In the Good Ol' Summertime!

Well I have to say that this summer is probably going to be the death of me.... IF you can die of fun and excitement!!!! :D A little catch-up first though...........

Our "Beauty and the Beast" production was AMAZING, and I miss all of my kids so stinkin' much! Teaching 4 weeks of vocal/musical theater workshops this summer, then gearing up for the fall theater classes, and really looking forward to helping direct "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" next spring!! I LOVE MYJOB!!!!!!!!! :D

CENTER STAGE YOUTH PERFORMERS!!!

GASTON and his SILLY GIRLS :)

Neal is in a total happy place when it comes to his job :) He has just enough responsibility, recognition, and fun to be completely satisfied. And MAN does he look good all dressed up and important-like! ;) He really is the best daddy ever, too. As soon as he gets home, I may as well not exist in Delia's eyes! She just follows him around and jumps/climbs/clings all over him. From the looks of it, Afifa is going to be JUST as much of a daddy's girl.....now how fair is that?! lol She gives him all her biggest smiles, and makes the cutest happy-noises when she sees him. She will dive out of my arms towards him, no matter HOW far away he is! We've had some almost-dropped incidents because I wasn't prepared for her launches :) lol These pics were taken in May....

My lil sister Melissa graduated from Star Valley High School the end of May, which I was so happy to attend, then moved in with me for the summer! We had a wild party at my house that consisted of my BIG sister Amy, Amy's bf, my dad, brothers Daniel, Aaron, Samuel, and baby sister Katherine (turning 9 TODAY, actually). We celebrated Aaron turning 13 and Samuel turning 11, AND I had my studio recital, all that same weekend! My excitement over being with so much family totally overruled any underlying stress, thank GOODNESS! lol

I'm going to have to post the rest in other posts....too much for just one! lol

Look for Summer: PART II :)

And.......a year later.... :)

Oh dear. A whole YEAR has flown by without me hardly noticing!

I'm not in a position to play catch up right now, but I'll throw up some pictures of our latest adventure in Goblin Valley last Saturday, March 26th.

If someone were to ask me to describe my life right now in as few words as possible, it would only take two: Practically Perfect :)

I live in Springville, Utah, with my amazingly talented and wonderfully loving husband, Neal, and my two gorgeous daughters, Delia (turned 3 on February 28th) and Afifa (almost 4 months, born on December 5th, 2010).

I am teaching private voice and piano lessons, keeping busy with my studio of 16 students. Also having the BEST time as the Musical Director for a youth theater in Pleasant Grove (25 min north) called "Center Stage Youth Performers". We are preparing for "Beauty and the Beast" at the end of this month!!! Love my 90 theater kids, and LOVE the awesome ladies I work with!

My hubby works for Veracity Networks (telecommunications, basically Comcast's local competitor) doing their graphic design and web-work. He started off last July as an intern, and was hired on full-time November 1st; February he got promoted out of a cubicle desk into a great office, and this month he got a raise!!! Great company, great environment, and nice salary! So proud of him!!!! He works so hard for us, and I love him so much for it.

Ok, I gotta get cracki-lackin on the rest of my to-do list (clean, clean, get gym membership, shopping, lunch, clean some more, compile my recital song list, ALL before 3:30 when my first student shows up!) So I'll get some pictures up, then REALLY try to make this part of my weekly, if not daily routine. Heaven KNOWS I have a lot to say!!! :D




Native American Pictographs


Afifa and I hanging out in some limestone!


Goblin Valley State Park













Delia's "nest" :)

Catch up time!!!

Wow. Ok. So it has been....3 months since I last posted. Ooops.

We spent a wonderful Christmas with Neal's family in Cody, WY, got to hang out with bro and wife (Mark & Jillayne) in Powell a bit, and also was happy to see Aunt Jen and her family again in Ralston, where I spent my Senior (and BEST) year of high school! Shortly after Christmas we met up with younger bros and sis in Otto and got to say hi to the Kelly & Terry family, and dropped in on the Jones grandparents. All in all, I'd say we almost made up for our 3 1/2 years in Georgia!

