and another "absolute" falls . . .

so today . . . i think i love shania twain.

this worries me. i hate country music. really. a lot. it all sounds the same to me. and the twang just kills me! it makes me want to walk like a chicken. i can't explain it--it just does.

(yes, that is diandra holding a chicken! i thought this might be a good spot for a chicken picture, even though you can't see it walking. i guess you will have to imagine it!!)

and then two summers ago diandra and i took a road trip to portland to visit my parents. we took my new car, crammed every inch of trunk space full of stuff (well, it is kind of a small trunk, and we are girls so we had a lot of stuff,) and headed north on I-5. we talked, we laughed, we listened to my music--for the first twelve hours of the trip . . .

then we crossed the oregon border, and stopped at the talent, oregon wal-mart.

there is nothing special about this particular store. we actually pass several wal-marts on our way to portland, (not to mention that there is one just a couple of miles from our house,) but for some reason i always feel compelled to stop at this particular store. even if i don't need anything, i will usually stop. because you just never know . . .

(part of the appeal is probably the lack of sales tax. we have adjusted to the outrageous sales tax that we are forced to pay here in socal, but when you don't have to pay it, it is like everything is on sale! so we shop until we run out of money and feel perfectly justified in doing so, because we save so much money without the sales tax . . . yes, that is our story, and we are sticking to it!)

anyway, we went into walmart, and diandra bought a cd by a cute little blonde girl named taylor swift. and then she wanted to play it in the car. i don't live in a cave, so i knew this was country music--which i hate--so i wanted to say no. but i love my daughter, and she was in the midst of some pretty difficult circumstances. i wanted to see her smile, so i reluctantly said ok, we could listen to it. once.

and then a strange thing happened. i liked it. i really, really liked it. the words of the songs just seemed to resonate with both of us that summer, and before we reached portland (two days later, because we went to over to the coast first,) i was starting to sing along to some of the songs. even the ones that started out twangy.

we listened to that cd all the way to the oregon coast, all the way up the oregon coastline, back inland to portland, AND THEN all the way back down to LA!! yes, you read that right. we did not pull another cd out of a jewel case for the rest of the trip. we put the top down and sang at the top of our lungs. it was cathartic. for both of us. (i know i am not singing at the top of my lungs in this picture, but when we were singing, we weren't taking pictures. so this is the best i can do.)

i had to admit that even though i hated country music, i liked taylor swift. then i learned that i liked some rascal flatts and a little carrie underwood. and tonight, while watching american idol, i kind of think i might love shania twain. i'm not 100% certain yet though . . .

i am thinking maybe my debit card and i should wander over to itunes, listen to some shania, put a few songs in my shopping cart, and see what happens . . . ;)

in the red!

so today . . . i am sad.

i was mad, but now i am sad.

my bank account is overdrawn. i made a mistake and it is costing me. i knew my funds were getting low--we are approaching the end of the month, after all--so on thursday afternoon i checked my balance before i went to do some errands. i was pleasantly surprised! it seemed that i had a bit more in the account than i thought. so after picking up a few things from the grocery store, i came home and downloaded a song from amazon, and got dinner from chick-fil-a. earlier in the day i had gone to 7-11 for brownies. i didn't spend that much, but i did complete four different transactions. the bank graciously deducted the largest one first, which resulted in four overdraft fees.

each one of those transactions has cost me an additional $35. each one! even the music download--yeah, i am now the owner of a $36 song. and it isn't even a song i love--it is a song i needed for band rehearsal!

i called the bank to try to convince them that it was ridiculous for me to have to pay all those fees. they agreed to cancel one of them, but i am still on the line for the other three. my only recourse is apparently to write to the home office, plead my case, and see what happens. which i'm sure will be nothing, but it guess i will do it anyway. in the mean time, i have to cover those charges by wednesday, or they will charge me another $35 for being overdrawn for more than five days. really. they can do that.

so i guess i will have to come up with $100 anyway, but now it won't be going to buy that beautiful, soft, leather handbag that i blogged about on thursday. instead it will be going to my greedy, sneaky bank.

i wonder if they will take a gift card . . .

mother's day in july???

so today . . . i got my mother's day present.

i know mother's day was two months ago, but the event was today!

today i got to spend the day with my daughter in the hot sun listening to LOUD music by some amazing musicians. it's called fishfest. i'll tell you why on monday (no blog tomorrow, probably,) but tonight it is very late, and i have to get up early tomorrow to go to church and and play some loud music of my own with some future amazing musicians. and tonight, i still have to decide what we are going to play. so i need to stop blogging, write tomorrow's set, and go to bed!

