Yeah, so singing yesterday didn’t work out too well. I was pretty tentative, especially in the exposed areas, and tried to be very quiet since I really couldn’t control my voice. I sure hope I didn’t sound like Peter Brady in the episode when his voice was changing!

My voice is still pretty raspy, but getting better. At least there’s no more singing for a while!

At work today I found out some of us will be moving offices on Friday. I have taken Friday off, but I may come in just so that I don’t have to figure out where my new office is after the new year!

I’ve been working for the same company for over six years. When I started, our office was across the street from where we are now. We were a bit overcrowded for a few months waiting for our new office space to be built.

We moved into the new office in the summer of 2001. It is a large warehouse-style building (exposed ducts and pipes, metal roof) set up of mostly cubicles, with offices around the perimeter for managers and executives.

I’ve been sitting in various cubicles throughout the years (we’ve rearranged quite a few times), but now we have outgrown our office.

A temporary solution is to relocate some departments (mine included) to another office three doors down. This new office has a similar setup to ours. It is meant to have cubicles in the open areas, and offices around the perimeter (but it has a drop ceiling rather than having it all open).

Since there are only about 40 people moving over there, they are not going to set up cubicles — we will all be getting offices. (Though, those of us who are not managers will be sharing offices).

It’s going to be very different sitting in a small, quiet room all day. While I’ve gotten used to hearing ping-pong being played all day long, I’m pretty excited to get away from all the noise in the cube farm. Last week, two co-workers one row over were in a cube having a speaker-phone conference call!

My voice is a quite a bit better today, but still not even close to what it should be. I’m going to the concert anyway in hopes of being able to sing along at least part of the time.

I was surprised at how much I missed being there last night. It’s a volunteer organization, but once I’ve commited to something, I hate to fall through. Even though my being there would have been no help last night!

Today’s concert is an early one, so I’m off now to gargle some warm salt water, drink some tea, and go!

I have almost completely lost my voice. Since I can barely speak, singing is out of the question!

I’ve been gargling salt water and drinking tea, and I plan to try inhaling steam as well to try to clear myself out. I figured it’d be better for me to try to heal for tomorrow afternoon’s performance, than lip sync on stage tonight!

Tonight’s concert features area high school students, so is is less about our chorale and more about them, anyway.

Since Cecily was asking, the Chorale is a volunteer non-profit group. We are not a professional choir. For what it is, we’re pretty good; our newspaper reviews are always glowing. Patrons have told us we’re on par with professional groups. I find it hard to believe, because not everyone is necessarily a good singer, but I guess the majority of us are doing something right!

Some of our members are music teachers and well-trained singers. Others are like me. I’ve never taken lessons (though, I’d like to eventually), I’ve just always been involved musically — piano lessions as a child, orchestra and chorus all through school.

I stopped singing for a few years after college, until I sought out a musical outlet and found this group. As busy as I’ve been, I really enjoy it, and am disappointed that I couldn’t join them tonight.

I did manage to finish my Christmas cards, and am working on wrapping gifts … trying to use this gained free time wisely!

I took off today since we’re performing tonight (Messiah), and I had a lot of vacation days left. It should be less stressful not to rush home from work to get on stage. Today’s hardly been relaxing, though!

I did a load of laundry while I ate breakfast, showered and got dressed (I needed a clean blouse for tonight). Then off to the grocery store to pick up a few items. Fortunately, I was able to pick up three gift cards (Christmas presents for some relatives) that saved a few trips!

After unpacking the car, I had to run downtown to meet up with a small sampling of the Chorale — we sang some holiday carols during a luncheon. This was totally voluntary — normally, I would have been at work.

After the mini-performance, I stayed downtown to do some shopping. Didn’t find nearly as much as I had hoped, so, off to the mall.

Which brings me here. I just have a quick minute to post (while eating a sandwich), since I have to start getting ready for tonight’s performance!

We’ve had quite a few unseasonably warm days in the past few weeks, but something about today really felt spring-like when I went outside this afternoon. It rained a bit yesterday, and was extremely foggy last night and this morning. But now that the fog has lifted, it is sunny and bright, calm, and a little damp from all the moisture. Ah, spring.

High temperatures for mid-December should be in the mid-40s (F, for those of you outside of the U.S.). Lately, we’ve had a lot of days in the 60s.

Not that I’m complaining. It feels great! (My sinuses don’t agree, every time it gets warm again I get all stuffed up!)

It made me wonder, are we just having a mild winter, or is it global warming?

I dug up a page on weather.com to view monthly highs and lows, as well as record highs and lows. Pulling up December for Annapolis, MD, the high temperatures on record span from 1956 to 2001.

Most notably, record high temperatures were set on six days in 1984. 1990 saw four record-highs in December. 1978, 1982 and 1998 all set three December record-highs.

Only one of the record highs was even in this decade. It seems this is nothing unusual.

So I guess I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, and be glad I’m not in Russia trapped by stranded polar bears.