RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) A couple of weeks ago I was scheduled to sing during the Sunday morning church service.  I was not feeling well  for whatever reason, but it wasn't too bad.  A little tired, a little queasy, a bit dizzy...you know, the regular crud that goes around and around this time of year.  I was nervous about singing, of course, which didn't help matters, but I was OK.  No big deal.

At least it wasn't a big deal until I got up on stage and the music started.  I don't know if my nerves kicked everything else into overdrive or what, because suddenly I was standing in front of our entire (albeit small) congregation waiting for my cue to start singing and had become about 93% certain that I was either going to pass out or vomit.  That's a pretty bad feeling. I don't know about you, but I don't want to do either one of those things in front of a room full of people.  So not only was I nervous about singing (and I'd forgotten the sheet of music that had my lyrics on it, so I was freaking out about forgetting the words to the song) I also had a second layer of freaking out because I was fairly certain that I was about to have something unpleasant happen up on stage.  I started singing and everything sounded ok, but I had to hold on to the pulpit to keep from falling down.  I thought I was being nonchalant about it, but apparently other people noticed something was wrong, but at least if I did go down, there would have been people at the ready to help me out! Yay!

In the end, I didn't actually barf or faint and I made it through my song, but that's the closest I've ever been to having a medical emergency while singing before. I felt better after I got to sit down for a while, so I have no idea what the problem was. I'm glad, because I have a feeling I'd never fully be comfortable ever singing in public again had I thrown up on stage.  That would be a shame.

Huh. Now that I've written it all out, I realize how anticlimactic it all is, but still...I wanted to share.

2) Did you know that you can now visit my blog over an encrypted connection?  Instead of http:taebelle.blogspot.com, you can use https:taebelle.blogspot.com. It's the little s that makes the difference.  Just FYI.

3) Have I ever told you about the time I won the 4H cookie baking contest 3 years in a row?  Well, technically I only won 2 years in a row, but I know the third year they just didn't give me the 1st place ribbon because they didn't think it would be fair to the other participants if I won all 3 years.  The reason I know this is because all of the judges asked for my recipe that third year, and they didn't ask for anyone elses. Pfft.

I have no idea what made me think of any of that, because I honestly hadn't thought of even being in 4H in a long time. There was a time when I could bake, and win prizes for my baking, without any problem and that's when I was a kid. What happened?  I know my current oven is not 100% reliable, temperature wise, but still...I was 10 and not burning things so often.  At what point did I lose my ability to cook?  Probably when I opted to do Agribusiness instead of Home Ec.  Eh, I ain't bovvered.  I learned how to weld and use power tools in Agribusiness, so really I think I came out ahead in the end.

4) I can't believe it's almost Christmas. I know how cliche that is, but it's the truth. In some ways I feel like the month has flown by, and in others, I feel like it's dragging.  It's like riding on some weird kind of temporal elevator that is having electrical hiccups. I've still got a lot to do, but I can't seem to accomplish anything useful.  I just look at what needs to be done and then sit down in abject horror at the scope of it all and ignore it.

Steve has had a lot of Christmas parties to go to this year, because he's involved in so many things now.  You'll either be thrilled (but probably disappointed) to hear that I managed not to do anything awful at his corporate Christmas party this year!  I stayed very still, I didn't eat anything that required a plate, and I didn't drink anything containing alcohol.  OK, so I accidentally almost broke one guy's arm by hitting him with a door, but it was his own fault for not knowing I was coming out of a door when I did, and Steve and I left right after I hit him, so maybe he didn't even know who I was!  We went to a party for one of his Cyber Security groups, and that went well because we got to sit at a table. I'm much better at parties when I don't have to circulate, so I got to talk to one of Steve's co-workers for a while.  He was from Ohio, and was very excited that I had once been in FFA. It came up, shut up. He said I was the first person he'd met down here that had been in that (Wha?) and that was a big deal where he is from, so we talked about it. A lot.  Apparently he hasn't been over to Limestone county at any point, or he'd find a lot more people to discuss FFA with, but whatever!  I tagged out of his last cyber security party and Steve got someone else to go with him and I was glad.  I can only pretend to be fascinated with cyber security for so long. Yikes.

Other than that, December is weirdly lonely because everyone is really busy doing...stuff. Everyone disappears. So even if you're at a million parties or whatever, you can't just sit down and have regular conversations with your people. I'll be glad when things settle down and get back to normal. I kind of miss what was going on before all the Christmas craziness started.

5) I'm going to tell you a very specific, Christmas related irritation that I have.  It's the very famous Gene Autry version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."  He mispronounces the name of one of the reindeer.  He says "Donner" and it is supposed to be "Donder."  I even looked at the original, handwritten lyrics written by Robert May and it is Donder! Gene Autry sang the definitive version of the song and he messed it up! NERD RAGE!

6) I know that it probably sounds like I don't like Christmas much, but I promise that isn't the case. I just think it's harder to enjoy it when you're an adult.  Too much to do and not enough time to enjoy it, maybe?  But at least I know that people I love will be close by (Even if some of them will be there for just a little while), there will be sausage balls and the Doctor Who Christmas special, and at some point, there will be a whole day where I'm not obligated to wear pants!  Who can have a problem with that? :)  Merry Christmas everyone!