Sponsors

I sat with a friend Thurs. nite at a piano recital, mentioned that I would be singing in that same hall in 7 months. I said I was beginning to worry about the financial aspects of the recital. Without hesitation, she said"Get Sponsors!" I hadn't ever considered such a thing. But I am now! I'll approach a friend in Community Relations at my hospital tomorrow to see what she thinks about either underwriting my recital or sponsoring partially. If she cannot agree with this, I will go to many of my friends who have small businesses to solicit their help. The expenses could individually be sponsored, such as my friend's bakery could give me a discount on the cookies and I could mention in my program that the cookies are "Courtesy of ___Bakery". My hairdresser could give me a free cut for a mention in my program. I hope this can work out. Otherwise this will be a financial hardship, and I don't want to be worried about anything but singing well. Speaking of...things are coming right along! I think my voice is better and better. Hope my audience thinks so too.

Texas Tech

Youngest son and I went to TT yesterday to check out the Anthropology grad school. I was so very impressed. Not only with the school. With my son! What an awesome young man he is. Not only that he presented himself in a very good way, interacted with the professors and grad students in very wonderful ways, but that he asked me to go along. I think I've never been prouder of him. Wish I had more time to go over the details. Looks like he has a good chance of getting into that school, but we have 4 more to check out.

Leisurly Saturday

Hubby's doing breakfast with his Mom today. I'm getting off to a slower than usual start.
I'll have a voice lesson at 11:00. Since College isn't in session yet, we've been having my lessons in the recital hall where my recital will be, Sept. 10th. I just love singing in there. It takes no effort to produce a huge sound. Even acappella, which my first song is planned to be.

Gotta go get tickets for the Symphony concert tonight. Classical guitarist Angel Romero is playing. He has been knighted in Spain. Interesting. I didn't know Spain had Knights.

Maybe I'll get in a 3 mile walk this afternoon. I have been neglectful of my exercise this week and it is showing up on the scales. But over all I've been doing well in the weight loss dept. Want to fit into a great formal of some kind for my recital. Great motivation. Almost as good as my 30 year high school reunion. When I get some money saved I'm going to Dallas to shop for that great dress. Abilene has very few options for that kind of shopping.

Wildfire

I keep hearing more stories about the fires that nearly destroyed Cross Plains, Tx. People had hardly enough time to get out with the clothes on their backs. Two women didn't get out. People were all scrambling around to help each other, many total strangers, but in a small town most knew each other. I heard that people were going into others' houses and snatching family pictures off the walls or anything that they thought would be important. They got these things to safe places for the families that couldn't make it home on time. A man who ran a wrecking company already knew his house was gone, but put his wrecker to use pulling cars out of carports or just away from buildings, where they might not burn. Almost all of the stories reflect the love those people had for each other and the kindness of strangers and passers-by.

But some stories are painful to hear: A family left quickly when the fire was up to the edge of their yard. They returned shortly afterwards, thankful that only one wall was partly burned. The next day they came back and the place had been looted! Rumors that some of the fires had been intentionally set. A few days later one of my co-workers was driving in to work from out that direction and saw the person in the car ahead of her flick a cigarette out the window. This could have easily set another fire in the horribly dry grass at the road side.

Our neighborhood is bordered by mesquite thickets and dry grass. Only a hundred yards or so of this is between us and the interstate. It has occurred to me many times lately that someone could easily burn down our entire neighborhood with one careless flick of a cigarette.
So last night the local news broke into the programming and announced that there was a large grass fire in that all-too-nearby area. I started packing. I didn't even smell smoke, but the wind was blowing 30 or 40 mph from that direction. I got my largest suitcase full of several changes of clothing for both of us. I put all my photo albums in another. Both in the trunk of my car.

This is probably over-reacting, but I felt better. Better safe than sorry.
All this got me really looking around at the THINGS around me. I wonder what I would miss most if it burned down. My books. My clothes. My collection of music books and sheet music. Family pictures all over the house that probably wouldn't be gathered in a hurry. Our furniture. My dishes. This computer. Just the things I have spent all these years accumulating.

I already thought I had thinned the clutter with that garage sale in October, but I still have so much in excess of the necessities of life. Last night was good for me. Taking a mental inventory of my blessings. Realizing what is most important to me. Realizing how much more I have than I need. Those few changes of clothes in the trunk of my car may just stay there until wetter weather. I have plenty more in the house. Interesting to think about. So many people all over the world have not even as much all together as I have in the trunk of my car.

Coming into a new year gives us motivation to review past years and look to the future. Having more years behind me than ahead gives me the ability to see where God has worked in my life and in the lives of my loved ones, and gives substance to my faith that He will continue to do so. As for smoothing off the rough edges, I need a few more years. In some ways I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going. Reaching this stage of life has given me the time and resourses to develop traits and abilities that of necessity lay dormant during other years. Life still is hard work, but the years have given me tools to work with. There's no slick sliding downhill after you're over the hill. But I have no doubt that these years have the potential of being the best.

Happy New Year

I really love Christmas. Especially that Jesus is the reason for the season. But all the festivities, parties, decorations, great food I don't eat in the summer, my Christmas sweaters, all of it is great.

The Christmas season is a really busy time for a singer. I have seen busier seasons when I was singing in 2 choirs and preparing for a February opera. All the little private gigs that chorus members got to sing in past seasons were fun. Not so much to sing this year, but enjoyable and busy anyway.
Christmas music is probably my favorite. (OK, I think my favorite music is whatever I'm concentrating on at the time.) I love very old music. The aires and melodies of the 300-400 year old music are great. I hope that these melodies and that style of music will not be allowed to die. I'm doing my part.

But no matter how much I enjoy the season, I'm ready to get all the clutter put away again. Ready for a new year. Since we had very little Christmas gathering here, we didn't even put all the ornaments on the tree. Just today I went through all the decorations and threw out old, cracked and discolored balls and junk that I had kept around for years. One more way to de-clutter my life. I keep thinking of all the junk that we had to go through when Mom died a couple of years ago. And that was after she had had three or four down-sizing moves. While I hope and believe that I will be around here many more years, I still dread the thought that someone will be saddled with the horrendous task of going through all my stuff. Our garage sale in October was the beginning of the process of de-cluttering. Culling out the Christmas stuff was another step.

Next step is to continue writing my book. Pick up those pieces, complete some chapters.

Happy New Year. I hope for all my loved ones that you will find something that you love, to either get started on or to complete this year, something that you can look back on next New Year with pride and joy.

this and that

Just as I suspected, we are nothing like the movie family of Stones. I think we're normal. Much less dramatic. More moral. I think.

Our holidays were lovely. Spent the time with our daughter-in-law's family, and at hers and my son's new house. Great time had by all.

We've seen several good movies this month. Flight Plan was good, although probably technically flawed as far as the airplane, etc. Narnia was wonderful!! Goblet of fire was fun to see with my son. Have to see Kong soon. Maybe when it gets to the dollar movie.

I am so sick of Christmas stuff all over the house, but the weather is too beautiful to stay inside long enough to clean it all up. Spent several hours hiking and sitting to read and meditate out at the state park yesterday. On New Year's Eve! I even got a little hot hiking.

My New Year's resolution is to drop Diet Dr. Pepper and substitute water. I could save a couple hundred dollars.

Those dollars could go towards my recital expenses. Already getting so excited. Nine months away. Guess I'll be on a high all these next months. So what's different?