Goodbye, 2011!

I've been thinking about this year. It's been a good one, generally speaking.

My girls are both growing healthy and strong.

Big Girl is dependable, strong, trustworthy, smart, creative, imaginative, curious, and sweet. She has grown about 4 inches or so in the last year. The top of her head now reaches the bottom of my neck. For all the worries we had when she was a preschooler, they have been allayed for the most part. Her adolescence will bring new challenges, for sure, but I don't worry about her. We'll cross the challenging bridges when we get to them.

Little Girl is strong and creative. She sees things in her own way. She challenges us and her teachers. This year has been a hard one for her. She struggles to fit into the mold of school, and what is expected of her there. Routine is difficult for her. She forgets things all the time. (I can relate!) She frequently leaves a mess in her wake.

Hubby has had a good end to 2011. There are many factors bringing this on, but I don't know what he'd like me to share and what he'd prefer me to keep private, so I'll keep most things private.

Something I know he's made public is his weight loss. He and I both have been using the Lose It! app to lose weight. He's lost more than 20 lbs in the last three months or so and I've lost six or seven in two months. We're helping each other and doing it together. I'm sure that's a big part of our success. I'm fitting into clothes I haven't worn in years and that's fun. I like my body more in the last few weeks than I have in years.

In addition to making progress on our personal goals of getting smaller, Hubby and I have been helping each other carry out other goals too. Seems like many things around the house that have needed to be done are getting done. We had our front door and back door replaced. Both of them leaked air, and we tried to fix that with weather stripping, but then the door wouldn't open and close properly. The back door was replaced with a 3/4 window so that a dog door would fit in the bottom for Daisy. The front door was replaced with a security door that has an integrated locking mechanism in the top, middle and bottom of the door. They both seal up, and open and close properly. Both came unfinished, and I've been painting them and finishing them this week.

The new front door's handle was built in, and we got to pick the finish for it, but not much else. Shiny brass knob was not one of the choices, and we didn't want that anyway, so we decided to change all the doorknobs in the house. Now they're nice satin nickel levers like this, only I flipped them over the other way so that it matches the front door a little better.

Accomplishing projects has always been good for me. This week has been very different from the past when I'd be knee-deep into project mode. It has struck me more than a few times that Hubby has been supporting me this week. Three days this week he went out to gather what was needed for this or that project, he did laundry and cooked or brought home dinner. I think the two of us are working together better than ever before. It's a very good thing.

I am thankful for the many blessings God has given us this past year. May God bless you in 2012!

December Already?!

November didn't even make a blip on this blog. Oh well...

So much going on lately. Since I last posted, Big Girl had a birthday, and birthday party, Thanksgiving came and went. We've had our front and back doors replaced on the house, and I've also lost 5 pounds. I went out of town for a training seminar that lasted three days. The day I got back was a concert for my tiny school's choir, and I had missed the last three days of rehearsal.

I wish my heart was where it was early on in the school year. Things are still going very well at school. My attitude just isn't at that place where it was before. I know the difference is me because God hasn't gone anywhere.

Psalm 63 has been with me this week. Specifically, this version of it. That's what my phone plays to wake me up on Sundays. (Every other day, my phone plays this good morning song.) My work trip just happened in the last week, and as I was discussing with my roommates about what time to get up in the morning, the alarm clock songs came into my head. Psalm 63 just would not let go.

I need to get back to the habit of meditating on the Psalms. That was so good for me.

Unworthy

This morning in our church worship service, I led out in singing "Revelation Song." I have sung this song before, and I didn't really think about it much until it was going on right then on the stage.

It wasn't very far into the song before I was overwhelmed with how very UNworthy I am. And there I was, in front of everyone, leading in a song about how worthy GOD is.

I am a pretty good singer, especially by church standards. And this gets me into trouble. If I ever forget what my voice is for, like if I start to take pride in it for my own sake and puff up myself, it's completely worthless. I know God can use the most unworthy of vessels in His own good pleasure (like Balaam's donkey, for example), so in that way, if what I am singing is pointing others towards God, it's not entirely in vain. But it is far better when I remember my place in light of HIS holiness and HIS worthiness, and I see nothing of worth in myself apart from Him. My righteousness is filthy rags. That's why I need a savior. I need that Lamb who was slain and now sits on the throne. I need the Holy One who was, and is, and is to come.

This thought overwhelmed me this morning as I sang, and thankfully the tears didn't come until after the song was over.

I bet you can guess what song is in my head. Yeah, still that one.

Since Last Time...

It's been over a week since I even really thought about blogging. Well, it's been a very busy week.

I had a birthday, for one thing. And my formal observation on which my evaluation as a teacher is based. And both of those were the same day.

I have blogged previously about using my rhythm cards in middle school choir that I had made when I was teaching elementary music. I have had some flashes of brilliance that are working themselves into innovative and rigorous lessons for my students. I don't want to sound arrogant for tooting my own horn, but sometimes there are things that need to be broadcast out there for everyone to know. It's just that good. This is one of those things.

So I was lying in bed one morning, not wanting to get out of bed, or else maybe I was lying there about to go to sleep at night, I don't remember which, when this idea came to me. A GROUP COMPOSITION PROJECT!!!

I had already used all the cards, having the students transition to the big-girls & -boys way of reading rhythms. I'd already had them composing by writing solfege syllables below rhythm cards. I had not, however, had the students writing notes on the staff. This is something that can seem very daunting to most students. It's difficult and strange at first. But what if I broke it down and made it easier? Here's what came to me:

This is what the students were given on a half-sheet of paper. The beauty of this is the PRE-writing exercise in the boxes at the top. By the time the students write on the staff, they have a clear picture of what to write. I have taught them how to find where to place the solfege on the staff. I got to teach them about notation and stem direction. This is all some very in-depth stuff that I have never had to teach before. It has always seemed like there wasn't enough time. This project just took half a class period for two class periods. It could be done in one day if the teacher was willing to sacrifice singing for a day.

The product is going to be our sight-reading book for the next few weeks. The students were given very specific guidelines about the melodies they were to compose. If they let me check and they had broken one of the "rules" then I'd bounce it back to them for a rewrite. I want the melodies to be simple enough for them to read. Difficult skips were off limits.

I think I'll do this project again, but next time I'll change the melody rules. I could also change the key signature, which would add another skill. Eventually I'd like to be able to hand them a page of stick notation and they can transcribe it to the staff.

I apologize to any non-musicians who are bored or lost with this post. It's like reading about quantum mechanics would be to me. I don't know and I barely care what that's all about.

Today you get to write the song in your head. Print the picture and try it out!! (Just kidding!)

Running in Circles

In the last two weeks, I have taken one child to the neurologist, the other child to the optometrist, myself to the dentist, both girls to the dentist, the dog to the groomer, worked every weekday, volunteered an hour at the girls' school, served in children's choir at church twice, attended two church choir rehearsals, conducted one middle school choir concert, and I'm probably leaving something out. I have another concert tomorrow.

Right about now all this running in circles is making me feel like I'm circling the drain.

I have another concert tomorrow night, and then WEEKEND!!

But this weekend may not be very restful after all. My uncle is in ICU, and I may be traveling to see him.

I can't think about that now. It's time for bed.

I have "Bayushki Bayu" in my head. It's a song my 7th grade girls will sing for region auditions next week, and I had them sing it in the concert tonight. I sang the Soprano 2 part with them since among the four of them are two Soprano 1s and two Altos, and without the middle part it wouldn't be nearly so pretty. (My computer is locking up tonight, and I haven't been able to preview the clip. I'm calling my tech support specialist this very moment!)

Grown-up Stuff

I would really like to return to being a kid. Lately it seems like I have a whole lot of grown-up stuff going on, problems to solve, difficult questions to answer. I remember being a kid, and I was one of those kids who thought my problems were actually big problems and I'd get annoyed with grown-ups who did understand how big my problems were. Well, I know now with the benefit of many more years of life behind me than I had then that the things I worried about were little and stupid.

One of those annoying grown-up things I'm dealing with is health insurance and prescription drug coverage. It's not like I picked the drug. I'd rather there not be a need for the drug. But there is. And it's not covered. Really?

And at work there's this thing that should have been taken care of last school year, but it wasn't, and so now I have to deal with it. It wasn't my mistake that it didn't happen. But now it's my problem. Got to love that. At least when you're a kid other people's problems don't automatically fall in your lap and become your problems. Well, they didn't for me anyway because I have awesome parents.

I handled many things along these lines today. I got a lot done. I feel like a real grown-up now. Just what I wanted so desperately about 20 years ago. Now I want to trade adulthood back for some innocence and simple problems.

I'm still floating through the Brahms Requiem in my head. I love it.

