Random Sherisms and Random Tunes

As I posted on my facebook page today...I am experiencing a rare phenomenon today.

Yesterday, my SIL texted me, reminding me that it was her baby's 1st birthday, and they were going to Cherry Hill to celebrate it, and wanted to know if we wanted to come. I said, sure, and enjoyed the opportunity to have some leverage to slave drive my children. Together, we cleaned out the toy room, cleaned the whole basement, all of the upstairs, all of the bathrooms, and did all of the laundry. About every 2 minutes, I kept saying, keep working, so we can go to Cherry Hill. The kids were so motivated. KJ even went out and pulled some weeds!

Then, my SIL texted me back and said she'd just found out that Cherry Hill costs $17 per person. Children 3-4 are $7 and 2 and under are free. B just turned 5 two weeks ago. That means for me and all of my kids to go to Cherry Hill for one day, which to be honest would really only be a couple of hours, would cost me $68. Really?!

My kids were amazingly accommodating when we decided not to go. Instead, we spend a couple of hours at the neighborhood pool and they were perfectly happy. I made the right choice.

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So, now today, my house is clean! I better get the kids outside before it gets messed up again!

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And I just have to brag for a minute. B (Peter) --I'm calling her B now, because her nickname as Peter has kind of fizzled. When she was a baby, and up until she was about 3 we called her Peter. We don't really call her that anymore, so now she's just B. Or Bea. But, I digress.

Up until this moment of her life, B has been terrified of water. Even when I give her a bath, it is a major fight to rinse the shampoo from her hair. I finally figured out that it's a fear of getting her eyes wet. I don't know where this came from, but she has always been afraid.

Last week, I put her in swimming lessons. It's the third year in a row that she's had swimming lessons, and we've just squeaked by, because she refused to put her face in. She's the only kid I know that can spend 2 hours at the pool and never get her hair wet. But after one week with this teacher, I saw B put her face in the water. I thought it was a miracle. Until yesterday.

We went to the neighborhood pool (instead of Cherry Hill). B usually floats around in her life jacket, and she asked me to take it off of her. She then proceeded so start swimming from me to the wall and back over and over. Folks, this is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that she was brave enough to try to swim by herself is miraculous. I applaud the awesome swimming teacher that gave her the courage to do it!

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I'm having technological issues. These are big issues too! I need help from anyone with know how.

1) I can't get my iPod to sync the new music I've added to my itunes library. I've tried it over and over. I can't figure out why it won't sync. It will sync my photos, and apps, and all other stuff, but not any new music, including music I've purchased on itunes. I'm so frustrated. I've tried the Help tab on itunes and it's useless. Any ideas?

2) I'll admit my phone has been slightly abused. When I say slightly abused, there may or may not have been an incident in which the phone was left on my back bumper and thrown off to the side of the road as I drove away unknowingly. It's nothing short of miraculous (I guess that's the phrase of the day) that not only was the phone retrieved, but it survived.
I'm totally addicted to my crackberry. But, in the last 3 days, it automatically turns off my connections. And when I turn them back on, they just turn back off again. I can't make or receive any communications. And I can't access facebook. What am I supposed to do while I drive now? (You didn't hear me just say that) Again, I'm stumped. The bumper incident happened almost 4 months ago, so I'm positive it's not that.

Help?

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I've been having a musical identity crisis lately. I feel like maybe I'm morphing from a new age pianist into something of a singer/songwriter.

In the past month, in addition to finishing "He Healeth Me", I have written a song that edges on kinda sorta rock ballad. It's called "Where I've Been" And when I play/sing it (yes it has lyrics!) I hear electric guitars and wicked drum solos in my head. I'm currently hiring band members. Applicants may apply in my comments sections.

I've also written another song called "Generations." It's about my Great Grandma Ruth. I woke up in the middle of the night with the lyrics to this song swimming in my head. And I am 100 % positive that Grandma Ruth with sitting with me at the piano, writing this song with me. (She was something of a composer, herself). This song has a kinda of contemporary country feel to it.
When I played it for my Mom and my sister, and my aunt and my Grandma, they all cried. And so did I. To me, that means it's pretty good.

Last Monday, I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I had awaken from a very disturbing, realistic dream, the only part of which I remember was driving down the freeway, and dead bodies and severed limbs and heads were everywhere. Morbid, right? I couldn't get back to sleep. So, I got up and wrote some thoughts. From that experience, came a song called, "Dreams." It's haunting, and kind of Jazzy.

I've thought about posting the lyrics to all of these songs for feed back. Do you want to read them?

I have a million other ideas crowded my already over occupied brain. I've been writing like crazy, just trying to get everything down on paper before all of my thoughts are washed down the drain that is my rapidly failing memory.

So, I'm not sure what kind of artist I am these days. Maybe a little of everything.
I'm going to head over to my brother's little mixing machine, and record a demo. And maybe start putting on a few shows, get some feedback before I spend another life's savings making an album. At this point, I'm not sure what to do with all of the creative chaos going on inside me.

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I have pictures. Lots of them....from my anniversary weekend, and our family vacay, and some cute stuff of my kids. But, I'll have to write a picture post one of these days.

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I'm going to try to not sweat to death in this crazy heat.

This weekend's plans:

Toy Story 3
lots and lots of pool time
baseball games
kid's sleepover (maybe I can talk them into sleeping outside on the tramp)
a bridal shower
a baptism
a baby blessing
an early morning run
Tepanyaki
dinner at a splash park in Draper with some great friends and their families

What are you doing this weekend?