La Musique

As promised, a post about wedding music.  I’m once again YouTubing wedding music, this time in an attempt to find something nice and long to play while the parents are being seated.  Or rather, Greg’s parents and my aunt.  I have to pay a visit to my dad tomorrow, but I have a distinct feeling that he will not be walking me down the aisle. *sniffle*  I would have asked my grandpa to do it, except that he can’t, for obvious reasons.  So my dad will be sitting up front while my uncle walks me down the aisle.  At least, that’s the plan, assuming my uncle agrees to it.  I haven’t asked him yet because I wanted to talk to my dad about it first.  I told him when I got engaged that I was really hoping he’d be able to walk me down the aisle, but he’s been hesitant to agree to it due to his health.  Apparently he’s actually using the walker they sent home with him the last time he was in the hospital, so that’s awesome, but I’m pretty sure that walkers and wedding dresses don’t mix too well.  I don’t want my dress getting caught in the wheels or anything.  So it will be with a heavy heart that I ask my dad tomorrow if it’s okay if I have my uncle do it.

But I digress.  Who walks me down the aisle really has nothing to do with the music we’ll play during the ceremony, does it?  Anyway, I think I’ve got the prelude music figured out and I hope to have “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” “Canon in D,” ‘Largo’ from “Xerxes,” “Panis Angelicus,” and “My Heart Ever Faithful” played before the service.  That should be long enough, I think.  For processionals, I’m leaning toward ‘Air’ from Handel’s “Water Music” and “Trumpet Voluntary.”

Once again, I seem to have gotten distracted by YouTube.  What started off as a simple search for a certain piece by Bach turned into a frantic search for a certain clip from Mr. Holland’s Opus.  It turned out not to be the same piece of music, but it was a lovely bit of diversion nonetheless.  And I forgot how funny William H. Macy looked as he flew down the hall when Richard Dreyfuss started boogie-ing on the piano.  I love that movie!

By the way, have I mentioned that trying to listen to pretty musics on my computer while everyone else watches Pixar shorts is really distracting?  Especially when the short is particularly music-laden.  Also, this recording of “Where Sheep May Safely Graze” is a really crappy one.  This sounds more like synthesized organ (yuck) than an actual organ (way cool).  Fortunately, it’s almost Rachael’s bedtime, so the Pixar shorts should cease shortly.  Ha!  That’s kinda funny!  If you’re easily amused…and sleep-deprived…and…something…

Anyway, I started on the Bach stuff because I happened upon a link to Amazon wherein you can get 99 songs by Bach for only $2.89.  Needless to say, I was intrigued.  I’ve written down a few to check out.  Yay Bach!  Woo!  Some of it is flute music and now I have a sudden urge to break mine out of its case and put on an impromptu performance.  I don’t think I’ll be doing that today, but perhaps tomorrow.

I must get to bed earlier tonight than I did last night.  Last night turned into this morning.  This is becoming a serious issue for me.  On the other hand, at least we got our readings agreed upon.  Now all I have to do is type them up.  Oh joy.  Actually, that – ooo!  Brad Paisely! – won’t be so bad, I don’t think.  I can probably knock that out in under an hour.  Once I track down everything on the internetz, of course.

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Oh, that’s funny!

Okay.  Must.  Get.  Serious.  Must not pay attention to the ghost light.  Or funny pictures of adorable kitties.  Or Brad Paisley.  Right.  Am focused.  On wedding music.  Right.

Okay, so for the recessional, I was planning to have Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.”  At least I can have that.  Though I’m still annoyed about not being able to have the processional I wanted.  I don’t know why I can have one secular piece but not another.  What’s the big deal, anyway?  It’s a nice song!

Yes!  I sent Greg an email with the above picture in an attempt to make him smile.  Victory is mine!  Yeah!  I not only got a smile but a big hearty laugh.  Yay!

