In grad school, I called this “focus” and “drive.” And it definitely helped me accomplish my goal and get my degree amidst a lot of set backs and long days.

Then I transitioned into being a workaholic. It seemed like a safe place to channel my energies. “seemed” being the operative word in that sentence.

These days, I mostly channel it into my lectures and my singing at church. I get super-high student eval marks for enthusiasm, and other profs are telling me that they are “hearing good things” about my courses from students. So, enthusiastic lecturing seems like a good place to channel it.

But I still seem to have a lot of leftover energy, and this week, I fell into the trap of channeling that intensity toward a guy I was interested in. Why was it a trap? Because when it wasn’t reciprocated, it definitely became a problem.

I sigh.

I think that for right now, God can handle my intensity better than any human being that I know. I actually made this decision yesterday, but it was confirmed today. Thus, I really let it go today at church. I sang lead vocals on our opening song with all of that pent up emotion, passion, and intensity that has been bottled up inside of me. He can take it, for sure. That intensity carried over into our other songs pretty well too. I’m not sure how the congregation feels about it exactly, but they clapped a lot and we got some “amen”s. So, I guess they are okay with it.

there was a phrase in a song today that captures some of it “… your spirit is within me….”

Also, the new bible study I’m in is based on Romans Chapter 12 and there is a verse that spoke to me today.

Romans 12:11 (NIV) “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.”

That seems to be what I’m doing: serving the Lord with lots of fervor.
I truly believe it is pleasing to Him when I praise Him in song with passion and intensity, so if it bothers anyone else, well, they can just start attending the earlier traditional service.

The band that I’m in had our first performance last night. It was a 60th surprise birthday party where the husband and sons had rented out a renovated theater for a night of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and music. We were the musical entertainment for the first hour once the guest of honor had arrived. Our lead guitarist had another (paying) gig that started at 9 pm about a half hour’s drive away, and the guest of honor arrived after 7, so we could only play a short set of songs during that first hour. After that, the sons and CK took over and I chimed in now and then when I could figure out an impromptu harmony.

How did it go? Well, there were hits and misses, as is often the case with music and performance. Overall, I’d say it was a good first performance. Stellar at the end, only so-so at the beginning.
The hits were with our 4 ending songs. And hey, if you can go out with a bang, sometimes people forget how you started, right?

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

We (this would be the royal “we”, because CK pretty much decided the set list) placed our best songs at the end, because we knew we’d be singing while people were getting their food and drinks (in another room), and that they might not even hear some of the early ones. CK strategically got everyone into the room to sing Happy Birthday, and then we ended with our 4 best songs. What were those songs?

1. Crazy Love by Poco
(Take Me Home Country Roads is not really one of our best, but we sang it between 1 and 2)
2. You And Tequila by Kenny Chesney (featuring Grace Potter)
3. Without You by Keith Urban
4. Flies On the Butter written by Chuck Cannon

All four of those were probably the best we’ve ever done them.

We started with others that had some problems. Initially, I wasn’t turned up loud enough in the system (I also had a weaker microphone). So, I had to try to start belting things out more. That works just fine for my lower range (chest voice), but in my head voice, I really can’t belt without sounding wretched. I really did try to use chest voice for my high harmony notes on Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver), but I was stretched to the limit, and I think it may have sounded a little strained. I’m honestly not sure, because I couldn’t hear myself all that well.

The songs we started with were the following:
1. Fire and Rain by James Taylor
2. Rocky Mountain High by John Denver
3. Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel
4. Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins <– we’d only practiced this one a couple of times EVER. It probably would’ve been better if we’d left it out and done Shower the People instead, but at the time we didn’t know how much we’d fit in and we’d scheduled Shower the People as one of our ending “good” songs too that ended up getting cut.
5. Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills, and Nash
And then the 4 that I’ve already mentioned (Crazy Love, You And Tequila, Without You, Flies On the Butter).

