A New Year, a New Decade and Where Are You, Ship?

I'm not tired; yet I start teaching really early (for me) tomorrow. I believe it is getting close to the bewitching hour because the cats are hanging around, looking at me with that, "Let's go to bed" stare. I know I have to get up early and therefore I know I cannot sleep - I HATE getting up early.

It is the new year and I haven't gotten in a flap yet, even though a lot of money needs to fill my pockets before Friday. It is such fun being self employed in January...Mastercard called tonight and I will call them back tomorrow after I count my pennies, dollars and such, to tell them that my ship will come in very soon, I am hoping. This is the first time they have called me in many, many years, and it does my heart no good when they are forced to remind me to pay on my account, when I already KNOW that I have to pay on my account.

It's not like I live in a castle or something, it's not like I own a car or anything else on wheels, it's not as if I have a real kitchen with cabinets, etc., it's not as if I have beautiful floors or anything, it's not as if I have gorgeous furniture or anything, but I do have 4 cats and they have to be fed first. And it's not as if I eat lots of food or anything, either, because I have IBS and can't really eat a lot of what other people eat - it's called "food."

But I DO have to get up early and maybe tomorrow my ship will come in to dock in my non-existent private whatever ships or boats call home.

2010 - I am NOT getting into a flap because I need for people to pay me! No no no, I am not getting into a flap about money or the lack thereof. In 2010 my cats will eat and once in awhile I will, too. That's all that matters - oh, and I will continue to teach music to the nicest little and big kids in the world.

Goodbye Rotten Decade - Welcome Sweet New Decade

Happy New Year to me. Happy New Decade to Me. There, it has been said and done and I am left to count down the few hours remaining until life gets a whole lot better.

What made 2000 - 2009 so awful??????? Here goes:

2000: Breast cancer, mastectomy and finally, an "all clear,"

2001: Duodenal Ulcer - bad bad bad bad bad

2002: Still ulcering - still bad bad bad bad bad

2003: Dirty doings going on.

2004: Still dirty doings going on.

2005: Still more dirty doings going on.

2006: Still more dirty doings going on, only now I have PROOF!!!!!!!!

2007: Revenge of Catwoman.

2008: Catwoman lives to wreak more havoc.

2009: Catwoman and cats are worn out!

Welcome sweet new decade in just about 2 hours from now. I need a rest!!!!!!!

Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly

Fa la la la la, la la la la! It's the busy Christmas season for us, starting on Saturday afternoon, November 28, at the Festival of Trees, our annual Christmas Recital on Sunday, December 6 and finally, our appearance at the annual Carol Fest on Tuesday, December 8th. By "we," I mean my Grande Prairie Regional College Conservatory Choir, now in our 22nd year of performing, and all of my varied students, aged 6 on up to 17, who will be singing solos and duets as well as singing in the Choir. (Actual photos are going to appear after all of this concertizing), I HOPE!!!!!

This afternoon for 2 hours, we (the choir) rehearsed our 4 songs for the Festival of Trees. We are singing four 2-part selections, one of them an a cappella arrangement of "I Saw Three Ships" written especially for them by our friend and composer extraordinaire, Christine Donkin, who lives in Ottawa now. This arrangement was my best birthday present on November 6, as that is when it arrived, along with my worst birthday present, a very bad cold, cough and all the rest.

Half of our 12 singers are 6 & 7 years of age, and it is so thrilling to hear those little kids sing such difficult music - in tune, accurate notes and musical to boot! The other half are from 11 years to 17, and they really are the foundation of the group. The students who are singing this year work very hard and actually learn their music. Ha! (There have been other years with other singers who were, for want of a better word, lazy). I'll take six itty- bitty kids who work, over 15 who can't pick up their music in-between rehearsals. They really make me proud!

After the Festival of Trees concert finishes, I am then headed to the Grande Prairie Regional College for an evening concert of The Messiah where I sing Soprano 1 in the GPRC Concert Choir. After being sick for over two weeks, it is wonderful to have my high notes back, as there are a flurry of them in this oratorio. Our conductor is a friend of mine, John Murray, who has conducted the choir for many years now, and I am so thrilled to be singing in the choir this year.

Now, before Saturday night, I have to get rid of Linus so I can cut out my skirt for the concert that I still have to sew, and I discovered the perfect ruse today - turn up the Christmas music on the stereo full blast and zap - he's out of here! I haven't seen him for 4 or 5 hours, but I still haven't cut out that skirt. I guess I can't be motivated unless I have to fight off that cat rolling around on the pattern and chewing the glass bead-top pins. The dress I was making for last Christmas still hangs in the "to do" closet with the sleeves sewn in inside out - I believe Linus "helped" me sew that, too.

