I mentioned awhile ago that we had “something” in the works that I couldn’t talk about. Well, the “something” was that we were trying to buy a house to fix and flip since Mike is pretty darn good at remodeling. We got the house - it closed last week - and now Mike is in the process of design and demo.

When I visited the house the other day (for the first time), I saw a lot of stuff that I knew just had to go, not the least of which were the posts on the half walls in the entry way and den. The posts in and of themselves were not horrible - just kind of old-fashioned and making the space look smaller than it was. The half walls will be going as well, by the way. The worst part about the posts was the ugly decoupaged stickers that were on every section of the posts. Ugh. I told Mike I wanted to sledgehammer those babies out my very own self.

So today, that is exactly what I did. Mike offered to let me use the chainsaw and slice the walls out, but I didn’t think that me and a chainsaw were a very good mix. Maybe someday. ;)

Anyway, I had to hit the top of the posts with the sledgehammer to get them out and my upper body strength is not quite up to the task of holding the sledgehammer at the bottom where you can get the most arc and swinging it up above my head. I had to hold it with one hand at the bottom and one hand at the top where I could control it. Of course, I still managed to miss the post once and ended up slamming my fingers into the post itself. Owie. (So imagine the sledgehammer missing the post and therefore my fingers hitting the post instead - got the picture?) Leave it to me to injure myself while using a sledgehammer, but not with the actual sledgehammer. Now you know why I passed on the chainsaw.

I might add a picture of me with the sledgehammer later if there are any that I deem suitable for public viewing.

Mike and I provided music for a wedding today - not at our church, but at a church a few miles away. It’s a very pretty church - there are a few odd things about it - like the distance the priests are from the congregation, but lots of lovely things otherwise.

The loveliest thing though? The microphones and the monitors…lol! I was drooling over them (figuratively of course) because they were just so sweet and smooth and sounded so good. The mics and monitors that we have at our church are not quite that quality, and it’s always nice to work with good equipment.

For those of you who might be of the technical persuasion, they have good old SM58s which are used by live performers everywhere. They’re so awesome - it almost feels like the songs sing themselves, and the monitors? Just so clear and sharp and smooth. Top-notch equipment definitely makes for a pleasant experience.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled non-music-techno programming. ;)

So much going on, so little time to blog.

Tuesday was crazy what with a rehearsal at the high school and then rushing home to get LG in her costume and out to see her very special friends, Social Butterfly, Future Engineer and the Princess before they went trick or treating. After that we went to see Grandma and then another friend and then to Rochelle’s to end the night. I don’t think she quite understood why on earth her parents dressed her up in her cowgirl outfit and drug her out to strange places in the dark, but she had fun wearing her costume at least and she looked darn cute, too.

This morning we were supposed to be getting up at 6:00, but as usual my infernal body clock (no that’s not a typo) woke me up half an hour earlier than necessary. *sigh* Then we got ready to go, because we had to get LG to her grandparents’ house in time for us to get to the high school accounting for traffic. We ended up being a bit earlier than we needed to be, but that’s better than being late right?

The mass went very well, the kids sounded great, and everyone was pleased to see them carrying the weight on their own. I wasn’t a bit nervous for them because I knew they’d be awesome, but I was nervous wreck for me because I was afraid I’d make some huge conducting flub. I didn’t - just a few little ones, but a few little mistakes here and there are to be expected. As I told the kids, this is the first mass, so the only way we have to go is up. That’s always a good position to be in.

Mike took the day off from his other work since he had to do mass tonight as well and we had lunch at his parents’ house when we went to pick Michaela and then we went grocery shopping. Mike was treated with the running commentary of a little girl all throughout the store. The kid does love to talk! But it keeps me entertained, so I don’t really mind too much.

Mike saw a cheap toy electronic keyboard at the grocery store and decided to get it for LG (and he says *I* spoil her!) because she’s been showing a lot of interest in the “panno” of late. She was, of course, thrilled.

The weirdest thing that happened today? Was the cow on the side of the road a few blocks away from Mike’s parents’ house as we were on our way to the high school. Yes, we live in the city limits. No, it’s not common to see cows on the side of the road. Hope she got home safely!

And I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. If you missed the pic of LG in her costume, just scroll down to the post below.

