Hodge podge of stuff

Hi all,

This is Melissa and now that I am on maternity leave I have a bit of time to post. We haven't really done a proper post for some time so this will be a hodge podge of everything that has been going on for the past few months.

First of all I have been at my quilting again and made a quilted table runner/wall hanging as a Christmas present for our friends. Chris actually designed it and did all the drawings and measurements and I just cut the fabric and sewed it. We are really happy with it and it was a fun project to work on together. Here are a few pics:





More recently Chris has switched jobs again. He has quit teaching guitar in the primary schools. His last day is 13 April. He will be teaching a few students privately on a Saturday morning from our house. It is worth the few extra pounds a month and is not too demanding. He has also been hired by our church as the new worship leader for their contemporary 11am service. He is excited about this opportunity and it is part time so it fits his schedule. He has a lot of work to do but he has a few core people in the existing group that are dedicated and on board with him. He also has the back up of the leadership to make changes and make the worship service more meaningful. The job is great because he can work from home except for practices. The church currently runs 4 services a Sunday, which is typical for churches here. The services range from Morning Prayer to Evening Prayer with traditional and contemporary services in the middle.

Chris has also started working on campus as a music archivist. He will be working with a specialist in the field to digitise old recordings. This is something that he is really interested in and it is a great skill to know and master. Again this job is flexible and he can work at anytime day or night.

Next autumn he will change to part-time for his PhD and hopefully we will be able to balance everything. The plan is that I will go back to work full time towards the end of September and Chris will balance all the above and take care of the baby. This will be a challenge but we don’t want to put the baby in daycare. If it becomes a problem then I will have to change to part-time. So please pray for all of that, it will be a struggle no matter what happens.

I am now just a week and a day away from my due date (and my birthday)! I think we pretty much have everything ready for the big day. My hospital bag is packed and ready to go. The nursery is set up, we are just waiting.

I finished work on 1 March and have just been relaxing and reading and sleeping. I haven’t been too bored yet. It is nice to be home and have lunch with Chris when he comes in between schools. We celebrated my birthday early and Chris got me lots of things to do while being home. My favourite thing is a book on quilt stars. It is a great handbook. I found one pattern that I really like and have started another quilt. It is a wall hanging. I am excited about it – I think each one I do is better than the last so it is nice to see improvement.

The British don’t normally have baby showers. When I explained it to them they were mystified. So the girls from my work decided to throw me an ‘American Baby Shower.’ With the help of Chris they threw it in my living room! They all had excuses why they were leaving early from work (which happens occasionally) and then I got home and they were all in my living room! It was a lot of fun and very sweet of them to do. They got us a Moses basket (or bassinet as you may call it) and it is just adorable. Here are a few pictures:




I think the last thing is Chris and I went to London the first weekend in March. One of his compositions was being performed at a weekend ‘Microtonal Festival.’ Microtonal music is a bit hard to explain so all I will say is that it is writing music with notes that are in between the notes on the piano. If you need further clarification then Chris will have to do that. Anyway the festival was good, a little long for me, but his piece went well and he made a lot of contacts.

I will leave you with a picture of me taken a few days ago and some pictures of York over the winter. A few of all the flooding we had in December and the one snowstorm we had (well not really a storm more of a flurry). The next time we post we will be three!!! Thanks for reading.

Melissa