Brahms Requiem

This past weekend was the Brahms Requiem concert. There were also some rehearsals leading up to it with a middle school choir lock-in between. Yeah, it was a busy weekend.

I came away from the weekend with this song in my head, "Denn alles fleisch," the second movement from the Requiem. It is absolutely glorious.


It begins very foreboding and ominous. "All flesh is like grass, and all magnificence of mortals like the grasses' flowers. The grass has dried up and the flower fallen off." Dark imagery. But it's true. The temporal things of this world will be burned up.

Then there's a huge change. "So be patient, dear brothers, until the future of the Lord. Behold, a husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient about it until he receives the morning rain." The Lord Jesus is coming for His bride, and we don't know when that will be, so we must wait patiently, bearing with the fallen brokenness of the world, knowing it will not last forever.

Then it goes back into the darker music, repeating the "all flesh is like grass" text.


THEN... This part! "But the Lord's Word remains in eternity! The redeemed of the Lord will again come, and to Zion with shouts of joy. Joy, joy, eternal joy will upon their heads be. Joy and delight will seize them, and sorrow and sighing will have to go away. The redeemed of the Lord will again come, and to Zion with shouts of joy. Joy, joy, eternal joy will upon their heads be." Some day we will inhabit a new earth with Christ Jesus, the Lord of all, and we will experience eternal joy.


The depth of this text, all sung in German, hit me like a ton of bricks during our rehearsal the afternoon after the lock-in. I was terribly sleep deprived, and emotionally vulnerable, and I couldn't help but weep as we practiced this movement with the orchestra. It was so very moving.

I worshiped. I may have been the only one in that whole place having a moment with God. It was amazing. Praise the Lord! I love it when He speaks to me like this. It's so very personal.

Stupid?

A friend of mine had this on her facebook, and I had to swipe it. It's just all kinds of awesome. Thanks, Jennifer!

Time to Rest

My body is having a forced shut-down. I pushed it through the weekend, and Sunday evening, I was done. I had a slight fever (since my body temp usually runs low, 99 degrees for me is a real fever), my nose was running, I was coughing and sneezing and all I wanted to do was sleep.

I took Monday off, which seemed like a good idea. It was a very good idea. I slept in, with a brief interruption to fix my girls' hair, and vegged out watching Netflix.

I should have done that again today. But no. I went to work. Not the best idea I ever had. After 2nd period, all I wanted to do was assume fetal position and put my head down.

I knew this was going to happen.

For some reason, I can't escape "Firework" by Katy Perry. I can't stand her or the song. I'm not going to link it. If you are fortunate enough to have never heard this horrible excuse for music, then I'm going to leave you in your blissful ignorance. I wish it wasn't but today it is the song in my head. Maybe that's where the pounding is coming from...

Paying the Price

Here it is, the Wednesday after Girlfriends Weekend, and I'm still tired. I have not caught up on sleep, which is not at all surprising. I can feel illness knocking gently on the door, warning me that if I don't get some serious sleep, like 9 hours or more a night, pretty soon, it's going to wipe me out for a while, and then I won't have a choice. The allergies have set in, and my nose is a little runny already. The tickle in my throat will be next, followed by a full-on head cold. Please join with me in praying that it doesn't happen.

Along with the threat of illness, I'm losing control of my emotions. Little things that I should be weathering with a smile (and possibly a snarky comment inside my head) are erupting into huge crying spells.

The song in my head tonight is an interesting choice. I've been working on the Brahms Requiem (Ein Deutch Requiem) for the choir I sing with at the local university. The 8th grade girls are working on Brahms's "In Stiller Nacht" for region auditions, and I've been teaching it. But the song in my head, is just somewhat Brahms-like. "The Blue Bird" is a piece I have sung for a friend's doctoral choral conducting recital. It was tremendously exciting to sing the close harmonies and intense soft sounds. That's the song in my head tonight. I find it absolutely breathtaking.

(If you really want to hear it, here's a link to a video of the Brahms Requiem. It's over an hour and fifteen minutes, so it's the whole thing. Maybe get a cup of coffee and go potty before you settle in for this one!)

Girlfriends Weekend

This past weekend I got to go to my friend's house along with five other friends (for a total of seven ladies), and we just spent time together talking, and talking. There was always talking. I think there were about 3 minutes or so at dinner on Saturday night when we were all stuffing our faces with fajitas that we weren't talking, but other than that, and the movie, we were talking non-stop. We saw "The Help." It's a very good movie. It was hard for us to watch, as a bunch of mommies. There are some extreme examples of bad parenting in that movie, and it made us all sad to see.

After the movie, we went to dinner and ate fajitas. After the dinner, on the way back to K's house, somehow we erupted in a food fight with Nerds and Reese's Pieces being thrown around the car. I laughed so hard I cried. That's one of those moments all seven of us will remember for the rest of our lives.

I had a great time lounging by the pool at K's house. Her husband and she have worked all summer putting it in, with the help of some contractors. They did much of the work themselves. It's a saltwater pool, rather than a chlorine pool. I really liked it. You could swim in it with your eyes open without it hurting your eyes. Very cool.

It amazes me every time we get together (this was probably the 3rd or 4th time) that the seven of us all get along. We're very different from each other, but we have a mutual love and respect for one another. We are bonded by common experience, having each been pregnant at the same time as at least one of the others in the group, and having shared some profound life changes together. And we share a common faith in God.

It was worth the sleep deprivation to have spent the weekend with my girlfriends. I am blessed to have them in my life.

Children's Choir

Tonight was the first night of children's choir at our church. It's the first time we have had it on Wednesday night. As a church we have eliminated the Sunday night stuff at the church, and moved the kids' programming to Wednesday. We'll see how this works out tomorrow morning for my munchkins. Getting them up for school might be a little harder than usual. It may sound like I'm complaining, but really, I'm up at church on Wednesday nights anyway, so it's no big deal. This schedule really does help me and I'm glad to get to relax on Sunday afternoons.

That's not what I really want to blog about.

I am helping this year in a class with the most amazing children's choir director ever. I can make such a statement from a position of knowledge and experience. This wonderful woman, Mrs. M, was my choir director when I was in children's choir as an elementary school kid. I have seen many children's choir directors in my day, and many church choir directors as well. Never has there been a more perfect combination of the two in one as this lovely woman. I was mainly sitting in the back, observing her as she worked with the students, establishing an atmosphere of respect and reverence. I was watching. And worshiping.

It surprised me.

I don't know why I should be surprised. God is at work.

At one point in the rehearsal, Mrs. M stopped what she was doing. She had forgotten what she had planned to do next. Rather than just fake it for a minute, she stopped the lesson, confessed that she hadn't written it down, and prayed aloud for the Lord to guide her through the lesson. I was moved by her humility before God, the two of us adult workers in the room, and the children. I was moved by her wisdom to seek God's direction for the next step rather than to trust herself and her own ability to teach. I was moved by her unashamed faith. There was no doubt that God would lead her to the next thing that needed to happen in tonight's rehearsal.

In that moment, as she prayed, tears came to my eyes. I was pricked with conviction. How many times do I get stuck in a lesson and I plow on ahead in my own strength? Too many.

I don't know if any of the kids really got anything from that moment, but I sure did. Praise God. It was such a personal moment in which the Lord revealed His might through Mrs. M's weakness. It may have been just for me. And that makes it all the more special. The God of the universe wants a personal relationship with me. He keeps revealing Himself to me, tugging at my heart, revealing what I have not yet yielded to Him. And He's not going to stop. I praise the Lord for that too!

Right now in my life I feel almost like a teenager in love. I feel like God is wooing me. And I know that He is because over and over again in the Word of God Jesus is said to be the bridegroom coming for His bride, the church. It's overwhelming me, and I never want it to stop.

Of course I realize, as a married woman now for over 12 years, that the feelings come and go, but the commitment is there regardless of emotions. I know this "feeling" isn't going to go on indefinitely. There will be times when I won't be able to see or feel God in my life, and it's in those times that I'll have to remember this, and trust that He is still there. But maybe next time when that happens it won't be so long as the last time.

Tonight I have a song in my head, placed there by my beloved God: "As the Bridegroom to His Chosen," by John Rutter. The CD I have with this song is of Rutter directing his choir, The Cambridge Singers, but this youtube clip of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is pretty good too. I pray you feel the Lord's gentle wooing of your spirit as you listen.

So Much for Balance!

I knew as soon as I put it out there, something would come along, and then I'd fail.

Well, I haven't completely failed yet. Yesterday Hubby and I got smart phones. So the two of us spent most of the afternoon and all of the evening configuring apps, editing our contacts, transferring things from our old dinky phones to the new awesome phones that don't have phone numbers yet because we're waiting on the phone companies to port our numbers from the old to the new phones. In this process we're eliminating our home phone. We're joining the young people in their technology revolution.

