A business trip in warm weather

This post needs no other heading.

I am dedicating this post to the up coming business trip that I have to take.

Yes. Have to.

I'm not wild about this. I really don't like traveling. I hate sleeping in hotels, I hate the disruption to my life. I worry about my home, my cats, my car - all the things that I can't keep watch over when I am not there. And I always get sick.

So while being in Tampa in 70 -80 degree weather when it supposed to be in 20's here should make me giddy, it doesn't.

I am going down with my entire team to meet up with the rest of the team that is already in residence down there. There will 35 people when we are all together. For the most part - that's going to be fun.

I am excited at the prospect of meeting some of them face to face for the first time. I am happy about the socialization aspect, but the idea of spending 2 days in close quarters with my boss is more than I ( or anyone on my team) can stomach.

He's a great guy. Very sweet and very good family values but his business tactics are highly suspect. We all know it - we don't discuss it often.

So I will be down there to see a presentation that is fictious and going to cause major upheaval at best, and at worst - well, lets just hope it doesn't get to that

So in trying to make the best of this situation - I am already planning. I am bringing my ipod with me so I can work on my recital pieces while I am down there. I will have my laptop and cell phone. I have my Walking DVD so I can exercize. I am only gone 2 days total. I have selected my wardrobe carefully. My planning is not done yet.... but the list is getting longer.

I have also made some tentative arrangements to meet a friend that I have spent a lot of time with over the years via phone, email, IM etc but never met. I am going to see if she can meet me at the airport bar while we wait for our plane. That is a meeting I am really looking forward to.

I am praying for safe trip and safe return. I am not afraid of flying or traveling. I just really hate the disruption in my life. THe older I get the more I realize that I really don't like to have my routine disrupted too much. Largely because I keep SUCH a busy schedule that distuption to it causes me havoc when I have to re-schedule things and I end up missing something or screwing something up. So messing with my schedule makes me nuts. Even with advanced notice.

I am trying to get over that. My best friend from HS lives in CT and she has recently invited me to come up and have a girls weekend. I can't really do that until after my recital - but you can bet I will. Wine a hot tub ???? I'm there. I can even bring my boys. So that would make me happy. ( shhh I"m bidding on soft carrier's on ebay for them even as we speak - very chic ones too!).

So I am trying to make room in my life for travel. I used to love it. But I honestly stopped doing it altogether when my dad got sick I was afraid to be too far away in case anything happened. Now that he's been gone for a few years it's time for me to get out again. I just got complacent with things comfy and cosy at home.

It's time for adventure and I'm going to make the most out of this trip despite the circumstances.

Good Friends are Like this

Just up the road from my home is a field, with two horses in it. From a distance, each looks like every other horse. But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing. Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind.His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him. This alone is amazing.If nearby and listening, you will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field.Attached to her halter is a small bell. It lets her blind friend know where she is, so he can follow her.As you stand and watch these two friends, you'll see how she is always checking on him, and that he will listen for her bell and then slowly walk to where she is, trusting that she will not lead him astray. When she returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, she stops occasionally and looks back, making sure her friend isn't too far behind to hear the bell.

Like the owners of these two horses, Friends do not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges. Friends watch over us and even bring others into our lives to help us when we are in need.Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who enter in our lives Other times we are the guide horse, helping others see. Good friends are like this .......... You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.Please listen for my bell and I'll listen for yours.

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle".

My first REAL performance

I had my first real solo performance yesterday.

I have done many solos in my life but to be a 'soloist" holds a different meaning.

I was able to wear a different outfit - which for me is a blessing - I HATE black and White. We ladies decided we would wear all black.

I had my bio put in the program - that was kind of neat. No head shot which is good because I don't have one!

My coach made me a little crazy - he kept tellng me to relax. I was relaxed. That close to zero hour - it doesn't pay to get stage fright and I rarely do until immediately after when I start critiquing my performance. I told him twice that I was fine. After that I was going to blow so I just didn't respond.

I find that part of my pre-performance stress behaviour is my inability to have any level of patience. And I usually have patience for miles. So my lack of patience this week was in part due to this performance and the fact that the other 4 soloist had 3 months to learn the music and I had a week and half to learn a tune meant for a man that has notes for me to sing that I think only dogs can hear. I immersed my self in the piece - here's where the IPOD was handy. I listened to my 2 pieces constantly for nearly 2 weeks right up the instant I sang htem in rehearsal on Tuesday and dres on Saturday.

This patience thing is kind of funny. As my college room mates can attest to - I have ALWAYS been like this. I try to manage it better now that I am aware of it.

Getting back to the performance. It went splendidly. I was happy with my performance. There are things that could have been better of course, but the major points that needed to be made went perfectly. Afterwards, I went to each of the soloists ( All seasoned and I knew all of them at least by sight) and thanked them for opportunity to work with them. They all seemed surprised but pleased that I felt that way. It's something that I think a new comer should do with the incumbents.

I have seen too many "newbies" walk in with their head held high and behaving in a less than humble fashion and get stepped on. With this group particularly. The soloists that are normally hired are wonderful down to earth people who happen to be talented. More importantly they are the ones getting RE-hired. I have yet to see the same second soprano hired twice. I hope I break the trend. I am using the humble but deserving approach. Arrogance doesn't bode well with this crowd. The fact is, Those other folks have been doing this for years. They are getting paid. I did not - this time - and that didn't escape me. I got some free press through ads in the program which was cool. And one of the soloists did approach me to join another audition only group as well.

Some really nice things came out of this. Payment would certainly have been nice - but I wasn't doing it for the money. I was getting my foot in the door. I am making nice with the director and his wife. They are lovely people so that's easy to do. The soloists were such nice folks and it was so great to be included with them. At the very least I will enjoy working with all of them regardless of my capacity in the future.

So all in all - things went well. I was really pleased with the way everything turned out.

And I'm back to my normal self at least until next week.

An update and recap

"I need some reader assistance"

Update: I bailed on the 2 kids. They went back into the pool to be picked up by some other unsuspecting schmo on my team. But I did ask that the management team advise whoever takes these kids what the parents are like. If they never experiencec it, great, but at least they won't learn the hard way .

OH - and I got paid for the lessons too.

"A new size"

The clothes are great. And I lost 1.6 today at Weight watchers. that leaves .4 left from that weird gain. I am doing a 30 minute power walk on a video every day.

"THIS is what I am talking about"

DVD player is the new joy of my life. I now use to work out with. My entertainment center looks strangely empty now. That I Can adjust to.

Another jumps over to the dark side. Now three of us in my crew of friends not only went over the IPOD darkside, but we did it without consultation of one another which, in and of itself is odd, AND all three of us got the same exact one. and we all had the same headaches. But we see light at the end of the tunnel. I do feel that 99 cents per song is an unbelievable rip off. Even Rhapsody at 89 cents was ridiculous. That puts entire albums more than the retail cost to buy it in the store. Sorry Apple folks - Apple = Arrogance. ( not that they haven't earned it, but they really make their users lives sucky).

