Tonight it was the guys turn. Please let it be less excruciating than the girls. (Read on …)

So, as many of you know from reading this blog, one of the priests from our church passed away on Sunday. The funeral is tomorrow afternoon. His wishes were that a soloist and accompanist who used to work at our church do the music for the funeral mass. When he made these arrangements, they were still working at the church, but have both since left. My husband is of course one of the music ministers for the parish and so am I and so are Marlene and Rochelle, so this does actually directly affect us. Our feelings are not hurt. We want to respect his wishes and are perfectly happy to let someone else do the work for a change.

On the other hand, one of the other music ministers at the church is totally bent out of shape over this and feels that there should be a combined choir from all the music groups. Disclaimer: the following statements have no supporting evidence. They are what I have extrapolated from the events that I am aware of that have taken place in the last couple of days. What I believe to have happened is that this music minister (we’ll call her B) went to the pastor of our church and whined and bitched and moaned about the fact that the people who would be doing the music are not even members of the parish anymore and how it should be a combined choir because this priest celebrated at all the masses in the parish. For whatever reason, the pastor took her side. (I tend to think he did it just to get her to shut up, but that’s beside the point.) He went to the brother of the deceased and they “decided” that his wishes should be overruled and that there should be a combined choir at the funeral mass (which will include the soloist and the accompanist originally requested). Personally, I feel like the pastor probably laid some guilt trip on the brother saying something about the music ministers wanting to be a part of the mass and blah blah blah. Those of you who are Catholic know all about the famous catholic guilt. As I said in the disclaimer, I obviously don’t really know what went on behind closed doors, but I would venture to guess that my take on things is probably pretty close to accurate.

So now, I’m angry at B for whining and not being able to be the bigger person and respect the wishes of a priest who was nothing but kind to those around him and I’m angry at the pastor for caving and going against those wishes as well and even worse forcing the family to go along with it.

The way I see it is, if I ask for something specific at my funeral, then I expect my wishes to be carried out if it is humanly possible to do so. And I would be pretty pissed off if they deliberately went against my wishes because someone else didn’t like it. I mean for gosh sakes, the man is dead. He has no say in anything else that goes on in this world from this moment forward. At least afford him the respect that he deserves by abiding by his wishes for the last thing he has any say over.

I absolutely unequivocably refuse to sing at this mass. Part of me doesn’t even want to go because of the travesty they are making of his wishes, but I think perhaps going and not singing is a pretty strong statement in itself. And you better believe that if B or the pastor say one word to me about why I’m not up there singing, I will tell them in no uncertain terms why and what I think of they fact that they went against his wishes in the first place. I would already have ripped off letters to both of them if my hubby was not a staff member and I didn’t want to cause waves. But if they call me on it, all bets are off. Ugh. I’m so angry I see red when I think about it. Stupid selfish disrespectful people really piss me off.

Vent over.

As is my custom, I will be posting about American Idol after each show. For those of you who do not watch the show, please feel free to skip these posts. I will not be offended in the least. For those of you who DO watch the show, please tell me what YOU think! (Read on …)

For what it’s worth, I did try other avenues before I posted that post down there about Blogging Baby. But it was that post that set things in motion and got their attention. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I got an email from the very gracious Sarah Gilbert from Weblogs Inc. who assures me that my prize is being shipped tomorrow. Hurray! I can’t wait. :) And hopefully, what they’ve learned from this experience will help them set up some procedures so that the same thing doesn’t happen again. Glad to have been of assistance to ya. ;-)

I will do my best to take some photos of the lovely prizes so you all can see what I’ve been waiting for! Yippee! :)

Things that happened on Saturday:

• Scrapbooking party with 8 other women and my Creative Memories consultant stopped by as well…
• I got 17 pages done! Yay!
• We had lots of fun. Double yay!

Things that happened on Sunday:

• One of my favorite priests died – he was ready and he’s probably better off, but it’s still hard.
• Mike helped me finish the last few pages I needed to do, then cleaned up my mess and organized my scrap crap. And all I had to do was plan music for mass. I totally won on that one. :)
• Little Girl was walking all over the great room. At one point I counted 40 steps in a row. The walking breakthrough has occurred.
• Little Girl woke up crying around 11. Mike went to go take care of her, thought she needed a drink, and took her to the kitchen where she proceeded to hurl all over him, the floor and herself. Then he managed to get her over the garbage can before she puked again. We think maybe it was eating yogurt after eating part of a fajita. Oh well, you live you learn. Today she is fine.