Okay, so since I really need to get serious about the whole music thing here, I think I’ll sign off for the night.  Now that I have fixed the typo in my last post *hissgrowlsnarl*, I can rest easy.  Of course, I’d rest a lot easier if I had this whole music thing all squared away, but with any luck, it’ll be taken care of before the night is over.  Lord, now I’m in trouble.  I had to go and type in “Gaelic Storm.”  That was a bad idea.  A very, very bad idea.  Now I’ll never get any work done because I’ll be too busy watching YouTube videos of their performances!  But they’re sooooooooo good!  The video of “Stain the Grout” is funny.  The camera keeps bouncing around because clearly whoever was doing the taping was trying to dance at the same time.  As if it was even possible to not dance along to their music.  Ha!  I’d like to see someone not dance to their music.  It’s impossible, I’m tellin’ ya.

Fifty-seven days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

I have succumbed…

I broke down today and bought a Diet Dr. Pepper.  No matter what the commercials say, it does not taste like regular Dr. Pepper.  On the other hand, it tastes a whole heck of a lot better than the flavored waters I keep trying that are infused with vitamins and all sorts of things to keep you awake.  Or maybe they’re just herbal extracts that do something that I don’t know what it is.  Anyway, here’s to the shot of caffeine I just took!  Maybe someday I’ll adjust to the artificial sweeteners and diet pop won’t seem so bad.

I’m not gonna hold my breath on that one, but you never know.  Stranger things have happened.

On a related note (perhaps), who knew that dried pineapple was so awesome?  It’s super rich, but it is oh-so-very good.  Yum!

As I sat at my desk this morning pondering all the things I didn’t get done last night, it occurred to me that I had intended to write about more than I did last night.  Like about the awesome new book I checked out from the library yesterday on my very hectic lunch break.  I bet I could have it finished inside of a week if I would actually spend my lunch breaks reading and not running all over town like I’ve been doing the last couple of days.  Anyway, I finally managed to track down The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan.  By finally, I mean I looked in two libraries and one of them had it.  I started it yesterday but by the time I got around to opening the book, I only had time enough to read the first chapter, which was only eight pages long.  I’m up to Chapter 4 now and can’t wait to read more.  Thank you, Miss Tara, for the awesome recommendation, even if it did take me a while to get around to reading it!  Since I didn’t have any luck finding The Giver yesterday, I guess it will have to wait till I’ve finished with this.

*yawn*  I am so tired today!  The worst part is that I wasn’t even up all that late last night.  It was a little after 10:30 p.m. when I went to bed and I got eight hours of sleep, more or less.  Perhaps I’ll try a multivitamin; maybe I’m just deficient in something (or lots of things).  Hey, it couldn’t hurt.

Aside from my capitulation to the dark and bubbly gods of carbonation, not much is new today.  Except that I had a lovely text exchange last night that set my mind at ease about today and tomorrow.  Hooray for getting along!  It really does make life so much easier.  You should have seen me last night; I was practically happy-dancing on the couch.  I love getting along with people!  If only I could do that all the time…

I got another in a series of lovely emails from my cousin Sandra, who has spent the last year studying at Cambridge.  In England.  My cos is so smart that she finished her master’s in one year.  Of course, if you look at her Facebook page, it lists half a dozen different colleges (well, practically).  Okay, I just counted them and there’s five: Grinnell College, University of Illinois, Iowa State University, Cambridge University, and Yale University.  Way to go, Sandra!  Rock that Ivy League!

On another note, I wish I could have done half the things she’s gotten to do in the last year.  It seems like every time she emails, she’s taken some trip to the continent and done a bunch of awesome stuff.  Maybe I’ll be able to retire young and travel around Europe.  It wouldn’t be the same as getting to live there for a year and really experience another culture, but I suppose it’s better than watching the grass grow in my backyard.

Hmm, I was going to write about something else a moment ago, but now I can’t remember what it was.  I hate when that happens!

Well, since I can’t remember what it was I was going to write about and since I apparently can’t type worth a hoot today, I think I’ll get back to reading the issues of Newsweek I’ve got piled up on my desk in hopes of making the afternoon pass a little faster.  I can’t wait to get home tonight and spend the evening with the fam!

Fifty-eight days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

So I was going to do this yesterday…

…but I didn’t.  I don’t think.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t, anyway.  But I guess I was wrong cuz it looks like I blathered on about how disappointed I was in Wait Till Helen Comes.  Of course!  How could I have forgotten?

