Santa Knows I've Been Good

Santa must know that I've been good this year. First of all, in our Secret Santa reveal today, my friend Emily had me and gave me a mini Mr. Deck Chair bird feeder! How cool is that!?

I had my friend Hannah (who sits right next to me) and she definitely knew it was me. So much for being sneaky! Still, she loved her gifts – even though the final one hasn't arrived from wherever. Hopefully I can give that to her this week yet.

When I got home after work, I was pretty excited that my other Secret Santa (OK, it's ME) had a gift delivered too.

I think I've shared before that although my hubby is an accomplished organist, I know nothing about playing the keyboard so I made up little Post-It notes to guide me while practicing choir songs. On a whim during our ride home from Minnesota Sunday, I thought I'd see if there was something out there for other novices like me. There was!

So today my little keyboard cheat-sheet, so to speak, arrived!

And I immediately could play my songs for our church choir Christmas performance! Just a random joyful moment this holiday season.

Hopefully you have a few of those, too, whether Santa agrees or not!

Preaching to the Choir

It was fitting that during our Lenten service tonight our pastor closed her sermon with Psalm 150:

Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary
    praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre,
Praise him with timbrel and dancing,
    praise him with the strings and pipe,
Praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.

Because all of us who've been on a hiatus from choir (thanks, coronavirus) still have breath. And we want to sing. And tonight we could.

Had our first choir practice in two years. I've defected from Alto Land into Soprano Land. I honestly can't get as low as our altos and as high as our super sopranos, but I'll settle in nicely somewhere in between. And I'm OK with that.

And it was great to see the "gang" again. And have 7 new members. Wow. Inching up to 20 now. We're just going to do Good Friday and Easter for now, but I'm excited. Dusted of the old Casio keyboard and we'll see who I can annoy in the house first.

Hey, I'm praising the Lord. There's no need to do it quietly. Or in tune right away.

Short List Saturday

While my "To Do" list never ends, I only had one thing on my "Must Do" list today: Book Club.

So while hubby was off golfing with his friends, I started the day with Book Club with some of my friends. We met at From The Ground Up coffee shop and that meant a Pumpkin Spice Latte for me. Of course! It was a nice time chatting up a book and mainly catching up on each other's lives. Love this group of ladies! Bummer when we aren't able to get everyone there.

After club, I thought I'd get to my optional "To Do" list – the fun Saturday chores (actually on a Saturday for once), some freelance projects (all done) and some church stuff (mostly done).

I wanted to run through my choir music for tomorrow. We're doing one song but only had one practice so I wanted see if I could nail the alto part. Well here's the thing. I am not exactly a gifted or even non-gifted piano player. I was a killer organ player when I just had to read along with the "numbers" on the keys as a kid. Thankfully, Carter's Casio had some labels he put on there for lettered notes (not numbers, though).

So I had to add a few more visual cheat sheets. Don't knock it 'til you try it. I was able to muddle through the notes and the song and no neighborhood dogs were howling. So that's a win.

Rewarded myself with a little time with Mr. Deck Chair before taking a walk with my neighbor. It was glorious out today. Another summer-like day with 80-some degrees. Love it! Wouldn't have minded more time outside but I just had things to get done now that I was home for a day and was actually upright with considerably less back pain.

Tomorrow we go back to autumn with a high of 70. Thank goodness shaving my legs was not on my "Must Do" list today.

That would have been a waste of time.

On the Second Day of Christmas...

...My true love gave to me: Two Dove chocolates...

Oh c'mon, that's way better than Turtle Doves. Unless it's turtle-flavored Dove chocolates. And I mean the good kind of turtle with caramel and pecans.

Yes, I have sweets on the brain. Finally started to dig into the stockpile of Christmas cookies today. I figure we might as well enjoy vacation -- and our treats -- and let January's weigh-in slap us in the face like it always does. Hopefully by then I can actually exercise, too!

Woke up with my lovely back hurting again. Thankfully my chiropractor will finally be back in the office tomorrow. I am looking forward to it and hope it helps. Otherwise I'll have to figure something else out. And I don't know what that is.

Did not get in any exercise of any form, but did get the Christmas presents put away, some laundry done and some grocery shopping. Why did I not remember this is the third-busiest shopping day of the year? Uffda, for people!

I did not have any Christmas items on my list, but I followed the Wal-Mart crowd right to the holiday clearance items. They still had red and green M&M's so I got some of those and made some more pretzel treats when I got home.

Here's your super easy treat recipe for the day:

1. Lay out round pretzels on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. You can fit like 60 on a pan.


2. Place a Hugs Chocolate Kiss in the center of each pretzel.


3. Bake in 275-degree oven for 3-5 minutes.


4. Take out of oven and immediately place a red or green M&M in the center of each and gently press down. The Kiss spreads out to fill the pretzel.


5. Chill to get it firm, then store in fridge.

The Hugs Kisses look the prettiest (in my opinion), but any Kiss works and so do Rolo's.

While I was slaving away in the kitchen, hubby was trying to run errands (most places were closed) and Carter was doing some organizing in the basement. That's what I intended to do but didn't get that far on my list. Now I can see what retired people are talking about when they say they didn't have time to get anything done all day! Where does the day go?

Carter must have used up most of his free time on his new keyboard. He has now taught himself Mary Had a Little Lamb. And tonight asked for some blank sheet music so he could compose a song. Seriously. That's quite a jump but his new "song" sounds kind of cool.

It wasn't quite ready for an audience tonight but we did entertain Jim's parents after supper with our beautiful Christmas tree and our HD TV. I think they are in the market but my mother-in-law gets paranoid when there is a new remote to learn.

I know how she feels. But I am bound and determined to learn how to work ours this week. I can now find the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. Did you know they did a remake of Ice Castles? I discovered that right about the time I was thinking about cleaning or organizing or something...

Good thing I get another chance tomorrow -- when my true love gives me 3 French toasts or something.

Music to my ears

We got a dose of culture this weekend when we attended a Mother's Day Concert presented by the UW-Marshfield/Wood County Symphony.

Yes, this is the same family who spent last Friday night at the races. And no, no one died of culture shock!

We had intended it to be a night for just Jim and I because the guest pianist, Jeffrey Panko, was a high school classmate of Jim's. When the babysitter situation became a nightmare, we had to take Carter with us. Surprisingly, he enjoyed it. He was able to identify some of the instruments because of music class and couldn't wait to tell his music teacher he saw a real, live orchestra.

All three of us were impressed with Jeff, who has come a long way since the days at Assumption High School when he played piano while Jim was in swing choir. He has made a career out of tickling the ivories -- and deservedly so.

There's not even a word to describe his talent. Carter liked it when he played fast, while we adults thought it was a moving performance. When it was done, we couldn't help but say, "I wish I could play like that!"

For Carter, there is still hope. And Jim does know how to play the organ already -- with both hands! All I have to cling to is my attempts at playing our "play by number" keyboard when I was a child.

I'm proud to say, though, that I still know how to play Silent Night ... 5-6-5-3, 5-6-5-3, 9-9-7 ...