Kerriosity

digital scrapbooking

2009-10-24T14:16:00.003-05:00

Well, I have a sinus infection. Blah! The doctor told me I had to rest, so the anniversary plans are postponed. :( However, this gives me time to play with my new digital software, My Digital Studio by Stampin' Up. I am completely digitally challenged, so I've been playing with this for a few days and here is what I've come up with so far:

As you can see, they're not perfect, and it has been quite a learning curve for me! But it's really fun! There are still lots of things I need to figure out, but I'm happy with my progress so far!

day four

2009-10-22T13:51:00.003-05:00

We have actually succeeded in getting up every day this week and walking! We are so proud - and a little sore! :) One day left, and we're taking the weekend off. Since our anniversary is this coming Wednesday, we're celebrating this weekend. Brian is surprising me on Saturday with something!! I can't wait!!

2 days in

2009-10-20T12:21:00.001-05:00

Well, we did it! We got up yesterday AND today and walked! It was harder today - doesn't it take like 3 weeks to make a habit? I will be excited when my body is used to getting up at 7am! We both have a lot more energy during the day though, and we've been feeling good. I'll keep you posted on how things progress.

wow

2009-10-18T16:09:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! I wonder if anyone even reads my blog anymore! Well, readers or no readers, this has been a source of accountability for me, and it's time for me to get back to it.

Let's get right to the point: I've gained some weight. Not a lot, just about 8-9 pounds - I thought that was pretty good, keeping off that much of the 43 pounds I lost 3 years ago! However, I've completely stopped exercising and with all the trouble we've had this year (with our house and everything we own and Brian's job), I started eating badly. Fast food, ice cream, fast food, etc. I'm a stress eater, it's no secret. Even though I've only gained 8-9 pounds, it seems like 25 - all of the muscle I had acquired has turned into fat. BELLY fat, of course.

So today I went clothes shopping and was horrified to see what I looked like in those store lights and 3-way mirrors! I swore when I lost the weight before that I would NOT let myself get huge again, so I am going to have to take drastic measures RIGHT NOW! I gave away all my "fat" clothes, so if I don't do something now, I'm going to have to buy new clothes in bigger sizes and that's just not an option.

Brian is on board too - he needs to lose a few pounds. Of course, I think he looks hot, but his doctor says he needs to lose some. Since we work late into the evening and rarely have dinner before 8:00, exercising at night is kinda hard - we're exhausted after dinner. The only way we're going to fit exercise into our crazy schedules is to do it first thing in the morning.

OK, we are NOT morning people. We both start work at 10:00, so we are NOT up early. We appreciate our sleep. We love our sleep. We have tried before to get up early to exercise. This time it HAS to work! It just HAS to! So I'm blogging about it, cause if we don't do it, I'll be embarrassed since I wrote about it online!

Tomorrow is the day. The cats have been waking us up at 7am every day for awhile now, so tomorrow, we're just going to take the hint and get up. You guys root for us, ok? If we can do it tomorrow, we will prove to ourselves that we can do it!! I'm so motivated! I'm going to look for healthy recipes now!

4 days and counting

2009-05-24T19:59:00.003-05:00

Our vacation is fast approaching! I am in a craze of list-making, doing laundry, packing, scheduling, preparing, etc. Amazingly, Brian has this WHOLE weekend off!! It's been great to spend some time together while discussing all the fun we are going to have! Looks like we got the flip just in the nick of time - we will certainly share some videos from our trip.

We're leaving Friday morning for Miami...Friday night we're staying at the Epic Hotel - we have a waterview room with a balcony. I'm SO excited - we never splurge on things like this, but we found a great deal online! Also, in a bizarre twist of fate, Carnival called us a few weeks ago and offered us a fantastic price on a suite, so we upgraded!

On our cruise we're going to Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; and Roatan, Honduras. We are so looking forward to this much-needed vacation after the crazy hours Brian has been keeping. We've booked beach trips on two of the islands, and they are both somewhat secluded beaches - we are wanting some relaxation and peace.

Tomorrow we're going out to buy some essentials. Brian needs some sunglasses, and we also need to buy a 24-pack of water. And hopefully we can start putting some clothes in the suitcase so we won't accidentally wear them. We've already checked out several books from the library. A week of sun, solitude, and unlimited time with my sweet hubby...what more could I want? Stay tuned. I'll be sure to journal along the way.

a new flip

2009-05-02T17:57:00.004-05:00

I'm so excited...I just ordered a Flip! I'm mainly going to use it for Kindermusik, but I'm sure you'll see some cat videos and maybe even some bits and pieces of our upcoming vacation! Stay tuned...

impress me

2009-02-25T22:05:00.008-05:00

I just sat down to watch Idol. I will watch this 2 hour show in like 45 minutes probably. My whole attitude is...impress me. The show has started, and I'm not at ALL impressed so far. I'll blog as I go.

Oh yay - Matt Giraud is about to sing - I'm excited for this. OK. He's a good singer, and he's doing ok, but I'm really disappointed he's not doing something more bluesy. He was so amazing doing "Georgia on My Mind" in Hollywood. OK, Kara just said exactly what I just said. LOL I still really hope he makes it through, because he is seriously talented.

There are some really weird people on this show tonight. One of them is this little red-headed 16-year-old. I hate to tell the judges, but she is totally not using her voice properly in the upper register. She's not going to be singing forever if she keeps that up. I liked the beginning of the song, but when she started pushing it on the chorus, it hurt me. Also, all the jerky movements she was doing drove me nuts. She'll probably go through tonight. But I guess I shouldn't say that until I've heard all 12.

Oh, here's Kai - I've been looking forward to hearing him, even if I don't really like his hair. I really like his voice. Don't know if this is my favorite song he's ever done.

OK, I like Adam. I think he's talented, but he's not my favorite ever. He has a serious range, though.

Nobody rocked me tonight. But I hope Matt Giraud goes through.

idol stand-outs

2009-02-18T20:01:00.004-05:00

Just for reference, here are the Idol contestants that I think have stood out so far. Keep in mind that I haven't seen NEARLY all of the audition shows, so I haven't even heard all of the top 36 sing yet. But here's what I have so far:

Danny Gokey - he's just my favorite, all the way around

Lil Rounds

Kai Kalama

Matt Giraud - loved his rendition of "Georgia On My Mind" during Hollywood week

Michael Sarver - didn't think he did that great last night, but this is a guy who, if he doesn't make it through tonight, could be a good candidate for a wild card

Ricky Braddy - I hadn't heard him sing before last night, but I thought he had a really smooth voice. I hope he makes it through.

Alexis Grace - I thought she did well last night and I haven't heard her very much besides that.

OK, those are the people who have impressed me so far. As you can see, the girls need to step it up! LOL

My picks to go through tonight:
Danny Gokey
Alexis Grace
Ricky Braddy

I guess I'm blogging again!

the latest thing that made me laugh

2009-02-17T22:56:00.002-05:00

(Updates on the house to come later, I'm too lazy to go get the card out of my camera.)

So Brian called a little bit ago to say he was on his way home. Here's how the conversation went:

K: Hey. Are you on your way home?
B: Yes, and I've tried to call you 3 times and it's gone straight to voicemail.
K: (quietly) I was voting for Idol.
B: What?
K: I WAS VOTING!!!!
B: (dying laughing)
K: Shut up!
B: OK!
K: There's this awesome guy, I have liked him from the beginning, and I had to vote for him, but I haven't been able to get through yet!

:)

Danny Gokey rocks. I swore I wouldn't watch Idol this year because Dreadlocks Ladyface guy got WAY too far last year and we all know he can't sing a lick. It makes me so mad when they vote through people who can't sing! Anyway, I saw part of ONE audition show and Danny was on there. So I watched a little of Hollywood week just so I could see if he did well. Of course he did, so I had to watch him tonight. What a crazy show! I didn't really like any of the girls. But Danny was awesome. Stay tuned.

(If they start voting off the good singers, I'm never watching again!)

new floors

2009-02-12T12:17:00.006-05:00

It's a good thing that this blog is not recorded, because my voice sounds ridiculous. I have bronchitis and have been home sick for most of the week. Yuck. The best part is that there are workers in and out of my house while I'm trying to rest and heal. :P Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

However, the mold stuff is done and today the flooring people are here. Today is the day that I have felt the worst. I should be feeling better, right? But it's getting worse so I'm getting antibiotics today. I will have to venture out and go pick them up.

Anyway, as I said, the flooring people are here. They're making a mess and it smells weird and they're very loud, but I just went in to see how they were doing and this is what I found:

How gorgeous is that?! That's our bedroom! It's so beautiful I almost cried. I'm not one of those people who can picture how everything is going to look, so I was so surprised...it looks prettier than I ever even imagined. It even made me feel a little bit better.

Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done. Here's a nice shot of the den and dining room:

I will post more pictures as they finish more rooms.
___________________________________

OK, I'm adding more pictures - several hours later, here is the progress. Basically, my entire house is a mess again. *sigh* But I will have pretty floors! That's all that matters, right?

Here's the front hallway, the pad is partially down:
View from our master bath into our closet:
View from master bed into master bath (all the stuff from our closet is in there):
My office/scraproom, full of junk again:
Kitchen, with everything from the china cabinet and curio emptied out, along with other furniture and stuff:
The dining room, full of furniture earlier, now they moved it all into the den:

________________________________________
OK, here are a few more pictures. It's 6:00 now and they have been here since 9:00 this morning. These guys are GOOD! I just want them to finish a room so I can start putting things away!

The dining room:
View from the den:
View from the front door:

latest pictures

2009-02-04T16:50:00.010-05:00

The mold removal is almost done! (Well, as far as we know...there could still be some mold in the dining room, but there's still too much furniture in the way to check. I'm PRAYING there's none in there.) Today all the painters have been here: the guy we hired to paint the outside of the house, and two guys that the insurance/contracting company hired to re-paint the walls that were replaced. I think our bedroom is done, and they still have to do the kitchen, office, and piano room. Here's what it looks like today:

The kitchen (not great light in this picture, sorry):
The piano room (yes, the room I JUST painted a few weeks ago):
Our bedroom:
The office:
The huge mess that is still our main living area (this is seriously killing me):
You'll notice that the windows are covered. That's because of the painting that's being done on the outside, and here is how it looked when I got home from Kindermusik today:
You can see the different colors I painted on the front, LOL. Now the first coat is completely done. Tomorrow he'll do the second coat and the trim. Early next week the flooring people are coming to do the floors, and then I can spend the next several months putting everything back. :( It took one day to tear it all up, and it will take ages to put it all back.

And I just want complain about the drywall dust. The contractor said to me, "When we leave, there won't be a speck of dust." Well, he TOTALLY lied. When the light is on in the kitchen, you can SEE the dust all over everything in there. It hurts my heart! I am going to lose my mind! My house is always CLEAN, and can you see how it looks right now?! Ugh. This project can't get done soon enough.

OK, vent over. :)

Edited to add: I just ran out and snapped another picture of the outside - I LOVE the color!

Much different from what it was before (this picture was taken when we bought the house in August 2005):

the fungus that was among us

2009-02-02T14:09:00.002-05:00

I'm laying on the guest bed keeping the cats company, since they have to be locked up in here when the guys are working. They're here hanging drywall today. I am SO GLAD that things are moving along. I'm seriously about to go out of my mind with the house being like this.

Also, we're having the house painted, but it keeps raining, so today the painter came and covered the windows. It's weird not being able to see out. LOL Our house looks pretty funny right now - plastic taped over all the windows and three different colors of paint in sections on the front. (I was trying to decide what color to paint it.) It's raining or I would take a picture.

When I came back from class, it was Grand Central here. The drywall guys were here, truck blocking the driveway, the painter was here, van in the driveway, and just as I was pulling up, I noticed that the FedEx guy was here delivering my latest KM order. Everything always happens at once!

Anyway, that's the latest. I will update with more pictures soon.

the hazmat house

2009-01-27T22:49:00.006-05:00

Well, they found more mold, as I had suspected, in the piano room. Yes, that's the room that I just painted a few weeks ago. And they're going to have to check under the dining room window too...but right now all the furniture from the whole house is in there, so they can't check until all that is moved out.

Here's what the house looked like yesterday. Today they started putting up insulation and I'm assuming some drywall is going up tomorrow. Needless today, I've had more than enough and I'm ready to have my house back. But we still don't know when that will actually happen.

Here's my office/scraproom:

Here's the crazy zipper room that's set up inside our bedroom:
And our bedroom, behind the zipper:
And here's our lovely den, where all of our bedroom furniture is:

the mold patrol

2009-01-23T20:02:00.007-05:00

Just when I got the house all organized, the office painted and rearranged, and the closets cleaned out...we're tearing up the house again.

For a long time we've been smelling a funky smell in our house, in certain rooms. We finally narrowed it down to the worst of it being in the 3 rooms that water came in last August during Tropical Storm Fay. To make a long story short, we have mold in the walls. Yuck! Thankfully, the insurance is covering the mold removal, cleanup, and repairs. They are also paying to replace the carpet pad in the 2 rooms and the entire floor in the kitchen. (It's in our bedroom, my office, and the kitchen.)

So today, the mold patrol came to our house. They have put up zippered plastic in all the rooms (just like you would see on "24" or the movie "Outbreak.") And when they are actually removing the mold, they wear HAZMAT suits. It's nuts. So we're without access to those areas for a few days. They started this morning. Unfortunately for them, my office (scrapbook room) is packed full to the brim with all my crafty stuff. They had to pack it all up and move it all out. They are also going to have to move everything out of our bedroom.

Before they moved anything, they had to HEPA vacuum it and get rid of all the dust. But the kitchen is already mold free! Now they just have to replace the insulation, wood beams, drywall, and baseboard in there, and repaint it. They have to remove all of that stuff in all 3 rooms, 4 feet up from the floor. It's craziness! There are also these huge machines that vacuum the air and they have to run 24/7 - so we'll have that going all weekend!

Today, when I came home while they were still working, they told me that it was REALLY bad in the kitchen - there was black mold, green mold, and yellow mold. GROSS!! I'm SO GLAD it's gone - but I really can't wait to get it completely out of the house! I swear I can smell it in the office I just painted too, so they're going to check in here on Monday.

Here are some pictures. I must say, all this does not make me fond of Florida.

Here's the kitchen. Notice that we have no access to the laundry room, so to do laundry I have to go through the garage! Haha!
Here's what you see when you pull back the zipper:
And here's a nice up-close-and-personal behind the zipper:
Here is my quarantined office:
Here's how the den looks with all the office furniture moved in there (in real life the paint is not that bright yellow):
And here's the dining room. Yes, the cats are loving it! They've been climbing all over the place:

more pictures

2009-01-06T15:55:00.000-05:00

It's done! It's done! We still have some more things to put on the bookshelves, but the paint is done and the shelves are up and the piano is in place. Whew!

Here's the finished paint job:

Here's my car when I got home from Ikea:

And here's the finished product:

office space

2009-01-02T15:54:00.006-05:00

Well well well, I'm not dead after all!

I admit that I've been horrible about blogging AND reading blogs. But I thought I'd give you a quick glimpse into my project right now...it's the "What Miss Kerri does between Kindermusik semesters" project. haha. We're turning our piano room (AKA the room where we put all of our leftover junk that doesn't fit anywhere else) into Brian's office. It will also still serve as a piano room. :)

It had a little boy-ish baseball wallpaper border, which I tediously scraped off yesterday, and it has a chair rail; above the chair rail was dark tan and below is navy below. I have just finished painting the top half a nice aqua color! And after I shower I'm headed to Lowe's to get the teal paint for the bottom half. Anyway, this room had the piano and all my piano and Kindermusik stuff (that's a lot of stuff!), some of Brian's stuff on a tall bookshelf, a huge futon, and 2 file cabinets. Plus other odds and ends.

