It was an eventful weekend in HeartSongs land…

You know how they say that the plumber’s plumbing never gets fixed and the painter’s walls never get painted? Well the handyman’s house never gets finished either. But every once in awhile, I get frustrated and tell Mike I want this or that DONE already. Last week, it was the vanity in the master bathroom/closet area. So we started designing.

Saturday morning we had to go pick up Mike’s truck on the other side of town, so since we had to drive all that way anyway, we’d decided to stop in at Home Depot Expo and The Great Indoors and see what was out there. I have decided that I really want vessel sinks in the vanity because I just think they are cool. I think this sink is the one we’re going to go with because I had thought about doing coppery highlights in the bathroom area anyway and this seems like it will go with that idea. The sinks will be our splurge item, and everything else will be as inexpensive as we can get it, including tile. Mike wants to do 24″ tile for the countertop because it would only take 4 pieces. Luckily, he can lay tile himself and install all the stuff, so it’s just a matter of finding what we want and getting it in there. In the meantime, I’m working on cleaning out the closet and vanity area so that he can get started!

I had written a song a few weeks ago called “Eat This Bread” for church. I wasn’t planning on writing a song that weekend, but something compelled me to walk to the piano and hit a G chord and it flowed out from there - first the chorus and then the verses the next day. I even managed to figure out the chords myself - and usually I have to have Mike do it. He changed the melody of the second line of the verse, but other than that, the song is all mine and I’m pretty proud of it! Anyway, we did it at our mass a couple of weeks ago - the week the other music director was filling in for Mike - but this week the other choirs did it at the other masses as well. And it was a hit! I got a lot of nice comments about it from different people, but the biggest compliment of all is that people were singing along with it. I love writing singable songs. And I love that I was able to write a communion song. I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile. (And Marlene, I’m sorry we’ve done it the weeks you haven’t been there and you haven’t heard it yet!)

Speaking of writing songs, last weekend I wrote a song called “Giggle” for LG. I’ve been trying to write a song for her for a long time, but I kept going the mushy serious route and I could never get it right. But after hearing “Bubbly” the other day, I decided I’d like to write a happy bubbly type song and “Giggle” flowed out. She loves it and sings it with me and I love it because it is exemplifies what I feel about her.

Yesterday LG and I got to go see Social Butterfly’s dance recital. She danced beautifully! It was interesting watching the other groups dance. They all do the moves correctly and are technically good, but there are girls who had “it”, who just make it look so easy and effortless and then there are girls who don’t. SB is one of those who make it look effortless - especially in hip-hop. I’m not the biggest hip-hop fan, but it is so much fun to watch her dance hip-hop! The Princess danced in the next show, but we had to get to church, so I wasn’t able to be there for it. I’m sorry I missed it, but we did get to see her dress rehearsal earlier in the week and of course she was the best one! :)

LG did pretty well sitting there for 3 hours (there was an intermission at least), but about a quarter of the way into the 2nd half she started to get wiggly and antsy. She is not one to sit still for very long, so I know it was tough for her, but she was quiet for the most part - just wiggly. Then she managed to bump her head on the arm of the seat and started to cry. I was in the middle of the row so I had to weigh which was going to make more ruckus - sitting there and calming her down or trying to get out with her in tow. In the end, I finally got her calmed down in the seat, but she was tired so she whined a little bit more than usual. But you still cringe inside when stuff like that happens because the last thing you want is to be one of “those” parents.

So, it was a busy weekend, but a lot of fun!

• LG went to Grandma’s Sunday night for babysitting. Hurray! Grandma is back in business again!

• LG has continued to do pretty well at potty training. Not 100% there yet, but close.

• LG was a pain in the rear at our Mommy and Me dance class yesterday, as in she kept falling to the ground (on purpose) every time we got her to do one thing. But the other girl who was there was a thousand times worse, as in she sat there and screamed and did nothing else.

• Our music director made homemade pasta for lunch in our kitchen yesterday before we sat down and planned music for the rest of the summer.

• We spent 3 hours planning music for the rest of the summer.

• I sweated at 7 pm while I was watering my garden last night.

• I went to the optometrist to get new glasses. $400 and progressive lenses later…getting older sucks.

• I went to the salon outlet to get my shampoo and conditioner. Too many $$ later…

• We went to the library to return and check out books.

• We stopped to get a gyro, fried zucchini and a grilled cheese sandwich. Too many more $$ later…

• I hope to resume Summer Surfing today. The last few days have just been a little bit too hectic. Plus my eyes were bothering me. (Hence, the optometrist and new glasses.)

