who's the crazy?

I am. I have been running around like crazy, and have lost 2 lbs without trying. That's great, right? ha.

this has been a very very long week.

On Monday, the choir began rehearsing in our performance space. Not too big of a deal, except that we needed to use the timpani, chimes, and suspended cymbal from the band room. For those of you that don't know, moving percussion from the band room means crossing five doorways, each of which has a bar in the middle that must be removed to transport these large instruments. Then each instrument must be lifted up the five stairs of the stage and rolled to their proper positions. This is a monumental task, and I had it accomplished with the help of other choir members for rehearsal on Monday morning, and left things in place for Tuesday morning.

What I didn't realize is that the instrumental ensembles also needed these instruments for their daily rehearsals in the afternoons. I had assumed that the choir director had secured the use of these instruments, and that there would not be a need for me to worry about that. So wrong.

And the instrumental ensemble director was very upset!

Long story short, it was a week of moving instruments back and forth.

My other major duty this week was to assign choir robes to each choir member. In that process, I discovered that previous assistants had made a mess of the hemlines on the robes, and that many of the robes have to be repaired - re-installing zippers, fixing seams, sewing pleats back in place - all in fine, heavy velvet. I started by measuring all the robe lengths, and found that only a handful of these 80 robes remain at the length they were when they were shipped from the factory. Most have been hemmed to varied lengths to accommodate the people who previously wore them. A few issues with this:1. some were hemmed with fusible webbing, a type of glue that is ironed on to keep a hem in place while it's sewn. However, this glue does not come off of the fine velvet fabric and leaves white dots all over it. When a hem is taken out for a taller person, the glue shows! So frustrating. 2. Other robes seem to have been hemmed without an accurate measurement all the way around, leaving the front too high and the back too low, or some combination of that. 3. Another robe or two has actually had fabric cut off the bottom of it. Problem! This is very expensive fabric. You don't just cut it to make it two inches shorter.

It should have been a rather easy task to assign robes, simply getting a record of the choristers' heights, and giving a robe of the appropriate (approximate) length, within the S, M, L, XL, and XXL sizes. It looks best if everyone's robe is about the same length off the ground, within 1 inch either direction. It's okay with me if this is not perfect. It just has to be something that they're not going to trip on that is about mid-calf length. But it wasn't easy. And I assigned some robes to two different people.

This week also involved memorizing 40 minutes of music for the concert, along with the rest of the choir. Not an easy task for me, but one I accomplished. Yay!

At the same time, I had a few assignments to finish. One of these stands out as a first in my academic lifetime - I actually didn't read the instructions thoroughly, and missed two major parts of the assignment. I realized this just minutes before it was due, and couldn't finish it that day either. Why? Oh, because someone had used the very reference book I needed and left it in his library carrel instead of returning it to a reshelving rack or to the shelf where it belonged. The main librarian and I searched for an hour before we found the book. At that point, I had another commitment and couldn't complete it. I arrived home, had dinner, and planned to return to the library, only to find that my car wouldn't start. Problem!


I eventually finished the assignment the next afternoon, 25 hours late and I'm not sure it's the correct information. However, it's done, my professor seemed understanding, and I'm not going to dwell on it. (whew)

This week was also my husband's first week at his new job, which is from 10am to 11pm four days of the week. We would like to have some awake time together, so I had been planning to nap during the afternoons and stay up to greet him when he gets home. Somewhere in that plan, I missed the nap part a few of these days, and have been suffering for it. 7:00am comes way too early!

Now it's finally the weekend, and I've been struggling all day to find pertinent information for my 50-minute research presentation on Wednesday. Should I have started earlier? Probably, yes. Could I? I don't think I could have handled it this week!

Positives from the week: My husband loves me. I read my Bible every day except one. I brought flowers from my garden in to my desk at school. I ran a mile in 40 seconds less than my time last week. I got a lovely package of autumn things from my mother-in-law. My husband actually has a job! My car is not permanently on the fritz. I got three loads of laundry done. I vacuumed most of the house. My kitties have had food, water, and a cleaned litter box (at least once a day).

And God has a plan.