Brian is on a MAJOR deadline at work, but he got off at the normal time (7:00) on New Year's Eve and we worked ALL NIGHT taking everything out of there and moving it to various other places in the house, as you can see below. We also completely rearranged and organized the closet, and I will take a picture at some point. It makes me VERY happy!

(No, I haven't taken the Christmas stuff down yet...I just jumped right into this project; it's been on my mind for weeks! Plus I like the lights.)

In fact, we worked so much that night that we completely missed midnight and at about 12:30 Brian said, "Oh...happy new year!" That's the first time we haven't seen the ball drop since we've been married, I think! Oh well. Anyway, here you can see the beginning before I started painting, but after I had taken down the stubborn border (ugh!), repaired the wall with spackle, and started taping. Isn't it DARK in there?? I hate it!

When I went to bed last night, I was about halfway done with the upper half of the room, first coat only. I also had a ton of paint in my hair from where I carelessly leaned my head against the wall while working on the trim. *sigh* Anyway, it looked like this:
And today I have finally finished the entire upper half of the room, TWO coats, even! Here it is:

I don't guess you can see the color that well, but it sure is bright and cheery. I'm going to finish the bottom half tonight and then tomorrow I'm headed to Ikea to get the new bookshelves. Brian has to work tomorrow, and he had to work yesterday, too. :( But the good thing is, he gets to see the progress when he comes home at night (at 11:30) and he loves it! I'll keep you posted. And I'll also update you on Christmas sometime. Cheers!

the sink debacle

2008-11-02T18:40:00.004-05:00

All I wanted for my anniversary was a new kitchen sink. After all, the old one was boring and ugly, I could never make it look nice no matter how clean it was, and the faucet leaked. After much trial and tribulation (we bought one sink, it didn't fit right, so we bought another one, same thing again...) and paying the plumber for hours of work with nothing to show for it, we finally have our new sink. I ordered it Thursday morning from a place with a nearby warehouse, and it arrived Friday afternoon. I rushed over to pick it up and the plumber came on Saturday to put it in. Yay! So, without further ado...here's the old sink:
And here's the new sink still in the box with Sam testing it out:
And finally, our new sink:
Yay! I'm so happy with it! Happy anniversary to us. 8 years. Wow!

and...i'm up.

2008-10-28T02:09:00.002-05:00

Right now I'm so mad...I want to destroy something. It's after 3am and I'm STILL awake. What I want to know is this: why do I have insomnia on the nights before my BUSIEST days???? I'm going to need energy for tomorrow!!!! It makes me SO MAD!!!! Does anyone know of a good cure for insomnia? This is seriously affecting me this semester. And there's no reason I should be awake. Today was busy and I spent over 5 hours on my feet without sitting down once. AND I taught a class. And did a million other things!

What a great way to start our anniversary.

>:(

a great day

2008-10-25T20:50:00.011-05:00

I am blogging from my brand new adorable TINY laptop that I got today! It's so small, it's really hard to type on. I have to type slower than usual, but I think I'll eventually get used to it. It's the size of a portable DVD player! Insane. Here's a link: Eee PC

Brian also got a new 22" HD flatscreen monitor today - he's been wanting one forever and now that he's making games for the iPhone, he needs something bigger than his laptop to program on. He set up a temporary workspace in the kitchen tonight - we will be re-vamping the piano room after Christmas so he can have a workspace in there. When I came in to see what he was doing, here's what I found: How cute is that?! It was nice to put the dining room back together...he's had his workspace in there for awhile and it has gotten messy!

So we had a great day today. It's been awhile since we had a whole day with nothing on the agenda. I can't even remember when the last one was. Anyway, we stayed up late last night playing cards with Tim and Christi (girls won both rounds, yeah!) and after they left, we stayed up even longer, just getting things cleaned up and lounging around. We turned off the phones last night and slept VERY late this morning - it felt great! It has been nice just to be together.

Tomorrow we're going to Disney after church. We want to ride Everest - every time we go, the line is too long. But tomorrow we're just going to tough it out! Our anniversary is Tuesday, so it's perfect timing to have a non-stressful weekend together. :)

For our anniversary, we bought a new kitchen sink and faucet today. I cannot WAIT to have it installed - the plumber is coming on Wednesday to do it. Our sink now leaks - it's the faucet, it leaks all over behind the sink and we constantly have a puddle of water there. It drives me nuts. So I am really excited about my new sink!

Well, I want to get a little more work done before bed. Kindermusik is awesome and I will give an update on that soon. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

wow

2008-09-27T17:52:00.004-05:00

Oh my goodness, has it really been over a month since I've posted? Wow. September has been REALLY busy. I'm now working with the kids at our church, and I also agreed (apparently in a moment of weakness) to fill in for the church secretary for the month of September. Those two things along with Kindermusik and piano lessons have taken up more than all of my time. There have been many days when I've said to Brian, through tears, that there aren't enough hours in the day. I really don't know what I'd do without Brian - he's helped hold things together here on the homefront...cooking, cleaning, and overall just being my rock. :)

However, this month is almost over and once the secretary thing is off my plate I think I'll be ok. Never again. That's all I'm saying.

My cousin Chris got married last weekend to Gloria. We have loved Gloria from day one and we are more than thrilled that they are married! The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and I was honored to be a part of the ceremony - I got to sing in an awesome trio and I also played keyboard on a few songs. It was fabulous to have our old band together again!

Our Kindermusik semester is flying by...we're already halfway through! I can hardly believe it! My classes are just amazing - I love the kids so much and all the funny things they do and say. I'm teaching an "older" class (4 & 5 year olds) this semester and I'm just amazed at the musicality of the class. They can clap quarter notes and they say "shh" for quarter rests, and I'm so proud of them. I have more students than I ever dreamed I would have beginning my second year!

Brian is doing great. He's loving his job and he's happy that Apple is letting people make games for the iPhone and sell them on iTunes. He's been working on a few games for awhile and he hopes to put one of them up for sale on iTunes this weekend. He's got some cool stuff going on at work, so look for some major news soon!

That's about all. I'm just barely keeping my head above water - but today I've been working hard and feel like I can take a minute to post. I'd also like to say that I am really REALLY missing my friends from New York lately. I've been thinking about them ALL the time and I have been horrible at keeping in touch. So girls, if you're reading, I LOVE you guys and I MISS you!!!!

Did I mention the cooler weather? It makes me so happy! It still gets in the high 80s during the day, but the mornings and evenings are MUCH cooler. I love it. Bye for now...

things you never think you'll hear on the news

2008-08-21T22:46:00.003-05:00

"there are fish on the runway" (at the airport)

"be careful of standing water - there could be fish, alligators, or snakes in it"

"a fish just swam by me on the street"

"catfish are swimming up people's sidewalks"

We're ok. In our area, we've just had some heavy rains and just today we had some high winds. We feel fortunate that we weren't hit hard by Tropical Storm Fay. This afternoon I stood at my sliding glass door and watched as our neighbors' tent flew all around their yard - it nearly blew over the fence and into our yard three different times before it tore into several pieces!

It has not stopped raining all day. I rather like the rain, since it means the sun is not relentlessly beating down on us! But tonight we discovered some moisture around some of our windows. Yuck. The carpet in our bedroom is pretty damp under the window. We set up our dehumidifier, hoping to dry it out, but I'm worried about mold. Maybe we'll have to get new flooring! That wouldn't be so bad. (Except the part where it costs money!)

jump right in

2008-08-15T12:04:00.003-05:00

I have officially survived my first week of the semester. Boy, am I exhausted!

I decided that I would just jump right into my new routine with both feet. So I started a new exercise routine this week, too. I've been walking 3 nights a week with my wonderful friend Sarah, but the walking just doesn't seem to have the same effect that it used to have. So I decided to join a gym that has classes. I know that I will go to classes.

So on Monday, I taught one class and then did some work at home, then went to Pilates. It was HARD, but really fun!

Then Tuesday I could barely move, but I had a super busy day! I had 2 Kindermusik classes, then piano lessons until about 6:00. I cooked dinner, walked with Sarah, showered, and fell in bed.

Wednesday: 3 KM classes, more piano lessons, cooked dinner, worked on the computer, crawled to bed.

Thursday 3 KM classes, worked on the computer, sat down to eat lunch and fell asleep for about 30 minutes, more work, then did an open house at a preschool. Practically had to be carried to bed.

This morning, I got up and went to a Body Pump class at the gym. It was SO HARD but super fun. I went with a friend and she and I were both hanging onto the stair rail for dear life after class. It was SO hard to go down the stairs!!!! It was like one leg alone was too weak to hold me up! :)

Anyway, today I have more work to do and I need to figure out something for dinner. Tomorrow I have a class in the morning, Sunday is church...I'm feeling like I'm not going to have much free time this semester. Things will settle down, though...right?

pacing, calling, working

2008-08-04T11:53:00.003-05:00

It's that time when the Kindermusik schedule starts going crazy and I start having more thoughts than my brain can hold! It's exciting! I am SO THRILLED that my program is doing so well, words just can't express.

I pace when I'm on the phone. I walk all around the house, stop to pet the cats, and keep walking. By the time I'm off the phone I'm usually sweating. Does anyone else do this? I used to never do this! But I think it's because I WANT to multi-task, but it's hard to do that and concentrate on your conversation on the phone.

In other news, KINDERMUSIK. That's what's occupying my brain right now. Maybe something else will happen in my life once the schedule is finally set and the semester starts.

lm tag

2008-08-01T12:33:00.004-05:00

My favorite scrapbooking site, Lifetime Moments, has been down for most of the week. So my friend Melissa started a game of LM tag! Here's the list:

Mestebla
Melissa
Mandipig
Becca
Jen Kalyn
Kysha
Montana's Mom
Angie
Simply Susan
AnnaMarie
Arlyn
JenniB
Stephanie
Renee
Jen Bergeron
Wendy
Kate
Nichole
Shamrock

Go leave someone a comment! Or leave me one! And have a great day!

(I'm too busy working on the Kindermusik schedule (again!) to worry about blogging right now! Maybe later!) ;)

ing or een

2008-07-30T19:12:00.004-05:00

Since when did everyone become too lazy to properly pronounce the suffix ing? For the "ng" sound, the back of your tongue must lift toward your soft palate. Which is QUITE different than the "een" sound, during which the tip of your tongue comes right up behind your teeth. Seriously. I'm SO SICK of hearing people say things like "workeen" or "playeen"!!!! Are you REALLY that lazy? Too lazy to pronounce ing???? What really gets me is when people say "singeen" - like they are not too lazy to pronounce the first ing, but they just can't bring themselves to do it twice.

I probably shouldn't have gotten on this subject, because now I'm thinking of 4 million other commonly mispronounced words. And don't even get me started on spelling.

I think that in my old age I'm becoming less patient with things like this. Of course, I don't say it to the person, I just vent to Brian or my brother or dad, because they understand, sympathize, and agree. :)

So. I have about a week and a half until fall semester starts. Kindermusik is crazy as ever. My classroom is in the middle of being remodeled, so we're going to be in another room for awhile, which is ok. I can't wait to get back in MY room. I need to go to Ikea and find some fun things to put in there. Right now I'm working really hard on getting my classes filled and studying the curricula. I'm also trying to work ahead on my weekly emails, newsletters, and etc. It's exciting, fun, and exhausting!

That's all for now. I have to study. I actually just spent about 30 minutes playing through some old piano pieces I played in high school and middle school. It was fun. I should play more often! OK, off to study! More updates later. ;)

how boring am i?

2008-07-26T15:11:00.001-05:00

I do have stuff to write. I'm not in a funk from my birthday. (I was, but it only lasted for like 2 days.) I have things to say. What I don't have is time! I will write more soon, I promise!

stop this train

2008-06-29T22:15:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm turning 35 tomorrow. I have a quiet day planned; I'm finished preparing for my lessons for Tuesday except that I need to take some things over to the classroom. I also need to run to Lowe's. Other than that, the house is clean and I'm planning to scrap the day away. Brian is in charge of dinner - we haven't decided if he's cooking or if we're going out. Not an exciting birthday, but a pretty good one in my book.

And I can't quite articulate my feelings about this birthday. I'm not really sad or worried...I'm reflective. Lately, I can't get enough of John Mayer's "Continuum," so I'll let this song explain it for me:

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in, I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train

Don't know how else to say it
Don't wanna see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in, I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said, "Help me understand."
He said, "Turn sixty-eight,
You renegotiate...

Don't stop this train, don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand, I tried my hand,
So honestly, we'll never stop this train."

Once in awhile when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around,
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark,

Singing stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in, I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

vacation pictures

2008-06-28T23:22:00.007-05:00

I am aware that it's still my birthday month. I have things to say, but I'm trying to put them into words.

Jesus Christ, Superstar was awesome!! Corey Glover, who used to be the lead singer of Living Colour, a cool band from the late 80s/early 90s, played the character of Judas. He was amazing! I'm so glad we got to see this play!! I love the music, too! I recommend seeing it if you have the chance.

OK, here are some pictures from vacation.
This is Sofiya, the one-month-old leopard we got to see! Can you believe it?!!
This bear loved peeking at us from his pool.
Brad & Kari on the top level of Busch Stadium.
Brian's first Major League game!
Many things were explained.
Mandi & I at the arch.
Brian in the top of the arch. A conversation between Brian and I at the top of the arch:
Brian - I can feel it moving.
Me - Yeah, it has to move a little or it would just fall right over!
Brian - Let's not use the words "fall right over!"

Mandi & Brad in the arch.
In Tennessee, Mama Taylor took us out to see her corn.
Brian at the World of Coca Cola Museum in Atlanta.

2500 miles

2008-06-21T17:12:00.002-05:00

We're back from vacation. We're tired and overwhelmed with real life, trying to get back into the swing of things. We got home Thursday night and spent part of yesterday recuperating and the other part cleaning my new temporary Kindermusik classroom. We cleaned more today and moved things in, and we'll clean more tomorrow - we have to shampoo the carpet.

All in all, we drove right around 2500 miles on our vacation. We left here and drove straight through to St. Louis, where we met up with my friend Mandi and her family and spent a day at the zoo - in the rain, no less. Then Brad & Kari came and we all ate at the Spaghetti Factory (yum!) and then Brad, Kari, Brian, and I went to a Cardinals game. It was Brian's first MLB game, and sadly, the Cards got stomped by the Phillies. The score was 20-2, pretty ridiculous. The next day we all went to the arch together, including Mandi and her husband Brad. Yes, we had Mandi and Brad, Kari and Brad, and Kerri and Brian. :) After the arch we went shopping, and then Brad and Kari went home and we went to church with Brad & Mandi the next day, Mandi & I played a piano duet (fun!), and we went out to eat. Then we took off to see my grandmother in Tennessee and finished our trip in Atlanta. Whew. It was a whirlwind.

Did I mention that Mandi and I met on Lifetime Moments? :) I will write more about vacation later and share pictures.

Tonight we're going to see Jesus Christ, Superstar. Brian is taking me for an early birthday present. Life is busy and wonderful.

happy june!

2008-06-01T19:26:00.005-05:00

June is my birthday month and I have lots of thoughts about that. But they are for another day.