"A weird reality"

I had my dress rehearsal today. I felt it went well. I loved singing with the orchestra. I enjoyed being part of the "soloists". Thats kind of a cool feeling. I did also like the costume discussion amongst the three of us at the end of rehearsal. We are all wearing all black. yay. I hate Black and White.

"Pre-performance Stress"

Well I know I am going through a portion of that now. I am also frustrated at the being criticized for everything - both right AND wrong.

Seriously I don't think that has as much to do with my music career as my day job. My boss in my job is highly critical and doesn't even know HOW to do what I do each day. He got himself in a world of trouble with my team on Friday and spent the day calling around to us to make sure we weren't mad at him.

So any criticism after the week that I have been through is too much. It's me mostly - not them. I am pretty good at taking constructive criticism - just not this week. I need to get some things wrapped up and then I will bounce back.

I have times where I just got frustrated and disgusted with everyone and everything. It's not personal, I can't tell you what one thing is driving the mood, it just is. When that happens, the best thing for me is to stay home and not socialize. Or socialize with very few people.

Today is one of those days.

Can you tell???

I'll bounce back tomorrow.

More on keeping your kids and YOURSELF safe

I recently recieved this email from a friend and collegue in the Kiwanis club. As a followup to protecting our kids - this information is good for women of all ages to be aware of.

I recently listened to some really wonderful poscast episodes of the Digital Father They were amazingly informative an really provided some insight into protecting our children and how to address certain issues and topics. He nicely does justice to the issues of how to keep your kids informed and safe while allowing them to be kids.

In the spirit of that and in keeping all people safe I am sharing this information. Some we have heard before but there are few things here that I can safely tell you surprised me. I know I've learned something new.



Through a Rapist's Eyes

This is important information for females of ALL ages .

A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim and here are some interesting facts :

1) The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle . They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed . They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair . Women with short hair are not common targets.

2) The second thing men look for is clothing . They will look for women who's clothing is easy to remove quickly . Many of them carry scissors around specifically to cut clothing.

3) They also look for women on their cell phone , searching through their purse or doing other activities while walking because they are off guard and can be easily overpowered.

4) Men are most likely to attack & rape in the early morning, between 5:00a.m. and 8: 30a.m.

5) The number one place women are abducted from/attacked is grocery store parking lots . Number two is office parking lots/garages . Number three is public restrooms .

6) The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and quickly move her to another location where they don't have to worry about getting caught.

7) Only 2% said they carried weapons because rape carries a 3-5 year sentence but rape with a weapon is 15-20 years.

8) If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn't worth it because it will be time-consuming .

9) These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas , or other similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands. Keys are not a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you're not worth it.

10) Several defense mechanisms he taught us are: If someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or with you in an elevator or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question , like what time is it, or make general small talk: "I can't believe it is so cold out here", "we're in for a bad winter." Now you've seen their face and could identify them in a line-up; you lose appeal as a target.

11) If someone is coming toward you , hold out your hands in front of you and yell STOP or STAY BACK ! Most of the rapists this man talked to said they'd leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would not be afraid to fight back . Again, they are looking for an EASY target.

12) If you carry pepper spray (this instructor was a huge advocate of it and carries it with him wherever he goes,) yell I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY and holding it out will be a deterrent.

13 ) If someone grabs you , you can't beat them with strength but you can by outsmarting them . If you are grabbed around the waist from behind, pinch the attacker either under the arm (between the elbow and armpit) OR in the upper inner thigh VERY VERY HARD. One woman in a class this guy taught told him she used the underarm pinch on a guy who was trying to date rape her and was so upset she broke through the skin and tore out muscle strands - the guy needed stitches. Try pinching yourself in those places as hard as you can stand it;
it hurts.

14) After the initial hit, always GO for the GROIN . The writer knows from a particularly unfortunate experience that if you slap a guy's parts it is extremely painful . You might think that you'll anger the guy and make him want to hurt you more, but the thing these rapists told our instructor is that they want a woman who will not cause a lot of trouble. Start causing trouble, and he's out of there .

15) When the guy puts his hands up to you , grab his first two fingers and bend them back as far as possible with as much pressure pushing down on them as possible . The instructor did it to me without using much pressure, and I ended up on my knees and both knuckles cracked audibly.

16) Of course the things we always hear still apply. Always be aware of your surroundings , take someone with you if you can and if you see any odd behavior, don't dismiss it, go with your instincts!!! You may feel a little silly at the time, but you'd feel much worse if the guy really was trouble.

Even if some of this is knowledge you already have it bears repeating and please share with your teenagers and young adult women.

As a single woman I have a few more to add.

1. NEVER accept a drink in a bar from a stranger. Its entirely too easy to have someone slip something in your drink and hand it to you. If they are smart on on the money they will introduce themselves and ask you if they can buy you a drink and allow you to order it. Don't be swayed by flattery.

2. Don't leave a bar alone. Have a trusted escort walk you to your vehicle. Make sure you have your cell phone on. Call someone you know as you leave and again when you return home.

That's it for now.
Keep safe!

I need some reader assistance

I work for a contract organization that supplies Music Teachers like myself students and we get a contracted rate that is a portion of the overall rate. I receive one check monthly for lessons taught the month prior. I don't deal with billing or any of that administrative stuff, all I need to do is log the lessons I teach into their website.

Having said that, their process for advising teachers of potential students is put the bare basics out in an email to the teachers on that instrument list in that area. The deal being first come first serve and once you commit, you pretty much have to have a valid and good reason for not taking the kid on.

I took on a sibling set for piano back in November. I say "took them on" meaning I agreed to give them the intro lesson that enables that parent to meet the teacher and make sure there is a bond.

I contacted the parent within 48 hours of the inquiry being sent to me and made arrangements for the lessons for the boys. I had to completely re-arrange my schedule to accommodate the initial lesson. I provided the mother with my contact information if something were to come up between this call and the initial lesson. I was not impressed with the parent at all. She seemed lukewarm at best. She was not reacting to any of the usual things that I say that make parents smile and feel good about their choice. She seemed detached and not interested.

Not knowing her from Adam, I overlooked it. Who knows what kind of day she had or what was happening in her life at that point.

I arrive on the day agreed upon a few minutes early. My test run had heavier traffic than it did the night that I actually went so I got there early. I waited in the car until the time agreed on, and rang the bell.

There were cars in the drive, lights on in the house and noise from a TV or some audio device coming from somewhere in the interior. Yet no one answered the door. I waited about 5 minutes and rang the bell again, this time listening to make sure I heard the bell ring - and yes there it is. Another 5 minutes goes by and it's cold and I was starting to notice. I ring the bell one last time and knock on the door. Still nothing. I give it up and leave.

Not really thrilled at being stood up, I figured she changed her mind or some emergency came up an she forgot to call.

I try to call on the way home, rings and no answer. I try every other day a total of 3 times - ring no answer. I call the director of the group I work for and report my situation. They decide to compensate me anyway - which is nice, but not why I called.

