Off I go...

Just to let you know that I'll be away for the weekend... I'm travelling up to Dubbo with two friends for another friend's wedding - the four of us were pretty close in our bygone orchestra days... all had our 21sts within a few weeks of each other and stuff. So I guess it'll be special to see Katherine and Joel get married, and great to spend time with Alicea and Louise too - we rarely get to now, as our lives have taken different courses...

Today was a weird day... I flapped around and shopped for winter pyjamas and an outfit to wear to the wedding this morning - and I only had the hour Meaghan was having her lesson to do so. Oh, and I had to find underwear too... joy of joys - I do not love underwear shopping. :P Why does it all seem to wear out at once... does anybody else's do that?? Anyhow, for the wedding, I found a skirt - the only one in the shop - reduced from $69.95 to $19.95... and it fit me perfectly! PTL! Then I bought a black top, which unbeknownst to me was 30% off - so I got the whole outfit for just over $30. I was very pleased, as I love a good bargain... and it turned out to be the high point of my day. :)

Then I rushed to get all sorts of things done, (mostly orchestra-related)... and drove to Burwood for my lesson. While in the area, I had to pick up some music for camp next week from our conductor, and drop some off so that he could have it couriered back to the place we hired it from. But I forgot my half of the deal. I was SO cross and annoyed with myself. :( Then I had my lesson (which was good), and rushed home to rush through a whole lot of work before Mum and Dad left for bible study... man, I just feel like this term has been a permanent rush. :P After doing the dishes and folding the washing, I practised the piano for tomorrow's service and Sunday night's service, since I'm rostered on to play then... then I rushed to get all my stuff packed to go away for two nights. 

Something else weird happened today too, but I still haven't worked out what I think about it, so I can't talk about it here... it was weird enough to make me cry. :(

So many feelings, thoughts and emotions... I don't want to go away... I don't want to watch yet another friend enter the state of marital bliss while I am left alone... I don't want to watch three particular friends go through the heartache they're going through.... I want it to be Monday already. I just need a big hug.

xx

I'm freeeeeeeeee!

Today, I taught my last lesson for Term 1, 2009 - the 227th one! Wow.

I'm so excited to have two and a half weeks without teaching!

Friday Fun. Saturday Stress... and Smiles!

The last two days have held lots of mixed emotions. I totally thought I was getting better at handling said emotions, but alas! I am not. :P

Yesterday was a little bit stressful in general, but after orchestra three friends came over and we had an absolute ball! We ate beef stroganoff, watched Bend It Like Beckam, and played on (used? I don't know what the proper lingo is!) one of our stand-in brother's Nintendo Wii - it was hilarious! Until Meaghan smashed a glass water bottle off the table and onto the slate. Actually, that was just as hilarious, but then maturity reigned and we cleaned it all up beautifully. Two of our friends went home just after midnight (in the middle of a huge storm!), and the other stayed over... and we stayed up talking til after 2am.....

...which was great, but not such a good idea...

Because this morning at 10am, (or yesterday morning rather, by the time this gets posted), we (Megs, biggest-stand-in-bro, and myself) were playing at a friend's wedding. I won't go into ALL the details... suffice to say, the disorganisation and miscommunication made it a less-than-pleasant experience, and we finished up at 4:30pm, after being there since 9am, feeling cranky, used, and quite sad.

However, after that was all over, things picked up. :) Megs and I went into the city with three friends (a married couple and a girl the same age as me - LOVELY people), to watch our biggest-stand-in-brother do a gig with one of the bands he plays with. It was great! Well... you know. I loved seeing all the boys get into it and look like they were enjoying it, and we met other friends in there and showed our support together and that was really nice. But it was VERY loud. :P That's cool though, I can get over that. :) Afterwards, 15 of us went and had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Leichhardt - they put us out the back at a big long table because there were so many of us! And it was SO nice! It was so relaxed, and we all just chilled out, and got to know new friends and old friends even better... I really enjoyed it - and it was just such a great way to end the day. Then we walked up the street and got gelatos.... I had two flavours: choc-mint and boysenberry....ooooooh! It was so good! And another lovely thing was that I didn't have to drive home. I am feeling blessed tonight - I know so many wonderful people, and I just keep meeting more! One girl I met, Michelle - she is so so SO lovely... I liked her immediately. I've met her briefly a couple of times, but getting to spend quality time with her was great... I think she's a kindred spirit. (She even has blonde moments like me!) :)

And now, I'm SOOO tired! I'm going to duck off to bed - and turn my clock BACK an hour because daylight saving finishes, yay! :) Another big day tomorrow, with church in the morning, and an Easter hymn service all afternoon... but I'm sure it'll be nice. I love being involved with nice people, and that's what tomorrow will be. :)

A wedding rehearsal...

My sister, one of my stand-in brothers and I are playing for a friend's wedding on Saturday morning, and last night, we had the wedding rehearsal. It was long. It was boring. It was extremely disorganised. And I ended up wanting to deck the minister. Thankfully I had two people there who know me very well, who at regular intervals kept telling me not to say anything, and not to do anything. :P It was SO annoying though... we'd been there since just after 6.30pm, and we had our little run-through just us musos, then the girls arrived at 7.30pm and did their walking up the aisle thing a few times (amidst much skipping, dancing and laughing), and THEN, the guys and the minister arrived at 8pm, and they sat around and talked for AGES, so we were just hanging around waiting and waiting (and we were tired and hadn't had any dinner) and then the minister got stroppy with us for fiddling around practising our parts when he was talking. I was really cross. Anyhow, we made it through and got to leave at 9pm... and we made our way down to Subway. It was nice to hang out for a little while and de-stress.

