Well pooh! I guess I've caught a second cold for the winter. That seems like one more than my quota. Not too bad so far, but annoying. And just in time for my "winter break." We have 9 days off, except for music teachers who have to travel to Savannah, in some cases (like me) with 24 students in tow for All-State Chorus. I like All-State less as the years go by. Then the next week I have my own version of a grand chorus with my own students doing a choral workshop with outside conductors. It will be an eye-opener for the parents, a grand event.

Our house is back on the market and showing some: 6 times in about 2 weeks. You would think we'd get some offers before long. It would save me some money if we did. The new house closes on Feb. 28, at which point I'll own way too much real estate. February has been cold. Not brutal, but no one likes going out to get the paper and it being 24 or 39 even. And cold and rainy is especially annoying.

Thanks to Sarah for the advice on saving blogs from extinction. I guess I'll do that from now on.

Had an ego building conversation with a colleague last evening. (Like I needed an ego boost, I know). I don't really know him, but he was calling me for the second time (I hadn't returned his call, oops!) to talk about my girls. He has a great choir himself, nationally recognized in a couple of ways this year alone, and I must say he is more highly recognized than we have been. Nevertheless, after hearing my girls, he told me, he went home and told his choir that he had just heard another high school chorus in Georgia and he hoped he never had to share a stage with them (because his choir would be humiliated). Truthfully, that just ain't so. His students are good. But that was a very gracious compliment for the work we do at our place. We haven't ever really had a conversation before, but plan to sit down and talk next weekend at all-state. It is nice to have a nationally recognized conductor say that you a great choir. I should try to remember that next time I'm mad about something. Dr. Snow did say during the conference, "You know they just look like little girls, but they are monsters."

I've been doing auditions for next year. They come in with fear and trembling. Some are able to summon up courage for heroic efforts though. I have heard some good ones, a number that will go on to A choirs next year, but today I heard a total surprise, a full-throated, open and dynamic soprano voice in a little wide-eyed ninth grader. It will be the best voice I hear this year in any grade and I didn't even know she was the one driving that end of the room with sound. She'll be "the" soloist in her age group all the rest of the way through. I heard her at the beginning of the year and she didn't make any kind of sound that I can remember. She has figured it out though. A star is born. And no one knows it but me.

Can you believe this planted whitehouse reporter scandal? There is nothing to which the current whitehouse will not stoop to spread their loathsome evil. Maureen Dowd of the NY Times says "Someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem, and internet pictures where he posed like 'Barberini Faun' is credentialed to cover a whitehouse that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values." "What kind of secret service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the west wing everyday under an assumed name, while he was doing full frontal advertising for stud services for twelve hundred dollars a weekend."

When do we hold them accountable?