Take good care of yourself,
you belong to me!
Here is Mary singing with the Dakota Valley Festival Children's Choir. The children's choir sang two songs including "Button Up Your Overcoat." All four district 196 high school choirs sang and then they combined for Robert Ray's Gospel Mass. The finale was the mass choir with the children's choir singing the Caldwell/Ivory Hope for Resolution. It might be that hearing high school kids and little kids singing Of the Father's love begotten, E'er the worlds began to be. He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending he might have undone me. It didn't help that the Eastview choir opened with"How Can I Keep From Singing?"
Cue the sniffling. Again.
The choral festival was just several hours of the total music this weekend. Mary and Calvin are busy practicing every song every day for their graduation recitals--read Sara is sitting at the piano many hours. . .
Easter Choir sang a big Reformation Sunday anthem complete with piano, organ and brass sextet. Good news! Because of Martin Luther and the whole saved by grace and not by works, I don't have to worry so much about all the mistakes I made at the 8:30 a.m. service. I'm already forgiven. Add in confirmation service in the afternoon and we had A Mighty Fortress fully stuck in our ears.
In an effort to lessen the stress of the holidays, this year, we are paying to have Calvin's Christmas CD mass duplicated. This is huge--usually I'm frantically precision cutting CD liners at midnight on Christmas Eve while Bill sits at the light scribe machine feeding in blank CDs. Note the exaggeration, but you get my drift. Mass duplication is great--but it means Calvin has to have it all recorded by November 5. The piano room has become a recording studio and Quincy Jones himself was never under this kind of deadline.
I put a sign up on the piano room door--hour by hour who gets to use the space. . .
My kids are stressed. Where did they learn that when there is just a little too much going on we should freak out and either break down or take it out on everyone else around us? Hmmm. I don't know?
So we sat down and made a list. And we dropped out of the inventor's fair. And suddenly it's not so bad. If I taught them how to be stressed then it's my job to teach them how to work it out. It's only three more weeks. Then we are home free. . . except the whole Christmas thing.
Which brings me back to the "Button Up Your Overcoat" title. Take good care of yourself. . . you belong to me. Since I dramatically reduced my caffeine and sugar intake the last two months, I'm feeling pretty self righteous. I'm soooooo calm. However, now if I slip and have a coffee at a meeting, I'm up all night. Apparently we have to be good and take care of ourselves every day, not just most of the days.
This is the annual secure your own oxygen mask first blog entry. It's that time of year. The holidays are knocking hard at my door. The next ten weekends are spoken for.
It's all good. I love it all.
I love it more on less caffeine and sugar, eight hours sleep, and a little exercise. Busy will come and busy will go--but our family is here to stay. I'm going to try to be a better example to my kids. I know I'm gonna mess up--and so will they--and that's okay. Maybe starting off the season with reformation is a great idea. We are already forgiven. Grace is right there waiting for us.
Eat an apple every day,
get to bed by three. . .
Take good care of yourself. . . you belong to me.
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