Singing Stuff

Okay. I'm posting this a teensy bit late, but, really, honestly, y'all are lucky I'm posting it at all.

On one of Mom's last Sundays with us my sister's band came to give a little acoustic concert. And I recorded it with my phone. You can see in this video my mom, my dad, my aunt and cousin, the band, our current family doctor (who took a special interest in Mom's case and was her hospice doctor, as well as being a good friend), and many, many others. It's a full room.

And the reason I didn't post it is because just a short way into it I started singing along and I'm kind of loud and feel bad about overpowering a little... but I've decided to post it because, really, Affix is an awesome band, they have a great sound, and I would say that even if my sister wasn't they keyboardist.

Apologies for the poor quality... this was taken with my phone, after all. And again, an apology for me singing.

Enjoy!

Myspace Flashback...

So, I'm borrowing this from amyschmamey and I'm going to enjoy every second of it. Normally I'm not a (public) fan of surveys like this, but I'm in the mood for something different. :)

A = Available - Not at all! Yay engaged-ness to the best guy ever!

B = Best Friend - My best friends (yes, plural. My survey, deal with it!) are Jessie, June and Johnny! Wow, lots of J's...
C = Cake or Pie - hmmm.... to be honest, probably pie.
D = Drink of Choice - either plain old ice water or lemonade
E = Essential item you use every day - my phone. Many many times a day.
F = Favorite color - There was once a time when I liked all colors and didn't have a favorite. However, i have recently decided I'm madly in love with purple.
G = Gummy Bears or Worms - neither. Gummies hurt my teeth.
H = Hometown - New Concord (or Conquered, however you believe you need to pronounce it) Ohio, y'all!

I = Indulgences - homemade banana cake. Mmmm....
J = January or February - February by a long shot! It's my birthday month, it's over fast, it means winter is even closer to being over, and I will hate January forever from this year on.
K = Kids and Names - I don't have any children yet, but when Johnny and I get busy we like Liam and Ellen Joy for our hypothetical children.
L = Life is incomplete without? - family. When friends fail you, you have your family always. At least, you do when you have a family like mine.
M = Marriage Date - September 10th, 2011
N = Number of Siblings - 3 sisters, Erin, Jennie and Anne, 2 brothers in-law Derrick and Jarrod, and a really close friend I call my brother, Caleb. :)

O = Oranges or Apples - apples. Love love apples, apple cider, apple juice, apple pie, caramel apples....
P = Phobias or Fears - Trypanophobia, also known as the fear of needles.
Also, just for giggles... Nomophobia - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, and Anatidaephobia - the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.
bahahahaha!
Q = Favorite Quote - "...it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice." ~ Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. How profound is that???
R = Reason to Smile - Well, A. it is almost Friday and it's a Canton weekend which means B. I get to see Johnny in roughly 28 hours! And C. the weather is gorgeousness. :)
S = Season - fall.

T = Tag 3 or 4 people - meh. No thanks.
U = Unknown Fact about me - I wish I could run a marathon. Seriously! It'd be amazing to have that kind of stamina, plus it would mean I'm in rockin' shape.
V = Vegetable you don't like - Uh...... I'm pretty sure there's no such thing.
W = Worst Habit - don't be grossed out, but I tend to pick at stuff... nail polish... scabs... dead skin... yeah, you're grossed out. Sorry!
X = X-Rays - Mouth, knees. The dentist takes them once a year, and my poor knees were x-rayed back in September and the results took away my running happiness.
Y = Your favorite food - quite honestly, my little sister makes these amazing sour cream mashed potatoes, and she made a whole bunch for me when I had surgery and I literally ate them every day and probably could eat them every day for my entire life.
Z = Zodiac sign - Aquarius, though i don't set much store by that stuff.


Have a great day!

Happy Jennie's Birthday!!!!! ***picture heavy***

Today, one of my older sisters turns 27. I shared a room with her for a very long time, and many days were spent with me cleaning while she sat on the bed reading. Thankfully she grew out of that, but not until after we weren't room mates anymore. She is also the only blonde in our entire immediate family, and she's also very tall. Well, tall for our family at 5'6" while the rest of us are 5'1", 5'2" and 5'4" respectively. Anywho, last night was the night we celebrated, and we did so by meeting up in Columbus at the Easton Town Center to have dinner at the Mongolian Barbecue!

Birthday girl looking slightly manic with her barbecued pineapple stir fry stuff.

