Sunday was quite eventful in my music and praise life!
I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be joining the Praise Band at my church in a few weeks. Part of the reason this became a fact, instead of a hope, is a series of events that began 3.5 weeks ago.
On that Sunday, 3.5 weeks ago, the pastor gave a sermon about prayer. It was so well received that on Tuesday, he sent an email to everyone on the church email list that he was going to continue preaching about prayer for the next two Sundays.
Prior to this email, I had spoken to the music director, we’ll call him N, about singing with the Praise Band. One of the things N had said to me was that if I ever wanted to sing a solo in church to let him know about the song, and they would fit it in when the message of the song and the message of the sermon were similar. Well, my intention was never to be some big soloist in church; I just wanted to sing with the band. I haven’t really worked to find songs that I’d be good at as a soloist. There are songs that I know, where I’ve done solos on the verses, from my church back in MN. But they aren’t necessarily ones that I’ve connected with the strongest.
BUT since I KNEW the topic of the upcoming sermons, I was inspired to try to find a song in my repertoire that fit with a message of prayer. And voila! I found one of my favorites! The song is a prayer to offer one’s life up to God to do His will, and to be led by Him; it is called The Potter’s Hand.
I emailed N and the pastor to offer up my willingness to sing this song. I sent them the key phrases that were about prayer, and that spoke to me. I suggested that perhaps I could sing it for them so that they could “decide if they wanted to incorporate it” into the 3rd service on prayer; this is code for “you can judge my singing and see if I’m good enough to sing at church.”
Well, I stayed after church on that 2nd Sunday of the prayer series, which was 1.5 weeks ago, and I sang it for and with N. At the end of running through it a few times, he told me that he thought it was ready to go and he’d tell the pastor as much.
Now, it was just a matter of seeing if the pastor thought the message of the song fit with the message of his sermon, and I needed to wait to hear from them.
Well, last week, I never heard from either of them. So, I assumed that it didn’t fit with his sermon after all. I was okay with that. I was mainly excited that I’d be joining the band soon (Aug 22)! I got ready for church, like usual. I showed up about 5 minutes before the service would start, like usual. And when I was walking down the aisle to go to my see, N was at the front of the church and walking toward me waving at me to come talk to him.
Our conversation was something like this:
N says “Hi Danielle! I’m so glad to see you! I lost your phone number and wasn’t able to reach you. Would you be willing to sing with the band today?”
Mind you, they had just finished practice and the service was about to start.
My eyes widen and I pause and say “uhhhhhhh….. sure.”
“Because we are planning on doing the Potter’s Hand.”
“Oh!” pause “Did you want me to sing lead vocals?”
N says “Absolutely!”
I say “uhhhhh… sure!”
And then we had a hurried 3 minute conversation discussing the logistics. My biggest concern was that when we had practiced it the week prior, I discovered that they did a different order of chorus and verses once they got through all of it once and were doing the repeats. I had these visions of my being ready to sing another chorus when the band was going back to a verse! But he reassured me that the powerpoint was correct and that the person running it would switch the slides in time for me to be prepared for the next part of the song.
And then, we prayed. And the service started!
The opening songs were great. It felt wonderful to be back up front singing and helping to lead the worship music. I felt right at home. Albeit, I was still adjusting to the sound and microphone some.
The pastor gave the children’s message, and I knew The Potter’s Hand was up next, and my mouth was getting a little dry from nerves. I drank water, ate a mint. And then it was time for me to lead everyone in singing the Potter’s Hand!
Once I got up front, and the keyboardist started playing the song, my nerves went away with the familiarity of it. N started introducing me; I was listening to him until the vocalist next to me started humming the song. When I heard her, I realized the key was VERY different than what I’d practiced. I realized, or at least I thought I realized, that singing it at the high octave might make it too high when it got to a later part of the song. And singing it at the lower octave might be too low. But I didn’t have time to try it out, because by then, he was done introducing me and I needed to start singing!
oh dear!
I decided to sing it low. As I was going through the first line and approaching the second, in my head, I did one of these “oh crap! I’m not sure I can hit the next notes, because they are so low!”, but I kept singing. And I hit them!
To give you a sense of what I’m talking about, I recorded me singing it at the approximate key where we’d practiced it and then the key that I (think) I actually sang it during the service.
Note: In order to a) use the equipment that I have – which is only an HD video camera that has audio too and to b) continue to not show any pictures of me and protect my anonymity, of sorts, the recordings just show my computer screen of the words while I’m singing.
