Spring Already???

Well, folks, spring is well and truly upon us.  For those of us in Aussie land, anyway (and if you happen to live in the southern hemisphere)... for those of you up north - I envy you.  You get winter soon!!!  *insert sad face* )

But even I'll admit that there are some wonderful things about spring.  Take away the wind, and the pollen and the allergies :P  and there is incredible new growth and new birth happening all around us.  In Australia, we have Easter in autumn, when everything is winding down and dying.  I can see why you people in the NH have it in spring.  New life is amazing.  There are daisies all over the park next door, and the wattle trees have blossomed in different shades of pink, red and yellow.  From where I sit, I can see the gardens of our neighbours.  Flowers are coming up and starting to show off their beautiful hues of purple, pink, and white.  Even the trees seem to have taken on a new sheen of green.  

Birds seem to be everywhere.  In the park next door, we always have a pair or two of magpies that nest in one of the trees.  (Never fear!  They like us, and let us in the park with no swooping in sight!!)  Yesterday, Elise got some sausage out of the fridge and sat under one of the trees with the meat in her hand.  The magpies were intrigued and came to investigate.  They hopped up a bit closer, and a bit closer and when they both were only a foot away from her hand, they threw back their heads and began to sing.   I don't think American and Australian magpies are the same... if you don't know when an Aussie magpie sounds like, check out the video here:

It's only a very small selection of what they can sing, but once they get into full voice, their song is so pretty!  Its one of my very favourite bird calls.  :)

With the thought of spring comes the realization that the end of the year is nearly upon us.  We are into Christmas rehearsals at church - I am in the choir this year which is proving to be rather fun, albeit amusing.  Most of the female singers in the choir are altos which leaves Joy and Me (and sometimes Elise) to sing soprano.  My problem is that there are some funny people in the choir who make me laugh whilst I am trying to sing a rather important melody.  My comfort is that the others singing said melody (Joy and two tenors) usually dissolve into laughter as well, so while it doesn't do any favours for the song, I am not the only one ruining it!!

We are also doing some drama for the Christmas production this year, which is exciting.  I did a bit of drama for it last year (I was a Disney shepherd and a Shakespearean Wiseman)  and so I am looking forward to seeing what I may be able t do this year.  Because our team for both choir and drama is not as large as we could wish, there will be some double-ups and some swapskies to get everything in.  But that's ok - it's why we call it creative arts!!


I thought I would share with you a picture taken at the end of August of me and three of my sisters.  It was taken at the women's conference that our church hosts every year.  The theme this year was "Imagine" and it was amazing to see women daring to dream and God giving people vision for the future... He is so wonderful!!  Anyway, I like the photo (although we had a hard time getting Grace to agree to come and join us!  XD)  From left to right: Joy (15), Jess (19), Grace (17), and me.  :)  

A couple of weeks ago, Jess and I spent a week at Tahlee to help cook for a youth camp.  Tahlee has a program for English immersion students and so currently they have six Koreans and two Bolivians staying at Tahlee to learn English (or learn to teach English).  They are such lovely people.  Jess and I got to know them quite well over the week.  On our last night there, the students invited us over for a movie night.  They told me to bring the movies so I borrowed a few from our adopted grandparents who live there, and went over after dinner.  We decided on Ever After starring Drew Barrymore.  It is really interesting to watch a movie that you know almost off by heart with 1) six Koreans who have never seen it before, and 2) two Bolivians who have only ever watched it in Spanish.  The first thing I noticed was how fast and what a thick British accent the characters in the movie speak with.  The reason I noticed this is because I had spent all week talking to students on only learning English - suddenly I was very aware of the English they would have more trouble understanding.  After the movie, one of the Korean girls asked me, "Was that a British accent?"
"Yes, it was," I replied.
"Do you understand it all?" she asked, awe creeping into her voice.
"Yes," I admitted.
"Ahhh!"  She cried in exaggerated frustration.  "ENGLISH!!!"

Koreans are very expressive - something happens in the movie and all six of them cry out, "Oooohhhhh!" at the same time and escalating to the same pitch at the same time.  Jess and I thought it was quite funny.
It was amusing too when the stepmother in the movie says some horrible things to Danielle, and my sweet Bolivian friend exclaimed, "It is even worse in English!"

