Rachel Rambles
Nov. 28th, 2009 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaples* Thanksgiving was so pleasant. It is the first year since childhood that we stayed home for the entire weekend and we're reveling in the quiet freetime. No family drama, no suitcase lugging, just the three of us hanging out together. We took Graeme to the park and then headed home to cook once it got dark. It has finally been dry after a week of rain and the air smelled, on Thanksgiving, like burning leaves and snow. Knowing that I'll be spending most of the winter in Florida, I'm able to really enjoy these cold days, this transition into winter now. After dinner, we cleaned up all our autumn tokens and decorations and replaced them with a fresh sheaf of holly in an ice blue vase. By the end of this weekend, we plan to have our tree up, too!
* It has now been eight days since Graeme nursed. I've been sleeping by myself in our guest room downstairs and it has been glorious. No offense to Daniel, but I don't sleep well with someone else. And no offense, Graeme, but you've kept me up for two years. I'm not sure how long this sleeping arrangement will last, but plentiful sleep (and maybe not having the nutritional demands of nursing) have reversed a lot of my seasonal depression. I'm sleeping undisturbed enough to have dreams return, full-force, which is such a relief.
* So my latest dream, I was back in my show choir days and for whatever reason, our director had to separate us into two separate choirs. It was clear, as he was assigning people one-by-one, that Choir A was all the talent and Choir B, not so much. When it was my turn to stand up and be sorted, I gave a rousing argument why the uneven distribution was unfair and that the less-talented, less-disciplined singers would never grow if they weren't surrounded by those better than them. I sorta knew where my impassioned argument was going to lead me but I was still gut-shot when he said, "Fine. You can be in B." We were so bad, we had to stay in an amusement park cave world not totally unlike Goonies. I was herding cats, trying to get everyone to practices so that we could beat Choir A or at least put in a respectable showing next time we met. Then I got word there was some sort of leadership position, over both choirs, up for grabs. I was going to use it to reintegrate the choirs. I signed up, along with a bunch of people from Choir A. We had to sight-sing in elimination rounds but a lot of the music was fevered orchestral stuff, to throw us off, where we'd have to imitate various instruments. Finally, it was down to me and a blond guy who was, frankly, probably better than me. The final challenge format was a weekly showcase from different musical styles. Somehow, I got the pick of the styles, so I knew the only way to beat him was to pick styles that wouldn't mesh well with his Broadway training.
I picked reggae, jazz, and a few other styles. I had a week to (faux)dread my hair and prepare before our first competition--reggae performed on horseback. I killed it. ;) I felt pretty confident that I was going to squeak through as the winner when I woke up. :D
* Today, we plan to finish our Yule shopping. Against my plans to not shop yesterday, I did end up going to Division Street to support some of our local businesses. I bought hoodies from Threadless, a few fair trade gifts at Greenheart, and a bunch of toys for all the kids in my life at Building Blocks. Today we're going to visit the Illinois Artisans shop downtown to pick up some handmade things for the various women in our family and then, with the exception of Daniel, we're done! I've been gift-wrapping for a week, so things are piled up and I hope, by Monday, to have most of it shipped out. This way, we plan to really enjoy the holiday season without the rush, able to sit under our tree and drink cocoa, have dinner together and watch Elf. It'll be nice. I've had presents cluttering up the joint since probably March. ;)
* We're leaving, in less than four weeks, for Florida. The concept of packing our car for a weeklong road trip and then three or more months in Florida is overwhelming. Daniel will be flying back and forth every week, which is good, but I still feel the need to organize and pare down the house in our absence. We considered starting a packing list this weekend and Daniel just closed his eyes, covered his face, and said, "Yeah, let's not." :D I mean, do we have to bring all our kitchen stuff? Bedding? Toys? Who knows. So yeah, we'll get to that later.
* On the perfume front, I've been living in holiday chocolate bliss with BPAL's hot cocoa El Dia de los Reyes and Misery Love Company's dark chocolate and orange Inigo Montoya. Mmmmm.
