Random thoughts & a TOOT for me
First of all, where is everyone?? With the exception of Irene, I post these, what I think it adorable, photos of my cutie pie daughter. No comments. Okay, there were a few comments on the Foxy MB but c'mon people, I know you're out there.
music cue: "COMFORTABLY NUMB"
Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there??
Moving on. Well, I actually WORKED THIS WEEK. Are you sitting down? Yup, a paycheck is in my future. First one for 2006. I'm finishing up the week filling in for my friend Tony at "Dr. Phil". Not a stressful week by any stretch, which was his plan. Everyone is very nice here so if they need anyone in the future, I hope they call me. And the drive this week wasn't horrid either. Good all around.
The flute concert (again, except for Irene and my family, where were the rest of you?? LOL) went really well last night. We played small ensembles - solo, duo, trios, quartets, quintets and one piece with the entire flute choir. We had different combos of all the flutes, piccolo duet, alto quintet, flute quartet, bass trio, etc. you get the idea. We also had piano accompaniment on a few of the pieces and that was really fun for a change. The one flute choir piece was The "William Tell" Overture, which I played the hard 1st flute part on. I have to say, I played that particular piece as well as I was ever going to play it, so that was nice for a change. I did pretty well on the other pieces. A few flubs here and there but that's normal. I think we sounded pretty good overall. I think the concert was a little long for the audience plus all the stage waits to set up the stands and the endless tuning but I think they all enjoyed it which is the important part. I think my personal favorites were the piccolo polka that Irene and Javier played. And the "Stars and Stripes" piccolo parady that Javier played with the piano. What a fun piece. I'll have to get the music for those two next time I go to the flute convention. I still liked the quartet I played with Irene, Javier and Howard. A piece called "Chante" by Catherine McMichael. It was really pretty.
The one nice thing about Carly going to a Jewish pre-school is the songs she's coming home and singing. Last week was Purim so for a week she's been singing about Hamantashen. Last week for Shabbat on Friday, she and I lit the candles and di the Hamotzi (?sp) She sang the entire prayer with me. This morning, she woke up singing "Shalom Havarim". It's really fun to hear her singing these songs.
Tomorrow, I'm going to one of Ginger's all day crops. They're one of my favorite days 3 or 4 times a year. A whole day of scrapping, chatting and getting things done. I'm very excited to have some good quality scrap time. It's been too long for me. Also, since Ginger and I have signed up for CKU, the message board is going nuts with posts on swaps, get togethers, dorms talk, etc. Ging, her friend Tashia and I have all signed up for a Disney LO swap. 3 different 8x8 LO's all Disney themed. Ginger is the Queen of Disney so I figure if we all hang with her, we'll get them all done. The three albums will be Characters, Attractions and Princesses. I first signed up for Princesses but then she convinced me to do the others as well. So theoretically, I'll have 3 complete albums, Disney themes, and just slap the photos on. I know it's always a risk because other people's idea of what's good could be very different from mine. I've heard the horror stories. I've never done one of these before so it might be my first and last. We'll see how it all turns out in June. Anyway, my themes are Belle, It's a Small World and Eeyore.
Caz is coming!!! One of my bestest friends in the world is coming on Sunday. I can't wait. Caz is from Australia and is currently in Dallas for a convention for her company, Mannatech. She came last year with Chapin but since Chapin is no longer with the company, she's on her own this year. We're really looking forward to some time just the two of us since we didn't get to do that least year when she came. We're hoping to go to Disneyland on Monday (pick up some stuff for the Disney LO's mentioned above??), we're going to the dress rehearsal of "American Idol" on Tuesday. Then hopefully, we'll go to Palm Springs overnight. Just a change of scenery. Maybe we'll do the tram thing, shop at the awesome Cabazon outlets and of course, stop at Collective Journey in Redlands. I'm just looking forward to spending time with her, even though I have to work on Thursday and Friday.
Monday is Gregg's blessed day of birth. Gotta make dinner plans for when he comes home from work.
And now for my TOOT!! I got an email today from Cantata Books. They want to publish a LO I sent them called "Looks Like Mom". They're the folks that published my other LO, not that I've seen the book yet (supposed to come out in May) but they're really nice, very efficient so I'm really excited that they liked my work again. I know people that have been published by them before and it's supposed to be beautiful. Great quality and great artwork. I've got to order the first book from Amazon. Anyway, Woo-Hoo! for me!! I'm very excited. Here's the LO for your viewing pleasure.
