He who sings scares away his woes. ~Cervantes

I love to sing.  To those who have known me longer than ten minutes, this comes as no great surprise.  Ever since I can remember, I've had one song or other going in the back of my mind at all times, and when content I tend to hum along with the music as I do chores and tasks throughout the day.  I do play a handful of instruments as well, but I consider voice my primary instrument and take the most pleasure in using it and using it often.

Since moving to Del Norte, the prospects of using my voice for anything more than group worship on Sunday mornings at church have been very dim.  This area of the state isn't exactly known for its booming music scene, and being the shrinking violet I was for a large chunk of time after we moved here, I was far too anxious about meeting new people to go out and seek out opportunities to sing with them.  So I sang with the radio and reminisced about my high school and university choral groups.  Not at all satisfying.

Then, wonder of wonders, a community choir began right here in Crescent City!  I eagerly joined and had a complete blast for a while, even garnering a solo on a song I wasn't all that familiar with.  But slowly, the glitz of the choir wore off and I was left feeling dissatisfied, wanting to be more than one voice in a group of nearly a hundred.  Something was lacking in the experience, so I started looking again. 

Our church worship leader had approached me about joining the team for a while, but the schedule never worked out for me.  A couple of weeks ago, I was able to move some things around and showed up for the first time ever to worship practice.  My voice was still recuperating from a nasty cold, so I did a little bit of keyboard and waited impatiently for the raspiness to go away.

This Sunday everything clicked.  Not only was I able to sing most of the notes (the cold is almost gone!), but it all felt right.  Everyone was in top form so the instrumentation was fantastic.  I got to do vocals with a dear friend who doesn't give herself near enough credit for her singing abilities, and I had a sense of peace and belonging about being up there that I've never had with any other group I've been part of.  Without a doubt, this is what I'm intended to be doing right now and I plan to enjoy every minute!



Super-ize me!

This morning was our local Pregnancy Care Center's Walk For Life.  The center is near and dear to my heart because they do such good works in our community.  Not only do they provide information and care for women in every stage of pregnancy, they also provide free pregnancy tests, counseling services and parenting classes.  An entirely pro-life organization, they counsel women on the benefits of going to term with their pregnancies and the options out there for women who give their unborn children the very best chance at life they can.  It's a noble organization and I was really pleased to be able to participate in a fundraiser that supports them.                

The team I joined for the walk decided to do a superhero theme.  We were christened the Pro-Life League, so I put my creative powers to use and came up with the perfect costume:  The Pacifier!  I put my meager but mad sewing machine skillz to work and threw together a cape, mask and pretty sketchy pacifier symbol for my shirt.  Turns out, we were the only ones in costume, so we won the costume category by default.  Despite the drizzly weather, we completed the walk, raised money for babies and mothers and had an excellent time, all while playing dress-up.  Great day!

Cough. Cough.

Stay far, far away from heavy equipment while on this stuff.

I am sick. Again.  For something like the fourth time in 2011, I have lost my voice.  For a singer, this is maddening.  I can handle not being able to yell at the kids and having to squeak my way through phone calls.  But not being able to hum along with the radio or sing silly little songs to the kids to hurry them along in the morning?  Completely unacceptable!

I spent all day yesterday in a Mucinex-induced haze.  I could breathe great, but my head felt like it was made out of Jello and I still don't quite remember how the laundry got out on the line.  Smart me grabbed the extra strength Mucinex, forgetting that even one Benadryl is usually enough to knock me for a loop.  I just wanted this stupid cold gone.  I ended up going to bed at 9:00 and sleeping like the dead, which never happens.  This morning I'm feeling a teensy bit better, but the voice is still pretty rough.

Naturally, I lose my voice before my very first practice with the church worship team.  I've been hoping and planning to be a part of this group for over a year.  When things finally lined up right with practice times and prior obligations, it only makes sense that I catch a cold that renders me vocally useless, right?  Thankfully the worship leader is planning to throw some instrumentation my way, so it'll all pan out but yeesh.

So I'm chomping vitamin c, drinking water and crossing my fingers that I'll be back to normal soon so I can stop feeling sorry myself and get back to enjoying life!

Losing It

Over the past seven years, I have lost a total of one hundred pounds.  The weight loss came in increments, first significant and jubilant, but eventually became grudging and small.  I'd work for weeks to find a loss of one or two pounds.  It was demoralizing and difficult and not helped by comments I received from people who'd known me for years, telling me I looked "sick" or giving me a hard time about watching what I ate, as if my desire to become more fit and healthy were a flashing beacon pointing to their own struggle with health and weight.  



An effective instrument of torture

 The thing is, I wasn't thrilled about having to work so hard to lose weight.  At first, I tried numerous fad diets, diet pills, whatever promised decent results without exercise.  From early childhood, I've always preferred a good book and solitude to running around outside.  My school memories are filled with being the very last person picked for teams during P.E. because, well, I stunk at any type of physical activity. 

Inevitably, I came to the realization that nothing was going to work for me but a healthy, low calorie diet and regular exercise.  And not just walking around a track, but honest to goodness cardio that made my heart pound and made me sweat:  My own personal definition of Hell.  Even now, after doing it for so many years and making it a part of my daily routine, I still hate exercise with a passion and have to talk myself into actually doing the routine each morning. 

So anyway, after the whole process of weight loss I feel much better about my looks, but have accepted that I'm never going to be satisfied or happy with my physical appearance.  When I look in a mirror, I don't see the weight that's been lost.  I see the lumps and bumps that remain and vow to work that much harder to get them gone.  In photos where the faces are hidden, I don't recognize myself right away.  It's usually after thinking the clothes look familiar that I realize it's me.  You might think that'd be a pleasant surprise, but it's a bit unnerving.  A friend of mine told me "You're skinny, but you still think like a fat girl."  I suppose she's right.  But if it helps keep me grounded, I suppose that's something I can live with.