I called because I needed them to know that I made good on my end of the deal. And this family seems to suddenly be MIA. Director didn't seem terribly concerned other than for my personal time - again really nice guy, super to work with. So we discuss this business and some others and move on. I sort of forgot about it what with the Holidays coming.

Then I get this email last week:

Contessa,

Back in November you were assigned to a student by the name of Student 1. As we were following up with the students and assignments where any status was unclear, an email was sent to the Student Parents. Student 1's parent sent me an email with the impression that you had not showed up for Student 1's lesson and that the cell phone number she had listed for you was disconnected. In the time that you have been teaching with us, we have been very happy with your performance and responsibility, so it was hard for us to believe that the situation had occurred exactly as Student's Parent had observed. Please know that we are happy with your teaching for us and we suspect there was unfortunately some form of miscommunication between you and the Student Parent's at some point regarding the time and details of the lesson.

To be brief, she is still interested in lessons for Student 1 and I have listed her number below if you are still available to teach him. If you are unable to take him at this point, please let me know as soon as possible so I can assign him to another teacher.

Dear Rep,

Now, this email gives me the option of an out. But I respond mostly because I am upset at the implications this parent made.


This upsets me. I advised Director within 48 hours while we were talking about another situation and he had actually mentioned that he would see about getting me payment for going there and having no one show up.

My cell phone has not changed ever. it was and has been 516-555-1212. I gave her that and my home number which is also listed in the phone book and 411.,

I'm disturbed about this because I mentioned it to Director immediately after it happened. I had re-arranged my entire schedule to accommodate Student Parent's kids for the initial lesson back in November 14 at 6PM . No one was home when I got there however I was a few minutes early - I waited on the front porch, ringing the bell for 15 minutes. It appeared that people were home but no one came to the door or answered the phone when I called. Each time I tried to call thereafter ( 11/15, 11/19 and 11/20) was met with a Ring no answer on there part.

The number that I had for her is 631-123-4567.

I would be happy to arrange for another date with her, but I she was luke warm about this/me to start with on the phone. I'm not sure I am the person who should be teaching her kids, but I would be willing to try it if you guys think it's the best thing for the client.

Please advise how you would like me to proceed.

Best Regards,

The Contessa

And the reply that I got back was

Contessa,

I am sorry I forgot to mention in the email, but I had spoken with Director before sending the email regarding the conversation you had had with Director. He related the story of you going over there and the student being a no show. We were obviously surprised by the email we receive from Ms. Student Parent. You will be compensated for your time. It seems that Ms. Student Parent is still interested and I sincerely appreciate your willingness to proceed for lessons. I wanted to relate Ms. Student Parent's comments so that you had some idea of where she would be coming from when you spoke with her. Please know that we are extremely grateful for your flexibility and patience and we are happy to have you as a teacher.

Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep


See my problem is, I am unsure if I should even agree to continue on this path with this client. I don't usually question my gut instinct on a parent. I also don't usually put my feelings for a parent ahead of the need of the child. But do I really want the head-ache that is already presenting itself and I am not even the child's official teacher? what will happen if I have to re-schedule due to illness or work ? One needs a certain relationship to be developed with the parents for things like that to happen on both sides, but I don't see that happening already.

So my fair education minded friends - I need you to read this and help me in my plight.

My gut says - run like hell from this one and don't look back, but I don't want to ruin my reputation with this company either - I get a lot of business from them and they get a lot from me.

Thoughts?

A weird reality

Again - why am I doing this????

Oh that's right - I love it.

Or most of it.

I love music. Since I was a little girl. I have memories that go back to when I was 3, singing "O come all ye faithful" with my family.

I really think that I am on the right path for me both career wise and passion wise. I love what I do any which way.

But still the question posed itself last night in an unusual situation. For me at any rate.

There is one group that I sing with occasionally. I am ringer for them. And when I am there, I carry the entire Soprano section. I am by far, 20 + years, the youngest in the room.

This year, they are singing the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass and The Rossini Stabat Mater. I was asked to be understsudy to the Haydn and take the Soprano II solo and a tenor solo in the Rossini. I gladly obliged. But had been singing ALL the solo's and the choral parts for every rehearsal since December.

Last night the 5 paid soloists arrived. All of them people I had worked with before. Very nice, Very cool VERY talented people. It's a thrill to be in their company really.

But I still had a tough time NOT singing the parts I had been singing and working on for 2 months. I left early because I was still not feeling my best and the concert is this weekend. Since the director wasn't going to run my solo's again that night, I asked permssion to take off. As I was leaving he mentoned that the Alto was going to do the Second Soprano Solo and that's fine with me. So I left graciously saying goodnight to all. I wasn't angry or upset, I certainly left on a professional note. I was home in bed by 8:45 but still this nagging feeling of possession of these solos lingered.

The director called at 10 PM. I was actually taking a hot bath as it 19 degrees here. I was sitting in the bath with my book and my hot chocolate, resting and relaxing. The phone rings, and I have the coolest phone on earth. It announces who's calling in addition to displaying it on screen. It announces my vocal coach first and I decide I am not taking the call as I am in the bath.

The second call, literally seconds later, was from the director. I take that one. He changed his mind and I am now singing the second soprano solo in the Rossini and would I please call his board president and give my bio info to her. He thanked me for covering all term for him and felt that my diction was amazing. He really was pleased with the tenor solo that he only gave me a week to learn and feels it will be beautiful on performance. I didn't know what to say. It was certainly a surprise to me. It almost always is these days. I get so much criticism that its really hard to know that you might be sort of good at it.

I still felt weird about the other soprano who has a stunning voice and I feel there are parts of the Haydn that I do better, but its her gig and I wish her well. She is not only a talented person but a really nice woman to work with. In fact, that goes for all of the soloists. This is going to e fun for me in that regard, but I am moving my seat to sit amongst the soloists on Saturday. The director doesn't want me in left field away from them.

It's just tough to be understudy, learn everything to performance level and KNOW you aren't going to ever perform it. I've never been in that position before. I think I handled myself well. I didn't whine ( except to you folks!), I didn't pout or act inappropriately. The turmoil was entirely internal and I shoved it hard out of the way so it wouldn't infect others.

I know why I do this. I love it and I'm good at it. But there are still some lessons to learn along the way.

THIS is what I am talking about

Now, I know you all sympathized with my plight on the Ipod.

What happened to me tonight not only vindicates me but will gain me further sympathy points.

I hooked up my new Toshiba Bi-directional Dubbing DVD-VHS player. In doing that I eliminated three boxed under my TV AND color coordinated the whole entertainment center to Silver which goes with theme in my living room which is pewter.

It took me exactly 20 minutes to unpack, unhook, rehook AND program the thing and it works PERFECTLY. The only thing I didn't do was the dubbing or recording onto a DVD because I didn't have any spare discs in the house right now. But everything else works.

The book was 30 pages long, detailed and complete on how to hook this up with one page per sub title ( Your Remote, setting the clock, etc). Clearly written - NO FREAKING PICTURES. More than 4 words and was at a 16-18 year old reading level.

THANK YOU TOSHIBA!