It was fun. I really love the challenge of performing. The challenge comes with finding a groove where I can let go and get emotionally connected to the music while still hitting all of the notes the way I want. It was a bit odd not being able to see anyone’s faces (we had lights shining at us really brightly as is often the case with performing on stage). I’m so used to my church setting where I can pick out people who are looking at me and make eye contact with them. In a non-church setting where people have the option of talking while I’m performing, it gives me a boost when people are listening attentively and not just talking over the music. I’m hoping that some of our future venues will allow for more eye contact, but if not, I’ll just have to keep pretending/imagining that they are listening! We don’t have any particular things booked right now, but we are going to keep working up 2-3 new songs each week as much as possible while some seeds that have been planted with regards to venues have time to germinate.

Jenski very kindly made and snail-mailed me a mix CD of some of her favorite songs that might be possibilities. I noticed right away an Indigo Girls song that I have on my short list of possibilities – Get Out The Map. She also has told me the Wailin Jennys might be a good source of music, so she included some of their songs. I’m looking forward to taking the time to listen to those songs. Thanks again, Jenski!

Tangent: If you hadn’t put 2 and 2 together, TriviaKing gets his name from the fact that he often wins at Trivia Night.

Anyway, this particular bar is mostly a very small enclosed bar, and then a BIG patio/gravel backyard-sort-of-feeling area. Since it was in the upper 70s yesterday, it was really comfortable to be in the backyard, even at night. The setup is really cool in that the area also has a couple places where people can play washers. There are also a couple of additional buildings for pool and table hockey.
AND there was a ping-pong table!!!
I noticed it, because 2 guys were playing ping-pong (aka table tennis, for those who are serious about it as a sport). I couldn’t wait for them to finish so that we could play.

Well, most of a margarita later, they finally finished their game and ViolaGirl and I started up a game. It was rather hilarious trying to play a game that requires quick reflexes with a buzz; we were laughing a LOT. There was a lot of bending over to get the ball from the ground.

After a few games where we’d mixed up who plays who, the music changed to more hip-hop/dance music and I had an inspiration:

Dance-move ping-pong!

I made a rule that before you served, you had to do a dance move.

OMG was it fun!

We didn’t take ourselves too seriously.

I mean, really, how serious can you be while drinking and playing ping-pong, anyway?

ViolaGirl, TriviaKing and I later decided it was the best part of the whole night.

…Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah!…

And no, there are no photos or videos of it (or at least, I HOPE not!) You’ll just have to use your imagination on this one!

CK (lead singer in my (secular) band) has a dog who gave birth to a litter of puppies.

I took photos of them on Saturday in order to show my family the adorable puppies who want to have a home with us. “Us” is sort of like the royal “we,” in this case, my parents will be the ones who are most likely to get (a) dog(s).

Anyway, I noticed that my photostream and photos, especially the one of Missy up there at the top, had gotten a lot of hits yesterday and that my stats showed a lot of it was coming from tumblr. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m sort of in the “WTF is tumblr?” boat.

I am still not entirely sure, but the photo of Missy was posted on Brandon’s site and as of this morning about 1600 people had “reblogged” it onto theirs. Hence the “she’s famous” title of this post.

Update: As of Tuesday at noon, the photo of Missy on Brandon’s Tumblr site has 4,394 notes!
That’s a lot of people looking at her photo.
I guess everyone loves puppies.

Another update: As of Saturday morning, the photo of Missy on Brandon’s Tumblr site has 10,094 notes! I haven’t even looked at any other Tumblr sites to see how many notes it has on any others.
Again, I think this just shows how a love of puppies is universal.
There have been 349 views of that photo (or of the adjusted version) on my Flickr site!

She IS adorable, isn’t she???

This one is my personal favorite:

If you want to oooo and awww over the cuteness, feel free to check out the set.

“Sounds like so much fun!! Do you guys have plans about how/when/where you want to perform yet?”