I've been scrapping this weekend! It's the big kickoff of Summer Scrapfest at Lifetime Moments!! I love Scrapfest - it always motivates me to get lots of stuff done. So I was scrapping on Saturday and got up from my desk for just a minute, and when I came back, I found this:
Come on! How am I supposed to scrap?! =^..^=

Anyway, here are some of the projects I did over the weekend. Enjoy.

a HUGE waste of time

2008-05-26T10:42:00.003-05:00

Last night, Brian and I watched Cloverfield. It is truly unfortunate that I will never get that hour and a half of my life back. I like most movies, but this one was simply ridiculous. There was no point!! Let me warn you of possible spoilers now (I'm SO rolling my eyes) - but here's the plot: a monster attacks Manhattan. That's it!! They didn't bother with details such as where the monster came from, if it was ever destroyed, what happened to Manhattan, etc. It was just this attack and then the movie ended. My opinion: don't waste your time.

the lost has been found

2008-05-24T00:27:00.000-05:00

That's right, I'm back. It has been so long that I have dreaded the thought of trying to remember everything we've done over the past month or so! I will try to give an adequate update, starting with this past weekend.

On Friday we headed out around lunchtime for Tampa. We visited the Big Cat Rescue and took an awesome tour! It was one of the neatest things we've done in a long time. Below are several pictures that we took of the cats. I was just fascinated, despite the heat. They were so adorable and you could tell many of them were pretty hot, too. One tiger named T.J. even got in his pool to show off for us. It was fabulous!!

After the tour, we went on to St. Petersburg where we spent the rest of the weekend. We stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast, Inn at the Bay. It was luxurious and relaxing. We spent the weekend doing a whole lot of nothing, and boy did we need that! We've both been working so much and we needed to unwind and recharge. Saturday Brian surprised me with a couples massage that he had arranged earlier. It was heavenly! Sunday afternoon we came home and then met some friends for dinner and a movie, Prince Caspian. It was great! All in all, it was a spectacular weekend.

Some other rather large news is that I resigned from my church. Yes, folks, we are now undergoing the great church search. Although we LOVED Winter Haven and really felt at home there, with gas prices climbing, the hour-one-way drive was getting pretty old. Not to mention that we were gone 7-8 hours every Sunday, meaning that Sunday had turned into another work day. April 27 was my last Sunday and I greatly miss my boys in the band. I'm hoping to still be able to play with them on occasion.

Let's see...my cousin Chris got engaged to his fabulous and amazing girlfriend, Gloria. We love her and we cannot wait for her to be part of the family!! We haven't seen them since they've been engaged, but we hope to get together with them soon for dinner. Maybe we'll try out their church. :)

The first weekend of May we went to Ft. Myers to see my grandparents. They have since gone back to KY, so we were at least able to get in a quick visit before they left. I don't know what I can really publicly say about the visit - I guess I'll say that senility is a very sad thing. Nan and Pops aren't who they used to be. :(

My Kindermusik semester has ended and I have a few weeks off. Summer camps start near the end of June and I already miss the kids, so I'm looking forward to that. The church is renovating my room and I'm SUPER excited about it! Stay tuned for pictures of the demolition and remodeling.

I have 2 days left at the Montessori school and I've already informed them that I won't be back next year. I really enjoyed the people there and the kids too, but my life has just gotten too busy. Health and exercise have taken a back burner and I promised myself I wouldn't let that happen again. I don't want to gain my weight back or let my life get out of control again. So now I only have ONE job, Kindermusik, and I'll be able to focus on my own studio and still have the time and energy to eat well and exercise.

Let's see. I think that's just about all. I'm sure there are more things to tell you about, but I can't think of them right now and I just want to get a post done so you'll all know that we're still alive down here! So, more later.

AND - YAY! DAVID COOK WON! :D

OK, here are the cat pictures. Amazing. I'm ready to go back.

idol yawns

2008-04-09T19:11:00.005-05:00

I don't know what's up with Idol this year. First of all, I'm just not as into it as I usually am. Second of all, last night was really weird!! The best singers did just ok, and the bad singers did pretty well (for them). I still think that Kristi Lee Cook (aka Country Bumpkin) needs to go home, as well as Jason Castro (aka Ladyface Travolta, because we think he has a ladyface and looks like the daughter of John Travolta. Plus, I HATE his hair, SO gross!)

I love Carly, Michael, and the Davids. I also totally love Syesha and I thought she ROCKED last night. I couldn't understand why the judges gave her bad comments and said she didn't emote - I was nearly in tears at the end of her song! And they thought Jason Castro was so great? Is it because he screwed up his face and closed his eyes when he said, "Bluebirds fly?" I don't get it.

Also, while I'm talking about shows...I'm totally into The Biggest Loser Couples. I was just watching last night's show and my jaw totally dropped and I nearly died when both girls were above the yellow line!! Go, girls!! I am thrilled. I cannot believe how much the brothers (Mark and Jay) have cried this season! Especially Mark - he has provided so many waterworks!! It's actually kinda funny. He just cries all the time. I'm really anxious to see who wins this year, I'd LOVE for it to be one of the girls!!

I'm gearing up for Kindermusik summer camps - it's going to be fun. People are really excited about it and so am I! I absolutely love teaching Kindermusik. I feel so lucky!

i saw one of the dinosaurs spitting

2008-04-04T23:02:00.002-05:00

OK. We went to Disney Quest last Friday for Brian's birthday. It was a great time! We got to do some really fun Virtual Reality stuff. We were just about to get on the Jungle River ride when i saw that the rafts were actually a little wet - I said to Brian, "There's water. We might get wet on this one." Brian's reply was, "I saw one of the dinosaurs spitting." ROFL!!!! This struck me as so funny! He was right - one of the dinosaurs spit right on me. It was hilarious.

All in all, I'm glad we did Disney Quest, but I don't feel like I need to go back anytime soon! It was REALLY loud in there. Luckily, it was at Downtown Disney, so we took a break in the middle and went and saw a movie - "21." It was REALLY good!

Saturday morning we got up at the break of dawn to get to our Segway tour at Epcot. I wasn't feeling the best, but I was still really excited to go. We had an ABSOLUTE BLAST on the Segways!! I would recommend the tour to anyone - it was fabulous! We learned how to ride them at Innoventions and went through some obstacle courses, and then we went off into the countries. It was amazing!! We didn't want to get off the Segways when the tour was over. We LOVED it.

After we finished the tour, we rode Soarin' and then left. By that time, I felt REALLY bad. We went to the walk-in clinic at Walgreens. I had a FEVER!! And I had a lot of pressure on my ears and a really irritated throat. To make a long story short, I spent my whole spring break sick in bed. :( Here it is Friday, the last day of spring break, and I'm JUST now feeling better.

Anyway, hope this finds you all well. Enjoy these pictures of us on our Segways! I'll write more soon!

happy birthday, brian!

2008-03-27T20:27:00.002-05:00

Today my sweet husband turned 34. He had a great day at work, went out to lunch and had Mexican, and tonight I made lasagna in the crockpot (lowfat, of course) and we had strawberry cheesecake parfaits for dessert (fat free, sugar free). Yum! He's taking the day off from work tomorrow and we're going to Disney Quest. Games all day - fun for B! And then on Saturday comes my gift to him - we're going to learn how to ride Segways and then we're taking a tour all around Epcot - the Around the World Segway tour. It's going to be SO much fun! We are SUPER excited!

In other news, we FINALLY moved back into our bedroom. It is SO NICE to sleep in there again! The bathroom is done, all except the glass shower enclosure. I don't know when we'll get that done - at this point, I'm SO OVER having workers in and out of our house, we may NEVER get the glass done. So, we have new tile in the shower and around the tub, new tile on the floor, 2 new sinks, a new toilet, and new fixtures in the shower, on the tub, and on both sinks. I know I keep saying that I will post pictures, and I promise I will. Whenever I have time.

Kindermusik is going great - next week is Spring Break and I will be happy for the break. Although, I will be visiting a Mommy and Me group to talk about Kindermusik and do a demo class. I also hope to help my friend Christi get unpacked in their new house, I'm having lunch with a friend on Thursday, and I need to go to the dentist and probably some other doctors too - dermatologist, etc. So, part of my week is planned, and I also hope to organize and clean out a little in the piano room and maybe the guest room - I'd love to get some things listed on eBay! We have so many things to sell. Oh, and we're having date night with another friend and her husband, which will be fun! Plus, I want to wash the windows and do some other spring cleaning. It will be a busy week!

Anyway, pics coming soon of the bathroom and also of Brian's crazy fun birthday weekend! Cheers!

murphy lives here

2008-03-20T21:15:00.001-05:00

Well, the bathroom STILL isn't done. *sigh* It's been over 2 months and we are sick and tired of sleeping in the dining room! Our clothes are hanging on all the doorknobs, the laundry, furniture, our shoes, etc. are in the guest room (along with the litter box, yuck). My makeup mirror is in the office, our dresser is in the piano room, and on and on. We just need our bedroom/bathroom back!!

What has happened is that we've had a 4-day job that has turned into a 2.5 month job. It's because our tile guy doesn't bother to show up when he says he's going to. And when he DOES show up, he wants to talk to us or talk on his cell phone instead of working. However, the tile is FINALLY done and he's coming tomorrow (I'll believe it when I see it) to do the final details - touch ups on the grout, etc. The plumber is coming on Saturday to finish putting the shower fixtures on - that has turned into a big mess with things fitting, etc. I won't even go into all the things that haven't fit, worked, etc. It has been a nightmare! And tomorrow morning a guy is coming to fix our tub where the tile guy dropped tiles or something and made FIVE nicks in the tub. Our nice, beautiful Roman tub!! >:(

I'm REALLY hoping to move our bed back in this weekend, but the plumber is going to have to cut into the drywall to install the shower fixtures. Which means then we're going to have to patch the drywall. Ugh! So I don't want to move the bed and furniture back in until that's fixed, because I hate drywall dust and I don't want to have to clean it off of all the furniture! Y'all pray for us that we can get our bedroom back soon. Of course the mold problem has turned into a nearly complete bathroom remodel with all new tile, a new floor, a new toilet, new sinks, and new fixtures on the shower, tub, and sinks. Whew!

That's just about all that going on with us right now! This project is taking over our lives! However, Brian's birthday is next week and I have something VERY FUN planned for him!! He's taking Friday off and we're going to Disney Quest for the day. Then on Saturday morning, I have something REALLY exciting planned but it's a surprise so I can't blog about it yet. But I will share pictures afterward!

I will also post pictures of our bathroom very soon!

quick menu

2008-03-07T15:24:00.002-05:00

I know it's Friday, but I'm doing MPM anyway. LOL I'm going to the store TODAY. Here's the menu for this coming week. This week's menu went down the drain - Brian had to work late every night. However, I am making chicken casserole tonight. :)

Monday - leftover Milligatawny soup (making it tomorrow)
Tuesday - peanut crusted fish, veggies
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian's night to cook
Friday - BBQ chicken, veggies

i don't think...

2008-03-05T21:30:00.003-05:00

...that anyone reads this blog anymore.

Anyway, for those out there who care, I'll tell you my favorite Idol performances this week. They are, in no particular order:

Michael Johns
Carly Smithson
David Cook
Amanda Overmyer
Syesha Mercado

Now, those are just for THIS week. I'll tell you who my top picks are (in no order):

David Archuleta
Carly Smithson
Michael Johns
David Hernandez
Syesha Mercado

a day of good news

2008-03-03T17:15:00.002-05:00

Today has been a great day in our household!! First of all, this morning we paid off my car!! YAY!!!! We now have no car payments. In fact, we have no debt except for the house! We got our tax return on Friday and we were able to save part of it, put part away for a trip to Hawaii next year, use part of it for our bathroom (which is now getting close to a full remodel), and pay off my car. We are SO excited and happy!

Also, today we welcomed into the world our brand new nephew, Jason Luke. Welcome, little Luke, and congrats to Brian's brother Jason and his wife Angela! :D We are a proud aunt and uncle (for the fourth time!)

All in all, things are going well for us. The new tile in our bathroom is looking really pretty. I'm excited to get it all done! OK, I have to go and try to learn how to play the guitar. I have to teach my 4-6th graders guitar! :P

new favorite page

2008-03-02T21:36:00.007-05:00

I went to a crop today with a friend and had lots of fun! Of course, I only got one page done. I put the finishing touches on when I got home, but it's turned out to be my new favorite page! Here it is: Of course, there is a lot for me to update, but I just haven't really had time. Our shower is finally underway - the tile is in the shower but still needs to be done on the walls around the tub. Then the floor will be done and we also have to get the glass enclosure. Still lots to do, but it's progressing. I'll post pictures soon.

PS - This week's menu:
Monday - BBQ chicken, veggies
Tuesday - peanut crusted fish, veggies
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian cooks, chicken biscuits (?)
Friday - chicken casserole

mpm again

2008-02-23T19:31:00.002-05:00

Totally slacked last week, so here we go:

Monday - spaghetti w/ turkey sauce
Tuesday - eat out w/ Aunt Linda & Uncle Gene
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian cooks - stir fry
Friday - take out - Olive Garden minestrone

me...a runner?

2008-02-22T12:43:00.004-05:00

Remember the days when I would talk incessantly about my weight loss? Well, I've been maintaining that loss for about a year and a half now, and I'm about ready to try and lose the last 20 lbs. I need something NEW to do...and over the last month, as I've been walking (occasionally), I've noticed that I can run for 3-4 minutes at a time. I've NEVER been able to do that before.

So, after talking to one of my Kindermusik moms, I've decided that I'm going to try running. I'm going to do this program called Couch to 5K. And I'm starting today. It doesn't look too horribly hard...but we'll see about that now, won't we? Wish me luck!

*Edited to add: OK, I did it. 5 minute brisk walk for a warm-up, then alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes. Sound easy? Try it - it's SO not easy! After the 3rd time running, I thought, "I'm going to die." After the 4th time, I thought, "Now it's worse." And then it got SLIGHTLY easier. I ended with a 5 minute brisk walk cool down for a total of 30 minutes. And I feel great - now, let's make this a habit!*

julie, this is for you

2008-02-18T11:02:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, my wonderful friends Rob & Julie came to Orlando for Children's Pastors Conference. I used to work with them at Brentwood-Benson. Anyway, this is the third year in a row that I met them for dinner when they were here! It's always such a fun, enjoyable time, and I love catching up on all the gossip from the office. Here we are this year:

And here we are last year (check out Rob! He's lost 104 pounds!):

And here we are the year before(2006):

Let's see. I still need to update about Valentine's Day and stuff like that, but for now, I'll leave you with a few scrapbook projects! I've been a fiend lately! Have a great week, everyone.

mpm; shower update

2008-02-09T18:26:00.001-05:00

Real quick, just planning the menu for this week.

Monday - coconut chicken
Tuesday - veggies, mac & cheese
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Valentine's Day - roast w/ red potatoes & carrots
Friday - veggie soup from leftover roast

In other news, our shower is finally coming along. We're still sleeping in the dining room and stuff is still all over the house. But this morning, we got the new shower floor put in. It's a pre-fab floor, so no more tiles leaking!! Monday evening the tile guy is coming over to do the tile. He's also going to do ceramic tile on the bathroom floor - I'm SO thrilled about that!! I will update with a picture soon. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

the mold

2008-02-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

OK, here are the pictures of what took place in our bedroom/bathroom on Saturday. The mold was behind the tiles in the shower. It was also all over the liner of the shower pan (the orange plastic you see in the pictures). We are getting a whole new shower! Yay!