Oh and I’m, of course, singing it acapella, since I don’t own or know how to play keyboards. And I was behind the camera so that I could see the words on my computer screen and have the camera recording the computer screen. But it has decent sound, I think.
Here is the key that I did in practice:
And here is most of the song in the (approximate) key that I sang at the service. Note that I did it in one “take” and discovered after I’d uploaded it to Flickr that Flickr only accepts videos of 90 seconds maximum. My video was 1:48, so the last line is cut off. I didn’t want to re-record it, or edit it, since it had already taken me a while to get it all set up and then to upload it. But again, you can hear a decent chunk of it; I cut out the 2nd verse, as it stands.
I’m also a little nervous about putting this out there, because it isn’t perfect by any means. But well, perfection is overrated, right?
And there you have it!
It was well received. People in the band were very complimentary and surprised (in a good way), judging from their comments. I felt good about it. N told me it was good.
And regardless of how it went, I sing in the band on Aug 22nd!
I still have every intention of posting my “Fun Outings with Mom and Dad – part 2″ to follow-up on the part 1. But currently I’m uploading HD video to Flickr which is sucking up all of my bandwidth and my patience for navigating around the internet. Thus, it will have to wait.
Now, WHY am I uploading video to Flickr, you may ask?
Well, as it turns out, today is my Dad’s 65th birthday! Yes, this is the milestone that is allowing him to retire in a couple of weeks! wooooooooooooo hooooooooooooo for Dad!
And it won’t be long until Mom and Dad live here and I see them quite regularly; or at least, I hope to see them regularly.
Happy 65th Birthday, Dad!!
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In other news, the kinds of things that are going on with me:
1) I’m trying to compile all of my research needs (i.e. supplies and equipment). Right now, I have an excel file with at least 6 sheets, and the total is at $45,000 spread out over 3 years. To give you a point of reference, some schools will offer $25k to $75k as start-up money for a new faculty member’s research without even knowing what you want to buy. Instead, I’m not getting any start-up money, and I’m writing this up so that our development office can go out and ask private donors for money.
After talking to a mentor of mine at school who has been around the school for quite some time (and received the no-strings-attached start-up money) he suggested I go ahead and ask for new versions of some of the ancient stuff that we already have. This would be things like a new -80C freezer (around $12k) and a new microcentrifuge.
When I was looking for a refrigerated microcentrifuge for spinning down small tubes in the 1.5 ml range. I found this woooooooooooooooooooonderful new centrifuge by Eppendorf which can do small tubes, as expected, but can also, surprisingly do 6, 15 ml or 50 ml tubes. And with alternate rotors, can spin down microplates, PCR plates, PCR strips and just on and on! It is intended to be an economical alternative to buying two separate centrifuges; usually, a lab has to have one centrifuge for big tubes and one for small tubes/plates etc.
OMG. I really, really want that centrifuge.
How many bake sales would it take to buy this centrifuge, I wonder? hmmmm…. probably too many.
My mentor’s suggestion is that the worse they can do is say no and that I might as well ask.
2) Now I have to write a cover letter/case statement for why I need this stuff. It is nothing like writing a real grant, but it is still time consuming. Once I write it, my mentor suggests that I get input from everyone in the dept (all 5 people). Which, again, is easy, since it is only 5 people. But that will also require at least 5 meetings during a time when most people are on vacation.
3) In the meantime, I’m feeling the pressure that I ought to be working on my syllabi and first days of lecture. Classes don’t start until the 24th, so really, I have quite a bit of time. Last year, I went on vacation to Port Aransas just prior to the start of classes. Consequently, I wrote my syllabus 3 days before classes started; it turned out fine. So, I’m trying to console myself with that.
4) I have exciting news on the music front! In a few weeks, I am going to join a really awesome Praise Band at my newly-found church! Joining this band has been a bit tougher than what it would be if I’d gone to one of the other churches that I’ve found down here. Other churches have sort of been desperate for vocalists. The church that I’m going to be singing at has really high standards and more than just me who wants to join it. So, I had to prove to the director that my voice is good enough, my spirit is in the right place (so to speak), I’m better than the other people, and I’m responsible enough to be in the band. He has gotten burned in the past by someone who wouldn’t show up for church every now and then when she was scheduled; thus, my being dedicated is a significant part of his willingness to let me join. Well, that and my voice, of course.
I’ll sing solos every now and then, maybe duets, but I’ll mostly be doing back-up harmonies. Since I looooooooooooooove singing harmonies, I think that this will be a perfect fit.