YES! It IS so much fun!

And yes, we have our first performance planned already! We are singing at a surprise 60th birthday party in a couple of weeks where the sons of the b-day woman are renting out a local, renovated theatre and having an “informal” music jam of sorts. I guess one of her favorite things is to hear “her boys” play and sing music. Her sons are not the guys in our band, but they are friends with the two guys in the band and they want someone with better sound to kick off the night. This birthday party is actually what drove the two guys in the band to FINALLY get together and figure out some songs (they’ve been talking about it for 10 years). It is sort of an interesting story, so I’ll go ahead and tell it here. But stick with me, it is a bit round about.

Both fall semesters at school, I’ve sung in a faculty/staff gospel band at school with several vocalists, and a handful of instrumentalists. So, the lead singer (we’ll call him CK) had kind of heard me sing in that, because he sang and played guitar in the band. And he sang this really gorgeous a capella solo of “O Holy Night” at last year’s school Christmas party; I knew his voice was amazing from that.

This semester, I’ve attended a Chapel service a couple of times where friends have heard me singing, and they suggested I sing a duet with another woman at the school. She emailed me and she has been working on finding a good duet for us. At our school Christmas party, I ran into her and she suggested that we ask CK to play guitar with us (and maybe even sing).

So, at the party, I found CK and explained the situation to him. We were discussing music and such, and then the second guy in the band (we’ll call him SG for super-guitarist) walks up.

Short, but critical tangent: I know SG from a band that he is in comprised of people from school, he plays amazing electric guitar in that band. That band does classic rock (Eagles, Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, etc.), and every time I hear them, I wish I was singing with them! I’ve been looking for an opportune moment to offer to sing back-up vocals with them, but had yet to find a moment.

And here I am just finishing my conversation with CK about music and SG starts talking to him about the idea of getting together over break and working up some songs and something and something I wasn’t entirely following. BUT I start to realize that they are talking about the difficulty of getting the entire band that SG is in together because of the holidays, vacations, and such. “AHA! This is my moment!” I think “they are short on people!”

I basically said that if they needed a back-up singer, I’d love to sing with them. And immediately CK starts telling SG how great I harmonize and how wonderful it would be for me to sing with them! (a great boost for my confidence, let me tell you) You have to realize, SG had never heard me sing before, but he trusted CK’s judgment. Then, we got down to the nitty gritty details, and I realized they were talking about NOT SGs band, but starting something new! ooooo! even better!

I got them to nail down a practice date about 5 days away and I put my contact info into SGs iPhone to seal the deal, so to speak.

And the band was formed. Tah-dah!

We opened our first rehearsal with Country Roads by John Denver, and it sounded like we’d been singing and playing together for weeks. It was truly amazing and magical.
When we were done with that song, we all sort of just grinned at each other in a stunned sort of way.

Like I said, that birthday party, our first performance, is in 2 weeks! We will only sing & play for about an hour with the 3 of us, because SG has to go play with his other band that night, but we’ll start the night and then the sons of this woman having the birthday will play with CK and me, and then the sons will likely take over and CK and I will be more peripheral. It is going to be sort of impromptu as far as that goes.

The great thing is that since we’ve had a goal, we’ve made a point of practicing every week and we are getting serious about building a set list and really perfecting our songs.

Once we get enough songs, we’ll see if we can find any other venues to sing and play! cool, huh?

There were some really great moments!

Our lead singer had to get up before 4 am that morning due to a work emergency, so he wasn’t able to sing very high and we didn’t do any John Denver songs. I had been looking forward to singing and recording those with my iPhone. Instead, I recorded a few others so that we could listen to them after the fact and also to continue to learn each others’ nuances (pronunciations, breathing/phrasing, emphases, etc.). We all have iPhones, oddly enough, so it is really easy to record and share voice memos.

