The Concerts are done!

Ahhhh, what a feeling. As much as I love doing the whole choir thing, there is nothing like knowing that all the concerts are behind you for the first semester. I am really looking forward to two weeks to spend with family & friends, sleeping in, taking in a few movies, and just relaxing for awhile.

The concert was supposed to be Thurs. the 15th, but snow postponed it until this past Tuesday. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but it sort of messed up "my groove". You get all geared up and ready to go, and then you have to wait for five more days. It just throws off your timing.

The concert went pretty well, overall. There were some serious soprano sharping problems in spots, but otherwise it went very well. My biggest screw up was dropping a song from A Cappella's lineup (the music somehow disappeared from my stand). The solos all went well, with no girls sobbing backstage this time around. That's always a plus. The Divas were the biggest standout in my mind this time around. Half the size of last years group with twice the volume and 10 times the heart. As long as I pick good music for this group, they are going to do some impressive work this year. Now if we can only sell enough tickets to pay for those uniforms....

We sang in front of the student body today. They would get quiet eventually, but the hooting and hollering for individual friends between songs got to be pretty obnoxious. It's pretty embarrassing. They can't seem to tell the difference between a concert and a World Wrestling Federation Cage Match. As connected as we all are in the post-modern world, I sometimes forget that I live in the sticks until something like this. Northern Rednecks. Spare me.

To lighten things up on the last day of school, I unveiled my latest masterpiece, "My Least Favorite Things". It has a few good zingers in it, but they all seemed to get a laugh out of it.

Well, time to get my Santa suit on. We open presents on the first free day of vacation to keep Christmas uncluttered. Hope we struck a good balance with the presents this year. The price of gas and taxes when up by a lot bigger percentage than my salary ever has. Maybe Santa will leave me an Exxon card.

One day to the Christmas Concert and.....

the skirts and blouses showed up a day early....so that takes some of the pressure off. The decorating fanatic alumni Anna Forbes showed up today and started a frenzied campaign to spruce up the stage. (I thought the holly branches with white lights and red bows would serve, but it turns out that we needed golden snowflakes, a fireplace with stockings for each choir, entrance doors wrapped like presents, a couple live Christmas Trees, and possibly a dove release if she can talk me into it.) The young woman definatly goes overboard, but I have to admit that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The sickness is still there. There were still plenty of absences today, and a very sad Melissa Larsen asked to pull her solo from the concert because there is just no voice there at all. It was looking as if we were going to lose our "Santa Baby" act too, but Rachel Drennen seemed to be improving by the end of the day. The last few days have been brutally cold (single digits), and it's really knocked the stuffing out of a lot of students. They got the standard "home remedies for sickly voices" speech. Let's hope it works.

On the home front, Steph managed to get a "girl's night out" in with a cookie exchange that resulted in a good take. If we can buy up a few plates at the concert tomorrow night, we could potentially be covered for the holidays. Cookies. Yum.

The kids and I watched "Indian in the Cupboard" while Steph was out. I hadn't seen it before and found myself getting choked up at the end. What a softie I am. I should take up a martial art or something. It was nice to be able to spend the night before the concert watching a movie with the kids. I got home at 4:45 and spent about an hour running through the accompaniments for the concert, but everything else is pretty much finished. There's back burner stuff, but I feel justified in not doing it. Those last Districts songs can wait a few more days.

Two days to the Christmas Concert and....

they're all sick! It seems like there are more 'A's on the attendence sheet every day. And intonation was horrible today! And the freshman still aren't supporting enough to project their voices past the piano. I need a tums.

OK. I suppose this rant happens before every concert. I've been at this for awhile. I thought that it was supposed to get easier. But the good news is that the concert is one week before Christmas Vacation starts, so I have some time to get ready for Christmas after the concert is over. No wrapping presents the day before this time around because I'm obsessing over the concert program. One of these years I'll learn to be carefree two days before the concert. But this is not that year.

Arrrgghh! Has it really been that long?

I was reading a friends blog the other day and I said to myself, "Hey, I have a blog.....somewhere." So I figured that I should root around in my favorites folder until I find it and then write something. Here we are.

It's surprising that almost a whole year has gone by. The kids are now 9 and 6. I'm 40 and feeling old. I should be having a mid-life crisis soon. Maybe I'm having it now. Should I run out and buy a sports car, get a toupe' and have an affair? Naaaaa.

I suppose I should get back to the whole blogging thing. It is free after all, and gives me a chance to get my wild and unruly thoughts down in some tangible format. We'll see how I manage. Life is busy.