Ha! I DID finish my new coat for the Christmas season that I began about ten years ago. It is an "in" color, a black and royal blue plaid with a faux chinchilla collar and cuffs, wide shoulders (they're back in now) in a princess style maxi length and lots of thinsulate, good for -40 Celsius. The 10 year- in- the- making- coat was designed before global warming, so it may be too warm, even here in northern Alberta, Canada, but I certainly intend to wear it to all of the festivities this season. Then it's back to the orange coat that I have yet to finish - the one Linus has been laying on for 2 months now.

It seems as though we were just preparing for last Christmas season, and here we are again. Only this year the kids have worked ever so well learning their music AHEAD OF TIME, and I think the crowds are going to enjoy them so much. I know that I will!

Thoughts and Memories Brought by the Snow

Life, as I know it, is going to get better......I can just feel it all through my cold, weary bones. You see, it snowed out there today, and all of the ugly brown leaves that littered my unkempt lawn are neatly hidden underneath that blanket of snow.

I remember another little plot of land that had also been covered with newly- fallen snow in the autumn of 1983. Before that snow fell in late November, wrinkled, rumpled brown leaves lay scattered, along with bouquets of dying roses, over the grave of a little girl gone much too soon.

For 26 years, autumn has brought its own version of a grievous hell into my life, and I have survived both badly and quite well along the way. On the good side of hell, there has been my music, and my ability, they tell me, of "having a way" of successfully reaching the many students entrusted to me. This is something I own, something over which I have control, and should I not succeed in being a good music teacher, then I will have only myself to blame. For most of the past 26 years, inordinate success has come my way, and I had hoped for that to continue unimpeded. But..........

On the bad side of hell are the influences that have dared to rob me of my life, my livelihood and my very soul. Forces not attuned to the emotions of a mother's loss of her child, forces without a whit of an idea of a mother's grief, have forged a presence in my life that has become almost irrepressible in its strength to devour and destroy. What once was thought to be mine totally, had nearly morphed into carrion for the crow.

However, unwilling to surrender the remains of my being to unfeeling forces of nature, I determined that I would once again be the force in control of this mid-hell in which I reside. Steps have been taken to enrich my life, despite my long ago grief, and I continue to think of a better tomorrow. Lately, unforeseen circumstances lead me to believe that the road ahead will no longer be a path of unfilled potholes, but rather, a smooth, scenic roadway through beautiful mountains and bountiful valleys.

On this new journey, I am reminded by a poem I discovered copied into the scribbler of a little blonde girl, gone too soon:

Frost's in the air now.

All the trees are bare now.

Grey shadows creep,

Cold breezes blow.

Daylight is dying,

Withered leaves are flying,

Soon they will sleep under the snow.

So the dead leaves are hidden under the snow today, as are the past few years' travails hidden and sleeping under the snow today. Let them remain forever under the snow, even when the sun shines on a better day tomorrow.

Another Friday Night at the Little House With the Red Door

It's Friday night again...time to catch up on my niece's blog, write a few words here, and bond with my poor four cats who were left home all alone today. I did cover up all of the pins before I left, though, just to reassure me that Linus would still be breathing when I got home.

I am looking over at the kitchen table, the one Linus was decorating last Friday night, but he has moved on to one of the fluffy little cat beds from Publishers Clearing House, on the sectional. Now if I could operate my camera well enough to move photos onto this computer, I would show you all of these scenarios, but alas, I am still in study mode (together with no time).

Anyhow, since I covered up the still uncut pattern pieces of my orange fleece-knit- coat-to-be, Linus has lost interest. If you had to navigate through a tin foil box, dusting spray, a box of plastic wrap, a bowl of popcorn from last night, 2 vanilla wafers boxes, a pair of jeans, a washcloth, a box of Ritz crackers, a package of gluten-free noodles, a box of Shake- n- Bake, a 5 lb. bag of red potatoes AND a cookbook, you would think twice, too, before putting in the effort needed to satisfy pin-passion. "It's just not worth it," I can just hear him say, adding, "I'll just wait until she clears it off tomorrow when she finally does the dishes and needs a place to put them." (He has me figured out pretty well...very well, actually, when one considers his short stay in this little house).

And Teddy, the 15 or 16 pounder, with feet the size of a Great Dane, is reclining on a his hand knit, harvest yellow afghan that he swiped from the sectional last year. It wasn't even FINISHED when he took over making bread, and at the same time pulling bits of yarn out (with his teeth, obviously). Therefore, Teddy's afghan has no finishing extras such as a fringe, no loose ends woven in on the wrong side, etc., and is full of Teddy-teeth-holes, but he does love it. (Photo to be provided at a later date). Linus lasted just one afternoon on Teddy's afghan.....must not have had the aroma of "home."

