Am I On a New Schedule?

It seems like I'm posting my thoughts here on a once-a-week basis.  That isn't intentional.  But it seems like that's the new normal.  Though I'm always wondering what normal is?

We took in a couple movies last week.  What a luxury to be able to go whenever we want.  The downside is that even though we've seen several movies lately, we haven't been awfully enamored of any of them.  Shoulder shrugs seem to be our constant response to what we've seen.  It's not been a good movie season for us.

But overall, it was a pretty decent week.

First thing Saturday morning, even before we were actually out of bed, let alone dressed, I received a text.  The sister who plays for the choir has some issue going on with her hands, she won't be able to play the piano - could I do it?  Seeing as how I try to always say yes, I said: "yes".  Received the music and commenced practicing.  It's been a while since I've actually spent time at my piano, what with the eye surgeries and (still) figuring out what strength readers to use.  (I've at least three different strengths between the 10 different pair I own.) 

Love the clean garage.

Over the course of the day I spent over 4 hours at the piano.  And was still crazy nervous about Sunday.  The song wasn't really terribly difficult, just complicated with 3 key changes and more accidentals than I could count.  There were lots of octaves, and octave runs which are hard for me, my reach is barely an octave on a good day.  The song was a bit of a stretch for me to do in 24 hours and I was anxious.

And between practice sessions we cleaned out the garage.  The Husband did the bulk of the work - he's such a gem.  I think I like the garage pretty much empty.  It's so empty it actually seems to echo.  We were concerned about getting it cleaned out before the crew comes to re-seal the concrete floor. We've only to move the freezer, the water barrels and the water softener when they come.  Hooray for us - it was good to work together and wasn't nearly as troublesome as I'd expected.

By the time I went to bed on Saturday night my hands and back were sore.  Ibuprofen to the rescue.

Sunday morning I went to church with trepidation.  I just knew I was going to fail miserably.  And all those people counting on me (they wouldn't know or care that I'd only had about 24 hours to learn this song, and was going into it blind, not knowing the tempo or the nuances of their practice) - didn't want to disappoint any of them, much less Heavenly Father.   What I learned (again) was that prayer is powerful.  Several had been said on my behalf.  I sat down at the piano at church with the conductor before the rehearsal, put my hands on the keys, focused on the music and felt....immediate confidence.  As I started to play (to get a sense of what the conductor was expecting) that confidence began to include relief.  And my thought was "I can do this!  It won't be perfect (it never is with me, I make mistakes all the time) but yes, I can manage to get through this with some resemblance of decency.  Maybe I won't let anyone down after all."

First gift.

The final result:  pretty good.  With my faith in prayer and its power once again thoroughly reinforced.

I was already subbing for the regular organist in church.  The person who asked me to sub for the choir was also subbing for Primary (the regular pianist doesn't really want to do it and is gone almost as much as he's there to play).  I offered to sub there as well - church was small yesterday, I think with the school fall break this week and today's federal holiday lots of people were out of town.

I returned home after church greatly relieved and mentally relaxing.  It was a tad busy day for me, and yet, the kind of busy that is good for the soul.  So I intended to just rest my mind and body.  But the doorbell kept ringing.

Second gift.

First it was the boys from next door, with a plate of pumpkin chocolate chip bars.  Totally unexpected and most generous. Then it was a church neighbor from a couple streets over.  Bringing us a box of pears - I thought his orchard was mostly apple trees, didn't really know about the pears. What a thoughtful gift.  Then, later on, the choir director from around the corner came with a plate of warm (I think most cookies are at their best when they're fresh-warm from the oven) chocolate chip cookies.  Those cookies were gone in about 3 breaths. Loved them.

A more than usual eventful weekend. 

Third gift.  How lovely they all are.

And today finds me breathing a bit easier still.  Had my appt. this morning with the eye dr.  He wanted to follow up with his  better equipment (the OptoMap) to see what's going on with my retina because of the flashes and new larger floaters that I've had going on.   He says I'm doing just fine.  The retina appears intact and whole, the floaters are actually moving off to the side a bit (though in that tiny area, it'll be a bit before I can see more than a little improvement) and the hazy floater seems to have become a bit less dense.  But maybe I'm just getting used to it.  In any event, I'm good.  Even my eye pressure was in the normal range.

Today I'm so grateful for prayer and the way it never fails to bless us - even if the results aren't as immediate or exactly as we hope.  Yesterday was a perfect example of that blessing.  I'm so grateful for the garage being clean and hope the crew manages to get to it fairly soon.  I'm so grateful for my vision - I have so much still I want to do in this life that requires decent vision.  I'm grateful for people who are kind and thoughtful - it was really my pleasure to be able to help yesterday and I never require recompense.  A sincere thank you is plenty.