And, better yet, the pastor is awesome, awesome, awesome. AND it is UCC (United Church of Christ).
I grew up Disciples of Christ which merged with the UCC quite some time ago. Anytime I’ve moved, I’ve always hoped to find a UCC church that has good music and good sermons, but it has been a bit hit or miss. I’ve ended up at at a Methodist church and, most recently, a Lutheran church, instead.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the UCC, it is pretty much the most liberal Protestant denomination out there. They were the first to ordain female ministers, the first to allow openly homosexual ministers to be ordained, and they have always been at the forefront of ways to be accepting of all people (hence the “united” part of the name). This fits with how I view what Jesus was trying to accomplish in his own ministry when he was here on Earth; so it is a better fit for me than any other denomination.
Well, I think that is enough for now. I ought to get ready to go into school and work on this cover letter/case statement. And maybe I’ll work on my syllabus when I need a “break” from it.
I’m off work for Easter Break; we get Thurs, Fri, and Mon off! Consequently, I feel that I have a bit more time to blog right now.
One key thing that has happened since my last post is that we finally submitted my first-author manuscript from the work I did as a post-doc to the Journal of Neuroscience! Finally! The lab was trying to do some additional experiments after I left to add to it, and it took until now to decide that some of them were just not going to work, and others were able to work. Of course, this is not the end of that, because the manuscript will have to be reviewed and the reviewers always want something changed. We just hope it is minor and not additional experiments!
A second key activity is that as part of Lent, my church has a day where they try to get everyone involved in service. We ended up having about 230 people participate in a variety of projects. I was one of the organizers to have a small musical concert at an assisted living facility. It was a lot of fun to sing some of my favorite songs. And the residents were soooooooooooo appreciative. This idea is something that I hope to take with me for a future church. It requires so little time from us, but it is so meaningful.
Last night, I sang and was one of the readers of the scripture in John that talks about the events leading up to and including the crucifixion. Good Friday and Easter are always more meaningful for me than Christmas. I love the festivities of Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But Christianity is really all about the events that occur during Lent. And the songs are heart-wrenching on Good Friday.
The readings were moving, but it was really uncomfortable to be one of the people in the crowd yelling “Crucify him!” But I think that is part of the point; we are supposed to be uncomfortable.
For Easter, I bought a very small bouquet of flowers on Wed night to enjoy while I’m here at home on break. I hope to take some photos of them later. Right now, I’m committed to getting the grading of exams done today. And I’m trying to get them done in time to see a 1:00ish showing of How to Train a Dragon in 3-D. I think I’ll be able to do that.
It is official! I have been offered and I have accepted a job offer for a tenure-track position in biology at a small liberal arts school in Texas!!!
wooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
The image above is something I created to make notecards on Snapfish. I am going to send cards to people at my future school who are in my new department, were on the search committee, the provost, the president, and the woman in development (i.e. will be helping me get money for research). The school colors are black and gold, and I thought they might enjoy a card with a flower in the school colors. So I searched my numerous flower photos in my huuuuuuuuuuge iPhoto library (currently 9,800+ photos) for a yellow flower and can you believe that I found this tulip that actually has a black center in it too???!!!
Was this meant to be, or what? I took that photo in April 2007.
I really just thought I’d use a daylily that was yellowish green. But when I saw this and popped it on the design, I realized it was the right one.
Note, I can’t take credit for the idea for the background. Something similar was on Snapfish. I just copied it in the colors of my choice with the sizing of borders and lines of my choice.
Anyway, about the job:
Location: about 45 min (?) from Texas Seestor’s house! Maybe 30 min from where I might live (?). You know what this means? It means that I will get to see her, her hubby, and my two darling nieces on a regular basis!
Also, mom and dad are retiring in the area, so I’ll get to see them too! They haven’t picked a house, so it is still a bit up in the air as to how close I’ll live to them. But I have hopes that they will be close!
School: smaller than my current school. But my current school is the largest liberal arts school in the country, because of the way it is designed. (I can’t really say more without giving everything away about where I am, etc.)
People: This is a BIG draw for me. The search committee was actually made up of people all across the school, which is really unusual. There was someone from chemistry, kinesiology, and hispanic studies on it (along with the bio dept chair and another bio person). They all get along really well. We were actually laughing and joking on my phone interview. My on-campus interview was really great too.
There was this whole school reception after my seminar, where I met people from all over the school and everyone just seemed to get along and emphasized how much of a positive aspect that was for them at the school.
