Crazy Busy!!

It's midnight. My kids are wired. That's why I'm still up. They're watching TV, hubby is asleep in bed, and here I am.

I have to admit, it's kind of been nice, have so much to do that I haven't had time to blog. I've checked my email here and there. Everything I posted this week was done ahead of time. I'm sneaky that way. So, you thought I was around, but I really wasn't. Except for the fact, that you're not getting any comments from me either. Sorry, I'll come back, and read your blogs, and comment eventually. After this weekend, hopefully things will go back to normal.

I've had a lot of piano gigs this week, which is exciting and crazy at the same time. Last night they asked me to play my arrangement of Joy to the World at my ward Enrichment night. It was a dinner for couples, and they asked several people in the ward to do musical numbers. Mine was the last one, so while everyone else was performing, but my hubby kept whispering jokes in my ear, and making me do that silent, almost snort out your nose, whole body shaking laugh. I felt bad, like I was being disrespectful to the performers. I hope nobody noticed. That's one thing, though, that I love about my husband. He always makes me laugh. If you've ever had the grace of having a conversation with him, you'll know he is a really witty, funny guy. If he ever gets tired of being Bryantman, he should go into stand up comedy. Seriously. (HA, HA, did you get that joke? Seriously? Cuz it's the opposite of funny? HA HA. Ok, I'll leave the jokes to him. I'm not so good at it).

So, anyway, I kind of bombed Joy to the World. But, hopefully nobody noticed. That's one good thing about writing your own stuff is nobody notices when you screw it up beyond recognition.

So, on to today. Whew! This morning, my SIL and I got together to make chocolates. I've tasted some...ok alot (sorry, Jess) and they turned out pretty good. (BTW, if you thought my Christmas tree story from last year was funny, go read her's. She's re-living my nightmare)

Thankfully, she was able to stick around for awhile and finish the candies, while I headed down South to play for my brother, Spence down at BYU. He had a jury today. In the music major world, that means that he basically has to go prove he's still good enough to be a music major. I love playing for Spencer because first of all, he the most amazing musician I know, and the songs are really uber hard, and that makes them fun for me to learn! He did an amazing job today!

So, after driving for 3 hours for that, I came home, picked up the kids from my Dad, then went down to SL for the Utah Composer's Guild Festival. I, again, played my arrangement of Joy to the World. This time, I did better. Strange, how I would get more nervous in front of my friends and neighbors than in a room full of complete strangers. I did make a few mistakes, but covered them up pretty well. Some of my most genius ideas come from making mistakes, and then it sounds cool, so I keep it. I wonder if any other composers do that? Hmmm....

Anyway, so last summer I submitted my song "Solitude" to the Composer's Guild Competition. They announced the awards tonight at the Festival. I got Honorable Mention in the piano division. I'm pretty happy with that. It's just too bad that I didn't get 3rd place..(or 2nd, or 1st) because those dudes get money. I noticed that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in my division all wrote songs called "Etude" or "Sonata" or the like. Call me a cynic, but this is the 21st century. Why do I have to pretend to be from the 1600's to win a contest with my music? I don't want to write classical music. I think Chopin and Bach did a great job, and I give them all the credit. Not to take anything away from the dudes who won, I'm sure their songs were really good. I'm just saying...

So, tomorrow morning, I get to wake up bright and early and drive down to Lehi to play for my sister's ward's Enrichment night...er...morning...meeting. I'm playing my arrangement of Silent Night, I wrote last year for a piano trio. Last year, my brothers and I played it a couple of times. This year, though, my violinist brother has turned his devotion to the slopes (snowboarding--yeah, he's 16), rather than music, so we had to re-arrange it for just piano and bass. It'll be pretty good, though. I'm also playing Joy to the World again, which is actually the reason I arranged it in the first place. My sister asked me to arrange Joy to the World for her meeting. I hope she likes it.

After that, KJ has her performance with her choir, and then C's work party.

I'm looking forward to the days surrounding Christmas when we have nothing to do and we can just sit at home and relax.

Doesn't that sound nice?

So, Happy weekend, everyone!