but since it is such a short blog tonight, i thought i should at least give you a picture.yep! that's us. and that's the stage. we were pretty darned close!

it was a wonderful day, and i have a bunch of pictures and video that i want to post, but it isn't going to happen tonight . . .

the cat club

so today . . . i had an adventure. i went to hollywood. after dark. to a club on sunset blvd. did i mention it was dark?

i have a friend who sings. her dream is to be a rock star, but as time passes, her dream seems to get further and further away. until today. today, she got to sing in a club in front of people who had paid to get in. it was kind of cool.

this was clearly not going to be rollie's thing. i did not even ask him if he wanted to go, because i knew this would be one step outside of hell for him. so my friend wanda went with me. we met at my house at about 7:30. we didn't need to be at the club until 8:45, so i thought we had plenty of time. i grabbed my gps and we headed down the road.

well, actually before we headed down the road, we got in my car and sat there while i attempted to enter the address of the club into my gps. i don't use my gps too often, because i usually know where i am going. so, of course, the battery was dead. no problem--i have a car charger! i thought i would just plug it in, power it up, and we would be off. so i plugged it in, but it wouldn't power up. hmmmm. ok, it must be SO dead that it is going to take a little while to charge up enough to turn on. i said to wanda, "don't worry. we will stop and get gas, and by then it should be charged up enough." but after filling the gas tank, it still wouldn't come on. so i said to wanda, "don't worry. if it won't come on, we will just head north on the 5 (freeway) and follow the signs to hollywood. then we will just cruise sunset blvd until we find the club." can you say naive?

i could not figure out why the stupid piece of black plastic junk would not turn on! and i was starting to get a bit annoyed by it. then i realized what the problem was. it also has an fm transmitter for traffic reports, and instead of the power plug, i had connected the fm transmitter. oops. when i connected the power cord, it started right up. so we entered the address of the club and headed down the road.

it's a good thing we got the gps working, because as it turns out, you don't get to hollywood from the 5 freeway--you have to go on the 5 and then onto the 101. i missed that, and probably would have ended up in sacramento, except i heard the gps fainly saying "recalculating route." recalculating route? why was she recalculating our route? and then i realized that i had been so busy talking. i had missed the turn. thank goodness that thing knows where i am and how to get me to where i want to be! the gps did not take me the way i thought we should go, but one thing i have learned is that you need to trust it. other wise it takes a long time to get where you where you are going. you will eventually get there, (if you don't smash the gps because it won't stop saying, "recalculating route,") but it will take much longer than if you just go where it tells you to.

half an hour later, we made it to the club. well, actually we made it to where the gps said the club should be, but we couldn't find it. we drove up the street. we turned around and drove back. we turned around again and drove by a third time. finally we stopped, rolled down the window, and asked someone if they knew where the club was. this was all wanda's idea. my idea was to leave her in the car and go to the subway sandwich shop and ask if they knew where it was. but wanda thought asking some stranger on the sidewalk was a better idea. maybe she just didn't want to be left in the car . . . alone . . . on sunset blvd . . . after dark . . .

it turned out to be our lucky day, because the guy she asked knew right where it was, and we were almost there. so we drove up, GOT A PARKING PLACE RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR, and didn't even have to put coins in the parking meter because it was sunday. i should mention here that my only hesitation in driving was knowing that at some point i was going to have to parallel park. i flunked my first driver's test during the parallel parking portion (please! who really needs to be able to back along a curb for 30 yards anyway!) so when we got close, i just prayed for a parking place that i could drive straight into--requiring no backing up along a curb! and as wanda sighted the club (her job) i spied a parking place (my job.) not only was in right in front of the door, but it was on the end, so i could just pull right in. my guardian angels rock!

now, this club was small. it was probably only about 25 feet across, but it was deep. and dark. it was not easy to find, except of course that we were parked right in front of it. we got out and headed for the door, where we stopped to pay a cover charge--another new experience for me. it cost $10 just to walk through the door! the guys ahead of us had their driver's licenses out, and i thought, "oh, he will need to see my driver's license." talk about positive thinking! of course he didn't card us! i mean, i am old enough that it is obvious i won't be breaking any laws by going in. still, it would have been nice to be asked . . .

inside, the door was right next to the stage. that meant when we walked in, everyone there was looking at us. it felt a bit awkward, but we went on in and found a place to sit. it wasn't m'chel's turn to perform yet, so we listened to another woman sing for a few minutes. almost all of the crowd was there to see m'chel and danny, but the singer seemed to be enjoying having an audience and was not anxious to relinquish the stage.

