

63. Awfully Loud World - Can't Buy A Miracle 

64.When I Look To The Mountains - Celebrate This Heartbeat

65.Mercy In The Shadow Land - Lost Art Of Listening

66. Backwards On Her Bike - Mystery Highway 67.Cosmetic Fixation - Equator

68.A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept - Lazarus Heart

69. The Keeper Of The Bear - Thirst

 

70. I Don't Ever Want To Live Without You - Return To Paradise

71. Finish Well - Spirit Walk

Happy Birthday Randy! I encourage anyone who spends time listening to these songs to buy some or all of them on Bandy Camp and give Randy a gift for the wonderful music he's been giving to us for a half-century.

Yo Yo Man

First, the good news.  I have lost 20.2 lbs this year, 7 lbs this week alone.  The bad news in addition to losing 20.2 lbs this year, I have also gained 13.2 lbs.  In other words, the 7 lbs. I lost this week is the only weight I truly lost all year.  And since I tend to gain back all the weight I lose, we really can't be certain that those 7lbs we'll stay gone.

At the end of last year, I weighed myself as I do every Saturday and I weighed 259.6 lbs.  I estimated by losing 1 lb a week for 10 weeks I could be below 250 by Saturday, March 11th. Today is March 11th and I now weigh 252.6 pounds.  During those 10 weeks, I lost weight 6 different times and I gained weight 4 times. 

Perhaps a little historical perspective would be helpful here.  I weighed 174 lbs when I was a Freshman in high school. When I graduated high school I weighed 174 lbs.  During high school, I could eat all the time and never gain weight which is exactly what I did.  Between 18 and 33 the year I got married my weight went up gradually to somewhere between 200 and 220.  In the first 16 or so years of my marriage it continued to go up until about 8 years ago I weighed myself and saw that I was 285 lbs.  

In the past 8 years is when the yo-yo-ing began.  Yo-yo-ing is only marginally better than unchecked gradual increases.  Since June of  2021, I've gone from 262 pounds in June to 227.6 on Christmas Day 2021 but was back up to 263 by January of this year. That's a year 1/2 long yo-yo. 

I've been wanting to post about my weight loss/weight gain struggles here for a while.  I feel a little like Piglet in the opening of Winnie The Pooh and The Blustery day. He's raking leaves and generally gets blown around by the wind when he says I don't mind the leaves that are leaving, But I don't like the ones that are coming.  I don't mind losing 20 lbs in 2.5 months. I just hope the next time I say that I weigh 20.5 lbs less than I did 2.5 months before not just 7. 

Blog Tryouts Results Show

Blog Insider: An unsolicited and superfluous look inside the minutiae. 

I'm a big fan of blogroll (Don't know what blogroll click here to find out.) At present, I have 8 different blogrolls on my home page,  and we all know how painful that can be. The most recent one is called Blog Tryouts.  I just started it earlier this year.

Blog Tryouts is exactly what it sounds like. I chose 8 blogs that I was not currently linking anywhere else in my blog and placed them in their own section.  Some of these blogs like The Comics Curmudgeon and We Are That Family have been on my blogrolls before and I have decided to have another look at them.  Others like Chicken Spaghetti and Laws of Gravity are blogs I have recently discovered and placing them on a  blogroll for the first time. 

Since the beginning of the year, I have been enjoying going to these blogs on multiple occasions and have added 3 to some of my more permanent blogrolls.  

Laws of Gravity as I mentioned last month on my Januarying post is a blogger/substitute teacher and I have really enjoyed her tales from the front lines of education.  I have added her blog to my Education and Special Needs Blog blogroll.  Her most recent post is called Oblivious.

Rambling Ever on may well be my favorite of the blogs from blog tryouts. I feel like I have found kindred spirits in the group of writers who contribute to this blog.  They have a very good 5 part series called The Forgotten History of Christian Rock with 5 Spotify playlists to help you not forget.  I really enjoyed their recent post called I Love My Boring Church as our family has been on a church search for some time now and the post served as something of an oasis for me. I wasn't sure which blogroll to place Rambling Ever On, it could certainly go into my Bloggy Blogs category as they spray all to fields, but for now, anyway, I'm including them in the News, Faith, Opinion, and Insight Blogs section.

The Third Blog that earned a place on my blogroll team is Reflections On The Teche. I've seen this blog on several occasions through Poetry Friday.  This week's Poetry Friday is at  My Juicy Little Universe by the way.  Feel free to stop in. I really like the poetry at Reflections On The Teche. I've even signed up to take part in the kiddie-lit progressive poem she's spearheading in  April. One feature she does on her blog is This Photo Wants To Be a Poem. I particularly liked the submission called Sunrise Field. I have placed Reflections On The Teche in my Writing, Poetry, Publishing, and Book blogs section.  

I will keep all 8 blogs up in The Blog Tryouts section until the end of March.  In May I plan to link blogs that I discovered or rediscovered during April's A to Z challenge.