Suddenly I am aware of the many projects in my little house that I have created over the past 19 years we have all lived here. Everyone has his/her place on the 3 piece sectional that I bought for $90 in a second hand furniture store in 1988. It was reupholstered nine years ago (by me, after a year's worth of studying), complete with a million staples, new foam and a complete rebuild. So it lives on, now clothed in a slipcover made out of indestructible outdoor fabric, blue and harvest gold gingham, and will no doubt outlive me. It just fits in this little house's little living room/music studio and is just big enough for one human and four felines to sit simultaneously and comfortably. This is about the 10th slipcover for my little sectional, but they have been easily affordable since I am a slipcover seamstress, as well as a music teacher.

The only thing I haven't learned how to do in this little house, is how to keep it clean and tidy. Maybe when I finally put up some photos of this cluttered little house, I will finally realize that I had better do some serious de-clutter study. But in the meantime, life, such as it is, goes on. And who cares anyway?

On Needles and Pins

Linus is a 1-1/2 Ragdoll from hell, purchased from a really sweet lady/breeder in Calgary, in the summer of 2008. I am going to write about Linus, as he is developing a passion for straight pins with a colored knob at the end, the kind I use for sewing. One of my other cats, long gone now, Munz, also had a pin-passion, and I am dumbfounded as to why these very dangerous non-toys for cats are so attractive. Pandora, really long, long gone, also developed pin-passion, and I swear she almost ate many of them. WHY???????????? Are they fish flavored? (I'm not going to taste-test in order to find out).

Casper I and Casper II, obviously white cats (and we all know that white cats are bizarre), preferred (and prefer - present tense for the living Casper II) to pull pins from patterns that have been waiting to be cut out. Just like that, unbeknownst to me, the pattern is soaked with saliva, is torn into shreds, and no white cat in sight! Because I am much too busy (or lazy) to pin patterns onto fabric and zip, cut them immediately, this is what I am left with. I will really have to hide those expensive vintage patterns as long as Casper II possesses pattern-pin-passion.

But Linus is the issue here; being "last pick" of the litter of 7, he demonstrates just why he was so left for me by those other litter pickers. Ragdolls aren't supposed to develop mats, HA!!!!! Twice he has been to the groomer down the street, who just happens to be a student of mine, to have tons of mats shaved off. This time, a month ago, he received a "lion cut," and if I could ever get him to sit still for a photo, I would let you see him.

Ragdolls are supposed to be wimps, but of course, Mr. Last Pick is anything but. He just loves to harass Casper II and Lucille, my 18 - 1/2 year old stray. He does romp with Teddy, the 15 or 16 pound Himalayan/Turkish Angora cross, until Linus takes one too many chomps on Teddy's rear end appendage. Linus has broken the paper tray off of my irreplaceable old workhorse printer, he broke a lamp, he takes great delight in knocking everything up high onto the floor and, you guessed it, it's broken. This particular kitten weighs about 14 pounds now, and unlike LITTLE kittens who are very naughty but small, he does 14 pounds or more worth of damage.

Now he is staring at me from the kitchen table, which is covered in uncut garment pieces camouflaged by the laundry covering the sewing project. The orange coat-to-be is soft, knit fleece, a sure magnet for Linus, so I had to hide 15 pieces before he rolled over for too many belly rubs and tore the pattern into shreds. The pins that he delights in throwing all over the place are resting on top of my stove. I hope none ended up in the cranberry nut bread baking in the oven. I wonder what he's thinking?

Just Catching Up on a Quiet Friday Evening

Just stopping in on a quiet Friday evening (now Saturday, actually) because I haven't stopped her for awhile. Still no pictures to post, as I don't yet know what I am doing in that department. I know, practice makes perfect, but I haven't been practicing.

I missed nearly an entire week of teaching a couple of weeks ago; oh, I did get sick with some sort of stomach flu, but all that is past now and I am fine. Along with missing a week's salary, ouch, I missed one of the College/Community Choir rehearsals that I usually attend for three hours every Tuesday. We are madly preparing for a November 28 performance of "The Messiah," and I am really loving singing Soprano 1 for a change. Usually, for almost all of my singing life, and that is a LONG time, I have sung alto, because I read music and could help the other non-musicians along in singing harmony. An adjudicator a couple of years ago asked, "Do you know the definition of an alto?" None of the audience knew the answer: "A soprano who reads music!" How true!

I am also organizing the many Christmas events in which my students will perform. That includes the Festival of Trees, our annual Christmas Recital and the Festival of Carols. We will not be singing as the guest choir this year for the November 28 concert, due to the length of "The Messiah." That suits me just fine, as we are really in a rebuilding mode this year and so it is a good time for us to prepare for a guest appearance in November, 2010 instead.

That's about it for now; nothing really earth shattering, but one never knows in this city what tomorrow will bring. But I have 2 days off, so I will be walking on my healing cracked ankle and enjoying the promised fair weather fall days.