I’ve got a few dozen balls in the air at the moment. On the one hand, having so much to do stresses me out, but on the other hand, most of those balls are pretty damn awesome, which makes the day-to-day work a little more pleasant.

Grand Taiko. It’s this weekend! Can you believe it? I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. Yesterday’s set-change practice was made tense by a couple of unnecessarily-last-minute decisions, but all in all, we are SO ready for this show. Loading, spiking, and tech rehearsal Wednesday, dress rehearsal Thursday, performance Friday and Saturday.

I’m especially excited about our brand new song, Hanadokei. I helped write it a tiny bit, and I get to play in it*. It’s the most exhausting song in the whole set, for me at least, but it’s so much fun to play. You’ll love it.

Because you’re gonna be there, right? Miller Outdoor Theatre, this Friday and Saturday, 7:30 PM? That’s what I thought.

Wedding Planning. We’re thinking early 2011, so it’s still a year and half away, but I’m already deep into the planning. I’m discovering that my mother has a strong vision of what my wedding will look like, and it’s not much like mine. Getting married by a friend or relative instead of a “real” minister? Disappointing. A dress in any color other than white? Even light gray? Disappointing. A wedding palette of yellow, gray, and black**? Disappointing.

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For the few of you who haven’t heard through email, text message, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter, but mostly so this momentous occasion doesn’t get left out of my blog, John and I got engaged last week on our trip to Colorado. Squee!

Before we started planning the vacation, we’d talked about how we might be able to move our conjectural wedding date up six months or so from what we’d thought, so I suspected a proposal was coming, but I didn’t know exactly when.

On our first full day in Colorado, John picked out a hike for us up towards Pacific Peak, thanks to this handy website. The weather was perfect, and the views of mountains and blue sky all around were breathtaking.

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