So I’m YouTubing various songs from the book of wedding music I bought last weekend in an attempt to finally find something to use for processional music.  Oh, and then I got distracted by a video-storage-unit-reorganization project that took two hours, what with running things back and forth and organizing and tucking the kids into bed and then organizing some more and then talking about family traditions such as the shiveree.  I hope I spelled that right.  Anyway, clearly I cannot multi-task or I would have had all this wedding music stuff done a long time ago.  But I digress.

I see I haven’t raved about the book of sheet music I bought over the weekend.  It has 65 different songs for weddings in it, both the music and the lyrics, where warranted.  So far, I’ve made it through about nine of the songs.  Some I like, two we’re already using, some I don’t really care for, and one I like and Greg doesn’t.  My, but distractions are exciting!

I am soooo not getting done tonight what I had planned to get done.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a productive evening and all, and I had a lovely time fixing supper with Greg and talking and whatnot, I’m just not getting as far into this music book as I had hoped to get tonight.  We really need to get the music picked out so that we can get it to the organist so she can practice and everything and I feel really bad that it’s taken this long to get it all organized and agreed upon.  I really wanted to get it done tonight because she’s been after us for two months to get her the music so that she can practice and everything.  If you read my blatherings regularly, you’ll know I’m prone to guilt.  This is a great example of it.

Oh, Andrea Bocelli, how lovely is thy voice!  I could listen to you all night long.  Mayhap I will.  After all, my Zune is charged and ready to go and I certainly have enough of your cds, so.  Pleasant dreams await!  Except I think I may have selected the wrong version of “Panis Angelicus,” so I guess I’ll finish listening to the lovely Signore Bocelli and then I’ll find the right version.  Because it’s just plain criminal to interrupt an Andrea Bocelli recording. *sticks nose in air and momentarily pretends to be a music snob*

Okay, I’m tired.  I’m beginning to think that I’m not going to get through this all tonight and that if I try I’m going to really regret it in the morning.  And apparently I did have the right version of “Panis Angelicus” a minute ago, so now I’m going to see how this Renee Fleming chick sounds and move on to the next selection in my big book o’ songs.  Hmm.  Am not such a fan of the soprano.  Bring back the lovely mustachioed Italian!

No on Mr. Brian McKnight.  Not only would that not fly in our church, but I was never really a fan of “Back at One.”  And I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I don’t particularly care for “Grow Old With Me” by John Lennon, either.  Also, Father Quint would say no.  I suppose we could play this…   Maybe at the reception!  I love that song.  And that’s my favorite part of the movie, the whole airplane scene.  And once I’d searched for the John Lennon song and saw “grow old with you” in the search results, well, I just had to see what popped up.  Boy, YouTube is distracting in a completely awesome yet oh so procrastinatey sort of way!

I’ve now hit the modern/secular section of the book.  And once again, more YouTubing.  This time for lovely Josh Groban!  And a brief intro from Ellen DeGeneres, because evidently this clip is from when he performed on her show.  *sigh*  Joshy, please come to Iowa so I can set you up with Miss Tara.  Please?

Okay, this is completely pointless now because I know I can’t have any of these in the actual ceremony and yet I’m YouTubing them anyway.  It’s a sickness, I’m telling you!  Fortunately, Greg and I decided to alter the terms of our pact to allow for consumption of zero-calorie diet pop.  Apparently there is such a thing as diet pop with calories, but I have never seen such an oddity, so I was surprised.  This means that I can have lovely caffeine in the morning, yay!  On the other hand, I really hate diet pop, so the fact that I’m willing to even consider drinking such sludge is a testament to how badly I have missed my drug of choice over the last…um…two weeks…

Ooo!  They have our song in this book!  And lots of other awesome country tunes!  It’s too bad I can’t use them in the ceremony!  But that’s okay, cuz they still rock and maybe one day I’ll learn how to play the piano and then I can actually play the songs because I have the music!  I have the music, yo!  Do you think I’ve used enough exclamation marks in this paragraph?!  Do you?!  Cuz I’ll just keep throwing more in till you agree!  See!  Like this!