I only played Angry Birds for about 45 minutes. Okay, so it was more like an hour.

So here's the song in my head. Enjoy!

Finding Balance?

A couple months back I blogged about my facebook quandary. I think I'm starting to find balance with it. I haven't quit facebook. In fact I don't know how much I've really cut back. Starting back to school has put a big cut on my "free" time, of course. But of the time I still have, I am spending some of it on facebook.

I am blogging more. That's obvious. I'm happier blogging than I am with facebook. I think there's something to that...

I'm reading more. Actual books. I like reading books. I'd probably like an e-reader too, but I'm not there yet in adopting new technology. I've been to the library more in the last two months than in the previous two years put together. That's a good thing.

I feel like I have a better attitude about life in general. I am more willing to do things that need to be done. (I'm typing this as the dryer is buzzing... I guess I need to get up and take care of it!)

I guess I'm finding balance. I'm still a little afraid to declare victory. I feel like I may just fail and make a liar of myself...

Vision Into Reality

My high school's motto was "Vision Into Reality." We were a brand new high school back in the day. Now it's... a number of years old, and I don't know if they've changed it or what, but that's not important right now.

I'm thinking of that phrase now, today, because I did one of those things I envisioned doing before the school year began. Today I taught using my rhythm cards. I had the students read the rhythms using the "baby" way they do it in elementary school, and then I transitioned them into the "grown-up" way we do it in middle school and beyond. (The "baby" way is TA--TA--TI-TI-TA -- the way they teach it in the Kodaly method. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's just not how we talk about rhythm in the "real" world beyond elementary school. We say 1--2--3-&-4--.)

It's pretty exciting, as a music teacher, to move through 1st through 5th grade skills in 20 minutes. I have color-coded rhythm cards, and each color adds a new symbol to the mix, adding to the difficulty. I have to assume, since I'm teaching kids from a variety of elementary schools, that they don't all know exactly the same skills. I hope and pray that my students come to me with the basic knowledge from which I can continue to spiral up and out to more complex concepts, but I can't take that for granted. I quickly went through the basics to make sure everyone was on the same page with me moving forward.

By the end of the lesson, I had four simple rhythm cards on the board (they're magnetized), and I had students "composing" by assigning a solfege syllable to each note. It was obvious that adding pitch made everything harder, but the students were able to read and sing what they read. They weren't reading it off the staff yet, but many of the important "pre-reading" skills are obviously in place. We've been working on solfege drills since the second day of school, and here it is the third week, and they're already reading pitch and rhythm together. This is a VERY GOOD start!!

I know it will add another layer of complexity and difficulty to have them read from the staff, but it will come. All in due time...

This lesson was so successful that the other teacher wants to trade classes with me tomorrow and have me teach it to his students! YAY!

It's been a satisfying thing to see that vision I had before school ever started become a successful reality in my classroom. I know without a doubt I am a better teacher this year than ever before. Thank you, God! Praise the Lord!

No Fakers, Please

I have always had a disdain for fakers. When people want to run around saying things like, "Praise the Lord," I have always had a good deal of skepticism, and even some downright cynicism toward those people. How could they really mean it all the time? They must be faking, at least some of the time.

Lately I have been blogging about God's blessings in my life. I have been actually living a life in which I really feel that "Praise the Lord" attitude for real. It seems like I'm becoming one of those people, at least for this season in my life.

As the person saying it, I have some different feelings about it than what I had before, as just a witness. I do see how it can be annoying to someone not experiencing it, or someone who has never experienced it. I know a lot of people who would look at the things happening in my life and attribute them to me, that somehow I am "doing better".

But I know that can't be true.

I know I've tried over and over to "do better" at many things. I've tried to be a better mom, a better teacher, a better wife. I always try so hard, and fail. The only thing I know I can do is fail. Repeatedly.

But all of a sudden, I'm not failing at absolutely everything. What's different?

It has to go back to my attitude toward my own sin. This summer, about a month ago or so, I finally decided to agree with God that I shouldn't watch a certain TV show. I struggled with it. I knew I felt convicted about it. I had that sick-in-the-gut feeling you get when you know you're doing something wrong. I believe where God draws those lines of what's right and what's not can be different for everyone, based on one's personal relationship with Christ. (There are non-negociables too, don't get me wrong. Watching a TV show isn't explicitly listed in the bible, neither is smoking, or lots of other things.) In Paul's writings, he talks about not being a stumbling block for a weaker believer. Depending on the other people in our lives, some things may be stumbling blocks for people that we may not even realize. Anyway, the point is to be sensitive to that little voice that says something is wrong, and then do what it says.

This is not the first time God has told me something was wrong and I obeyed. There is something different this time. And it's not something I did. It's something God started. I am agreeing to cooperate, but that's as far as it goes for my part.

I have had all these Psalms flooding my head. It's like God has been chasing me with his word. He's planting his word in my head, in the form of songs because he knows that will work for me, and I can't get away from it. At this point, I don't want to get away from it. I am in awe of it. I am in awe of the power it has over my attitude.

The changes I have seen in my responses to things have been truly miraculous. Instead of my fleshy filth coming out at every turn, I can see the sweet response of the Holy Spirit at work, calming me in frustrating times, and lifting me up in the midst of discouragement. I can see my caustic sarcasm subside, and my sincere joy or sorrow flow forth as appropriate to the given situation. I am listening better to other people. I am caring more about the people around me, and desiring to share the love of God.

But none of this is from me, really. I can see it all as the overflow of what God has planted in my head through his word. No, really he's planting it in my heart.

I don't know that I have had this kind of excitement for spiritual things since my youth group days in high school. Back then I had a fire for the Lord that would not quit until all my friends knew Jesus. Back then I had the freedom to share with my lost friends at school.

As a teacher, I know there are boundaries. I don't have that same freedom I had as a student. Whatever influence I have has to be "without a word," like it says in 1 Peter 3:1.

My attitude toward fakers is still the same. I just have a little more faith that not everyone who I used to be so skeptical of is faking. God really does such good things that some people can't help but praise Him for everything!

God's Blessing

I am seeing the hand of God at work in my work. This week I have continued to feel successful at my job, handling the little foxes* without losing my cool, and keeping a positive spin on it for my students. I have said, more times than I can count, "I want you to be awesome, and it makes me sad when we have to waste time on talking instead of learning which is what makes you awesome." I've probably used the word awesome too many times already this year. I caught myself saying it so many time today that I asked my class if it was too many.

There are just so many things going well this year.

My tiny choir is continuing to grow. Two years ago I had 9. Last year I had 19. This year I'm up to 24. And I know I'll grow as the year goes on because when kids move in to the school, the counselors send them my way. And so many of my kids are returning 7th and 8th graders. They already know so much of what I expect. It's like starting the year on the second chapter, rather than having to go back to the beginning. More than half of my students are signing up to try out for the all-region choir. I don't think many other programs can say that. OVER HALF!! And not all of them are eligible since only 7th and 8th graders can try out. I'm devoting more class time to helping these kids prepare for region than I did last year. But last year at this point, I only had 3 kids interested in trying out. One was sick the day of the audition, so I only had 2 kids there. Anyway, this year I'm set to have 13 or 14 kids audition, and it's FANTASTIC!

My 6th grade choirs at the big choir school are also doing well. Those classes are all girls' classes and there's a separate class of 6th grade boys taught by the other choir teacher. It's working wonderfully to have them separated. I'm able to be funny with the girls in a different way... I don't know how to describe it. I can say things like, "since it's just us girls..." not that what comes after is somehow different than if there were boys there. I guess it has just helped me to develop the relationships with students quicker. The girls are not inhibited by the presence of boys, and I'm sure the same is true in the boys class. The get to just be guys. First period is one of my girls' classes and the boys' class, and both of those classes come in early to hang out in the room. It's our school's solution to the problem of having kids wait in a common holding area where we had previously had problems. The kids are now in class a little early, and it allows for that no-pressure relational time. I'm loving that time. The boys' class is watching ESPN every morning. In my class, I'm usually getting set up, pushing the piano out (since I teach in the orchestra room), so I end up at the piano playing, "Don't Stop Believing" and the girls sing. It's a good time for singing, "Happy Birthday," as well. I am really loving the opportunity to have the "face time" with kids. If only I could have that with my third period class too...

I can't help but think that the wonderful start to this school year has a lot to do with the meditation on the Psalms that have been sometimes voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily taking place in my mind lately. I do think I'm being a better teacher, but I don't think it's because I'm really anything. It's because I'm allowing God to make me a better teacher than I've ever been. I truly want to be the teacher, the mother, the wife, the daughter, the child of God, that God wants me to be.

I'm finally getting to teach, "I See the Light," from Tangled. So of course that's the song in my head.