* It has now been eight days since Graeme nursed. I've been sleeping by myself in our guest room downstairs and it has been glorious. No offense to Daniel, but I don't sleep well with someone else. And no offense, Graeme, but you've kept me up for two years. I'm not sure how long this sleeping arrangement will last, but plentiful sleep (and maybe not having the nutritional demands of nursing) have reversed a lot of my seasonal depression. I'm sleeping undisturbed enough to have dreams return, full-force, which is such a relief.
* So my latest dream, I was back in my show choir days and for whatever reason, our director had to separate us into two separate choirs. It was clear, as he was assigning people one-by-one, that Choir A was all the talent and Choir B, not so much. When it was my turn to stand up and be sorted, I gave a rousing argument why the uneven distribution was unfair and that the less-talented, less-disciplined singers would never grow if they weren't surrounded by those better than them. I sorta knew where my impassioned argument was going to lead me but I was still gut-shot when he said, "Fine. You can be in B." We were so bad, we had to stay in an amusement park cave world not totally unlike Goonies. I was herding cats, trying to get everyone to practices so that we could beat Choir A or at least put in a respectable showing next time we met. Then I got word there was some sort of leadership position, over both choirs, up for grabs. I was going to use it to reintegrate the choirs. I signed up, along with a bunch of people from Choir A. We had to sight-sing in elimination rounds but a lot of the music was fevered orchestral stuff, to throw us off, where we'd have to imitate various instruments. Finally, it was down to me and a blond guy who was, frankly, probably better than me. The final challenge format was a weekly showcase from different musical styles. Somehow, I got the pick of the styles, so I knew the only way to beat him was to pick styles that wouldn't mesh well with his Broadway training.
I picked reggae, jazz, and a few other styles. I had a week to (faux)dread my hair and prepare before our first competition--reggae performed on horseback. I killed it. ;) I felt pretty confident that I was going to squeak through as the winner when I woke up. :D
* Today, we plan to finish our Yule shopping. Against my plans to not shop yesterday, I did end up going to Division Street to support some of our local businesses. I bought hoodies from Threadless, a few fair trade gifts at Greenheart, and a bunch of toys for all the kids in my life at Building Blocks. Today we're going to visit the Illinois Artisans shop downtown to pick up some handmade things for the various women in our family and then, with the exception of Daniel, we're done! I've been gift-wrapping for a week, so things are piled up and I hope, by Monday, to have most of it shipped out. This way, we plan to really enjoy the holiday season without the rush, able to sit under our tree and drink cocoa, have dinner together and watch Elf. It'll be nice. I've had presents cluttering up the joint since probably March. ;)
* We're leaving, in less than four weeks, for Florida. The concept of packing our car for a weeklong road trip and then three or more months in Florida is overwhelming. Daniel will be flying back and forth every week, which is good, but I still feel the need to organize and pare down the house in our absence. We considered starting a packing list this weekend and Daniel just closed his eyes, covered his face, and said, "Yeah, let's not." :D I mean, do we have to bring all our kitchen stuff? Bedding? Toys? Who knows. So yeah, we'll get to that later.
* On the perfume front, I've been living in holiday chocolate bliss with BPAL's hot cocoa El Dia de los Reyes and Misery Love Company's dark chocolate and orange Inigo Montoya. Mmmmm.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 05:06 pm (UTC)Hope to talk to you soon! I guess I must get back to cleaning and not get distracted by Cafe World or DVD's of Project Runway. Must stay focused! :D
no subject
Date: 2009-11-29 01:36 pm (UTC)(And totally--GLEE has revived all my show choir memories.) :D
We spent yesterday driving to this giant antiques mall about an hour away and back and listening to Here Comes Science over and over and over again. It rocked. Graeme was captivated the entire time. :)
PS- I'm using this as a GLEE icon, not a "freak" icon. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-29 03:01 pm (UTC)Aww, really? I was worried that it'd be too old for him, hence his parents enjoying it more, but that's awesome! :DDD
PS- You know you're really not. ;)