Here's a picture from our bedroom side - we cut some holes in the drywall first to see if there was mold in there. There wasn't, thankfully. You can see all the way through to the shower here.

As soon as we took off the first tile, we found the mold. See how the bottom is black? You can also see how wet it was behind the tile. AND - we hadn't turned the water on in this shower for 2 weeks!! It was still that wet! Gross!

Here's when we got a bunch of the tiles off the wall. You can see the orange liner and how moldy it is on the bottom. Water was just sitting in there. It came through a tiny hole in the grout. (I think there was more than one hole!)

Aaahhhhhhh, our shower in pieces. Gotta love it!

Brian shows off the mold.

Eventually, the glass door and glass walls had to come out, along with the entire shower frame. Apparently, there was a ton of gross water inside part of the shower frame. Yuck!! Our new shower is going to be so wonderful! :-)

We are SO grateful to our wonderful friend Pete for all his help! We would not have been able to do this without him. I can't even tell you how much money he is saving us! Thanks, Pete! :-)

In other news, the cats are rather enjoying the bed being in the dining room:

And Sam is loving the dresser drawers on the guest bed:

Yep, nearly everything in the house is displaced right now, but - I'm sure we'll survive. Somehow! Ha!

man, i need to update

2008-02-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry, this is all I have time for right now! :P

Monday - Italian stuffed shells (Dream Dinners)
Tuesday - chicken tacos
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian's night to cook, Boca Burgers
Friday - leftovers (chili and or chicken tacos)

The mold project is underway. Our bedroom and master bath are a complete mess. The stuff that goes in those rooms is displaced in all different places in the house. I have pictures...I will try to upload them soon. It's really yucky!

Instead of in the drywall, the mold was behind the shower tiles, and so we have torn apart the shower. The door and window of the shower are out in the yard - there was mold all inside the metal casings and everywhere. Truly disgusting. We are getting a new shower. I will explain more later - but thankfully, the mold was not on the wood in the walls. Yay!

Off to bed. I have an early day tomorrow! I promise to update with more than menus very soon!

it's that time again

2008-01-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

Gotta write down the menu somewhere, might as well be here!

Monday - coconut chicken (Dream Dinners)
Tuesday - spaghetti casserole (Weight Watchers)
Wednesday - game night, no cooking
Thursday - Brian's night to cook, chicken tacos
Friday - turkey chili

check out my boy

2008-01-25T15:28:00.000-05:00

Y'all have heard me talk about Marc Broussard - well, check out this video/commercial he shot to promote the NBA All Star Game:

oh my darlin'

2008-01-23T16:37:00.001-05:00

I cannot get enough clementines! Seriously, today I've already had 6 of them! And I'll probably have a few more before bed. They are SOOOOOOO delicious! Let me be clear here: I'm totally lazy when it comes to fruit. I'm hungry for fruit, I want to eat it right now. I don't want to have to take a bunch of time to peel it. Well, these are so easy to peel, it takes me about 15-20 seconds to peel the whole thing! It's like the skin is loose! And...they're SEEDLESS! What more could you possibly want??!!

I don't have much of an update on the mold situation. I can tell you that we've moved out of our bedroom and now our bed is in the dining room. The dining room has taken up residence in the kitchen, and our whole house just feels weird right now! We did find out that we only have mold in one wall (we think) - and it's not in the wall between the shower and the tub. So at least the tub won't have to be taken out. I'll keep you posted. Here's our bed - you can see that there's a half wall separating the den and the dining room. It's weird to sleep out in the open! (Excuse Max's demon eyes, I don't know why that happens):

a downside of living in florida

2008-01-20T18:47:00.000-05:00

It seems that we have mold and/or mildew in the wall behind our shower. I am SO upset - if we do, we're going to have to tear down the wall and clean it out, and maybe tear out the shower too. I don't even want to talk about it. I'll keep you posted. We'll know more tomorrow morning, hopefully. This stupid state is made of mold. :-(

OK, on to other things: Menu Plan Monday.

Monday - day off - leftover minestrone - yum!
Tuesday - coconut chicken (Dream Dinners)
Wednesday - B's game night, no cooking
Thursday - turkey chili
Friday - out with friends

12 of 12, mpm, and other stuff

2008-01-13T20:27:00.000-05:00

I did it! I did 12 of 12 yesterday! 12 of 12 is this cool thing my friend Susan does on her blog, and I've decided to try it. The idea belongs to Chad, who is someone Susan knows. Anyway, you take 12 pictures on the 12th of the month and it just documents your day. So - this is my first ever 12 of 12! Here goes:

So yesterday, my wonderful friend John, who used to play in our band at church, got married! B and I headed to Lakeland for the wedding. Here I am driving. Notice my sleeveless dress - it was in the 80s yesterday!

Um, yeah - I totally left my camera in the car, so I don't have any pictures of the wedding. Well, John and Joy might not want their picture all over my blog anyway! But I did want to get a picture of me in my new dress, but by the time we got home I forgot about the picture - I just wanted to get out of my dressy clothes!

Anyway, after the wedding, we headed over to Violette's, my not-so-local scrapbook store. I had gotten the Classic Metro QK alphabet for Christmas (thanks, Mom & Dad!) but when I opened it up, the wrong alpha was in there! So I had to go exchange it.

Brian drove home and I studied for my upcoming Kindermusik classes. Mainly I was learning some new songs. Brian had the pleasure of me singing many kids songs a cappella in the car! :-) So goes the life of a KM teacher. We're always singing!

When we got home, I had to cut out my laminating - I had laminated all the lyric sheets for this semester and I felt like I had to get SOME work done yesterday. As you can see, I had a little "help" from the cats...they LOVE the laminated posters! They're slick, so the cats run and jump on them and slide across the family room!

I'm embarrassed to show you this next picture, because our Christmas tree is still up. *sigh* I swear we're taking it down tomorrow night! I was sick all last week and running around like crazy this past week trying to make up for it. Thus, all the decorations are down, but we still hafta take down the trees. Anyway, this gives you a good view of our family room with all the boxes - my Kindermusik materials came in this week and I got them all separated on Friday night. (We took them to my classroom today, so the family room is clean-ish now.)

We were home for about 45 minutes and then we left to go to Tim & Christy's house to play cards. On the way we stopped and picked up dinner at Urban Flats.

Here are the flatbreads we had for dinner - yummy!

And the card playing commenced...

When we got home, I had to take a picture of B because he was wearing his sexy jeans. Doesn't he look hot??!!

Before bed I had to do a "killer" Sudoku (also called "sum" Sudoku) - these are my favorite!

As soon as we start un-making the bed, Sam runs and gets up there - he CAN'T WAIT for us to get in bed with him!

So, that's a Saturday-in-the-life-of-us. Pretty exciting, huh? LOL!

In other news, let's talk about MPM (Menu Plan Monday). I have to admit, today when I was preparing for this coming week, it was nice to plan out my meals and know what we're having for dinner. Then, my wonderful husband went to the store while I did even more Kindermusik preparation, and he bought what we needed for our menu and for snacks, etc. So without further ado, here's our oh-so-exciting menu for this week:

Monday - veggie soup (leftover)
Tuesday - peanut crusted fish
Wednesday - B's game night, so I won't be cooking. I'll probably have PB&J.
Thursday - B's night to cook (I teach evening classes) - pasta with grape tomatoes, basil, and parmesan
Friday - minestrone (here is my recipe, it's YUMMY!)

That's it for now, except........I worked all afternoon today after church, got a TON of stuff done, but tonight I actually carved out the time to scrap a page. Here ya go. Good night!

mpm and other updates

2008-01-08T23:04:00.000-05:00

Well! Another year has come and gone, and here we are in 2008. Amazing! I managed to gain a few pounds over the holidays, so now it's back to being strict with eating healthy.

Speaking of the holidays, ours were great. We spent some fab time with our families and got lots of fun presents, and I worked lots of Sudokus and Brian played lots of Wii. ;-) We got to see our niece and nephews, and that's always a high point. I helped make a gingerbread house with Brian's mom and Emma - I had never done that before, and it was so fun! I will post pictures eventually, when I can get my act together.

Our trip home from KY took 18.5 hours! We both nearly killed each other, the traffic was so horrid!! And it was pouring rain, and we thought we'd NEVER get home. We've never been so happy to be home! And then, I promptly got sick on New Year's Day. :-( It was just a cold or sinus infection, but I could not believe the amount of snot. (Sorry if that grosses anyone out!) It's really weird to be sick when it's 80 degrees outside! So I wasted a whole week laying around on the couch. I'm FINALLY human again, but still blowing my nose quite a bit!

OK, that's enough complaining! This week I have a few makeup classes to teach and I'm desperately trying to get ahead in studying and preparing for classes. Tomorrow I really need to finalize my schedule, which will mean several emails and phone calls. But...it has to be done. I miss the kids and can't wait for classes to start next week!

So. I've decided to start doing Menu Plan Monday. Dream Dinners has closed, much to our dismay, so I have to start being creative again with our meals. And healthy, too. It's Tuesday though, so I'm late with my menu for this week, but I'll go ahead and post it anyway...and then next Monday I'll be on time for my first real posting.

Monday - Boca Burgers (Brian worked late)
Tuesday - pot roast/carrots/red potatoes
Wednesday - veggie-beef soup made from leftover pot roast
Thursday - Aloha Chicken Kebabs (DD cookbook)
Friday - Pita Pizzas (DD cookbook)

I got Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious cookbook for Christmas, so I'm going to try some of the recipes from that this week! OK, I'm headed to bed now. I'll post recipes and pictures later. Happy New Year, everyone!

fall reading thing wrap-up

2008-01-02T15:21:00.001-05:00

Well, I ended up reading almost all the books on my list, with a few minor changes to include books that were more readily available at the library. Here's my list:

1. Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
3. Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
4. While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
5. The Note - Angela Hunt
6. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
7. Finding Noel - Richard Paul Evans
8. Still Summer - Jacquelyn Mitchard
9. Iced - Carol Higgins Clark
10. The Gift - Richard Paul Evans
11. Getting Rid of Matthew - Jane Fallon
12. Best Kept Secrets - Sandra Brown
13. Queen of Babble in the Big City - Meg Cabot
14. Running from the Law - Lisa Scottoline
15. The Quickie - James Patterson
16. Second Chance - Jane Green
17. Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea - Mary Higgins Clark
18. Miss Julia Strikes Back - Ann B. Ross
19. Peace Like a River - Leif Enger
20. The Grilling Season - Diane Mott Davidson
21. Prime Cut - Diane Mott Davidson
22. Home to Holly Springs - Jan Karon

So, I read 21 books during the fall and I'm proud of it! I read 72 books during 2007. And now I have so much to do I don't have much time for reading, but once the semester gets going, you'll find me curled up somewhere with a book. :-)

15 minutes of fame

2007-12-17T09:26:00.000-05:00

Hey, check out this story about my dad on the front page of their paper!

In other news, it's 39 degrees here in sunny Florida! I LOVE IT! Maybe I can actually wear jeans today! Bring on winter!

While I'm at it, here's Braden's 15 minutes of fame:

This one is from Christmas 2005

And this one is just a few weeks ago

newest quickutz project

2007-12-16T19:36:00.000-05:00

Today was my Quickutz meeting at Violette's. We went to church and did our thing, then had a quick lunch and headed over to the scrapbook store, where Brian sat next to me and played on his computer while I made this cute project:

It was a lot of fun to make! The projects we do in the Quickutz club are awesome. This was only my second meeting and I totally love it! This store is one of the best scrapbook stores I've ever been to. It's just really big, decorated all cute, and set up in a great way. The staff is friendly and they always have food and drinks!

So now I'm in a scrappy mood and I'm going to work on my handmade gifts for Christmas. I have a lot to do still!

feeling festive

2007-12-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

The coffee is brewing and I'm just taking a few minutes to say hello before we start our annual Christmas-treat-making!! We have set aside today to make food gifts. We'll be making our White Chocolate Mix, Hot Cocoa Mix, potato candy, and maybe some Peppermint bark. I think that's all, but Brian might come up with something else!!

Hopefully we'll get some gifts wrapped too! Our guest bed is full of unwrapped gifts. My shopping is DONE, hallelujah! Thank goodness for online shopping! I only made ONE trip to the mall! I do have a few more handmade gifts to finish up, and I hope to get those done today and Monday.

My house is decorated, my Christmas cards are sent out. We just did a picture card this year. This is the first time in years I haven't made my own cards, but we've just been so horribly busy!! So, I apologize to you all - I didn't even have time to write notes to everyone. I've been really bad about keeping in touch lately. I hope to do better in the new year!

OK, I'm off to make a grocery list so we can make our goodies. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

reading update

2007-12-03T21:46:00.000-05:00

OK, here's another update on my "fall into reading" project. I'm saving some of these books for B and I to listen to on our long Christmas trip!

1. Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
3. Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
4. While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
5. The Note - Angela Hunt
6. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
7. Finding Noel - Richard Paul Evans
8. Still Summer - Jacquelyn Mitchard
9. Iced - Carol Higgins Clark
10. The Gift - Richard Paul Evans
11. Getting Rid of Matthew - Jane Fallon
12. Best Kept Secrets - Sandra Brown
13. Queen of Babble in the Big City - Meg Cabot
14. Running from the Law - Lisa Scottoline
15. The Quickie - James Patterson
16. Second Chance - Jane Green
17. Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea - Mary Higgins Clark
18. Miss Julia Strikes Back - Ann B. Ross
19. Peace Like a River - Leif Enger
20. The Grilling Season - Diane Mott Davidson
21. Prime Cut - Diane Mott Davidson
22. Home to Holly Springs - Jan Karon

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

thankful for family

2007-11-28T14:03:00.000-05:00

Well, the fam has come and gone and we had a WONDERFUL time! It was so great to be with everyone, especially Braden!! He is an absolute delight and he's just SO FUNNY! I thought I should share some pictures of our Thanksgiving week. Our first stop of the day was Magic Kingdom:
Braden on the Monorail with Papa, Daddy, and Aunt Sis

Braden playing trains on Aunt Sis' face while waiting for the ferry boat

Braden and Papa got to sing with the Dapper Dans on Main Street! (Shameless plug: some of the Dapper Dans are going to be featured on Papa's Barbershop Chorus Christmas Show in Ashland, KY on December 15! Don't miss it!)

Braden on the train with Papa and JoJo (and some people we don't know in the background!)

Braden and Daddy driving the cars at the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway!

Braden with his first ever Mickey popsicle!

Braden in line for "It's a Small World" with Uncle Brian & Aunt Sis

Braden riding "It's a Small World" with Mommy & Daddy

Our second stop of the day was Animal Kingdom. We rushed right in to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari! We saw lots of cool animals! (I won't share all of the animal pictures, there are too many!)Braden and Mommy on the safari

Our last stop of the day was Epcot. We were all amazed and impressed that Braden was such a good boy for such a long day! Papa, JoJo, Uncle Brian, Aunt Sis, and Daddy all rode Test Track several times and loved it! Even JoJo! Mommy is pregnant so she couldn't ride, and Braden was too little, so they played in the car showroom and went shopping while the rest of us rode. At Braden's request, we had dinner in China. ;-)

Braden riding "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" with Uncle Brian & Aunt Sis. In the middle, Braden called out, "Hey Nemo! Is that you?" Aunt Sis loved it!

We were at the parks for nearly 14 hours that day! It was an all-around spectacular day! Hooray for Braden's first visit to Disney!!!!

