It's Saturday night, and that can only mean one thing......tomorrow is Sunday, which means I'm going to have a busy, busy day tomorrow. I just hope certain people show up that are supposed to sing, because if they don't show, it throws things out of whack. Hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to the Pastor about our "problem" tomorrow, hopefully. I STILL didn't get the music schedule today, which was PROMISED to me. :::SIGH:::

Tomorrow is "Selection Sunday" in which we'll find out what seed Memphis gets and who their first opponent will be. Tomorrow is also Wrestle Mania 20, the Rock's last. Michael is going to his nephew's apartment to watch it tomorrow night after church, and I'm supposed to, too, but his girlfriend has pink eye, which is VERY contagious, and I don't wanna get it and spread it to the kids. (The kids are spending tomorrow afternoon/night with Michael's parents.) Plus I'll probably have to stay late after church to practice, so Michael and I will probably end up taking separate vehicles to church tomorrow night.

I didn't make it to the store tonight AGAIN. I told myself I'd go tomorrow afternoon, but then again, I doubt I will, lol. I HATE getting groceries!

Diet Vanilla Coke is my new favorite drink. I used to swear I'd never like a diet drink, but they are REALLY good! Either my tastebuds have changed dramatically or they have improved diet drinks A LOT since I'd last tried them, or maybe a little of both?

I guess I need to get to bed soon...the clock goes off at 7 a.m. Nighty Night, Sleep tight, Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Once again I changed the background music. This time, it's a piece called "Aerith" but I have NO IDEA what this is from or who the artist is or anything. It's just a beautiful piece of music I wanted to put on here. If anyone knows any details on the piece, I will reward you :-)

I am officially bored now, and officially sick. Cincinatti won the Conference Tournament, and all they kept saying on TV was "Cincinatti has the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament", all the while I'm shouting at the TV, "As if they really NEEDED to win to get in!!!!" GRRRRR. I'm sorry, but I just have a problem with this. It's not fair. OF COURSE they were going to win! They had the home court advantage, DUH! Just like Louisville won it last year...the Conference Tournament was played in Louisville...DUH! I mean, whenever they decide where the Tournament will be played, they might as well go ahead an award a big fat trophy to the team that has the home court advantage and not waste everybody's time. Next year it's supposed to be in Memphis, but of course THAT year will be the exception to the rule, lol. I just think they need to have the Conference Tournament in a neutral location. Okay....I feel better now. Now I must breathe.

Jacob is rolling all over the place, and I cannot look away for even a second. One minute he's trying to rearrange the picture frames on the lower shelves of the wall unit thing, so I relocate Jacob to the middle of the floor, and within two seconds, he's over by the window, yanking on the curtain!!! He's got this rolling thing down pat. Actually, he's been rolling since November. So he needs to start crawling now?? I know, we all want our babies to advance and do new things, but then they do new things and us mothers are all like ::::SNIFFFFF:::: "My baby is growing up!!!!" And then we start getting baby fever again and have more babies and the cycle starts all over again.

Everyone seems to be going somewhere or doing something fun/relaxing for Spring Break. I don't know about you, but I think Spring Break should be a National holiday week where not only students get a break, but also people with regular jobs. Michael is on Spring Break this week, but it's not like it means all that much. He still has to work all day. But of course, then again, Moms NEVER get holidays, do they? We still have to cook and do laundry and change diapers. Okay, so maybe there should be a National Spring Break For Moms or something. All dads stay home with the kids, cook, clean, do laundry, etc., while the Moms all get to take off and do whatever she wants. Wouldn't THAT be wonderful??

I keep forgetting to explain my answer to the question I had in one of my previous posts:


Which of the following statements do you believe to be true?


A. "Nice guys finish last." This means that you are constantly doing nice things for people, but no matter what great lengths you go through for people, you'll always get the "short end of the stick" and get screwed over.

B. You reap what you sow. This means that if you do good things with a loving spirit to help people out, you will reap rewards later on and you, too, will be helped somewhere down the road. God remembers things that you do, good or bad, and rewards you accordingly.

Well, like pretty much everyone that participated answered, my answer is "B". At least now I know I haven't lost my marbles, lol. But in all seriousness, let me explain why I even asked this question to begin with. I was having a conversation with someone I've known for a very long time, and she's a bit older than me, but I have a hard time stating that she's wiser because of what I am about to type right now. She was telling me how her father has always had this saying that "Nice guys finish last," and went on to say that she has adopted this philosophy as well. I told her I didn't totally agree with that. I truly believe that God remembers when a person does something good/helpful/kind for someone, and later on if you find yourself in a really sticky spot, God will send someone your way to help you. (I also believe that if you are not kind-spirited towards someone in need, God remembers this also when/if you find yourself in need.) I even believe that God sees little tiny things. Like, if you are walking into the library, and someone is walking out of the library with a huge arm load of books, if you are selfless and hold the door open for that person, God remembers that, and the next month you might be at Walmart and knock over a big display in the store and someone nearby runs over to help you pick up everything you knocked over. But if you are selfish, and all you think about is the big hurry you're in, and you pretend to ignore the person with the arm load of books, God remembers that also, and then next time you're at the bank, someone cuts in front of you in line or something. That's just a small example. A bigger example would be like say you know of a family that is in need, like their house just burned to the ground and they lost everything they own except for the clothing on their backs, so you give that family all of the clothes you could find in your house that no one's going to wear anymore or maybe you give them some cash to buy food with. God remembers this, and later on you might be really sick and some friends/family might get together and cook you a meal to send to your home. I have always believed if you sew kindness, you will reap kindness. If you sew selfishness, you will reap selfishness. So ANYWAY, back to this conversation I was having, I told her my beliefs on this subject, and her words to me were, "You are still young and idealistic. You will learn as you get older." And this person is a so-called Christian in what she calls the "true" sense of the word. (That will be a later topic in itself.) What I really wanted to say to her was, "Have you ever read the Bible???" All she could tell me was that every time she's tried to do something nice for someone, it's always come back and slapped her in the face. Yes, I can think of a few situations when she did something nice for A person and that same person wasn't appreciative and treated her not-so-nice at times, but I DO know that there have been times she was in need of something and there have been family and friends to help her. But you know, if she has such a negative outlook on life, I wonder how she can even make it through one week of her life? I was just totally floored to hear this come out of her mouth. I might be young, but I trust in God, and it doesn't take an older, wiser person who has experienced more in life, to have that mindset.

I hate this....this game that's on right now. Cincinatti and DePaul playing the C-USA Championship game. It's just not right. And I'm still almost floored that Memphis lost to St. Louis...ST. LOUIS... on Thursday. WTF??? How could they just go out there, ASSUMING they'd be meeting up with Cincinatti in the next round, and completely OVERLOOK their first opponent in the Tournament...St. Louis?!?! It's just disgusting. I guess being gleefully happy at times, and sick to your stomach at other times, is part of being a true fan. I just wish this wasn't one of those sick to your stomach times. We are still getting into the NCAA Tournament, but as a lower seed, which will make things even harder on us in the Tournament. :::SIGH:::

Travis said the sweetest thing to me this morning. He came up to me, gave me a hug and said "Best friend." I nearly melted!!! It was just so sweet the way he looked at me when he said it!

I have no major plans at all today. Michael is working and I'm bored. I do have to go to my Mom's tonight to check on her cat, though. I have to do this today, tomorrow, and Monday. (This is a reminder to myself, or I am more than likely to forget if it's something out of the ordinary routine!) Then I have to go buy groceries because we are out of everything! And it nearly broke my heart this morning when Travis begged me for a Pop Tart and I had to tell him we're out of them. Usually we go to the store on Friday nights, but we went over to Michael's parents' new house last night to help them move. Of course, I didn't really get to do much helping, other than making sure the kids were out of the way when the movers were bringing in the furniture. I'm really glad his parents are moving out of the neighborhood they were living in though...it has pretty much gone downhill...nothing but a crack neighborhood, and it's obviously not getting any better. Their new house is only 4 miles from here, and it's out in the boonies. They have all this land back behind their house, and most of that land is woods. Michael and some of the kids decided they wanted to go wandering around back there last night, and they only had ONE flashlight, and we started getting worried after awhile when they didn't come back. I'm sorry, but you couldn't have PAID me to go back there at night! I guess I've just seen too many horror movies. :::SHIVERS::: Anyway, I could tell Michael's mom was pretty emotional about the whole thing, and I think Michael was, too. I mean, the house they had been living in was the only house Michael ever knew. It would be like if my parents ever move (which they're thinking about doing), I'd probably almost offer to buy their house because it's the only house I ever knew the first 20 years of my life. I mean, that's HOME! I can't imagine driving down that street, looking at that house, knowing that it's not "home" anymore.

Boy, blogger is acting really weird. It must've started its weekend a day early or something. I just have this recurring nightmare that one day I'm going to get up and my entire blog is going to be gone...like dust in the wind...lost forever.

I am still pretty upset about the whole music/church situation, but it'll get ironed out, I hope. I never did call the Pastor last night. I am just afraid I'll come off as complaining, starting rumors, etc., etc., and I don't want to be a troublemaker.

Michael got out of the house this morning without me even knowing it. This is highly unusual. He got out of bed, got ready for school/work, and got out the door without me knowing it, and he didn't even come tell me bye???

I am putting off getting out the door just a few more minutes because I have to go over to my mom's to clean today, and I'm just not in the mood for cleaning. But oh well, it's a little $$$, which half of it is already spoken for. I also have to go over to my mom's house Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to check on/feed/play with the cat because my parents are going to North Carolina to my aunt's for a few days. My mom has Spring Break this coming up week, and she informed me last night that she won't need me to come that week. Well bummer! I really could use the money. I need a more steady flow of income, dang it. Well, I must get to my mom's house. More later.

My middle name is "discouraged" right now, and I know it's the devil's fault. I had just got through telling our Pastor on Sunday that I knew that playing piano for church is exactly what God wants me to do. So guess what that means? Me saying this left the door WIDE OPEN for Satan to sit there and say "Hmmm, let's see what I can do to make Candy want to quit..." I am not about to give up and quit any time soon...I'm just feeling really let down. I make myself available and open my home for anyone who wants to come over and practice the special music, whether it be groups, soloists, duos, whatever, and all I get are excuses as to why they can't practice. I stay late after church for anyone that wants to stay late with me and go over their music. I have stacks of CDs, tapes, sheet music, and even e-mails of lists of songs and links to websites that have songs that church members want me to learn, and I am doing my best to dive headfirst into all of the songs. I take time away from my family to learn new music, brush up on old music, and be prepared come church time, and the church member who is responsible for outputting and distributing the music schedule has only been getting it ready one week in advance, IF that, and it's supposed to be given out one MONTH in advance. This does not help me OR the people that are going to be singing in the least. What's worse is this same person that is supposed to be compiling the music schedule, keeps putting himself down for a solo or he and his wife as a duo, and then they don't show up to church to sing. Or when they ARE there to sing, one of them has a messed up throat or something, rendering them unable to sing. Last night they couldn't stay after church to practice for this Sunday (in which they are on the schedule for AGAIN) because they said it was late and they needed to get home, but they said they'd come to my house tonight to practice. Well I got a phone call from him about an hour ago, and he said they didn't have the money to put gas in their car to even get here. He said when his wife was sick earlier in the week, she wasn't able to keep up with their checking account, so he spent money here and there that he shouldn't have because he's really really bad at keeping track of their money, so they have like 3 overdraft fees, so they can't afford to put gas in their car. It's not that I don't BELIEVE HIM, it's just that he ALWAYS has an EXCUSE! What's even weirder is that many times he gives an excuse, and his wife's reasons doesn't exactly match up.

I am doing my best and giving it my all, and I have these types of people to deal with. Don't get me wrong...I love my church, I love the opportunity I have been given to be so involved with the church music, I love our Pastor and his family, and many of my closest friends go to church there, but leave it to the devil to throw SOMEBODY in the congregation that's going to try to discourage and hurt a few people, and then eventually make people not to even want to come to church anymore. The Lord is truly working in our church, but so is the devil. Michael says I need to talk to the Pastor about all of this before it builds up and things get ugly. I know he's right, but I also don't want to call the Pastor with a bad attitude, going off or anything, and I don't want to start anything and get people on my bad side. :::SIGH::: I need prayer, as does this whole situation.

Well, the Dora thing didn't go too well today, and now I'm thinking we wasted a lotta money, lol. Travis is afraid of the dark, and as soon as the lights went down in the Orpheum, Travis got pretty upset. As long as one of us held him, he was okay, but he just sat there and stared ahead, showing no emotion or excitement whatsoever. If we tried to get him to participate with the crowd, he'd just cross his arms and pout, "NO!" Travis has always been pretty predictable, but THIS just threw us for a loop! So I guess now it's safe to say that Travis is no longer predictable.

In other news, the Tigers play St. Louis in the C-USA Conference Tournament tonight at 8:30. Part of me tells me that the Tigers will cream St, Louis (btw, their mascot looks like a giant white booger!). But then there's this other part of me that tells me that St. Louis could take over. I dunno. I want to be optimistic, but I'm too scared to be.

Okay, now here is my question for the day. Except this time, it's not multiple choice...it's a True/False question:

It is polite to e-mail a friend and ask that friend if she will cook dinner for you tonight, ESPECIALLY when its on a same day notice.

True of False? Please respond with your answer.

That's it for me...time to go do last night's dishes...bleh.

Travis decided he wanted to get up at 6:40 a.m., so guess who had to get up with him? I'll give you two guesses, and I'll give you a hint...it wasn't Michael. So yeah, I'm up waaaay too early this morning. :::YAWN::: We're taking Travis to see Dora the Explore Live today, and we've been telling him about it all week, so I dunno, maybe Travis was too excited to sleep? Sesame Street Live is coming to the Desoto Civic Center some time later in the year, too, so we'll definitely have to take Travis to that, too. I love taking Travis to do stuff like that.

Last night I fell asleep on the couch watching TV, as usual, and I got woke up sometime after midnight by Jacob screaming. I never could figure out what was wrong with him. The only things I could deduce were either his teeth/gums were bothering him, or he was simply hungry. So I made him a bottle, gave it to him, and he went back to sleep. It's just worries me when he SCREAMS in pain like that. I will be glad when our CHIPS (insurance stuff) FINALLY comes back so I can get Jacob to the doctor. He hasn't even been to the doctor for anything since December. We just can't afford to go right now unless the kids are really sick. Office visits are $70 a pop per child, which doesn't even include if any labs or other tests are needed, not to mention the cost of prescriptions. With CHIPS (which is provided through the state), office visits are a $5 co-pay and prescriptions are free. I've got to get the little guy caught up on his shots, too.

OHH and speaking of the little guy, Jacob got up on all fours last night!!!! This is the first time we'd ever seen him do this. I was so amazed, and it was so cute because you could tell he was proud of himself because he started smiling and laughing every time he'd push up onto all fours! :-) So I put his favorite toy out in front of Jacob to see if he'd attempt to go for it, but then he tried to roll to get to it, lol. He had to realize that if he rolled, he'd go sideways, and not forwards where the toy was. My boys were both slow to crawl, though. Several of my mommy friends' babies that are younger than Jacob are already crawling and even trying to pull up on furniture. But my babies always cut their teeth earlier in life, while those babies I just mentioned have maybe 2 teeth at the most. It's just amazing to me how each baby reaches each developmental stage at different ages. But it won't be long now until Jacob is mobile...then he'll be able to chase Travis :-)

We need to leave the house by 9 so we can stop at the Tax Collector's office to pick up my personalized car tag, have time to drop Jacob off, and be at the Orpheum before 10:30, so I need to start getting ready to get out the door. TTFN!

There's a lot of things I could gripe and complain about right now, but there are all the more things I could feel so fortunate about. I went to church tonight and the sermon was extra long for a Wednesday night, and then we took prayer requests, and then our Pastor asked if there were any praises. Well, THIS went on and on for a long time, and I'm telling you, I could have sat there all night, listening to them all. For me, personally, and for my household, I stand in awe at how the Lord lead us to the church we are at now, especially considering the surrounding circumstances at that time in our marriage. And it amazes me even moreso that God knew when I was a child (even BEFORE I was born!) that I would be needed at that church to play the piano. It truly gives me goosebumps almost! I mean, a lot of people go throughout life not knowing what their purpose in this world is, and many Christians go through life not knowing what God's Will for them is. But I know what God's will is for me and I'm living in it right now. Just in the past year, so many prayers have been answered. One of the biggest ones is my prayer to be able to, financially, become a stay-at-home mom. Now if you sit down and do the math, it's not feasible AT ALL. And there have been times when the house note was due and I had no CLUE how we would be able to pay it. But the Lord has ALWAYS been there on time, supplying our EVERY need EVERY time. My GREATEST prayer of all has yet to be answered, and all I can do is keep praying, but I will talk more about what that prayer is at a later date. But right now, I just feel so uplifted and it makes me wish we had church every night of the week.

It's nap time, hallelujah, so I can actually think! Of course, Michael always says I get myself in trouble when I think, so here comes trouble! ;-)

I was looking at the current Kroger sale ad, and did you know that it's National Frozen Food Month? The heck? I mean, yeah, there's Women's History Month and there's Black History Month, but Frozen Food Month?!?! Like, okay, um, yeah, "We will always remember the heroic fish stick that withstood sub zero temperatures in the deep freezer while waiting to be nuked in the microwave, only to meet its fate as it is bitten in half by a 2-year-old named Jimmy." And then the Schnucks Ad is advertising a St. Patrick's Day sale. Okay, yeah, 50% off green molded bread. I'll be adding 3 of those to my shopping cart...oh wait, what's that you said? Oh, there's a limit of only 2 per customer? Darn.

Only 152 days 'til Destin, and 49 days 'til my 24th birthday.

It is truly a beautiful day outside, and with high atmospheric pressure means no humidity in site, which means perfectly straight hair for me. I am jumping for joy. I know every woman with straight hair would kill to have naturally curly hair, but I'm just the opposite. Yeah, yeah, the grass is always greener, blah, blah.

Speaking of grass, spring is just around the corner and I can't wait, although this means it won't be too long before Michael has to crank up the lawn mower. In case you didn't know, here's a hint: I hate to mow grass, never have mowed grass in my life, and will pay someone before ever getting behind a lawn mower. But back to the being excited about spring thing...this means I can break out some of my spring wardrobe that I didn't get to wear last spring since I was carrying what felt like a 10 lb. watermelon in my belly. Actually, I think I will talk Michael into letting me buy some NEW clothes, because my spring clothes will now be 2 years old, not to mention those clothes will more than likely be too big for me anyway. The pounds are still coming off, and I'm loving it. To date, I have lost 54 lbs since Jacob was born. I look at pictures from right before/after that time, and I think "My Lord, I was a COW!!!" UGH!!!

I was sitting in front of my makeup mirror a minute ago, getting myself ready for church tonight, and I started thinking about how people used to think I wore too much makeup. I don't think I wore TOO MUCH, I think it's just that most of my friends didn't wear ANY. I was in the band, and it seemed to me that most the girls that wore makeup like I did were the cheerleaders and those of the "in" crowd. I dunno, just an observation I made, I guess. And I never could understand putting makeup on to make it look like you're not wearing any. What the heck is the point of THAT? I didn't wear makeup because I had anything to hide...I was blessed with great skin, and still do have great skin for the most part...I didn't wear makeup to try to fit in...because let's face it, THAT never worked. I wore makeup because I wanted to. There are girls that like to do fun things with their hair, there are girls that have a purse fettish and like to carry a different handbag every day of the week, there are girls that have 200 pairs of shoes, there are girls you'll never see them wear the same outfit twice EVER...but my thing was makeup. I mean, yeah, if it wasn't raining, I'd obsess over trying to get my hair as straight as I possibly could, and I always tried to dress nice, but there was just something I enjoyed about doing my makeup every day. Now granted, I might not have been that GOOD at it during 9th grade, LOL, but over time, I learned some tricks of the trade, so to speak. As for the present, I still put on my makeup, but I am a little more conservative with it now...I don't wear a lot of black eyeliner like I used to or lipstick that was just a shade too red for me, but I do still make a point of trying to look my best. I don't see why just because I'm a mother of two and a stay-at-home mom to boot, I should just let myself go. There, now you have my fashion sense. Now I must go paint my nails.

P.S. I changed the MIDI to like one I had in my collection YEARS ago, and when I moved out of my parents house, they like did Lord only knows what with all my computer junk, so yeah, I lost touch with my entire MIDI collection. Real bummer! So last night I got to thinking about the song you are currently listening to, and I was thinking to myself, "What IS the name of THAT SONG?" I could hear it in my head, and I remembered someone telling me it came from Final Fantasy IV I think? So I googled it (yeah, I said "googled it", lol) and I knew that if I saw the title of the song it would trigger what few memory cells I have left, and what do you know? I found it. So anyway, to make a long story short, the background music you are currently listening to is called "Cry In Sorrow". It's kinda pretty, don't ya think?

So I changed the banner a little bit, but it more artistically represents what I'm trying to express...or something? Yeah, okay, so anyway...

The last couple of nights I had some more dreams. One was of Marc (my ex) coming to visit, and I knew I was married throughout the dream, but I was still in love with Marc. Then we went back to our old highschool to visit and it was really weird because there were students that we graduated with that were STILL students there, lol. And they were all surprised to see us together, and instead of me telling everyone "No, we're not together," I just pretended that we were. This is truly a recurring dream I've been having. I mean, not ALL of the details are the same, but in all of them, Marc comes back to see me and I'm still in love with him. But I'm really NOT in love with him...quite the opposite, actually. Although Michael doesn't believe me, lol. Okay, I need therapy, don't I.

And then this other dream, I walked over to my mom's school in the rain. (In case you didn't know, the school where my mom teaches is practically in my backyard.) School was over and my mom was about to get in her car and head home, but instead, she saw me walking towards her and she invited me into her classroom. We chatted for a few minutes, and she asked me where the kids were. Well, the thing is, I had left the kids at home ALONE. But I lied to my mom and told her that Terri (my sister-in-law) was keeping the kids for me. Then we walked back out into the rain because she needed to go home, and she asked me if she could go by there and see the kids, and I told my mom "No, that's alright...they're probably asleep anyway." And then she was like "Well don't you at least want me to give you a ride over there?" and I replied "No, I parked my car around back." Which I lied again. And then I waited for her to be out of sight before I ran back home in the rain. Then I woke up, feeling guilty as crap! I mean, I lied to my mom, and I left my kids at home alone.

I just keep getting the feeling that all of these dreams really do mean something.

My dream land aside, I plan on making it to church tonight. Michael has a huge history test tomorrow that he needs to study for and he needs a really really good grade on it. (Who doesn't need good grades?) But he REALLLLY needs a good grade on it, so I'll probably be going by myself again...I might take Travis with me and leave Jacob here though.

Anywho, I'm out of here for now.

Here's a little quiz for you. This is a multiple choice test, and their are only two possibilities, so this should be pretty easy. Please use the comment link below to respond with your answer and your explanation for your answer.

Which of the following statements do you believe to be true?


A. "Nice guys finish last." This means that you are constantly doing nice things for people, but no matter what great lengths you go through for people, you'll always get the "short end of the stick" and get screwed over.

B. You reap what you sow. This means that if you do good things with a loving spirit to help people out, you will reap rewards later on and you, too, will be helped somewhere down the road. God remembers things that you do, good or bad, and rewards you accordingly.

Choose your answer carefully. Now that you have made your choice, don't forget to click the comment link below with your answer. I will give you my answer later and explain it. Remember...you can only choose A OR B, NOT a combination of both.

You are currently listening to "Caribbean Blue" by Enya. If having background music is annoying, let me know, otherwise I will consider it part of the pleasantries of visiting my blog ;-) I will probably change it up every week or so or whenever I get sick of listening to the current song.

Please excuse my mess while I experiment with my template a little bit. It doesn't help that my computer is having major issues. I can only type single letters at a time, because I'll type the first letter of a sentence, then I have to wait for this dinosaur to unlock itself before I can continue typing. This is VERY annoying when dealing with html codes. And the other problem I'm having is that my computer has ears. Yes, EARS! It has a sound-recognition program and I have not been able to figure out how to disable it, so when I'm messing around with codes, part of it will vanish before my eyes or it will pick up whatever is being said on the TV and start typing it. :::sigh::: Maybe now I will leave it alone for awhile, maybe.

I think I should go back to school to be a lawyer or a doctor, not a teacher. Most the time I can tell myself "I don't mind being at the bottom of the income totem pole", but then there are other times. Other times when I listen to a friend tell me about the 2800 square foot house she is planning on building with her future husband (no offense!). MOST of the time I am perfectly content with my 1400 sq. ft. house, but sometimes it'd be nice to have an impressive piece of property, someone to clean it for me, and all of the mall money I could fathom. Am I just hormonal here, or is it perfectly normal and okay to feel this way? I mean, for someone to then add "Yeah, well you have to understand we plan on this being our only house for a really long time," that kind of hurts. I mean, I was PROUD of my house and PROUD of the fact that when we picked this house out, we fell IN LOVE with it and planned on THIS being THE HOUSE we keep for a really really long time. Where should one draw the line as to where they can say "Okay, THIS is the size house we want to really call home and want our kids to call home?" Needless to say, I'm depressed now. Money isn't everything, but it sure is a nice commodity!

We're taking Travis to see Dora the Explorer on Thursday at the Orpheum. I am sure he will love it and soak in every second of it. I love taking him to stuff like that just to see his reactions.

I am thinking about finding a better template for my blog. I like the one now, but purple just isn't my color. I don't know. Maybe when I feel like raising my blood pressure again, I'll work on it. ::SIGH:::

Some people are in my backyard right now fixing holes. Our backyard got really messed up back during the summer when we had a concrete slab poured. The yard was really wet when we got the slab poured, and the concrete truck left huge craters behind. We were afraid of Travis twisting his ankle or something out there.

Did the temp. even hit 60 yesterday? And was it windy as heck yesterday, too? I just don't take my kids out to play in those conditions, and if we do have to go somewhere, I make sure their ears and heads are covered up beyond recognition, LOL. I mean, seriously, my kids have been sick enough as it is this winter, and I'm not about to expose them to that if I can help it!

Travis refuses to sleep in his bed. I wish there was something I could do to show him there is nothing scary about his room or the dark. He falls asleep in the recliner or on the couch, and if we try to pick him up and put him in his bed, he wakes up immediately, crying!! So then he ends up in the bed with us. We've tried the leaving him in his room, not letting him out, and letting him cry it out until he falls asleep trick, but that's just cruel...and after two nights of that, it broke my heart!!! My neighbor down the street told me to try this, and after about a week, it worked, and her daughter goes to bed in her own bed, no problem. Well yeah, but what about if you know your child is TRULY SCARED???

Last night was The Rock's last night to be on Raw. :::SNIFF::: He and Mick Foley are great together. We were rolling in the floor laughing until our sides hurt. It brought back a lot of memories to when me and Michael were dating. Our Monday night ritual was for Michael to pick me up, take me to his house, and we'd watch Monday Night Raw (I didn't have cable at my house) and he'd take me back home and then he'd go on to work (when he worked at FedEx). I will ask this question again....why do all good things have to come to an end??

I really need to clean today. I got most of the laundry done yesterday, everything is picked up and mostly in order, but I really need to clean. I just don't clean as much as I really should, but oh well. At least I know that as long as I don't clean anything, people will come to visit, lol.

I need to practice, too. I'm supposed to sing a solo/accompany myself on the piano in a couple weeks at church and I still haven't found THE right song. I'm the one that put myself on the schedule, and now I'm thinking "What did I get myself into?" lol. I don't have trouble playing songs, but I have to find songs that are in my RANGE if I am going to sing it, and that's hard to do for someone that's used to singing the alto part. I reminded myself of a song last night, titled "Heaven, Can You Imagine?" by the Rochesters, and after sitting down to play it in a key I can actually play in, lol, I think this is going to be the song I work on. There is not a song they sing that I don't like. They recently came out with a new CD, so I'm definitely going to have to check it out. That whole family is so multi-talented, it blows me away every time I listen to their music. They write a lot of their songs, too, and I'm also working on a song called "God Hath Provided Himself a Lamb" which Becky (the daughter...she sings the lead on a lot of their songs) wrote herself. I can play SEVERAL of their songs, but singing is a different story. And there's never enough time to sit down with somebody in church that already sings on a regular basis and teach it to them, so I finally came to terms with myself and said, "You know what? If I can't teach these songs to anyone, I'll just sing them myself!" All I can do really is ask God to use my hands and use my voice.

Not sure what to think about THIS

You're Thailand!

Calmer and more staunchly independent than almost all those around you,
you have a long history of rising above adversity.  Recent adversity has led to questions
about your sexual promiscuity and the threat of disease, but you still manage to attract a
number of tourists and admirers.  And despite any setbacks, you can really cook a good
meal whenever it's called for.  Good enough to make people cry.
face="Times New Roman">Take the Country
Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Look, I PROMISE I don't have any "diseases"! :::cringes:::

Give a nice pat on the back to....

....ME! I figured out the problem all by myself. Now you should just see one of everything.

Now I know...

...why I hate change so much. So I changed the template, as I'm sure you have noticed, but all of my entries appear twice, and I cannot figure out for the life of me why? And what's even MORE strange is that the Comment link only appears after the second of the double entires. If ANYONE can juggle my brain as to what might be causing this, it'd be much appreciated!!!

Michael's paper is done, thank goodness. I don't know why, but I think I was stressing out over it more than he was. His next project for the class is due mid-April, except for this paper, he has to interview someone who lived through WWII. He has chosen to interview his Grandmother, who lives in Meridian, MS, so that means sometime between now and mid-April, we will be making a trip to Meridian. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Now HELP ME FIGURE OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY TEMPLATE BEFORE I LOSE MY MIND!!!!!!

Am I seeing double?

I made an attempt to change my template today, and for some weird reason, every entry shows up twice in a row. Why, I don't know. So in the meantime, bear with me, and enjoy the new decor!

I don't get it.

1. Every time I have tried to blog over the weekend, my computer locks up. Somebody somewhere doesn't want me to express my feelings.

2. How does "I won't have a solo ready for a couple of weeks." translate into "I have a solo ready that I can sing tomorrow" ?? What language AM I speaking?

3. I realized today that it's spelled Satan, not Satin. I knew this, really, I did, but for whatever reason, my brain has been on the shiney material, not the devil, lol.

4. Michael finished his research paper late last night, which is due today. I just have to sit here with my red ink pen and slash at it.

5. I broke my toe Saturday night. What's really odd is that it's my middle toe. I've broken toes before, but it's always, always been my baby toe. My poor toe rammed head-on into a small decorative metal table in my hallway.

6. Semi-related to #5, church was wonderful Sunday. Every single message truly spoke to my heart, moreso than usual, and I know it's because I told myself Sunday morning, "I'm not calling the Pastor and telling him I can't be at church because I broke my toe." I mean, not only would that sound incredibly stupid, but I was very very much involved in the music this Sunday, and what would they have done if I wasn't there??? So I said my prayers, took 3 pain pills, and hobbled into church, and limped back and forth between the organ and the piano in front of the whole congregation.

7. Memphis lost Saturday to Cincinatti. But it was a really good game...not nearly as heartwrenching as the Louisville game. Now there's a big 'o log jam for 1st place in the Conference. And of all teams, DePaul got the #1 seed in the conference tournament...who would've ever thought?!?! And Memphis got #2. We get to skip the first round of the tournament, and then we get the winner of St. Louis and Southern Miss. I think St. Louis will win their first game because Southern Miss's season is basically over...their coach up and quit on them. Anyway, GO TIGERS!!!

8. Only 154 days 'til Destin.

9. Only 51 days 'til my burfday!!!!!