Well, not too shabby, if I do say so myself...out of all of my 1st round Tournament picks, I got 25 out of 32 right.

Here are the ones I got wrong:

ST LOUIS BRACKET:

Providence (5) v. Pacific (12) -- Pacific pulled off the upset


EAST RUTHERFORD BRACKET:

Texas Tech (8) v. Charlotte (9) -- Charlotte lost by 3 points :(

Wisconsin (6) v. Richmond (11) -- I honest didn't know who to pick.

Oklahoma St (2) v. Eastern Washington (16) -- I was HOPING for E. Wash. to win so that we'd have an easier time of it in the 2nd round. My hopes were flushed down the toilet, LOL.


ATLANTA BRACKET:

Seton Hall (8) v. Arizona (9) -- I guess because I'd heard more about 'Zona than Seton. I dunno.


PHOENIX BRACKET:

Maryland (4) v. UTEP (13) -- Another VERY close game. I would rolled in the floor laughing if UTEP had actually pulled it off, which they came very close to it.


It's interesting, I thought, how I got the most picks wrong in Memphis' bracket.

SPEAKING of which...MEMPHIS won their 1st round game against South Carolina on Friday. This is their first tournament win since 1995. We play Oklahoma State TOMORROW at 1:20 p.m. Could we ACTUALLY beat a #2 seed and make it to the Sweet Sixteen?? If Nevada (a 10 seed) can beat Gonzaga )a 2 seed) tonight, and Alabama (an 8 seed) can beat Stanford tonight (#1 seed), then I think yes, yes, Memphis can pull it off!! How much would THAT rock??? I already told Michael that IF by the slim chance we make it to the Final Four, I would be more than happy to cancel the Destin trip and in its stead, go to San Antonio for the Final Four. We shall see! Let's just get past tomorrow first!!! GOOOO TIGERS!!!!

The first day of the Tournament was yesterday, and I did pretty darn good on my bracket picks. Out of the 16 games that were played yesterday, I only got 3 of my picks wrong. 13-3...not bad! These are the ones I got wrong:

I picked Charlotte over Texas Tech,
I picked Arizona over Seton Hall, and
I picked UTEP over Maryland.

And all of those were pretty close games.

Let's see how I do today for more Round 1 action. Speaking of which, the Tigers play today at 11:30 CST! And I can't wait, but I am sooo nervous!!! Here is an interesting trivia fact...the Tigers have not won a single NCAA Tournament game when Larry Finch WASN'T involved with the team as either a player or a coach. Weird. Nevertheless, LET'S GO TIGERS!

Oh my goodness!! I just got the socks knocked off of me!!! Jacob was playing in the floor, and I said "Hey Travis, come in here and sing Jacob a song," just to see what Travis would do. So Travis laid down in the floor with Jacob and sang to him the entire ABC song!!! I was floored!!! He's never sang a song all the way through by himself before!! We sing songs together all the time, but Travis has just never taken the initiative to just sing an entire song by himself. I was cracking up laughing, but I was so proud of him and I had to call Michael right away and tell him. My baby is growing up!!!

The NCAA Tournament, a.k.a., "The Big Dance" started today. I waited 'til THE last minute to fill out my brackets. Who are my picks?

I picked Kentucky, St. Joseph's, Mississippi State, and UConn to go to the Final Four, and I chose THE champion to be Mississippi State over Kentucky, 66 to 65. I wanted so badly to pick Memphis, but I know I would've only been picking with my heart, lol, but I DID pick Memphis as advancing to the Sweet 16, beating South Carolina and East Washington along the way. Of course, If Memphis DOES win the 1st round of the tournament (crossing fingers, saying prayers, wishing on stars, holding my breath), then we will PROBABLY play Oklahoma State, which is the #2 seed in that bracket. I really went out on a limb, though, to say that Oklahoma State will lose in a major upset to East Washington in the 1st round. Wishful thinking. But JUST IN CASE, I'm still ready to cancel our plans to go to Destin, Florida, and make a trip to San Antonio instead.

GO TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Random Thoughts for Wednesday, 3/17:

Did you remember to wear green today? I didn't! Either way, HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY to my sis, KATIE! :-)

We have church tonight, and I'm still clueless as to what to do about the music schedule. I guess I will find out something tonight and just hope and pray that heads don't start rolling.

