New Name, New Address

Hello readers.  In case you haven't noticed (or are reading this on Facebook), I have changed the name of my blog.  It shall henceforth be known as "Songbirds and Silhouettes" and can be found at http://songbirdsandsilhouettes.blogspot.com.  
Now, you may be understandably curious about what prompted this change.  So I will tell you.
Earlier today, I was shopping on amazon.com for a book I need to buy for my trip to Ghana.  All of us in the group will be reading Set All Afire: A Novel About St. Francis Xavier together since he is the patron saint of something that pertains to our trip.  Missionaries, probably.  "St. Francis Xavier is noteworthy for his missionary work, both as organizer and as pioneer. He is said to have converted more people than anyone else has done since Saint Paul."  Ah, thank you Wikepedia.  Anywho.  So I was buying this book and I was intrigued by the little "payphrase" bar on the side since I always see it when I check out but never click on it.  So today I did click on it.  I got a very informative little popup window explaining how the whole thing works and how to set one up etc. and I thought, hey, why not.  It would be nice to speed up the checkout process a little more.  So I followed the link and scrolled through the suggestions listed when I noticed that one of them included the word "songbird."  
And now, some background.
I have always, but especially in recent years, considered myself to be God's little songbird.  Here are a few reasons why:
~  There is that beautiful scripture verse about the Lord taking care of the birds and the flowers, so we should not be anxious... wait, I'll find it... "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?"  ~ Matthew 6:25-26  Sigh.  How lovely.  I remember this verse often when I get worried about where my life is going or how I will possibly have enough money to do this or that.  So far He has really provided for me!!  Just like a little bird. :)
~  Do you remember that scene in Romeo and Juliet where Juliet wishes that Romeo was a little bird tied to a string on her finger?  It's part of the balcony scene:

Juliet:

'Tis almost morning.  I would have thee gone --

And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,

That lets it hope a little from his hand,

Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,

And with a silk thread plucks it back again,

So loving-jealous of his liberty.

Romeo:

I would I were thy bird.

Juliet:

Sweet, so would I.

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.

