choir

Finding the Magic

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It has been a somewhat chaotic week – I’ve been doing interviews for an open position on my team, schoolwork has felt like a lot this week, and I’m gearing up to head to Boston for about a week starting next Thursday to help take care of a chosen family member who’s having surgery. I’m tired and trying to keep my head above water.

But, over the weekend, I had the magical experience of hearing a song that I wrote performed by a choir!
After I performed at the open stage at Song School, a fellow attendee asked if I would be okay with him writing a choir arrangement for it for his choir at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix. On Sunday it was performed as part of their service on the theme of Deep Listening (which, as a current Spiritual Direction student, felt extremely appropriate), and I got to watch it streamed live on YouTube. I don’t have words for how it felt to hear this song I was already pretty proud of come to life like this – I definitely cried.

This video should start at the spot where they performed the song, but in case it doesn’t, that happens around 39:17.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to experience something so magical in the midst of a hectic couple of weeks.

On Monday (even though it was almost 90 degrees outside) we revived Hotdish Monday with a classic from my husband’s grandma:

It felt good to cook, and I’m looking forward to doing Hotdish Monday more regularly again now that it finally seems to be cooling off.

We also discovered this week that Nova enjoys being rocked in the glider in my little reading nook in the office:

So a hectic week, but not a bad one, even if I’ve felt overwhelmed at times. I think I’m going to wrap things up here for the week – there might not be a blog next week (or possibly the week after) since I’ll be traveling, but I’ll be back! I’ll leave you with a couple more Nova photos in the meantime:

Days Off and Happy Thoughts

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

This might be my favorite time of year. Not only do I love fall in general (apple cider! sweater weather! pretty trees!), but it’s also when a lot of major Jewish holidays happen, which, since I work for a Jewish agency, means I get a bunch of extra days off. This week, we had Monday and Tuesday off for Rosh Hashanah. I thoroughly enjoyed my days off. Here is a list of some other happy things from the past week:

  • Friends. On Saturday, my partner and I got breakfast with a friend in the neighborhood, which is something of a weekend tradition and time I really treasure. That afternoon, we went to a lovely, low-key baby shower for a couple of friends, and it was so fun to celebrate them and their little-one-to-be.
  • Self-care. I also got a much-needed haircut on Saturday, and bought myself a new book that I’m enjoying quite a bit (The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin). It always surprises me how much a good haircut can improve how I feel in my body.
  • Music. Sometime in the spring I started attending services at a Unitarian Universalist church semi-regularly, and now I’ve joined their choir (jury is still out on whether I’m going to actually become a member of the church). Sunday was the first service I joined them for. I haven’t been in a choir since high school, and since I also haven’t played much piano since then, my sight-reading skills have slipped somewhat. But I’m managing okay at keeping up with the rest of our tiny tenor section, and I’m having fun with it.
  • Knitting. I got SO MUCH KNITTING done on my days off. I am almost done with the second sleeve of the sweater I started last September. Once I finish that, it’s just the front left. I am so excited to be able to wear this sweater, and it felt good to really dig into my knitting again – I think I knit more in the past week than I’ve knit in the past five months combined.
  • Self-indulgent shopping. I bought myself some new work pants in fun colors, because I really didn’t love what I had. I also had a minor manic moment last week and ordered a pair of Fluevog boots. They arrived yesterday, and I am completely smitten. They’re exactly what I wanted. It feels a little silly to be this excited about shoes, but they’re pretty awesome shoes:

    New boots!