Okay, Kaysie needs some sleep…

Okay, I’m pretty sure I probably can’t use anything that’s left in the book from what I’m seeing right now.  Although having “Seasons of Love” (yes, from Rent) would totally rock.  Somehow, though, what with Father being a stickler for rules and all, I don’t think I’m gonna get my way on this.  After all, I can’t use Wagner, for crying out loud, so I’m sure he’ll say no to Jonathan Larson…Besides, I would have to have the original cast perform it, and I just don’t think I could convince Anthony Rapp or Adam Pascal to fly out to the middle of nowhere just to sing at my wedding.  But wouldn’t that be sooo totally awesome?

I think I can safely count out Meredith Willson, too, and I really don’t care for Jim Brickman stuff all that much.  Besides, we’re having organ music, not piano, except for “Ave Maria.”  That will be on piano.  And voice.  Greg’s cousin Amy is going to sing and I’ve heard she’s a great singer.  So yay!

Okay, time to wake up Greg and play him a couple tunes and then hit the sack.  Nighty night!

Fifty-nine days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

It finally happened…

…I finally found a book that, upon rereading, disappointed me.  I just finished Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn, which I probably read sometime in late elementary school or early middle school (I don’t remember exactly, because it was a long time ago, so give me a break).  At any rate, I think I must have read it when I was at an age to identify with some of the characters.  There’s Molly, who is 12; her younger brother, Michael, who is 10; her mother, Jean; her stepfather, Dave; and her step-sister, Heather, who is 7.  They move from Baltimore to this little country church, complete with graveyard, where Heather happens to befriend the ghost of a little girl who was just her age and even had the same initials.  Both their mothers had died in fires and they became fast friends.  Heather was not overly accepting of her father moving on with another woman, let alone of the woman herself (or Michael or Molly).  Half the book involved Molly, Michael, and Heather fighting and then their parents ended up fighting.  Molly felt like no one believed her because Dave and Jean (especially Dave) always took Heather’s side and after a while, this kind of got on my nerves, but not nearly as much as Dave himself did.  He was always making excuses for Heather’s bad behavior, saying things like, “Well, she’s just an unusually sensitive little girl,” or, “She’s suffered a loss and just needs love and understanding.”  Well, yes, but that only takes you so far in life.  I guess that’s the part that bothered me: no matter what she did that was wrong (and plenty of it was horrible), he was always making excuses for her and he seemed completely blind to the fact that he was being played, that she wasn’t nearly as innocent as he thought.  Now yes, she is just a little girl and yes, this is just a story, but it reminded me of one too many people I know in real life who have that same attitude of, “Well, I’ve suffered a loss, so you all should feel sorry for me and let me have my way” and blah blah blah…Apparently I couldn’t identify with anyone in the story this time around and I actually found myself growing mildly offended.  Isn’t it funny how our perceptions of things change over time?

In other news, we’re off to the courthouse this afternoon to get our marriage license.  Yay!  My aunt is going to meet us there and be our witness and then we’re all going out for supper afterwards.  Her mother-in-law is in town visiting and I’m really looking forward to having supper with her.  She and her husband were like second grandparents to me growing up and I haven’t seen her in a long time, so I hope we’ll have a good visit.  Evidently she was under the  mistaken impression, though, that supper tonight was supposed to be in celebration of my engagement and she didn’t want to intrude, so my aunt had to convince her that she was invited and that she wasn’t intruding on anything.  Besides, anything to celebrate our engagement would have been done a long time ago, like right after we got engaged.  I don’t want her to feel like she’s not welcome because she was the reason I suggested going out for supper in the first place, so I hope she’ll have fun.

Oh, I need some more medicine!  I woke up with a killer headache this morning and it just won’t go away.  I need a pop.  For the headache.  Yes, that’s it, for the headache…

Sixty days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

The cat tree

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Almost forgot!  I saw this this morning and it totes made me laugh cuz I loves kitties and there’s a lot of kitties in that there tree!  Happy Friday!

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Wind blowing in fish tank

Well, maybe not wind, but something’s making those plants move and I don’t think it’s the fish.  That’s right, folks, another post about the fishies.  If my head wasn’t still throbbing, perhaps I could come up with something more interesting to write about than the giant bubbles in the fish tank, but my head is killing me, so bubbles it is.