Ever After is about a two-hour long movie and finished at about 9:45.  Most of our group (including Jess) said goodnight and went to bed, but one of the Bolivians and two of the Koreans informed me that they had never seen "The Sound of Music" and begged me to watch it with them, so we did... all three hours of it... starting at 10:00 pm.  I have to say I don't think I would do that again - start a movie of that kind of length at such an hour, but how often do you get to watch "The Sound of Music" with people who have never seen it before???  It was fun - everyone got quite tense towards the end, with my Bolivian friend talking to the screen in Spanish and holding onto my hand rather tightly.  I found the hardest thing about it was that none of them seemed to understand the enormity of Hitler's movement or what he stood for, and seemed to think that it would be better for Captain von Trapp just to do what he was told... I tried to explain best I could without talking over the next scene.  They really enjoyed it though, and it was a lovely time with them.

Sorry this post has been a long time coming - life has been in the way lately!!  Actually this whole year has been so incredibly, insanely busy... but it's good - we wouldn't really change it!   Hopefully I won't be so long in posting again next time!  Hope you all have a very blessed weekend!  :)

Pirates, More Pirates, Camps, and Eisteddfods

I am long overdue for a general post to tell y'all about how life is going.  So here it is now.  :)

As a lot of you would have known, Mum and Dad were involved in the local production of The Pirates of Penzance this year.  It was all rather exciting, as none of us have been involved with our theatrical society since Beauty and the Beast six years ago, and Mum and Dad have never done one together.  There is a consequence that must be realized when you commit yourself to being in a musical show, and that is that - while everyone involved is a volunteer - everyone must pay by being semi-tortured with the same songs going around and around your head day and night for months on end.  Thankfully, torture is only torture if you don't enjoy, and I think that, on the whole (in our family at least) we enjoyed the show and the music so much that we are only now beginning to wish we could forget it.  For those of you who do not know the story of The Pirates of Penzance here is a synopsis from The Utah Shakespeare Festival website:

On the coast of Cornwall, a gang of pirates play and party as Frederic (a pirate apprentice) reminds the pirate king that his obligation to the gang is soon over. He was apprenticed to the pirates only until his twenty-first birthday, which is that day, and he is leaving them. Ruth (Frederic’s nursery maid when he was younger) explains that Frederic should never have been a pirate except for her mistake: She was told to apprentice Frederic to a pilot, but she misunderstood and placed him with a pirate instead.

Frederic tells the pirates that, after he leaves the gang, he intends to destroy them, not because he doesn’t love them, but because he loathes what they do. He is a slave of duty and, when no longer a pirate, it will be his duty to destroy them. The pirates understand, and also complain that they cannot seem to make money. Because Frederic is a slave-of-duty to the pirates until noon, he tells them why: Because they are all orphans, the pirates will not rob another orphan; and since all their potential victims are aware of this, they all claim to be orphans!

Because Frederic has spent his entire life with the pirates, he has never seen another woman; thus he thinks he may want to take Ruth with him as his wife. He asks Ruth if she is beautiful, and she responds that she is. Frederic, a very trusting young man, says that he believes Ruth and he will not let her age come between them.

At this point, however, Frederic hears a chorus of girls in the vicinity. He sees a group of beautiful young women, realizes he was betrayed by Ruth, and rejects her. Frederic informs the girls that he is a pirate, but not for long. He asks if any of the girls will marry him, and the youngest, Mabel, agrees.

The pirates enter the scene, and each grabs a girl. Major-General Stanley enters and identifies himself as the girls’ father, demanding to know what is taking place. When the pirates tell Major-General Stanley that they intend to marry his daughters, he objects, saying he has an aversion to having pirates for sons-in-law; the pirates respond that they are opposed to having major-generals as fathers-in-law, but that they will put aside the objection.

Knowing about the pirates’ weakness, Major-General Stanley tells them he is an orphan and, thus, disarms the pirates and takes his daughters, along with Frederic, away to his family chapel and estate. The major-general, who actually is not an orphan, soon feels guilty about the lie he told the pirates. Frederic, however, has a plan to lead a squad of zany policemen against the his old gang.

