The 12 months of 2014: A sort of Christmas letter?

WITH NO RESPECT TO MAKING IT SCAN CORRECTLY or making the numbers really match, here is my year in review.  If I write more about a topic, I'll link to that post from below, and I'll keep changing the date of this post, so this will be at the top.  Probably.  Keep checking back or wait until December 31st.  The choice is yours!  (And thanks for stopping by. : )  Purple bolded text indicates there was something added to that entry most recently.

1. twisted ribcage: There were a lot of snowstorms last winter . . . 
2. oratorio performances (pub sings, music-y funtimes):  Less than a month and a half after #1, I was singing two performances of an oratorio . . .
3. houses outbid on (or why the elderly are my tribe but won't accept me): It was such a seller's market.
4. plasma donations
5. uneven subfloors
6. months house hunting and not enough reading books
7. writing drafting readings
8. small group departures
9. doctors appointments: (Short catch-up story - got hurt working for TSA after I graduated from college and have been dealing with chronic pain and poor health since then.)  I've given up on getting anything like justice from my former employers, and now it's all about trying to figure out how to live with the pain and be as healthy as I can with the resources I have.  Pain.
10. terrible green sludgies
11. pilot lights out
12. months unpacking: Found house.  Packed in a month.  Will unpack over the following 12 months.

A Very Good Day

It was around this time last year that I was

sitting in the Homeowner's class before going

back to my roasting hot apartment where I

got to hear the shouting and fighting of

all my neighbors. 

                                             Now, I am sitting

in my quiet home watching snow fall on

the evergreens outside my study window.  

I have turned on my Christmas lights,

and I am writing.   Later, I will be at a pub

singing Christmas carols and seasonal songs. 

For these blessings, I

am truly grateful. 

Amen.

About that Christmas letter

I should be writing my Christmas letter, but it's cold, and I'm tired because I overdid it at PT today because the pool will be closed for a week and a half, and I already missed the restorative stretch and strengthening class earlier this week because I was supposed to have a big presentation, which I remembered to dress up for (which apparently crowded out the memory of the need to bring gym clothes and then the presentation got rescheduled anyway.  The pain has been flaring up lately, so that was unwise, and I could beat myself up over it and many other failings, but the Christmas lights are on in my new home, around  the window and my crooked, fake, tiny tree, and the humidifier and furnace are combining to make white noise music, and I am tired, but there are no neighbors shouting at each other or their kids, and  I am in my chair with a blanket, and I am writing until my hands tell me it's time to stop for real.

in the balcony at the Christmas concert

.
the sharp
shadows cast
by emergency
lights above
the stairs
slice into
each step
and bury
all but
hints of
the beauty
of stained
glass windows
.

Christmas concert 2011

.
moments so sublime
akin to sublimation
applied

beauty burning so
bright I transformed
from solid to spirit without
melting and then

water fell

.

The Laws of Christmas Music on the Radio

• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not play the same artist within the same half hour.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not play the same song by the same artist more than once a day.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.
• Thou shalt not repeat the same song in the same day if thou canst help it.
• Thou shalt announce the artist's name.

Any you'd like to add?

Concert Prep

Concert tomorrow morning!  Yay!  We sing this concert in the little cathedral where we perform our Christmas concert in early December.  It has a really lovely acoustic that's perfect for the lighter voices of our young choir. 

I'm thinking about Christmas small group music, so I'm wondering, what are your favorite obscure Christmas carols that would sound stunning a cappella filling a little cathedral?