* This is a reference to Song of Solomon 2:14-16. "Catch us the foxes, The little foxes that spoil the vines, For our vines have tender grapes." Often times we let the little things bother us and ruin the bigger things that are good.

A Rough Parenting Day

Little Girl had a rough day. Some things she had been doing last week and today caught up to her. Her initial response was to lie about it.

She put us in a box. We had to do something about it. We couldn't let another day go by without meting out consequences for her.

I think Hubby and I made some good parenting choices, talking to Little Girl very matter-of-fact about what she did and what we had to do, no raised voices.

I'm just so sad for Little Girl. I hope she'll truly learn from what she's done.

This song in my head all afternoon seems appropriate. Jars of Clay, "Much Afraid."

Fun Family Moment

Last night, yesterday evening really, Hubby suggested to the girls that they take a bubble bath in our giant master bathtub. So they did. The copious bubbles floated up tho their chins when we had the jets going. The girls made bubble beards and we took pictures. Those are probably going to be the last bath pictures I get to take of my kids. There were so many bubbles it was a G-rated picture. I think they enjoyed the bath and the bubbles, and the novelty of using our tub. We've lived in this house with that bathtub for nearly four years, and this was the first time the girls had used it.

Hubby is on a Cake spree right now, having just completed our collection with the couple of albums of theirs we didn't already have. While I don't know the songs he just added, I have an oldie in my head, "Guitar."

Blessings Come Full Circle

Twice recently (here and here) I have blogged about "Psalm 20," the song by Eternity on their Light of the World album. What I have not made public is that I have been personally connected to the director/founder of the group, Joe, my whole life. My parents were members of Eternity in their newlywed days and I myself was a member for a short time. Light of the World came out when I was a kid. I've known those songs for a very long time. We had it on vinyl at my house, and dad made a cassette tape to take in the car. Both of those technologies are long since past their relevance, so I had not heard that music at all in the last 10 years, at least.

About 2 years ago I got the mp3 files from the director/founder of the group who is someone I still know and see. I loaded them onto my computer, but I hadn't really listened to them much until a few months ago. Now I'm being blessed by it more than I ever thought possible.

Tonight I saw Joe. I had to tell him about how God has used that music that he produced all those years ago is currently touching my heart. I couldn't tell him about it without crying, and now "Psalm 20" is in my head again. It's not the music that gets me. It's the complex vocals and the TEXT! It's glorious! And it's in 6/8 meter, which is my all-time favorite. So catchy.

3 down, 177 to go!

After three days of school, I am very encouraged.

At the giant choir school I am no longer teaching the non-varsity 7th and 8th grade girls choir, which I was very sad about at first. What we did last year was that I would teach one section of JV girls, and one section of 6th grade choir, and the other director would also teach a section of JV girls and a section of 6th grade, and then each composite choir would perform together under my direction. Since I'm not teaching a section of JV this year, I'll no longer be directing that group in concerts or at contest. It felt like a step backward, like a demotion. My first year at that school, I had only taught 6th grade, the second year I taught 6th grade and the JV girls, and now I'm back to only 6th grade. The decision was made for the good of the students who will now get consistent instruction between the two sections of the composite classes, and not because I wasn't doing a good job. It also makes for an easier year between us two teachers. We no longer have to coordinate with each other, which wasn't happening very well anyway, and we can manage our own classes. In concerts the students will be more comfortable because they're all be directed by the person they're used to seeing in class.

Anyway, I'm just teaching 6th graders now, and as it turns out, all that thinking I had been doing about music planning is paying off. So far I haven't done much singing with the students besides the major scale, and solfege drills, but we have to start somewhere. I have been teaching singing technique, which never stops, of course. We teach singing technique EVERY DAY to some degree or other. I'm struggling to learn names in my 6th grade classes. It will help to get them all voiced into sections and then make a seating chart. I did teach them the basic melody for the round we'll be using for our first song, "Oh How Lovely is the Evening."

Then the major reason I'm so encouraged by this school year is my tiny choir at the tiny choir school. In my class right now I have 22 students in there, and the majority of them are 7th and 8th graders that were in the choir last year. From my first year to my second, I only had two kids come back. Compare that to thirteen this year, and I can tell from the first moment they sang a major scale that it's going to be a very good year. I know some of the mistakes I made last year, starting with songs that were too hard, not being a stickler for technique early enough, things like that. This year I'm starting on the right track in regards to discipline, and also my teaching. I think I've covered quite a bit of ground, content-wise, in the first three days, even though much of today was spent playing a get-to-know-you name game.

Last year I know I did at least one thing very right. My tiny choir had a wonderful sense of community. It was completely apparent when this year, on the first day of school, the thirteen students who already knew me came in with arms wide open, squealing with excitement for a hug. They were doing this with each other, and not just me. It was really a wonderful sight. I could tell by the looks on the faces of the new kids that they wanted what we already had. Today's name game was a good four or five steps down the road to getting there. The students had to say each others' name, and what was the favorite animal and color for each person. It took about half an hour, but I really feel it was worth while. Tomorrow we can start on "Non Nobis Domine," and "Kookaburra." (I'm afraid our "Non Nobis" will sound a little more like this one!) I found this clip with unnecessary censorship. It's good for a laugh... These two songs are very simple on the surface, but I can glean so much to teach through both of them!

It's gonna be a fantastic year!

Psalm 103:1-5

At least twice in the last couple of days I have been prompted to encourage a friend with this passage of scripture. I have it memorized in a paraphrase version so that the pronouns are more personal.

Praise the Lord, o my soul, all my inmost being praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, o my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
For He forgives all my sin, and He heals all my diseases,
He redeems my life from the pit and crowns me with love and compassion.
He satisfies all my desires with all good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's.

This is my go-to passage for waiting on God. It's one of the hardest things in life to do, wait for God to do something you want to run ahead and do for yourself. When times like that come up, and they come up so often, it's important to remember that God's solution to whatever is going on is way better than anything you could come up with for yourself.

This passage has a very important progression which can help us when we have to wait on God. First, it starts with praising God for who He is. "His HOLY NAME." God's essence is in His name. He has so many names, so many attributes for which we can praise Him. It's always a good place to start.

Then next it goes on to praise God for what He has done. "He forgives my sins and He heals my diseases." That's all good, but "He redeems my life from the pit." That reminds us who we are without Him. Without His redemption, we are lower than low. So low, in fact, that we're in a hole with no way out but His redeeming love. And when He redeems us, "He crowns me with love and compassion." He has elevated us beyond what we deserve. We, in our sin, really deserve that pit, and He gives us a crown. Praise the Lord, indeed!

Finally this passage goes on to praise God for what He has yet to do. "He satisfies all my desires with all good things." HE satisfies... Every time I try to satisfy myself, I come up empty. Thirsty. Unsatisfied in the end. Real satisfaction comes from God. Whatever it is I'm waiting for, God's answer to the question is so much better than I could imagine for myself. God is not Lucy setting up Charlie Brown's football again and again. He places desires in us that He longs to fulfill in the very best possible way. Even though things may not make sense to us with what we can see from our vantage point (remember, sometimes we're looking at things from the PIT!), God sees the end from the beginning and it will all make sense in time. There is trust in a loving Father to be built in these times. A safe thing to ask God in times of waiting on Him is either for Him to satisfy whatever that desire may be, or else change the desire. Since God is not all about frustrating us, He will answer that sincere prayer in the way that is best.

I have had many opportunities to practice this "waiting on God" stuff, and each time it seems I can get out of the pit of despair a little quicker than the last time. I definitely don't have this mastered yet. It's still a work in progress. I just thought I'd share it, since it seems to be coming up so much lately.

May the God who makes us holy make you worthy of His call, fulfilling His great purpose with the power to save us all. May the fire of His spirit make you faithful, strong and true, and the name of Christ, our savior, may be glorified in you.

The children are coming!

The children are coming! They come tomorrow in our district. This was our last work day. I had my girls up at my schools with me today. I have done enough to get started tomorrow, but there's always more to be done... Ready or not...

One of the things going on in our house is that Hubby and I have bought a new bed for ourselves. The deliver guys will be here soon. They've already made the call that they're on their way. I don't know who really cares about stuff like that, but it's on my mind, so it ends up here...

I'm really sad about tomorrow morning. I have duty starting at 7:50, which means if I want to park on campus anywhere, I better get there at 7:20 or so. What this means is that I'll miss the first day of school taking my children to school this year. In the past couple years the administrators were OK with me showing up just a bit late in order to be there to walk my kids to school on the first day. This year I didn't think to ask, and since I didn't arrange it ahead of time, I'm assuming it's a no go. At least I don't have a Kindergarten kid this year, or I'd be in tears. I'll send Hubby with the camera, and he BETTER TAKE GOOD PICTURES!! (I know he'll read this! ;o))

So what song is in my head on the first-day-of-school eve? "I See the Light," from Tangled, is one of the songs the 6th grade girls' choir will be singing. They're gonna love it!

