I'm Still Alive!

I survived a marathon weekend! Friday night was my school Christmas program, which went very well. The kids did great, though the kindergartners would wave and stare at the audience no matter what instructions I'd given them earlier! Saturday morning I played/sang/spoke at a women's brunch up in Seattle. That went well, too. Sunday morning was church and choir practice. I rushed home, ate dinner, changed, packed up, and went back to church with my friend Kristin for a concert we gave. It was called Christmas Angels and it went very well. We didn't get a huge turnout, but I did sell more CDs than I expected, so that was good.

On Monday night I gave a concert at a quaint church in a little dinky town way up in the northern part of the Olympic peninsula. It was about a two and a half hour drive, so I'm glad my dad came with me to do the driving over the dark, windy roads. We got home close to midnight. That concert went well, though I was pretty tired. Helped me be more relaxed, I suppose. It was kind of funny, when I started, the microphone I was using kept getting lower and lower. I would hoist it up between songs, tighten it, then continue. Down it would bow to me, while I kept playing or saying. Finally got it balanced so the weight was evenly distributed. Made me think of Joseph and his dreams of the stalks of wheat bowing down to his stalk. :-)

Last night I got to have some fun! My friend Tina called in the morning with an imprompu invitation to have a birthday dinner and movie with her family. I said sure! Well, I had to move around a couple students, which I felt no compunction over. We went to a swanky city called Bellevue, which was so beautifully decorated for Christmas. Made me think of the song "Silver Bells." We ate at one of my favorite restaurants - The Cheesecake Factory. Mmmm...I'm such a sucker for cheesecake. I ate a light dinner so I'd be sure to have room for a piece of cheesecake. I ordered pumpkin. Mmm. After dinner we emerged onto the street just as they were doing this street show with people dressed up as drummer boys playing drums along with Christmas music. There was a snowflake light display and "snow" coming down. Very magical and very cold, but we hurried across the street to a new movie theater. It was very posh and elegant, but then, I didn't really have much to compare it to since I'd never been to the theater before!

And guess what we saw? Narnia!! I wasn't about to wait 6 months for that. It was super well done, the casting was great, effects were spectacular, etc. I was a little disappointed with some of the liberties they took with the story line, but basically, they got the important stuff in there. I'm not sure where they got the idea of the little fox (with the voice of Rupert Everet), or why they gave the wolves such a big part. But anyway, it was cool. And the Christian symbolism was very clear, I thought. After Aslan finished off the White Witch, he turned to Peter and said, "It is finished." Wow, we've heard that before. After the movie, we stopped at Starbucks, where we got drinks and "debriefed" in front of a cozy fire. Great fun.

It's so nice being on vacation from teaching! Though I'm finding that time is quickly passing as I find other occupations like shopping, cleaning, and paperwork. Tomorrow is my last day of private teaching before a full two week break. 'Twill be lovely to recharge my batteries and enjoy the beauty of the season. Friday night is my big annual Christmas party. I finished shopping for that today and will have a busy day on Friday cleaning and decorating.