Have a great weekend one and all!
Do You Know the Way to San Jose??
I'm going to CKU-Albums in San Jose baby! Registration was today at 5PM. Sat at work (yes, work!! Filling in at "Dr. Phil" this week and it's been quite easy thank goodness) with TWO computers open, logged in and watching the countdown to that magic yellow "Register Now" button. Got in and out in 2 minutes and got all my first choice classes. I'm taking the Junkitz album track that's called "Elements of Style". Then on Friday, I'm taking at 11:30AM - "All About Me" with Sweetwater. 1:30P - "Doodlelicious" with Imagination Project. 3:30P - "26 Reasons Why I Love You A-Z" with Rusty Pickle. Saturday at 11A is "A Perfect Match" with Imagination Project. 1P - "Home" Chip and Flip Album with Cactus Pink and finally at 2:30P - "The Days of My Life" with Sweetwater. I'll end up with one complete album about me with the Junkitz track with the awesome and truly wonderful teachers of Teresa Collins, Stacey Panassidi and Janna Wilson. I'm so excited. I'm also excited that I'm going with Ginger and Yezenia. Plus Jean and Alison who I met last year at CKU-M in Anaheim are going as well. Now, to prep everything before I go in June. Woo-Hoo!
Two posts in one day. Be sure to scroll down to see the cutest school pictures of Carly. You wouldn't want to miss that now would you??
School Pictures
Boy my kid is cute, if I say so myself. We got Carly's school photos yesterday and they're just so darn cute. We have no idea how they got these expressions out of her but we're very happy. Now, the class photo, not so much. Out of the 8 kids, 3 are actually smiling (Carly is not one of them) and 1 has his eyes closed. I'm sure they took many snaps and this was the best one? Ay yi yi. Anyway, here's my cutest girl.
XM Channel 49 - Big Tracks
My new favorite channel. This is EXACTLY the music I listened to in high school and college. Just like the good old days of KLOS when they actually played music way back when. Anyway, it's all the good "classic" rock from "our" generation, which is what their station motto is. Well, today I was listening and I heard Pat Benatar "You Better Run" from "Crimes of Passion". Let me tell you a little about this album. It's one of my all time favorites, still to this day. I was given the tape in 11th grade by a fellow flute player who I drove to school for early AM Orchestra. He was kind of a geek and mostly annoying but I still drove him to school. He gave me the cassette tape for Hanukkah as a thank you for driving. Actually, I remember even then that that was very nice of him. Well, this was the first and actually last cassette that I literally played until it didn't play any longer. (Remember cassettes??) I LOVED that album. Every song was awesome, knew all the words and just listened to it over and over and over and over. Anyway, heard the one song today and it reminded me how much I love this album, now in CD form. Just had to share my little high school flashback.
10 Things That I recommend
This is making the blog rounds so here's my attempt. I hope I can come up with 10. Here we go, in no particular order...
1. Not the right season I know, but Egg Nog Latte's at Starbucks. I'm not a coffee drinker but this is the perfect combination.
2. Massages and facials. I haven't done the latter in way too long but there's nothing more relaxing than an hour (or preferably more) of pampering. I feel so relaxed, clean and totally ready to deal with the real world
3. Los Angeles Kings hockey games. Okay, I'm biased to my boys since I've been a fanatic for 30+ years. And while they have their sucky moments, there's no other sport that's more fun to watch in person than ice hockey.
4. Australia. I know this is an expensive recommendation but to quote a slogan from years ago it's the "best place in space". Sydney is the most beautiful city, GREAT food, amazing people, gorgeous beaches, outstanding wine, awesome weather, great shopping, lots of scrapbooking, I could go on. There's no better city in the world in my opinion.
5. XM Radio. The best thing ever invented. 200 channels of everything you could possibly want to listen to. Current channel favorites Big Tracks channel 49, The Ed Schultz Show Noon-3P on channel 165, Broadminded on channel 155, Highway 16 (country music) channel 16 and even Headline News on channel 123. Oh, can't forget some of the hockey shows on channel 204. I haven't listened to regular radio in over 2 years since all the music channels are commercial free. That totally rocks!
6. Chocolate. What's life without chocolate? Personal favorites include Hershey Kisses, Guylain shells, Violet Crumbles, Malteasers, York Peppermint Patties.
7. Tivo and/or Replay. We have both in my house. Both have their pros and cons but they're both awesome, must have inventions. Not sure I need to admit this but we have about 14 episodes of the final season of "NYPD Blue" (yes it's been off the air for a year) that we haven't seen yet but won't delete until we do.
8. Disneyland. Nothing better than a day at the Happiest Place on Earth. It's even better now going there with a child. Much more fun.
9. Grey's Anatomy. The best show on television. Jumped on the bandwagon this season so I need to get the DVD of the 1st but it's the best written show on TV. Others not to miss are The Office, McLeod's Daughters (my Aussie soap fix), Survivor and Amazing Race.
10. My Ipod. I have the very original 5GB ipod that came out 5 years ago and Gregg just bought me a 2GB Nano for going to the gym. There's nothing better than knowing you have 10 days worth of non-stop music to listen to. I've been downloading songs for years (before I even had the ipod) so I've got a huge collection and it's still fun to add to the mix.
There's something else that I've always said that "you should do once in your life" but of course I can't remember it. I'll post when/if I do.
HUGE Milestone...
in the life of our little family. Carly is now sleeping in a Big Girl bed. We spent the afternoon rearranging beds between the guest room and the now big girl room. We washed the Princess sheets and comforter. We hung the Princess canopy. We plugged in the Princess nightlights and lamps. We still don't have a dresser, nightstand, or bookshelf in there yet (we'll go order it tomorrow) and we haven't moved the clothes into the newly California Closets organized closets, but the room is almost there. We asked Carly if she wanted to sleep in the big girl room and the answer was a resounding YES. We set up the little guard rail thing so she won't roll off and in spite of her being totally exhausted, she was thoroughly excited to sleep in her big bed. She looks so darn cute. Now, hopefully, she'll learn to love all the room in that big double bed and stay there. Three of us in a queen bed is getting a little squished. We hate sharing the bed but Carly's such a horrible sleeper that this has been the only way for any of us to get some sleep. Let's all cross our fingers that she just LOVES that new big girl bed. My girl is getting so big.
Showing off her big girl bed
Fast asleep in the big girl bed
BTW, that little pile of snow was still at the bottom of the slide as of 11:05AM this morning.
It snowed!!
Okay, it really hailed but darn it there was stuff on the ground. In my 37 years of living in California, I don't ever remember hail much less anything sort of accumulating. It melted pretty fast but there was definitely little hailstones on the ground PLUS a little mound of "snow" at the bottom of the slide. I even took some .mpg video on my camera to catch the noise outside. It was really loud. Gregg even threw a "snowball" at my car when Carly and I were going to a birthday party which was about 1 mile away and they didn't get hail at that point. Oh yeah, and it really is freakin' cold here. I didn'tn hit 50 degrees which for So. Cal is pretty darn cold. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.
This is from my bedroom window when the hail first started coming down around 10:45AM this morning. Yes, those streaky things are the hail coming down.
Pile of snow at the end of the slide
By the pool
Our rose bushes
At the bottom of the slide at 5:30PM! Yes, it never melted throughout the day.
Onto other topics, yesterday, Lisa and I drove down to Scrapbook Oasis for a class with Teresa Collins. She's so awesome. So nice, so talented and low key. I've taken 3 or 4 classes from her previous and it's always such a pleasure and such a great class and a COMPLETED project. What a concept. I totally want to take her album track when I sign up for CKU-Albums in San Jose. Anyway, here's some pictures of the Wood Box Album project. I used photos from when we went to the Santa Barbara Zoo in January.
Flute Choir Concert
I don't usually send out the mass emails and who knows who really reads my blog regularly anyway but I was just making the blog rounds and read my good friend Irene's. (She's so smart and clever I just love reading what she has to say on a daily basis) Considering that I'm one of the few she claims looks at hers and I know she's one of the few who reads mine, I can make the same shameless plug. Especially since we're probably only entertaining ourselves.
The following is an email Irene recently sent out about the upcoming flute choir concert. If you didn't get the email or read either of our blogs more frequently than you read your email (and who are you people doing something like that!), well, this is pretty vital information! Enjoy! Write a comment if you want more info.
The Culver City Flute Choir will present its next concert on Thursday, March 23, 2006. We have some fun and special surprises planned for this concert, so please save the date and plan to join us.
The concert will take place at the Culver City Middle School, and will start at 8 p.m. Following our concert, you're invited to join us at the refreshment table, to meet and mingle with the musicians. (don't we sound so professional??)
Thank you for supporting the Culver City Flute Choir. If you know anyone who might be interested in hearing a flute choir, or getting these messages from us, please forward their email address, and we'll add them to the email list.
If you have any questions about the flute choir, please don't hesitate to contact me and I can get you in contact with our director. We hope to see you soon and thank you for the support!
Oh blessed day of birth
Today is my 42nd birthday. Wow, I'm old but that's okay. I had a really nice day. Last night around midnight, Gregg came in and gave me a card from Carly and one from the doggies. And Carly gave me a purple Build A Bear dressed with the Scrapbooking outfit. I've wanted the Scrapbook Bear for a long time so I was really excited. I guess after Carly had her little meltdown at Cammy's birthday party (overwhelmed), they went back afterwards and did the bear for me. Carly did all the stuffing, put in the voice box that says "I love you" and even typed the birth certificate all by herself. Of course, she named the Bear Sally (like every other doll in the house - note: future LO of all creatures named Sally) but I was very impressed that she basically kept the secret. She didn't tell me that she bought me a bear. All she kept saying was that she got a purple bear and that Daddy was hiding it. Since I knew she didn't get anything at Cammy's party because of her behavior, I didn't even think that they went back. She easily could've said "We got you a bear for your birthday but Daddy's hiding it" but she didn't. I was totally surprised.
This morning, I was taken for a lovely breakfast with 3 of my very closest friends. Lisa, Kari, Paula and cutie pie Jake spoiled me with nice pressies and GREAT company. I just love you girls so much. Lisa and Kari made me a BEAUTIFUL canvas with a great picture of the three of us. I just love it and will find a special place to hang it in the house. And they also got me an FM transmitter for my new Ipod so I can listen to my tunes in the car. Woo-Hoo! Paula bought me a great little mirror that says "You're looking at a Princess" and a great picture frame which I'll put the cute photo of the 4 of us that we took at the restaurant. It was a great way to spend my morning.
Somewhere between breakfast and noon, I lost my voice. This is the second time in 2 months that I've had a cold settle in my throat. I'm 95% silent as of this typing. Annoying. I picked up Carly at school and we ran to the market to get fruit for tomorrow's class playdate. Then we just hung out at home. Of course, all I wanted to do was relax, take a little nap and watch last night's "The Apprentice" but that took about 2 hours to get her to cooperate. I was screening phone calls since I couldn't talk to anyone anyway.
Gregg came home from "Idol" and we went to dinner at The Melting Pot in Thousand Oaks. (Gail babysat which was nice) Boy is that place good. YUMMY fondue. It was awesome. And there's pretty much nothing better in this world than chocolate fondue and they have chocolate choices. We chose the s'mores fondue which was milk chocolate, marshmallow which they flambe'd, and then poured graham crackers in it. Then all the yummy dippers of banana, strawberry, marshmallow, pineapple, pound cake, cheesecake, brownies, & graham cracker. Of COURSE it was all fat free. It's my birthday!! Gregg also sent me some beautiful flowers and a dozen long stemmed chocolate covered strawberries from Shari's Berries. Again, yum city!!
It was a really nice day today. Generally, I'm usually leary of my birthday because something always goes wrong. I tend to be disappointed that people forgot, I have to work, whatever. Something doesn't work out. Today was a very nice exception. I got to spend it with the people closest to me and got phone calls from the other close people who I couldn't see. I know I owe a few of you phone calls but believe me, you wouldn't recognize my voice for another day or two.
Thanks for the love from everyone. It REALLY made my day and made me feel very special. Love you all!
78th Annual Academy Awards
Well, another spinning gold thing and we're done with the major crush of awards shows, thank goodness. We went to the annual Oscars party at my parents' house. It was a smaller crowd than usual but still fun. I filled out my ballot and I actually WON the pool this year. Everyone puts in their $3 and the one with the most wins and the one with the least gets their $3 back. I got 20 out of 24 correct. What's even more hilarious? I saw ONE Oscar nominated film and that was "Wallace & Gromit". I've only seen one non-animated film in almost 2 years (that being "Rent") so it's positively hilarious that I got 20 right when I saw basically nothing. I even screwed up and clicked "Enron" instead of the no-brainer "March of the Penguins" in the documentary feature category. I've never done that well before. At least the money will go to the digi camera fund which we're really close to making the purchase. I'll try not to spend my $39 in one shot.
Viva Las Vegas
I just got back from an overnight trip to Las Vegas. I went with most of the ladies from our new Havurah. It was "Mom's Weekend Off". I went with Janice, Arlene, Ali, Karen, Michelle and Diane and her sister Judy drove and met us there. It was really nice to get to know these ladies better. They mostly know each other from their days at Steven Wise so I wanted to bond with them a bit and have them know me a little better too. I had to come home today instead of staying because when we booked the flights initially, it was supposed to be Cammy's birthday today which, of course, I had to attend with Carly. Then Lisa had to change the party to Friday and I couldn't go to the party after all but it would've cost too much to change the tickets so I just let it be.
We had a great time though. The girls all took a limo to the airport and started drinking in the car. What a surprise. I met them at the airport. They weren't at the gate so I started walking towards the nearest bar. What a surprise, I found them there. LOL. The plane ride was bumpy (ick) but we made it. Got to the Mandalay Bay hotel, managed to finagle our 3 rooms into a 2 bedroom suite (plus 2 rollaways) for less money than the 3 hotel rooms so that rocked. We went and got some lunch at the Burger Bar which was yummy. What a cool place. There are 6 or 7 kinds of meat (Angus beef, Kobe beef, veggie, turkey, etc) and probably 100+ toppings for you to choose. Grilled asparagus, smoked salmon, 10 different cheeses, truffles for $30, lobster on your burger for $12, etc. You get the idea. And it was delicious. We went up to the room to relax a little and we managed to talk for 2+ hours. I'd tell you what we talked about but what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Ali made us all t-shirts that said just that on the back and "Jew Gone Wild" on the front. Fabulous, except that we forgot to take a picture in the shirts. We even had a little shabbat. Karen brought her travel shabbat candles, a challah and a little kiddush cup with a grape juice box. Here's our little "Shabbat Still Life" with the famous t-shirt.
We went to dinner at the Luxe Cafe at The Venetian. Similar to Cheesecake Factory. And then we all went over to the Wynn Hotel to see "Avenue Q". Hilarious. I don't think I've laughed that hard in the theater since "The Full Monty" but I canNOT believe for one second how that show beat "Wicked" for the Best Musical Tony. "Wicked" was simply magical. This was really fun and funny but not the same. Anyway, here we all are posing with Katie Monster.
After the show, some of the girls were tired and wanted to sleep. Ali, Diane and Judy were ready to gamble. Since it was my one night, I went gambling. We went to the daggy Frontier across the street but it was perfect. I played craps for the first time, thanks to Diane's coaching. I played with $40 and walked away with $45 (so I was up $5). Then I played blackjack. Bet $70 and walked away with $90 (so up $20 and gave the dealer a $5 for winning it all back for me at the end). I managed to play both games for about an hour so that was good. The money lasted. When Ali and I were done with blackjack (Diane & Judy had gone back to the craps table), it was about 2:30A and it was time to bed for us. We got back around 3AM and crawled into bed.
We woke up around 9:45AM, the others had gone downstairs for breakfast. I took a quick shower and packed up and we met them at the Red, White & Blue cafe. Ate a quick breakfast and I was off to the airport at 11AM. They're still there tonight and I'm sure drinking and gambling more. I'm really glad I went. They're really nice ladies and I wish I could've stayed. I would've liked to do the spa thing and relax today and hey, getting an uninterrupted night of sleep (even if it's the same 6 hours) is still a heavenly thought. Hopefully we'll do it again. I suggested wine tasting and spa in Napa. Sounds good to me.
Future Member of the NFA
For those of you wondering what NFA is, it's the National Flute Association. I took this picture this afternoon during my grand attempt to practice my flute for flute choir. It took me about 20 minutes to play the 5 minute William Tell Overture because Carly kept interrupting me approximately every 4 bars. (See Irene? I do try to practice.) Anyway, once I played through the piece once (needed more but it's hopeless) Carly wanted to play my flute. What else is new? I also took out my piccolo since that's more her size. So here she is trying to play the darn thing. She definitely wants to learn to play the flute (we'll see in about 7 years if she's still as keen on it) and whenever I tell her I'm going to my flute choir class, she says she wants to go and play her flute (a green plastic recorder from Dollar Tree) as well. Can't start 'em too early with the music. She loves hearing me play the flute, when she actually lets me play. At least she sang "Happy Birthday" as I played it for her today.
