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)