December Week #2

The next week was just packed.  I started out Monday by helping my friend (who is the YWs president) try to build a blanket fort at the church for their Young Women's Christmas party.  This kind of thing is NOT what I'm good at-- really, I wished I could have sent Craig in my place to help her, because it is exactly Craig's skill set!  But I tried my best to be helpful.  What made it all doubly hard is the fact that the walls are all cinderblock, so good luck attaching anything to those walls!  We were hoping for cozy, soft, and warm.  I'd also contributed a couple foam mattresses to sit on, so that was nice.  Here was what we ended up with:

The low table is for crafting, and one in the back is for refreshments

I think with the lights out, it will be okay?  (We couldn't turn the lights off right then because the piano was being tuned!)

Anyway, that was my Monday morning, which was only difficult because that's my usual shopping time, so I always feel a bit "off" if I don't get that task done.

And then, I had choir that night and our director decided to re-seat all of the women.  This was a process where he makes us all sing in groups of twos and threes and determines which voices blend the best and seats us all accordingly.  This is a) really scary.  And b) just really scary.  To make matters worse, he moved me away from my friend Leah and put her next to my other friend Rachel, and placed me between two elderly ladies.  And commented offhandedly that I had a "bright" voice which didn't blend easily.  He said the same thing about a couple other women, one of whom I keep hearing because her bright voice REALLY doesn't blend well with her fellow altos.  But I hadn't realized I was one of the culprits!

So I got home very unhappy about all that.  I couldn't decide if I was more upset about my bright voice, or about not sitting with Leah, or about the fact that Leah and Rachel were now sitting together without me and would probably become best friends together and I'd end up excluded (because that's what always happens with girls).  I didn't sleep well that night.

I think Michael must have felt bad about all that because the next day he emailed me and Leah a picture of us sitting together at last year's Messiah Sing-In.  It was a nice gesture that I had no idea what to do with.  I texted Leah and her response pretty much summed up my feelings: "I was pretty sure last night that he still didn't know my name but I guess he does?"  Anyway, it was perplexing-- who took the picture?  Where has it been all this time?  Why am I wearing the same outfit as some girl two rows behind me?  But I do really love the picture, so that's nice:

Leah sitting between me and her twin sister

There was no scouts that night, so Craig's parents came and babysat for us so we could do a whole bunch of other things, starting with our Panera date night/Amazon shopping.  I love sitting with my bowl of broccoli cheddar soup while we buy gifts for everyone.  What a cozy lovely way to do your shopping!  As soon as we were done, we zipped over for a quick rehearsal my choir had with the Charlottesville Municipal Band, and then headed (late) to UVA's Messiah Sing-In.  Leah couldn't come this time, so that was a bummer, but singing beautiful music is still wonderful, even if you aren't sitting with friends (a good lesson to remember for choir, I suppose).  And-- what pleased me no end-- we got to sing my favorite chorus, "And He Shall Purify"!!!  So I came out of that happy as could be.

Wednesday I was hosting my book club, so I spent all morning making goodies for that: peppermint fudge, killer crunch brownies, and Peanut Butter Graham Cracker Bark.  After I was all done, I remembered that one of our members doesn't eat sugar.  Oops.  Probably should have grabbed a veggie tray or something for her!  Oh, well.  In addition to all the baking and cleaning, I was a little more stressed than usual because I was going to try and facetime with the author of our book (Tracy McKay, my dear friend, who wrote The Burning Point).  Since I am not good with technology, Tracy was finishing finals week and wasn't totally sure she could make time for this, and we NEVER know who is going to show up for book club, I was kind of a stress case.  I hate having so many unknowns to deal with!

Camille REALLY enjoyed helping me in the kitchen!

As it was, the evening was lovely!  We had seven people come, which is the most we've had in a long time, Craig was able to make the facetiming work and even screencast onto the TV for me, and Tracy found time for us and we all had a lovely chat.  PHEW.  I was so relieved when it was all over!  Why do I do things like this???  And I spent the rest of the week finishing off all the leftover treats.  So that was a win!

