Well, as usual it has bee ages since I updated my blog. In this instance it was partially because I was too busy to do so!

Well, last week was a bit rough. Things with my church choir have bee rough for quite some time now. We'd been shrinking the last couple of years. Then last summer our accompanist retired and the board decided not to look for another one. Which meant that everything we did had to either be a capella or use cds for accompaniment--which for the Christmas cantata we usually did anyway (as our accompanist couldn't play for such long periods of time due to shoulder problems.)

I had decided in July that we'd go ahead and give it a try and re-evaluate after the Christmas cantata. Well, the cantata got postponed due to snow and then my being out of town for Christmas. Then last Sunday two of my choir members told me that they were leaving the choir. This wasn't really unexpected--at least by me. But it did rather leave us in a predicament and needing to make a decision quickly. I spoke with all the remaining choir members (all 6 of them) and did a lot of praying, thinking, and crying. I finally decided to resign.

It was a hard decision that was a long time in coming. I probably put it off too long, but...
It was hard because I've enjoyed doing it. I've been there nearly 6 years now--6 in February. I've become friends with them. So it was hard, and it hurt.

However, once I made the decision I felt much more at peace with the situation than I have in a long time.

Now there will likely be a few weeks of some awkwardness and then... Who knows? A new chapter... Maybe, after a break, a new position? Maybe not. I don't know yet, and Jared and I haven't made any decisions in that respect yet. So more prayer and thinking will be forthcoming.

Apparently it's arrived early this year! :-)

Robb, Jared, and I went to Asheville on Friday afternoon/evening. We spent the afternoon wandering around the downtown area (window shopping and exploring), and then that evening we went to the Decemberists' concert. We had a really good time. I didn't really know many of the songs in the first half of the concert (their latest album--which I've only heard a few times), but the second half was full of songs that were more familiar to me.

This was a pretty exciting event for me. I hadn't been to a concert like that since...Jr. High I think! And it was good to do something unusual and different.

In other December-y type news:
I got the choir started on the Christmas cantata before I left for AR. I gave them a 'homework assignment' before I left. They were to practice the two sections we'd started on that evening.

So yesterday evening we had choir practice. I was all prepared to go through and review what we'd done before only to discover that they didn't really need it. So I had Jared turn on the CD and off we went! I was quite impressed. It wasn't note/rhythm perfect, but it was much further along than they've done before! There is even a rhythm in that song that they have always had trouble with that I was sure I'd have to go over repeatedly, as usual, to fix. But to my astonished delight, they did it perfectly every time!!!

It was great. If learning the rest of the cantata goes so well, we'll be in excellent shape!

...Now I just have to figure out how to do the narration...

~The Bunny

I've decided that I'm a terrible blogger. I'm so far behind that it would be more trouble than it's worth to try to catch up! Here's the short synopsis (and if you want more detail you'll have to talk to me!!):

Since I blogged last: 1) My grandmother passed away. We miss her, but are glad that she's not in pain anymore. 2) Mom started and completed her chemotherapy, and was in and out of the hospital for about 6 weeks after the last treatment. She's doing better now, but is still not back to being herself. 3) I found out that I have an extra bone in my foot... And ended up with tendonitis wearing a brace on my ankle/foot and doing physical therapy. 4) Had the GITP meet-up. 5) Had our 5th wedding anniversary. 6) Went to IN for my grandma's memorial service. I managed to sing the song she'd requested I sing. That was good. It was great to see my family, many of whom I hadn't seen in ages. Jared and I ended up having a several hour long conversation with one of my dad's brothers--I never would have expected that! And spent some time with Papaw. Not enough, but it never is.

Other than that it's just been work as usual. At church Nancy retired leaving the choir without an accompanist (as the board decided not to look for a new one). The church choir had a month long vacation in July. We started back up recently. For now the decision is to go ahead with the Christmas cantata and then 're-evaluate' after that... That was my decision, since I'm still not sure what should be done. Its rough though.

Well, that should mostly cover it.

So now summer is gone. The school year has started. And Jared and I still haven't had a real vacation. Don't get me wrong--I enjoy visiting our families very much. We miss them a lot, and not being near enough to seem them as often as we would like. But it just seems that all our vacation time is spent traveling to visit family. We haven't had a vacation purely for something fun to do (going camping, or to the beach, anything) since our honeymoon 5 years ago. Isn't that sad?

Jared and I tried to go camping last summer, but it didn't happen. This year we had a whole list of things we wanted to do, and didn't do most of it. We did do a bit of hiking, but then my foot put an end to that. We rode our new bikes a few times, but not as much as we'd have liked. We didn't go anywhere (aside from the memorial service), or do anything interesting. We both still have some vacation time, but we'll need it to go to my brother's wedding and then for visiting family at Christmas. So there's no vacation for us in sight. Maybe next year? Who knows, but I'm feeling rather pessimistic right now so I'm going to say I'm not counting on it.

I guess I should be done complaining. It'd just be nice to do something different, new, and fun--just the two of us. At least we got to go see family--that was good. It is better than what some have been/are able to do. So Sheri, knock it off! -- Okay, will do!

On that note I'll close...until next time.

Well, The last week and 1/2 has been relatively uneventful--aside from the ER visit for Jared's leg (see his blog for more info).

Work started to get really busy the last few weeks. The students are back on campus, and I've been trying to get as many sets of eligibility done as I can (before we have to be gone for the wedding).

Jared and I are trying to nail down dates that we're going to be gone for my sister's wedding and get those plans finalized--or at least more than mere thought. We're discussing doing an over night camping trip on our way there. However when you consider the 'luck' we've had when planning camping trips this summer, perhaps we should just say forget it!

Really the only interesting that has happened in the last couple weeks was that Civic Chorale started up again last week. The choir seems to have shrunk a lot this season. We have several members out participating in the production of Sweeney Todd. We have some new and returning members though, so when we begin rehearsals for the December concert overall we'll have grown (again). (If we keep growing we're not going to fit in that rehearsal room anymore!)

We began work on music for the October concert. The concert will include: Requiem by Gabriel Faure, "Let the people praise thee, O God" by William Mathias (at first reading, seems rather fun), "A Boy and a Girl" by Eric Whitacre (lots of dissonance), "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" from Mikado by Gilbert & Sullivan, and Wedding Cantata by Pinkham (I'm not sure if we're doing all 4 movements or not; I think we are.) We have rehearsal again this evening.

I gave my church choir their Christmas cantata music last Sunday. I'm looking forward to getting started on it. I plan to get them going this Sunday. We listened to one of the sections Sunday at practice, but we need to go over parts, work on rhythms, etc. This also means I need to get to work on practicing conducting it and notating expressions, and marking my score. We use an accompaniment CD for the cantata. If we were a big church with all sorts of musicians and actors we could try for live music. But in our little congregation we just don't have the 'manpower.' So I have to be able to take the CD's tempo, etc.--sometimes a tricky operation. But by using the CD they have rehearsal CD's they can practice with at home, and we can have such instruments as drums, trumpets, bagpipes, etc. which is quite cool. I still have to find the narrators ('Simeon' and 'Anna') and find out where the costumes we used last year went...

We did get to game last Sunday evening. It was the Limar game. That game is always fun. Our characters are 3 sixteen year olds and a uber-genius 6 year old. There is a lot of good role playing done, and we do things no 'normal' adventurer would ever do--cause what 16 (or 6) year old would think to do things like a normal adventurer. And Jared has definitely put together an intriguing story line.