What a delicious tidbit of literature.   Now, this scene, although laced through with dark foreshadowing, in some ways represents the relationship I wish to have with God.  I so dearly wish that I could be a little bird perched on His hand or His shoulder, or snuggled into His palm without a care in the world.  How I wish that I could delight Him just by being the cheeky little creature He created me to be.  And Juliet's description of herself as "loving-jealous" seems to me to explain perfectly the way God feels about each of us.  He doesn't want to share our attentions with anything or anyone!  He always wants to be first in our hearts, as well He should.
~  I love singing more than almost anything else, and I've always known that my voice was created to give glory to God.  I have one particularly beautiful memory concerning this knowledge that brings me such joy upon recollection.  I was walking to a Heinz Chapel Choir concert, I think the spring one.  It was quite damp that day, as we had just come through one of spring's many showers. The trees on the lawn of the Cathedral of Learning, bare branches darkened by the rain, spread themselves in intricate patterns across the pale grey twilight.   I was bustling my way toward Heinz Chapel, thinking of all the things I had left to do that day besides sing in a concert.  I must have breathed a prayer of anxiety, as I often do when I get overwhelmed, for just at that moment, as I was walking under those trees, a large flock of birds swooped down to land on the branches above my path and started singing, I mean really singing.  It was gorgeous.  I think I actually stopped walking to turn my head up toward the songbirds in awe.  A smile broke out across my face as I listened, because I could hear the message being sent loud and clear.  "Go and sing for me, my little songbird, for it gives me such joy and such glory.  I will take care of the rest; do not let your heart be troubled."  I knew that the moment, the song, was a gift from Him, because in my heart I felt His peace nestling.  Needless to say, I continued on to the concert with spirits greatly lifted.  
~  When I was a senior in high school, I played the part of Chavala in Fiddler on the Roof, and her nickname is "Little Bird."  I danced a beautiful ballet (which I choreographed, by the way) behind the scrim as Tevye sang a song about how sweet and adorable I am, after which I ran crying around the passarelle begging for his acceptance in the extremely dramatic "Tradition: Reprise."  It was an excellent moment.  
~  I've always had birds as pets.  Our family dog died when I was pretty young (I wanna say around 4 years old?) and my mom refused to get another dog (or a cat) because she and several others in my family are actually very allergic to them.  So, after that I had a caterpillar (Mr. Caterpillar - I know, SO original) and a hamster (Kiki - my favorite character on "The Puzzle Place haha) before my little brother decided he wanted a bird.  We named the little blue fluffball Smokey after our favorite mountains, and after a while my brother got tired of taking care of it, so I adopted it. After he died, there was Beauty and then Tobey.  When Tobey died I gave up on birdkeeping, but after a traumatic incident at my sister's house (her dog ate one of her birds), she sent the remaining budgie home to live with me.  This was Jack.  Now we know he's actually a girl, so it's Jacqueline.  And of course, my favorite pet EVER was Elliot, the darling little spot of sunshine who died in a ceiling fan accident.  She was seriously such a good bird.  Sigh.  And she loved to sing.  I guess from having birds around for so much of my life, I've just grown to love them.  I love the graceful way they circle in flight, the way they preen and ruffle their feathers, the silly way they cock their heads as if they're listening to you suspiciously.  And I love the way they sing and chirp and whistle.  They make such beautiful music without ever taking a lesson or studying for a minute.  (soooo jealous hahaha)  Although some species of birds (like the Russian Canary) do learn their song from older canaries singing around them.  I've done a considerable amount of research in books and on the internet about birds, their history, and their care.  It's just always interested me.
So, bringing us back to the original point of this story... 
As you have probably surmised, seeing "songbird" in the payphrase suggestions got my imagination going in so many ways.  The phrase "Songbirds and Silhouettes" popped into my head as though someone had dropped it there.  I typed it into the little box, but the more I thought about it, the more I loved it.  I said it out loud a couple of times, enjoying the way it rolled off the tongue.  (Did you know that "s" and "l" are my favorite consonants?  Well they are.  Especially together.)  I could not waste such a glorious word concoction on something so mundane as a payphrase!!  I immediately thought of my blog.  I named it "Thoughts Along the Way" because I couldn't think of anything better at the time of its creation.  I had always intended to give it a better, more suited-to-me name eventually, but I hadn't been able to think of anything.  And now this!  I had already changed my background to the silhouetted birds flying about several months ago, so it matched perfectly.  It reflects a major part of my life and adds its own little twist.  
Silhouettes?  What do those have to do with me?  Well... I've thought of a few things...
~  The mental image I have of that glorious memory on the way to the HCC concert is the silhouette of birds on branches, black against the pale grey sky, crisp and beautiful.
~  I did an entire ballet number in silhouette as Chavala, my shadowed figure dancing across a white backdrop lit by deep pink lights.
~  Silhouette could also refer to the shape of a body or an article of clothing.  This is slightly fitting since I work in a costume shop at present and do have quite a love for beautiful and well-made clothing.  
~  Anyone who's ever taken Theater Arts II at Bethel Park High School knows how awesomely fun shadow scenes are.  Completely done in silhouette.  
~  A silhouette can be deceiving... Things are not always as they appear, and there is a certain air of mystery about silhouettes.
~  Back in Victorian times, in addition to collecting each others' hair and weaving it into wreaths and such, ladies would made silhouettes of each other and perhaps of young men they were interested in remembering.  No photographs, you know.  So for me, the word "silhouette" conjures up images of those lovely, classy times when there could never be too much lace or dainty finger cakes.  Charming!
Before I switched over the name officially, I Googled the phrase to make sure it wasn't the name of an album or a song or something that I was just remembering from somewhere else.  The only thing that came up was a flyer for a concert/fashion show in North Carolina.  So it seems I've come up with something fairly original, after all.
Also, http://janelaine-thoughtsalongtheway.blogspot.com doesn't exist anymore.  So if you go to that site it'll say "not found" or whatever.  Just so you know.  Sorry about any confusion or annoyance this may cause you.
Ok, guys thanks for reading!  I look forward to this new chapter of blogging.  A good name just makes everything seem right, doesn't it?  I think Anne of Green Gables would agree.