Wednesday night we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. Braden wasn't so sure about the gorillas, but he loved the fish and the elephants! Afterward, we scooted over to the Contemporary where we hopped on a boat for the Wishes Cruise!
Braden & Mickey at the Contemporary

Braden got to drive the boat!

Braden and Daddy on the cruise

Uncle Brian & Aunt Sis enjoying the cruise

Papa got to drive the boat too!

Mommy, Daddy, and Braden cruisin'

Fireworks!

The whole fam as we left the Contemporary!

Well, those special adventures were lots of fun, but Braden's very favorite part of visiting Aunt Sis and Uncle Brian's house was playing with the cats! (Notice there are no pictures of Sam, he's the "grouchy and soft" cat!)

Braden & Max

tomorrow, tomorrow

2007-11-18T22:12:00.001-05:00

Well, the fam is coming in tomorrow night! I am SO excited! We're having Mom and Dad, Brad and Kari (my brother and SIL), and precious Braden (my nephew) over for Thanksgiving! Tuesday we're spending at Disney, Wednesday night we're eating at Rainforest Cafe and then taking the Wishes Fireworks Cruise, Thursday is turkey day, Friday is shopping, and Saturday...well, we might go to a corn maze or something. We're gonna have a great time!

In other news, tomorrow is my first day teaching elementary music at Lake Mary Montessori. I'm nervous, excited, and stressed. I'll keep you posted!

happy christmas to meeeeeeee!

2007-11-10T13:51:00.000-05:00

Look what I got this week!!!! These are the two newest limited edition alphabet gift sets from Quickutz. They are SO cute - and the packaging is just as cute as the alphabets! I never dreamed I could get them both, but this is my early Christmas present from my fabulous and amazing husband. I can't wait to get the foam on them and start cutting!

for the birds

2007-11-07T16:14:00.000-05:00

Friends, you will never believe what happened this week. A bunch of birds flew into my Kindermusik classroom and left feathers ALL OVER THE PLACE!! Now tell me, can you even believe that? At least the birds were pretty cute...and they DID help me clean up their feathers...

(Imagine That classes, ages 3-4)

fyi

2007-11-07T16:09:00.001-05:00

My email is not working. :-( Something is wrong at Earthlink, which is where the site that hosts our email lives.

So - if you're trying to reach me, email me at kmwithkerri at gmail dot com. :-)

IKEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-11-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

OH. MY. GOSH!!!! Brian and I are sitting here on the den floor, putting together the new futon we bought today. (My family is coming for Thanksgiving and we need a place for everyone to sleep!) AND we're watching The Biggest Loser, which we recorded earlier tonight. I was fast-forwarding through the commercials and I glanced up and saw the most beautiful words:

IKEA ORLANDO - GRAND OPENING NOVEMBER 14

I'm SO BEYOND excited! Great, now I probably won't be able to sleep!!!! Oh well, it's WORTH IT!!!! I've been wanting to go to Ikea FOREVER - but the closest we've ever lived to one is like 3 hours away (when we lived in Albany, there was one in Paramus, NJ.) I can't even believe there's going to be one just down the road!!!!

OK, who wants to come visit, go to Disney, and shop at IKEA????!!!!

fall into reading update

2007-11-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

I had to give up on another book - "The Infidelity Pact" by Carrie Karasyov. I tried to read it twice but just couldn't get into it. So I added another book to take the place of that one. :-)

However, I read a GREAT book - "Still Summer" by Jacquelyn Mitchard. It was EXCELLENT - a great story, suspenseful, well-written. Brian even got into it and we could never stop listening! I recommend it.

1. Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
3. Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
4. While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
5. The Note - Angela Hunt
6. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
7. Mercy - Jodi Picoult
8. Still Summer - Jacquelyn Mitchard
9. Iced - Carol Higgins Clark
10. The Christmas Thief - Mary Higgins Clark
11. Getting Rid of Matthew - Jane Fallon
12. Best Kept Secrets - Sandra Brown
13. Queen of Babble in the Big City - Meg Cabot
14. Daddy's Girl - Lisa Scottoline
15. The Quickie - James Patterson
16. Second Chance - Jane Green
17. Finding Noel - Richard Paul Evans
18. Miss Julia Strikes Back - Ann B. Ross
19. Peace Like a River - Leif Enger
20. The Grilling Season - Diane Mott Davidson
21. Prime Cut - Diane Mott Davidson
22. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons - Lorna Landvik
23. Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea - Mary Higgins Clark
24. Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
25. Home to Holly Springs - Jan Karon

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

8 random things

2007-11-01T20:40:00.000-05:00

OK, just to let you know how behind I am on reading blogs, I just now saw that Tara tagged me back in JULY for the 8 random things meme! Ugh. I have been way too busy. Sorry Tara! At least I caught up today on your blog and am continually amazed at the funny and important things happening in your life, your amazing work and boss, the brilliance of your child, your no-nonsense writing style, and our shared makeup fetish. :-)

So - here are my 8 random things:

1. I count everything.

2. I prefer that things I count be in multiples of four. I will go to great lengths to MAKE things into multiples of four.

3. I can't stand it when people use bad grammar. I also hate it when people misspell really common words, like too, you're, and definitely.

4. I honestly believe that my cats are going to live forever. =^..^=

5. I am probably the most hot-natured person that you know. When everyone else is comfortable or even cold, I'm sweating - and I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt!

6. I have started working out with a personal trainer - he pushes me so hard that I can barely walk out of the gym!

7. I'm really enjoying my thirties! What was I so afraid of?

8. I know binary. I learned it when Brian and I were dating. He was impressed. (Have you noticed my obsession with numbers?)

Now I have to tag some people:

Brad
Leslie
Mandi
Stephanie
Jason
Christi

(If some of you have already done this, sorry! I can't remember.)

so much to say

2007-10-31T20:40:00.000-05:00

I keep meaning to blog, but there just isn't time. And when there is time, I can't stay awake to do it!

Sunday, October 28, was our 7th anniversary. We celebrated by going to the beach for part of the weekend. We stayed at a beautiful beach house and just lazed around and ate pastries - it was divine and just what we needed! I have a picture of us on the beach but my camera is at my KM classroom right now. :-P I'll upload it later.

Life just seems to keep getting busier. I really need to lighten my load. Some changes are in the works, but I will post about those later after proper notifications have been made and decisions have been finalized. I could use a few prayers, too!

Here's some really big, important, exciting news: We are going to have yet ANOTHER niece or nephew! Yep, folks, my brother's wife is pregnant. Braden is going to be a big brother! I am just ecstatic! This will make #5 for us! We have Emma, Braden, Will, Angela is pregnant with #4, and Kari is pregnant with #5! Yay for Uncle Brian and Aunt Sis!

Kindermusik keeps getting better. The kids are really opening up and getting used to me, and to each other, and to class. At one point yesterday I had like 3 or 4 kids on my lap at the same time. I LOVED it! Lately, I hate for class to end! :-) I am so fortunate to be able to do this. I love it so much!

The coolest thing happened yesterday. Last week, I had been complaining and joking with one of my piano students' moms about how Florida is made of mildew and mold. She was saying they had just pressure washed their house, and I was saying how bad my sidewalk was looking again. (In case you don't know how crazy the mold and mildew can get, check out this post from last year when we pressure washed our porch and sidewalk for the first time!) Anyway, she said that they had a pressure washer and we could borrow it and she would bring it next week.

So yesterday, this student shows up and her dad and grandpa were with her and they brought TWO pressure washers with them and they pressure washed my porch, sidewalk, and driveway while I taught the lesson!!!! I mean seriously...people just don't do that kind of thing anymore! We're all too busy for random acts of kindness! I was just so thrilled, and so grateful, and so shocked, and so amazed! They are the nicest people ever! (Of course, I gave them several free lessons!) LOL Anyway, my faith in humanity was restored yesterday.

(And it was lost again today because I had to go to Walmart and you know how I feel about the way people act in Walmart!) Ugh!

All right. I have to go and do something useful. Hope everyone had a great Halloween! I promise to post pictures soon. :-)

quickutz club

2007-10-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I joined the Quickutz club at Violette's, an awesome scrapbook store in Lakeland. They meet once a month and make a project or 2 and club members get either a special deal on QK products (yesterday it was buy one, get one free on all dies - even Revolution dies!) or some months we get a free die! Love it. So yesterday was my first club meeting ever. The store is about 70 minutes from my house, but about 20 minutes from church, and some of their meetings will be on Sunday afternoons. I had a rehearsal in Winter Haven last night anyway, so I rushed to Lakeland after my Kindermusik class. Here's what we made:How cute is that??!! It's a picture frame - 12x12. I totally love it. And of course, I ordered the die that made the leaves - it's one die that cuts 3 leaves. Adorable. Everyone at that store is so friendly and nice, and I'm so excited to be a part of this club!

funniest line

2007-10-19T15:59:00.000-05:00

...from a book I'm currently reading, "Miss Julia Strikes Back:"

"Let me tell you. If you ever think you'll be throwin' up in public, I'd recommend against havin' a mustache. The combination is not a pretty sight."

a weekend of learning

2007-10-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

Well, our weekend of Tim Holtz classes was awesome! I had a great time with Christy, scrapping, learning, and shopping. Here's the book we made in our class, Nostalgic Memoirs:

We actually learned how to sew a book binding! It was VERY cool! I'm pretty happy with the way mine turned out. The covers are canvas, and we learned how to use ink and blend it to make a unique look, and then we covered it with beeswax to seal the ink. Very fun! And then we junked it up with some cool ribbon and hardware.

And in the Mystery Class, we learned how to make this little mini-book out of a 6x6 paper pad, with no paper left over - no waste! Awesome!

How adorable is that! Yes, that swirl on the front is a piece of Grungeboard. It's SO cool! We also used some neat acrylic chips and fun hardware. I spent way too much time distressing and inking my pages, but it was so much fun! The right side of each page was a pocket page. I also won a door prize in this class - a 6x6 pad of Basic Grey Figgy Pudding with fibers and some hardware - LOVE IT! :-D

And - what's a weekend of scrapping without a little SHOPPING??!! Ruban Rouge is a great store and I picked up some goodies while I was there. I also stopped at another store in Lakeland on my way home - Violette's - I had no idea that was such a great store! All in all, here's my stash from the weekend:

Got some Prima sprites, AC Fall felt shapes, Fancy Pants biggest board, a few chipboard books (Maya Road - train, and Basic Grey - bracket), Heidi Swapp silhouette flowers, big blossoms (not shown) and ghost clocks, Prima paintables, assorted paper from Scenic Route, Creative Imaginations, KI, Basic Grey, and K&Co., some Bazzill scalloped cardstock, Tim Holtz GRUNGEBOARD (of course!), 7 gypsies photo corners, Tim Holtz Tonic paper piercer (retractable and so nice!), a Quickutz magnetic book (to store my cookie cutter dies), a mini score-it board, some Cosmo Cricket chipboard lacing cards, and some K&Co. wedding stickers (for cards). Yummy!!!! :-)

Who wants to come over and scrap?

night sweats

2007-10-05T17:26:00.000-05:00

I really don't have any business blogging right now! I'm going to Tampa tomorrow for the weekend and I haven't even started packing. I'm so excited - I'm going to Ruban Rouge - a very popular scrapbook store - to take some classes taught by none other than Tim Holtz!! We are going to be able to use (and buy!) some of his brand new products that will not be released until December. I'm BEYOND excited!

I'm meeting up with my friend Christy, whom I met at Lifetime Moments. Yes, that's a message board! We're going to just enjoy a girls' weekend and crop the days away! I will post pictures when I get back.

In other news, this whole week I've been experiencing night sweats. WARNING: if you are a guy who thinks girls should just "glisten" or "perspire," stop reading now! (I don't want to ruin the mystique for anyone!) I have woken up in the wee hours every night this week sweating up a storm. Last night I was so hot, I got up and turned the air down, and when I got back in bed, my pillow was soaked and so was the spot where I had been laying before. Gross! With that and the hot flashes I've been having for some time now, I'm wondering what in the world is going on with my body! (Could I be perimenopausal at age 34? Maybe...)

vote for brian!

2007-10-01T10:56:00.001-05:00

Brian and his friends got together and made a horror movie. It's about 6 minutes long and it's for a contest. You can go here to vote.

Just know that there is a bit of blood and gore, so don't watch it if you can't handle that kind of stuff. You can vote without watching it, just go down below the video and click on 5 skulls for the 3 categories.

Today is the last day to vote! Thanks, everyone!

fall into reading 2007

2007-09-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

Yay! My friend Leslie just told me about Fall Into Reading 2007!! I'm really excited to see how many books I can read! Anyone can participate, just go here to sign up.

And without further ado, here is my list for fall:

1. Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
3. Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
4. While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
5. The Note - Angela Hunt
6. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
7. Mercy - Jodi Picoult
8. Still Summer - Jacquelyn Mitchard
9. Iced - Carol Higgins Clark
10. The Infidelity Pact - Carrie Karasyov
11. Getting Rid of Matthew - Jane Fallon
12. Best Kept Secrets - Sandra Brown
13. Queen of Babble in the Big City - Meg Cabot
14. Daddy's Girl - Lisa Scottoline
15. The Quickie - James Patterson
16. Second Chance - Jane Green
17. Finding Noel - Richard Paul Evans
18. Miss Julia Strikes Back - Ann B. Ross
19. Peace Like a River - Leif Enger
20. The Grilling Season - Diane Mott Davidson
21. The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
22. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons - Lorna Landvik
23. Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea - Mary Higgins Clark
24. The Christmas Thief - Mary Higgins Clark

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

summer reading thing recap

2007-09-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

Well, the summer reading thing ended yesterday. I read ALMOST all of the books I wanted to read, but Kindermusik took up way more time than I thought it would! LOL Here's my recap:

1 The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2 The Sixth Target - James Patterson
3 Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
4 Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 Sisterchicks Do the Hula - Robin Jones Gunn
6 Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
7 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
8 Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
9 Being Committed - Anna Maxted
10 While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
11 Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
12 Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
13 Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
14 Divine - Karen Kingsbury
15 Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
17 The Note - Angela Hunt
18 Where Are the Children? - Mary Higgins Clark
19 Dedication - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
20 Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

*How many total books did you read? Were you surprised by that number?
I read 15 books and am in the middle of reading 2 more. Yes, I'm surprised at the number, because it's so little! I can usually read more than this, but as I said, I'm working now and so I don't have as much time.

*How do you feel about what you read?
I liked every book I read and I loved several of them.

*What about your stretch book? Did you find that you enjoyed it after all? Are you planning to read more of that genre/author?
I had several "stretch" books, meaning authors and/or genres I had not read before. They are as follows:
1. The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
3. Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
4. Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
5. Divine - Karen Kingsbury

I enjoyed all of these books, some more than others. I will probably read all of the authors again. My least favorite of these five was Karen Kingsbury, but I will still probably give her another chance. The rest will be added to my list of favorite authors, though I'm still a big skeptical about Cassandra King.

Ender's Game was very new to me - a new genre AND new author. Brian had recommended this book as he loves reading Sci-Fi. And it was really, really good - with a twist I absolutely never imagined. :-)

*Did you read as many books as you intended to? Or more? How do you feel about that?
As I said before, I wanted to read more, and I'm a bit disappointed, but it's really good for me to be working again and I'm enjoying reading more now that I have less time to do it.

*Was this fun? Do you want to continue (if so, sign up for Katrina's Fall Into Reading challenge.)
Yes, I will definitely continue. It was a blast!

the aroma of autumn

2007-09-20T12:47:00.000-05:00

As I left from my evening Kindermusik class last night, I smelled a fire burning. It reminded me of burning leaves and when my grandparents used to burn their trash when I was little. Bonfires, hayrides, pumpkin patches - that scent brought all things autumn to mind. Too bad we won't have any TRULY cool weather until November or December! (If you consider the 70s to be cool!)