• First and foremost, happy Memorial Day to all of you, and since it is Memorial Day, please remember the reason we have this day off from work (or at least some of us do), is because so many sacrificed their lives for our freedom. (Read on …)

It was a long weekend, as Generations weekends usually are, and I’m tired. But I do have two or three quick little things…

Mike and I have been discussing things we’re going to do with the house in the (hopefully) near future. One is extend the patio and build a grill area (and get a fancy schmancy grill so we can cook outside when the weather is nice). Another is extend the front porch area out into a courtyard and cover it with flagstone. And the other is make window seating in the music room for rehearsal. The latter will probably be the summer project around here, and then we will paint and do curtains as well.

Speaking of curtains, we figured out how much fabric we need for curtains in the kitchen (we both went about it a different way and came up with the same number…lol), because I’m sick of not having real curtains in there. Today, LG and I went and found fabric. It’s not drapery fabric because that’s not what I want - I still wanted to be able to get a lot of light through the fabric. The cool part is that the regular price was $3.99 a yard and I had a 40% off coupon for a cut of fabric (it’s actually two cuts, but that’s because there isn’t enough on one bolt to give me the amount I wanted - but she still rung it up as one cut, so I love her for that). Anyway, the total for fabric for kitchen curtains? Just over $34. That rocks.

And finally, why do bras have those stupid little satin bows on them? They only make us look lumpy - it’s not like anyone can see them. :P

• I’ve been stressed. Not sure why, but I have been. It manifested in me being really short of breath and having tightness in my chest. I was convinced something was wrong with my heart again, until it dawned on me that those were symptoms of anxiety. After I realized that, the symptoms abated a lot.

• The one good thing that came out of all of that was that it kicked my butt into going to see a new primary care physician so I could establish myself as a patient and not have to stress if I need a referral to a specialist anymore. That appointment was this morning, and other than the fact that he wants to do bloodwork (ugh!), it went well. If the bloodwork comes back okay, I don’t need to see him for 4-6 months. So we’ll see how that goes.

• LG has a fever today. I can’t really figure out where she would have picked up a bug because she hasn’t really been around anyone other than her grandparents and us this week. She was coughing a bit yesterday, though, and Mike has had a bit of “allergies”, so maybe it was actually a cold in disguise. Don’t think it’s the flu, though, thank goodness.

• I haven’t been posting as much over here, but I have been posting a daily reflection over here for the Lenten season. And I’ve also been posting a daily photo over here for Project 365.

We had a guest yesterday. LG held up her unwrapped pink crayon to him and had this to say…

LG: The crayon is naked!!

While her father and I were trying to watch the State of the Union, she said the following…

LG: You are my mama and you’re my age.

We’ve been trying to teach LG her dad’s cell phone number for emergencies. She can already speed dial either one of us on each other’s cell phones, but just in case she (God forbid) ever got separated from us, we wanted her to be able to give someone a phone number. And since she loves to sing, we taught her a little song to help her memorize the number. Well, today out of the blue and with no prompting, she sang me the song - every number correct. Mission accomplished. Yay!

And finally, this has nothing to do with LG, but there is a commercial airing right now (in heavy rotation apparently) that has the song “Unwritten” in it. You know the one I mean? I don’t even know what the commercial is for, but I do know that I can. not. get. that. song. out. of. my. head. for. even. five. seconds. And I love the song. But the being forever stuck in my head thing is starting to annoy me.

By the way, I know I haven’t been posting here as often as I normally do, but you can always check my photo blog where I try to post every day without fail!

I get email from my local newspaper with headlines for various things. One of the headlines that came through the other day made me click on it to see what the story was about. It ended up being about a guy (and forgive me because this is pretty gruesome) who had killed his girlfriend and had her ear boiling in a pot of water on his stove when the authorities arrived. Not exactly the kind of story I really wanted to read, so I started to click out of the window, but before I did, I noticed that the url included this: 0107texassoup06-on.html. Apparently, whoever was writing the urls has a very macabre sense of humor. And maybe under some circumstances, I might find it amusing, but since the story was about someone’s death, I didn’t think it was all that funny, so I emailed them to complain. (Read on …)

