Quick News then...

...off to bed!

May is the busiest month of the year. This may only be my opinion, but I have lots of good evidence to back it up.

The thing about May is that you are really trying to exist in two different school years simultaneously. You are trying to wrap up the year you are in (State Solo and Ensemble and all of the time spent preparing for that, the Band Banquet, the Spring Concert, instrument check-ins, music check-ins, final auditions, etc.), and you are trying to get a head start on the next school year (drumline/colorguard/drum major auditions, drumline clinics & camp, 8th grade marching camp, arranging/writing the music for next year's marching show, etc.). So, it gets VERY busy!

Right now, I am between a rock and a hard place: I have a lot of clients set up for the summer, so I will be doing a lot of writing. But, I also have three or four projects that are staring me right in the face and are demanding to be done, basically, yesterday. (Don't worry. If I'm supposed to be writing something for you, I promise it's getting done. Slow and steady wins the race -- or so I keep telling myself.) But fortunately, in this last week of school, there's not much keeping me after school, so I can come home and start procrast... ergh... writing.

I honestly think if I can get through next week, life will even out. Then the week after that, we are going to the mountains for Kayla's family reunion. I've been looking forward to this for a while now. No cell phones, no internet connections, no TV, nothing technological of any sort. I think I'm going to read a book. Wow. Reading a book sounds really great! I can't tell you the last time I read a book for pure entertainment (I tend to read for educational/motivational purposes; but this holiday is going to call for some John Grisham law-thriller or some book depicting espionage or explosions or BOTH!).

Quickly before I go: State Solo and Ensemble was awesome this year! We had ten percussion solos qualify (all four mallet marimba or vibe solos) and generally all of them competed well. Cameron Collins made a First Division on his -- which is no small feat. Then there were five Second Divisions (Wesley, Austin, Katie, Josh and Joel) and four Third Divisions (Alexa, Maryum, Amanda and Sera). A Second Division is quite an accomplishment too, when you consider that the true rating average at State is a Third Division rating. Also, very, very few students obtain a First Division rating, so Cameron has something to be VERY proud about. (Quick, use the word 'very' one more time in this blog post!)

Well, I am very tired and I very much need to go to my very comfortable bed.

Thank you very much for reading this post!