busy busy days gone by and many more ahead

So my life has been a lot more hectic with Dean around. Not that Dean has been making it hectic, because I really don't think he has, but my life just feels crazy right now. Last weekend we went to Summerville, SC to see Desi and Darren and the baby. I finished my quilt FINALLY, and we had a pretty good weekend. I knew this weekend would be rough with the Women's Retreat coming up but I have to say, it feels like more than I bargained for. I'm not complaining, there are so many other women doing so much more than me, but gosh am I tired!! I will be working with only one other musician (who is a semi-vocalist as well) and one other vocalist. Since the other musician and I obviously have the most work to do, it seemed right that she and I meet together first. Well she couldn't get together until Tuesday because she was singing at Emmaeus last weekend and wasn't worth anybody's time on Monday. So Tuesday night I went over to her GINORMOUS house (seriously... I was scared to touch the furniture) and we practiced for about 2 hours. Mostly that was just getting a basic roughdraft of the song list ready and talking about what keys we wanted to do it in. Wednesday night, we had a meeting with Beba, the director, at 6 and that was the presentation of the agenda so we could get the order of our songlist ready. Off on a little tangeant here, for those of you not usually involved in these types of things, it is not okay to give the music director of a retreat that starts on Friday, the agenda for the weekend on Wendesday. Seriously. Two days? Not cool. So anyway, as Karen would say, I digress. Today, I went to Chick-fil-a with a few other moms for a playdate and took along my newly received agenda, songlist, and music book and sat down while we chit chatted with coffee and chicken nuggets and made out a preliminary arrangement of the songs before Karen (different Karen) and I were scheduled to meet at 1 at the church. The practice went till 4, which is honestly not so bad. I had Anakin with me but he was great thanks to my awesome phone that not only has a TV on it, but has free episodes of Little Einsteins and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to boot! We only had a few changes, including keys, my arrangement/order of songs, and the lyrics and we ended up scratching a few songs all together.

Now I am back from practice, thank you, Lord (I'm honestly Thanking God here) that Anakin wanted to take a nap when we got home, and now I am resting before continuing my work. See, since the retreat starts tomorrow, I really need to have everything done today. So I need to write out the agenda and email it to the two girls I'm working with, and I need to put everything on powerpoint. Again, I'm not complaining that the powerpoint ended up being my responsibility but why didn't anyone tell me?? Lame. So. Lame. Not to mention I still need to pack. Of course, that can be done tomorrow.

No worries here, I'm not in the least bit stressed. Of course that's because I have absolutely no energy left to BE stressed. Seriously. I told Dennis I look like a corpse with fingers that have a life of their own. Two little "things" disembodied at the end of each arm. Dennis is wonderful and offerend to bring home dinner. Which is good since we have no food in the house. He also said not to worry about grocery shopping, that he would make do until Monday. I immediately requested something incredibly unhealthy. With a side of mashed potatos and green beans please. Don't forget the biscuit. For all that is holy, don't forget the biscuit!!

Let's recap. Things left for Rachael to do:

1. Finish the purses. Wait I forgot to mention that so that's not a recap. I made a few purses a while back and we have an auction at the retreat to raise money for the benevolance fund and so I said they could have my purses but honestly forgot there was so much work left to do on them!!
2. Type out music details for team including schedule, keys, arrangements and notes
3. Actually practice with the other vocalist (??!!)
4. Get all the songs into powerpoint (this is the one I'm worried about)
5. Get packed
6. Find 90s stuff for some lame-o table I have to do. Like I have 90s stuff??! What defines 90s stuff?!

I think that's it. It doesn't look so bad when its on paper. Dennis always tells me to make lists so that I can sort things out in my head. It makes stressful situations easier to deal with. I just have to keep taking deep breaths and just work through this one thing at a time. What will be will be. I have no control over what happens outside of what I can do and how I react to things so that's what I have to focus on.

I'm going to ask Dennis if I can take the camera so hopefully I can post some pics on Monday.