Thursday morning Bentley had a dentist appointment that went very badly and I'm still trying to figure out what to do about.  (Long story short: she filled two cavities and opted to not bother with novocaine WITHOUT TELLING ME.  Mama Bear is not happy about this.  Especially considering the business is named Dentistry with a Mother's Touch.  What the crap???  I got mad at her right there in the office and she apologized and explained her reasoning.  Which made some sense, but not enough to convince me that we shouldn't just change dentists.)  And Thursday night Craig had to work late.

Friday we had freezing rain so school was delayed two hours.  This sounded nice in practice, and I did enjoy sleeping in.  But then the kids were insane and Craig still had to leave for work so I had to try and get them all out the door on my own and meanwhile I had a bunch of things to do that I now had two less hours for and THEN my neighbor texted me asking we could "talk."  She said, "don't worry, nothing bad" but of course I spent the whole day stressing about what could be wrong.  So while I was trying to run to Wal-Mart and visit a friend in the hospital on way less time than I should have had, I was also worrying obsessively, as I am prone to do.  It turned out she just wanted to ask if I could babysit occasionally next month.  No big deal, all that stressing for nothing.

That night was Kendra's first band concert!  She did a great job and we were so proud of her!

There's my girl!

Then on Saturday we had our ward Christmas party!  The theme this year was "Laughing All the Way" which I loved-- I have gotten so tired of church parties feeling the need to be super serious about Christmas.  They were asking members to perform silly Christmas songs as part of it, so I volunteered our family to do something, since I wanted to be supportive.  Unfortunately, I didn't really take into consideration the fact that Craig is terrified of singing in front of people.  He finally was able to drive home this point by explaining that the way I feel about the drop tower is the same way he feels about singing in front of others.  Sorry, Craig!  I didn't know!

Anyway, after playing around with several ideas that didn't work (could we do Sleigh Ride but make it about our big blue van?  Nah-- too many words and it's sung way too fast.  Could we do a spoof on Jingle Bells and change this "sleighing song" to a "slaying song" and make it about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  Nah-- probably too violent for a church party and not enough Buffy fans in the audience...), I finally realized that the perfect song to use was "O Christmas Tree."  It's short, just needs an easy rhyming couplet, and it repeats a lot!  Done.  I wrote a bunch of silly lyrics about various members of our ward.  The trick was to be funny without being mean (which is REALLY hard, actually).  My favorite verse was this gem:

The Osman Fam, the Osman Fam

We are so glad you moved in

It is so nice to look and see

Someone who has more kids than me!

The Osman Fam, the Osman Fam

We are so glad you moved in!

That got some good laughs! It ended up being 7 verses long, which was probably overkill, but oh, well. People seemed to enjoy it. Even Craig had to admit it was a raging success. But he asked that I please never do that to him again.

Since this was a fun party, they had cute stories for the kids and then Santa, too!

Br. Foeppel (who tore his shoulder tendon recently) telling the kids a story

Waiting to see Santa-- I love Camille's grin here!

Last time Kendra sings with the primary kids!

So that was delightful! The next day, Sunday, was the Municipal Band Concert, which people from my choir were singing at. (It was voluntary, so not the whole choir; there were probably 40 of us?) . Unfortunately, that overlapped with Craig and the kids going to see Bethlehem Village in the town of Afton, put on by a local church there. So Craig took the kids without me.

Ryder was really grumpy until he got some hot cocoa into his system

Standing in a chariot!

 An actual well!

Who doesn't get excited to see a camel?

They had a great time.

I came home from my concert and had two blissful hours of peace and quiet all by myself in my home. I didn't even do anything all that fun-- I cleaned up the whole kitchen and then I practiced my choir music. But no one interrupted me or created extra work for me during that time! When I was cleaning, I played the classical music station on the radio and no one tried to change it to Baby Shark or forced me to pause it so I could hear their various complaints. I love my children to death but getting those two hours of peace and quiet was something I truly had needed.

So the week ended on a peaceful note!