Also, I DID go ahead and play them some songs that I’d been considering which were American Honey (Lady Antebellum) and If I Die Young (The Band Perry). It triggered them to think of some additional ideas, like a Keith Urban song called Without You, and it is helping us find our “style.” We are starting to veer more into country than I’d originally expected. It is really appropriate for Texas, of course, but isn’t what any of us were planning. But MAN do I love the sound of some of the songs! They’ve got a lot of bounce in them, and they sound amazing with just guitars.

Yesterday, the lead singer sent me a link to a really perfect duet, You and Tequila (Kenny Chesney featuring Grace Potter). I was concerned that we were cutting our 3rd person out of the vocals by singing a duet, but he told me that the 3rd person would prefer to play guitar on most songs and just add additional vocals here and there. That actually opens up a whole new world of possibilities, because it is really easy to find 2 part harmony songs! I’m super psyched about it! I’ve already learned my part mostly for those two songs, partly because I go back to school tomorrow and won’t have as much time for the rest of the week. Partly, because it is the sort of thing I do when I’m getting ready in the morning, eating breakfast, or hanging out in the evening, these days.

It has been about a week since I posted, and since I’m still ON BREAK (*hip-hip-horray!*), I feel like I can have a leisurely breakfast and write up some thoughts about the past week.

Last Friday, Texas Seestor was off of work and we got together with some friends and saw the Muppets! It was SUCH a fun and funny movie! It had a huge number of 80′s references and comments sort of making fun of itself; I love that they weren’t taking themselves too seriously.

New Year’s Eve was really fabulous. I had a migraine for most of the day, but it went away enough by the evening that we went to a dessert and drinks party that some friends were hosting. They have this party annually, but it is the first that we’ve gotten to go, because Mom and Dad stayed home with my nieces and babysat so that Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, and I could go to the party.
The desserts were SO YUMMY! And then we started playing Rock Band.
OMG was it ever fun!
I’ve never played it before, but they had a microphone, so we started with Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock And Roll” and I sang the lead. I wasn’t sure ahead of time if it would be in my range, but it was! I rocked it out! There was a bit of a weird time-delay/echo that I’ve noticed with gaming systems that do karaoke, but I pretty much just tried to ignore it and focus on hitting all of the pitches and slides correctly. It was SO COOL!
I did not try to play any instruments; I was having too much fun either singing the lead, or singing along with Texas Seestor whenever she or someone else was singing.

It makes me want to go out for karaoke sometime.

How often do I think that?

In other music news, the new band I’m in had our second practice on Monday after New Year’s Eve. I shake my head at how quickly songs are coming together; it is really remarkable. The lead vocalist’s voice has such texture and richness to it. And man does he shine on John Denver songs!
We are working on a song that has only been recorded once, and we are doing it more like it was originally written, so I ended up recording it with my iPhone in order to learn the new rhythms and phrasing. I’ve listened to it a lot this week in order to learn all of those things, but also to just have the sound wash over me. Listening to it again the next day really surprised me. At the time when we were singing it and I was recording it, I was working so hard to match his phrasing, that I couldn’t really appreciate it. But listening to it after the fact let me revel in the moments when our phrasing, slides, and sounds were matched (especially toward the end of the song).
It is a good one.

We’ve got 6 songs that are ready to go with just two practices. I’m working on learning an additional 10 songs this week to see if we can take some songs that do not typically have a lot of harmony parts in them and add harmonies to them.
The challenge is finding songs for acoustic guitars with 3 part harmonies.
I’ve realized that a lot of songs with harmony that I’ve always loved have keyboards, electric guitars, and drums (and are usually 2-part); sometimes they sound fine scaled back to 2 guitars, but other times, probably not. We’ve got some Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Eagles, John Denver (as mentioned), James Taylor, and the Beach Boys. I’ve got the other 2 guys ready to do an Indigo Girls song (Power of Two)! We’ll see how that one goes this coming week. I’m working on convincing them to consider Dixie Chicks, Rascal Flatts, and Lady Antebellum. I’d love to find a good Corrs song that would work for our voices!