Things that happened today:

• I spent $42 on a pair of walking shoes that she will be able to wear for about 3 months. Ouch. But I feel like the first pair of shoes should be really really good ones to give them the most help in learning to walk in shoes.
• I bought her a beautiful Easter dress at Sears.
• A very nice lady let me go ahead of her in line because I had gotten in line first but was standing in the wrong place because it’s really hard to see the line marking on the floor when you are pushing a stroller. Whatever. When I realized I was standing the wrong place, I went to the back of the line where I was supposed to be standing and didn’t say a word. After all, it was my bad. But she was very kind and let me go in front of her. She has a 17 month old granddaughter and so she said ladies with babies deserve to go first. She was very nice. And I thanked her profusely. There are actually still nice people in the world.
• Mervyn’s is evil. They were having a toddler sundress sale. Sundresses for $7. I am not telling you how many dresses she got today. Mervyn’s is evil.
• I bought her a set of stacking cups at Babies R Us (had a gift card) and she played with them for at least 15 minutes before I made her stop and go take a nap.

Update: I got one very nice email from Sarah Gilbert and comments from both her and and Jason Calacanis (CEO of Weblogs Inc.) and they assure me they are looking into it. Thanks for everyone’s comments and support! This type of post is not really my normal style, but I was frustrated and it did get their attention, so it’s not all bad I guess. I will let you know what happens of course!

So remember this post in which I was so excited because I won cool bean bags from a Blogging Baby contest? Note the date. December 3. And still I have not received my prize. Which would be okay if they would answer my emails and tell me what the deal is. I got ONE email back in January (after I questioned when they might be arriving) saying they’d check into it. And since then nothing. Since that January email, I’ve emailed THREE people (including the CEO of Weblogs Inc.) and gotten no response whatsoever. Well, we are pushing March here, so I’m beginning to think they’re a bunch of jerks. I sure hope they prove me wrong, but I’m not holding out much hope at this point. So, until I get an answer of some sort, I will not be visiting any of their websites and if you care to join me in my boycott, feel free to do so.

I finished scrapbooking the first month of Little Girl’s life this morning. (Well, except for the two pictures that Mike found when he was cleaning up the table. [If your husband gave you a choice between cleaning up your scrapbooking mess or planning the music for mass, which would you pick? Uh huh. Me too. He's organizing everything, too, because he can't stand the way I threw everything into my storage drawers haphazardly. LOVE THAT! AND he helped me with some of the layouts on the pages I did today because my mind was mush. I think I will keep him.]) My brain is mush. Mush I tell you. So I will leave you with some pictures from Friday and a movie instead: (Read on …)

I did seventeen pages today in my scrapbook. I’m almost through with Little Girl’s first year. I am tired. I am going to bed where I should have been a couple hours ago. More tomorrow.

Big Scrapbooking Party at my house all day today, so I’m leaving you this to tide you over until later!

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. I was a receptionist/sales assistant at two radio stations. This was fun because at radio stations you get all kinds of cool perks like restaurant scrip and concert tickets and every once in awhile you get to meet someone famous. Oh, and sometimes, they drag you in and put your voice on a commercial. That was cool.
2. I taught kindergarten for four years. As God is my witness, I will never teach kindergarten again.
3. I also taught 2nd grade for four years. That I would do again.
4. I was also the office manager at a machine shop. My boss would come to me and say “I have a mission” and I would drag out the phone book. This was before the internet was so pervasive, so I had to do my research that way. But it is where I began to hone my mad research skills. Pretty much if it’s out there, I’ll find it.

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. While You Were Sleeping – makes me cry every. single. time.
2. The Princess Bride – some of the best dialogue EVER.
3. Singin’ in the Rain – or basically any of the old musicals.
4. Love Actually – I just actually love this movie.

Four places I’ve lived:

1. In my parent’s house.
2. In Flagstaff while I went to NAU.
3. In Mike’s family home after we got married (but the family had moved elsewhere).
4. In the house we are in now. Those are the only four places I have ever lived. So sue me.

Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. Dancing with the Stars – I love seeing people succeed or fail when out of their comfort zone.
2. American Idol – I think Simon is great for telling it like it is. If you can’t take the heat, you shouldn’t be in the biz. But it’s also nice that Paula tries to balance him out with positive comments.
3. NCIS – gotta love Mark Harmon
4. Lost – Can’t live without it even though it drives me INSANE!

