Back to work, lots to do

Well, it's back to work, work, work again. All of a sudden it's February and there's lots to do for spring. This evening I was arranging a new song for the instrumentalists in my middle school worship team - actually the one Stand in Awe that I posted the lyrics to last week. Wow, I wish you could have heard the first graders singing that song today. I told them afterward that I think it gave God goosebumps when He heard them sing it! They thought that was funny.

So these next weeks I will be working hard at getting all the songs ready for the worship team. Also, I am doing the musical, The Slingshot Heard 'Round the World (story of David and Goliath) with the Intermediate Chorus (grades 3, 4, & 5), and there is a LOT of choreography to learn. And the Middle School Chorus is learning songs for the Jr. High Choral Festival, and like I said before, I've found that it's very helpful to put the songs into my composer program on my computer and play them out through my digital piano when we practice them. But putting them into the computer is really time consuming. Last Tuesday I stayed after school to put one of the songs into the computer and I stupidly saved it on a 3 1/2 disk, not on the hard drive. The next day when I was all excited about having that song ready for Middle School Chorus period, I discovered to my horror, that the disk had somehow gotten corrupted and absolutely would not open up. I have lost so many songs on disks that have gone bad that you would think I would know better than to save them that way. I must remember to take my jump drive to school.

Since this is such a boring post so far, let me end with a funny story from the weekend. Our Friday lunch was provided by the Hilton as part of the conference package. We started out with rolls and a very brothy soup, as in a lot of broth with a few pieces of chicken and vegetables in it. That seemed like an OK appetizer. Next came the salad - a dinner plate of lettuce piled high. Now I am not talking about a variety of greens mixed with other veggies. This was just light green lettuce - a lot of it. On the table were croutons, grated cheese, and Caesar dressing. So we had ourselves some Caesar salad. The man beside me kept saying, "I don't think I've ever eaten this much lettuce before." He obviously is not a salad guy! Well, gradually we came to realize that the salad was really our entree. There was nothing else coming. And to add insult to injury, neither was there any dessert!! That broth, rolls, and salad was our entire meal! The man beside me said, "McDonalds, here I come." We all laughed and he said, "No, I am serious." And he was.

We had fun at school today sharing our various stories about that meager lunch and The Long Ride Home! But we all agreed, the good stuff we learned at the conference and the bonding we experienced with each other outweighed those other inconveniences. Also, it became very clear today that God's hand of protection was upon us on Thursday. As we entered Pittsburgh our driver actually missed the exit for the Hilton the first time, and we had to circle around it for a while. Knowing now that the brakes only gave out as we arrived, it occurred to us that it was the Lord's blessing that we missed that first exit. Suppose our driver had not known how serious the brake problem was until we were on our way home Friday? Thank you, Lord!

Here's a picture that one of the other teachers took of me when I was sleeping on the bus. Boy, am I ever glad my mouth wasn't hanging open!