Ah the joy of live music - last night at Mass, Rochelle, Marlene and I did a trio version of Point of Grace’s “One King” in honor of Epiphany (which is Three Kings week). I don’t much care for “We Three Kings” so it was nice to do something a little different. There are basically 4 verses to the song, but the beginning is really really lowwww, so Rochelle took the first two verses and chorus, then I did the 3rd verse and Marlene did the 4th and the rest we did (mostly) together and there was even a choir part in there! However the 2nd and 3rd verses are both key changes. The 3rd verse has a nice little instrumental run up to it so Marlene could find her note nicely, but the 2nd verse is more of a cold key change, as in, the key change basically happens on the first note of the verse, and since I didn’t know the song before Thursday, I just kept praying I’d do it right. And I did. Every time we practiced it. But during mass? Not so much. We came to the conclusion that it wasn’t actually my fault, because either Mike (piano) or one of the other instruments played a note that made me start a third higher than I should have. Luckily, I was able to fix it on the 2nd line and get back in the right key, but talk about an adrenaline rush. Yikes! I was so mad because I’d gotten it right every other time, even though I was nervous about it because I had to come in right on a key change. It made me feel better to know that it wasn’t totally my fault, though…lol!

On the way to Generations yesterday morning, a few cars were coming down the end of our street (there’s a church parking lot there) as we were trying to go the other way - it’s not a really wide street in the first place, so every time a car would come and look like it wasn’t going to let us pass, I’d say “Dude!” which is my clean way of saying, “Hey effing jerk!” when LG is in the car. Well, she decided that it would be fun to copy me, so she kept repeating it every time I said it which was really pretty funny and cute. And then we got her to say “Hi Dude!” to Marlene’s son when she got to church. Too funny.

And finally, last night we had a visiting priest from a charity organization that works with the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean. Obviously, he was there to solicit donations for his organization, which is fine. He told a story, though, that brought tears to my eyes - and not because of the people that he serves, but because he talked about a donor’s 11 year old daughter and how she treated these people when she went on a pilgrimage to Jamaica with her father. All I could think and hope was that when my daughter is 11 years old, she has half the compassion of that young lady. If she does, it will be a beautiful thing. Sometimes she shows compassion at 3 years old, but sometimes she doesn’t. I think that’s fairly normal at this age, but I do know it’s something that I want to instill in her heart. I pray that I am able to do so.

• American Idol Jordin Sparks is going to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. I totally called that!

• A police officer friend of ours was involved in a shooting early yesterday morning. The suspect (who was the one who was shot) has minor injuries and our friend has a sore knee from where the idiot rammed him with his car. But other than that, he is fine. And we are thankful for that.

• We are going went to the salon today. Yay!

• We went to LG’s bank to deposit some money in her savings account. When we came out, she was told to hold Daddy’s hand before we walked into the parking lot. She refused. We gave her a chance to make a good choice. Then we did the countdown (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) and she still refused, so Mike picked her up and carried her over his shoulder with her screaming “I want to walk” all the way to the car. Oh. my. gawd. I just hope the people who witnessed that realized we weren’t kidnapping or beating her.

• We went to Target so I could get a couple of things for Christmas (one a gift I need for tomorrow and one a “toy flute” which LG wants from Santa). As I was looking at the toy instruments, I heard my name, looked up and who do I see but Rochelle and Navy Boy! So we finished up our shopping together (Mike and LG were waiting in the car). I had to find a graduation card for our drummer (who just graduated from college), but I didn’t think they would have any graduation cards at Target this time of year. Rochelle and Navy Boy suggested a Sympathy card - I’m so sorry you have to get a job now…lol! If you knew him, you’d know that it was a pretty funny idea, and so I went with it. I’d have never thought of that one on my own though.

• We’re going to eat take-out Mexican food and address Christmas cards and decorate the tree tonight, then get up early and head out to the in-laws for family Christmas togetherness. Oh, and Mike has to wrap the presents somewhere in there, too.

I’ll probably manage to post this weekend, but in case I don’t, have a lovely weekend out there in BlogLand!

Bigger post coming later - with pictures!

Thing 1: When you change the shirt you have on, because it’s probably going to be too hot, right before you walk out the door to go to church, you might also want to change your shoes, or you will notice in the middle of mass that your shoes do not in any way, shape or form match your shirt and it will drive you crazy the rest of mass. And you also might write notes about it to your friends and make them giggle and then all three of you will get “the look” from the choir director (who is also your husband).

Thing 2: It is not pleasant when you go to pick up your prescription only to be told you can’t have it because the idiot that the pharmacy clerk talked to at the insurance company said your insurance termed on Nov 16 and wouldn’t restart until Dec 1. What universe does that make ANY SENSE in? Of course, when I came home and called the insurance myself they said it termed Nov. 30 and restarted Dec. 1. Which actually does make sense. So now I have to make another trip to the pharmacy to get my frigging prescription. ARGH!

Thing 3: LG is having a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse birthday party. I went to Wal-Mart to get the party supplies today. The first good thing was that the Mickey Mouse birthday stuff is on clearance and very very cheap. The second good thing was that they still had enough of everything I needed. So that almost makes up for the pharmacy stupidity. Almost.

It’s amazing how much sewing you can get done when your sewing table is cleaned off. Ahem.

This evening I’ll be making pumpkin pies - one to keep, one to go to the in-laws for dinner tomorrow. I’ll also be making the Pioneer Woman’s Butternut Squash Puree and hopefully there will be some left to take to dinner tomorrow. Double Ahem.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be going to mass (including LG who will be sitting with Rochelle’s little sister, and I hope she doesn’t hate us afterwards). I’m not usually a Thanksgiving morning mass goer. In fact, I think the last time I went to Thanksgiving mass was before Mike and I were married. (Hey! NOT a Holy Day of obligation!) But, I wrote the psalm refrain and the music director wants me to sing it, so since we have someone for LG to sit with, I don’t have much of an excuse not to go.

Tomorrow there will be the ubiquitous thankfulness post. And I do have a lot to be thankful for. And I’m thankful for it every day, just so you know. But it probably doesn’t hurt to remember that out loud now and then.

So, if you don’t get a chance to stop by tomorrow, I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving. And to those of you in other countries who aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving, well have a great Thursday (or Friday as the case may be).

• This week in HeartSongs preschool, we are talking about emotions. Yesterday it was “happy”. There are several books out there based on “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, by the way. Today we talked about being mad. And we read Where the Wild Things Are, which happens to be one of my favorite books ever. We are also making “feeling pillows” each day which depict whatever emotion we are talking about. LG loves this activity. I told her that when she’s mad, she can talk to her mad pillow instead of yelling and throwing a tantrum. We’ll see if it works…lol!

• We have started talking up Christmas and visiting Santa Claus and telling him what she wants for Christmas. Her 2nd Christmas, when she was 1 year old, she sat on Santa’s lap with no problem at all. Last year, when she was 2 years old, I had to sit with her. No makeup and all. This year, she says she’s going to sit on his lap all by herself. We’ll see. I’ve already told Mike he’s coming with us this year. She is really enjoying all the toy catalogs that are coming (JCPenney’s and Target and that other store I refuse to go to unless I have to).

• Can someone who lives here please explain to me why there are no bakeries on our side of town? (I mean bakeries that are just bakeries and not part of a bigger store.) There are bakeries all over the Valley, but not in our part of town. I wonder why? I really want a cupcake bakery that doesn’t take me an hour to get to. *sigh*

• Why do these local companies (air conditioning and carpet cleaning for instance) keep calling me even though I’m on the do not call list? It really irritates me. If I need a/c service or my carpets cleaned (if I actually had carpeting), I will find someone to do it. I don’t need someone to call me trying to drum up business. And they’re not supposed to be calling! I always tell them I’m on the do not call list, and I get one of two responses: 1) they apologize and tell me they will take me off the list and not call again or 2) they hang up on me. Just a waste of time if you ask me.

• As soon as I post this, I will turn in my 2nd to last assignment for my class. The last assignment I haven’t done yet, but I will have to get it done this week or next as my class ends a week from Saturday. I still think there’s too much work for 1 credit hour, but it’s been good to stretch my brain a bit. And it’s nice to find out that most of the things they want you to do for English language learners are things that I already did in my classroom when I was teaching. This class will give me a provisional endorsement on my certificate, and I’ll have to take another class to get a full endorsement. I won’t be taking that class until sometime next year, but if necessary, I could teach with a provisional endorsement anyway.

• Way back when (before I started teaching and well before I had a child), I believed I would get a postgraduate degree at some point. I sort of left that idea behind while I was busy working and even more so after I became a mother, but I think I’ve already mentioned that I was thinking about going back to work after LG starts school in a few years. Depending on our financial situation, I think I might go back to school and work on those postgraduate degrees. We shall see.

• I had a cardiologist appointment this morning. The echocardiogram results came back fine - everything looks okay. My blood pressure was fine. And most importantly, my heart is still in sinus rhythm. Yay! So, all is fine, just fine. I don’t have to see him for four months. Unless, of course, something happens. But I’m going to think happy thoughts.

• After that, I went to Joann’s and wandered around throwing things in the shopping cart. I did actually have a plan of what I wanted to get, but there’s always other stuff that looks good. *sigh* We won’t talk about how much I spent. *cough*

• Since I was gone during the time I normally do school with LG, I had Mike do it. She loved her substitute…lol! We are talking about Colors this week (and the end of last). Today was yellow. She is doing a color collage each day. I’ll have to take some pictures of them when we’re done - they are very cool!

• I’m in my twice-a-decade purge and clean mode right now. All the clutter and crap is getting to me and I’m just ready to reorganize. It usually happens about once every 5 years or so…lol! The only problem is that with a little one around, it’s hard to get anything done unless both of us are here because you have to stop and shift gears too many times. But if both of us are here egging each other on, things tend to get done.

• Speaking of things getting done, Mike promises that my island will be done before Christmas. You all who see him in real life? You remind him of that now and then wouldja? ;)

• Back to the decluttering for a moment…on Saturday we had some time, so we cleaned the hall bathroom (which is the only one with a working shower, by the way) from top to bottom. And when I made a comment about how we needed more light in there, Mike immediately got to work installing a can light. Nothing like instant handyman…lol!

• I am declaring this “Flashback Week” on my blog. I’ve got all these memories floating around in my head of when we used to work with the teen choir at another church. There are way too many for one post, but I’ want to get them written down so that I don’t forget them in my “old age”. (And I as mentioned before, it’s good blog fodder since I have to post every day!)

Today was the mass celebrating our Parish’s Jubilee (or 25th Anniversary). All the choirs from the different masses came together and sang and played as one. It’s not an easy thing to do - to combine choirs. The directors have to be careful to make sure everyone is included in some way, and hopefully no one gets their feelings hurt. It seemed to go well, though, and hopefully everyone felt included. (Read on …)

There is so much going on this week it’s insane. Okay, I know other people have even more going on, but I’m used to peace and tranquility in my life (ha!) so when it gets hectic I get a little crazy.

This past Saturday we had a family birthday party, Generations and Mass on Sunday, a cardiologist appointment yesterday morning, and Generations again last night. Today is quiet. Tomorrow I have to go grocery shopping and we have rehearsal at the high school tomorrow afternoon. Thursday morning we have mass at the high school and then rehearsal for our church’s Jubilee Mass that evening. Friday is quiet. Saturday is the Jubilee Mass (25th anniversary of the Parish). Sunday is regular mass. And then next week is fairly quiet until the weekend again. Craziness.

I went to the cardiologist yesterday to follow-up on my CT Scan that was done over a month ago. There wasn’t really any bad news. There was some good news. And there was some we still don’t really know news. The good news is that my blood pressure was 116/76 (awesome!) and my pulse was 62 (awesome!) and my heart is still in sinus rhythm (super awesome!). (And that was after sitting in the waiting room and witnessing paramedics and a stretcher coming in. Don’t know why. My out on a limb guess would be a heart attack on the treadmill, but I really don’t have any idea what happened.) The other good news is that the hole (Atrial Septal Defect) that was repaired when I was 4 is slightly open, but not enough to cause problems. Yay! The still don’t know news is that I still have this extraneous vein where it’s not supposed to be and he’s not exactly sure how that’s going to affect another try at ablation. In the future. If I need it. It’s certainly possible my heart will stay in sinus rhythm. Highly improbably, but possible.

I will be having an echocardiogram later in the month because I haven’t had one in awhile and because that is how to check the lower chambers of the heart which are the ones that are most stressed during a pregnancy. No, not pregnant. But, we’re trying to find out if it’s okay to try.

There is much more going on I suppose. But I’m kind of too tired to think about it. Besides, today Little Girl is 34 months old and I need to write her a letter. I will only be doing the monthly letters for another couple of months up to her 3rd birthday. And then, there will still be letters, but they probably won’t be monthly, and they most likely won’t be on her “monthday”. I’m starting to repeat myself and I want them to have meaning, so I will write them only when I have something important to say. But! There will still be pictures! At least for the foreseeable future.

Oh, I just remembered the other thing I wanted to mention. I’m taking a class! Online! It’s really boring! But in order to be able to ever get a teaching job again (if I need or want to), I have to have an endorsement in SEI (Structured English Immersion). So, I’m working on that. And then I will work on the credits I need to get my certificate renewed in a couple of years when it expires. I think that once LG starts school, I might want to go back to work because it will be entirely too quiet around here. Of course, if I have another baby, all that would change, but that’s a big if. So, that’s what I’m doing. I just wish it wasn’t such a boring class. *sigh*

Oh, one more thing! GO CUBS! (Yes I live in Arizona. Yes I used to be a fan of the team that is now dead to me. But they are dead to me because 1) they changed their uniforms to total ugliness and 2) they didn’t let Luis Gonzales play here until he retired - even after he offered to take a pay cut. So they are dead to me. And I’d love to see the Cubs win the World Series. The end.)