Home, sweet home!

I'm sitting here at the kitchen table -- the same one that has made it into many songs, and even The Brights' CD cover -- with a beam of sunlight reaching across the room, one purring orange cat at my feet, one little grey cat announcing she's caught me a "mousie" (at least I hope it's her toy one...). We woke up to snow on the ground -- thank you, mother nature, for waiting until we got home! Little enough to be a shovel-job -- might even be enjoyable (did I just use my outside voice?!?).

We got home last night to two very happy cats who have not left us alone since. Our cat-sitting angel, Bernie, had organized the mail for us, we're pretty sure she cleaned the cat litter earlier in the day (wow! above and beyond, girl!), there was an obvious lack of hairballs around the house, and I think even the plants had been treated more kindly than they're used to. What a nice place to come home to! There was even a bouquet of flowers from our friends Paul and Deb, congratulating us on our engagement, a birthday message from Uncle Tim and Aunt Sherry on the answering machine, a nice note from Laura Bird who stayed here while we were away and she was playing FridayFolk, cards from our dear friend Ali... Geez, we should go away more often!!! (Not happening any time soon -- I'm going to have to force myself to get out of the house to get some grocery shopping done today!)

Looks like we racked up 4436 kilometres this trip. Time for another oil change! And, seeing all this white stuff outside our window, I guess it's time for us to get all the pre-winter preparations done. ;-) Better late than never, right? Unpacking, laundry, finances... the final tour tear-down ritual. Haven't figured out yet whether this tour was financially successful, but it certainly was a success in every other way. Our shows were always greeted with much enthusiasm, we met some really wonderful new people, got to see some old friends... definitely a worthwhile endeavour.

The Brights will be... well, a little dimmer over the next few weeks. :-) (No comments from the cheap seats!) We'll be hunkering down, planning the next tour (out west in late spring), and otherwise enjoying a fairly quiet December. Ahhh... I'll be criss-crossing the country in January -- from leading a "finding your authentic voice" workshop at an Integral Leadership Practice Retreat for Women in Nova Scotia, to performances of Sarah's Daughters (Jeff Nisker's play about a woman whose family is battling a genetic form a breast cancer) with actress Martha Zimmerman in Victoria, BC. -- plus I'm starting to get "the itch" for a new solo CD, so there might be more activity at my Adventures in Cello-Land blog in the near future.

But don't worry -- we'll definitely be staying in touch here if anything exciting happens! And if you really can't get enough information about The Brights, feel free to follow the minutiae of our musical lives at our Twitter feed (yes, we're geeks, get over it!).

From my beautiful sunny kitchen in my home-sweet-home (and still in my jammies and fuzzy slippers and NOT in a car!), this is Alyssa Wright signing off.

'Til I blog again,
Alyssa