Before he can act, however, the pirate king and Ruth arrive to tell him that he is still obligated to the pirates. Because Frederic was born on February 29 of a leap year, he has served only five birthdays, not the twenty-one required by his contract. A strong sense of duty forces Frederic to relent, and, because he is a member of the pirate band again, to reveal the truth that Major-General Stanley is not an orphan. The pirate king vows that he will have revenge on the major-general.

Mabel enters and begs Frederic not to go back to the pirates, but bound by duty, he leaves. The police ready their attack on the pirates, while the pirates creep in to take revenge on the major-general.

The pirates defeat the police. However, when Ruth divulges that the pirates are really noblemen and they swear their allegiance to the queen, the tables are turned--and the police take the pirates prisoner.

However, because the pirates have never really hurt anyone, they are soon forgiven. The ex-pirates win the girls, Frederic wins Mabel, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Quite frankly, I don't get tired of it - it has become one of my favourite musicals.  In fact, I went to see it five out of the ten shows that were playing here in town!  XDD  It is a very funny show.  Below are a few videos starring Jon English and Simon Gallagher that make up my favourite sequence in the whole thing (although, now that I think about it, it probably won't make a whole lot of sense if you don't know what's going on. XD)  Oh, and as an extra note... *giggles and whispers it* ....  I think our show was better!!!  XDD  But don't tell Jon English or Simon Gallagher that!  If you want to see photos of some of the characters in our show click HERE.  A lot of of these photos seem to be of the senior patrons who support the shows each year, but you can kind of get an idea from some of the pictures.  Oh, and if you look at photo number 10, that's my dad in the foreground with the parrot on his shoulder.  (He played bass.)  =D

Other than Pirates, I have been doing a few different things.  This weekend coming, Jess and I are going to a leaders training camp in preparation for Tahlee kids camp in September.  (It's the same camp I wrote about here.)  We are really looking forward to it.  I have been hanging out for kids camp since I had to say goodbye to my six little girls last year and send them home.  

This week is also the closing date for the region writing eisteddfod that I discovered we have last year.  I only entered two sections last year, but this year I am entering all three - short story, poetry, and a letter to the editor.  I did not enter the short story category last year as fictional prose is not my strong point when it comes to writing.  However I decided to do it this year and I am happy with the results.  Oddly enough, it is the poetry that is eluding me this time.  I kind of know what I am going for, but the right words are evading me at present.  Hopefully they come before the closing date.  We shall see, we shall see!!

Guess what??!  I am (attempting) to learn the violin!  I have sort have been interested for a while, but did not really want to start right at the start with Twinkle Twinkle.  My sister Joy offered to give me a lesson, and so I agreed, provided I could start with the second song.  She agreed.  Actually I don't think she particularly agreed with me, but she decided to humour me anyway.  So now, I have struck up a race with James.  I asked him who would reach performance level of the last song in Suzuki book 1.  He - of course! - is convinced it will be him.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we shall see, we shall see!  XDD

Talking about music lessons, I now have three piano students and am meeting with a potential fourth this week.  (Wow!  It's all happening this week!  O.o)  I so much enjoying teaching.  My three students are all ten years old, but apparently the little girl I am meeting on Thursday is only seven and has no musical training so I will be starting from scratch, so to speak.  I am rather looking forward to it.  :)

I think that is all I have to report for now... So long, farewell!  

At the Beach

On Valentine's Day, we went and spent some time with some lovely friends of ours who live about an hour and a half away from us.  After lunch, we all headed down to the 'beach' which was actually on the bay, so technically not the beach but had waves and sand so it was close enough to be called 'the beach'.  ;P  It was a great time and it was a bit amusing to see Rose and Annie experience big water for the first time.    A big thank you to +Joanne Jackson  for permission to use the photos of her beautiful family.  =D

I tried some shadow photography, which I kinda like, but I don't know if it a normal thing to do... :/

One of my favourite photos of the whole day!  :)

Mrs. Jackson took Rose for a 'swim' which impressed Rose muchly.  XD

James and Ellie played grip ball in the water which was pretty cool - they were good too!

Mr. Jackson spent a lot of time helping Rose gain confidence in the water, while making sure she wasn't too confident!

Annie was convinced she saw a whale under the sand, so I gave her a shell and told her it was a whale.  LOL!  She examined the' whale' for quite some time.  XD

Life

Hey everyone!!!  I'm back - back from holidays, back to 'normal' blogging, and back to (almost) normal life.

