I have begun teaching myself something new. I'm learning to delegate and ask for help, and to stop being a "micro-manager" all the time. I'm not learning this because I neccessarily WANT to. I'm learning it because I simply have no choice! lol With so many projects happening, so many rehearsals, so many late hours at work......I just have no choice. I've got to learn to let other people do stuff, even if it's their way instead of mine.

So I've gotten the Choir Booster Club started, even though it's only a handful of parents. It's still people to help me out. I got one mom to sew the jester suit for the Madrigal Dinner. I'm gonna get another lady to help me sew the peasant "sacks". I've got another mom opening up a checking account for us to be able to more freely use our funds for the things we need instead having to go through district red tape all the time. I've got one parent who is in charge of coming up with fundraiser ideas and co-ordinating that stuff, and hopefully soon will be taking care of all that paperwork too. I"ve got students designing and printing out flyers and tickets and any stuff we need like that. I've got the kids at home doing dishes. Not very well, but doing them. They're learning the washing machine and dryer this weekend. I'm well on my way to being able to let people do things lol.

But I still don't like it much. It helps take a lot of stress off of me. But I worry about things not getting done the way I would do them myself. I guess I'll just have to learn to be ok with that. The money thing makes me a little nervous. I want to know where every penny comes from and goes. But at the same time it's driving me nuts trying to keep up with it all by myself. I will still know what all goes on, we've all agreed on security measures. But still. Hard to get used to.

Anyway. For some reason all that was my first thoughts as I sat to write the blog. But certainly not the important or interesting things of the past 2 weeks. Tanner has had TWO piano recitals and he did wonderfully! He was a little teensy bit nervous at the first one and wondered all day if he was going to be the kind of person who gets stage fright. He found out quickly that he is NOT. AFterwards he said, "I'm just like my dad, I LOVE the stage!" And he did lol. His first recital was a boys only recital with several teacher in the area putting all their boy students on display. The 2nd recital was just the students of Mrs. Leese, and he wasn't worried a bit at that one. He did his thing and enjoyed his applause. I think he's really going to enjoy the attention part of musicianship lol. And, yes, just like his DAD lol. Here is the video from recital #1 and some pics from both recitals.

And speaking of performances, I got my first one of the year over with and GOD do I feel much better now! Whew! I have worried and fretted over that for weeks just NOT knowing what to expect or how we would do, or how well we would be received by our tough audience, or how I would compare as a director to others and all of that. I just didn't know if I was going to survive that day or not. The stress level was at maximum capacity lol. But I made it through. And it went well. And the show choir that I've worried over so much was not only well received, but they are STILL getting rave reviews from students, parents, and anyone else who saw them. All the kids in my other choirs are begging to be in show choir now. And word is traveling around the school as well, so I'm thinking that will help me get a good turnout for auditions for next year's choirs for sure. All of my choirs did well, as well as could be expected. We have some issues but they're just facts of life mostly. Problems we have due to my kids being mostly younger kids, and very few of them, and lack of training, and perhaps lack of experience on my part as well. But they have made progress and done well since the start of the year so I was proud of them all for sure. And the parents seemed pleased. So what else can I ask for, for now? I had our friend and bass player RustyH was kind enough to come out and video it for me, but I don't have any videos short enough for posting. I'll have to see if I can do that. But I do have some pics that Keith took. Mike and Cheryl and Matthew even came out to see the concert as well, I totally appreciated that! And everyone had nice things to say so I was thankful for the great evening. It was a boost for me. And most of all it was a huge boost for my choir kids.

And when I say we have a tough audience, I mean we have a TOUGH audience. The first parent I interacted with on that evening was a drunk uncle who was raising cane because no one would tell him where his niece was supposed to sit. She already knew where to sit, bless her heart. Another woman and her 6 kids sat down in an entire row that I had reserved for a choir to sit. I nicely asked her to move up a few rows and she told me NO. She said she had 6 kids with her and she was sitting by the DOOR! So I just chose to let that go I guess. What else was I gonna do? lol. In general, parents just seemed GROUCHY at the beginning of that evening. I mean, it was a shock to me that so many seemed more inconvenienced than anything else. But ALL of my students showed up for the performance except for one. That was AWESOME. I'm proud of that fact, I never even had that happen in elementary school. I guess it helps that I can give them an F for not showing up, but however I gotta do it! lol Anyway, by the end of the show parents seemed to be in a much better mood. I think that the concert was shorter than they expected and it ended with the show choir making a huge impression and singing/dancing to more upbeat and crowd pleasing music as opposed to the artsy stuff of other choirs. So everyone seemed much more pleasant in the end. I'll just have to keep all that in mind in the future. To be sure to have plenty of crowd pleasing songs and to get it over with by 8:00!

Me conducting the women's choir:

Me with the Varsity Choir, my largest group:

Jenifer getting her groove on with the show choir!


I did a little video presentation thing with one of the songs. It was really cool, but could hardly be seen because the kids didn't get the right spotlights turned off lol.

The Madrigal Singers:

Mrs. Leese at the piano:

Jenifer, during the song "Seasons of Love" from the musical "Rent". Terrific song!
Speaking of Madrigals, I guess I'm as bad as Tanner with the costume thing. I had to buy my own Renaissance dress to wear with them when do certain performances now and then. On Halloween day we went around the school singing in hallways and classrooms and such. Perfect opportunity for me to wear mine, so I did. The Madrigal kids thought it was cool lol. Many of the other kids around the school didn't realize I was the teacher at first lol. Here we are on that day:

Come to think of it, I took a short video of them performing in a classroom that day. So here is an example of at least one of my choirs performing....not perfectly, of course. But this is probably my best group musically as far as performing 4 - 6 part harmony and blending well.

The night after the concert, mom did Thanksgiving at her house and it was the PERFECT timing for me lol. It was SO nice to be able to get together and celebrate and to have that concert over with lol. The food was awesome, wish I would have had the time to do any cooking or helping out. But mom pretty much had it all covered. We didn't need sweets, mom, I know my four folks just enjoyed the REAL COOKED FOOD more than anything lol.

This is a great picture I got of the marching band at the Homecoming parade. I just like this pic for some reason.

Let's see. What else. We've just been cruising along at lightning speed the last few weeks I guess. I won't be able to stop and think of Christmas until about Dec. 12. But that's nothing unusual really. We went trick-or-treating with Terri and the kids in her neighborhood, Brooke went with us too. Afterwards we all ate at Pizza Hut.

Terri is enjoying her new nursing job/s but she's working so much we never see her anymore. But can't beat the money, I'm sure. We had Homecoming week at school that last week of October. The kids all dress up some different way each day, and one of the days was "Tacky Day". Tyler never does any of the dressing up, but Kyle and Blake and Jenifer could have won a prize on Tacky Day:

One Saturday I got Rusty and the dad of one of my kids to come up to the school and help me go through the sound and lighting on the stage. We spent several hours in there, but found out everything works that's there. And I was able to see how it all works, so we accomplished a LOT. I was thankful for their help because it would have taken me months to try to figure it out by myself. Last weekend we went to Mike and Cheryl's for a nice relaxing campfire evening. I love doing that. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows of course. But it was nice just to sit and talk and stare at the fire. The best thing about going somewhere and doing stuff like a campfire or a pool party is that when we do it, I can ONLY do that. I can't sit there and do work at the same time, and I can't be cleaning on something or in the process of something else. All I can be doing is that ONE thing. Roasting a marshmallow. At that very moment in time, my only purpose for being is to get that marshmallow roasted, nothing more and nothing less. lol









This weekend, we went to the opening night of the movie "Twilight". I've had the tickets booked for 3 weeks because Tyler has read the book and couldn't wait for the movie. We found out Brooke wanted to go Friday afternoon so I was still able to book one more ticket and we all went. Personally I really liked the movie myself! I think Tyler, Tanner, and Brooke did as well. Rusty hated it though lol. I think there was a little too much plot, emotion, and drama in it for him. He prefers his vampire movies with lots of blood guts and gore, lots of action and excitement. And leaning more toward the "B movie" flavor. But this vampire movie was a little different I guess, more like "Interview with the Vampire" probably. Chock full of romance and internal conflicts. It was all he could do to get through the movie without a cigarette but he made it and we all had a good time anyway lol.

Last weekend Jenifer and Tanner talked me into "highlighting" their hair. I had some blonde stuff already that I had bought for Tyler last summer to do the tips of his hair blonde but we never got around to it. Jenifer went out and bought her some stuff that was actually meant for highlighting. So we did the job. Jenifer's turned out pretty good, you could tell a difference for sure. I couldn't tell a bit of difference on Tanner's. But oh well lol. He had fun.

Tyler's been doing alright lately I guess. When on all of his medicine, he rarely has spells. That I can see anyway. He says he still has them. But you take just ONE medicine away for even one day and you will notice an immediate increase in spells. That's the way I see it anyway. The only time I've seen him have any at all is when he has run out of one medicine and we haven't gotten the refill yet. I've been getting them pretty quickly, he never tells me til the last minute. But he has had to go a day or 2 here and there without one medicine or other. And when he has, that's the only times I've seen him fall out. He doesn't think there is any relation. But I do. We are supposed to go back to the doctor this week but I'm gonna probably have to postpone it because I can't find a sub for Tuesday. It's a check up and he has plenty of meds so it won't hurt if we have to make it a week or two later. Other than all that, he's doing alright I guess. He's quiet and to himself most of the time, but he's happy and in good spirits always. He's going back to church again. His asthma is flaring up this weekend kinda bad so we had to use some connections to go get him a good breathing treatment yesterday. He's still short on breath today, but he's better. I went ahead and gave him the round of medicine the doctor gave me to keep around for the really big flare ups. We've managed to hold off on it for nearly a year, but I figured we better go ahead and use it this time, being this time of year and all.

My busiest 2 weeks of the whole year so far will begin tomorrow. Musical auditions from 3:00 til 7:00 on Monday, Tuesday, and then the MOnday after Thanksgiving. After school rehearsals EVERY other day through the 9th for the Madrigal Dinner. Nov. 30 the madrigals are singing at my doctor's church that evening. The night of Dec. 2 is the caroling contest and I've put 2 groups in it, plus Im playing for Laura to sing. The night of Dec. 4 I'm taking a group of kids to a Mississippi College choir concert. Dec. 6 is the caroling contest callbacks if we make it, and Slaphappy is supposed to play at Julio's that night also. Dec. 8 is a massive dress rehearsal for the dinner that will probably take about 4 hours. Dec. 9 is the Madrigal Dinner. Dec. 10 I have after school callback auditions for the musical. And that's about as far as my brain can get right now lol.

But I'm gonna go for now. ANd try to catch up on the past few weeks of everyone else's blog.