"Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'"

This morning when I sang, like last week at my voice lesson, my jaw ached from the lack of use. It's a little sad, but I'll be doing my best to get back in the singing saddle, as it were. This song is a good start, and like so many other blog songs this summer, I actually sang it several days, over a week or so, until I finally managed to also find the time to blog. This was an okay song to repeat. I have fond memories of singing it at camping events. Along with the classic, 'Good Morning!' from 'Singing in the Rain', this is a great song to wake up folks. Ah--getting up early, the quiet of the woods, singing loudly, taking pictures of people as they first come out of their tents in the morning--I was so popular, then.

Today's bonus folk song is 'Country Life', which my family learned from 'A Revels Garland of Song'. I highly recommend this, and the other Revels songbooks, as well as their CDs, for some great folk music to sing with friends. This particular piece is my husband's favorite singing-in-the-shower song.

Today my daughter went back to school, finally. I've been planning for this day for weeks. I told everyone I saw that this whole week would be devoted to 'me time': I would sit and read, or knit, or sew, or sing, letting the dishes and laundry pile up as they would. We had folks over for a little get-together on Sunday, which meant that much cleaning up occurred that day. I thought to myself, Yes! This will make it even easier for me to sit and do good things for myself this week.

Of course, as I realized last night, and this morning, none of this is really going to happen as I planned it. When I told a friend of mine about my grand plan last week he said, "You know, none of this will happen unless you get out of Dodge." This is too true, alas. But I did get out for a run this morning, and I am writing my blog, and if the laundry and dishes still got done, and I worked and made a little money, well, these are not horrible things in themselves, at least.

Life is all about making priorities, and I am continually struggling with my choices, and learning to focus my will in the best direction. Even when I know the right thing that I should be doing, this isn't simple, especially with the small, non-urgent, non-critical tasks that must still be done. I am very likely to let myself be distracted with these things, rather than focusing on things that have long term importance, the projects that need to be started, or continued. I've gotten slightly better this last year at this, but I still see the road to mastery stretching out long before me.