It also illustrates my point about Apple. Their target market is a third of my age. Which is fine, but most adults that I know who have recently gotten an Ipod ( and I know three for this year and we all got the exact same one in the same color) have run screaming from the room with frustration.

I will address this to customer improvement at Apple, though why I bother is a mystery to me. They aren't going to change. They have made a career out of not changing and being ridiculously proprietary.

I am not knocking Apple - not by a stretch. The people who have them love them and I am thrilled for those people. Being a former director of IT, its a technology I find infuriating. Because it's very stable but when it breaks it TANKS. Its also not a common platform in the industry that I work in so not really something I care to change to. Makes life too difficult.

Having said that, I still respect the niche they have. They just frustrate the crap out of me.

I spent most of yesterday and today in bed with some weird illness that caused me to have a fever but no other major symptoms. My mother will tell you that I have always been predisposed to fevers with no other symptoms. I don't feel warm to the touch, but I get glassy eyed and tired. My mom used to tell me that the pediatrician used to tell her it was my bodies unique method of fighting an illness before it blossomed into the actual illness.

Let's hope so.

Having spent nearly 24 hours in bed with roughly 18 of it sleeping, I am feeling kind of punchy. I want to do stuff, but I really get tired quickly. I am grateful that the DVD player only took 20 minutes because that's about all I had steam for.

I sat in bed though, with my Ipod functioning well and learned the tenor aria that I am singing in performance next week. I am singing it in my range rather than tenor range ( though I actually can which is weird.) It's gorgeous and I am sad that our tenor isn't doing it because I love his voice. ( Bernie you would kick some butt on it too!).

So I learned that, watched TV but I don't think I saw any show all the way through with all the naps I had. My cats crawled under the covers with me and we had a glorious sick day.

Seriously - I took an entire sick day today. Even I was shocked. I usually drag myself to the computer and work whether I feel like or not. I had a friend who had a very serious life threatening disease who worked through it until she truly had to be hospitalized by using a baby monitor for those times that she had to lay down. I kind of like that and may get one.....

I remember a time I was baby-sitting for Bernie's son. He couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 at the time. His Baby monitor had died so they got a brand new one. I have been going to their house for visits since before his son was born, but this was the first time that I was going to be alone in the house until very late. Bernie and his wife were going to a Concert and I was watching a courtroom drama movie that had been recommended to me. It was dark, it was quiet and though they live on a main road, traffic had died down. There must have been an accident because I heard the siren on the baby monitor before I heard it on the road. Then I heard it racing down the road. I can't tell you how all of sudden hearing something like that coming out of dead silence from multiple sources can freak you out. By the way - that's the only babysitting story that I have after the age 20. But that family has a very special place in my heart and babysitting was always fun.

I am starting to ramble just a bit and get off topic so I'll end where I began.

God Bless Toshiba and their detailed instruction Manual!

A new size

I bought Clothes online for my trip to FL at the end of the month, one top I was hoping to wear to a party last night.

They were delivered WHILE I was at the party so that required a quick costume change but all looked good in the end.

The cool part is I bought them while thinking I was one size and in reality I was another.

A smaller one.

2 sizes smaller.

We call it a fat brain.

Now bad enough that there is fat on my body but to have a fat brain that isn't even literal is just damn tormenting. Tthat means I have to train myself to look in the mirror and see my body for what it is not what it was or worse what I THINK it is!

Yeah.... Good freaking luck with that one.

But the fact of the matter is - certain clothing items I really needed to get. I didn't own a long sleeve white blouse. Isn't that odd? But I don't think I ever did except in college for choral performances ( I might still have that one which most assuredly is no longer white or my current size!). So I bought a silk chiffon white tuxedo blouse - I could fit myself and my readers into it - so it's going back for the right size. It was advertised with a gorgeous black skirt - that's going back too. Same reason.

The light blue Chiffon blouse I bought in the largest size they had for small people. And that one fit. A full 4 sizes smaller than the tuxedo blouse.

Go figure. Something to do with cut I would imagine - but not enough to warrant 4 sizes.

It was damn encouraging.

I was trying this one AFTER a party of feasting and revelry. I got to sing Anything you can do I can do better, People will say we're in love and Fugue for tin horns from Guys and dolls as nicely nicely johnson. Since it's a man's role, I will probably never have that opp again so I grabbed it and ran. I sang with my two tenor friends and it was a blast!!!! We were a hit with one rehearsal.

Then I went to Weight Watchers this morning.

You won't believe this, but I showed a GAIN of 2lbs!!!! 2 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I lose 2-4 Dress sizes and I gain 2 LB S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know that the 2lbs is superficial gain - I just keep chanting that to myself. Because given the fact that I was at a party eating foods I don't normally eat, drinking wine which I don't normally drink and eating a family cherished recipe for Schwarzwald cake, the weight was bound to show up the way it did.

2LBS though. And to top it off, I was forced to fish or cut bait on something I was hoping would just go away. I activated a part of the plan and when the meeting was over, rather than stay and socialize with one of my friends and another person, I decided to leave. I am not going to expend any further energy trying to make this other person like me.

When this started a couple of months ago I got really upset about it. But I noticed that this person would bring subjects up that would not include me in the conversations, she would interrupt me, cut me off and generally only include our mutual friend in conversation. Well hell, I don't need a big sign to tell me that I am not wanted around, so today, though I would love to have stayed and talked with my friend, I decided that I could speak to her during the week and went out to get my lunch. I didn't make a big thing out of it, I didn't storm off and I am not trying to make any kind of point to anyone. But I made the point to myself that I am not going to chase someone down to like me. I am fabulous and like it, don't like it - but don't be exclusionary about it. So no additional energy will be expended there. I will be nice and polite but that's it.

Please don't misunderstand me, she's a fantastic person, bright, funny, driven, energetic. A person that I clearly wanted to be friends with. But alas it is not to be so. A conversation about it would be awkward only because we really aren't friends.... we are somewhere in that no-mans-land between being friends and acquaintances so what would one say? Why are you treating me like a third wheel? No - if we were closer I could bring that to her attention. It's easier to just let it go at this point.

So my voice lesson was great - recital is shaping up now nicely. February 11th 4PM! Directions and an email to be expected shortly!

I hate my Ipod less now

"I've crossed over to the dark side" I said into the phone... "I got an IPod for Christmas".

"Really ? I got one for my birthday - a silver Nano" said Eeman

" Really??? You sat on my couch and swore an oath over wine that you would NEVER get one! What made that change? " I exclaimed.....

Before he could answer....

"Do you like it?" I asked - tentatively - one never knows the reaction one will get to such a question.

"It's OK and since I didn't buy it, it doesn't qualify as going over to the dark side...." He said

"I don't know - I bought mine with a gift card as a Christmas gift - that might not qualify either" I offered.