Or maybe not.  Now that the fog has cleared a bit in my brain, I can write about all the lovely things I did last night, namely, arguing over what music we should have and where during the wedding, fake flowers vs. live flowers, and how we should spell out the date on the unity candle.  The unity candle argument, at least, made us laugh and things stayed light, unlike the (many) arguments over what music to have and where.  Greg wanted to spell out the date September 26th, 2009, which I don’t like, and I wanted to spell it out September 26, 2009, which he hated.  I think it looks better, and of course, we both thought we were right, so as far as I’m aware, we didn’t get that one resolved.  He proposed a compromise: If I gave him the th on the unity candle, I could do whatever I wanted with the music.  The problem is that I was willing to find different music and I really hate that th on the date.  It just doesn’t look right.  When you put the date on a letter, you don’t put July 24th, 2009, you put July 24, 2009.  It’s the same deal with the candle.  He had a couple of old wedding programs in the wedding book and neither of them had the th, which I pointed out.  His response?  “They’re idiots,” he said, to which I replied while trying not to laugh too hard, “Why, because they agree with me?”  It was a long night and we were both tired by the time that we got around to all this.  At least we agreed on the cake topper…

So I got this email today.  You know the kind.  It was a forward, like many I’ve received in the past (because I know some people who still insist on forwarding tons of stuff and not all of it is stuff I particularly care to read).  This one was a variation of something I’d heard before in the form of a country song, but I forget who sings it.  Anyway, the forward showed a picture of a newspaper clipping from the opinion section of a newspaper from somewhere in Louisiana.  I like it so much that I’m going to repost it, so without further ado (and minus the editor’s note at the beginning), here it is:

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question: “Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied that I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday mornings.  I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.  I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.  I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity.  I was drug out to pull weeds in Mom’s garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of Dad’s fields.  I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor sould who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood, and if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think.  They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Perhaps this makes me sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but I happen to like this.  I think there’s a lot of truth to it.  I enjoy reading the parenting columns in the Waterloo paper when they’re published (about once a week, I think, and I can’t for the life of me remember the columnist’s name) because he seems to genuinely disavow the parent-as-buddy philosophy of childrearing.  It’s nice to see that because, while I want my kids to like me, that’s not part of the job description and even if they get upset with me now, someday they’ll have their own kids and be faced with the same challenges I face now and hopefully they’ll be able to appreciate what I do a little more (yes, I’m thinking of all the times they’ve turned their noses up at supper and how I used to do the same thing as a kid).

Okay, so I totally didn’t plan to get off on a little parenting-philosophy tangent there.  Woops.  But it’s something that I really feel strongly about and when I see things like that email I got today, it sort of refreshes things in my mind for me.  I really don’t want my kids to be the kind of kids who feel they can talk to me however they please, like the little girl we saw at Walmart that I’m pretty sure I already posted about.  I tried to find the post because that kid was truly a monster of a little girl, but I don’t remember when it was that we ran into her (although I know it was sometime in the last year and a half), so that makes it rather difficult to find the post.  Also, I gave up after looking for five minutes with no success.  My attention span seems to be very short today.  Also, I hurt from the shoulders up and got tired of scrolling.  Never mind – I found it, and completely without trying this time.  Isn’t that the way things always happen?  The minute you quit looking for something, it jumps right out at you.  Anyway, the post to which I was referring is this one.  Am determined not to let my kids turn out like that.

End rant.  I promise!  For real this time!  After all, the paper is just begging to be read.

Sixty-four days till September 26…

Did I mention that already?  Cuz I’m mentioning it again.  I can’t believe how close it’s getting!  Only 64 more days!

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

A nap attack of epic proportions…

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This will be me, later on today, when I’m by myself at work…This whole no-caffeine thing is just killing me.  Also the headache, but I can attempt to fix that.  Happy Friday, all!

Sixty-four days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Let the whining commence

Or perhaps not, although I strongly suspect that I will, at some point, break down and complain about the stupid headache that I have that will not go away and for which I cannot take any more medicine for a while because I don’t remember when I took that last bit of Excedrin.  Stupid forgetfulness.

So tonight I was thinking of heading to my aunt’s house to get some things I have stored in her attic, except that I forgot to ask Greg if a) we have any plans for the night and b) whether or not he felt like going.  I actually wouldn’t mind just sitting at home tonight and relaxing because Monday night we had to clean the house all up so that the realtor could show it last night and last night we went out to supper and then I visited my dad.  I wasn’t feeling terribly social last night, but I had some old shirts that belonged to my grandpa that I needed to drop off at my dad’s house, and it’s impossible to make a short visit to his place.  He’s lonely and I wish there was more I could do for him, but we’ve been so busy that I’m surprised we haven’t met ourselves coming and going yet.  My dad doesn’t really get out and people don’t usually come to visit him, either.  Of his six kids, I’m the only one that still has regular contact with him.  He doesn’t have a lot of friends, but I think that’s partly his own doing because he’s so stubborn and won’t listen to anyone.  There are lots of people who care about him but when we try to give him advice (like suggesting that maybe it’s time he think about going into the nursing home), he gets mad and pushes people away.  The last time I made the aforementioned suggestion, he told me to go to hell and Greg got really upset with him.  He didn’t say anything about it to him at first, just let it eat at him, but after a week he couldn’t take it anymore and he paid my dad a visit.  The conversation quickly went downhill and my dad decided that he’s not so fond of Greg anymore.  That was about the time he began trying to talk me out of marrying him.  He hasn’t said anything about it for a while now, so I hope he’s realized that my mind is made up and he can’t change it.  At least he (meaning my dad) hasn’t put me in the position of having to choose between them, because I wouldn’t do it.  They’re both too important to me to do that.

Wow, that was not at all what I had planned to write about.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re all probably wondering (unless you actually know me) why I would even suggest that my dad think about going into a nursing home since I’m only 25.  My dad is going to be 75 this December and he’s not in very good health.  He lives alone, he doesn’t take care of himself very well, he has a seizure disorder that seems to affect his memory, and he’s been falling a lot.  You can see why his spending so much time by himself worries me a bit, especially after my ex-husband’s grandpa died at home alone of a heart attack (and from what I understand, he was a very social guy that everyone loved) and lay there dead in his bathroom for a week before anyone found him.  I don’t want that to be my dad.  But he won’t listen to me or anyone else, for that matter.  He values his independence too much and doesn’t trust people when they offer to help him.  He’s too stubborn to ask for help and too proud to take it when it’s offered.  He’s a very proud guy, and I mean that in a negative way.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I caved and took the Excedrin.  Also some acid reducer.  Apparently my diet of Frosted Mini Wheats is not agreeing with my tummy.

But back to the plans for tonight.  If we don’t go to my aunt’s house to get who knows how much crap out of her attic, it will be Friday night at the soonest before it gets done.  She has to take my grandpa’s wife to have cataract surgery tomorrow and so she didn’t want to do it then.  I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad, waiting till Friday.  On the other hand, I’ve been totally lethargic all week and I don’t see that improving any time soon.  Right now I just want to curl up on the couch and be lazy.  Bring me a book!  Bring me a Bones marathon!  Bring me the Dr. Pepper from the fridge so I can teach it what happens when I’m taunted!

Oh, how I long for a pop.  Susan has picked Tom up from daycare the last couple nights, so we took her (and Rachael) out for supper last night to say thank you.  She said she couldn’t resist when he came up to her and said, “Can I go home with you?” all sweetly.  My boy is hard to resist.   Anyway, the waitress was taking drink orders and we all got water, but she ordered a cherry Pepsi and I had a hard time not drooling when it arrived.  It looked sooooo yummy!  And bubbly!  How I miss the bubbly!

Okay, I promise not to think about pop anymore.  After all, I’ll be within spitting distance of Fareway before long and must resist the urge to run inside and buy a Dr. Pepper.  Must…resist…urge…

Am very proud of myself.  Stopped at Fareway and came out with only a package of super-yummy grapes.  Ninety-nine cents a pound!  Delish!  They had sweet corn for 50¢ an ear, too, and I might stop back and get some of that tonight.  Sweet corn, cornbread, and something else would be good for supper tonight, I think.  I’m still on a cornbread kick, perhaps because I haven’t had any yet.  And those grapes seem not to like me very well…

Sixty-six days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Whining

My head hurts and I’m
Tired. Will it ever be
Five o’clock?  Will it?

When?  When will it be
Five o’clock?  I want to go
Home right now.  Now, see!

My head really hurts.
How I would love to curl
Up and sleep it off!

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Need…caffeine…

I am so ridiculously tired today, but lordy, did I have fun this weekend.  Thursday we saw the new Harry Potter movie and after watching it, I’ve decided that I really need to just get it over with and read the books.  After I finish Messenger.  And Wait Till Helen Comes.  And The Giver.  Because apparently it goes along with Gathering Blue and Messenger and I haven’t read it yet, either.

Anyway, so it was after eleven when we got home Thursday night from the movie.  Friday we went to Hampton and saw Mark Chesnutt and Clay Walker at the Franklin County Fair and it was freakin’ AWESOME!  Clearly, all caps were necessary for that little bit of squeeage.  Mark pretty much just sang, although he did do a bit of an intro for a couple of songs.  He played tons of his old music and I’d forgotten so many of his songs.  It was super cool hearing them again.  It was the same with Clay Walker, though he had a little more personality than Mark and really hammed it up onstage.  He did an encore that started off really slow (“This Woman and This Man” is sooo not my idea of a good encore song, but it got better) and then picked up steam with another song (I forget what it was) and then he finished off with “Sweet Home Alabama” and had everyone rockin’ in their seats.  What an awesome way to end a show!  My favorite part was when he sang “Feels So Right.”  It’s an old Alabama song, but apparently he and the guy who wrote it (one of the guys from Alabama – Randy somethingorother) re-recorded it and he sang it Friday night at the concert.  When the song started, Greg got up and took my hand and we danced right there in front of the bleachers.  Afterward, he apologized and when I asked him why (because since when does a lovely dance to a great song require an apology?!), he said that people were glaring at us and he thought it might have bothered me.  I said that if they all wanted to be sticks in the mud, that was fine, but I hadn’t noticed at all because I was looking at him and not them.  Really, though, what on earth did it matter to everyone else in the stands whether or not we danced?  There were three couples dancing to Mark Chesnutt and I bet they didn’t get scowled at.  Jerks.

It was after midnight when we got home Friday night, so I slept in Saturday morning.  The kids had stayed overnight at Aunt Melissa’s house, so I went over to pick them up after I got up for the day and then we went home and got ready to head down to Chariton that night.  It took us three hours to get there between stops for supper, sleeping bags, drinks for the road, and detours.  Stupid road construction season, anyway.  Greg’s aunt and uncle were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary with a big party and we had so much fun.  They had a dj with a karaoke setup, so there was tons of great music.  Except for those kids who couldn’t sing, that is.  Oh, and the drunk and tone-deaf people.  Some were truly cringe-worthy.  The people-watching was great, though (drunk people are funny!), and Greg sang, so at least there was one person with a good voice up there.  He sang “I Cross My Heart” for me and I grinned like an idiot the whole time.  I swear I was wearing the biggest, cheesiest grin you’ve ever seen.  The dj played till midnight and it was after that when we finally went to bed.  We camped out in the yard.  I haven’t been tent-camping since I was a kid.  Greg set the tent up in the dark.  Over a rut.  Slightly downhill.  We couldn’t stop laughing as we tried to get situated and settled down.  Next time we’ll set the tent up in the daylight.

We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning in order to drive back home in time to hear my cousin play in church at 9:00 a.m.  I was so tired I could hardly see straight, but at least no deer decided to introduce themselves to my bumper, although I did see a few along the sides of the road.  And thanks to the temporary truce due to the party, I got to enjoy a lovely Dr. Pepper on the way home, which I’m sure I owe my awakeness to.  I bought two before we left Chariton, thinking I would have them both gone before 9:00 a.m. came and the pact went back into effect, but I was wrong.  I only drank one and now the other one is sitting in the fridge, taunting me every time I open the door to get something.  Stupid taunting pop.  It should know better.  There is far too much blood in my caffeine system and it’s making me a little cranky, see.  See, pop?  Wonderful nectar of the gods that you are!  See what you’re doing to me?