The Return

Considering my last blog post was in July, I'd say I can be placed squarely into the slacker category.  Apart from a pretty short, recent stint over at Hubpages, my writing has been at an all-time low.  Sad.  I still cherish a dream of becoming a children's author, but unless I put forth some actual effort, that's going to remain a dream.  Luckily some good friends have started blogging for themselves, which has shamed me enough to blow the dust off this blog and vow not to let it lapse this long ever again.  Cross those fingers!

So what have I been up to in the past year?   I've become Piano Teacher Extraordinaire to no less than seven students, continued to work part time at my kids' school, and have become happily entrenched in a circle of friends who have changed my life immeasurably for the better.  All of that has me constantly on the move, but in such a positive frame of mind that I don't really mind the chaos it sometimes brings.  And, thankfully, the hustle and bustle of a crazy schedule has helped me carry on through the dreary months of Fall and Winter.  The endless drippy gray skies don't seem as depressing when you've got fifteen minutes before a cheery ten year old shows up to bang out a dutifully practiced Old MacDonald on the keyboard.

Soon blessed Summer will be here, and I'll be in a state of perpetual cheer (never mind that last post from July. Heh.) with sun-filled days and campfire-y, s'more-y evenings.  In the meantime, I promise to blog as regularly as I can!

Redwood Summer

Yes, I know about the original Redwood Summer and had the most unfortunate experience of living through it (remind me sometime to blog about growing up in Humboldt, willya?), but this time I'm talking about summertime in the redwoods, and a bit further north. Summer in Del Norte is always mild. If we're lucky, the marine layer burns off right around lunchtime, prompting me to shoo the children and Onyx the black lab outside as quickly as possible so they can burn some of the energy that's manifesting in outbursts of fists, tears and itty bitty pieces of paper all over the carpet. If they can get even a few hours of sunshine and physical activity, it makes life much, much easier on their poor parents.

Sporadic sunshine and feral kids aside, this has been one of the most fun summers we've had (pardon me, I just had to investigate suspicious sounds in the back yard, then chew out three little girls for soaking everything with the hose. Fun! Fun, I say!). We spent an epic five days at Disneyland, visited a myriad of relatives in Southern California, some of whom we'd never met before, and came home to a completely empty calendar. I can't say how good that feels after a school year of hourly commitments and constant meetings. The only thing I was sure to schedule was swimming lessons for the kiddos (I'm taking a hiatus on mine for now). They all did so great, and Steven particularly showed amazing progress in getting over his fear of the water, we've decided to do lessons during the school year too so they can keep going without having to re-learn everything each summer.

As much as I grumble about living in the armpit of nowhere, I have to appreciate the novelty of living in a sleepy little cow town like Fort Dick. Summertime here is much like the rest of the year: quiet and sparsely populated, except at 6, 10 and 2 when it's shift change at the prison. In the afternoons, the only sounds you hear outside are chirping birds and kids pretending they're Woody and Buzz Lightyear atop the tree fort in the back yard (and, God help me, the sound of the hose spraying yet again and three little girls expressing shock that they're STILL not allowed to screw around with it).

We're nearing the point of summer where I start exclaiming under my breath how nice it is to have two of them in school, but I'm still enjoying the short people enough to waltz across the lawn with popsicles and provide an enthusiastic audience for various stage shows the girls have thought up, and more than a few game shows the boy has invented - and probably rigged. I'll hold on to that as long as possible, because summer never seems long enough.

Deep thoughts, shallow water

Swimming, like riding a bike, seems to be one of those things the vast majority of people mastered before leaving elementary school. People like me, who never learned, are doomed to poolside reapplications of sunscreen, goggle-fetching and shouts of "Don't splash!" while everyone else flips and dives and has fun.

Like most adults who don't swim, I have had bad experiences with water that evoke a thrill of terror at the idea of submerging myself in liquid. Once I was pushed off a raft while floating on the river with some cousins and went under, the green water eerily silent. Somehow I managed to get my footing and splash my way to shore, where the grinning adults asked how I liked my swim.

During an ill-fated week of swimming lessons at the pool the following summer, I was the oldest in the beginner class by two years. Frustrated with my lack of cooperation, the teenage instructor tossed a kickboard my way and let me happily chug from one side of the shallow end to the other while she worked with the rest of the class on bobbing and floating. On the final day, with our parents peering from the bleachers, the instructor announced we would all be jumping into the deep end and lined us up at the side of the pool. The twelve at the bottom of the pool contorted and danced with the splashing water as, one by one, each of my classmates jumped into the water. Terrified, I sat down and clung to the edge. The annoyed instructor made a half-hearted attempt to reason with me, gave an eye roll and walked away. Thus ended my formal attempt at lessons, sobbing at the side of the pool while the parents on the bleachers murmured and gave me hard, disapproving looks.

But at thirty-three, I find myself doing a reverse Ariel. I'm tired of sitting on the side, dipping my feet in the water if I feel daring. Forget these legs. I want fins. I want to know what it feels like to float and splash and play without a hint of anxiety. I want to dive into that deep and and show that sobbing nine year old that she can do whatever she puts her mind to, at whatever pace she needs, that there's no shame in fear, only in what we allow that fear to do to us.


Armed with that mindset, I showed up at the local pool last night ready to learn, though still harboring some anxiety. An hour later I was goosebumpy (that water is cold!) and waterlogged, but confident that I will push past fear and become at least a passable swimmer, if not a proficient one.

I think Ariel would be proud.