"Oh yes - you knowingly purchased it so it counts. Do you like it?" he asked

" Like is such a strong word. I wanted to run it over with my car yesterday. I don't understand how a 12 year old can set this thing up with the 6 2 inch high pages of pictures with 4 words or less per page successfully! The damn thing froze yesterday after everything on the same freaking song!!!!! (Side note- Bernie - you'll love this - it was Sue me from Guys and Dolls - I SWEAR that song will be the death of me! I'm such a nogoodnick).... If it weren't for the fact that Jax was on the phone with me and gave me the reboot command that is evidently SO secret that they can't be bothered to tell you about it anywhere useful, I would be screwed right now!!!" I said peevishly.

"I'm loading all my between-sets music onto the thing after my nephew kind of screwed it up. I had to re-install after I got home. Otherwise it's ok. The jury is still out."

After this conversation I reviewed my comments on yesterdays post where I was declaiming the Ipod in a peevish manner. I have to say that all of you have been really helpful and supportive. So here's the progress I made today.

Bernie's comment:

"Have you tried "add to library" in the File menu? Also, if you let iTunes manage your library (preferences) it will gather all the music on your hard drive and put it in your iTunes library. for the Rhapsody stuff, you may have to burn it onto a CD and then import to iTunes. A lot of these music services don't play nice with one another. I know when I buy from iTunes, the first thing I do is burn a CD, just in case I lose the files or I have to use it on another device. Welcome to World 2.0! "

And I took his advice, I took my purchased Rhapsody tracks burned them on CD's. Then I transferred them to the Ipod through Itunes by loading the CD - long winded but accomplished the immediate need for those tunes without costing extra. Rhapsody uses Proprietary WMA files which means Itunes cannot convert them - yet another shining example of Apple not playing nice with the rest of the world. But the advise on burning was invaluable and I can't believe I didn't think of it myself. thanks Pahtner! ( I kept O Holy night on there though cuz I like it ;-) )

MapleMama:

What a pain in the iButt! Here is Rhapsody's iPod support page - it does look terribly complicated. Sorry! It will be worth it once you get it all figured out!! In the meantime, enjoy "O Holy Night!"

All I have to say here is bless you for finding the detailed instructions. They didn't work although I did see behavioural changes leading me to believe that it was at least trying. I think I am a step closer and will wok with tech support over the weekend to fine tune it.

Post- Doc: All I can say is appreciate your empathy here! I needed that most yesterday when I wrote that post.

I have hung in there per her words of wisdom and today I was happily listening to the Lord Nelson Mass ( I am the understudy for 1/21) and the Rossini Stabat Mater ( understudy and Soprano II Soloist). I also happily drove along singing Fugue for Tins Horns from Guys and Dolls as I am performing the role of Nicely Nicely JOhnson on this song only at a party tomorrow night ( I also get to be Annie from Annie get your gun and Laurie from Oklahoma!). I forgot that no one else could hear the tunes and was singing it in the hallway - I am sure my neighbors are thrilled to death with me!

So it's Slowly returning to "toy" status and leaving the " I need to run this thing over with my car" status.

Itunes also tends to run cheaper on album prices but more on tune prices. It'll be a crap shoot. I hate to pay more when I pay a monthly subscription. I am hoping they will find mutual ground in the sandbox so I can truly benefit from the two technologies.

Thank you again to everyone for your wonderful display of the Isupport!!!! I needed it!!!

I hate my Ipod

I probably won't in the future, but for the time being....

I hate my Ipod.

I seriously considered running it over with the car this morning. I didn't. I couldn't justify 150.00 under the wheels of my car. And it was too cold. I didn't feel like going out.

I was up until 2AM working on this thing and for all the music I own on my laptop - do you know what song it found? O Holy Night performed by Bernie. First off, I don't know how or when it ended up on my drive, second, I love hearing that song sung by him ( he can sing anything and frankly I would love it). So there's the questionable with the good part.

So I finally get Itunes working properly. I finally get some settings on this thing that make sense.

I already subscribe to a music service that supposedly allows me to transfer any music that I have already purchased through them onto my ipod.

It's a major tease though, because it shows the ipod on the screen, it tells me all I have to do is drag and drop the tracks onto it and that's it.

Alas But no. This is now looking bad. I have killed the software for the music service I belong to. So bad. So costly in terms of time.

This morning I call in and get a nice young man to help me through this. YAY this takes 5 minutes ad works perfectly.

Software works again. Ipod still cannot accept transfers but I happen along some additional information on this and I re-configured Itunes, Rhapsody and the Ipod itself, and it would seem that I am stsill clearly doing something wrong.

I will be calling technical support again tomorrow.

It's embarassing to be honest. The fact is I have worked at technical jobs most of my life. I am more than capable of doing these things. And it irks me to no end that a 12 year old has no problem with this thing and the little pictorial with 4 words or less instruction booklet that comes with it.

All in all I think I will like it, but I have to get this software crap ironed out because it's making me nuts and I KNOW the answer is there. I JUST KNOW IT.

So meanwhile I am adding my CD's that I want on there.

Oh and I added Bernie's World ( first! well after O Holy Night) .

Baby it's cold outside

It FINALLY got cold.

I didn't get the memo, but it did finally get cold.

I was running around in leggings, nike's a tank top and a denim shirt. Oh and a scarf around my neck in deference to the possibility of wind.

But WoW it suddenly dropped in temperature and the crazy thing is it was almost 70 this weekend.

I had a wonderful day yesterday. A person, Fair weather friend, called me and asked if we could get together. I didn't really want to as I was tired but I found myself saying yes.

When she got here, we just sat in the living room and talked. About everything. Subjects we like, subjects that bother us, subjects that are painful and some that are just weird. I invited her to my recital but asked her to please not share it wth Diva as I would rather not have her there.
The sad reality is she will find out about it anyway, but why make it easy for her? I am ust hoping that by the time she find out, she will be busy.

So Fair weather and I talked about the chorus we sing with, things we like about different choirs - mostly church- things we don't. We talked about exercize, she wants to get stronger so she can go back to work. She has had a kidney transplant, a pancreas transplant and bypass surgery in 5 years. She walked to my house, not that its far, but she did it.

She spent 5 hours here, and we had a great time. We created a couple of plans for parties and postions on a board should she have to vacate for health reasons. Personally I think that was her major reason for coming over. But that's OK - I'm happy to do it and it's an easy one for me.

I can't remember the last time she and I had a lot of fun like that without some hidden agenda getting in the way. She was even able to carry it through to our rehearsal last night and that's a big step for because Diva is there gracing us with her presence. We talked about that too. I saw an interview with Ellen Degenerous and Barbra Streisand 2 years ago who said that she didn't sing EVER unless she was paid for it. That's Diva's attitude. It makes me sad as she is a talented musician who has made a small name for herself by pushing others down instead of making herself better. She also has made it politcal. All this is within her rights, but it makes me sad to see a musician who no longer enjoys their craft and just does it for the publicity, power and control. It's very dis-heartening. As a student of my dad's, I can only imagine how sad that makes him. Well, would make him.

I made a decision today too. I am dedicating my recital to the memory of my dad.

I think he would like that and I know he would be so proud of me for accomplishing what I have accomplished. He would urge me to move forward with it as long as it was making me happy. And it does.

So Dad- my recital is for you. I love you and I miss you!