We had a blasty blast watching other people be given balloons and made tinfoil hats. Other than all of the grill men singing a tuneless Happy Birthday to Jennie, nothing else happened. No special dessert, no hat, no balloon. But not for lack of trying! Our friends Laura and Nicole did their darnedest to make sure every waiter and waitress and busboy and grill man in the building knew it was Jennie's birthday.

Basically it was a really great, fun night. Lots of birthday people came in, though considering it was April Fool's Day I have to wonder how many of those birthdays were real...

Random change of subject, but when my mom was still with us, but was fading slowly, we decided we would get these charms called Thumbies. Basically they send you information that includes a card for a fingerprint and a plastic pull-off sheet with black packed powder inside. Aunt Lauri and I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get a good fingerprint from my mom's limp hand (she was fast asleep and had no idea we were doing anything to her). It was actually kind of hilarious because we discovered we were really bad at it. However, what they do is you send in the print and they create a charm using the fingerprint. You can get plain round ones, or you can get a heart shape, or a double heart. My dad got a double heart with Mom's fingerprint on one and his own on the other. I got a single heart. My sister got the basic round. My aunt got the basic round also, but with a jewel at the loop. We ordered them the week or so after the funeral and they finally came in. Jennie brought mine to me yesterday and I took a picture of it.

The back is engraved with "Mom 1958-2011", just in case you can't read it. And that little squiggle thing I think is their trademark. But anyway, I'm wearing it now and will most likely wear it often and someday will bequeath it to my currently hypothetical daughter.

Here's a few more photos of the night, just to wrap it all up!

Why yes, that IS a Mini hanging on the side of the parking garage...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

My Workday in Photos

Bridal Showers and Babies

I have decided I should never eat again. Because when I do eat, I eat far too much and then I feel fat and then I don't have time to work out and shower before bed so then I sit and be a lazy bum and it's too cold to go outside and run and basically it needs to be warm so I can buy a pass to the park and go do stuff.

I'm going to talk about bridal showers. My younger sister is getting married on May 28th and I am the maid of honor (huge shock when I found out, let me tell you) and we had her shower on Sunday. She is getting married exactly two months from today, which is insane, to the guy she has been dating since they were in the 7th grade, which is even insaner. She is the only one of the four girls to manage that, and I have no idea how she did. But all that aside, she's getting married, she's annoyingly tan for a family of German/Swedish/Irish white-ness, and we are all very happy for her.

We had a blast getting the family together at my aunt's up in Wooster, OH. All the ladies stayed at the house to watch Anne open presents and to play with the babies (a nine week old girl!! Cutest thing ever!) and take pictures while all the older children and the men went bowling. I had brought my camera, but the memory card was still in my computer three and a half hours away so I am basically an epic fail, but her future sister in-law took a bunch of photos so once she Facebooks them Ima stealin'. It was a good thing anyway because I had to document every gift she got and keep track of cards so picture taking wouldn't have worked out anyway.

But I did take two phone photos of the baby with my sister...

This is Jerusha. She is half Indian (as in from India indian) and half blue eyed blonde haired American. SO cute, and a very happy little girl!

The only damper on the day was the one woman not present from the merry gathering, and she was very much missed. We shed tears, we shared memories. My aunt, who organized the event, doesn't do games so there wasn't Toilet Paper Wedding Dresses or What's in Your Purse or anything like that, but what we did do was give advice. Some of this advice was recycled, as four of the younger generation of women were all married within the last decade. In fact, my cousin Corrie shared what Mom wrote on a little card to her at her shower years ago, something about holding hands every day with my father and it was much sweeter when Corrie told it with tears glistening in her eyes. I know how much my mom would have loved to have been at Anne's shower, and to eventually have gone to mine. And I can't even tell you how many times I have wished I asked my mom for advice on how to be a good wife to my Johnny before she was gone. But since she isn't there Anne and I rely on our aunts and cousins and grandmother to be our helpers and guides, a task they are all ready and willing to fulfill. It's amazing to be part of such a close, loving and giving family, I can't imagine a better one.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Anne really liked her Pampered Chef present from me. :-) Since I can tell you now, I gave her a cutting board that has measuring cups that fit into it, a collapsible strainer that also fits into it, and a "hold n' slice", which is basically a big pick you can use to hold the fruit/veggies/whatever that you're cutting without sliding or slicing your hand open by accident. And my card was extremely sentimental. I wrote, "Enjoy. With love from your maid of honor, Emily."     ......... ;-)

Playing Catch Up... *long post, be prepared!*

To start, you should know that I really need a shower. Like, whoa. Because I did over an hour of aerobics, not because I'm a skuzzball.