Most of you would know that the last couple of weeks have been quite difficult for me, my family, and my church family.  I used my blog to express my grief about Shannen and the stuff that was happening around and inside of me.  I want to thank you all for your love, your patience and your prayers - you are all amazing and I can tell you with added conviction that God is good and His peace and love are beyond anything that this world has to offer.  Praise His name forever!

I hope everyone has been well lately and has been doing well.  I can't really think of anything particularly to blog about, so I shall just say what has been happening in life recently.

One of the things we kids enjoy every summer is the library's Summer Reading Program that runs from the end of November to the end of January.  The way it works is that you read as much as you can and record how many hours you read for.  At the end of the allotted time, every two hours you read equals one ticket in your age category.  In February each age category gets tickets drawn out and the idea is that the more tickets you have, the more likely you are to be drawn out for a prize.  I read about 80 hours this year, but as I am in the adult section now I have no idea how that works out against other readers... not that I am betting on winning or anything, but we all like to win when we enter a competition of any sort.  ;)  :P

Jess got her wisdom teeth out this week just gone and I'm afraid it's been a rough path for her.  Right now - nearly four days after the surgery - she still looks like a little squirrel with nuts in her cheeks from the swelling.  In short, it hasn't been so swell...  (sorry, sister dear.  :P )

I started teaching piano again this week,, and I was reminded in the fist lesson how much I enjoy teaching.  My new student is very sweet and I think she will pick up piano very quickly.  I hope I can keep up with her.  :)

What else has been happening?...

Ummm....

I finally got around to scrap booking my 18th birthday party... it's only two years late, but better late than never!  Grace helped me with some of the sheets, and I am so happy with how they have turned out.    You can't see all the details in the photos, but the colour theme on each page is pink, orange and blue with an occasional splash of green and purple.  :)

Christmas!!!

What we started with...

...what we ended up with...

Annie and her favourite new toy

Well, Christmas has come and gone for another year - it's hard to believe it is all over again.  We were highly organized this year - well, for us anyway!  Mum and Dad had all the gifts wrapped before the Christmas Eve church service, and so we were able to enjoy church and and carols without dreading staying up until all hours of the morning wrapping, an annual experience Dad was happy to waive from this year's schedule.  :)

James and his favourite new toy!

After church we drove around town looking at Christmas lights.  I was disappointed that there didn't seam to be nearly as many as usual this year.  While we were driving, I noticed that I could only see half a house at a time and - sure enough - by the time we got home, I had a full blown migraine.  Goodie!  :P  B this stage, it was about eight-thirty, so the other kids took one of our gingerbread houses next door as a gift, Mum and Dad made scrambled eggs for supper (we had had a cooked lunch and then didn't have time to eat before church) and I lay on the couch watching Carols by Candlelight with Santa and the ridiculous Loony Tune renditions of Christmas Carols.  I was glad when the real carols started!

For the first time in my life, Jess, Grace and I were allowed to stay up for the entire carols which ended at just past 11:00 pm.  We were very tired and I had a horrible headache, but it was really special to see it all the way through.


Christmas morning began at 6:00.  It had to if we were going to make it to church at 8:00.  (We are "open presents first" people.)  It took a while to get everyone up, but finally we were all gathered in the lounge room.  As tradition demands, we kids started with our Christmas stockings.  We don't do Santa, but Mum and Dad use the Christmas stockings for the little things that are too fiddly to wrap up individually.  These things are usually more personal items such as hairbrushes, hand cream, pens, so forth.  This year, Mum and Dad also put a mango in each stocking - YUM!  :)

Rose discovering good old-fashioned blackboards.

My present.

The way we do presents at our house is based on the principle that we are so thankful to have received that we just want to give.  Whoever receives a present then goes and picks one to give.  Then that person gives the next gift, and so on.  After a few gifts had been opened, Dad gave me one from him and Mum.  It was the entire Elsie Dinsmore series - all twenty eight books!  I was thrilled because I had rather blatantly "hinted" more than once that that was what I would really like.  I was also given a couple of DVD's (Piano Guys and Calamity Jane - LOL!), a Chris Tomlin Cd, and a tea for one teapot/teacup/saucer set.  Elise was made perfectly happy with a telescope (she loves science), Joy was over the moon with her own ipod, while Grace was extremely pleased with her leather hat and Horrible Histories DVD's.