As for the students, the professors all had very positive things to say about them. They were shy at first in my guest lecture, but really warmed up to me pretty quickly. So, I think that we will all get along well.
Courses: This is the other main draw for me. I’m was hired to teach a course in one of my specialties: molecular biology/molecular genetics. I’ll also teach their intro bio for majors and a non-majors course. And one semester of anatomy and physiology.
Research: This is the one drawback. There are internal grants that I am almost guaranteed of getting for my usual lab consumables ($3600 a year). But to get some of the larger equipment that I have currently, I’ll write small proposals with the people in the development office. Then they will go to donors in the area and try to get them to donate money to the school/my research. This was the most involved part of my negotiations. I tried to get the school to actually give me start up money. In the end, they just don’t have the funds to offer any start-up money. BUT the provost did have an in-depth conversation with development and the woman in development is pretty confident that we can get the money. If not, I’ll just have to change directions in my research to do less expensive stuff. Which I can do. I just hope to continue doing neuro stuff.
Religion: The school is affiliated with the same denomination of which I am currently a member! This is not the denomination that I grew up with, but it is what I found when I went looking for a local church that has contemporary music. Again, could this be a better fit?
I don’t have flowers to celebrate; with it being Valentine’s day weekend and all, the prices are just jacked up too high. BUT HB bought me chocolate truffle cake! We had some last night while we watched the opening ceremonies and just finished it off (I stopped mid-post to have tea and cake).
Note: I had to take this next photo really fast, because HB was ready to eat the cake when I realized I hadn’t taken any pics!
It is Christmas morning and HB is still asleep, so we haven’t had our usual Christmas morning cinnamon rolls yet.
Christmas Eve was so very special yesterday.
Even with the snowstorm, all of us on the Worship Team made it to the services. The quartet that I was in practiced our 4 songs really briefly. They were a capella, so it was important to “remember” the songs. Once everyone arrived, we had a chance to run through the first verse of each of the main songs in the service. But we ran out of time for the worship leader and I to practice our duet. Thus, at the first service it wasn’t quite as relaxed as the 2nd and third, but I’ll get to that in just a minute.
Here is how the evening progressed once we finished practices.
The quartet that I was in sang 4 songs out in the lobby to welcome people into the church.
Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming – 1st verse only
Angels from the Realms of Glory (chorus is “come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn king”)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Joy to the World
During the first service (3:15), I didn’t sing up in front with the group. I just went up for the special music. My solo verse was not as good as it had been at practice, but that is sort of how it goes for me when I have to sing solo in front of people. But the harmony part was really terrific and my voice was all it could be.
Between first and second service, there wasn’t much time, but a few people from the Worship Team told me that we sounded good.
During the second service (4:15), I sang up front with the group. The service was as follows (this is more for my sake)
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Litany of Lights (lighting of the Christ candle) and responsive reading
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:1-7
O Little Town of Bethlehem
The Christmas Story – Luke 2: 8-12
Away in a Manger
Children’s message
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:13-20
Our special music – Babe in the Straw by Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong – Caedmon’s Call version from album City on a Hill
(this is the one that was recorded)
Message
Candle Lighting
Silent Night
Scripture Reading John1:1-5
Joy To The World
During the second service (4:15), my voice was right where I wanted it to be during my solo verse. I felt like it went as well as it had ever gone before. Afterward, four people or so from the Worship Team told me how well it went and how great we/I sounded. The sound team also told me that it sounded really great.
The recording is the raw version with the levels not mixed – but I had asked them to put it on a flash drive for me. When I listened to it last night, the keyboard (accordion setting) is overpowering, our vocals are the next loudest part, and you pretty much can’t hear the guitar. So, I am not going to share it until I get a version that has the levels evened out.
I’m hoping they will do that within the next few weeks!
For the third service (5:15), everything went as planned. This time, our song sounded even better!
Now, for this next section, I’m not trying to brag. But this was the first time I did a good-sounding solo for church. And I need to write these things down so that when my confidence is so-so in the future, I can read these. Plus, this is the sort of thing my parents will enjoy reading.
Afterward, I heard from more people. A woman (didn’t know her) specifically came up to the front while I was gathering my things and thanked me for sharing my gift. She said it was a Christmas gift to her to get to hear me sing.
A friend who is in theater found me too to tell me how pure my voice sounded and how beautiful the song was.
The wife of one of the sound people also told me how wonderful it was.
