the past month has been SO busy. i feel like i spend half my year preparing for christmas and now everything i've been preparing is coming to culmination.
i had the joy of flying to california over thanksgiving to see TravelBuddy. she is doing a lot of Traveling :) it was a fun trip and i am excited for her to come visit the Mitten for New Years.
we are in our final week of CHOIR at church. i am growing to love choir more and more as i spend time with the people. they are truly such a joy and an encouragement to me. i can feel myself growing and being stretched as a leader and a communicator. even though choir is great, choir is also very stressful. selecting and preparing the music beforehand is a lot of tedious work - am constantly second-guessing my decisions! and then working with the band to prepare said music is proving to be even more stressful. but when we get to the actual choir rehearsals, i find myself being energized as they learn and understand new musical and aural concepts. and as i watch them worship. what a privilege!
aside from choir rehearsals, i've found myself feeling rather discouraged with my worship responsibilities lately. first, there are not enough hours in the week for me to give to this job what i want to give. second, everything i do has to go through my "co-leader" who is technically my "boss" but he treats me like his "co-leader". he is a very different personality type than i am and it is difficult to 1) get a straight answer from him, and 2) for us to agree on things. i think it is good that we work together because our differences are dramatic and balance each other out, but the decision-making process is slow-going, and the execution process is even slower.
i've also been feeling discouraged in my interactions with our team members. i can think of exactly ONE week this fall semester that we have had our entire team at a mid-week rehearsal. now, one person did have a class that met the first 8 weeks on wednesday nights, but that was only until halloween and there have been PLENTY of absences on top of that. especially lately. it is SO hard to get people to come to a rehearsal. the most frustrating part is that they cancel last minute. they commit weeks in advance and bail on the rehearsal the day-of. i understand that people get sick. i understand that people have work. i understand that it's finals week. but when it's everyone at once, it makes doing my job really hard.
plus, when i over-communicate information and it is disregarded completely, then i just feel disrespected.
but this isn't a work-environment. these are volunteers. so when they say they can't make it. all i can say is okay. so yeah - welcome to ministry!
rant over.
the CD project is coming along! it was released last month and i have sold several here and there. i had the chance to play at a ladies christmas dinner at another church and sold cds there. plus they are for sale at my church now. i only need to sell 200 to break even on what i paid for them. i still have a ways to go, but i believe it will happen eventually :)
last night was my Piano Christmas Gathering at my house. i love teaching piano. i love my students. it is stressful trying to give so much to multiple jobs, but i love each job individually. the gathering was brief, to the point, and, i feel, very effective. 11 of my 19 students attended with their parents (and a few siblings). we started out with a game of musical truth or dare - students draw out of a Dare hat or a Truth hat according to their proficiency level. Truth requires you to answer a question. Dare requires you to play something or clap a rhythm.
then each student played their christmas song, and then a few who had more than one song had the chance to share that song as well, or to play their song with the teacher duet. at the end, i led by example and closed with a prepared christmas piece of my own.
a public thank you to my mother who cleaned and got the house ready while i was working like mad all week!!!
so today i am off.
and tomorrow i am off.
and tomorrow i am off.
and then sunday i buckle down for another week of crazy.
so i am going to take advantage of my little break and tie up the loose ends in my life. i truly think all these messes are adding to my stress. i feel unsettled and un-relaxed. so today and tomorrow i am on a mission to tackle them. these things include:
- laundry - clothes and sheets
- nails - fingers and toes
- december accounting
- desk :/
- take the girls christmas shopping
- schedule dinner date with paul (his gift to me last christmas...)
- some wrapping? i often take care of wrapping for the people i live with so it's always good to get a head start...
ok.
here i go!
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