Last week was a wild one. I interviewed again with the Montessori school to teach their elementary music, and thus started the figuring out of hours, salary, times, etc. I think we have it pretty close to being nailed down. I'm going again tomorrow to go over curriculum and do my final paperwork. I'm a little worried about being too busy, but I'm also excited at the prospect of doing something new. These are some great kids and I think they will be a lot of fun to work with.

My cousin Chris, who is the minister of music at our church, resigned last Tuesday. That was pretty weird. When he resigned, he made it effective immediately. So now we're not sure what exactly is in store for the band. The pastor gave us last Sunday off (a HUGE blessing, after the crazy week I had) and we're going to start putting things back together this weekend. I think we're going to be ok - I'm not sure who's going to lead. I'm not really sure about anything, but I know we love playing together and I'm really excited to see what God has in store for us. I've definitely shed a few tears over the past week, knowing things will never be the same, but I'm also anxious to see what this all means for us. I think we'll be taking baby steps and just getting a feel for how things will be.

Today I saw some love bugs. THEY'RE BACK! They come during certain times of the year, when the temperature is just right. They are a huge pain! I'll be glad to see them go - and get some cooler weather. Though it's starting to be nice in the evenings.

Well, I have one more class to teach in a little while, and then I'm done for the week. I also have a few new piano students! I went from doing nothing to doing everything! LOL Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share later.

just an update

2007-09-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile! Although Kindermusik is going GREAT and it's so much fun I can't even believe I'm getting paid to do it, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. One of my marketing strategies included contacting a school about 30 minutes away whose Kindermusik program had to close down this year because the teacher moved away. In contacting them, I found out that they are looking for an elementary music teacher. This is a Montessori school and I'm very unfamiliar with their program, but I've now had 2 interviews with them and today I went and observed a class. They do blended ages, so 1st through 3rd grades are all in the same class and 4th through 6th grades are together. It's an interesting environment! Anyway, I think things are looking positive and it's only a few hours a week, so I'm seriously considering it.

I had one wild class last week - a class with 5 3-year-old boys. They were just crazy! I learned a lot from that class! I now have a strategy for this week, since we didn't really get anything done last week. Whew! Part of me feels like I'm an aerobics instructor! LOL I do get a lot of exercise during the classes. And it's SO fun!

In other news, I actually RAN on the treadmill this week! I know, I'm shocked too. I've never been able to run - I always get a side cramp! I can't even run to the end of the driveway! So I was pretty proud. I only ran for 2 minutes, and then I walked awhile, and then I ran for 2 more minutes!! That doesn't seem like much, I know, but for me - it's a big deal! LOL

OK, here are some pictures of my Kindermusik classroom! I'll leave you with those and maybe my life will become more interesting at some point so I can write about something besides kids and music! :-)

i survived the first day

2007-08-28T14:31:00.000-05:00

This morning I had my first two Kindermusik classes ever. (not counting demo classes) It was SO MUCH FUN! I loved seeing all the funny things the kids did and said. They really get into the dancing and singing! I can tell I'm really going to love teaching these classes.

OK, gotta go! I'm still horribly busy - I have to plan for 2 more brand new classes tomorrow, and then all the rest of the classes tomorrow and Thursday will be repeats. I love that I can teach the same class 2 or 3 times during a week - that way I don't have to do as much planning! Thursday should be super easy!

And just imagine - after 2 years, the curricula starts all over again, so I'll be teaching these same units in the fall of 2009. It should be REALLY easy by then!

Oh yeah - and my total enrollment is now 35. I'm thrilled! More later.

it's almost time

2007-08-24T12:03:00.000-05:00

Well, in case you haven't noticed, Kindermusik has pretty much taken over my life. I actually scrapped last night, but the whole time I was scrapping, I was thinking of other things I should be doing! So today, it's back to work! 4 days until classes start, and counting.

I have to go to the dreaded Walmart today. Ugh! It's SO not my favorite place, as you read in a previous post. But I have to get child locks for my cabinets, a doll to use during the baby class (to demonstrate with), and a plug adapter thing, because the outlets in my room only have 2 prongs and my heavy-duty fan needs 3. Brian is out at Target right now buying me this really cool stereo/speaker set for my iPod. That way I'll be able to upload the songs for class onto my iPod, put them in the correct order, and then use the remote to play/pause. I have high hopes for this to work without any tiny hands getting ahold if my iPod!

Besides that, the room is nearly ready. I have to hang a dry/erase board tonight (well, Brian's gonna hang it), and I must remember to take everyone's picture on the first day, so that I can put them on my wall - I got little music note die cuts for the pictures. I can't wait! I'll take pictures and post them when it's all done.

And I've been studying the curricula - I'm SO very excited about this and I know I'm going to love it. I'm nervous about teaching the actual classes, now that I've gotten used to the demo classes! But I'm more excited than nervous. I just have to plan the lessons and I think I'll be all set. Seems like there's no time lately to eat, sleep, clean the house, or relax - but I'll get there.

And, by the way...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNI! I know, it was yesterday. Sorry I didn't even call you! We will talk soon. Hope you had a great day!

more kindermusik kraziness

2007-08-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

I can't even believe what is happening with my Kindermusik enrollment! It's less than a week until classes begin, and I'm having people enrolling left and right! Now I'm at 31 - 31 kids enrolled!! I can't even believe it! This is going to be a great semester. :-)

a big day for enrollment!

2007-08-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning when I left the house, my Kindermusik enrollment was 10. Last night, when I went to bed, it was 20!!!! I cannot believe that my enrollment DOUBLED in ONE DAY!! Things are going absolutely crazy. I had another few sign-ups today - and it's starting to look like I might break even or even make a little money this semester! This is wild and I'm loving every minute of it!

Mom and Dad are here - they got in tonight and they're leaving Saturday morning EARLY. They came down to get Nan and Pops' car. So tomorrow we're going to hang out, play cards, and go out to dinner. Brian is taking a half day off. :-)

OK, I have to go and place my materials order for Kindermusik! More later!

we sing hello, hello

2007-08-13T21:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I did five demo classes last week and they all went well. Now I'm in the midst of registration and enrollment - and I'm still marketing and networking and mainly sweating! I visited 2 different preschools today and dropped off brochures for them to put out, and I'm hoping for the possibility of teaching at one of them! I'll be following up on that soon.

Everything is like a whirlwind with Kindermusik - I'm still getting emails from new people every day, and I have 3 more demo classes to do this week, and I still have to organize some more of my instruments, and tomorrow or Wednesday I have to order the Home Materials for the people who have registered and paid, and there are still a few finishing touches for my classroom, and...whew! This is a lot of work, but it sure is fun!

Mom and Dad are coming on Thursday night for a short visit - they'll be leaving on Saturday morning. We're going to play lots of cards and relax and take them probably to Seasons 52 for dinner on Friday night.

No news on the scrapbooking front - there's just no time for that lately! :-(

On an entirely different subject, here's an update on the Summer Reading Thing. (I've slowed down a bit due to the busyness of my life! And I made another change to my list, because I just don't think I'll have time to read another "print" book this summer - but I'm sure I can fit another audio book in!)

1 The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2 The Sixth Target - James Patterson
3 Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
4 Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 Sisterchicks Do the Hula - Robin Jones Gunn
6 Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
7 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
8 Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
9 Being Committed - Anna Maxted
10 While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
11 Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
12 Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
13 Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
14 Divine - Karen Kingsbury
15 Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
17 The Note - Angela Hunt
18 Where Are the Children? - Mary Higgins Clark
19 Dedication - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
20 Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

catching up

2007-08-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

Well. I've got a few spare minutes to blog while Brian takes a shower and before we watch our nightly episode of King of Queens. So I'll try to quickly catch up!

The rest of the week at my parents' was wonderful and fun. We ate at favorite restaurants, I visited Dad's voice lessons, Mom and I cleaned out closets and dressers and stuff till our little hearts were content. We even got Dad to go through some old stuff and throw things away! AND we found a bunch of slides and had some GREAT laughs - and then we shared them with Nan and Pops in the car on the way to the airport. In Columbus I even got the chance to stop by Archivers, a fabulous scrapbook store. And I only spent $13 in there! Amazing. All in all, it was a great week with Mom and Dad!

I came back home to find that my Kindermusik postcard was in my mailbox! (I mailed out 2500 of them to people in my area, and of course I mailed one to myself.) I literally walked in the door to a ringing phone - everyone else had gotten their postcards that day, too. The phone calls and emails haven't stopped coming since then! Which is great - but boy, am I busy! I've got 8 demo classes set up; my first one is Tuesday. I'm so nervous and excited! I'm going to spend most of the day tomorrow preparing. I'm even going to run through the whole thing with Brian (little does he know that I'm going to give him one of my old Cabbage Patch dolls and say, "Here, this is your kid.") LOL

So, this past Thursday we took off for the condo in Ft. Myers with Tim and Christi in tow. We spent all day Friday there and most of Saturday - we lounged by the pool, went to see "The Bourne Ultimatum," (GREAT movie), ordered pizza, played lots and lots of cards, sat around and talked, ate at the Shrimp Shack, and just relaxed. It was great fun, even if lots of things were not quite right! (I'll save that story for another post - there's just not time!) But, suffice it to say that the "Spider Van" (sung to the tune of the "Spider Man" theme song) is now parked in our driveway! More later. ;-)

Last night we had a long rehearsal at church (we learned some new songs) and then I had to practice quite a bit when I got home. (And then I STILL messed up some this morning during the service, ugh!) So we went to bed really late, got up early, did the church thing, then went to the Sprint store - I needed a new phone and a new phone number. (I had never gotten a local Florida number and hey - I just realized that it was 2 years ago today that we closed on our house in NY!) Anyway, I got the coolest phone, it's RED, (love it), it's called the Upstage. Flip phones and I don't get along, so this phone is perfect for me. :-)

We got home around 3:00 (after fooling around at the Sprint store forever and then going to eat) - and we relaxed for about an hour and then we headed over to the Presbyterian Church to work on my Kindermusik room. We worked there till 8:00, cleaning out things, cleaning up things, vacuuming several times, scrubbing, taking down the bulletin board stuff, covering the bulletin board, and etc. and etc. My wonderful husband vacuumed up all the scary bugs, and then we moved a big shelf and there were some dead lizards under there, and he got rid of those too, while I ran away! LOL They were weird, too - they were like little skeletons. Gross! Then he went all the way around the room and scrubbed the baseboards! We washed windows and I scrubbed the countertop within an inch of its life. When in doubt, use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. This church is like 100 years old and the room I'm using hasn't really been used for years, and there were all kinds of stains and paint and stuff on it - and I got it completely clean and shining! Brian even washed the mini blinds. That room looks and smells as great as a 100 year old room can.

Have I mentioned that I love my husband? He's fab. He helps me so much and supports me in my new little business. He's the best. :-D

So then we went and ate dinner and then went to the dreaded Walmart. I DESPISE Walmart and this trip did NOTHING to change my opinion. We were there for over an hour and I just needed help with one thing (I needed 6 storage bins and they only had 2, and both of those were broken.) Well, in the course of those 60+ minutes, I asked no less than 4 people to help me, and they all gave me some kind of big sob story about why they couldn't help me. Add this to all the random screaming kids, and parents screaming back at their kids, people dropping store merchandise at least 3 times and making large noises, crazy rednecks pushing their 2-year-olds around while cursing up a blue streak (the rednecks, not the kids, although it won't be long for the kids, I'm sure), the filthy store, the unorganized aisles, the mobs and mobs of people, most of them with B.O., the apathetic employees, and I'm sure more stuff I can't think of right now...........and ugh, you'll easily understand why I DESPISE Walmart. >:-( But, Brian got a Rubik's cube and that made it all better.

So now we're headed to bed. We're exhausted, but we've had a successful day! Tomorrow I'll take my instruments over and get the borders up on my bulletin boards, go to NY&Company and buy some shorts to teach in (they're on sale and they're comfy and long, so they're perfect), and study for the demo class. After Tuesday's class I can release this stress, since I'll be doing the same class 7 more times. Whew. OK, good night!

too busy to blog!

2007-08-01T16:47:00.001-05:00

Kindermusik is going crazy! :-D I'll give an update soon, I promise!

happy birthday brad!!!!

2007-07-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

I'm coming to you live from my parents' house in Kentucky! I arrived in Columbus (Ohio) yesterday and Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport. Then we went to Max & Erma's and met Brad, Kari, and the precious and wonderful Braden. He is just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He repeats everything you say, but he also just notices every single little thing in the world. If you have the tiniest little cut on your hand, he points to it and says, "Aunt Sis has an ouchie." It's the cutest thing! And he just thinks up funny things to say! Like, he just got all worked up and said, "I NEED some GWWWW-APES!" (grapes, but he doesn't always get the 'r' in there!) LOL Anyway, it was a wonderful time and I wish I could put Braden in my pocket and take him with me. :-)

So today was Brad's birthday and he's 29. Yay! We sang to him last night and Braden thought we were singing to him, of course! So cute. Anyway, happy birthday to my fabulous brother! I hope you enjoy the last year of your twenties!

Today I got up and Mom and I walked around the yard (me in my pajamas, of course) and talked about all her flowers. Then Dad and I went for a long walk in the neighborhood. The weather here is PERFECT. It's my dream weather. If I could live in a place where it was like this every day, I totally would. It's like 76 degrees or something, sunny, with a cool breeze. Perfect for shorts but not really hot.

After the walk we fooled around here and then Mom and I went through some of the clothes in their closets. Then I showered and we had lunch, and we got Dad in on the closet cleaning action. We have a nice big bag for Goodwill and hopefully we'll have more tomorrow. Then Nan and Pops came over for dinner. Mom cooked BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, homemade cornbread (she makes the BEST) and...GREEN BEANS! And not from a can either. The fresh green beans are my FAVORITE EVER and she cooks them in the pressure cooker. Yum!

But the highlight of my day was going to Barbershop practice with my dad tonight. My dad directs the Singing Kernels, the barbershop chorus here in Ashland. They sounded great! I saw more old men wearing shorts with white socks and black shoes than ever before!! HAHA! And one guy had on shorts and dress shoes (like wing tips!) with no socks! LOL But they really did sound wonderful. My dad is a fabulous director and I'm always amused when I watch him with any of his groups. They'll be singing, and I'll think, "Wow, the leads really need to watch the pronunciation of the word heaven." And they'll finish the song and Dad will go, "Leads, careful with the pronunciation of heaven!" LOL We think alike in a lot of ways about music. :-)

While I'm on the subject, I'll just brag on Dad a little more. He also sings lead in the Barons quartet. The Barons won the international championship in their division in 2003. I'm so proud of my dad and proud to be from a family with rich musical heritage. Now I could go into Dad's family and all their musical escapades and adventures, and tell you how his parents met at a singing convention, but I won't. It's late and I'm tired. Anyway, here are the Barons. Dad's on the left in the back, the one with the biggest smile. :-)
After barbershop, we came home and fooled around some more, and then Dad and I played a game of Gin rummy and Mom went to bed. Dad beat me, but I ALMOST made a comeback! But I still didn't win. At one point, he had like 400 points and I had ZERO, and then I scored THREE points, and we had a huge big laugh about that. After the game we talked about how we've always played games (cards, especially) and how it's hard for me to understand when people tell me they didn't grow up playing games! That's just about all we did - we played games and sang a LOT - and I'm so glad. We still spend the holidays playing millions of games (and singing a lot, too!) I love it. I love my family. :-)

a rather large delivery

2007-07-19T16:56:00.000-05:00

Look what was on my porch when I got home today!!!! And then, look what happened when I brought the boxes in.
And here's all the fun stuff Brian and I unpacked from the boxes!
We sat around for like an hour, playing the tambourine, checking out the kids' materials, hitting the cymbal and the triangle, banging on drums with various mallets, and playing the resonator bars. It was great fun! We were a two-man-band! The cats enjoyed the packing paper and getting inside the boxes and jumping out at each other. All that fun stuff to play with, and they play with the box.

