Christmas Craziness

It seems like there are so many good things to do at Christmas time. For me, it's never a choice of doing what is good verses doing something bad. It is a choice of how many of the good things can I do and not go crazy. Since I feel I'm going crazy, maybe I chose too many good things. Of course when I do that, my mind fixes it by just blocking things out. Last Sunday was the Messiah Sing-in for the Ogden area. I fully planned to sing in the choir. However, I managed to sign up for tithing settlement on the same night. Then I decided to finally put the ornaments on the tree. It had been sitting as a naked tree for a couple of weeks with the boxes of other decorations on the couch. I didn't remember the sing-in until Monday. I also forgot our Ward Christmas Breakfast on Saturday. I had fully intended to attend it. But Ken and Cari were both at work and I ended up working on getting my WSU classes papers graded. Oh well.
Yesterday was the last of the choir performances for this season. I love learning the songs and singing Christmas praises. But the extra practices and the performances come at the same time as term projects are turned in to be graded in my nutrition classes. And this year someone at the hospital got sick and had to cut back hours, so I've been putting in more time there to cover some shifts.
I am blessed to have work that I enjoy doing, to be able to sing in a choir, to have a wonderful family. I just miss my sanity.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I was talking to some co-workers at lunch. They were telling stories about funny things their kids or grand-kids have said. It made me remember when my oldest son was just learning to talk. It was wet and muddy outside. He kept calling it "mut". I said "it is 'mud', can you say 'mud'?" He looked at me and said " 'Mud', can you say 'mut'?" What fun to look back on.

Singing Praises

Last night was the first of 4 concerts our choir will sing in this season. This one was at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in SLC. I missed having someone to go with. Ken was working (in Ogden) till 7 p.m. and the concert started at 7:30 p.m. so he couldn't be there. My daughter also worked at Powder Mountain until late. I would usually drive down with my friend who also sings in the choir, but she was sick. So at this particular time I was by myself. The weather was cold but not so cold as to make it uncomfortable. I got to see the amazing lights on Temple Square, but I noticed it wasn't as enjoyable as when you have someone to share it with. We sang some beautiful Christmas songs. It is so fun to be able to sing in a group that sounds good.
Of course that same night the Tabernacle Choir was performing their Christmas Concert (we're not quite that good yet). The parking situation was interesting because not only was the Tab Choir singing, but there was some sporting event (basketball I think) at the Delta Center.
Sunday we sing at the Messiah Sing-In at the Ogden Tabernacle. Then next Friday and Saturday we have our other concerts.
Life is good. I get to sing praises to God for the birth of His Son.

Cold Weather

Winter has definately arrived here in Utah. The other day I had to travel to Layton. At the beginning of the day, when I made the appointment, the roads were fine. By 3 p.m. they were TERRIBLE. It had been snowing just enough to make them slick and icy. Then all of the traffic polished it to a slippery sheen. I could see that cars on the freeway were traveling at a snail pace so I stayed on the main street through Clearfield. Well it was turtle pace there. Traffic was barely crawling along. I think there must have been a ton of traffic that would normally have been on the freeway decide to take main street that day at that time of day. I was a half hour late for my appointment. Fortunately the roads had started to clear a little by the time I was going home. However, it was "rush hour" then, so at major intersections it was turtle time again. Oh well, lots of time to think, contemplate life, and sing along with the Messiah tape.

Love-Hate relationship

I've been playing around with my computer again the past few days, spending hours trying to accomplish tasks that never seem to want to be done. I wanted to scan a graph to put in the final exam for my online class. Apparently the computer doesn't like the scanner, because there is a problem with the "scripting" which of course means I can't scan anything. I even uninstalled the printer/scanner program and re-installed it. It took ages to do all of this, and it still didn't work.
Then I tried using a copy of the graphs--weight and height charts for infants--that was already in my computer. I worked for ages to try and computer-draw the correct lines on the graph. My final conclusion is that I can put the lines in approximate places but not exact places. However, that could change the answers on the exam if they are too far off--how frustrating. Then of course when I tried to download the graphs into chitester (the exam file), it wouldn't download. It was too late at night to call anyone for help and I had to work at the hospital the next day and then teach a breastfeeding class that night. So, today I found out that I can't download it because it is in a Word document. I had to e-mail the graphs to some computer guru on campus and he will try to put it into a form that can be downloaded into chitester. Of course he has been very busy today and hasn't even started on it yet. So much for letting students take the exam early. I am just about ready to scream. In fact, Ken hear me scream a while ago when the computer froze up (again) and I had to shut the computer down losing everything I was working on. Fortunately, at the time I was just trying to read e-mails, but just the same it is frustrating.
Well, I feel slightly better now being able to write this down. Now I get to go to the doctor and see what is wrong with my back that I wake up in pain every morning. Wow, you'd think that life wasn't good, but it really is.