wind in the hair

This is a birthday in which the years are accurate in this poem.

Here's to a new chapter!

sweetness

In a day filled with micro-managing bosses, insanity in Paris, stupidity over red cups, and myriad other inexplicable inanities, it is nice to have teeny things upon which to focus...a delicious cookie for a choir party this afternoon.  My first rehearsal with grades 5-8 and they nailed the Tallis canon~a cappella!   

I am beginning to lose count of how many times I've posted this quote~it has been on my bulletin board since Christmas of Sandy Hook:

“This will be our reply to violence:

to make music more intensely,

more beautifully,

more devotedly than ever before.”

~Leonard Bernstein

I really have no other commentary.  Other than to eat a delicious cookie with people that you love/enjoy/or are just sitting next to right now.

Tuxedo Junction

Cannot fathom that it is the end of the first trimester already.  To celebrate in the 6th grade, we learned a fun jazz combo that included the Lindy step, shorty George, and many pivots, kicks and swivels.  

I invited my friend/mother of a student/our choreograph for last spring's musical to come and work with us.

I have a fun video of the entire class at the end doing the full routine, but it's 'too large' to get off my phone.  Grr.  Ah well~here's a version of Tuxedo Junction for you to work out your own three minute routine!

the end of radio silence

Back to blogging...I've missed all y'all.

my chickadees

did me proud on Saturday.  Despite gathering at 5:30 a.m. and NOT having a chance to rehearse in the chapel space, we came home with a gold rating!

On week 8 of the spring musical rehearsals~tomorrow night is dress rehearsal and then we disperse for Easter break and return to run the show.  While it has been (mostly) fun, I shall be DEEPLY glad to resume the normal life schedule in a couple of weeks.

Yes. There is life still here in Austin

Whew~these past few weeks have included both sprints and marathon endurance.  Tomorrow sees me with 30+ middle school students participating in a choral festival in San Antonio.  We will not be joyful about the 4:45 am alarm clock.  (Nor the long hours at Six Flags.  Gag.)   And then we head into tech week for our spring musical.  And then it's the annual gala for the school.  And then, and then, and then.   It's spring in academia and the arts.

Here's some lovely Mary Oliver for your weekend's perusal.

everything quite possibly IS better with butter.

 In all my hours in the kitchen, have never seen butter swirl like this~pretty!

The side of the kitchen rarely shown in foodie blogs/shows.

And voila!  Tried a recipe from my Christmas gift~used neutral dough so that these may become sweets or savory bits of dinner.   Or breakfast, seeing as we're technically on Spring Break.  (Irritatingly, my mind seems to still want to wake at 5:30.  Am sure this will wear off one day prior to going back to school.  Ah well, Easter break is close.)

Renewal & Repair

As the innards of my computer are literally crawling out of the case (no idea why~it hasn't been dropped or even carried in the past several months), it is time to declare defeat and buy a new laptop of some sort.

Repairing the scratched table was easy~voila!  We now have a cheery purple place for the new laptop.

Is there anything better than breakfast in bed?

3.141592653

While not a fan of geometry, I AM a fan of pastry and took myself to my favorite pie shop this morning.  (No, I was not there at 9:26:53.)

Such a gorgeous kick-off to Spring Break!  (Chocolate peanut-butter, for those inquiring minds.)

blink

& the neighborhood blossoms.

cosily hectic

If such a dichotomy is possible.  Days (stupid [I don't care if that's a banned word at school, it applies] time change) are whirling towards Spring Break.   Two more teaching days and musical rehearsal days and then some all-school activity and then a week of respite and slow moving life.  Yay!

snow. Snow, snow

School is cancelled for tomorrow!  We're getting 1/10 of an inch of sleet=Texas style snow~it's the only thing that isn't bigger here.  But I will gladly take the day off and sleep in and walk to the bookstore and just enjoy some sloth.

if winter comes

The thermometer has determinedly stayed in the low 30s (yielding no snow days from school~sigh), but certain blossoms are just as stubborn in declaring that it is Spring.  We shall see who is still standing at the end of this week.