For those of you who are close-minded enough to think that musicians that play by ear aren't real musicians and haven't studied their instrument, you need to open your eyes, your ears, and your mind, and write some "fan mail" to any famous musical artist out there that's worth listening to and tell them they aren't real musicians. Alabama, Brooks & Dunn, Dolly Parton, and Elvis (just to name a few) ALL play/played their instruments by ear and can't/couldn't read a single musical note.

We are now Memphis Tigers Football Season Ticket Holders. I felt like capitalizing all of that because I feel really important now. :-)

I must go get in the tub now and start thinking about getting ready for church! More thoughts later!

We went to our dreaded tax appointment tonight, and I am still doing cartwheels!! We actually GOT MONEY BACK!!! HALLELUJAH!!! When we got there for our appointment, which the person we use every year runs his business out of his house, we had to wait like 30 minutes before he got through with his previous appointment because the guy decided he wanted him to do not ONLY his OWN tax return, but also his MOTHER'S and his TWO DAUGHTERS'!!! So we sat downstairs on the living room couch, with the guy's old, shriveled up, hard-of-hearing father as he kept cranking the volume up on the TV so that he can hear Wheel of Fortune. I was totally getting a headache, and I looked at Michael and said, "See? If you keep turning the TV up really loud like you do, you're going to end up like him!" LOL

So anyway, let's recap:

Last Year: We owed $500-something to the Federal government, and $1,200 to the State of Mississippi.

This Year: We GET BACK $2,300-something from the Federal government, and have to pay roughly $400 to the State of Mississippi.

So basically, after we pay the State, we'll have around $1,900!!!

We made about $12,000 LESS last year, plus we added a tax deduction (Jacob) to the family, lol, plus the tax laws have changed or something and put us into a different tax bracket, which apparently helped.

The FIRST thing I'm going to go buy is some GLASSES. No, not drinking glasses, EYE glasses. Whenever I need to give my eyes a rest from my contacts, I have to go blind. I've been without glasses since high school I think? So yes, very much a necessity. Some of the money will go into the vacation fund, and ALL of us, except Jacob, need some spring/summer clothes. So we're going to sit down and figure out how much we're going to spend on what.

WHEW, I'm just glad that is over with! I will definitely sleep better tonight!

I was thinking back and made out a list of everything I've been involved with musically, and I realized that I have had a lot of musical influence in my life. I have been involved in music in some capacity since I was a very tiny girl.

My Grandfather LOVED country music, and he played every stringed instrument there is...guitar, mandolin, bass, fiddle, steal guitar, you name it, and he played it all by ear...couldn't read a note of music. Starting when I was 4 years old, on Saturday nights he'd always go to this place somewhere in Memphis where a bunch of people would get together to play country music. It wasn't a bar or anything, and I never saw any drinking going on...it was more of a family setting really. Anyway, there was a little stage, and there was a band set up, and they'd perform lots of the really really OLD country songs, and then there'd be a certain time of the night where anyone who wanted to could get up on stage and sing whatever they wanted, so I would get up there sometimes and sing with my Grandfather. NOW this would be a tiny setup to me, just a little gig, but back THEN? I thought it was a huge concert and that all eyes were on me! It was a major deal to me!!

I think my Grandfather always knew I had musical talent deep down because he was always trying to teach me different things on his guitar, he'd let me play with his mandolin and his fiddle, and I actually could've picked up on the bass really well, except I was too small to even hold it, lol. We always sang together...he taught me some really old country songs I could still sing today. And then he wanted to buy me a really expensive keyboard so I could learn piano, but my Mom wouldn't let him buy it for me. My Mom ended up buying me one of those tiny Casio keyboards from Amro when I was in the 1st grade. I learned how to play every song on there backwards and forwards, and my parents thought I had some talent, too, so they wanted me to take piano lessons.

Then at age 7, I started taking piano lessons. The piano I have at my house now is the one my Dad bought for me back in 1987. The piano was about 11 years old at the time he bought it...he bought it used. It's a Wurlitzer, which I don't think they make those anymore. So that means the piano is about 28 years old now...it's older than me. My Dad worked an extra job doing air conditioner work in the hot summer just to be able to have the money to buy that piano for me. I think he paid around $800 or $900 for it. My piano teacher's name was Mrs. Dooney. She was an older lady, she lived in Whitehaven, and she had two really big dogs. I think their names were Ginger and Pepper. I took lessons from her up until about 10 years old, but I would later quit because I wanted to play everything the way I heard it, not the way it was actually written, and this caused tension between me and my piano teacher. I was always the type person to ad lib, so as you can imagine, my teacher got to where she wouldn't advance me to the next song or next book until I played it exactly the way it was written, which I never could.

When I was 8, we had a Christmas piano recital, where each of her students played maybe 3 or 4 Christmas songs, and then we could each play a solo of our choosing. I chose Top Gun's "Take My Breath Away". My teacher had worked with me on the piece, and after I listened to her play it about 5 times, I had it down, except she thought I was reading it off the page. So when it was time for my recital, I had the sheet music right in front of my face, but I went totally blank halfway through the song, and I suddenly stopped playing. I even heard some lady in the audience whisper "Oh, she messed up!" Well, at this point, that is when my parents and my teacher realized I had been playing by ear all along. I had advanced really fast through all of the beginner books, but when I got to the more advanced books, I couldn't play ANYTHING without the teacher playing it for me first. That was also the breaking point when I decided that I could never play another recital or play for ANYONE other than my teacher or my parents ever, ever again. I was completely humiliated, crushed, mad at myself, and very discouraged, mostly because of what the lady in the crowd said. If she'd just kept her mouth shut, maybe I would've picked up where I left off and kept going. Of course, after this, I really lost interest in piano lessons, and by 10 years old, I quit going to Mrs. Dooney's house. There went my parent's dream of me becoming a concert pianist.

Then when I was 12, I joined my Jr. High band and played snare drum. My Grandfather was really excited about that, and he went to a pawn shop and bought me a drumset and wanted me to learn it, so I practiced a lot and got pretty good at it, so then I ended up playing with him in his country band, and even did a fundraiser concert for the American Veterans of War. I took snare drum lessons on and off starting from 8th grade to 11th grade. I had 3 very great drum teachers...Mike Sims, Jeff West, and Jared Brownlee. They were all very different, but I really did learn a lot from them. My Dad took a portion of his workshop out behind the house and walled off a small room, which we called "The Drum Room". He even installed a window, a door, and a window unit air conditioner. Then he hung a big mirror in there. I decorated the room with my awards and posters and stuff. I kept my drum set in there, a practice xylophone I borrowed from school, and of course, my snare drum. In my high school marching band I marched snare drum from 9th through 12th grade, and was also drum captain my 11th grade year. I still have all of my band metals and awards on a little shelf in my living room. During highschool concert band, I learned how to play almost every percussion instrument there is, including the xylophone, although little did my band instructor know I was playing THAT by ear, as well. I say I never learned to read music, which is partly false. Since I was a drummer, I did have to learn to read rhythms...I just never could learn the notes. So for all of my xylophone parts, I had one of the flute players play the melodies for me so that I could learn my parts. ;-)

When I went to Northwest, I auditioned in the spring of 1999 for the Northwest marching band, and I made it and was even offered a full-paid scholarship, but I decided I wanted to live at home instead of the dorms, and if you have a scholarship, they require you to live in the dorm, so I ended up not getting to do the college band thing.

Then after Michael and I got married, we joined Bethel Baptist Church, and that church is swarming with musical talent, so there wasn't really any room there for me to use what I knew. Then later after we left Bethel, we joined New Beginnings Baptist Church. They have what they call a Praise Band, and they had a piano, keyboard, guitar, bass, and yes, even drums. There was already a drummer there, but I told the song leader that any time they needed someone to fill in for him, I could do it, which I ended up having plenty of opportunities to do because some Sundays the guy that usually played the drums had Guard Duty (he is in the National Guard), so they asked me to play for him a lot. Then it got to where the regular drummer decided that since I loved doing it so much, he'd let me play every other Sunday whether he was there or not.

Then after we moved on from there and joined Grace Baptist Church, Dorothy was a HUGE encouragement. I'd sort of known Dorothy ever since before me and Michael got married, but when we joined Grace, she was the church piano player, and they didn't have anyone on the organ, so she decided she was going to get me to start playing the organ. Then she gradually got me to play a few offeratories and a few specials on the piano, and she also encouraged me to join the Ladies' Group to sing with them. Then months later when she announced she was leaving for college, God already had someone in mind to play the piano for the church...me. Whenever I stop and think about how God had a plan for me all along, and how he lead us to that church, it never fails to amaze me. Before I made the decision to play piano for church, I promise you I could not put together a hymn on the piano. When I had stopped taking lessons at 10 years old, I did nothing more than play around with the piano if I happened to get bored. I never really actively or constructively tried to learn any songs. But once I made that decision for God, God has used my desire and my willingness and has given me the ability that I need to play for church, and I have learned a wealth of songs in a very short amount of time. For all that God has given me and for the musical influences I've had in my life, I feel so unworthy, but also so very blessed and I cannot be thankful enough. Every time I sit down to the piano to play, I ask God to just play through my hands.

It's Tuesday. Not much you can really say about Tuesday. It's not the beginning of the week, it's not the middle of the week, and it's not the end of the week. The only thing most people can say GOOD about Tuesday is that it's only 3 days until Friday, instead of 4. Of course, for me, Saturdays are the same as Tuesdays. I'm going to be home, taking care of kids and cleaning, regardless, lol. For some reason though, I keep thinking today is Wednesday. I've already talked to two people this morning and said "Yeah, well tonight when we're at church....." Weird.

Anyway, Terri (my sis-in-law) came by last night to bring me some stuff I had ordered from her, and as usual, Travis wanted to go to Terri's house. He begged and begged and begged, and Terri was like "I don't mind if he wants to" and we didn't either, so he got his shoes on, grabbed his blanket, and he was off to Terri's at 11 o'clock last night and he spent the night over there. Well this morning when she dropped him by here on her way to work, she told us that boy didn't go to sleep until 2 in the morning!!!!! Of course, she said it was partly her fault because she was up late doing stuff and Travis was playing with her dog and stuff, and then when they finally laid down at 1, he didn't finally fall asleep until 2!!! That's the latest he's ever gone to bed! LOL! I was like "You had to wake him up, this morning, right?" And she said NO...he was awake bright and early at 7 a.m.!!! He only got 5 hours of sleep!! I fully expected him to eat his breakfast this morning, crash on the couch or on the chair and go back to sleep, but he didn't. I imagine he'll probably take a good long nap today though.

I put together the music schedule yesterday, all the way through the end of April. It was a little harder than I thought it'd be, mainly because Ms. Jenny (the Pastor's wife) is not able to sing solos right now until she has her baby (trust me, it's REALLY hard to sing when you have this baby in there smashing your lungs, lol), and Kenneth, our song leader, will be in Africa on a mission trip the entire month of April. SO this means I had 2 less people to fill spots. I'm supposed to schedule two specials on Sunday morning, two specials on Sunday night, and one special on Wednesday night, and then I have to put down a backup person/group for each scheduled person in case that person or group is unable to sing for whatever reason. So yeah, I felt like I had to put some people down more than they might want to BE down, but there wasn't much else I could do. :::SIGH::: So now I'm fully prepared to get evil smirks from certain people when they get my version of the music schedule. But hey, I asked for it, right? They'll just have to deal with it OR ask to no longer be put on the schedule. And then it just dawned on me that April 11 is Easter. And whoever I put down for Easter to sing needs to have a good Easter song. And I have to be able to learn it if I don't already know it. Okay...just breathe....remain calm...I can do this.

Extroverted (E) 63.64% Introverted (I) 36.36% Realistic (S) 55.26% Imaginative (N) 44.74% Emotional (F) 53.66% Intellectual (T) 46.34% Organized (J) 58.82% Easygoing (P) 41.18% Your type is: ESFJ You are a Supporter, possible professions include - nurse, social worker, caterer, flight attendant, bookkeeper, medical/dental assistant, exercise physiologist, elementary school teacher, minister/priest/rabbi, retail owner, officer manager, telemarketer, counselor, special education teacher, merchandise planner, credit counselor, athletic coach, insurance agent, sales representative, massage therapist, medical secretary, child care provider, bilingual education teacher, professional volunteer.

Take Free Career Inventory Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

This is pretty dang accurate! Every job I have had pretty much fits into this category.

Back by popular demand...Random Thoughts for Monday, 3/15:

Memphis made the big dance as a #7 seed, and their first opponent is South Carolina. If we beat South Carolina in the first round, we will probably go on to play Oklahoma State. :::starts biting fingernails:::

I got asked to play piano in a wedding. Wow. I've never played a wedding before, so this should be interesting, that is if I can learn the music, but I think I can do it. We shall see...that is, if the person getting married will hurry up and tell me what songs they want played! :-)

FYI, a car door remote will NOT unlock the front door of the house.

I have a baby shower and a double birthday party to go to on Saturday. How much more fun can ones life get? And how much emptier can ones wallet get?

I am starting to work on another poem. It's been a few months since I've constructively written anything poetic. You'll be the first to know when it's completed. ;-)

Michael is on Spring Break this week, so that only means that I'll actually have time to cook dinner before he has to rush off the class. Tonight's Menu: Chicken & Cheese Quesadillas. Yummy.

My head is spinning in about 15 different directions right now, and just to prove it, here goes:

Yesterday. Okay, yesterday was busy. My busiest, most eventful day of the week is Sunday. And I'm going to need ALL DAY TODAY to rest and recoup! Can somebody say PAJAMA DAY??? So yesterday I got up at 7:20 a.m. and got myself ready for church. Michael has a cold and he's been running himself silly all week, so he stayed home and kept Jacob here with him, but he did help me get Travis ready to go with me. So Travis and I left the house around 9 a.m., almost forgot my Bible and my music book, (I call it a music book...it's more of a lyric book), and drove 30 miles to church.

So I played organ for Sunday school, then we went over to the fellowship hall for the first day of our new couple's class, except I was missing my half, so I didn't feel much like a couple, lol. After class, me and Joy (the other piano player) ran over to the church to run through our congregational songs right quick since we didn't get to work on them Wednesday night since she wasn't there.

Well, the person that I was afraid that wouldn't show up to sing, didn't show up, so this meant we'd either A) Have only 1 special instead of 2, B) I would have to sing something, or C) Find someone else that could do a song at the last second. Well, about 2 minutes before it was time for the first song, Kenneth (the song leader) came up to me and said that Bro. Greg (the Pastor) really wanted 2 specials for Sunday morning, so he asked the Hillers if they could do the song they did Wednesday night, which meant I needed someone to grab my music book and take it over to the piano and turn it to the page of that song and lay it on top of the piano. This also meant I'd have to play the song and the Hillers would have to sing it without having had a chance to run through it AT ALL.

So church started, we played the first congregation song, and then guess who walked into church, late? Yep, the person that was SUPPOSED to sing!!! Well, we ended up continuing on with the Hillers singing, and it actually went great! Hmm, maybe I play better when I don't have time to stress over it, who knows. Then we did the other congregation songs, and the other special song, Joy played, and then when it was time for the sermon, someone had taken my seat which is on the side of the organ on the 2nd to the front row. I mean, I'd sat my Bible and my purse there and everything, lol. So everybody had to scoot down before I could sit down.

So anyway, Bro. Ron Nichols preached yesterday. (In case you didn't know, which you probably didn't, he is one of the brothers of Sam...Michael's cousin that committed suicide back in October.) The message really spoke to me and I believe it's something I needed to hear. Then I ended up playing piano for the invitation song simply because me and Joy hadn't had time to work on the song that was on the schedule, and it was a song we'd never played together before, but I'd played on the piano a zillion times. The thing about invitation songs is we usually go through the entire song about 2 or 3 times before the invitation is over, because there are usually people down at the alter and stuff, so the more times I have to play through a song, the more likely I am to have a chance to mess up, and the ONE song you don't want to mess up is the invitation song. So basically, if a song has 4 verses, I can count on playing the song about 8 to 12 times. I know it's the invitation song, but I'm constantly glancing up at the Pastor, waiting for his cue to let me know it's the last time through the song. And his cue is very subtle. Like, if he just glances over at me, that's supposed to mean that it's the last verse. (There HAVE been times though where he glanced over at me, not really cueing me, but just looking over there for whatever reason, and I thought it was my cue to stop, so I stopped, and then he was like "No, keep going" LOL.)

Anyway, we took up a special offering for funds to purchase a new baptistry. Our church DOESN'T have one...there's the hole back there for one, but there's no baptistry actually in there. Every time someone wants to be baptized, we basically have to have a baptismal service at another church nearby. Before yesterday, there were about $800 or so in the baptistry fund, and after yesterday's special offering, there's now over $1700 in the baptistry fund!! I think they need about $2,000 for the whole thing, so I thought that was pretty awesome!!!

ANYWAY, so after church, me and a few others stayed behind to run over the special songs for Sunday night. I was supposed to play piano for the Crumptons...they wanted to sing "As The Deer", so we ran over that, and then me and Ms. Jenny (the Pastor's wife) were supposed to sing "Who Am I?" and Joy played piano for us. So we ran over all of that, and then I made the 30 mile drive back home.

I stopped at Popeye's to get some chicken, brought it home, we ate, then I had to go to the grocery store because I was supposed to go Friday, but we had helped Michael's parents move, and then Saturday, but we ended up having an unexpected dinner guest, and then finally decided to go yesterday afternoon so that I wouldn't come home after Sunday morning church and want to go to sleep. So I went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market, which is practically down the road from me, and I got a buggy full of groceries. I was in the checkout line, and the checker asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was glad I was finally getting out of the store so I could make it back to church tonight, and she was like "Y'all have church on Sunday nights? That's so weird! Where do you go to church?" So I told her and she was like "Oh, you're Baptist that's why. I go to a Baptist church, too." What part of that conversation made any sense? The girl had to be on drugs because she goes to a Baptist church and had never heard of going to church on Sunday nights? If she didn't know this, then she has never stepped foot into a church in her life, unless it was a church of Satan or something, LOL! So I got the truck loaded up with my groceries and by the time I got out of there, I was pretty thirsty and I wanted a Diet Vanilla Coke, so I pulled into the Mapco which is basically right next to the Walmart. This is where my day went downhill, lol. I went inside to get a Coke, and as I stood there in line waiting to pay for it, a sick realization hit me. I did not have my keys in my hand. Where were they??? And then it hit me that I left them out in the truck, but I didn't think I had locked my doors. So I paid for my Coke, and I told the lady behind the counter that I think I locked my keys in my truck. So she asked me if I needed to use the phone, and I told her I'd go check to see if I actually locked the doors. So I ran back out to my truck, and SURE ENOUGH...the doors were LOCKED. Instant sinking feeling hits me. So I ran back into the store and took her up on her offer to use the phone. The first thing I said to Michael was, "Hey, um, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to get in your car and come up here to the Mapco and unlock me." Are you ready for this? He said, "Um, Candy, I don't HAVE a set of keys to your truck?!?!" I felt about an inch tall at this point. Somebody dig a hole and bury me in it!!! He was right. When we bought it back in Decmeber, they only gave us ONE key and ONE remote. And then he added "WHAT were you doing at Mapco???" and I said "I went in to buy a Coke." and he said "You went in to buy a Coke!" This was more of an exclamation, than a question. I mean, I was THIRSTY!!! GEEZ!!! So this meant we would have to call a locksmith. Boy, that was the most expensive Coke I'll ever drink. I need to put that Coke bottle on a shelf and use it as a fancy vase or something!! I called a locksmith, and he said it'd take about 30 minutes to get there. Michael ended up calling his parents...they were on their way home from church, and as always, they came to the rescue. They pulled up in the Mapco parking lot, and I felt soooo stupid!!! The first think Michael's mom did was laugh and say "Honey, we've all done it a million times!" But if you recall, I had GROCERIES in the back that were going to spoil and melt!!!!!!! So anyway, I sat in the van with my in-laws while we waited for the locksmith to show up. He wanted to see my Driver's License, just as proof that this was actually my vehicle, and I'm like "Umm, that's going to be a PROBLEM...it's IN THE TRUCK?!?!" So he unlocked the vehicle after a minute or two, I showed him my license, and he charged me $48. Yeah, really expensive Coke. By this point it was after 3:30, and I had to get home, unload the groceries, put them up, run through Sunday night's music, and get myself ready to leave again by 4:30. I got home, Michael helped with the groceries, and then he got the kids ready to go because he was taking them over to Mamaw's (his parents) so Michael could go over to Daniel's (his nephew) to watch Wrestlemania 20. Daniel's girlfriend has pink eye, so we didn't want to expose the kids to THAT.

Well I went on back to church...another 30 miles. I always play piano on Sunday night. All of the music went really well, and then after church, we had a fellowship thing and ate hot dogs and chips and played ping pong and chatted. I did finally have a chance to speak to the Pastor about the whole music schedule thing. As it turns out, he was already kind of aware of the situation, and was already planning on relieving the person that had been doing the schedule of that duty, and he WAS planning on turning the job over to the song leader, BUT since I showed some willingness to do it, and the song leader already has lots of other stuff to do, he said that I could do it! YAY! So I plan on getting something tentative together to take to church Wednesday night and have him and the others involved with the music to look it over to make sure they like/understand whatever format I come up with. I explained to him that I didn't want anyone to have hurt feelings over it or anything...I just felt there needed to be a change, and that I thought I could handle the responsibility. So that's something ELSE I've got to work on today. I'm just sooo glad that he was already aware of the situation, so that I didn't have to be the one to stir up a stink, ya know?

So then I drove another 30 miles back home. On my way home, I had to stop and feed/water/play with my mom's cat and make sure everything was okay at the house. While I was there, my Mom called me on my cell and asked me to call today and cancel her eye appointment on Tuesday because she's decided to stay in North Carolina an extra day. (That's a reminder to myself to do that today!!) After that, I stopped at Daniel's apartment to catch the last several matches of Wrestlemania, only to be disappointed because I had missed the Rock's final match. But Michael told me he lost anyway, so maybe it's a good thing I missed it. This was an experience in itself though...going to Daniel's apartment. I'd never in my life been to a single guy's apartment before. Daniel and his girlfriend had all of the lights out, the ceiling fan turned on full blast, the TV turned up way loud, and they were all snuggled up together on the couch, under a blanket, and Michael and I had to sit in chairs on either side of the coffee table, and I was like "Oh, I see how it is...we're married so we no longer get to sit together." Daniel's girlfriend is pretty cool though, and we get along pretty good. I just know more differences between a single guy and a married woman, lol. Whenever I have guests over at my place, I offer them a drink, and make sure they're comfortable. But over THERE, it was like the total opposite! I didn't stay long because I was FREEZING and I was getting a headache from either the loudness of the TV, or maybe it was the brightness of the TV against the darkness of the room, or maybe a combination of both??? And my nose was starting to burn from the smell of stale cigarette smoke. By the time I left, my eyes were watering and my clothes and hair wreaked of cigarette smoke, and I wanted to take a bath and wash my hair, but I was soooo tired by then, that I put on my PJ's and crashed onto the bed and passed out. When I woke up about 30 to 45 minutes later, Michael had picked up the kids and brought them home, and Jacob was wide awake, rolling around in my bed, lol. So I got up and put Jacob in his bed with a bottle and Travis was already passed out on the couch, so I went back to bed and passed out again.

WHEWWWW...I'm glad yesterday is over with!!! On second thought, it might take me ALL WEEK to get over Sunday!!!

Is this day over yet? I can only hope so. Not that it was an all bad day, I mean, as a matter of fact MOST of it was great. Church was great, the music went great (almost...I'll go into that later), and I finally got the music schedule "issue" resolved. There was a unanimous decision to allow me to take over the music schedule. I just knew it would all work out...I just hate waiting to get problems solved. I'm the type person that wants it taken care of NOW, not a week from now. Well, of course, then there are some things I procrastinate over, lol, but we won't talk about THAT!

Anyway, I really have a lot to tell about, but I am completely exhausted. Today felt like a 36-hour-long day or something, and I'm still at my parents' house cat sitting and I need to go pick up my kids from Michael's parents' house. I've driven 120 miles, bought groceries (yes, finally) and locked my keys in my car at the Mapco, JUST to get a Coke. (I will tell all about this tomorrow, too). But for now, I must go before I curl up on my parents' bed and go to sleep.