Cleaning up!

We took our time over presents and by the time we finished, it was ten minutes to eight 'o' clock.  We quickly made ourselves presentable and hurried off to church.  We were about five minutes late, but we weren't the only ones who were late, so it made us feel better.  :)  We had breakfast when we got home... :)

Add caption

Because we had a late breakfast, we decided to have a late lunch too, which was just as well, because by the time Grace had tidied the dining room, Jess had set and decorated the table, and I had all the food ready, it was about 2:30.  We couldn't wait to call Mum to the table because Jess and I had planned a surprise for her.  When Mum was a little girl, her mother had a beautiful dinner set that only came out at Christmas.  When Nanna passed away nearly six years ago, Mum inherited the dinner set and it was tucked away safely in the sideboard.  Jess and I got it out and used it for the Christmas dinner setting.  We were not disappointed.  Mum almost cried when she saw it and she sent a photo to her dad and her sister and brother of the dishes that they all associate with Christmas.

The rest of the day was really low-key and relaxing - I was very excited that it rained all day  :).  We were really blessed to have Christmas together as a family and to be able to connect with each other.  It wasn't particularly fancy, but neither was the night that Christ was born.  In fact, the conditions into which He was born were downright hideous for a new baby and His mother.  But still He came  - Praise the Lord!!

I pray you had a lovely Christmas and that whatever you did to celebrate, you were blessed by the time with family and you Father who started this annual tradition of ours!  Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you! 

Sucssesful Sewing Session

Over the last few months, I have rather desperately tried to learn dress-making.  It was an up-hill road, I assure you!  Usually the clothes would be two wide or way too tight, or something like that and I was starting to despair that I would ever get the knack of it.

Yesterday, as usual, I was minding Rose for a couple of hours.  Also as usual, I tried to think of something we could do together that would not only delight her, but give me practice in certain arts I should like to attain skill in.  This is what we did yesterday from one of my old skirts.


Sweet Summer Dress

Materials:

• One full length skirt with the elastic that is sewn in and reaches about twenty cm down the waist.  These skirts are generally sold as tube dresses at or strap dresses.  Mine was tiered.

Carefully unpick the bottom tier from the skirt (or if your skirt is not tiered, take about 20 cms from the bottom of the skirt.)

The original skirt with the bottom tier removed.

Measure Little Girl around the chest just under the arm pits.  Rosie (who is three and a half) measured 21 inches.  Take the skirt and measure the top of the waist from side seam to side seam.  Multiply that number by two.  (My skirt measured 13 inches from seam to seam, so the final measurement was 26 inches.)  Subtract that number from the measurement of Little Girl's chest.  (I got 5 inches)

Mark a point on one of the side seams near the top of the waist.  Then, make a mark on the back of the skirt subtracted number (5 inches, for example) away from the marked side seam.  Cut out a panel



of the skirt using the two marks as a guide to width.  You may need to widen the panel as you cut towards the bottom of the skirt.

Now you should have most of the skirt in tact save two smaller bits that we have purposefully cut out.  Oh, and the main part of the sirt is not sewn up.  No problem - we are going to fix that now.  Sew up the two raw sides so that the skirt now resembes a skirt again, save that it is far to small to fit you now.  :)

Get Little Girl to try the dress on at this point and make sure that the top of it fits snugly under her arms without being detrimental to her oxygen supply.  Measure over her shoulders from back of dress to front of dress.  Now cut out that length of material from the small bits we cut off earlier at about three inches wide.  Hem the long sides.  These are the sleeves.  It is helpful to pin these on while the Little Girl is wearing the dress.  The sleeves cannot be loose.  Sew on the sleeves.

Hem the dress.

Done!  :)  I'm afraid I didn't explain it very well.  Hopefully you can glean from my vague directions and the photos what should happen.  I am very happy with how it worked out though.

Have a great weekend


 

My Advent Calender At Last... :)

Sorry this post has been a long time coming everyone... the subject of this post is in fact the reason I have not been on for a while.  :)

I really enjoy the book by Rosie Boom Where Lions Roar at Night.  The short of the book is that a New Zealand family - Mum, Dad and their six children - move into a 100 year old barn as they set up their farm.  I would highly recommend the book.  It is sweet, touching, cringe-worthy and downright hilarious by turns.

