I mean… the fact that it’s going to be another several days before the group gets together to rehearse again is making me positively weak with frustration!

What’s wrong with me? Surely I have a life, and can fill my time with normal day to day stuff (you know, that mountain of work sitting RIGHT THERE, threatening to topple off of my desk?) – not to mention my beautiful daughters – and my husband (now that he’s stopped being a complete jerk that is). So what the blue blazes am I doing sitting here pining for rehearsal night?? Yes, blue blazes. I said it. What of it?

(back away from the nutjob!)

Yeah, I’m hooked. As much on the group itself (I will sing for a good hug, apparently) as the gorgeous music we’ve just undertaken. I sat here going over music all morning, making notes and annoying our Bass (Knarf, of recent haiku fame) with email about what to change and add to our digital rehearsal music, of which he is king and keeper…

It’s all very sad, and pathetic, but I think I’m doing a good job of handling it… don’t you? *twitch*

p.s. ShaMoo is home with two sick boys today – send her some good vibes, will you? And cross your fingers SHE doesn’t get sick!!

p.p.s John-Boy… nice to see you. About time you showed up!

So colour me disappointed when we got the recording in our hot little hands, only to find that it was so poorly done and badly mixed that it was completely unusable. Completely. Which of course means that everything we had planned to do with that will no longer happen, and I have nothing to share with you past that 12 second clip. It was a huge blow for us. So yeah, sad news. Took the wind out of our sails a bit. But we have rallied, and are in the process of choosing music to start on after the holidays, in anticipation of things we’ll be doing in 2010.

Wee One has her first loose tooth! I’m not sure if this is a happy or sad thing. She is my baby, and this means she’s leaving that stage behind… but she’s so excited, that it can’t help but be happy, right? You other moms know what I mean. I’m melancholy, baby.

Christmas is almost in the bag – I’ve pretty much done my shopping, and really, if I wanted to be, I could call it done. But you know how it is – there’s always some little thing you’d like to pick up to make sure the stockings are nicely filled out, and desires are fulfilled. We didn’t go all-out like last year though, when I went on a mission to surprise my un-surprise-able husband, and succeeded by getting him a hang-gliding adventure, and also rather expensive tickets to see his favourite comic. Surprise doesn’t really begin to cover it – mission accomplished. He’ll be surprised by this year’s gift too, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Something has been happening to me the past couple of months… my appetite is gone, I can’t seem to sleep… getting up at the crack of dark every dratted day. The nurse who sees my 98 year old grandmother every day uttered a very mean word to me not long ago, that I just can’t wrap my head around (starts with an M, and requires a hand fan). I dunno – at 42, is that really what’s going on? I prefer to think these stress related symptoms, and I’m still a young woman. Ohhhhmmmm… Ooohhhmmmmm…. yep, all better.

Anyway.

This has been a wonderful Christmas season – singing with my group (and our larger one) getting out into the community and spreading the cheer, and really just enjoying ourselves immensely has been a thrill ride for me. I’m so sad that we’re done now, and those gorgeous songs we’ve been enjoying all these weeks are to be put away for another year. If you’re lucky enough to have a group to sing with, you know the euphoria the harmonies can bring. For me, it’s more about the feeling than anything else. It’s not the gifts under the tree, as nice as they are. Definitely not about the mucho dinero we go through either. It’s the feeling you get from special friends, family, and everyone you meet (unless, of course, you’re looking for a parking spot, or that last item on the shelf that someone else has already spotted…) At Christmas, people are just a little bit nicer. I wish it would last the whole year through, don’t you? In fact, I wish that everyone I met the year through were as wonderful and kind as the person reading this right now.

Thanks for stopping by today. May your day be Merry and Bright!

There are things in this life that make me happy.

My gorgeous daughters. My wonderful husband of 18+ years. (Some) family, and of course, my fabulous friends. Certainly all of those things and more make me happy.

But singing… singing fulfills me in ways unlike anything else. I feel this extreme level of happiness, sheer excitement, and such an amazing euphoria, all rolled together.

Bliss, that’s what it is.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as happy as I am right this minute. We have all been singing together for a few years now as part of a larger group, but our new quartet is something else entirely. We are coming together so well I just can’t get over it. Every week is better than the last… tonight we were a cappella because dude-with-mad-keyboard-skills wasn’t able to make rehearsal, and we were shocked just how far we’d come in such a short amount of time.

Now someone had better medicate me, because I’m so excited I’m never going to sleep tonight!

This coming week ShaMoo and I are excited to be breaking ground on a new quartet – one we have been dreaming about forming pretty much since we met.

Singing in a large group is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but we have very little control over what kind of music we sing. If we love it – great! If we don’t… well, you get the idea. Starting our own, tight-knit group means we will be singing only music that we love, and nothing else! To get that euphoria on a regular basis, and to forge our own musical pathways… well, it’s going to be an awesome