So anyway, we made it to church on time and even managed to stay awake through Pastor Tom’s arid 28-minute sermon.  On second thought, I’m not sure arid is a strong enough word to desribe how dry that sermon was.  He is one of the most longwinded and boring ministers I have ever had the misfortune to hear.  Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect.  He seems like a great guy, but his sermons work better than sleeping pills for inducing drowsiness in the otherwise wide-awake and when you’re only going on a couple of hours of sleep?  Oy.  I don’t know how we managed to make it through, except possibly because of the kids.  My aunt’s church provides activity bags for kids to keep them occuppied during the service, the theory being that if they’re engaged with something, they’ll be quiet and the parents (and everyone else in the congregation) can enjoy the service in peace.  With one kid, that works out okay.  Sort of.  I always thought it was rather a hassle because Tom never failed to make a big mess in the pew.  With two, it’s a recipe for a noisy service.  The two of them kept sharing toys and discussing what they were going to do with said toys and at one point, Rachael said something really loudly…in the middle of a prayer.  She was the only one talking in the entire sanctuary, except for us then because we both shushed her.  Our church doesn’t have those activity bags.  The kids behave quite nicely most of the time during the service.  Ergo, activity bags do not necessarily equal quiet kids and relieved parents.  Sometimes, activity bags equal noisy kids and annoyed parents.  Really annoyed parents.  I told them they only needed one bag and that they could share the stuff inside it.  And apparently then someone else said, “Oh, there’s plenty to go around,” and handed Rachael another activity bag.  I didn’t hear it, but Greg did and he said it really annoyed him that they overrode me like that.  It bothered me a little, too, after he told me about it.  Much like the woman at the family reunion later that afternoon…

Yesterday afternoon was the annual Terfehn-Diekmann(?) family reunion.  Rachael has been particularly fussy lately when it comes to food, and after taking next to nothing at lunch yesterday (and skipping breakfast because we were running late-ish), she refused to eat most of what was on her plate.  We ended up sitting her at another table with her plate until she finished it and another woman came up to me and said something about her sitting apart from the rest of us.  I replied that she had to sit there till she finished her dinner because she decided she wasn’t hungry (after she’d been hollering all morning about how hungry she was, right up till it was time to eat).  The woman looked at me in astonishment and said, “Oh, you shouldn’t do that.  Just let them eat whatever they want whenever they want and they’ll eat when they’re hungry.”  Excuse me?  She said it right in front of Rachael, too, and it really annoyed me.  Okay, I think we know how to take care of our kids.  And when they go turning their nose up at things like that, even when it’s food they like, it really rubs me wrong.  My kids are going to have manners if it kills me.  And the way I feel today, it just might.

The reunion lasted most of the afternoon and when it was over, we stopped at home to drop things off and then headed up to Waterloo to finish rounding out our wedding registries (JC Penney, Target, and Tupperware, if you really want to know).  We did okay at Penney’s, but by the time we got to Target, we were so tired and sore that we mostly just walked around the store with the scanner and looked at things without really seeing what it was that we were looking at.  Except for this really cool-looking electric frying pan that you can remove from the heating element and stick in the dishwasher for super easy cleaning.  I am all about the super easy cleaning when it comes to dishes and the more things I can stick in the dishwasher, the better.  I hate doing dishes by hand.  Icky icky ick.

We got home from Waterloo, watched a little t.v., put the kids to bed, and were asleep before 10:00 p.m.  In my case, I was out before 9:30 p.m. because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to watch the last four minutes of Deadliest Catch.  Oh, lordy, was I tired last night!  I was so sound asleep when Greg came upstairs a few minutes later that he poked me and began to panic a little when he got no response.  He said he poked me a little harder and then I groaned and he relaxed enough to collapse into bed next to me and fall quickly asleep.  I slept like the dead and didn’t wake up till morning.  I intend to do the same tonight, shortly after I put Tom to bed for the night.  I am so tired today that I don’t know how I’ve managed to stay awake this long.  And sore!  I hurt worse today from sleeping in that stupid tent-covered rut than I did yesterday.  Except for my feet.  They hurt really, really badly yesterday afternoon and last night and today they’re feeling a bit better.  Everything else, though?  Not so much.  I could sleep for a week, I think.  A six o’clock bedtime is looking more and more appealing.

So, that pretty much covers my weekend.  And now I think I’m going to collapse in a dead sleep and hope that Beth doesn’t peel me off my desk too quickly.  *sigh*  Is Monday over yet?

Sixty-eight days till September 26…

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.