P.S. I usually don’t mention the “cause of the month” that I have on the sidebar over there, but this month is both Diabetes Awareness Month and National Hospice Month, which are both causes very dear to my heart as my mother died of renal failure caused by diabetes and came home on hospice for her last few days with us. The hospice workers we were privileged to meet were amazing people and do a job that not everyone can do. I didn’t know a lot about hospice before my mother needed their services, but I gained an everlasting respect for them and they are definitely a worthy cause. They both are. So if you’re looking for a worthy cause to donate to, please consider either one of these. Thanks.

You know how sometimes you are put in a situation and you wonder if you are really meant to be in that situation? And then sometimes you realize that yes you really are meant to be and are needed in that situation?

Today, we went and had our first meeting/rehearsal-ish at the high school that we are going to be leading the music for the monthly masses at. And I think we are meant to be in that situation. I think that just as it may be a blessing for us to be able to work with those kids, that at the same time we may be a blessing for them as well.

I don’t want to get into too much detail, but suffice it to say that I was feeling kind of badly about how the dismissal came down for the person who had been doing the music there, but after speaking to some of the teachers and seeing how very awesome these kids are and how much they want to be there and how happy and joyful they seemed to be in knowing that we are there to enable THEM and THEY are going to be the choir rather than being back-up singers (and that’s only the ones that were “good” enough to be allowed to do so*) for someone else, I’m not feeling badly anymore. In fact, I’m feeling really angry for them. And I’ll get over that.

But man, these are awesome kids. Just amazingly awesome. I love them all already. And I can’t wait mold them into an awesome choir and learn their personalities and who they are and what their hopes and dreams are. I take this challenge joyfully and I feel so very blessed to have been given this special gift of working with these terrific kids. And yes, I feel like we are where we are supposed to be and that they need us. And it’s nice to feel needed. Especially since I was feeling like maybe we had made a mistake in taking this on. I don’t think that anymore.

Of course the fact that the mass is a week from tomorrow is slightly stressful, but as I told the girl singers, we have nowhere to go but up, and that is where we will go.

Blessings come from so many places, and this one was kind of unexpected. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was going to be like. But it was good. And so it goes.

*I was told some of these singers that we had today were rejected because they weren’t “good enough”. I really can’t figure out why, because they all could carry a tune just fine. In fact, they all had lovely voices, which is why I’m kind of angry at the old music person at the moment. As I said, I’ll get over it. But no one deserves that. Even if you can’t sing, you should be treated with respect, you know? *sigh* Now is the time for healing. And that’s just what we’re gonna do.

So remember that local Catholic high school that we were going to take over the masses at? And then we weren’t. And then we might. And then who knows? Well, Mike finally got a call from the powers that be today. And it’s official. November 1 is the first mass we’ll be doing. Sure hope they get a new choir director at our church soon so that Mike doesn’t have to deal with that, too…lol! I had sorta psyched myself into thinking it wasn’t going to happen and I was really pretty okay with that. So now all I have to say basically is…

Whoa.

Updated: Or not. Seems they haven’t told the present music guy of their plans yet. So we’ll see if it all pans out or not. Either way, things will happen as they are supposed to. It seems to me that either they keep him and go the status quo or they hire us and change it to a more student-driven music ministry which is what we have in mind. But we shall see. We shall see.

I think I mentioned a few weeks back that we might be taking over the music at the student masses at a local Catholic high school and that will indeed be happening as of next month. So that’s really exciting.

Many moons ago, when I went to college the second time (I’ve been in college three times actually), I was a voice major and my goal was to become a high school choir director. Well, my 21 year old self tended to take criticism of my vocal stylings a little too much to heart and I decided that it wasn’t for me and went back into the work force for a few years. Then I got married, quit my job, went back to school and majored in elementary education. So, I did become a teacher, just not the kind of teacher I was planning on in the first place. But now, I’ve got the opportunity to sort of do that again. And it may work into a bigger position as a regular teacher at the school. That remains to be seen.

If you had told me back in May 2004 when I quit my job as a 2nd grade teacher to try to have a baby (and I was already pregnant when I quit - go figure) that a few years down the road I might become a high school music teacher, I’d have laughed in your face and told you that you were nuts. It’s interesting how life takes such interesting twists and turns. For now, it’s just music for the monthly masses. The rest will happen if it’s meant to. But I’m excited about where life might be leading me.

