Welcome Back Blog......With Pictures!

I am welcoming myself back into blogging tonight. I haven't written anything since August, for several reasons, but it's a new year so WELCOME BACK to my world! What have I been up lately? Well, in a word, working. This has been the best year yet for the Trinity Bands, but it some ways it has been the hardest. Adjusting to a new schedule and longer work days was quite an adjustment and it left me drained physically, emotionally, and mentally, but I think we are over the hardest part of the year and on to the fun stuff now. The highlight of my days now are the rehearsals with Dean's band because they are playing Undertow, by John Mackey. For my non-music friends, John Mackey is one of my favorite composers and just an all around cool guy. His music is crazy fun and generally too hard for middle school kids. He wrote Undertow last year for a middle school band, and much to my delight we have an exceptional group of kids this year that can actually play it! And that means that I get to play it, too! I'm just excited to have the opportunity to have a creative process at school. Teaching middle school band is very mechanical - like building a sports car. We spend all the time making sure everything is just right and in excellent condition so that we can send them off to high school where the directors there get to have all the fun with them and play "real" music. I'm glad that our program has finally reached the level were our top band will allow us to let them "test drive" some great music before they go off to high school.

I've had a lot of creative energy since the winter break, which I am very thankful for because I thought working so much had sucked my soul away. I've made so much stuff since December that I'm going to need a bigger house soon. If I didn't have such a crappy camera I would take more pictures of stuff, but at any rate, here are some fun pictures from the last few weeks:

I made these little finger puppets for a kiddo's birthday

I recovered an out-of-date piano bench

Before

After

I've been entertaining myself with malfeasance at work. An unsuspecting science teacher got a jello mouse courtesy of the Trinity Bands. I don't have a lot of experience with jello molds, so it didn't turn out as good as Jim Halpert's jello calculator. I know what to do different for next time........

And then we have Dean's lunches. This guy brings the most random amalgamation of food that I've ever seen. On this particular day he has the usual Babybell cheese, DanActive yogurt drink, a packet of lunch meat, and what I think was seasoned chickpeas?

On a different day it was another packet of lunchmeat, DanActive yogurt drink, a granola bar, a microwave eggroll, a bag of spicy pickles that he called "wickles", and another mystery bag of something I don't recall. His lunches amuse me and I will continue to take pictures of them.