Sleep

As a baby, I am told, I was one of those who didn't need much sleep, much to the frustration of my mother. As a little kid, I remember being put to bed for naps, and laying there, feeling trapped, counting the minutes until it would be acceptable for me to "wake up" and come out. As a teenager I could sleep all day. In my high school and college years I could stay up all night and catch up with naps here and there. I've had bouts with insomnia on and off in my adult years, mostly attributable to grief or some other stress. Since I've started back to work, I've been too tired to not sleep at night.

Here lately, this week especially, it seems like I can't sleep in anymore. Six AM rolls around, and my internal alarm goes off, and no matter how hard I try, sleep will not return. Here it is, Saturday morning, and I've been awake for about two hours. I've only been out of bed for a little over half that time, spending the first portion willing my eyes to stay closed and my mind to stop spiraling like a whirlpool of thought fragments...

Yesterday I went to work and hour earlier than needed just because I had myself ready to go so early. I can see this being a good thing for productivity. I can also see myself running out of gas a little too early in the day as well.

I was hoping to sleep past eight this morning... maybe even nine. Now I'll just have to plan on taking a nap this afternoon. Saturday is my ONLY day to get to sleep in. If on Monday morning I have one of those mornings when I struggle to pry myself from the pillow, it's going to irritate me further that I couldn't sleep this morning. But what can I do about it?

Personal Struggles

Toward the very end of this post, I alluded to something which I wasn't ready to talk about yet. In today's earlier post, I alluded to being frustrated about something at work which I cannot blog about. So in order to shift my mind from what I want (but can't) blog about, I'm going to delve into that previous topic and hope it consumes my thoughts in such a way that I will no longer be stuck on what I'm currently stuck on. Make sense? Hope so.

Last summer I had been convicted by God to stop watching a particular TV show. It's a prime time drama, and many of the plot lines involve sexual escapades by the main characters. The particular TV show is not what's important here. The important thing is that I knew without a doubt that God had pricked my heart and let me know in no uncertain terms that my watching that show was not OK with Him. I cancelled the recording on my DVR so that new episodes would no longer be waiting for me every week, and I went on with life, and pretty much forgot about that show. Until recently it has been added to Netflix streaming...

Has God changed His message to me about what's OK for me to watch? Has is suddenly become OK with Him for me to let my mind dwell on the sexual escapades of fictional characters being acted out in front of me on the screen? Yeah... no.

Well, I wanted to watch it again. I like that show. So I started from episode 1. I justified it to myself by telling myself that I wasn't watching anything new. It was all stuff I had already seen.

Did that make it OK? Of course not.

And then I got into the outright rebellion. I started to tell God that I didn't care if it was wrong for me. (Can't you just see my fist shaking at heaven?) I want to do what I want to do. Besides, I'm not hurting anyone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know. When you see it typed out like that, it looks so stupid. That's about where I was on the day that I had "Psalm 20" in my head. Remember this?




May He answer you in the day of your trouble and may He set you safely on high.
May He send help from His sanctuary and may He grant you your heart's desire.

Those are the first two lines of the song. How in the world can Holy God overlook intentional rebellion to bless His child? I have been slowly learning in the last few years that being "in sin," wallowing in rebellion and repeating wrong acts on purpose doesn't so much set me up for the lightning bolt from heaven as much as it sets me out of place for the blessing of God. He removes the blessings rather than smacks down the discipline.

What was getting to me that day was knowing that my actions really do impact other people. What blessings am I keeping from my children because I want to watch a stupid TV show and keep myself out of the line of blessing? Seriously, what is worth THAT?

This may not make sense to everyone who reads my blog. And I still have many things in my life that are not up to God's standard. I have not "arrived" just because I have (eventually) done right in this one thing. I'm ashamed to admit that I was into the second season before I finally came to the point of obeying the voice of God speaking into my heart. I didn't watch any more after that day.

I really do have a personal relationship with God. And I'm not good unless God prompts me out of His goodness and love to be good too, as a response to His goodness. When I can clearly see what I do as hurting Him, being the reason Jesus laid down His life on the cross, the only logical response is to want to stop doing those things. It's called repentance. Some sins are obvious, like the ones listed in the 10 Commandments, but others are more subtle. It doesn't say "Thou shalt not watch TV-14 rated TV shows," in the 10 Commandments. I know, only through the personal relationship I have with God, where He has laid the boundaries for me.

I am not telling you what is right for you. Please don't take this that way. What I am saying is that if God lets you know that something is wrong for you, then it is wrong to ignore that little voice in your heart telling you what is wrong.

Looking at those two lines from the song is bringing me to tears yet again. This time it's for a different reason. The answers to my frustrations are not earthly answers. The only help I can rely on is from His sanctuary. Only He can set me safely on high. Only He can give me my heart's desire.

Thank you, Lord, for answering the cries of my heart through your Word once again. Please bless this school year in ways I can't even imagine.

Why I had quit blogging

I'm remembering today another reason why I had quit blogging. When I'm frustrated about work, I can't blog about it. That would be stupid.

And yet those thoughts that eat at me are usually what I let spill out onto the blog.

I must stop. An unpublishable draft has already been written and rejected for this evening.

"Underdog," by Spoon is tonight's song.

It Has Begun

My school year has officially started. I have now been back to work for two days. So far, so good.

Yesterday was fun. Our librarian and technology person (her title is "ITS," whatever that stands for) set us up on our very own Amazing Race, like the TV show. It was a technology race. We were assigned teams and sent all over the school to do various tasks with various educational web-based resources like Google Earth, and Animoto, and other multimedia programs like Audacity. We have all these tools available, but we don't always know how to use them in the classroom. The two awesome ladies in charge of this race had very specific instructions at each station. At the end of each task was a matrix code that had to be scanned with a smart phone to reveal the next task. My team was awesome. It was me and our two lovely theater teachers. We won!! It was great!

The afternoon was spent in a fine arts team meeting. Not quite as exciting as the Amazing Race, but it was all stuff we had to get through.

Today we started in a fine arts meeting again. There was more we had to discuss and we had some time to get our websites in order and things like that. Then we got to do some team building in the afternoon. Our team activity was to rent a party barge and go play in the lake. That was really nice. We all decided it would be a "no photo zone" so that we could all feel comfortable in swim suits. There was a slide on the boat from the upper deck into the water.

I have been swimming three times this week, all for very long periods of 3 hours or more. I am more tan than I have ever been in my adult life. As a kid I was very dark every summer, back before mothers really worried about UV protection. My girls are also getting pretty tan, even though they've been wearing SPF 50. They have been swimming every day this week. I think they're growing gills.

I still haven't recovered from the fatigue of Waterpark Wednesday. I just haven't gone to bed early enough. And I don't get to sleep in tomorrow. I have a meeting I must attend... All I want to do is sleep in. It will have to wait until next Saturday. *Sigh*

This evening, since dinner, I've been a busy little bee, working on my lesson plan template in Excel, going through the school calendar and marking all the early release days, and school holidays so that hopefully I won't fall behind in turning in my plans. I guess I should consider that a goal for the year: to be more diligent with lesson plan writing, filling in more details than just the songs to be rehearsed. It will make the other goals I have already set a little easier by making me write down the choral examples I will play every week, and the sight-reading games I will have the students play with my rhythm cards.

Today we had music playing on the party barge all day. What would you expect from the fine arts team? Before all that, though, I had Michael Buble's song, "I Just Haven't Met You Yet," stuck in my head. I mentioned that to the fine arts folks I was waiting with as we gathered to take off for our outing, and one of them pulled out an iPhone and played it for me. It was a very satisfying moment! That song makes me feel happy. :o)

Waterpark FUN

I took the girls today. I was alone with the girls. I locked my car key in the car. Didn't realize that had happened until I was thinking about it after our first ride. And then we were already in line for the second ride when I realized I really didn't remember where the key was at all... Uh oh.

After that ride, we had to go back to our stuff on the table and look through it. I realized pretty quickly that it wasn't there, and I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to tell where it was when I got to the car that I was pretty freaked out. Sure enough, there it was, in the ignition.

In case you didn't know, frazzled mommies make mistakes.

I did such a good job this morning of packing food for the three of us, getting our clean clothes ready so we'd have something dry to wear home, once we found a parking spot (and a good one at that!) getting the girls out of the car with all that stuff I had packed. I missed one very important detail. Oops.

