What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

It all started with a guitar.

For quite some time, I had been wanting to play music again.  Or to sing.  Basically, I just missed music.  We still don´t have space for a piano (and I´m not sure it´s in the budget, either).  But I´d often fondly remember some of my favorite evenings when I worked at camp in the fall of 2006.  Often when the 5 of us on staff would finish the day, we´d gather in our living room, bust out the guitars, and sing.

So peaceful.

So simple.

And one of my favorite memories ever.

While I couldn´t completely recreate that, as I´m unlikely to be in the same room with those Fantastic Five again, I thought about it good and hard for a year and decided learning to play the guitar and to sing would bring me a bit of what I was looking for.

And it did.  While I still wouldn´t go so far as to call myself a "guitar player," I do enjoy playing what I can and singing along with myself.

But that little change started an avalanche of change within the last year.  A few months after getting the guitar, a puppy followed us home from school.  He still lives in our garage.  I knew when we took him in that dog-raising was a long-term project.  Sometimes I´m still floored by the responsibility I took on, thanks to a spur-of-the-moment weakness brought on by big, brown eyes.

Then a few months after taking on the dog, I decided to start another blog.  Because one isn´t enough, apparently.  While that´s been rewarding, and I believe is starting to accomplish some of the goals I had for it, it´s one more thing that I jumped into that is taking on a life of its own.

Then I got involved with the PTA at my kids´ school.  After serving lunch every day for two months, it turned out that I bit off more than I could chew with that one, and scaled back my involvement a bit.  We´ll see how carried away they try to get me to be this year.

Then I signed up the oldest child for her first after-school activity--ballet. With rehearsals three days a week, that one also became a bigger commitment than I had originally intended.  However, Clara still loves it, and from what I can tell they do in class, I know it´s good for her.  So we´ll sign up again this year.  But, let me tell you, I am dragging my feet a bit on that one.

Then in the spring, I found a facebook announcement for open auditions for a choir to accompany the Coahuila Symphony Orchestra.  The moment I saw that sign, I knew I wanted to do it.  I knew my chances were slim (while I sing OK, I haven´t had any vocal training, and I NEVER sing by myself in front of people).  But I really wanted to do it.

So I tried.  About 70 people showed up to the audition.  They said that they were only looking for about 30 people to be in the choir. Listening to the audition, I thought that there was no way I´d get in.  However, the audition was a great experience in itself, so I was happy to have tried.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later, I got an email that told me I actually DID make it.  Woah.  And they jumped right off the bat with plans for a zarzuela (a Spanish opera) and then a Queen tribute concert a month after the zarzuela.  Initially, the rehearsals were twice a week, but as the date got closer for both shows, they often turned into nightly rehearsals.  Yes, I once again chewed off more than I planned on, but I´m loving it so much (and my family is being fantastic about supporting me with this) that the choir and I will just keep slugging on together.

If that wasn´t enough, we walked in with open eyes to the biggest game-changer in this year of changes.  We decided to have a third child, who will be born in October.  Even though he was planned, and we had actually been waiting on him for awhile, I was still in a bit of denial throughout much of this pregnancy.  Throughout the spring and summer, I was making bigger and bigger plans.  Now that Little Guy is making is existence known pretty constantly (at least to myself), I´m finally making the changes that we need to get through this next season.  Or at least, mentally restructuring myself to get ready for this.

A lot of the changes we had this year, we will be sticking with.  Some will have to be scaled back (like 2 days of ballet a week, instead of 3 . . . and that´s after giving it up entirely during November and December).  The dog went from 3 walks a day to 2.  I´m hoping that the bulging belly will give me a polite means of declining the more arduous positions within the PTA.  And I´ll take a whole week or two off of choir after he´s born.

But he is the third kid, so I should be good to return after a week or two.  ;)

Oh, changes.  They make life more interesting.  And, even beyond New Little Buddy, I know there are more on the horizon!

Yikes.