It's been a while!

I just wrote an introduction to this long-overdue post... and then deleted it. 

It really was quite pathetic.

So in an effort to get back on track... in the last nearly-two-weeks since I last updated, some of the things I have done are:

• taught 42 flute lessons to gorgeous girlie individuals... and it wasn't as hard as it used to be! I think I can actually do this... :)
• had an awesome evening with  friends I don't know all that well, but with whom I can completely be myself - and they offered me honorary membership in their family! I particularly love the dad in that family - he is such good value. :)
• attended a friend's engagement party - and felt again the feeling of still being alone when all my friends are getting married.
• paid a phonebill (oh the joys of being a grown-up)
• had too many late nights (more joys of being a grown-up)
• booked overseas flights for myself, my sister, and my two stand-in brothers to go and visit my REAL brother at the end of the year! Countries we plan to visit are: USA, England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Egypt. (Am mildly scared about the Egypt bit, but I'm sure it will be okay...) :)
• played in a great concert with the Fisher's Ghost Youth Orchestra... and even managed to play a piccolo solo [mostly] in tune!
• watched the Training Orchestra - at the same concert - play their little hearts out so brilliantly, that my teacher's heart swelled with pride as I clapped and screamed and whooped after every piece they played :)
• ached over a few friends who are going through really rough times... and felt torn as I struggled with wanting to be there for them with a listening ear and an everlasting hug, and needing to let them learn to trust the Lord for themselves.
• played the piano at two church services... and even improvised around a few chords as background music before the service. Huge step for me to actually do that in public...
• ate a whole block of Club Peppermint Chocolate.... and a whole block of Milky Bar... Mmmm.... I will get fat.
• done two weeks worth of filing in two days... and a huge amount of ironing.

Of course, there were lots of other things that have happened and that I've done, but those are the things that come to mind as I glance through my diary. I hope to be more posty from now on! Tonight I am tired, and I'm missing my real brother. I want to talk to him. :( But on Sunday, it will be 8 weeks til he comes home! Yay! :) 

Love you all!

Headspace... or lack thereof.

I'm sorry about the depressive style of my recent posts... I'll do my best to change that! The rollercoaster of life is a bit up and down at the moment... and I just need some headspace to think and get my mind around things.

Hurting...

I have hurting friends... and it hurts me that they're going through such turmoil and pain.

Tired...

I'm physically and emotionally very tired. The physical tiredness is pleasant... I've worked hard with my students the last couple of days, and last night helped friends to clean the house they're moving out of. The emotional tiredness is different... I have a couple of needy friends, going through absolute turmoil, and I ache for them. So my heart is a little heavy tonight.

The weekend in review...

So... nothing earth-shatteringly amazing has happened this weekend, but still, it has been pleasant. Well, mostly.

Friday was normal... shopping in the morning and orchestra in the afternoon. We split Training Orchestra up into sections to help them work on their own tricky bits. I took the woodwind section, and those girls were lots of fun. I enjoy that sort of thing.

Saturday... I slept in a bit and did a few things in the morning - not as much as I'd planned, but not to worry, I'll get over that. In the afternoon I went to a wedding! They invited some people along for the ceremony and afternoon tea - and I was one of those. It was really lovely to be able to be part of their special day, and to catch up with others I knew there. It was held in a vineyard at a horse stud, with the birds flying around and horses gallopping around the paddocks in the background! The rain held off (mostly!) and it was just really lovely. Except I felt again, as I always do, just how lonely it is to go to these celebrations on one's own. Starting yesterday, and over the next five weeks, I have three weddings and an engagment party to attend. I guess I'll get used to the feeling. In the evening, I talked on the phone to a friend for two hours. It was hard work.

And today... I played the piano at church for both services. Beforehand, I wasn't too worried about it, but during the FIRST song, a whole bunch of loose pages of music fell off the top and INTO the piano. Which caused significant drama and made me cross and nervous about the rest of the music. :( But in the afternoon, we had family over - Aunty Kriss, Uncle Matt and our gorgeous little cousins, Grace and Luci. :) We had a lovely time with them... took them for a walk down to the park and stuff... it was just really nice. Here's a picture of us...

I was going to put up a really cute photo of Luci too, but I can't make it work, and I'm too tired to fiddle with it for any longer...

After church tonight, I washed the car. And one of our stand-in brothers came over for a few hours... because, as he said, he hadn't been around in ages... hehe... like a whole week! :) So that was nice. 

And now...... we're back into a week of work!

Hmm...

The last two days have been largely unproductive for me. I wonder if that's okay sometimes...

Today I went to Koorong and the DFO at Homebush. As always, I could've spent much longer in both places, but I was operating with time-constraints (as always, too). I knew I didn't have a heap of time, so I decided to only go to my two favourite shops (Jacqui E and Portmans) in DFO, instead of meandering my way through them all. It's such a potluck there - sometimes I don't see one thing I like there! But today, to my delight, I found three lovely blouses - and much cheaper than they'd have been in the stores. :) At Koorong, I had a list, so it was easy. Actually, I had three lists - my own, my mum's, and Bek's. :) I'll have to go back sometime though... I love just browsing through there.

So that's all good. Work has been a bit of a pain in the backside the last two days... but we'll get there.

And that brings you up-to-date with me! xo