We went to see Spiderman 2 last night. It was far better than the 1st, and the whole love story bit made it much more chick-oriented or something. Also, don't tell anyone I said this, but Tobey Maguire (sp?) is really kinda hot in a nerdy sort of way. Then again, it was the nerdy ones I always seemed to fall for in high school, lol.

So my mom called AGAIN last night and she was like "Okay, PLAN C" and so she decided to make it to where we could eat at her house Monday at 4:30 that afternoon, we can just take our church clothes with us over there, change, and hit the road to church around 6:10'ish. So that works. You know, I fully realize they don't see our church as REAL church since we Baptists are heathens and all going to hell you know, but it's a matter of respect here. We made a commitment to be there, I'm very much involved in the church music...it's not like we're just pew warmers. I can't wait to hear the comments from my family when we actually get dressed to leave from their house Monday evening.

Enough ranting for now...I must practice some more to get ready for tomorrow. Later. Oh, and Happy 4th!

You know what really amazes me more than ANYTHING? My parents raised me to have certain standards of living, i.e., not to ever miss church when the doors are open, and what do my parents do? They try to talk me into missing one night of the Revival at our church to come to their 4th of July party that they had to reschedule to Monday due to a death in the family. The party was originally scheduled for Saturday evening, and some distant great aunt died and they postponed the party to Monday so that they could help drive my grandparents to the visitation and funeral. Well, I promise you that my parents would not BUDGE on their church to come to something WE were having, but you know, that would be perfectly understandable and I wouldn't protest. My Dad asked me if we could miss it while I was at their house this afternoon, and then my Mom called me after I got home to "run it by me again". And I still said NO, I stood my ground, and just because of that, I know that the Revival is going to be even BETTER than it would've been had this not come up. The devil throws all kinds of stumbling blocks out there, and I resisted, so God's really going to have something for me NOW. Thanks, Mom and Dad. No, I meant that sincerely.

Happy Friday again! Is it EVER going to stop raining? I actually saw sunshine when I woke up this morning, but then now I see clouds moving in. My back yard is pure mush and the dogs are horribly nasty muddy and they've smeared it all over my patio chair cushions and all over the green turf, so whenever we go outside, we track mud all over my white kitchen floor, which I scrubbed on my hands and knees last week. Are my cleaning efforts all in vain? Maybe not, since everything was clean, at least for a day or so. I mean, we WOULD have the rainiest June ever the week I steam clean my carpet! Only me, only me. I can say though that last night, going in and out to cook some burgers on our new charcoal grill, was well worth tracking mud from here to yonder. That's right...my mother-in-law bought us a grill. After 4 years of marriage, we finally had our first backyard grilling experience, and the burgers turned out awesomer than awesome. I have a very special secret recipe which we learned about at a tailgate before a Mississippi State football game last fall, and I kind of added my own little "kick" to it.....here it is....the guy making them called them "Dawg" burgers, but we have named them "Tiger" burgers:

Tiger Burger Recipe:

In a large bowl, dump 1 packette Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing mix (just the powder) per pound of hamburger meat. Using your hands, mix the meat and the ranch powder together thoroughly. Roll the meat into individual balls and put them on a plate, set aside. (You can make the patties as big or small as you want, but the size we make ours, we can usually make about 3 patties per pound of meat.)

In a small saucepan, stir together, on medium heat, the following:

1 cup BBQ sauce (We use Kraft Hickory Smoke flavor)
1/2 cup worchestire sauce
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp garlic salt
3 tbsp Louisiana hot sauce

Once the butter melts into the mixture, reduce the heat to low, and simmer as long as you like.

On the grill, brush the sauce on to each side of the burgers as desired.

As soon as the burgers come off the grill, put a slice of American cheese on top to melt it, if desired.

THERE, now YOU have the secret recipe, and these are the best burgers you will ever eat in your life, in our opinion at least. I could've kept it a secret, but it's too good to not share.