January 2nd we made it to Springville, UT and crashed at Neal's bro's, and turned in our U-Haul that was 9 days late, cringing at the thought of the overdue fees, but thankful that we detoured around the nasty snowstorms just before Christmas. However, we were ecstatic when the nice boy behind the U-Haul counter canceled all of our $200+ fees!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

January 4th we were given the ok to move on in to our little "ski lodge". WE LOVE IT HERE!

Heber City is like a winter wonderland right now, and I am excited to experience ALL the seasons here, unlike in Georgia, where you got super hot & humid, or bone-chilling cold, and the occasional deluge. Oh how I have missed the mountains and the snow!!!

I truly honestly hope that we are here for the rest of our lives.

Delia turned her big 2 a couple weeks ago on Feb 28th, and since then has gone BACK to sucking her thumb, STOPPED potty-training altogether, and WON'T sleep through the night, like she has since she was 6 weeks old. REALLY?! ok.

On the other hand, she has an amazing imagination, loves to build towers, says "THANKS MOMMA!!!" to everything i do for her, and finally said, for the first time without any prompting, "I wuv you momma." YAY!!! Nothing better than that feeling, right there!! One of my favorite things about her is her energetic responses, like her "UH-HUH!!" with wide eyes and mouth in a big 'ol grin; her "OH!", really short and musical, like she has just discovered something incredibly amazing; and i love that she says "YES! Yes momma!"

She also loves to "help" with dishes, loves to "help" cook, and "help" crochet things when I'm doing a project. She can say almost every letter of the alphabet, biggest letter nemesis is "f", and somehow her "froggy" and "water" sound almost identical....
Her counting is really funny.....she can say them all when repeating after me, but when I hear her counting things on her own, it's always "1---2---3---8-9-10!"

D loves loves LOVES books and asks for them first thing in the morning (or at 3 am, whatever), at naptime, before bedtime, in the car, and at people's houses! Her favorites are "I Know A Rhino" and "Tumble Bumble" from her friend Katie in Savannah. She'll pick those over any of them!

Well i think that's about long enough for now.....gotta messy house calling for me and tummy growling that it's time.

Should have lots of adventures to post about next week as D's cousin Alex is coming to visit from Denver, and i can only imagine the fun times we'll have with him (3), D (2), Mel (5), and Ki (20 mo?)!

Peace OUT!

And we're........OUTA HERE!!!!!!!!!!! Almost.....

!

THIS IS MY NEW HOME!

Two days before Thanksgiving I got a call from Neal, telling me I needed to get to a computer, NOW! I was on my way to pick up Delia from the babysitter after teaching some lessons, so I asked to use their computer for a minute. He had sent me an e-mail attachment with some pictures of this cute little lodge in Utah. I called him as I was looking at and he said "Guess what? That's our new home!!!!!!!" It took a few minutes for everything to process in my brain, and as soon as it DID, I couldn't stop thinking at about a billion miles an hour!! He had landed a job with the Western artist Peter Fillerup in Heber City, Utah, about an hour out of Salt Lake City. As part of the job deal, Pete is letting us stay in this fully-furnished, 2 bd/2 bath lodge that he built onto his studio, originally to be a showroom for his artwork. He does custom furniture, lighting, and sculpting. It's INCREDIBLE!! We only get to stay there for probably the first 6 months, but it is RENT and UTILITY-FREE. How cool is that?! It will give us the chance of a lifetime to get on our feet, get a good start on our loans AND savings, plus time to look around for another place, instead of just having to jump into something out of sheer necessity. Hopefully we can find a cute little house somewhere :) So we are taking off next Sunday. I have a piano recital THIS Sunday (30 performers!), and then I am turning my studio over to Rhonda Bennett. I have had so many tears already from my kids AND their parents!! :( I'm really going to miss them all so much. Each student has taught me something new and all-in-all it has been a really great experience. However, I am so looking forward to turning the "bread-winner" title in and retiring :D I can't wait to be able to spend all my time with Delia now, and learn how to be a really great mommy. I have just had to divide my time too much, and she hasn't gotten her fair share so far. I am so excited. Don't even have any reservations about what I'm going to DO with all of my time now :) I do need to get something done today though....So tata, and more updates soon :) P.S. Delia has said 2 sentences so far: "I need help!" (we get that one about 3,000x a day) and then I was chastising her for spilling her water all over (on purpose) in the carseat, and she looked at me and said "It's just water." I looked at Neal and he burst out laughing! She is so right though. It WAS just water. *sigh* What do you do?