While flicking through it a couple of weeks ago, I was inspired by Rosie's Advent calender patch-work quilt.  I promptly decided that I would make one too.  Why not???  :P

This proved a little more difficult than I first anticipated.  After all, it isn't easy to come up with twenty-five different motifs for the front of each pocket.  I realized that this was a bigger project than I could achieve in less than a fortnight, so I roped two of my tired, reluctant sisters into it as well and pushed their love for me to the limit by nagging then to hem for me.  (OK, I am exaggerating a bit, but I did nag... :P)

The week before it was due to be hanged - I mean, hung up ;) - I made the chocolate, because (as I told Mum later - you just can't have an Advent calender without chocolate.  That presents a small problem in our family, because we don't eat sugar.  Luckily, we have a recipe for sugar free dairy free chocolate.  I have put the recipe here in case any of you are interested...


Sugar-Free Chocolate  (From The Sweet Poison Quit Plan by David Gillespie)

80g cocoa butter (available from health food stores)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup dextrose (available from the home-brewing section of Big W.  I found that I needed a bit extra dextrose here as the chocolate came out really dark.  I like dark chocolate, but this was extreme!)
1 cup of water

To make the dextrose syrup, put the dextrose and water into a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the dextrose has dissolved and the mixture is well combined.  Put the cocoa butter into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and stir until melted.  Ad the cocoa powder and 1/4 cup of the dextrose syup and stir until melted and well combined.  Pour the chocolate mixture into tablespoon-sized chocolate moulds. refrigerte for 2-3 hours or until set.  Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.


Or, if you're like me, you will wrap each chocolate in foil and put them in pockets on the advent calender for twenty-five days... :P

I was rushing to finish the sewing in the week leading up to the first of December, but didn't quite make it.  I went up on the second and Mum and the younger kids were really very impressed by it (they hadn't known about it.)  When Rose first sawit in the dining romm under the clock, she stopped short in the kitchen staring.  "WOW!" was all she could get out at first.  I put on the innocent. 
"What is it, Rosie?"  I asked.
She kept her eyes on the dining room wall.  "It is so pretty," she explained.  :)

So that it the story of me creating an Advent Calender.  It was lots of fun.  If you have made on e ar do make one one day, I would love to see pictures if you drop me a message...  :)

Oh, the photos... I have included some of the calender as a whole and then some individuals of my favourite patches.  If they look misshapen, that's because I had already 'stuffed' them when I took the photos (a chocolate and a Christmas Bible verse on a card in each pocket).  Also, if number 19 (second row on the far right) looks like it has been sewn on crooked, that's because it was.  :P 

God bless you all in this festive season!  :)

Gmail Blues

Ring Ring!!!  It was eight 'o' clock in the morning, so I was surprised when, upon answering the phone, it was my aunty calling.  She explained to me that she was giving an art class that day and that she really wanted a photo of the painting she had given the James to illustrate the line drawing she was going to talk about.  She told me it would be easiest to take the photo on Mum's ipod and then use the ipod to email the picture to her.  After a couple of tries and discovering that opening the blinds makes the photo come out so much better, I had a decent shot to send to her.

There was no messaging account open on the ipod.

Bother.

"That's OK." Aunty K. said.  "Just attach it to the computer and I'll give you my gmail address.  Just email it through."  That ought to be easy, I thought.  I carefully wrote out her gmail address on a slip of paper and hung up the phone.  The picture downloaded on the computer and I attached it to an email.  I typed in the address, breathing easy once I got to the "gmail.com" bit - after all, every gmail address ends like that.

I pressed SEND.

Instantly, I got an email in my inbox.  "The recipient address was rejected."

Rejected?  It couldn't be!

I typed out a silly little note under the same address and tried again.

"The recipient address was rejected."

I was not sure quite what to do now.  I double checked the address.  It was so simple - how could I have got it wrong? I reread it.

"...gamil.com". 

WHAT!!! WAIT RIGHT THERE!!!

"...gamil.com".

I had made a typo in the most simple part of the address - no wonder it wasn't going anywhere!  Lesson learned, photo sent, day saved.  *sigh*  :D