Anyway, it has been a nice part of my break to be working on this. I need something to channel my energy into.

I’ve also cleaned up my apartment, and hung some artwork.

I teamed up with a friend at Trivia Night on Wednesday night and we won! It was mostly due to his knowledge, because he wins a lot, but I knew a few questions that he would’ve missed if I hadn’t been on his team. He let me have the bottle of wine that came with the winnings. It was the wine that I had been drinking that night, so I know it is a good one. He kept the little certificate thing to add to his montage of certificates.
If you are wondering: One of the questions I knew (that he didn’t know) was about the city that had the first subway.
Of course I knew that answer! Boston! You can’t exactly live there for 7 years and not hear about that at some point.
We got an extra point for guessing the year it started. 1897!

cool, huh!?

My other friend is back in town after being gone to Colorado for the holidays. We went out to supper last night. She will get to join us for trivia next week too. She and I are going to attempt to be “good” and continue getting a lot of work done next week for school, so we are limiting our plans to mostly evening events.
Yes, I’m on break next week too. Meetings start on Thursday of next week (Jan 12th) and classes start on Wednesday of the following week (Jan 18th).
But this whole break is sort of a working break. I worked up until Christmas Eve and I worked some the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I’ve mostly ended up doing a “slow down” when I’m at my apartment and not visiting family. Although there was nothing slow about doing that curriculum proposal last week. Whew! That was a hard one. But I got it in, and I heard back from the chair of the committee this week that it looked really good! woooot-wooooot!!!

Okay. And with that reminder of work, and since it is now 9:30 am, I ought to write a recommendation letter for a student who wants to go on a Study Abroad trip or maybe work on my syllabus for Genetics.

Catch you later!

I had a lot of fun with my family for Christmas last weekend. And here we are, on Wednesday, headed into New Year’s weekend, which I’ll spend with them again! We are starting to make plans for more movies and meals together.

Yesterday and today, I’ve been trying to tie up various things on my work to-do list. The letter of recommendation I needed to do for a student was relatively easy. Of course, today I got another request from a different student. The curriculum proposal for a new Developmental Biology course has taken quite a bit more of my time and energy. But I got a pretty good draft completed tonight. I’ll talk to my department chair about it tomorrow and hopefully have it wrapped up and submitted tomorrow. It is officially due on Friday at 5 pm, so if I can finish it on Thursday, I can take Friday OFF and not think about work.

I DID go for an exercise walk yesterday in our gorgeous 60+ degree weather. It was really fabulous. I’d wanted to go again today, but I was focused and trying to get the proposal done by supper, so I skipped it.

I’ve also managed to run some errands, which included boring things like grocery shopping, and getting food for Max, but also included fun stuff like stopping in at Dress Barn to check out their sales. I did find one cute top and one sweater; both have some frills and ruffles and have purple in them!

I also found a new, fitted exercise (dry) t-shirt in purple too (at a sporting goods store). I’ve been wanting to buy some new clothes since the weather has turned cooler, and just haven’t managed to find the time. I’m hoping to get to some more stores in the upcoming weeks. Everything is pretty picked over, so it is a bit challenging, but this is when I finally have time, so this is when I’ll go!

I finally saw “The Blind Side” with Texas Seestor and Trainwreck last weekend. It was a really good movie. I can totally see why it won awards.

I also rented “Crazy, Stupid, Love” which I do NOT recommend unless you are a Ryan Gosling fan and just want some eye candy. I’d gone to redbox a bit spontaneously (and had not scouted the availability out ahead of time) and had wanted to rent X-Men. When it was empty, I just picked a “romantic comedy” instead that I’d thought had good reviews. Not the best choice, and it taught me to plan ahead, for sure! Oh well, two out of three movies is pretty good.