Since I discovered my mistake so early in the day, I went to the guest relations booth and they gave me a card for a local "pop-a-lock" company. I gave them a call, fed the girls lunch, and the whole thing was over and done relatively early in the day. My car did not sit there as a thief's dream target for very long, and when we were ready to leave, we didn't have to wait on the pop-a-lock guy to come. Another bonus, my parking spot was so fabulous that it wasn't a gigantic pain in the derriere to keep going back and forth from the park to the car. It was literally in the fifth space from the entrance of the park. And when I found it, it was the last available spot in the lot. Thank you, God!

Hehe... I glanced up at the title of this post, and from what I've said so far, that FUN looks sarcastic. I didn't mean it that way when I first typed it. I promise!

The rest of the day after lunch was really wonderful. There were a couple of moments when the kids started complaining. It's really hard to listen to complaining kids anywhere, anytime, but when you're going WAY out of your way to give them a good time, it's so much harder. At one point I told the girls that I didn't want to hear any more, and if they had complaining thoughts not to let them come out of their heads and into their mouths. It was a pretty good parenting moment. Another mom behind us in the line said she was going to use that sentence. And the kids stopped complaining. It actually worked!

Later, in another line, I made a comment to Big Girl about being so tired maybe she should drive us home. I'm afraid she didn't get that I was joking. She was concerned by that comment because she doesn't know how to drive. I wouldn't have let her anyway. She's only eight years old.

This park is big enough that there are two different parts of the park that you ride a tram to get from one to the other. One time on the tram, we were some of the last poeple on and it was pretty crowded. We couldn't find three seats together. The girls sat in the back together and I sat about five rows ahead of them by myself with a stranger next to me. I turned back and said, "Hey girls, I'm going to get there before you do." Big Girl didn't miss a beat. She replied, "Mom, it's not a race." That got a chuckle from the other adults around who were listening to us.

There's one ride that goes off the top of a building. You ride these little mats down the slide, laying on your belly. Little Girl rode that ride last year when she was just five years old. This year she wanted to do it again, and so did I. When it's just the three of us together, and two out of three want to do something, all three of us have to do it. That's the rule. Otherwise we'd get separated, and that's just not acceptable. So anyway, Big Girl got up to the top of this ride, mat in hand, and at the last minute, she chickened out. I leaned over (totally violating the rule about staying behind the line until it's your turn), grabbed her hands and put them on the mat, and gave her a nudge down the slide. When I got down there (I was next in line behind her), she was raving about how fun it was. That kid is an adrenaline junkie if ever there was one. But she's afraid of heights, and I think that's what got to her there at the top looking down the slide. We have these little moments when she has a hard time trusting me, and in the end, she learns that I was right, and I can be trusted. I know what she'll like. She can trust me if I tell her she's going to like it.

I'm trying to remember if there were any other memorable moments I won't want to forget... There's probably something, but nothing is coming to mind. I'm TIRED. I'm the kind of tired where you can feel it in every body part you know of, and then some. I think even my toenails are tired.

All day long, once again, I had "Psalm Twenty" in my head. I even sang it a few times as we'd float through the tunnels on the rides. Good stuff.

The Last Days of Summer

This week is jam-packed full of busy. Most of it is fun.

My girls and I went to visit my sister-in-law and her family Sunday night and spent the day together yesterday. The four little girls (ages 4.5, 6, 6.5 and 8.5) played together better than ever. Monday morning we took them swimming for nearly 3 hours, and that was a blast. It was a joy for my sister-in-law and I to listen to them play in the bedroom from our conversation in the living room. She and I have been friends since we were 6th graders, and it's always amazing to get together and look at how we are related now, with blood relatives in common, and still friends who love one another.

Today I have a doctor appointment to see my knee doctor. My knee has clicked for over two years now, and I'm finally having it looked at this summer by a specialist. This is the third time I'm seeing him this summer. I saw my general doc about it two years ago, and he ordered x-rays and then I never heard from him about what was up. On my first visit to the knee doctor, he had my x-rays from two years ago and showed them to me and told me what was going on. He ordered physical therapy, which I did for a month. Then I went to him again after that month, and he stopped the PT order, and we're going to see today how I've been doing on my own.

My kids get to hang out with their Nanna while I go to the doctor. My mom is so great to help me out with things like this. It's not that my kids can't handle going to the doctor with me. They went the last time. It's that she loves them and doesn't want them to have to go, and she loves me and wants to offer me the luxury of not having to take them and then being free to get other things done afterward. I can't say enough about how wonderful my mother is to me. She doesn't tell me how to run my life, but she steps in to help me when I ask for help. She'll probably teach Big Girl a piano lesson and take them both swimming afterward. Day two in a row of swimming for them. Fun!

Then the plan for tomorrow is for Daisy to go to the vet to be spayed. That's been on the books since June. While she's not in the house, us girls will go back to our favorite water park for the entire day. This is the same one where my choirs go after they sing a contest (which my tiny choir has won "Best in Class" for two years running!!). They give me coupons to come back with my family for very cheap. Tomorrow the three of us will get into the park for $20 plus tax. Tickets are usually in the neighborhood of $40 per person. So that's day three in a row of swimming for the girls.

Thursday... I start work. Already.

I think I'm ready. Last week I started digging through my music library to pick out pieces I thought would work for my choirs. It's a crap shoot at this point, since I don't know who is in my classes, but I can at least pull out pieces that interest me so that when I go to make real selections, I have much less to look through. I have four envelopes set aside, one for each of my choirs that I will direct, and then a miscellaneous stack of pieces that I like and want to use, but I don't know which choir would be best suited by the pieces... It's so complicated. I'm choosing the songs that will be stuck in my head, and the heads of my students. Whatever we start the year singing will likely be the songs at the end of the year will be requested for nostalgia's sake. It happens that way every year.

I don't think I'm ready to deal with the schedule of going back to work. The work itself is not my hangup. Getting up before 7:30 EVERY DAY will be a shock to my system for a while. Now that I think about it, getting up at 6:00 is a shock to my system all school-year long. My body wakes up naturally around 7:30 or 8:00. It's been nice to get up when I feel like it for these months. It makes me sad that it has to end. Again, here I am being a big fat baby.

So here's to making the most of what little time is left!

The song in my head is one that hardly anyone will know, so I figured out how to post it to this blog so you can hear it yourself. It's "Psalm 20," by Eternity. You won't find gems like this on youtube!




Edit to reflect the rest of Tuesday, August 9, 2011:
I need to say a bit more about this song. I have had it in my head since I woke up this morning. As I was driving around today (which was quite a bit more than usual), I would start to sing it, and be brought to tears. There's been something weighing heavy on my heart (I'm not quite ready to blog about it), and the pricks of conviction would come every time I'd sing it. It's powerful stuff. Additionally, it's a song in 6/8 meter, which is my all-time favorite meter, with some duples thrown in for variety on the chorus. Love it. I can't sit still and listen to it. Even if it does have a cheesy synthesizer at the beginning. When I was singing in the car, I had left my iPod charging at home, so I was just hearing it in my head, and only sometimes was I singing melody. :o)

Monkey Brains

I've been tired of answering the question, "What's for dinner?" for a long time, so lately I've started answering,"Monkey brains," as my stock answer. That usually gets a giggle. Well, a couple of days ago Big Girl started talking about monkey brains soup, monkey brains sandwiches and monkey brains pizza like it was no big thing. This kid really knows how to play the joke straight. Her favorite is macaroni and monkey brains.

The Days are Few

I'm looking ahead to starting school next week. Teachers go back Thursday in our district. That means I have a single week, a mere seven days, of sleeping in, of freedom, left. In the week to come, I have made plans for Monday, I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday, and more plans on Wednesday. Then Thursday, back to real life. For the rest of this week, my main goal is to get as much fun out of it as possible with my kids. Most of what's in the plan for next week is fun stuff that they will enjoy (aside from the doctor appointment).

I have done some preliminary work that I hope will make the school year run more smoothly. I have started digging through my single-copy music file, and pulling pieces I'd like to use with my choirs. I have three envelopes set aside for each of the choirs I direct. I got from A to I in my file before I ran out of gas on that project on Monday. I have the rest of the day today and tomorrow to get that done. It seems like a monumental task. I doubt I'll finish. (Realism is overtaking the optimism.)

Right now I'm waiting for my firstborn daughter to finish taking a shower. Then we have some grocery shopping to do. I think my days of going grocery shopping without my kids is pretty much over. I had worked things out last school year that my kids stayed at the YMCA after school program at their school, so I'd go shopping before picking them up. This year we're not doing the Y, and I'll be picking them up after school each day, and dragging them to the store with me. The good news though is that they aren't babies, and soon I'll be able to send them on errands for me within the store. "You go get this and you get that, and meet me back here in 3 minutes." We're not there yet, but we will be soon.

Hubby and I have been watching "Arrested Development" on Netflix streaming. This started a discussion about various cast members, including Portia de Rossi who married in the mid-1990's to obtain legal working status in the US. That thought led me to thinking about Green Card, a movie starring Gérard Depardieu, whose name is mentioned in the Weird Al song, "Genius in France," (at about the 6:00 mark). That's how my brain rattled around from "Arrested Development" to "Genius in France," which was the song in my head last night.