I have been having some freaky dreams the last couple nights (what else is new?). The first one took place Wednesday night. I dreamed that I went to the dentist for a routine checkup/cleaning, and the dentist looked in my mouth and then his eyes got really big and he said "Oh my goodness....you have this huge cancer growing in your mouth, and you have to go to the hospital right now and have surgery, or it could spread to your brain or to your lungs, and once that happens, it'll be too late," and I told him "Well I have been having these really bad headaches for the last several weeks, maybe a month," and he said "You definitely need to be seen right away because it could already be too late." So immediately I went to the hospital, to check myself in. Well the guy at the window asked me for my insurance, which I don't have any, so he said he had to have like $475 up front, and I said "Well I don't have any money," and he insisted that he HAD to have it, which I insisted that I didn't have it, and I went on to say that I have 2 little kids at home and a mortgage, and he just said "Sorry, that's life" and they refused to treat me, so I had to just go home. I woke up literally CRYING. I was relieved it was only a dream, but at the same time it really made me wonder what WOULD happen if I have to have some major medical stuff done? Just sit at home and die? I have no health insurance at all.

The other dream, I had last night. I dreamed I was going to start taking organ lessons from my old piano teacher. I had to take the kids with me, and for some reason, I also had the cat with me in the car. So I got there, and unloaded Travis and went in. It was the same house, but a different lady came to the door. I asked her what happened to the OLD Mrs. Dooney (my piano teacher's name), and she informed me that Mrs. Dooney passed away years ago, and that she was her daughter. What was so weird was that the inside of the house was a lot bigger than it actually was, and we walked through these huge hallways to get to where the organ was. We sat down to the organ and she started explaining some stuff to me, and then I realized that I LEFT JACOB IN THE CAR!!! I've always had a fear of doing that, but in my dream, I DID it! As I was getting Jacob out of his car seat, the cat darted out of the car and into some woods behind this house. So there I am, carting Jacob on one hip (I left Travis with the piano teacher), chasing the cat into the woods. The cat started climbing up a tree and I tried to reach her and she just clawed at me, and then I finally grabbed her and she scratched my hands and arms really bad, so I dropped her, and she kept running from me, and I was yelling for HELP, and a group of maybe 7 or 8 people were walking by and they stopped and helped me with Jacob while I chased the cat. I finally caught her and threw her back in the car, and then I grabbed Jacob and went back inside the house to get Travis, and the piano teacher was very "disappointed in me" for leaving my son with her, and I said "That's fine, I won't be needing any lessons from you anyway." And then I woke up.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be at my Mom's house at 10 this morning to help her pull weeds. I was supposed to clean her house today, to help her get ready for the 4th of July party she's having tomorrow, but she cleaned it the other day because she had "company" Thursday, which generally means that the part of my family that has disowned me 4 years ago was there. I told her that I was really counting on getting to clean because I needed the money to buy Travis' birthday stuff (cake & decorations), so she said I could come help her pull weeds to work for the money. I guess I'm the type person that feels bad getting a handout from someone...I'd rather work for the money. So I have to get a shower, get dressed, get the kids dressed, pack a diaper bag, and be on my merry way.

It's really easy to sit down to the computer, just long enough to drink your morning coffee, check e-mails, forward a couple funnies, chat with one or two buddies for a minute, check your bank account online, check on your Ebay listings, then do a full-blown search on some useless junk you don't really need anyway, catch up on reading some blogs, then blog yourself, but by then it's lunchtime and you don't get anything done around the house and by then the kids think you have forgotten they exist, which would be the main reason I haven't blogged much lately. I have to keep myself far, far away from the computer, or I'm liable to sit here half the day, in my pajamas, the kids still in their pajamas, no laundry done, no beds made, no dishes done, no nothing done, but hours wasted, as the sands of the hourglass. Or something like that.

Today is the 1st day of July, which means half of 2004 is already over and done with. The year is vaporizing before our eyes. And my kids are growing up before my eyes. Travis will turn 3 in just 9 days, and with the blink of an eye, he's going to be 18, driving, going to college, having girlfriends, etc., and Jacob will be right behind him, soon to follow.

Our revival starts Sunday, and I've been majorly working on all the music for the revival, which runs through Wednesday. I'm really excited about it, especially since we were on vacation during the revival we had last month.

We went to church last night, and I'm always almost "disappointed" when the other piano player is there. I LOVE to play for church, and she has told me countless times she doesn't like to do it, so it's sort of heartbreaking for me, if that makes sense? I mean, there I am, I WANT to do it, and there she is, she DOESN'T want to do it, but yet she's up there, and I'm not. I dunno. She is the one that sort of kind of "stepped down" and I'm really confused. She is still going to play, but yet she doesn't want the responsibility, and I'm just thinking, either she wants to do it or she doesn't, because if she's going to be all iffy about it, that's just going to make the scheduling that much more crazy. But I just keep telling myself that God will work it all out, which He will and always does. I asked Michael last night if I "obsess" too much over the church music, if I try too hard, and if I make too much of a big deal about practicing and the schedule and everything, and he said "No, not at all. This is your department. You're doing your job." I just don't want to ANNOY anybody or hurt anyone's feelings or offend anyone. I'm just trying to make sure everything's covered, and I've figured out after almost a year of doing this that if I don't do it, nobody will. I guess it's just my calling, well, I KNOW it's my calling.

I must go now before I spend another 3 hours on this thing. Plus I need to get out of my pajamas.

Over the past week I've had all kinds of things I wanted to blog about, but every time I tried to get on here, the internet wouldn't work, I had to reboot, and by then, a diaper needed changing or a drier was buzzing or SOMETHING, so maybe NOW I can get something down.

Ain't it weird how you have a dream that jumbles up everything you did the day before and everything that even crossed your thoughts? I had one of those dreams last night, and I'd write about it, but it's just too jumbled up and complexed to get it all out. I will say it involved my parents' house, my sister-in-law, my kids, an ex boyfriend, Jennifer Aniston, and Tori Spelling. I TOLD you it was weird!

In other news, we are flat broke, so I'm biting the bullet and selling my Friends DVDs AGAIN for $25 each on Ebay. I am selling Seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4...actually Season 3 already sold, so 1, 2 & 4 are still there. If you are interested, go to Ebay User ID Booberry617. If you are here local, I will make other arrangements to get it to you to save you the shipping charge. I am in need of the money to pay for Travis' birthday stuff because all the money we have in the bank now is to pay our house note, and once the groceries run out, I'm not even sure what we're going to do about that. God always provides our needs though, so I'm not worried really. I just need the extra cash for Travis' birthday. If you buy all 3, I'll knock off like $5 off the total price or something. Yeah, we are strapped for cash.

Church was really good yesterday, which it always is. We started up our married couples class AGAIN and our revival starts next week. There are some changes going on in the music department, too...the other piano player decided she didn't want that responsibility anymore since her husband is getting into evangelism and they have such a sporadic schedule now, plus she has pretty much said all along that she doesn't like playing piano very much. But there is another lady that's been visiting our church for quite some time now that wants to help out, so that's really good. It's just a matter of getting used to playing with someone else all over again. The Pastor asked me to talk to her a little bit last night, so I did, and she seemed very willing to help out, and then she told me she played off and on for her previous church for 17 years...YIKES! And then she told me she SINGS,and I was like "You mean to tell me you have been sitting on this back row all this time with all this talent, and there's piddly little me up there, and you haven't said anything?" LOL. She went on to say that she doesn't play anything special, and I said "Yeeeahh, they ALL say that." LOL. I am very glad there is someone else to help out, although at the same time, if I am the only one we have, then I can handle that too. I just don't want anyone to think that I am being selfish with it...if someone else has the desire and the need to do something for God, then that is wonderful. I also don't want anyone to think that I do what I do is for show. It is really hard to be humble when someone comes up to me and compliments my piano playing, but I just say "thank you" and "It's just God giving me the ability to do it." When Dorothy left almost a year ago, I stepped up to the plate and said "Lord, I am willing, just give me what I need." And He did. It was truly one of the hardest things I ever did...to not know how I could ever get up there and play for a church, but then do it anyway and just allow God to use me. But once I did it, I am happier now than I have ever been.

Totally unrelated to the above, here's one final thought. I find it quite ironic that TWO of my ex-boyfriends are getting married within one week of each other. Too weird.

It's time to go back to being mom and to rest my twisted messed up ankle. Wait, what's wrong with those two thoughts being in the same sentence? There IS no being mom and resting of anything at the same time, lol. And I didn't even write about how I hurt my ankle yesterday...maybe later.