Early to Rise Challenge: Day 18

Weekend Recap

Saturday

 After Friday's two-hour stint in the garden, I just needed the extra rest.  And a good thing, too, because Saturday was crazy-busy.  There were a million things that absolutely had to be done, pretty much all at the same time.  I had to do laundry because I hadn't been foresighted enough to put my pants that I needed to wear to church in the wash already.  I had to clean out the dishes needed to prep a crock pot dinner (because I wouldn't get home from handbells until the time dinner needed to be on the table, and we weren't even sure my husband would get home from his forensics tournament until after the kids' bedtime), and our pre-performance run-through got moved up nearly thirty minutes, cutting just that much extra time out of the day.

All in all, it was crazy, completely exhausting, but satisfying.  The kids had to come to practice with me, and Pippin started air conducting and Sunshine gave everyone a giggle when we picked up our handbells and she started singing "Jingle Bells."

 Sunday

This was a bittersweet day.  Sunday was my very last handbell performance for the 2012-13 season.  We play once a month at church, and our scheduled April performance is only about ten days after my due date.  But it was a lovely piece to go out with.  It was "Agnus Dei" by Cathy Moklebust, and we had both the main bell choir and the novice ringer group together, since there were more or less completely separate scores for bells and chimes to ring together.  I totally have a love-hate relationship with Moklebust's compositions and arrangements.  They are absolutely beautiful, they are really fun to ring, and they give me complete fits to get the complex rhythms and techniques down during practice.

 But we pulled it off; all three performances of the weekend were really well done.  Which was amazing considering that the two choirs have not been practicing together very much at all (and they usually have a different director as well).

 

Today: Choose Who You Will Be

I really think Crystal from Money Saving Mom said it best:

Every day, you wake up and you have the opportunity to choose your attitude. You can choose to be a victim or a victor. You can choose to be a complainer or a conqueror.

It's terribly difficult to choose to be a victor when you wake up in so much pain that you cannot move your feet twelve inches closer together to scratch that itch on one foot with your other big toe.  And it's hard to feel like a conqueror when the first thing you see when you pour your coffee is the mounds of dishes that didn't get done the day before.

But I can choose to see each day as a new opportunity rather than one full of yesterday's baggage.  I can choose to see the kitchen as a reminder that the day before I spent my energy putting smiles on my children's faces as they ran around in the warm spring sunshine.  And I can choose to change my plans from yesterday that this day I would find out what my countertop next to the sink looks like if a new day's sun brings new priorities.

Today I chose to nurse my husband through his post-surgical discomfort, and to get the taxes done (thus relieving everyone's mind that they won't still be hanging over our heads when I actually go into labor).  So although I still see most of yesterday's dishes and dirty sheets, I have nevertheless come through the day triumphant.

Not too bad, considering we were up until midnight trying to fix the garage door opener.