Four places I’ve been on vacation:

1. London, England (three times) – One of my favorite cities.
2. Paris, France – One must find time in their life to go to Paris at least once, and eat dessert. Every meal. You’ll burn it off walking anyway.
3. San Diego – one of my favorite places
4. Colorado – another one of my favorite places in the world

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Lasagna
2. Fajitas
3. Salmon
4. Chocolate

Four sites I visit daily:

1. My favorite blogs – too many to name, but especially my friends Theresa, Marlene, and syndromes.
2. Go Fug Yourself – snarkiness at its best
3. flickr – addictive isn’t it?
4. Google – because I’m always searching for SOMEthing

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. In bed asleep. (The baby sleeps til 8 or 9, but the puppy? Not so much. *sigh*
2. Reading a book.
3. At the store buying clothes to fit my svelte body. (Well, it didn’t say anything about the place having anything to do with reality now did it?)
4. On a whirlwind trip through Europe. Or even not-so-whirlwind.

People I’m Tagging: I have a strict policy of not tagging people anymore, because I just hate that whole tagging thing. So if you wanna do this, knock yourself out!

When I ask you to take a picture of the baby with you to your gig to show to a friend of mine that will be there, tell me that you don’t want to take the picture of the daughter that’s hanging in the window of the pantry door because you like to see her little face whenever you walk into the house.

When I tell you that I don’t want to get the baby up at 5 am to come sit with the elderly folks at your house while you are somewhere else because it will ruin her day, tell me: “it won’t ruin ‘her’ day, it will just ruin ‘yours’.”

Ask me to come watch your kid while my husband fixes something at your house because you want to “help” him and you obviously can’t figure out how to take care of your own child.

I’ve got a crush on you sweetie pie
All the day and nighttime hear me sigh
The world will pardon my mush
Cuz I’ve got a crush, my baby, on you….

I think the word “crush” is apropos to describe that first heartbreaking unrequited love – or maybe any unrequited love – because you always seem to be crushed when you realize it’s just not going to happen.

We’ve all been there, done that. So share your crush story on your blog, come back here and leave a comment, and we’ll all be crushed together.

Personally, my favorite crush is Grape Crush. Oh wait, wrong crush. Never mind. Can’t wait to read your stories, though!

Other Flashback Fridays
1. Rochelle
2. Theresa
3. Hula Doula
4. YellowRose

Click for mine… (Read on …)

As much as they make me want to hang them both by their toes when Little Girl throws her toys outside her corral (over and over and over and over again no matter how many times and how many ways and how many tones in which I have said NO!) because she wants to share with Melody and Melody takes them and I find them later with teeth marks in them, those two melt my heart over and over again.

For instance, right now Little Girl is in her room taking a nap and Melody is asleep in the hall just outside her door.

Last night, we were in Little Girl’s “corral” playing with her and Melody was outside the gates whining and sad because she wanted to be with her family. So, I broke down and let her in since we were there to supervise. Of course, she immediately started trying to chew Little Girl’s toys, so I had to grab one of her chew flips to keep her busy. Little Girl will take the toys or the flips or whatever right out of Melody’s mouth and Melody does nothing. She just lets her. No snaps. No growls. Just quiet acceptance. The same goes for the times that Little Girl pulls and yanks on her. Sometimes it’s her tail. Sometimes, like last night, she grabs her by the haunches and pulls her down into sitting position. And again, Melody does nothing but quietly accept the torture.

Then Little Girl escaped her corral and Melody, as she always does when she thinks Little Girl is trying to get away from us, takes off after her and tries to herd her back to where she belongs. She mouths at her (but never bites). She nips at her heels (but never hard enough to hurt her). And Little Girl either goes in the opposite direction, pushes her away, or laughs and shoves her hand into Melody’s mouth. She never gets upset or fussy – she just quietly accepts Melody’s presence and behavior for what it seems to be – loving protection and companionship.

The other dogs rarely barked by the time Little Girl came along. Melody, on the other hand, barks quite frequently (at all hours of the day and night :P). So Little Girl has added the word “woof!”to her vocabulary. The other night, I heard the garage door open, signaling that Mike was home. I said, “Who’s here?” Little Girl quickly scanned the room, saw the puppy, and said “Woof!” She sees a picture of one of the other dogs and she says, “Woof!” She sees a picture of a dog in the newspaper, or on tv or in a book and she says, “Woof!”

Melody has taught her a new vocabulary word. Little Girl has taught Melody how to watch over someone. And they’ve both taught me that love comes in all shapes, sizes and languages. The language of love between a little girl and a small puppy is not that of words but of acceptance, tolerance, kisses and companionship. And really that’s the very best kind.

Little Girl is the light of our lives. But Melody has mended the edges of our hearts that were tattered and torn when our other dogs left us. We have been blessed by both of them.