So much uncertainty... So exciting! :)

I'm taking Neal to the airport tomorrow at 4:30am to catch a one-way flight to Salt Lake City. No, he's not leaving me for good :) He's going for some business/web training and a couple of interviews. It's REALLY crazy, because by next week, things could be so incredibly different!!! If he gets a job, and someone wants him to start immediately, he will. And I'll be single-momming it for a month. Which would be really, super hard, but I think I would survive.

I've been feeling amazing lately. I almost feel like something's wrong with me, that I can go from so sad and unmotivated to being crazy excited about life and all its possibilities. I can actually pin point the change to a certain situation, though, so I don't think I'm bi-polar :D Let's just say I feel that I have made some huge strides in the "growing up" department lately, and understanding/accepting the things I CAN change, vs. the things I WANT to, but CAN'T change.

That's about all I have to say for now. I'll try to keep you updated, and I'll see how happy I can stay with my hubby being gone for and undetermined amount of time :(


This was me, 3 1/2 years ago! :)

Depression

Depression is a funny thing, in a not-so-funny way.

It makes me not want to do anything, but then I get more depressed when nothing gets done. I know I have a wonderful husband who loves me infinitely; a daughter who is more-or-less the most beautiful and interesting thing that has ever walked the earth; a job doing something I love; and a knowledge and understanding of certain spiritual things that many people live their whole lives without.

So I ask myself regularly, WHY do I get depressed so much?

It is definitely in my family, no doubt about it. And I suffered a childhood of it's unchecked-effects in my mother. I speculate that she also did growing up, especially with her parents' divorce when she was 13. So is it hereditary? I don't know if it's necessarily "in my genes", but I do believe it is an automatic, learned response. The only way I ever saw things dealt with. Get mad. Shut down. Cry a lot. Don't talk to anyone except to yell and scream and bully your kids. And most ESPECIALLY, don't let anyone know you are having a hard time, because that is showing your weakness, and you're not allowed to have any. You must be perfect at all times.
Well, I've tried that...and it's depressingly impossible. So guess what everyone? I get depressed. And it feels really, really good to say that.

On top of that, however, this "knowledge" is sometimes depressing too. It has the potential and capacity to bring utter joy, peace, and personal comfort, but with it comes the pain of seeing those who need it either reject it, misuse it, or both. And when something means the world to me, and makes my heart spontaneously burst with happiness on a regular basis, I want all the people that I love to experience it as well. But then I hear, "It's not for me." Or, on the flip side of that, confess to knowing and believing the same things that I do, then acting hypocritically. That breaks my heart more than the first.

For example, imagine someone teaching you one day a week that you are important; unique; special; and that they love you very much. Then for the next six days, they call you lazy; worthless; stupid; then they hit you and scream in your ear; call you a liar. Which of these are you prone to believe? Most would probably get a really twisted sense of the word "love" and its connotations.

Huh. So much to ponder. But I think I am going to get through this.

Bank Account

This is AWESOME ... something we should all remember.
A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each
morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved
perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.
His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After
many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled
sweetly when told his room was ready.
As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description
of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.
I love it,' he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just
been presented with a new puppy.
Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait.'
'That doesn't have anything to do with it,' he replied.
Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.
Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is
arranged ... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.
'It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice;
I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful
for the ones that do.
Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day
and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life.
Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in.
So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank
account of memories!
Thank you for your part in filling my Memory Bank.
I am still depositing.
'Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred..
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans