She's Gone Country

My whole life I have had the ability to hear and mimic sounds. As I got older, this bled into my singing career. Meaning, I have been able to sing a range of styles. Country, classical, Broadway, pop, jazz and folk. Most people don't really know folk, but if you call it singer/songwriter, people feel better. Any who, this talent used to be a piece of pride I held. Eventually, however, it turned into an identity crisis. I had a vocal instructor once who said to me that if you don't identify exactly what music you write and perform, then  your crowd will get confused and lost and drift away out of confusion. You become the wallpaper because you will not stand out. This disturbed me quite a bit. So I pondered. A lot. I kept going from Country, to Pop, to singer/songwriter, and in the back of my head, I couldn't deny that I love show tunes and stage acting. Sigh.
Recently, I have had the opportunity to perform on the stage with a friend of mine, Brian. We did a few shows in Park City in January and they were so much fun, but I realized something....my voice is just too big to pretend I can only do cafe style singing. We sang songs from the Civil Wars, Damien Rice and The Swell Season and as fun as it was, my voice is just too big for those places. I felt myself dialing down the entire night to try and fit the venue and crowd.
Which brings me to last week. My friend Ashley called with tickets to go see Miranda Lambert. Her husband works for the radio station and occasionally she gets to invite people along with her perks. I don't think she knew how much I loved Miranda until I answered back immediately with strong enthusiasm that YES!!! I wanted to go.
So we went! And it was amazing!!! And watching her show, I felt so inspired :) The show was big, emotional, loud, touching, crazy and fun all in one night. Her songs were so expressive and entertaining and strong and meaningful. I realized that for her demographic, you start singing at fairs and parks and such. Everything starts bigger. I have too much spunk to sit on a cafe stage quietly and play a moving quiet piece. Long story short, I think I have decided to stick with country. At least try my hand at it. If you don't like country, sorry friends, but this girl goes way back in country roots. I grew up listening to Anne Murray, Reba McIntyre, Dolly Parton, Randy Travis, George Strait, Alan Jackson and Johnny Cash. (mainly at my grandma's house cause my grandpa was such a fan). I love country music, culture and feel. So, let's see where it takes me.
Here are some pics from the concert:

It was spectacular. And ps, if you don't know who Miranda Lambert is, If you listen to the following two songs, you will love her. The first, "Gunpowder and Lead" the other "The House that Built Me". You'll be a fan too...just you wait and see ;)

March Facial Hair Madness!

So Owen says to me, "About every decade or so, I shave my facial hair completely. I think maybe he does this to remember there is a chin under there....but who knows :) Anywho, the other day, he decided, today is the day. He goes in the bathroom...then he walks back in the bedroom and wanders around...oddly. I, of course, am talking to whatever I'm doing and not looking straight at him. Then, I see it,....I go speechless...and Owen's dimple betrays him making him smile all big and embarrassed cause he got the response he expected...SHOCK! Standing in my bedroom was a stranger. NOT the Owen I know. lol. I had to stare at him for a while before I would accept it. I felt like the little kid on Hook. You know the one, that moves Robin William's face around until he stretches it out and sees young Peter Pan and then the kid says, "Oh THERE you are Peter!" hahahaha, I just couldn't accept it. It was so different! He's adorable either way, but I'm used to my scruffy faced lover. ;) both my mom and Owen's mom did their best to push that he keep it shaven. But nuh uh. Not this man. The initial S in Owen's name is for Stubborness. Owen Stubborness Esau :) and to be honest, I like him scruffy. That's the Owen I know. But for now, this was fun and refreshing. He already has his whiskers growing in though, so to say the least, it was short-lived. (but I got it on camera!)

Love this man!! ~

Liberty Park

One of my staple childhood memories is going to the park with my family. I remember my mom and dad would always get a bucket of chicken, a blanket and we'd go to the park. We'd throw around the football, play frisby, and one of my very favorites, was playing hide and seek behind the massive trees at Liberty Park! This park and me go way back. I'm sure so many people can say that, but I'll keep telling myself it's just me so my feelings don't get all cheapened ;)
So, since the weather has been warming up, I decided we need to go to the Park! And what better than my favorite?!!! We have taken the kids there for the past 4 years but something about this time felt really nice. Like it's starting to stick with them. Like they are starting to remember it. I know every inch of this park by heart and I look forward to more and more memories we can make there. Here's some of the fun we had last week.

 Feeding the duckies!

 Mitchell doing his sunglasses thing. Gosh he's so funny.

 They have a musical playground for the kids. They had a blast!

 Even Owen had a great time!

 And OF COURSE, we had to play hide and seek behind the trees. It's customary ;)

 Following the Leader! Mitchell is in the middle, you can't see him as well, but his airplane arms were up too!

 If you see my facebook, you'll know this one but if not, the story is this:
"Mitchell, what are you doing sweetie?".... "Mommy, the sun is in my eyes, I'm making sunglasses."
So freakin smart!! lol

 

Pinteresting

My new obsession as of late has been Pinterest. I tried to stay away for as long as physically possible...but I'm a bit of an "idea" freak and I LOVE learning new and functional ways to do something clever and beautiful. I admit though, I have become a bit obsessed to an unhealthy degree. Wow, reading and watching some of these blogs and tutorials makes the Super Mom thing really come alive and it makes life a bit daunting when you don't feel like you can add up. For me anyway. About a year ago, I embraced the fact that I am in love with crafty projects and artistic expression in my home. For years, I thought it was too cliche to be Mormon and enjoy crafts. But I finally hit a place of maturity for myself where I said, hey, guess what, cliche or not, I like this. I like it, I enjoy it and I want to learn more about it. As it happens, I love scrap booking, sewing, quilting, organization to the unhealthy extent, and yes, even crocheting. Gardening is up there too, only I haven't had a great opportunity for that one yet so I'm sure that exploration will come out more when we have our own place in August.
So, My first real attempt to accomplish something I found on Pinterest was my lists wall. I love to keep lists and charts and admittedly, they would end up wadded up in my purse or behind stuff in the closet because I didn't feel like I had anywhere to put them. Then I saw a great pin showing a wall of lists. And this, is my version: (located right outside our bedroom)

I decided chore charts are not just for the kids. I was having the worst time keeping up on house work around here because I work full time, have the kids part time, Owen works seven days a week and has school and with all the family stuff going on lately, I literally feel like I don't have time to brush my hair let alone keep up on stuff. So Saturdays turned into nightmare house cleaning day....until this. I've had it up about a week and a half, and it's been awesome. A little each day, keeps the stresses away and keeps my house clean and manageable.

 My to do list. I put a piece of vellum over a picture of us kissing on a bridge. I thought it was cute :)

 The Menu list! This one is also to help me change my shopping style. I used to just go isle to isle grabbing main things to make sure we had "stuff" to always make something. This way, I know exactly what to get, we save money and Owen likes it cause he can put in there whatever he wants too :)

 My magnet board. As much as I love it. I bought it off Etsy.com. THEN I saw bigger nicer better ones at the Quilted Bear. Go figure. But hey, I still love it, and it still keeps the function alive :)

 I should have taken a close up of my marker cup. I'm freaking proud of that thing. I swear I was delirious when I made it. It was late at night, I had a clear plastic disposable holder for paper clips that I bought a while back and kept for no good reason and turned it into my dry erase marker holder. I just used paper, hot glue and a black ribbon scrap I had laying around. I took a sticky hook we had lying around we never used and hung the ribbon on the hook to make it stay. I admit, this was pretty
much the thing that made me feel like my Pinterest obsession may not be a totally bad thing.

All in all, I was proud when I was done :)

Marching Along

Life is rather colorful around here lately. I have so much going on and so little that I'm divulging to people that I think I'm getting a little stressed out. I used to be the kind of girl that would say everything, out loud, to the world, life was an open book. Experience and maturity has taught me there are some things that need protecting. Privacy included. But I think I went to the other extreme. Now I rarely ever open up. I love this blog because it has really helped me define and question different parts of my life so I can decipher what should be shared and what's best left kept in my heart.

February was a nice month this year, but for some reason, I felt like it lasted for three month spans instead of being a few days short! Part of that is my braces for sure.

I have been counting down the days to Feb 28th when I would go in and find out exactly when my braces would be coming off.......thinking it would be a few days. BUT NOOOO, no the man says with a calm voice..."and now they need to sit for a while...".... What?! He said that they were done and perfect again but that they need to keep their form. He obviously has not felt the geekafied effects of braces as an adult. Not to mention my compounded issues of geekiness since I recently got glasses.

My experience with braces has not been a pleasant one and to make matters worse, I was DONE! and had to put them BACK on because of HIS mistakes. But don't worry, I got to pay for them. Sometimes I think my passive side only comes out when it never should..... tragic.

Anywho, this year, we did our taxes early. I was so grateful because it has really made a lot of things possible this year for us. However, determining how we are going to spend them this year has been a bit difficult. I feel like a person with anorexia that just discovered pie. BINGEFEST! Owen and I have been so careful financially for the last year, paying for our own wedding, the kids, our honeymoon, Christmas AND paying off debt. It's been quite the road of discipline for me. So getting this tax return was like looking at all the colors of the rainbow and not being able to choose which color is my favorite. Where do we start?? do we be responsible and save? do we be responsible and pay debt? do we spend on ourselves because we deserve it for all the sacrifices we have made?....too many options. We finally decided to split it up. Half was for responsible things. The other half was for rewards to us because dagnabbit, everyone should have some fun sometimes. Here is part of what Owen decided to do with his:

He has had "make shift" lights for his tank for the past while and he FINALLY got to get some official beautiful lights that will help the coral and live rock and fish be much happier. They have different lights set to different timers for the regulation of the tank. Some are so bright that you go blind looking at it for a while. The others are ultra violet, but these are my favorite...the moonlights :)

For me, I invested in a beautiful craft table and Cricut Expressions 2 machine.

My mother and I go to the scrapbooking expos and the last time I went, I was dragging my stuff with plastic bags and things were rolling around in my trunk. So in addition to the desk and the machine, I finally got a roller case for my supplies so travelling isn't so crazy!

That's the pic from the website. I will post pics of the real one when I get home. :)

I'm so excited! It's been 8 months and I am FINALLY able to scrapbook our wedding album. It was such a long road of planning it, paying for it and finally having it happen, I'm just grateful I get to do it some justice of cataloging it in my bank of life now. I love pictures. They help my memory stay strong.

February was also a month of fun activities! We went to the aquarium with the kids and with Bennett and Lyndsey. It was way fun! We got to see the new Otter exhibit!

They were so stinkin cute! The kids stared and stared and watched them play. It was awesome!!! They have a cute little observer hole the kids can poke their heads through too.

We also celebrated Emma's 1st birthday this month!!! I was helping with decorations so I didn't get a ton of pictures but I love her to pieces and caught A few pics of Olivia enjoying the cupcakes :)

She's so funny!
All in all, we are doing good, keeping extremely busy and it's only gonna get busier!!
Owen starts his classes on the 19th of this month. He'll be doing classes every Monday, Thursday, and Friday. With my band practice and guitar on Monday, that gives me Thursday and Friday nights to indulge in my creative side and keep the juices flowing. I've decided I may just have too many hobbies that I get obsessed with. Finding time is pretty close to impossible to complete everything.
So Good LUCK I say :) With St. Patty's Day coming up (one of my faves) I think this month is going to fly by, possibly take forever, and we're getting a whole lot done all at the same time!!