Crazy

The only reason why I have time to blog right now is because our Phil rehearsal was canceled due to the Homecoming Spectacular dress rehearsal this evening.  Otherwise I would be in the practice rooms, picking my soul away with the metronome. 

My parents were in town today and yesterday.  We just dropped my brother off at the MTC a couple of hours ago.  I won't say that I wasn't a little emotional, but I'm so proud of the guy.  Out of all of my siblings, Spencer was the one that gave me the most grief growing up.  But over the past couple of years, we have grown to be very close.  He was even able to go to my sealing.  I will miss him.

Here are my activities for the week:

• Wednesday (today):  class, practicing and dress rehearsal until 9pm, homework, grading.  It never stops!
• Thursday: wake up, practice, teach lab, class, shopping (I need socks), practicing, homework, practicing, Homecoming Spectacular until 9:30pm, homework, grading.
• Friday: wake up, practicing, class, practicing, chamber orchestra, practicing, flute choir, practicing, Homecoming Spectacular until 9:30pm, homework, grading.
• Saturday: Don't get me started.

Do I ever get to go to the gym?!  It's either sleep or gym.  I hate choosing.  I'm feeling a little like I'm burning the candle at both ends.  It's kind of how I live my typical fall semester.  I have Homecoming Spectacular all week this week, Opera for a week and a half (7pm-10pm every night), MTNA, concerto competition (still deciding if I should do that or not), recordings for NFA and graduate schools, not to mention my mountain of homework I am behind on, papers I have to write, and thank-you cards I need to get going on.  I feel as if my life is being lived for me sometimes, and I am just going through the motions.  I don't even have room in my planner to write down everything I need to do for the day.  But I chose this.  I signed up for this.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  6 more months and I will be graduated.  I can do it!

Endure to the end.  Even when it's hard.

Be My Friend?

Something I was thinking about today, and many days in the past:  I am not trying to have a pity party over here.  Goodness knows, especially from my last post, how good my life is.  I am so blessed, and way lucky.  However, one of the adjustments to married life has given me the opportunity to look at my friendships.  They say that when you get married, no matter how popular you were before, your relatiohships with your old friends change slightly.  This is true...and even though I am so busy and hardly have any extra time to squeeze into my schedule, it can get a little lonely in the dungeon of the HFAC sometimes.

I have always made a point to appear confident.  I walk in such a way as to let those around me that I have swagger...ok maybe not swagger, but I am happy with myself and how my life is turning out.  It can come across as stuck up sometimes, as I'm beginning to realize, and I don't mean to do that at all.  Truth be told, I still need friends.  Just because I'm married and I live with my best friend in the whole wide world, doesn't mean that I can't use a little girl-bonding every now and then.  For those of you who have not disowned me since I've been married, I really do appreciate you.  Occasionally I'll be stopped in the hall by an old friend and asked how I am doing, with no other motive than just pure friendship.  When that happens, I kind of want to cry a little out of gratitude.  A friend gave me a ride home from school today, and that meant a lot.  Sometimes in a world of success and failure, hard work, and accomplishment, it's easy to get lost in it and forget how important relationships are.  It's also easy to feel like you have to watch your back when you're doing really well at something.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  As soon as I put down my flute, I want nothing more than to talk to somebody, and to laugh about something trivial.  For those of you who may not know me that well because you might think I wouldn't have much of an interest in being your friend, please know that this is not the case.  I really do want to connect with you and learn more about you.  Maybe I'm having withdrawalls since my dear friends Nicole and McKenzie both left on their missions.  This is good though.  It gives me an opportunity to make new friends.  I just wish that I was better at it.  It's scary sometimes...feeling like the new kid at school with a bad haircut.  I don't have a bad haircut, but I think everyone feels self-conscious sometimes about silly things.  I am grateful for the opportunity to get over it, but it's still not as easy as one would think.  In high school I was such a shy kid, and it still comes out sometimes.

Moral of the story, I want to be your friend, whoever you are out there.  :)  Thank you so much for reading.

The Good Life

I was very much inspired by President Monson's talk on Gratitude.  I loved the story about lil' "Gordon's" family on that Thanksgiving where all they had to eat was a jackrabbit and some turnips.  When the children refused to eat the food, the dad, instead of chastening them for being ungrateful, went into the attick and grabbed an oil lamp.  He told them to turn out the electric lights, and all of a sudden the children remembered what it was like to live off of the oil lamps.  It seemed so dim. 

Let us all take this time to realize the blessings that we have, even if we don't have as much as our neighbors next door.  Everyone goes through their hard times, and if we live within our means, our hard times won't last so long.

I'm grateful for:

• First, the Gospel in my life.  The love my Heavenly Father continuously pours into the lives of me and my family.  The everlasting atonement of Jesus Christ.
• My new family.  My darling husband.  How lucky I got when I found him and was able to keep him forever.
• A roof over my head.  A bed to sleep on.  Food in my refrigerator.  ENOUGH food.
• Good health (so far.)  A good body that does what I want it to when I want it to.
• A good opportunity for an education at BYU.
• My musical talent.  An opportunity to continue cultivating it.
• Loving friends and family.

The list goes on and on.  One of my first music teachers taught me to keep a "gratitude journal" for when those times just seemed too stressful to cope with.  At the time of utmost stress, the LAST thing you want to do is write down all the things that you love about yourself and what you're grateful for.  But it's kind of like praying for your enemies.  The second you do, you start to dislike them a little less.

I don't have a WHOLE lot of time today, so I'll write down my recent activities.

• The usual practicing my rear-end off every SINGLE day.
• Instrumental Showcase went quite well.  I was surprised at how much better I am at not getting nervous in orchestral concerts; particularly in the sections where I am unsure about the technique and if my muscle memory will pull through.  But most importantly, I enjoyed it and was inspired and uplifted by the music.
• Working out!  I'm doing free-weights, and apart from EMBARRASSING myself next to all of these roiders who look like they walked out of a body building magazine, I am progressively improving my strength.  My cardio is getting better, too.  Who knows?  Maybe one day I'll make myself do a race.  AFTER competition though.  I'm not THAT crazy.  Goodness.  I will say though, that I'm really liking these muscles that are sprouting up so quickly.  My husband occasionally points out how lucky I am.  Apparently my body responds VERY well to training, and I see results a lot more quickly than most people do.  I guess that's something that I can add to my gratitude list.  Who would of thought?  The soft-bellied musician is getting ABS!  Watch out body builders!
• I am slowly but surely getting used to driving Matt's car.  Don't get me wrong, it's a good car.  But I am the biggest fraidy cat on the road you'll ever see.  I see this as an improvement.  I just have to remember to turn the headlights on when it gets dark.  I didn't have to do that on my old car...eheh.  Yeah I can be dangerous sometimes.  Watch out for me on 9th.
• Cooking!  I don't have a WHOLE lot of time to do it, but I am successfully cooking just about every day for dinner.  I find that we eat more healthily and we get more nutrients that we need!

Goodnight y'all.  I'm off to bed so that I can wake up at 4.  Yee-haw!