Thanksgiving and updates

So the band has officially left for Florida and I am definitely not on the trip. I'm fine with that, but it meant a ton of work left for me here over Thanksgiving.

I'm still doing work almost every night - marking and prep and such, and then the weekends I try and catch up on anything I'm behind on and make a desperate attempt to get ahead on stuff. This hasn't worked so far, but I still but in my 12 - 14 hour days on the weekends trying. Eventually I'm sure I'll find a balance between work and life. I hope I figure it out soon!

My lovely husband volunteered us to make Thanksgiving dinner for his family. This was a major problem in that 1) I never have time to sit let alone entertain and 2) I've never made a turkey before. The latter was my biggest concern. After many, many calls to my Mom (who started answering the phone "gobble gobble!" after the 10th or so call) and with lots of help from Rich I survived. I made a sour cream apple pie and triple chocolate cake, along with cranberry sauce from scratch on Friday night. Saturday I stumbled through making stuffing from scratch, and getting the turkey into the oven. From then on, other than the gravy, it was pretty easy. It came out great (as I have proudly displayed below!) and it all went well. Sunday was off to church where I sang for the first time and then back home to do marking. By Monday night I was able to relax, so Rich and I went on a date which was great.

My weekends are already so booked I only have 1 weekend off between now and Christmas. Most things seemed to be falling on the first weekend of November. This is our anniversary weekend normally but we're going to try to celebrate the weekend after. One main reason is the OMEA conference. Every year there is the Ontario Music Educators Association conference where there are tons of workshops and presenters and I've really wanted to go the past few years, but it's a $300 conference plus accommodations. I figured in the next few years I would go but decided not to go this year because we couldn't really afford it. I received an email from my music associate teacher I worked with last year. He was emailing to let me know I won the OMEA pre-service (now new teacher) award and scholarship. I am super excited. It's a small scholarship with a plaque, free admission to the conference and some publicity things. I'm pretty excited about it, mostly so I can go to the conference. It's also a huge affirmation that I am in the right field, to receive an award from a committee of veteran music teachers. Doesn't look too shabby on a resume either so I'm excited.

So I'm thankful for many things this Thanksgiving, but mostly for the love and support of Rich. I'm also thankful for the healing that has taken place with him so far, but still praying for a full recovery soon.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and if you had half as much to be thankful for as I did, you are truly blessed.