The pastor stopped me and told me how she thought it sounded wonderful and thanked me for singing and for sharing. She mentioned too how the song fit with the children’s message and the main message just perfectly. We hadn’t planned that ahead of time.
Those compliments really had me floating and really made me glad that I stayed here for Christmas Eve. There was a day or so where I’d contemplated flying to TX early to spend this time before Christmas with my sister’s family and my parents. I’ve been sort of weepy these past few days and somewhat regretting my decision to stay, which is a pattern for me at this time of year when I’m away from them. And of course this year, I’ve been missing out on these extra days with my nieces!
But I stayed, and I’m so thankful that I did.
And I fly to TX tomorrow night! (assuming that I can fly out of here with the way the weather is right now)
I’ll be there for 2 weeks! (I come back the weekend before classes start)
I’ll be writing more in the upcoming weeks. And hopefully finding a way to put our song in an accessible place once it is re-mixed. I can guarantee that I’ll be posting tons of photos to Flickr!
May the blessings and joy of Christmas be with you.
In my attempt to write short little updates, here goes a bit about yesterday.
Performing was a lot of fun. The crowd was small, but appreciative. The event was organized by a different church that invited us to perform and raised money for the local food shelf.
My solos went pretty well. There was one note that wasn’t ideal, but HB didn’t notice, so maybe no one else did either!
I played the tambourine some while I sang, which was also fun.
Some of us hung around to watch the other groups. The second group was another praise band from a church in the twin cities. It was interesting to hear their versions of some of the same songs that we sometimes sing (ones that we didn’t do that day).
I also loved the petting zoo. My camera battery ran out of power before I got any photos of the bunnies, unfortunately. One bunny let me pet him/her for quite a while.
I almost forgot to tell you about my mini-solos at church, but then I saw Squirl’s comment on my previous blog post.
It was about 50% great and 50% okay.
Basically, I nailed it during practice and during the first service. Then, during the second service, the parts of the verses that were in my upper range (head voice) just ended up really weak. Thankfully, my mini-solo ended in my chest voice. So, at least I ended well.
I think that what happened was that I oversang in all of the songs between the first and second service and wore my voice out. I actually could tell that my voice was getting rough by the time we hit the sermon in the second service where we leave and go hang out.
That makes me frustrated. *sigh*
After the first service, the music director and his wife (who is also in the band) said that they should try to have me do more solos. Well, we’ll see what they think after hearing me in the second service. *sigh*
Well, I knew it wasn’t in a great spot in my range. But I’d hoped to overcome it. And I DID overcome it for the first service. Just not the second.
Per my usual Saturday routine over breakfast, I was just getting ready to check some blogs of yours. But then it hit me that I haven’t updated my own blog since my b-day on the 12th. *bad blogger! shame on me!*
I could use being busy as my excuse, which is completely true. But the other part of it is that A) I didn’t feel like whining and B) nothing totally major has happened that ‘warrants’ blogging.
However, maybe some medium (but not minor and major) things have happened that are worth sharing.
1) Being busy.
Things are crazy this semester and they are just going to stay crazy as I give exams and have to grade these big lab research papers that my first year students wrote for Intro Bio. Most nights I have to do prep for lectures for the next day. Usually, I spend Saturday prepping for Monday. Sunday prepping for Tuesday. IF I have time during the workday, I prep for Wed. But let me tell you, by Wed night I’m staying up until 10, 11, midnight, doing the prep for Thursday. Then Thursday is just like Wed night.
Hard stuff.
By Saturday, I’m so exhausted that my prep for Monday is too slow, which is why I only get the prep for Monday done and not, for example, all of Monday and then half of Tuesday or something like that.
I’m really looking forward to Easter Break. (Thurs, Fri and Monday off) Yay for working at a religious school!
2) Maybe this is major. Job security.
I asked my chair to write the high-up people to find out my status for next year. In other words, am I being rehired, as expected, or did the letter telling me I wouldn’t be rehired fall through the cracks? For some stupid reason, they send a letter if you won’t be rehired. But just don’t send anything if you will be. How dumb is that? What if the letter gets lost in the system?
Anyway, the end result is that I’m still expecting to be issued a contract next year when they do the contracts for everyone else. So, that is a relief. The very last thing I’d have time for right now is a job hunt.
3) Summer research
I have 2 super students lined up to do summer research with me. This research is strictly to get things going. It wouldn’t help my tenure process in the future – presuming I get a tenure-track position. BUT it will A) allow me to apply for outside funding, if the results are decent and B) potentially get hired for that tenure-track position that they should have this fall.
