New Year's Resolution #3 DONE!

BAM!  I knocked it out of the park!  I not only auditioned for two choirs, but I was accepted into two choirs!!

I'm SOOOOOOOOOO excited to be singing this year with Consonare Chorale, directed by Georgiana Phillipson (about whom I've heard amazing things), with my fellow WU alumns and former Chamber Choir mates, John Turner and Katie Skiff.

AND I'll be joining the Willamette Master Chorus, directed by Dr. Paul Klemme (director of the Men's Choir at WU), with my other fellow WU alumns, former Chamber Choir mates, AND DG sisters Abby Kahl and Ashley Lindsay!  I'm soooooooo excited to sing with them again and see these girls every week!

I'm a little overwhelmed.  I've wanted to get involved in a choir again for a few years, but I was too scared of the possibility of failure to even audition.  And when I get the courage to put myself out there again, such good things happen!

I'm so excited to be pursuing my passion again.  Choir and music was a huge part of my life for such a long time.  It's been hard to go without it for over 6 years.  But I'm back!

Check out both choirs here!

Consonare Chorale - http://consonarechorale.org/joomla1.5/

Willamette Master Chorus - http://www.willamettemasterchorus.org/

New Year's Resolution #3: Join a Choir

This is a carry over from last year...  I have another audition for the Willamette Master Chorus next week, so it's possible I'll have this resolution in the bag very early 2012!  But then again... I may have to set up a few more auditions at some other choirs before I find a choir that fits.

I was in choir for.......... 13 years??  I started singing in a group (not just for the Christmas pageants) sometime in elementary school so it's been weird not singing outside of my car or the shower for the 6 years that I've been out of college.  When I was in Chamber Choir at Willamette, I was told that, even if I joined a choir as an adult, I would probably never experience the same musical caliber as what we did.  So I've been a little down and out, thinking nothing could ever come close to my experience in Chamber Choir, so why bother.

But I have lots of friends in choirs around Portland and Salem and they all love their groups.  And so will I.  Once I find one.  :-)

New Year's Resolution #2: Wine & Dine Blog

Two years ago, I started a Wine & Dine club in Portland.  My parents have been a part of a Wine & Dine club for years (and years and years) and they took me to a party one summer.  It was the best party that my parents had ever dragged me to - it may have helped that I was also drinking...  So I decided to start a group in Portland with my friends.

We get together once a month for wine tasting and a pot-luck style dinner.  Whoever is hosting will choose the wines and provide the main course, while guests contribute to the cost of the wine and bring a side dish, appetizer, or desert.  Wine & Dine is a great excuse to get together with 15 of our closest friends, get creative in the kitchen and bring a dish you'd never try making otherwise, and drink wines you've never been adventurous enough to try.  It's been going strong for over two years and it's something I look forward to every month.

A few months after I started Wine & Dine, my dear, wonderful, amazing friend Jeff purchased a website for me  for Wine & Dine and I just never got it going.  I was a little overwhelmed with the technology speak of it all - trying to design it the way I wanted - and I didn't have any sort of direction to take it.  I don't do well with blank canvases...

So the website (and Wordpress blog) mulled around in my head for the last couple years and I'm finally to a point where I can take on the monster.  It's not a website anymore, and it's not Wordpress - too much HTML code for me to handle, and I'm too much of a perfectionist to just leave the little things be.  I switched it over to Blogger, which is a platform I'm more comfortable with and there's waaaaaaaay more help blogs and how-to websites for Blogger than for Wordpress, so I can teach myself how to use and design it.

Hence the Resolution #2 is to get the Wine & Dine blog rolling.  I've already got a jump start on it, since I'm on Winter break for two weeks with not much else to do but perfect the blog.  It's in the beginning stages, of course.  I haven't exactly figured out what form it will take, what it will be most useful for, or what types of content we'll be putting up.  Actually I feel like I need a business plan or a blog committee or something...  But it's up!  It's created.  And I'm dedicated to making it work!

Check it out here:  www.wineanddineportland.blogspot.com

I also have a link to Wine & Dine in my blogroll.

Suggestions for content would be most welcome.  I also accept compliments.  :-P

New Year's Resolutions! #1 - Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

OK, here they are!  The long awaited New Year's Resolutions for 2012!  I've been mulling these over for the last several months and thinking about how to refine them so they're easy to monitor and achieve!  So here ya go, folks.  The first resolution iiiiiiiiiiiiiis................(drum roll)..................

Reduce our carbon footprint 

I don't mean I want to turn into a tree-hugging hippie (I think my dad would disown me if I did...) but next year I'm going to be more intentional about what I purchase and what and how I discard things.

This goal was inspired by Portland Waste Management somewhat forcing us to start a compost bin by reducing our trash pick-up to every other week.  Once we started throwing things in the compost that we normally would have thrown in the trash, we realized how easy it was to reduce the amount of trash we throw away every week.

And the best part is we're already doing a lot to reduce our carbon footprint.  We have energy efficient bulbs in all of our light fixtures and we keep the lights off when we're not in the room.  We use cold water to do laundry.    We only do dishes or laundry when we have a full load.  We let the dishes air dry rather than heat dry.  We recycle everything we can.  We don't buy bottled water.  We shop Craigslist first for furniture needs before buying something new.  We carpool to work and try to minimize unnecessary driving by taking the bus when it makes sense.  We donate books, clothing, and other items we don't want anymore rather than throw them away.  We even used recycled paint to paint our house in April.

Some of the extra things we're going to do are:

• Reduce the amount of "things" we purchase.  Bryann and I are pretty bad about buying "things" we don't really need, so one of our goals is to be more conscious buyers by reducing the amount of unnecessary goods we buy.  
• Shop used-goods stores first, like Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Plato's Closet.  Obviously I'm not talking about underwear or toothbrushes, but for clothes, dishes, bakeware, decorative items, books, or furniture.  We have a great Goodwill near our house and it's been fun to check it out from time to time over the last year that we've lived here.  But recently we really took a good look at what we could be buying second-hand at Goodwill rather than new at other stores.  
• Shop local and organic foods.  Frequent the farmer's markets, and be more mindful about where our food is coming from and how it is produced.  
• Bring re-usable bags to the grocery store

These are just little things we can do throughout the year to reduce our waste and the amount of energy we consume.  Nothing on this list is terribly inconvenient for us to do, and as an added bonus, it will help us save money!  

I'm looking forward to the challenge of reducing my "things" buying.  And since my mom trained me so well to be a bargain hunter, I actually like digging around the racks and shelves at Goodwill to find what I need!  

Here's a nice article on 101 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint for those interested.  I think you'll find you already do a lot of the things on the list!  

Reflections on 2011

It may seem a little early, but I started thinking about my New Year's resolutions a few weeks ago.  I'm a big fan of celebrating the New Year.  I get to reflect on the year gone by and rejoice in all of the great things that happened, and say good-riddance to any hard times we experienced.  When the New Year hits, it's like the mistakes of the past year are erased and we get to start all over again, fresh.  I feel like I have another chance at being the best version of myself.

2011 was pretty awesome.  Much better than 2010.  Bryann got a job at the beginning of the year.  We were blessed enough to continue to both have jobs and be able to afford our home.  Bryann and I got married, and went on an amazing, spectacular honeymoon.  We stood next to some of our best friends in the world as witnesses to their marriage.  We had several wonderful weekends at our beloved beach house.  And we were even able to pay off a few loans along the way!

My 2011 New Year's resolutions went pretty well for the most part.  Last year, I resolved to join a choir.  I realized at the beginning of December that I had not yet joined a choir, so I contacted some former WU choir friends and tried to make a little progress toward that goal.  I'd put out some feeler inquiries throughout the year, but I was too paralyzed with fear to actually audition for a choir.  I kept thinking "I haven't looked at sheet music in 6 years!  How am I going to audition for anything?!?  I've only been singing in the car or to my dogs, my tone and range must be awful by now!"  (hmmm... maybe in 2012, I'll resolve to cut down the negative self-speak...)  But I took the leap and auditioned for a choir last weekend.  The sight reading was a bit of a disaster, but at least I tried.  I won't know if I got the spot until sometime next week, so I am re-resolving to join a choir in 2012.  

Last year I also resolved to be a more generous person.  Generous in all aspects of the word.  I can be a rather selfish person sometimes, about the weirdest things, like the extra $1 to tip a waitress, or driving 10 minutes out of my way to pick something up.  Bryann is the most generous person I know, and I wanted to be more like him.  He tips heartily (even when I don't think the server deserves it,) and he gives his time and energy to anyone who needs it (even if they didn't do the same thing for him previously).  

I wanted to be more like that.  I wanted to let go of my petty selfishness and be a more generous person.  It quite literally turned into my mantra for 2011.  I needed to constantly remind myself to tip better.  If I owe someone $18, I can give them a $20 bill and call it good.  I can tip the waitress with the dollars I have in my wallet rather than make change with the coins in my purse.  (Like I said, I get stingy about the strangest things...)  I don't NEED that extra dollar.  I can do this favor for my friend because I don't NEED to be in bed by 9:00pm.  The extra 10 minutes driving to pick this thing up WON'T cost that much in gas and ISN'T a waste of my time.  

It's still a quality that I'm working on...  But my efforts this last year made me a better version of myself.  And  I think it made me a better teacher, too.  I was more generous with my time for my students.  I was more generous with my patience.  I was more generous with my understanding for each student's unique and precarious situation.  I feel better about what I've accomplished at school this year.  

I'm looking forward to next year's goals.  They are still percolating, and finding a form, but I'm excited about them.  To be shared soon...