Singing as I go

Life has been busy, as usual. Maybe more than usual.

Wrestling season is in full force & that's kept us occupied. Here's a link to our local paper, which mentions Derek in the Nov. 24 edition on page 12. (It's actually page 17 but each 2 pages are in one PDF.) That's not Derek in the picture! He is still learning the moves. When he has lost matches, it's been because he really didn't know how to get out of them! He has come a long way, though. I'm proud of him.

One night he had four matches within an hour. He lost them all. That was hard on him. It was hard on his mama too.

Though Rachel's activities haven't taken as much of my time, I've enjoyed watching her perform at the choir's Veterans' Day concert & the school's talent show. She is working a lot & always on the go.

Thanksgiving is upon us & we are thankful for a lot of things. Mom & Granddaddy are doing fairly well. Randy's still with us & still walking on both feet after this year of leg problems & car accidents. The kids are doing great. My job is going all right & my health is better than usual. (And, usually, it's pretty good!) There's a lot of trouble & trials in the world, but there's a bright & a sunny side of life too.

I feel like all the parts of my life are full & rich right now, even though I do seem to have a difficult time working in enough physical activity. That's a project for another day. I try to fit in plenty of time to be artistic, whether it's writing or singing or another form.

As for writing, I am trying to figure out how to use speech recognition so I can dictate stories while I drive to work. I really haven't done as much writing as I should lately.

I definitely work in time for music. I've been fooling with the guitar and the autoharp, preparing for the cantata with the choir, & hoping to do some recording very soon. I would really like to have some kind of "sampler" to give to people. I would like to sing Southern Gospel in some other churches or maybe at nursing homes. I've had two sermons & a sign I pass every day all telling me I need to go forward with this. But I also have the desire to sing more classical music. I miss having some kind of "class" experience where I learn skills to get better. I got a little tired of that, but I miss it now that it's not there. Because of that, I'm also planning to audition for the Vanderbilt Community Chorus again. I auditioned last year & didn't make it, probably because they had too many women singers & not enough men. This year they have a new director.

I liked singing in the Music City Community Chorus & Renee, the director, is great, but it did not work so well with my schedule. The Vanderbilt chorus rehearses on the night prior to my regularly scheduled day off. I don't have to drive so far to get there (I really don't have to drive any extra at all) & I don't have to work the next day! They also don't have weekend sectionals, which were hard for me to make because I live so far out. I'm glad I got out when I did this semester, because I don't think I'd be doing so well fitting 1-2 chorus rehearsals in with two wrestling matches & two church choir practices every week.

As for other art, I'm doing a lot of cross-stitching at these wrestling matches. They are rather long events. The regular matches take about 4 to 5 hours from start to finish. Tournaments are all day events. Saturday we got to Harpeth at 7 a.m. & got home about 4:30. And we were some of the early ones to leave! I like to watch, but it's also nice to have time to cross-stitch. I was glad to have a whole day to do it, but my butt was about sick of those bleachers.

Well, I am late getting to bed. I have a big week ahead.