This is really happening, folks! I'm going to be teaching Kindermusik VERY soon! I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. And I have high hopes! I want lots of students! I've even had some inquiries already! Yay!

OK, calm...here's some really good news: I got my car back from the shop - it has a brand new air conditioner! I felt like I was driving a luxury car as I drove home from the dealership. Man, I seriously took my A/C for granted! It was miserable without it!

insomnia...again

2007-07-18T03:42:00.000-05:00

Truly, it's been awhile since I've had a real case of insomnia, but tonight I can't sleep. I went to bed, tossed and turned until about 3:15, and then got up. So here I am at 4:45 am, listening to a book, working on cards. I'm almost finished with the cards and then I'm going to do a scrapbook page. I'm behind on my challenges and I know I'll fall even more behind since I'll be out of town next week, so I want to try to get caught up this week. I've been so busy with Kindermusik that I haven't had much time to scrap.

Brian is in there snoring away with both cats curled up beside him! I checked on them a little bit ago when I went to get some (decaf) tea. :-) Precious.

I just heard the weirdest noise and it kinda scared me, but then I realized it's just our sprinklers coming on. Whew. Nice to know they're working, I guess!

I got an email today from FedEx saying that SIX boxes will be delivered to me on Thursday! It's my Kindermusik order! The boxes weigh around 20 pounds each, except there's one measly 4-pound box. I'm trying to figure out what's in there. Maybe it's my brochures. Or, maybe it's the beach balls - they're probably light!

Well, that's about it. I don't have any mind-boggling thoughts here in the wee hours. Just thought I'd tell everyone that I'm awake.

marketing, advertising, spending money

2007-07-16T16:33:00.001-05:00

I've spent this entire day advertising, marketing, emailing every mom's group I can find, listing my website all over the internet, placing orders, and spending money, all for Kindermusik! I'm getting a bunch of the required instruments and teacher's kits from my fab friend Paula in NY - and I'm getting those at half-price. Thanks for saving me a lot of $$, Paula! And I ordered the rest of the stuff I need from Kindermusik today, including some yard signs, stickers, brochures (that I need to drop off at pediatricians' offices, kids' stores, schools, etc.), and etc. It cost a lot. But we knew it would, and I should more than make up for it with what I make during my first semester.

So, I'm slowly but surely getting my name out there. The publications I'm advertising in will go out around the first week of August. And I'm doing a direct mailing. I bought a list of 2500 names & addresses for $75, and then I was able to get 2500 full color (both sides) postcards for $402, and they will address them and mail them for me too, and that includes postage! I thought that was an excellent deal! For $477, I will reach 2500 homes in my area that have kids from newborn to age 7. Let the calls and website hits begin!

In other news, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Thursday night and it was really good! AND my mouth is SO much better, thanks to that crazy mouthwash I bought! (Peroxyl) So things are going well, but I feel busy. When the instruments and stuff get here, I'll be studying the lessons, and I need to plan some demo classes too, maybe at the library. So much to do!

my poor, sore mouth

2007-07-11T21:03:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, on the 4th of July, we went to see "Transformers." (It was a GREAT movie! I would highly recommend it!) During the movie, B and I polished off a great big huge popcorn, yum! (We hadn't had lunch!)

The next morning, I woke up with a swollen gum on the upper right side of my mouth. I figured some crazy little kernel had gotten stuck in there. Well, I brushed and flossed, flossed and brushed, rinsed with Listerine millions of times, and it's not any better. Well, it's some better, but I can't chew on that side of my mouth. It's now been a WEEK and I'm starting to get worried!

Meanwhile, the NEXT day, I woke up with yet ANOTHER sore on the OTHER side - the upper left side, on the roof of my mouth, right by my back teeth. It felt like something sharp had poked me, like a chip (or maybe even the popcorn!). I did the routine of the flossing, brushing, and Listerine, and it got better, but now it's back. So I'm starving because I can barely eat.

Seriously, this morning I tried to eat some fruit. SOFT fruit. Melon. And even IT hurt. For lunch, I tried a sandwich - PB&J on SOFT bread. Pain. Brian thinks I should go to the dentist. I, however, realize that a teeny bit of soft food is hurting SO bad, so that makes me have horrible visions of the dentist's sharp tools!! :-( What should I do?

I remembered today that when I had my wisdom teeth out (ages ago), I had to rinse with this stuff that was supposed to help the wounds heal. So I set out on a trip to Walgreen's - I was determined to remember what it was. I did - it's Peroxyl - Antiseptic Oral Cleanser. It says I can use it up to 4 times a day. So I'm going to start tonight and see if it helps any.

Does anyone have any advice/experience with anything like this? It's not herpes! It's not cold sores! It's not a TOOTH problem! (Is it hormonal??) I know this is a pity-party post, but I'm seriously starting to wonder what's up!!

book reviews and stuff

2007-07-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

As you know, I've been reading lots of books this summer. So I've decided to post a few reviews, especially since I've been trying out some new authors.

"The Blue Zone" by Andrew Gross - I really enjoyed this book. Andrew has been writing along with James Patterson, and this is his first book writing alone. The story is a mystery with underlying tones of family and trust. It had some VERY interesting plot twists that I didn't see coming. And I usually see everything coming, so this was a nice surprise. There was some of what I consider to be unnecessary language, but I guess that's a given in most secular books. I would recommend this book if you like a good mystery.

"Heartstopper" by Joy Fielding - I had never read anything by Joy Fielding, so I had no expectations when I began this book. It's another mystery; I love mysteries! Anyway, right from the start she gives lots of clues as to who the murderer is...but then she gives more clues that allude to someone else than who you previously thought...and then even more clues pointing to someone else. I really liked this. At one point, I thought, "OK the murderer could be any of these people..." And then I went on to name like 15 people, and then I realized that I had just named practically every character in the book. :-) I loved that. But as it got nearer the end, I said to Brian, "I think the murderer is (a person who I won't mention here)." And I was right, even though the author TOTALLY tried to throw you off that person's scent.

This book was not a difficult read - in fact, the writing was a bit elementary for my taste. I like something a little more sophisticated. But I did enjoy it and I will probably read her again. (Even though there was also unnecessary language in this book, too.)

"Where Are the Children?" by Mary Higgins Clark - Disclaimer: I've loved everything I've read by this author. She really has a knack for storytelling, and it's often hard to guess what will happen next. I had NO IDEA who the killer was in this book until she revealed it. It was really a great read, and none of her books have any language in them, which I appreciate. What's interesting about that: she creates some really nasty characters who, in real life, would probably use profanity. But she manages to make them evil without using unnecessary language; I think some other authors (ahem, James Patterson) could take a lesson from Mary. I would totally recommend this book and anything else written by this author.

"The Sixth Target" by James Patterson - Speaking of Patterson, I might as well go ahead and review this book. I should start by saying that I am a fan of James Patterson. I've read every book he's written. It's hard to beat his "Alex Cross" series. I practically RUN to the library whenever I hear he's written something new. This book is the 6th book in his "Women's Murder Club" series.

With that said, I was pretty disappointed in this book. I felt like it was lazily written and there was lots of "filler." In other words, there were big sections of the book that didn't have anything at ALL to do with the story, and they were boring and could have totally been cut out. Maybe he was trying to make a word quota, who knows. But there were many times when I looked at Brian and said, "I don't CARE!!!! What's going on in the court room??!! Who is the killer??!! What has happened to (name of character, don't want to give anything away)??!!" I couldn't possibly care less about the main character's love life, her walks with her dog, or the details of her dinner. *rolling eyes*

I don't know if I would really recommend this one. I would, however, recommend his "Alex Cross" series and most of the other books in the "Women's Murder Club" series.

"Divine" by Karen Kingsbury - Another new author for me. This is a Christian author, so I was excited to read her. But I'm pretty picky when it comes to books, and her prologue was so long, drawn out, and boring, I almost gave up on the book. But I'm glad I didn't because it was a great story.

The main complaint I have about this book was the author's writing style. (I told you, I'm pretty picky!) This is a modern-day Mary Magdalene story. Well, this was a Christian writer trying to tell a "difficult" story and she just didn't do a good job with parts of it. At one point, there was this horrible drug-dealing pimp, and he would say things like, "Be quiet, little girl." I mean, come on. Drug dealing pimps don't say that! They slap people around, scream "Shut up! Shut up, or I'll give you something to cry about," or something.

Again, that said, this was a great story of grace and forgiveness and there were points of suspense that were well-written and exciting. I would recommend this book if you can stand a childish (my opinion) writing style.

"Body Surfing" by Anita Shreve - This is the second book I've read by her, and while she's not on my "favorite authors" list, I have enjoyed her books. Interestingly, the family in this book lives in the same house as the family in her other book I've read, "The Pilot's Wife." Several times in the book, they speak of buying the house from that family. Anyway, this is another story of family, love, and loss. It is a pretty good read. The plot was predictable at times, but I still liked the story.

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In other news, life has just been pretty normal around here. I've been working away at getting my Kindermusik business going. It costs a LOT for advertising and to order all the instruments and stuff! I wish it would hurry and start so I could MAKE some money to pay back all that I've been using to get everything going!

Oh, I almost forgot to say...Brian and I are going be an aunt & uncle AGAIN! For the FOURTH time! Jason (Brian's brother) and his wife Angela are expecting. We are SO excited at the prospect of a new niece or nephew to join Emma, Will, and Braden.

In a few weeks, I'll go visit Mom and Dad in KY. Mom and I are going to clean out, organize, throw away, and clean out some more. I'm hoping to get a good look at all her pictures. :-) I'm also hoping to get to Dayton for a day to see sweet, precious Braden (and I guess Brad and Kari too, ha!)

And lastly, I've been scrapping a ton! Scrapfest at LM REALLY SUPER motivates me! I will attach a few more recent pages:

summer reading thing update

2007-07-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

OK, I've had to make a change to my summer reading list. I started reading "Natural Born Charmer" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, but it was BORING, so I've replaced it with "While My Pretty One Sleeps" by Mary Higgins Clark. I just love Mary Higgins Clark. And Susan Elizabeth Phillips was one of my new authors I was trying out, so I guess I can mark her off the list! Ha! Anyway, here's my progress so far:

1 The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2 The Sixth Target - James Patterson
3 Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
4 Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 Sisterchicks Do the Hula - Robin Jones Gunn
6 Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
7 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
8 Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
9 Being Committed - Anna Maxted
10 While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
11 Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
12 Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
13 Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
14 Divine - Karen Kingsbury
15 Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
17 The Note - Angela Hunt
18 Where Are the Children? - Mary Higgins Clark
19 Dedication - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
20 Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

I will write more about life in general later. Right now, I'm busy scrapping! :-)

birthday weekend recap

2007-07-01T21:24:00.000-05:00

It has been a wonderfully relaxing weekend, just what I wanted for my birthday. ;-) First, on Friday night, Brian put up some shelves in my scraproom for me. Here are the before and after pictures:

I am SO HAPPY with them!!!! And I did go to Home Depot and get one more shelf to add to the top, finishing it off. Thus, I scrapped some on Saturday and for most of the afternoon/evening today. Saturday evening, Brian took me out for a romantic dinner at a little Italian restaurant. I had THE BEST lasagna I've EVER had - the waiter told us everything was homemade and I can believe it. They even make their own pasta noodles. It was TO DIE FOR! And I had tiramisu for dessert, and that was delicious too! Here we are at the restaurant (me, complete with rudolph nose, I don't know why, I always wear sunscreen, *sigh*):
Thanks to all of you who called or emailed with birthday well wishes. It was a quiet weekend with my husband, just what I wanted. Fabulous!

Oh, and here's my new favorite scrapbook page! I did it yesterday (it's a partial scraplift, which means I "borrowed" an idea from someone else) - it's the title page for our cruise book:

adventures in cruising - day six - at sea

2007-06-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

This is fun, re-living the cruise! OK, so it's time for day six. This day was not an exciting day. We got up late, had breakfast, then almost immediately had lunch. We sat around the table talking, then we went up to the deck and lounged around in the sun. It was glorious.

Eventually it started getting a bit cloudy, so we went inside to the second floor of the buffet restaurant and played cards until almost 6:00! There was no one else up there and it was so nice to just have the place to ourselves! It was formal night, so we had to go back to our rooms to shower and get all spruced up!We met for dinner in our "formal" attire, and then we walked around the ship for awhile, seeing what all was going on. We ended up, of course, at the disco, and we danced the night away! Here's Alicia and I doing the Electric Slide! Wooo!I'm pretty sure this was the night that there was a deck party, so we went and watched everyone making fools of themselves at midnight on the Lido deck. It was hilarious to watch all those old ladies in the conga line!

**********************************

In other news, tonight will begin the birthday weekend. :-) Yes, folks, much as I hate to admit it, tomorrow is my 34th birthday. *sigh* I don't FEEL 34 and I really don't think I LOOK 34, so I'm trying not to let it bother me that I'm headed for 40, full speed ahead.

Anyway, the band is off from church this weekend, so I don't have to go to rehearsal on my birthday, yay! Brian and I are planning a relaxing weekend together - I've been wanting to add shelves to the big bare wall in my scraproom, so Brian is going to put those up for me. I went to Home Depot today and bought them - thanks, Mom and Dad, for the money that contributed to the shelves! And tomorrow night we're going out to eat somewhere - B made reservations, but I don't know where.

And then some sad news: the air conditioner in my car is broken. It's been broken for weeks, but we've been able to share Brian's car. However, every time I have to go anywhere while he's at work, I'm just miserable. It's 500 degrees here, and when I stop at a red light, it's just dead, stale, suffocating, hot air. Ugh! I think we're gonna have to bite the bullet and cough up the big bucks to get it fixed.

That's it for now! I'm going to go clear off the top of my scrap desk and wipe down the new shelves so everything will be all ready when Brian gets home.

Lastly, here's a page I did last night (it's a scraplift, don't go thinking I was all creative and came up with the idea for the cool heart):

a resounding, unanimous YES

2007-06-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

I had a meeting with the Presbyterian Church here in my town today. Brian and I rushed out of our church and ate in the car on the hour drive back to where we live. The Presbyterian Church was having a Session meeting (like a Board meeting) and I was presenting my case about Kindermusik, asking them if I could teach there.

I could not believe how easily and quickly they approved it! It was just wonderful - they asked me a few questions and I gave them answers and before I knew it, someone was presenting a motion, someone else was seconding it, and then they voted unanimously to allow me to have space to teach my classes! I'm just thrilled!

Now there's SO much to do. I have to begin advertising almost immediately, get my website all fixed up, decide on my schedule, plan open houses and demo classes, order my instruments and teacher kits, get my forms done (policies, registration, etc.), follow through on getting my insurance policy (started this last week), make calls to local businesses and doctors' offices to see if I can leave brochures, decide on my discount policies, and much, much more.

I'd better go get started. :-)

summer reading thing

2007-06-23T11:38:00.000-05:00

Leslie had the info for the Summer Reading Thing on her blog, so I decided to join. I might as well, since I love to read anyway! :-D Click on the picture above for more info and to join up!

Here's my summer reading list:

1 The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2 The Sixth Target - James Patterson
3 Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
4 Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 Sisterchicks Do the Hula - Robin Jones Gunn
6 Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
7 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
8 Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
9 Being Committed - Anna Maxted
10 Natural Born Charmer - Susan Elizabeth Phillips
11 Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
12 Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
13 Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
14 Divine - Karen Kingsbury
15 Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
17 The Note - Angela Hunt
18 Where Are the Children? - Mary Higgins Clark
19 The Potluck Club - Linda Shepherd
20 Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

I think I can read 20 books in 13 weeks, don't you?? We're supposed to "stretch" in our reading, so the above list contains books from some of my favorite authors, books from series I'm involved in already, books recommended by friends, one book from a genre I never really read (Sci-Fi), and EIGHT authors I've never read before. (It's all fiction - I'm just not much of a non-fiction reader. Except maybe health books.) It should be an interesting reading summer!

adventures in cruising - day five - st. maarten/martin

2007-06-20T19:46:00.000-05:00

OK. I'm FINALLY going to post about my most favorite day of our vacation - day five. St. Maarten/Martin was just amazing. The island is the smallest land mass in the world to be shared by two different nations. Sint Maarten is Dutch and owned by the Netherlands. St. Martin is French, owned by France, and is part of Europe. It was so cool to be driving along and see the road signs change languages!!

The four of us rented a car so that we could experience the feel of the island on our own. Our boat docked at 8:00 am and we were off the boat as soon as we could get through the line. We headed for the car rental place and were in our car by about 8:30 or so. And we were off.

Here's B by the rental car.

And here's the view from the rental car parking lot! Seriously!

Jason was our driver and Alicia was the navigator, and Brian and I just got to take in the sights. We started out heading northeast and decided to circle around the island and end up back at the cruise ship dock. The Dutch side was fine and all, but we were really excited to get to the French side!

The first place we stopped was Baie Lucas. It was breathtaking, to say the least! I loved that little boat that was tied up here.

From there we drove north and eventually took a side road that gave us some nice views of Orient Bay. We also saw some fabulous colors of what we think was bougainvillea.
Don't you just wanna live in this quaint little house? I do! :-)
Next we headed to Grand Case, which is known as the gastronomic capital of the Caribbean! (That means it has great restaurants!) Sadly, the restaurants were only open at night and it wasn't even lunchtime yet, so we just strolled around and admired the scenery. By this time, we ALL had to go to the bathroom, and this lady who was cleaning one of the restaurants let us use theirs. It had a European toilet, which I had never seen before - two different flushers! Crazy!

Anyway, this little village sits right along a gorgeous beach (imagine that!) and it's pronounced "Grand Koss." Interesting. We were enamored with the pier and this little fisherman who was fishing off the pier using French Bread! LOL! Here are some pictures of Grand Case, all taken by Jason, since the batteries in my camera were dead at the time.

From Grand Case, we started driving toward Marigot, the French capital, where we planned to eat lunch. Along the way, we saw a sign that pointed to Colombier, where there was a watermelon plantation I had read about. We headed down that road. We never did see the watermelon plantation, but we saw some more amazing scenery! We also saw an emu!!

It was SO COOL! It only had 3 toes! It was behind a fence, but we pulled over to the side of the road and we all took way too many pictures of it! When it raised its neck all the way up, it was taller than we were! I think it started getting angry at us, cause it started grunting! Of course, we are all four animal lovers, so we were talking to it and carrying on. It was fun.

We also saw this cool castle or something on top of the hill that was on the other side of the road from the emu. Back in the car, we took off for Marigot. We were STARVED! When we got there, we found a place to park right by the bay. It was gorgeous! So many boats tied up - I didn't get a very good picture of it, but you get the idea. We wandered along the streets of the city, looking for an authentic place to eat. We finally found a cute little corner cafe that we thought looked good! The lady who owned the cafe came over and talked to us and told us about her fresh fruit juices - we each got a fruit juice drink. I got a pineapple, coconut, and mango juice - it was delicious!

For lunch, Brian had what we think was goat! I tried it and it wasn't bad! He LOVED it! I can't remember what J&A ordered, but I got a ham and cheese croissant, of course! What did you expect? I'm still as picky as ever!!
After lunch, we drifted around the narrow streets of Marigot, enjoying the people and the shops. Brian and I got some caramel gelato that was excellent. Have I said yet how hot it was? Good grief, it was nearly unbearable! The city is densely packed with buildings and there was no breeze! But we were okay with it - we knew our next stop was the beach!

By now, we were driving south down the west side of the island. We really wanted to go to Baie Rouge, a little-known, somewhat secluded beach that was said to be wonderful. It was off on a little peninsula. We drove right past the turn off and didn't even know it, but we soon realized we had passed it, so we turned around. This time we saw the sign for the beach and we realized that you could only see the sign if you were coming back that way! Good thing we turned around!

We found a place to park and entered the beach. There were some people there, but they were spread out and it wasn't really crowded at all. We found a nice place in the sand and set our stuff down. I love laying on the beach, especially when I can enjoy the crystal blue water. It didn't take long for us to get in the water, it was so hot. The water was the perfect temperature, not cold at all, but so refreshing! Jason and Brian snorkeled around the beach. We didn't take any pictures at the beach because we didn't want to get sand in the camera.

We stayed at the beach for probably an hour and a half or so, and then we headed back to the cruise dock to complete our circle of the island. We got stuck in traffic near the airport, and when we finally got moving again we realized that they had lifted a drawbridge and let several boats through! We drove past the airport and by that time, we were back on the Dutch side. Brian took this picture through the car window (I love how you can see the shadows of the clouds on the mountains!):We got stuck in traffic again in Philipsburg, the Dutch capital, and for awhile we thought we were going to miss our boat! (Not that I would have minded...) But we made it back and all was well, and we enjoyed some views as we sailed away from the island.

That night, Brian and I skipped dinner. We were exhausted, so we took a nap and then later we all met for a show. I can't remember what else we did that night, but I'm sure it involved a lot of laughing!

*Disclaimer: Many of these pictures were taken by Jason or Alicia.

thanks to tara...

2007-06-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

...I had to go and buy some new MAC eye shadows on Sunday. Since Tara and I are both Sephora junkies, and just makeup junkies in general, I thought I would share what I bought, in honor of her MAC posts, seen here and here. Tara, I'd like to thank you for your contribution to my makeup collection, and I'm sure my husband also thanks you for your contribution to my spending! LOL
The colors are, clockwise from top left: Satin Taupe, Malt, Orb, Texture, and Vanilla.

In other news, I've been doing some scrapping again, finally! It's Summer Scrapfest over at Lifetime Moments, and I'm having a ball trying to meet all of the challenges. Here are a few of my favorite layouts I've done in the last week or so (all clickable, if you want to see a bigger image):

a new drummer

2007-06-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

I don't think I mentioned that last Sunday was our drummer's last Sunday. Rich has been playing at our church for 3 years and, like me, he drives about an hour one-way every Saturday and Sunday. Rich and his wife have 2 kids and I can understand why he would want to spend more time at home. We have practice every Saturday evening - I usually leave my house between 4:30 and 4:45 and I get home beween 9 and 10. Then we leave at 8:30 on Sunday mornings and we're usually home by 2 or 2:30. It does take up a lot of the weekend.

Anyway, tonight was our first rehearsal with our new drummer - and he's just great! He's really talented and it was an easy rehearsal. You never know what it's gonna be like when you have a new person - but he's a great fit and it was fun! At one point I looked over and his sticks were like a blur, they were moving so fast! I miss Rich but I think Josh is gonna do just fine.

I've actually been scrapping a lot lately! It's Summer Scrapfest over at Lifetime Moments and I'm having a great time! I'll share some of my pages soon. Can you believe I still haven't finished my cruise posts? What is WRONG with me? Well, I'll tell you what it is: I HATE doing pictures on Blogger. They never go where I tell them to go and then I have to post and repost, publish, delete, repost, etc. It takes me forever! But St. Martin was my favorite of all the places we went, so I really need to get those pictures up soon!

I don't think there's much else to say! We're just truckin' along in the summer heat of Florida. Brian's enjoying work and I'm scrambling like crazy to get my Kindermusik classes up and running. Things are looking positive on that front, but more about that later. Gotta get to bed - I'm tired and we have to get up early. Good night, all!

boo hoo!

2007-06-08T20:22:00.000-05:00

No one ever comments on my blog! *sob*

Seriously, no one has even made fun of me in my snorkel gear! You know that's one of the funniest pictures you've ever seen! What kind of friends do I have, anyway, when you don't even wanna make fun of me????

:-(

spring cleaning and the furminator

2007-06-04T15:22:00.000-05:00

Dude, I can't seem to get my cruise pics uploaded in a timely manner! It's been over a month now! I need to get Day 5 up, St. Martin/Maarten, cause those are the most amazing pictures of all! Maybe I can work on that later today.

Well, here's what's been going on around here:

Our Memorial Day weekend was really exciting, let me tell ya! Guess what we did! We cleaned. LOL Brian shampooed the carpets - they look brand new, it's just amazing. And I cleaned out my file cabinets (I had stuff in there from like 1997 and before!), all of the bedroom closets, and the piano room. Brian cleaned out his computer junk. He had three iris carts (you know, those big stacks of plastic drawers on wheels) that he was able to condense down to one. I was amazed, proud, and thrilled! I love being organized!

I got the rest of the "larger" sized clothes out of my closet, made a huge trip to Goodwill, and hung some of the nice ones in the guest room to take to the consignment shop. I went through all those files, threw stuff away, shredded stuff, and just made a bunch of garbage. We have one of those huge trash cans that's about 4.5 feet tall, and we filled it up completely. When the garbage man came and emptied it, we filled it up again in one day! Whoa! That's a lot of cleaning!

There was a crappy file cabinet in the piano room that we put out on the curb for trash, and it was gone in an hour! LOL! Another's treasure and all that. I organized our closet in our bedroom and it looks amazing! We finally made use of our high ceilings and stored stuff all the way up to the top. We also put a bunch of winter stuff into huge Ziplock bags and took them to the attic. I put away a bunch of stuff that needed to be filed and organized some of my 4,000 piano books. Brian found an old broken computer and got it working. It was a crazy, busy, tiring weekend, but our house looks great. :-)

We also went and saw Pirates after church on Sunday. We had dinner at Logan's (my favorite) with Tim and Christi and then on to the movie. It was good, but a bit drawn out in parts. I dozed off a few times!

In other news, Sam the cat has been throwing up all over the house. It was getting so bad, I took him to the vet. She promptly told me we needed to brush him more, that the hairballs were causing the vomiting since it's that "shedding" time of year. Ugh. Sam HATES to be brushed. So I headed to Petsmart and bought The Furminator. Yeah. Go to that site and watch that video - that's EXACTLY what it looked like when we brushed Sam with it. The pile of hair was much bigger than Sam!! It was amazing, and there's been no vomit since, and also no hairballs lying around on our clean carpet! Yay! Of course, Sam scratched and bit us the whole time. But he's now half his previous size and he's all shiny and soft. We love it. (So does he, he just doesn't want to admit it.)

Last week I finished all my coursework for my Kindermusik license and faxed in my application. So I'll be a licensed KM educator any day now! Next week I'm meeting with a local dance studio to talk about teaching there. I'm hoping this will work out since they have lots of students there and we could draw from each others' client bases. It's an exciting time!

This past weekend, my friend Julie from Nashville came into town. We used to work together at Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing. It was so fun to hang out with her! We talked until my throat was sore! LOL Friday we went to Animal Kingdom and hung out in the rain. It was a fun time, even if we were soaked! The rest of the weekend, Brian and I literally did a whole lot of nothing. The band was off from church, so we didn't have to make the trek to Winter Haven, and we were able to rest and relax and spend some time together. I even did some scrapbooking! First time in months.

OK, well, that's all I can think of to say. The summer heat is rolling in, along with the horrid humidity, and I just dread it. Counting down to October!! :-P

marc broussard

2007-05-24T18:37:00.000-05:00

Guess what - Marc Broussard is coming back to the House of Blues on July 3!! I'm so excited, I cannot wait. He has a new CD coming out June 26. Of course, I've already pre-ordered it! I'm SO excited!

(Just adding this pic to use in my profile.)

adventures in cruising - day four - st. thomas

2007-05-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

We arrived in St. Thomas around 10:30 am and everyone on the ship had to go through immigration. Luckily it didn't take very long and Brian and I were gone by about 11 or 11:15. The first thing we did was head to the Skyride at Paradise Point. The ride up in the little cable car/gondola was fun, but just as we got to the top, it started POURING rain. I was very, very sad about this. The view from up there was supposed to be spectacular, and there was so much fog you couldn't see a thing. Here's me at the top of the mountain - you can see the "spectacular view" (of the FOG) behind me!

But in a little while, the clouds broke up and we got a nice view. See?

Around noon, we headed back to the boat to put our bathing suits on. We ordered some sandwiches from room service, grabbed our beach bag with towels, and slathered on sunscreen. Out we headed to our snorkeling excursion! It was spitting rain and it was very overcast, and the sea was a bit choppy. It was about an hour boat ride to the island we snorkeled around, which was just north of St. Croix. The ride was VERY rough. I don't suffer from motion sickness of any kind, but I was feeling pretty nauseous by the time we finally got to Buck Island. Brian looked pretty green. We were so glad when we finally got there! (Here we are on the ride out.)

The boat tied up about 50 feet or so offshore and the crew gave us a little snorkeling lesson. During the lesson, the sun actually came out! It was perfect timing! Anyway, Buck Island is a protected reef and we were not allowed to walk on the island or touch any of the coral surrounding it. I guess the oils from our skin can kill the coral. So the guide explained that the easiest way off the boat was to jump, or we could go down the ladder. I looked at Brian, we shrugged, and then we jumped! It was great! We were in about 30 feet of water. We were warned about fire coral and sea urchins, so I had my eye out for those. We saw LOTS of BOTH!

As soon as I was in the water, I decided to try out the mask. I put my face in the water and immediately began breathing really fast - so I came up and let out a long breath. I did this a few times, and then I realized I was able to breathe normally! Being able to see and breathe underwater was so cool! Brian couldn't get a good seal on his mask because his moustache was in the way, so he swam around holding his nose. That left me with the camera, and I got a few cool pictures. You can clearly see the fire coral in this picture - it's mustard-colored. And if you click on it and look to the right, you can see some sea urchins.
One of the guys on our excursion dove down and took a picture of us together!

And aren't I just gorgeous in my snorkel gear??!! Hilarious!

Anyway, snorkeling was SO much fun, it's our new favorite thing. Since we've been back, I've discovered that there are several freshwater places in Florida to snorkel, including Rock Springs, which is about 10 minutes from our house! We are SO going to buy our own snorkel gear and snorkel all around!

The trip back to St. Thomas was MUCH more enjoyable - we sat out on the front of the boat and just enjoyed the views and the clean air. It was a fantastic trip!

Once back on the ship, we changed back into dry clothes and headed out to shop. I bought a Larimar bracelet - Larimar is a stone found only in the Dominican Republic. It's a pretty bracelet and I got a good deal - it's a nice memento of a fabulous day!

We met J&A right before we had to be back on the ship. We left the dock at 8:30 PM and the skyline was just gorgeous! Here are some pictures sailing away from St. Thomas: