it's been a while

hey everyone. I know it's been AAAAGGEESS since I've posted. I"m not so good at this blog thing. Anyway, how are you all??? I am great. When the guy at Trader Joe's asked me "why great?"- I said well... because I am healthy and I have a lot of love around me and so many other blessings how can I be anything else?

So what's the latest- well firstly I FINALLY got into a singing group! Yep- Chad found them through a Microsoft feed (of course- this seems to be the basis for most activities around here) and I auditioned for them and I guess they liked me enough to ask me to join! I am so happy to be singing a cappella again. Let me tell you a little about the audition process though...

so one of the girls sends me an email saying to prepare a short solo, and they will take me through some basic exercises- scales, intervals, rhythm, sight-reading. In her own words, "its a very casual laid back process that will only take a few minutes". Ok cool.

Well, I arrive to the audition, which is at Microsoft of course and I go into a BOARDROOM and there is the whole group sitting around a CONFERENCE TABLE. They all have these "assessment sheets" in front of them and after everything I do they all pause to jot down notes about whatever it was I just did. YAH- casual??? I don't think so. Try incredibly unnerving! After one of the guys asked me to sing a high C a little bit more FRICKIN PIANISSIMO I finally said- "EXCUSE ME, what happened to the 'casual laid back audition process' I heard about??!!". Har Har, they all laughed, so my sense of humour must've gotten me called back cuz I can tell you it certainly wasn't my sight-reading skills.

Call backs were even worse! I was shaking with nerves the whole time- which was about 1 1/2 hrs. We had to learn 2 songs "Take On Me" by Aha and "HIDE AND SEEK" (YES AGENTS! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!) by Imogen Heap. We had about 10-15 minutes to learn a section of the song then we each had to get up on our own with one other person from each part (about 6 parts for each song) and sing it. I have to tell you it was pretty high pressure, and I consider myself a pretty quick learner). To be honest my throat was so tight from nerves, I didnt' think I sang that well, but in the end it was my stellar rhythm skills that saved me! Actually it was really that the other girl trying out stuffed it up and couldn't get back on the rhythm and the song was really fast so it wasn't easy at all.

So I was praying that I got in, not feeling overly confident about it, and lo and behold I did! Yippee!!! So there are about 14 people in the group and they all work for Microsoft except for 2 people whose partners work for Microsoft! Incestuous.

They are self-directed and their repertoire is all contemporary/pop/alternative rock. They are called Acoustix (cheese). That's about all I know so far- they seem to have a pretty high standard from the first rehearsal I went to last week, they perform about 1x month and mostly corporate and charity events. Also pretty regularly on Microsoft campus. As soon as I have some recordings I'll post them for sure! I'm so excited!

love ya'll