In other news, the new band that I’m in had our first practice last week. We are mainly working on songs that are designed for 2-3 part harmony and acoustic guitars (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Eagles, Simon & Garfunkel, John Denver), sort of a country/rock cross. We had some really gorgeous chords during some of our very first run-throughs on songs. I got goosebumps a couple of times! We have a lot of potential. We’ll see if anything more becomes of it than just playing for someone’s surprise birthday party in late January. I’d like it to become something more. But for now, it is just good that we have any kind of goal; it will keep us practicing regularly and getting a bit of a set list down. I’ve had fun learning harmonies on all kinds of new songs and resurrecting harmonies I’ve sort of learned but haven’t been able to sing with anyone (like the 80′s songs such as “More Than Words” or “Hole Hearted”). I’m also stretching into country a little bit more than I’ve ever done before with a Wynnona Judd song and Sons of the Pioneers. It has been really interesting to branch out a bit more.

Okay. It is 11 pm, so it is definitely time for bed so that I can be bright and bushy-tailed for my work on my proposal tomorrow. Later!

Those were cookies that my nieces decorated at Mom and Dad’s. Notice that the sprinkles are in the shape of dinosaurs! There were also blue dolphins, yellow bananas, and brown cows (not visible on this photo).

That was the birthday cake for Jesus at my church’s Christmas potluck.

This is the Advent wreath on one of the first Sundays in Advent before all of the candles were lit. The candles are for Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and the Christ candle (in the center). You can see the leftover mum from the Thanksgiving service and the Christmas tree in the background.

I don’t have breast cancer, uterine cancer or colon polyps! AND I don’t have to have another colonoscopy for TEN more years. TEN years! yay!

“What?!” you are probably thinking.

Well, it has been an odd couple of months. I’ve had some odd symptoms that required ultrasounds, mammograms, and a biopsy to check for breast and uterine cancer. All of that came out normal/negative, which was great.

Due to family history, I had a colonoscopy Tuesday. I was pretty convinced that I was going to have polyps, to be quite honest. But I do NOT have polyps, which is really exciting and joyous.
The procedure was really straightforward. The team that prepped me, did the procedure, and helped me after recovery was really terrific.

Everyone had warned me that the “prep” was the worst part. I would have to agree; I was pretty hungry and a little dizzy/cold at times. My last solid food was Sunday night for supper and I didn’t get to eat real food again until Tuesday at about 4 pm. Going almost 48 hours with only “clear liquids” to drink is a really unusual experience. I was actually getting pretty dizzy and lightheaded Monday morning, but I kept guzzling gatorade. Interestingly, I went to Target on Monday amidst the dizziness looking for a clear nutritional supplement (which they didn’t have), and found a type of gatorade that I hadn’t seen previously. It was CLEAR! This is critical, because I wasn’t allowed to drink anything with red or purple dyes. Better yet, the flavor was mango passionfruit! Turns out that once I drank THAT one, I wasn’t dizzy any longer. So, for those of you out there who have to have a colonoscopy, I highly recommend that you drink the 02 Series (Perform) Gatorade! It is terrific. Instead of 2 grams of sugars, it has 7 g. But it doesn’t taste overly sugary.

Texas Seestor was great about taking care of me before, during, and after the procedure. Trainwreck was really understanding and helpful too.

It has been nice to spend extra time with them this week. I’ve had a really good time playing and hanging out with my nieces this week too. This is the sort of thing we’ve done in years past when I would fly here for the holidays; Texas Seestor would take vacation and we’d spend time together.
Yesterday, Mom, Dad, Texas Seestor and I went to a Christmas art/music show. I got to hear a really great band play. I bought some art too; small things like ornaments and magnets. But I also got one larger piece of art for my walls. I definitely need to spend some time this break getting things framed and hung up! My apartment could really use some help.

Oh! Texas Seestor is home, I think we are off to the grocery for our Christmas grocery shopping now!