4) The lab for my molecular biology class.
First, I LOVE the lab. It is a bit hectic, because the students take about twice as long to get stuff done as I do (if not more). So, I think that things are going to fit in the amount of time alotted to lab, and then they end up staying late. *sigh*
Second, I am replacing an outdated set of labs (Southerns) with an updated set of labs (sequencing). This seemed like it would be simple, because the labs were done in the Intro Bio class last semester. But, of course, in actuality it has been really hard. This is because A) when I ran through the labs to optimize them and check that everything is working, I got DISMAL results. Pretty much 3 reactions out of 6 worked. And there was no pattern to what worked.
BUT B) I just got the data yesterday from a second attempt that 7 out of 8 reactions worked! And the one that didn’t work was the one with the max amount of DNA in it. This is something that the company actually warns against, so it fits with their recommendations. Yay! Something that makes sense!
C) I got this working barely in time, since I have to give the students the next part of the manual on Thursday.
D) The manual.
It took me all of last Saturday, and part of Sunday to write the dang manual that I gave them on Wednesday! It was an incredible time sink. (look back at number 1 for how this was a major problem for lecture prep too)
E) Part of why I thought the expts were screwed up, was because the freezer holding the enzyme for the sequencing wasn’t hooked up to a generator when the power was out for 24 h. But that appears to not be an issue. Thank goodness. A missing extension cord could’ve been the reason for a loss of a $200 loss of enzyme. And how stupid is it that if you are the person responsible for the hook-up that you wouldn’t just go to a store and buy more extension cords???? I mean, come on, $20 extension cord vs $200 enzyme? Isn’t that a no brainer?
5) Singing for volunteer service
My church organized a day where they tried to get everyone at the church to volunteer for a couple of hours (or for 2 blocks of time, if possible). As it turned out, one of them was a recital for an assisted living complex. So, I prepped a couple of songs (acapella, because there was no time to get accompaniment lined up), and sang. I sang “Everlasting Arms” and “I’ll Fly Away,” 2 lively gospel songs.
I also led the whole group of church people in a song that we often sing at church to close the service. Probably not one you’ve heard of, because it is contemporary, but it was “Reign in Me.”
It was a good service opportunity. I’m glad I squeezed the time into my schedule to do it and didn’t just use the excuse of “I’m too busy.” Of course, I did it by skipping the church service that morning, but hey, you have to prioritize.
Okay, that was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than I thought it would be. I guess this shows me that I need to update more frequently even when I only have “minor to medium” things going on.
One final note: Even though teaching is really crazy this semester it is still FAR better for me than research everyday. And next year will be easier, because it will be some of the things I taught this year.
I spent the weekend doing a sewing project for my niece’s Christmas present. I’d post pictures, but I want my family to be surprised too – and they are reading my blog this week, I think. So, I’ll show it after I give it to her. It will be cuter with her in the picture anyway. Hopefully, she’ll want to wear it.
Suffice to say it was fun to dust off my sewing machine. It was a little tricky, because I didn’t have the recommended needle size for the material. And I did this during the snowstorm, so I couldn’t go out for a replacement. But, you know, my niece won’t care. Thus, I’m perfectly pleased with how it turned out. Sewing this weekend kind of makes me want to find more sewing projects. This one took me back to my younger childhood years where I would design and make clothes for my dolls and tropical barbie. This would be the one I’ve shown here before.
Other than that, I went to church (in the congregation this week) and sang many Christmas songs. I’m glad this church goes ahead and sings them during Advent. So many of the songs are about Christ being born and Christ with us, so churches I’ve been to in the past haven’t wanted to sing them until Christmas Eve.
We have a really good line-up of songs for Chrismas Eve services. I’m singing at all 3. I will also be reading the beginning of the Christmas story from Luke.
I went to a really great Christmas concert last night. It was by Lauren Redpath who was our interim music director. I think our church made a mistake when we didn’t hire her permanently. She had shortcomings as a band leader, because she really didn’t know enough about instrumentation to lead the instruments. However, I think her vocals would’ve made up for it in retrospect. Ah well, hopefully we will find someone soon. You’d think that with the economy the way it is, we’d have people graduating from music schools in the area looking for jobs pretty soon. It was a great concert and really made me feel Christmassy.
Now, I just have a couple of days of working from home and then I’m off for a week and a half! I’m sure I’ll be taking lots of photos and posting them to Flickr soon. Hopefully, I’ll post here as well, so if you aren’t too busy, pop on by!