while we waited, i decided we should have something to drink. now i have never been in a club before, so i wasn't sure what to expect. i walked toward the bar and began to wonder if they served anything you didn't have to be 21 to drink. i was thinking along the lines of a diet soda, but thought i might have to settle for a glass of ice and then just wait for it to melt. there were lots of choices, but i didn't see any diet coke cans. so i asked, and the bartender didn't look at me like i was totally out of my element (which i was.) he just filled two glasses with ice and sprayed diet coke in--from a fountain hose. he even added a lemon and a lime!

finally it was m'chel's turn to take the stage. i am fortunate enough to get to sing with m'chel every week when we lead worship. she has a beautiful velvety, rich voice! her guitar player, danny, also played with our band for about 5 years, and it has been so much fun to watch him become an amazing musician. i didn't know any of the songs that they performed, but they sounded great, and i was so proud to be there for their debut.m'chel wants to tell the people who haunt the clubs on the strip about Jesus. she doesn't sing worship songs--she sings songs that the people in those clubs will relate to. she hopes that will give her an opening to talk to them and listen to them, and move them a bit closer to God. and if anyone can do it, i think m'chel and danny can.

we left shortly after they were done. there were other acts to come, but tonight we were there for m'chel and danny. our sodas were gone, the weekend was over, and it was time to go home . . .

i don't hang out in clubs--it just isn't who i am. but tonight i did. and i will probably go back to see them again. it was a little awkward at times, it was definitely outside my usual realm of existence, but it was also fun! i guess that is kind of the way it is when you have an adventure!

my ocd kicks into overdrive

so today . . . i spent most of the day sitting behind my computer working on my music files. i have LOTS of music files--kid's music that i use at school, worship music that i use for church, and then just the popular stuff that i like. i mean, i had close to 10 gigabytes of music on my last computer and used three different programs to play and store it! the problem was, each program wanted each song in it's own special format. and somehow i ended up with several copies of lots of different songs, and still without a playable file on my ipod! it was a mess.

enter my new computer. instead of just copying the whole mess onto the new machine (even though it has a 160 gb hard drive) i decided to very carefully add music and keep it organized. this, of course, immobilized me for several weeks. i just had to keep listening to the same 12 songs on my ipod, over and over and over again. but the day came when i needed to add some new music (that i needed to learn) to my ipod. and so the task of organizing and transferring began.

well, i say began, but i still haven't actually added any songs to itunes yet. the problem is that i am starting with the worship music, because that is what i need to get on my ipod right away. most of what i have are music files that have been given to me by people and they have no info on them. so before i can add a song to itunes, i have to listen to it, figure out what the title might be and who i think is singing it. then i have to go online and try to confirm what i thought, and also discover the album titles, because i need the artist name, album name, track number, and song title in order to keep it all neatly organized. and that is how i have spent most of my day, because it takes a lot of time and concentration--and also a lot of listening and guessing.

everyone i talk to thinks i am insane. "just put it in itunes and don't worry about how it is stored in your computer! itunes will figure it out."

but i would know.

i would know that the information wasn't complete. i would know that there would be a lot of "unknown artist" or "unknown album" entries and it would bother me. and then later when i would try to go back and add in more complete information, itunes wouldn't be able to find it. ( itunes hates me, but it is the only program that will interface with my ipod. stupid apple . . . !)

you see, this is why nothing ever gets done!! i get hung up in little details and the big picture gets lost. i don't cook much because i haven't written out a month's worth of menus and made a shopping list so that i will only have to go to the store once and can prepare all the vegetables ahead of time and freeze the meat in meal sized packages and pre-cook everything. i don't vacuum as often as i should because i want to go through the stack of magazines and papers that sits by my chair in the family room first and besides the vacuum is upstairs so that i don't have to see it all the time, but before i can bring it down, i should really vacuum upstairs, but that would mean bringing the bathroom rugs down to shake them and maybe i should just wash them since they are going to be downstairs, but i have other laundry going so i guess i will just have to wait.

my friend wendy says i think too much--that i should just do stuff without all the thinking. she is probably right. the thinking is what immobilizes me. but when i am not thinking, i am asleep. and i find that i am not all that productive when i am sleeping.

i am determined to get some music on this ipod before the weekend is over! it is mostly out of desperation--there are some new songs i need to learn in the next couple of weeks and the best way to do that is to get them on my ipod so i can listen and learn while walking the dogs. of course, getting the music on the ipod is only part of the solution. i also have to find some headphones that will stay in my tiny little ears while i am walking but that means going to the store, and deciding which store to try first and should i try full headphones? because the earbuds won't stay in and then there are over the head ones and behind the head ones and different colors and . . .