I actually do miss teaching, but I don’t want to be a full-time teacher probably ever again. Or at least not for quite a few years. I want to be able to be there for my daughter while she grows and when she goes to school. I want to chaperone field trips and help out in the classroom and be there if she needs to come home sick. A part-time position could be just the thing. We shall see.

Vacation Bible School is fun, but it kind of screws up my weekly schedule. I always do my errands in the morning because it gets too hot otherwise. Tuesday is library day and Wednesday is grocery day. But with VBS, we get done at noon, get home somewhere around one (after cleaning up and getting lunch), eat lunch and Little Girl goes down for a nice lonnnnnnnnnng nap (because she is wiped out!). By the time she wakes up around 4 or 5, it’s the hottest part of the day and I’m not about to drag her (or myself) out in the heat. So, groceries will have to wait until Friday (VBS is two weeks Monday - Thursday) and the library until…who knows? I have books to return so it can’t be too long, but the Monday after VBS is over I have jury duty. Ugh ugh.

Oh well, one more day this week and three days off and then back to the daily calisthenic workout. ;)

So, tomorrow starts Vacation Bible School for the next two weeks. It’s fun, exhausting, crazy, and did I mention exhausting? Mike and I have been doing it for the past 10 years. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but it has. This is our 11th year, although I had to take 2004 off because of being pregnant or something like that. ;) That year, Marlene took over as the “music lady”. It was reallllly hard for me because VBS is my baby, but she did a great job and I had something a little more important to attend to that year. Last year we did it together and it was much less exhausting than it had been in years past. Especially the two years we did both a morning session and a nighttime session. Those were killer. But now we share the music duties and share the toddler chasing duties. Last year, they (as in Little Girl and the toddler Marlene babysits during the day) could barely sit up and this year they are both running and walking and talking and getting into everything. So it should be interesting. And exhausting. Have I mentioned the exhausting thing yet? I need a nap. Oh wait, it’s bedtime. Hope you all had a great weekend and have a great week! And if you don’t hear from me until the afternoon or evening - you’ll know why.

When I was a little girl, my father was a firefighter. There is even a picture of me sitting on the back of the fire engine on top of the hoses next to his coat and helmet. I always knew that my father had a dangerous job. I knew that he put his life at risk when he fought a fire, but it’s what his father did before him…the family business if you will. However, knowing his job was dangerous and really understanding his job was dangerous are two different things. My father retired from the fire department when I was a freshman in high school. And that might have been that.

But after I was married, we went on a trip to Universal Studios. And at Universal Studios, there was an attraction called Backdraft - a 10,000 degree blast furnace that simulated what it was like to be in a real fire. And, standing there in that blazing heat for those few seconds, tears came to my eyes, because I realized - really realized - for the first time, what my father had faced in his job. And it was an eye opening experience.

Fast forward to today when our little church band plays the church festival. It was hot. Well, okay, it was really warm. (I reserve the word hot for temperatures over 110 degrees.) It was about 92 degrees when we finished. The first set was great. We sang, we played, we bantered. It was fun! And I got to live out my girlish dream of being a singer on a stage with a band. That was unbelievably cool. Then we took a break. And then we went back up on stage to do one more set. But we were hot. We were tired. And we made some booboos. Nothing really huge. We just screwed up lyrics here and there, missed some entrances, messed up some endings, but nothing really horrible. And the point was to have fun, so no biggie. But oh. my. god. I was so frigging exhausted.

My husband has two “careers” I guess you could say. His main career is music. And he’s been gigging professionally since before I even met him. And I’ve gone to his gigs. I’ve sat in bars for the whole night watching him play. I’ve helped him load in and load out. I’ve sung at church with him since before we were married. And I’ve also performed in choirs for many years. I’ve even sung a song or two with bands that he has been in. But I’ve never had to carry a concert (or in this case co-carry a concert) for two hours. And it was exhausting. If you perform, I mean really perform, you can’t help but leave part of yourself on the stage. Performing is all about cutting yourself open and giving a piece of yourself to your audience. If you do it right. And when you do that, it wipes you out.

So today, I realized that my husband really does work hard for a living. He doesn’t just “play music”. He performs and he works hard and he does what he loves and so even though he is a little better at pacing himself and not exhausting himself as much as I did, and even though he doesn’t normally perform outside in the (very) warm weather (there was a tent and a fan though, thank goodness), he does work hard. And just like a burst of 10,000 degree heat made me “get” my father’s job a little better so many years ago, today I “got” my husband’s job a little better, too.

Since I have had nothing better to do tonight, I spent the evening burning compilation cds on my eMac. The eMac (or at least the model I bought) comes equipped with a dvd/cd-r which is quite cool. And iTunes is nice for burning music cds. So, I've been having myself a merry little time making cds for my car.

Tomorrow is The Princess’s first birthday party. :-) A good way to start off the weekend, especially when I have to prepare progress reports to hand out on Wednesday (who's bright idea was it to hand out progress reports on 9/11?).

I'm sleepy. I think I'm going to bed now. Night all!

Had another wedding to attend/sing at today…was very nice…much lower pressure than the family one. Amazing to have my husband with me at TWO receptions in the span of a week…wow! (See, normally I get to go alone, or he comes for a bit and then leaves to go to work…but hey I knew what I was getting into when I married him, so I just deal.) We did actually have to leave this one before the cake and toast and dancing though, bummer…Mikey has to work in Flag tonight.

So here I sit watching movies by my lonesome…first I watched Angel Eyes and now I’m gonna try Mission Impossible 2.

It’s quiet and peaceful and I’m diggin’ that!

Well, I did indeed survive the last day with no tears…it's almost surreal sometimes when the last day actually comes and you walk out of your classroom for two months. It doesn't really seem like you're leaving. To me, it feels like come Tuesday morning, I'll be in my car driving 20 miles to work just like I always do. I suppose maybe it will hit me more when I get on the way to Utah in the morning.

Anyway, the last day was great. I was able to finish pretty much everything up while the kids were watching the movie…I checked out with everyone except the principal before the staff luncheon and then was able to get him right after lunch and hightail it out of there. I'll miss some of my coworkers over the summer. I don't even know if my next door neighbor will be back next year…I hope so. She's a great person. I'll miss her if she doesn't come back…besides, you never know what or who might take her place…ack!

The staff luncheon was very cool. PEP (parent organization) had the cafeteria set up with round tables and tablecloths just like a restaurant. It was very very cool. They had lunch catered from Chili’s and it was delicious, although I ate a whole bunch of stuff that I hadn't eaten in awhile, and I was afraid I was going to get sick…hehehe, but I survived. I even won a door prize. woohoo! I got some cute teacher gifts…I'll tell about those later.

Hopefully, I'll check in again before I leave. I'm sure I will, but if not, I'll be away from this here journal until Tuesday or Wednesday, so take care all of you!

One more day and only 3 hours of kids and they're watching a 2 hour movie, so I think I can manage to get through…I got most of my room finished yesterday with Mike's help, so there are only a few things left to do which I can do while they're occupied. I'm so tired, though…very restless night without Mike. I'm such a dork. I can't sleep with the lights off when he's gone, and I can't sleep with the lights on either, so pretty much I have a fitful rest. Oh well…it's three hours and then tomorrow I can get up whenever the heck I want to. Yay!!!!

Last year I cried on the last day because I had taught some of my kids for three years (from kindergarten to 1st grade to 2nd grade) and I adored them, but I don't think I'll cry this year…you never though…I'm pretty hormonal at the moment…hehe…but that's another post for another time.

Moonie, if you see this, once again, have a SAFE trip!!!!

I'd love to go on and on about my day, but basically it was another shitty day (because of one of the same parents who caused the last shitty day)…I'll talk about that another time because I don't want to get all riled up again right now…and at this moment, I'm not sure if I'll even be able to go to my sil's wedding in SLC this weekend because we are having issues finding people to help take care of the dogs. Well, we do have someone, but his schedule is not cooperative this weekend, so I don't know if it's going to be enough (but Kevin do not think you are not appreciated for anything that you ARE able to do because you most definitely are). If no doggie sitter is found, Karin stays home. *sigh* I'm actually less upset about the prospect of missing the wedding, than I am at missing my trip home which may very well be my only vacation this summer. Anyway, yes, right now, it sux to be me. But there is a bright side….

THREE MORE DAYS

*sigh* Finally report card comments are all written. They would have been done sooner, but I had to take time out and burn some cds of “summer” music for Mike's trip next week…well, I didn't have to, but wasn't it a nice excuse to not do my work? hehehe…at least it's almost all done now…I just have to add two more grades on Monday and attendance on the last day…and how nice to not have to retain anyone this year. That is a blessing.