Merry Christmas!!!

from this morning's service at St. Johns, my home church:

Break forth, O beauteous heav'nly light,
And usher in the morning.
You shepherds, shrink not with affright
But hear the angel's warning.
This child, now weak in infancy,
Our confidence and joy shall be,
The pow'r of Satan breaking,
Our peace eternal making.

My favorite Christmas hymn, which we sing every year at my church after the first responsive prayers.

I got a camera! I'm so excited. Since mine broke this past summer, my parents were kind enough to give me one, since the one I had before that broke had been a gift from my sponsors at TMC my first summer. I've already taken many pictures - hopefully I will figure out the facebook photo album stuff with help from Hannah so I can put them up there.

Time for more cooking. The family is returning for more wine, games, and food in a few hours. Joy joy joy!

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve, to all those dear, far and near!

That rhymes, very unintentionally.

My family is in the process of a cleaning frenzy. We have the 9 lessons and carols service at my church at 7 pm, with friends from church and my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandma coming here afterwards for chile. Not to be confused with the town Chile, a suburb of Rochester, NY, which is pronounced with a long i instead of a short one.

I've been home since Wednesday. It has been wonderful to be in Milwaukee again, although a little different this time around than what I have been used to for the past 3.5 years. There is NO snow on the ground - grrr - despite the HUGE pile ups in the mall parking lot from the big midwest storm over two weeks ago.

I miss and love all of you!

I'm DONE!!!!!

I apologize to all I've neglected to call in the past two weeks. You shall be hearing from me within the next two days as I reorganize my life around NO SCHOOL (and clean the apartment - its a bit of a mess in my room right now, and the bathroom needs a lot of help).

Craziness

This week has been insane. I've been house sitting for my sister, taking care of the cats, and the commute between her house and my apartment and BU is taking forever. Thank goodness I'll be done in two days. I couldn't handle it much longer.

Jury next week. (sigh) I'm a bad violinist.

However, I am still surprised and delighted by the city of Boston. There are so many cute little places to eat that are owned individually - I may give up fast food chains forever (except for last night - on the way to a gig I got Wendy's, and yes, Mary, I got the same as we always do). I go to a little place across from BU about three times a week, and the guy there has started charging me less and less for the chicken salad sandwich I get (VERY good). THEN....two nights ago, I was coming back to Heidi's after rehearsal, around 9 pm. There is a little pizza place on her corner called Theo's. I walk in and the owner behind the counter tells me if I play violin for 5 minutes, he'll give me free food. So I played some Bach (good jury practice) and then Orange Blossom Special, a fiddle tune from my Suzuki academy days. And I got a delicious cheese pizza - free. I love Boston.

It seems that Kimby will in fact be visiting during February. Hooray!!!!! David, Kitty - want to come too and make it a CCE reunion?

I hate the fact that semesters end during December, when I'd much rather be enjoying the Christmas season then freaking out about my theroy exam and jury and so many performances. How about we move school from August - November and then early January-April. Any takers??