So much for a lazy Sunday

Well, we got up earlyish (after our late night going-to-bed) this morning because I had to be at church at 9:00 a.m. (instead of the usual 10:00 a.m.) to have an extra-long handbell choir practice. We managed to get there on time and G was so good about just working in his puzzle book while we practiced. So proud of him!

We practiced and practiced, mostly "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which I warned the choir director is doomed if cheerful folks in the audience decide to start singing along, since we have lots of tempo changes and pauses. Doomed, I tell you. But it is way fun, as it incorporates just about every way you can make a noise with handbells, including my favorite, the mart (short for martellato), in which you pretty much jam the handbell into your (padded) table, producing a short "clunk" sort of sound. So much of handbells is really physical, which is part of the enjoyment. I understand the super-high bells are as hard to ring as the super-low ones. Glad I'm in the middle. I play C and D in the treble clef and end up with lots of melody notes, which is a bit ego-stroking, really.

Anyway, we had our practice, I packed G up and took him downstairs, and made the coffee for coffee hour, which includes pouring out half-and-half into little pitchers and putting them in the fridge, and filling pitchers of juice and unhealthy and foul Country Time Lemonade from a mix (supported by the same church ladies who protested the appearance of half-and-half, as the powdered stuff is "fine--people like it!").

Back upstairs to throw on my choir robe, and into the sanctuary to sit down... for a while. Then the bellchoir was to drift up to the stage during the Passing of the Peace ("time for the hugs," we call it). G goes off to Sunday School and we finally play our piece (which, ah, could have gone better, dagnabit; too bad). The service finally ends (after a wonderful sermon by the director of our local women's shelter), we go downstairs to coffee hour, I have lots of conversations and we head off home.

I make 16 deviled eggs (one of my 9 eggs deciding to explode in the pan), and we head off to my swim teacher's potluck (after sending out an email to a guy on Craig's List and a gal on Freecycle...). We stay maybe an hour (and I meet a cool gal from Cameroon, who speaks French with her 2-year-old child and gives me incentive to start doing that at home), are loaded up with more food than we came with ("I only have so much room in the fridge--here, take more!") and head home. I set up a time with the freecycler to pick up some bathmats and bedsheets (purple bathmat, I'm in heaven!) and a time to meet with a guy from Craig's List who is selling a camcorder for a *song* (so cheap, my sister and I are afraid the guy left off a zero on the price, as this listed for $2300 and he's selling it for $75!).

I'll tell y'all after Xmas why we bought the above, just in case.

The camcorder guy is in Danville, so I decide to stop at Macy's Walnut Creek for pj's for my stepmom. We finally get home 8-ish... so much for the lazy evening and maybe a fire in the fireplace. I read most of the first chapter of Harry Potter 1 to G before he falls dead asleep (to my exciting narration! Unbelievable!).

Off to dreamland for me, too.... If anyone wants to come to our Christmas concert, it's free and followed by tasty treats (also free). 5:00 p.m., December 18, at First Congregational Church of Alameda. It should be fun! And short.