The letter I wrote to baby #2 back in Nov. 2004

I've been looking through my facebook notes and deleting ones that were duplicated here. This one wasn't, and I thought it was blog-worthy.

___________________________________________________

November 16, 2004

Dear Baby,

You never got a chance to know me, but I’m your mother. I carried you for your short life of only six weeks. I was the one who saw the tiny flicker of your heartbeat on the ultrasound screen, and I may be the only person who truly misses you.

From the day I knew you were inside me, I loved you. I had dreams for you. Your sister would have been just over two years old when you were to be born. I was already envisioning a life as a stay at home mom with the two of you. I hoped you would be a girl. In my heart I’ve always thought of you as Katie. You were supposed to fit into all of your big sister’s clothes, being born in the same season. You and your cousin would have always been right about the same age. This Christmas was to be your first Christmas, right along with your cousin. It was supposed to be so much fun.

But all that ended April 18th, when I lost you forever. I don’t know why. All I know is that you weren’t growing like you should have been when we did get to peek at you at that ultrasound. They didn’t tell me that. Hindsight being what it is, it’s plain to see that you weren’t going to make it.

So since you’re already there with God, could you ask him why you didn’t have the chance to live? Could you find out for me what all this was about? Why did I have to go through the pain of losing you, someone I had never met? When will I be through mourning your death? How could I love someone so deeply whose face I’d never even laid eyes on? Why must I go through all this alone?

I guess I don’t really expect answers to any of my questions. That’s not how it works. What happens is that God tells us in the Bible that He knows what’s best for us, and that He loves us, and we just have to trust that He’s telling the truth when things like this happen. When we don’t understand the specifics of the pain, or the problems, we go back to the principles that He’s taught us through the years, and those are the closest things to answers that we will have until we get where you are now, and can ask Him face to face.

Since I’m on the subject, let’s see what God has to say about this.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD , "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Before the beginning of time, God knew about you. He knew before I was born that I would carry you, love you, and lose you. He knew, even planned my current pain. And yet, He says that His plans are not to harm me. He plans that through this I will still have hope and a future. I can see that, sort of, playing out right now. I already mentioned your big sister. Well, you now have a little sister. She wouldn’t be inside me right now if you had lived. Her life started just two months after yours ended. Early ultrasounds indicated that she was healthy. In fact looking at the pictures of you and her side by side, the contrast is remarkable. I have hope for the future in that. But there is hope also in facing that the pain I’ve felt over losing you hasn’t been the end of my life. There were times when the only thing keeping me going was your big sister and her need for a mommy. I’m the only one she’s got, so I had to get out of bed and take care of her. That’s not the case anymore. I’m not sad all the time. I almost feel bad putting this in a letter to you, but there are days when I don’t think about you at all. I used to be acutely aware of your absence every day with a pang in my heart. As time has gone on, more time passes between my thoughts of you. It doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten you, or that I didn’t love you. There’s one little girl here now who needs my attention, and there’s another on the way who I’m loving and thinking about in the ways I loved you and thought about you. All that’s to say life goes on, and God’s word indicates that it’s a good thing to go on.

Deuteronomy 31:8

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

No matter how alone I may feel, I am not going through this truly alone. I may look around me and not see anyone else in tears of mourning over your tiny life, but I am never alone. Besides the Lord being with me, there are hundreds of women whose hearts ache for their tiny babies that died just the way you did. Their pain is just like mine. So many women I never knew had lost babies have come to me in my grief to try to help me. That seems to have subsided quite a bit since your little sister is on the way. I’m sure that some day I’ll be the one to go to another woman who is hurting and share in her pain. I know how she hurts. I know how her dreams have been crushed. That verse of scripture also speaks about having fear. That’s something that I didn’t quite know how to deal with, especially before I found out about this new baby. I was terrified of getting pregnant again. I didn’t want to go through this again. I was about ready to give up entirely on having any more children because I didn’t have a guarantee from God that this wouldn’t happen again. Then I was expecting. Before I could see the ultrasounds, hear her heartbeat, and know that everything was going well with her, I had fear that I would lose her the way I lost you. I guess I still have some fear. I never had any of these feelings when I was expecting my first baby. I just trusted that everything was going to be fine. In the four months I have until this baby is supposed to be born, I know, intellectually, that many things could go wrong. I am not guaranteed a healthy baby just because I’ve carried one for five months. The key to getting past that, besides noting in scripture where it says not to fear, is the knowledge that even if the worst happens, I won’t be alone, and that there is still a future for me. God’s guarantees are not healthy children, or a pain free life. He promises that no matter what, we can trust Him with everything we have, and everything we are. At the end of the day, that has to be enough. That’s all we’ve got.

I love you, and I miss you. I know you’re now with God, and that’s some comfort to me. While you’re there, get to know your Great Granddaddy Doc. From what I’ve heard, he was a pretty neat guy.

Love,

Mom

___________________________________________________

Since losing this baby, I've had more practice at grieving. My grandfather died in January of 2007, and my father-in-law died in January of 2008. In each of those situations, the heartache of losing this baby was dredged back to the surface, and I went through all of the stages of reconciling the truth of what happened with God's goodness. There were times, especially after losing my father-in-law, that I thought I would never again be able to say, "God is good even though this happened."

A friend of mine, another choir director from a middle school in my district, has just lost her baby last week. He was full term and born alive. I don't know how long he lived after he was born, but it wasn't long. Not even a day. I can only imagine the heartache she is feeling. Please join me in praying for her. Her body is still recovering from pregnancy and the birth. I'm sure her arms are aching to hold her baby just one more time.

Living in a fallen world is no fun. I long for heaven when I will be reunited with my baby, my Pawpaw and the sweetest father-in-law anyone could imagine. Pain will be history.

Just as a matter of wrapping up the story of Baby #2, my heart wasn't healed until my Little Girl was 10 months old. My sister-in-law was due with her first baby two days behind Baby #2. It was probably 4 or 5 years before I could look at my niece and not be reminded of Baby #2. There was a definite point where I could say it didn't break my heart to think about this, or even to talk about it, and that's when I think my heart had been healed.

About 3 or 4 years later, one of my best friends experienced a miscarriage. For her it was baby #3. Walking that road with her was a healing experience for me. I think she and I went through our miscarriages for each others' sakes, only I didn't know it at the time that I was going there for her. If I help anyone else for the rest of my life, it's just gravy. That experience has served its purpose.

Well, now I'll delete this note from my facebook page. It's preserved.

Love and Logic

Here it is, two days after I got home from convention, and I'm still ruminating on one of the best workshops I've ever attended. It was a session based on Teaching with Love and Logic, as applied to the choir classroom. It's exactly what I need right now.

I will keep the handout from that workshop in the front of my folder this year. That way I'll have those ideas at my fingertips.

The most revolutionary concept shared with us was what to do when a kid is arguing with the teacher. They told us to go brain dead. Don't reason. Don't think. Just come back with a one-liner that will either diffuse the situation or make the student think about what he/she is saying. It's a practiced response thing, and not a power struggle.

I want to get that book. I want to read it cover to cover before school starts. (That may or may not happen.) I want to go to more training on this. Most definitely.

The song in my head is leftover from the wedding yesterday. "Dodi Li." It's an easy enough song that I think I'll have my 6th graders sing it this year at some point.

Choir Directors Convention

I am back from the convention. It was great. I have massive piles of new music to add to my single-copy library (from which I choose most of the songs my choirs sing), and many new ideas to take to the classroom once school starts. I have two hand-outs I want to keep in the front of my folder to remember those things I was taught this week. If I don't do that, it will never end up making a difference in my teaching. When I get into those moments when choir rehearsal is becoming a drag, I need those quick energizer activities at my fingertips. When a kid is baiting me to argue and get upset, I need that list of quick one-liners to diffuse the situation. The key will be remember that they are there, and remembering to USE them!!

It was great getting to hang out with the other choir directors in the district. We have so many wonderfully talented people right here in our very small sphere, and we really do support each other very well. This year I didn't hang out in the hotel bar with the directors from a nearby district like I have in the past. I know they were there. I've seen evidence on facebook already. I just didn't end up going over there this year because I stayed in a hotel that was closer to the convention center, and for some reason I didn't end up there... Curious...

I also got to hang out with my voice teacher and academic advisor from college. She was also my Music Ed prof, and mentor. She and her husband are always at these conventions. Seeing her and getting to eat lunch with her was a very rare treat. She had some wonderful insights on grad school that have given me the nudge I needed to know where to apply. I was torn between two schools in my area, and I am no longer in doubt. Now the question is when to start... More on that later.

The day after my lunch with her, I ran into my old choir director from college. He was only there one day, and seeing him is another rare treat. He came to my tiny-choir school in March to work with my students before contest. That was such a blessing. It was my new favorite day of my career so far... Anyway, he's up for doing that again this year, which is downright AWESOME!! I'm definitely looking forward to that!

The ladies I roomed with wanted to go see "Horrible Bosses" on Thursday night. It was so funny. The language was horrible as the bosses, but it was FUNNY. If you can tolerate the f bomb repeatedly, I recommend that movie. No spoilers here. I'll move on.

I got some business taken care of at the exhibits. T-shirt art ordered, trip date booked with festival company (going back to the waterpark!!)... Boring stuff like that. I scored some free pizza kits from a fundraising company that sells them. The man kept talking to me and I kept listening and then he offered me free stuff. Works for me!

I brought home some gifts for my girls. I got Big Girl a piano necklace since she plays piano, and I got Little Girl these funny treble clef glasses because as soon as I spotted them, I knew that she would LOVE them! Maybe she'll let me borrow them for special days at school when I may need to be super silly.

OK, so the thing about when to start grad school... I have thought I would go back to school since about a few years after I graduated from college. My priority was starting my family. As long as I was a stay-at-home mommy, grad school didn't seem like a relevant concept. Since starting back to teaching two years ago, it's something I've thought about more and more. Hubby and I agree that it needs to be a financial priority for our family in the upcoming years. I have looked into it and found a masters program that offers classes in the summers for working teachers, and that is what I will do.

The question is whether I start in 2012 or 2013. The reason to delay is an opportunity to travel to Europe. The best man in our wedding is a major in the Air Force and his family is stationed in Germany. They live close to France and Spain, so our trip would be more than just to Germany (we've been there before, but it was with a large group and we didn't have much control over our schedule or which attractions we visited). An opportunity like that doesn't come along all the time. He has been stationed in Europe before, and we were not in a position to take advantage of the offer. I think it was when our kids were little, and finances were tighter. Anyway, that's the question of when. Everyone I've talked to has encouraged me to go to Europe over starting school if we get the opportunity to go.

So I have some action items on my agenda for the short-term: 1. get passport renewed, 2. get convention handouts laminated and in my folder, 3. make sure to take the rhythm cards to tiny-choir school, and stuff like that. I have medium-range goals: 1. plan trip to Europe, 2. take GRE and start application process for grad school, 3. sight-reading every day with students, EVERY DAY no matter what, even if it's just 2 measures...

Those things may not seem like they are related, but they don't have to be. This is my stream of consciousness. You're welcome to get out of the water...

The song in my head came on the radio on the way home today. "Barracuda," by Heart. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

Choir High

A fellow middle school choir director in the district is getting married this weekend. She and I generally have to curtail our conversations in meetings and such. We never run out of things to discuss, and I definitely consider her a friend.

For her wedding she has several choral selections she wants performed. Of course that means assembling a choir. I have been honored to be included in this choir.

Last night was the one and only rehearsal for the wedding choir. It was very much fun to see some other familiar faces in that choir, people I know from singing in other choirs, and one girl I went to high school with. I've remarked before about the choir world being a small one, and it was definitely another confirmation that it surely is.

I don't think any of us had really spent much time with the music prior to last night's rehearsal. At first it wasn't all that great. There were plenty of mistakes, as there always are early in the rehearsal process. But this choir got everything fixed faster than any choir I've ever sung with before. There was no discussion of "off on 4 there" or basics like that. Once the difficult spots were ironed out, it was a matter of interpreting the expression of each piece which mostly came naturally. There was a magical moment as we rehearsed the last song of the evening when the bride, seated in front of us, was moved to tears. We all felt it.

THAT'S why I do this. That's why I love choir.

I came home after two hours of rehearsal on a choir high. I was keyed up and excited to tell Hubby all about it. I think I overwhelmed him.

As my head hit the pillow last night, I thought about the fact that I get to do choir for a job. I get to do this thing I love, share this thing I love with my students. I get to go through the process and hopefully get to that places where the music moves us to tears. I am extremely blessed. My cup runneth over.

This was just the attitude adjustment I needed going into the convention, and the impending school year.

Last night I had in my head, "Erev shel shoshanim," "Dodi Li," and "Seasons of Love." (We're not doing "Seasons of Love" a capella, but you definitely get the idea. The other two YouTube examples are the same arrangements we're singing.)

Goals for 2011-2012

I have been turning my thoughts back toward school this week, as I gear up for the convention. Two things I want to do this year in my classroom, which will hopefully enhance the learning for my students have been rolling around in my head.

1. Play more recordings of GOOD choral singing for my students. It needs to be at least once a week. My students aren't listening to good singing by and large, and their idea of good singing and mine are often quite different. They need to hear what a good choir sounds like. Regularly.

2. Use my rhythm cards more. I made a whole set of rhythm cards when I was a student teacher that I used all the time when I taught elementary music. I haven't hardly used them at all as a secondary teacher, and it's a shame. I should be pulling them out over and over again, especially at the school where I tend to have lots of kids move in through the year. There are games we can play, and I can reinforce those music-reading skills which are so vitally important to the sight-reading process. I have taken it for granted that they'd be too easy, but I know there are some tricky ones in there, and I can mix and match... There are so many days when it's two weeks until a concert, and we know our music well enough to take some time out to do something else (and should for sanity's sake!), and I just haven't thought about those old rhythm cards enough. I need a magnetic chalk or dry-erase board, and then I'm good to go.

All it takes to implement either of these things is a little forethought and planning. How hard is that?

Ask me again when the school year is rolling and I've got a hundred other things going on!

One of these things is not like the others...

One of these things just isn't the same. Can you guess which?


We often think Daisy looks like a stuffed animal. I found this amusing and had to share!

So the song for today is "One of These Things" from Sesame Street. :o)

Here it comes...

This week is the choir directors' convention. It's the unofficial start to my school year. Choir directors from across the state get together, read through new music, visit vendors' booths, and learn from others how to solve problems in our classrooms or rehearse better, or whatever. It's a nice time to socialize with other choir directors around the district and region, and hang out in the hotel bars after hours. (I sit with my diet coke and watch the others drink, in case anyone is wondering. I have plenty of fun without drinking alcohol.) It's like a working vacation.

The only down side is that it means school is right around the corner.

But a good thing is that school is right around the corner.

I'm having mixed emotions about starting this school year. The spring semester of this past year was a very rough one, with major debates about school funding and lay-offs of teachers and morale so bad, and I definitely don't want to go back to that atmosphere. I miraculously survived the cuts (which I am not taking for granted), and I am returning to the same position I have had for the previous two years. The insecurity released upon the teachers of our state has not left me. I don't feel free to just do my job.

I have shared previously about the fact that I teach at two schools, one with the largest middle school choir program in the district, and the other with the smallest middle school choir program in the district. In both cases, we have to keep enrollment up for me to have a job. The big choir school is adding a choir class from last year to this year, so that's good. Enrollment is up. At my other school, the choir program went from 9 students in May of 2010 to 19 student in May of 2011. That's over 100% increase. That's good. But is it good enough? I feel like I have to fight for that choir to exist. Am I ready to fight another year?

How do I get kids to sign up for choir (at the tiny choir school)? It's a tricky question. I am not allowed to "RECRUIT". Most of the growth I've experienced has come from the counselors steering students to my class when they move in to our school. The counselors trust me more the longer I'm there. Four of my five boys last year were move-ins. And that's great. I love that I get students that way. The downside of this is those students missing whatever I've taught through the year in the way of music literacy and good vocal technique. Those kids just aren't going to be ready for contest come March or April the way the others are.

I really do love my job, teaching kids to sing in an ensemble to the best of their collective ability, and teaching music literacy. I always think I can do better. I have the same self-scrutiny and criticism about my teaching as I do about mothering. There's always so much that can be done better. And I do get down on myself when I see mistakes. The good thing about teaching is the start of a new school year, before the mistakes are set patterns. There's always that chance to set new, better patterns that improve the choir, the class, and even the teacher. With parenting, it's much harder to find the point to start over and correct the mistakes and set a new trajectory going forward.

I can see many differences in my teaching and in the students I've had between the two years I've taught since having the girls. It will be interesting to see what's different this year from last year. I need to keep my perspective on anticipating the good and not on dreading the bad.

So here it comes. Summer is nearly over and Fall with its new beginnings is almost here. What will this year bring? Time will tell.

The song in my head today has a story to go with it. "You Make Me Smile," came on the radio this afternoon as we left church. My dad had been sitting next to Big Girl in the pew this morning, and he said those words to her, "You make me smile." "No, I don't," she said. "You choose to smile." How right she is. It's a choice.