Pre-performance Stress and new purchases

So that Karma thing is back.

But I get ahead of myself.

Today I had my lesson. It was a good lesson except I noticed that little things are starting to make me crazy. Tripping crazy.

I am working on Shepherd on the Rock by Shubert, its neat piece but Its 12 pages long and I don't normally judge a tune by how many pages it is, but this feels long. I am told by others it's not but we'll see.

So I am singing this LONG song and my coach is picking on the little stuff which is his job. He has this thing where he starts singing with me, which usually means I am doing something wrong. OK. So he starts that. But I usually know what I do that's not wrong. And I don't know at this point. So I stop singing to figure out what he's doing that's right vs what I was doing that wasn't. YOu know what? HE JUST LIKES TO SING THIS SONG. I was doing it right. I internally went nuts. I would never say it to him because he's programmed differently than lots of people and it would be mis-interpreted.

So we go on to discuss some other things. Then we start back on the Schubert. Now he's singing the Clarinet part. Weirdly. Trying to make me laugh. So of course, I do. Then I turn around and say loudly ....

" You can't DO THAT while I am SINGING" ( Nathan Lane, The Birdcage. )

He responds, "Thank you Nathan - can we can continue?"

That's when I realized I was starting to lose it on little things.

My recital is 4 weeks from tomorrow. Those who have lived through my undergrad recitals can tell you how crazy psycho I get right before. Not usually this early in the game though, I generally save it all up and dump it on the poor soul (you ALL know who you are! and you know I don't mean a word that comes out of my mouth in those final hours) who had the nerve to say "Hey how's it going" an hour before performance - or worse - "Wow you look great" Good Lord - DO NOT COMPLIMENT ME!!!! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THAT????? What if I suck??????

So the fact that I am starting to get edgy now has the possibility of making me a real problem figure for the next four weeks OR making me bearable the day of. Four weeks, by the way, that include a business trip that I DO NOT want to go on, but am required to. I can't even use budget to get out of it, because they cleared the budget already! How freaking absurd. It's warmer here today than it is down south where they are sending me.

So to make myself feel better, and because I needed them, I bought clothes, a new laptop case, an IPOD Nano ( silver) and a DVR/VHS combo. Everything is here but the clothes and the Ipod. OK I probably didn't NEED the laptop case. I have a perfectly good one. But it's brown and I am a black and silver girl. Sorry. Yes I needed the DVR. My DVD player broke. Clothes because, well, I"m a girl I don't need a reason, an IPOD because if you have been reading for awhile, I've been thinking about this for awhile and I got really pissed at the individual who had the NERVE to spike me on ebay for the one I wanted.

Yes. I FINALLY bought an IPOD. I was shocked that I did it, but I used a gift card for that and the DVR ( shockingly there is still money there - go figure).

I have the feeling I will love the IPOD. I have a digital recorder and I LOVE that. I use it for practicing, lessons all kinds of things. Now I can take things off that and transfer them to the IPOD. That's cool. I even have software to edit out the background noise. LOving this. MOre ways to waste time. Ha

So I am starting to try and formulate my program for this recital. I have more rep choices now, but I would love to NOT sing some of it to be honest. Some I like, some I don't, some I am ambivalent about. I wish I had more choices to cut and replace with. None of this stuff is EASY and none is really HARD. Just enough to keep me occupied.

I had a wonderful surprise today too, I got an email from an old friend I hadn't really heard from.

who said there was no such thing as Karma?

Maybe it's a good sign that my recital will go OK.

I hope so.

Day 1 of the plan

So here's how the first day of the plan worked out:

Situation 1: Health - Day 1 overview. Ate OK, could still be improved. Groceries - good healthy one's bein delivered tomorrow. Did not exercize today but intend to tomorrow. Journaled as usual. Took meds as presribed today - no change yet.

Situation 2: Job - First day back. I spent a good deal of time catching up. I did not actually speak to that many people but did "chat" via email and IM. I shut my email and IM's down at 5PM and went about my evening. I took my hour lunch during the day.

Situation 3: Home - No time to attack this one today. Have plans for the weekend though

Situation 4: Finances - No special work to be done here today.

Situation 5: education - Lesson is Saturday. Shepherd on the Rock is really shaping up well. I have 5 regularly scheduled lessons left before the big day. I'm starting to get nervous. I worked on Juliette's Waltz today too. Each day I am picking 2 songs and working the hell out of them. That should put me well over the top for the recital. If I don't die of nerves before-hand. FEBRUARY 11th for those who are local at 4PM at Abiding Presence Lutheran Church in Fort Salonga NY. I have stage fright already so you will all have to just smile and work with me as I work through this. This is my first major vocal recital of this magnetitude.

Situation 6: Family and Friends - reviewed Pet Insurnance policy for 2007. No major changes. No major cost increases for both cats. Spoke to step mom today for 10 minutes regarding student whose home burned down. They have moved into a rental home 2 blocks west temporarily and will let me know what is needed by the end of the weekend. I put their account on hold until next week when they are ready to resume lessons. Called College Roomie to thank her for lovely Christmas gift. Left Message for Voice twin, spoke to co-worker friend and Voice coach.

Situation 7: Self Esteem - This was not really worked on specifically today although I did read Minor Revisions today and a neat anecdote written there did remind me that People who have a tendancy to brag about themselves or make jokes at their own expense ( meaning me), really don't have a high opinion of themselves. People who do have high opinions of themselves rarely give it a thought. When you know you are good, you don't need to convince others. I have spent a lot of my adult life apologizing to certain family members for being smart and/or talented ( fill in the blank) . Is that not the MOST RIDICULOUS thing you have ever heard? I was appalled at myself! The fact is that the person who made me feel as though I should apologize for that has a lower opinion of herself than I do. Not that I am competing - hello. So now that I really have a grasp on that kind of behaviour I am working on changing it. I am also working on taking a compliment and just smiling and saying a gracious Thank you.

First day back to work and on the plan was exhausting. I am seriously ready for bed. But I take a moment to thank Post-Doc for granting me the priveledge of using her plan. As a project manager, it's never good to re-invent the wheel unless you have to and Post-Doc's templates are always good. It is good, however, to get the author's permission first or simultaneously. ( I really didn't think she would mind.!) .

Thank you again Post Doc. I am liking this plan thus far and will only modify as needed.

A request to borrow material

This post is somewhat long overdue and I put in pieces here and there in fits and spurts.

What I decided today is I really need "the plan". But, of course, with some rights reserved, I do need to ask permission from Post-Doc to borrow parts of it.

I will go ahead right now, assuming that she will be kind of enough to grant me the lee-way to have "the plan" of my own. ( I will leave Blitzen for her though! great idea by the way! we call that short term goal planning in my profession).

So here goes my version of the plan:

Situation 1: Health.

1. Exercize: To do 10 minutes power walk video first thing in the morning then the 30 minute extended play version sometime after lunch but before 4 PM.
2. Food: To be eating more dairy, more vegetables and balance the carbs and protein better. Need to eat better breakfasts and smaller meals throughout the course of the day.
3. Journal: I am already keeping a pretty consistent food journal so I will continue on that and add my activity to it.
4. Will manage my allergies better through diet and more routine allergy management with meds and homeopathic remedies. Consistency is key

Situation 2: Job

1. Manage my time better: I will not be working overtime unless it is situational only. I do not want to get the old behaviours back that I have worked so hard to get rid of.
2. I will not be stressing and worrying so much about what others are or aren't doing unless it affects my ability to do my job.
3. I will be handling as much on my own as possible. Management will not be called in unless I have no additional resources left.

Situation 3: My home

1. I will be organizing my closets slowly but surely. I have my bedroom done and the kitchen cabinets completed. I will slowly continue that.
2. Get rid of the extra furniture and move in the pieces that I want.
3. Paint the kitchen cabinets until I amass the money to redo that and the bathroom.

Situation 4: Finances

1. Start Special Savings account
2. Finish the payment plan on 401k loans
3. Finish paying off the last 10% of the debt that I have.

Situation 5: Education

1. Continue Voice Lessons and learn learn learn
2. Continue Performing and get past stage fright.

Situation 6: Family & Friends

1. Keep taking the cats to the Vet once a year for checkups
2. keep communicating with my immediate nuclear family often. We live close but not that close.
3. Work on those relationships that are healthy to make them stronger and work on those that aren't to make them Healthier or cut them out altogether.

Situation 7: My self esteem

1. While improving it still needs work. I know I am a worthwhile person and I have a lot of God Given talents.
2. My communicating that to myself sometimes sounds like bragging, but it's not intended to be that way. I am trying to pump myself up to a normal level. So I have to work on the delivery of that both to myself and in front of others.
3. Learn how to take a compliment. that's a big one this year.
4. Keep repeating to myself that other people do not decide how valuable I am.... I do.
5. Stop listening to negative soundtracks playing in my head. Create new GOOD ones.

this plan brought to you in part by Minor revisions

***************************************************************************************

So this is my new plan. Post-Doc, I hope it's ok with you! Please let me know......

vacations

I heard an interesting line from a sitcom of all places.

"everyone has their own version of what a vacation is. Mom meditates, Edward and Kitty go on their cruises and Larry "leaves" too. Greg just left for awhile to re-charge his batteries"

That last part is what I like - the re-charge of the batteries.

In my youth, I was a classic work-a-holic. Look up the definition in any dictionary and you see my smiling face right there.

I truly believed that the world would stop on it's axis if I didn't go to work. I worked nights, weekends, birthdays and holidays.

I lost my 20's to my job. Through my own decision.

One that I regret today. Oh I have some great memories from my 20's but there is so much more that I missed. And the funny part is that I am more accessible now than I was then.

I work on a high profile account. My customer is very demanding BUT reasonable. You have to know your target audience, but they are largely trustworthy with personal phone numbers and cell phones etc. They will not use them unless instructed to or a true emergency ( Fire flood, that kind of thing.). I have a company issued pager that is text and numeric and looks like a mini laptop. Very cute. Goes in the fridge when I am not on call ( once every 6 weeks).

I work for a man who for the past 12 months that is an even bigger work-a-holic than I ever was. He has shown my entire team new heights to this. He wants constant and total access to us 24 hours a day. He has even gone on an actual vacation - taken the plane to the island, hotel, wife, the whole deal and STILL called in from there under the guise of making dinner reservations.

This person uses our cell phones whenever the mood strikes him. I have actually been sitting next to my office phone and will hear his personalized ring come in from my cell phone in my bag. I will listen to it ring the theme from Jaws until it goes to voice mail. Then I will wait for the call on my landline. You see, the principle of the thing is, the company, while I do have a phone by this company, doesn't actually PAY that bill. I do. I gave my phone internally to my team for true emergency use ( power outages and such). Not to be on call 24x7x365. I love my job, but this is the fastest road to burnout and I don't plan to spend a lot of time on this road.

My boss, while a wonderful man and very well meaning, well, frankly we are concerned for his health. This is how heart attacks happen. I would love it if he would slow down a little bit. We still get the same results without the frenzy. The customer loved us before him, they will be OK. But Each person has their own demon to battle and this job and the approval from above means a lot to him.

This past week has shown me that I have grown out of my work-a-holic tendencies by and large, however I know for a fact they are still in there. You know how I found out? I slept almost non stop every time I sat down the minute I walked out of the virtual door of my office. The relaxation was total and complete. And it continued to go like this for thirteen days. Normal people get that out of their systems in a couple to a few days. But not this crazy. It takes me thirteen before I can resume a normal life. Now I don't consider my primary job to be the only cause to this. I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends and I am busy all the time. So it's a mixture of things.

At the end of the day or 13 days as it turns out, I am feeling super rested, very healthy, very relaxed. I spent an uncounted amount of time sleeping, in my bed, on the couch - whatever. I ate healthy food. I just feel great. My batteries are just about re-charged enough for me to jump back into my life on Thursday.

But for my last day, I will be practicing, teaching an unbelievable amount of kids, and cleaning my house and organizing closets and making preparation for my new DVD player.

Then it's back to our regularly scheduled craziness called...

Life.

Happy New Year to me

I spent a lovely day at home.

I slept late because I have a little bit of a lingering cold.

I made Starbucks Christmas Roast Coffee with a dash of raspberry flavored cocoa and had some toast with French jam.

I watched the only cooking show that I really like, the barefoot contessa - ( no relationship to the blog title incedently. That title was bestowed on me personally by my next door neighbor many years ago.... he knows nothing of how much I like Ina Garten at all.). I rested on the couch and watched movies all day. I saw the Da Vinci code - the book was better in most respects but I did like some of Ron Howards vision on the book's images. I also saw Rumor Has it which is so funny and really made me laugh despite the fact that I don't care for Jennifer Aniston as an actress.

I made myself some Boeuf Bourgenon with penne for dinner using an entire bottle of red wine and flaming it to burn the alcohol. That was kind of fun actually.... It was yummy!

Then I found all the gift cards from Christmas and decided it was time to replace the DVD player that died. It took me most of the day to research that and price it down. I got the preferred brand and model fo 218.00 which made me happy as it's a combo DVD / VCR with write capabality and is the same brand as my TV which is only 1 year old. YAY me.

Then I went looking at Barnes and Noble and I really don't like their website a whole lot. It's not conducisive to finding the things that I want or need. I am looking for additional music for my recital in 6 weeks that won't break the bank and won't be a killer to learn. I am considering something from Wicked( NO, not POPULAR thank you very much) and something from A Light in the Piazza (Possibly Beauty is or the title track. I have to see. ). I may pull a few standards out and I am doing a couple of things in 2 weeks and I may be able to pull one of those together for the recital too - we'll have to see.....

I nested and rested and watched movies and spent money. It was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend a rainy New Years Day.

For old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind....

New Years is a time to wipe the slate clean. All wrongs are righted, all slights forgotten.

Right?

Well even if it's not accurate - I believe that.

With each new year I try to change one thing about me for the better. I try to change one thing about my environment for the better.

This year I bet you all think I am going to say that my personal change is going to be to get to goal weight don't you?

Ha ! Gotcha WRONG.

That's probably going to happen or get close to it, because I am already on that road, comfortably and happily and refuse to put a time limitation on it. If it happens in 2007 - excellent. If it takes me into 2008 so be it. A time limit just adds stresses to the situation and causes setbacks. So no, not this year.

No this year, my goal is to go through my personal inventory of people in my life and keep all those that are good solid healthy relationships or work on a plan to modify the relationship so that it is mutually beneficial to both people or cut that relationship out of my life. With no guilt or anything like that.

Now to be honest I have already started that process. First of all, I am not ruled by pride. I took a lot of time to offer the peace to a dear friend with whom I had a falling out right before my dad died, but I did it. We both know that we are stubborn and we both know we didn't behave admirably but at the end of the day we are good people whose motivations were only for the best, we just acted on them stupidly. hell - we aren't perfect. But we are a road to recovery.

The second thing that I need to do this year is not sweat the small stuff. I have a tendency to grab onto a little thing and roll it, like a downhill snowball, into a huge thing. I tried to exercise this plan this morning in church.

We have a member of our choir who is a cherished person in my life. I have known she and her husband for most of my life. They are brilliant people and valued musicians. But they have had their share of musical trials in terms of post retirement employment. Peg was our interim organist and choir director after my father passed leaving the vacancy. She was not the best at it to be honest and fair, but we love her and we supported her 2000 %. So it was not the huge surprise that my new priest ( with a degree in music prior to seminary) asked for her resignation in his first year. He hired another choir director organist. Peg decided that she would remain at St Judes and sing in the choir as this was now her spiritual home. We were delighted but knew the transition would be tough on her. Now sitting firmly in Soprano 2 section of our choir, she creates her own descants on every hymn at will whenever the mood strikes her. This makes me crazy. Unless our director tells us to do that, I don't think we should be just arbitrarily creating things on the fly - what if the whole choir did that? There would be no melody and other than the words, no one would have recognized O come all ye faithful or any other hymn!

Today I chose to practice some anger management techniques with this one. yes it drives me crazy, but if it makes her feel more important to do that, after all she's been through ( that's not the first church to let them go by the way), isn't it worth it to keep her a little bit happy? She's an amazingly wonderful albeit quirky person, so is this really important? Is it going to really alter my day? NO. So I had to let it go.

A stupid story, but it begs the point about me holding on to things that do not matter in the grand scheme of things.

So I am working on letting the little things go. Some little things can't be let go because they create a precedent which isn't right either, or that little thing can rapidly snowball into a big thing if not reacted to quickly. The trick for me is to know which is which. this year I reacted ( or overreacted in many cases ) to everything to make sure that nothing slipped by. that really wasn't the best plan. So this year I am going to pick the battles differently. Perhaps with more wisdom. I may not react at all immediately I may just wait on it, think on it and pray on it.

This year is also about getting my allergies and immune system tanked up again. It's important for me overall but I have a ulterior motive in my singing. So - weight loss certainly plays a part as does exercise and intelligent food choices. Regulating meds and what not. I know what to do an I certainly just have to keep doing it and keep reading on it.

So this year the three important things that I resolving to are:

1. Review and restore / recycle the relationships in my life
2. Don't sweat the small stuff
3. Get Immune system pumped up.

Happy New year to my oldest, bestest friends Lena, Maple Mama, Bernie, Jax, Jenna - I Loev you all!

Happy New Year to my newer friends - Post-Doc, Jules, Lori, Val....

"Make new friends but keep the old, one Silver and the other Gold"

A true holiday miracle

I got a call today from the father of one of my students.

I missed their lesson this week to unforeseeable circumstances. It turned out to be the best thing for all.

Their home burned the ground on Tuesday.

They lost literally everything but what they were wearing.

I love this family dearly. They are just fabulous people. Gorgeous home, not pretentious by any means. Well behaved kids and good family values. I so enjoy going there and spending time teaching the daughter and once in awhile I get to enjoy a glass of wine with parents.

So when they called me and told me what happened today, I was in such shock, literally, that I couldn't even speak. Then I was afraid to because I thought I would cry.

What most amazed me, though really it shouldn't, is the positive attitude that this father had. He was just sure everything was going to come up roses for them. He wants to make sure that his Little girl continues the music lessons and they will be in a rental home shortly and will let me know where that is for the interim while they re-build.

I'm so stunned. I immediately offered the support of Kiwanis and I will get more details down stream as soon as I know what more they need.

Kenny, the father, told me that he got the best gift this year.

His family, safe and sound.

That is a holiday miracle for me.

Some personal revelations

I spent today in bed. Most of it at any rate. I slept a lot, returned phone calls, watched movies, drank hot cocoa with marshmallows.

Now, unless you count Marshmallows as a food group ( and until tonight I was) I had eaten absolutely no solid food today and didn't even miss it.

Life is strange like that.

I got myself up and went to teach my kids and then headed over to a memorial service that I was singing for. I had a slight headache but didn't attribute it to anything other than my cold.

insert mental Headslap here.

I felt flu-like symptoms throughout the entire service. I couldn't get into any of the tunes we were singing. We did a lot of Golden Oldies. It was a Presbyterian memorial service for a woman who died suddenly in an accident. The service was something like this:

Niece of deceased sings Amazing Grace ( no opinion)
Choir Sings "I come to the Garden alone" which for all the rest of us who don't know better ( myself included) has the refrain "And he walks with me and he talks with me....."
Minister says some words
choir sings "Abide with me"
Minister says some scripture lessons
Family and Friends insert their joys and memories here ( some nice letters and poetry were read- she was a well loved person)
Choir sings "Just as I am"
Closing prayers and the Lords prayer
Choir sings "The old rugged cross" which other than time-life commercials on PAX TV I have never actually heard before.

I should add here that we weren't using hymnals for these hymns an I have to tell you that having only the words in front of me is crippling to me. It's like asking someone to read Braille but it wasn't written correctly. Something was missing.

it was a lovely ceremony really. But I felt awful throughout the entire thing.

I hadn't eaten. Afterwards a couple of us went to the diner and had a late dinner. Honestly, I felt like that Campbell's soup commercial with the snowman that defrosts into a child. My Bacon Cheeseburger with fries and an unsweetened iced tea brought me right back almost immediately. I haven't had a cheeseburger in forever.

I feel sooooo good right now. I came home to practice because I have a lesson tomorrow, a recital in 6 weeks and a performance with a duet and a solo in 2 weeks that I am not at all ready for. I worked on it using my handy dandy new digital recorder.

You know what I discovered?

I hate my voice on tape - digital or any other kind! But it's an awesome practice tool so I really just need to get over it.

So I will have start eating like a normal person again. I feel better when I do and I have a lot of singing work to get going on with a lot of singing engagements coming up so I'd better get a grip on my voice on tape! I love my recorder though - it's small and perfect and easy. I LOVE it.

These are my personal revelations.

Stay tuned for my new years resolutions.