Anywho, the past week has been slight insanity! My poor car, Penny, has suffered a minor injury known as a bad wheel bearing. This is the THIRD wheel bearing that has been replaced on my car since I bought it in December 2009. Something tells me there is a bigger issue here... But in any case, I drove the car all week only to work and back for fear that the wheel would just stop working or pop right off or something and I would die a horrible death when an 18-wheeler ran over my poor broken body on the interstate. Thankfully, this did not happen on the way to or from work, nor did it happen on the two and a half hour drive back to my dad's on Friday. However, I was on the verge of a panic attack for the entire trip. I was also very sleepy, which is NOT a good combination. I left my car there on Sunday and Dad lent me his for the week. Not that I don't like Dad's car, but I'm looking forward to having my Penny back. :) She's all better with a fresh oil change and I will have her back the day after tomorrow.

In other news, the reason I went home last weekend was because my older sister, Jennie, is in a band called Affix, and that band played a concert in my hometown at the middle school cafetorium on Saturday the 19th (which also happened to be my oldest sister, Erin's, 29th birthday!). I spent the morning before running errands, one of which included putting a hold on a queen sized sleigh bed from Big Lots! Johnny and I will have a bed in about three months. It will not have mattresses until I put a hold on those as well. But we have a bed! So stoked!

Back on topic, it was a lovely day so once I dropped off the associate pastor's son at the school and helped out a little with the set up I walked back to the house. I love love walking, and I really miss it living where I do. But the little town in which I grew up is safe and everything is in walking distance from the house. So I walked back to find our good friend Susan in the kitchen wearing an apron making pasta sauce to go over the meatballs Jennie made to eat with noodles, salad, bread, and the best banana cake in the universe. If you didn't guess, yes. We fed the band, and their girlfriends/wives/children. Full house, lemme tell you. However, it was also a total blast because all of these guys are great people and I got to enjoy a healthy debate of ATT vs. VZW... the bass player is CSR for ATT. I was CSR for VZW. As I haven't been in that job for over a year now I'm a little rusty, but it was fun to discuss which is better... and now that I have Sprint I feel no need to be loyal, lol.

Immediately after dinner, which included crazy conversations about "man food", Angry Birds, the iPhone's superiority over every other phone (I have the HTC EVO and like it just fine, thankyouverymuch. In fact, I much prefer it over my iPod touch, So there!), and the awesomeness of Mom's meatball recipe, everyone very suddenly left, including my dad, and left me there without a car....

However, our friend Nicole stayed to help Susan and me clean up and she gave us a ride. God bless our friends!

I also brought a giant container of spaghetti (the meatballs were GONE) to Johnny, who raced to the concert directly from work having not eaten. We had a splendid time. The band was great, as was their opener, Anthony, who is absolutely hilarious and whom I sat across from during dinner.

This is Anthony and Jennie singing one of his songs. I don't remember what it was called, but I very much enjoy his voice and his style of music.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the actual band's concert. However, Rich, the lead guitarist, told about how the band came to sing to my mom when she was still with us and just how amazing and moving that was, and that anyone who donated to the Sarcoma Foundation in Mom's name that night would get a free poster, and half of the proceeds from their shirts/cds/paraphernalia would also be donated. Around $500 was given that night. It was phenomenal.

However, it wasn't over! They also led worship on Sunday morning, so here is a few pictures of that...

It was crazy fun.

Things felt a little weird for me this past weekend. I was around all kinds of people I didn't really know, at the concert Johnny and I were greeted very enthusiastically by our college aged friends (I'm so used to being ignored or given a half-hearted "good morning"!), the wall has been knocked out in the sanctuary to make room for more seating, and 3/4 of the people at church were people I have never seen before. On top of this, Dad's preaching style has changed.

My dad is the pastor of our church, and I have always loved his preaching. It's hard for me to go other places because I'm so spoiled. He is a phenomenal speaker. However, ever since Mom died things are a little different. He still has passion, but there's almost a tone of anger in his passion, and all of his sermons stem back to Mom's death. None of the sermons I have heard since then were lacking in mention of it. And I understand that, I completely do. But where they were usually peppered with humorous anecdotes and stories, now it's tragedy and a realization that life is too short to waste. However, his love for Jesus and for his congregation and his family, and the faith that he has had for the past 31 years, none of that has changed. And he was definitely the Proud Dad last weekend. :)

But all was better when Johnny and I drove up the driveway to find...

FLOWERS!! Purple ones, no less! First day of spring, y'all! It's finally here!

Now it's the middle of the work week and I'm really looking forward to the weekend. Friday I get my car back and then head up to stay with Johnny, Saturday is more cleaning-Johnny's-room-fun followed by hanging with some friends, and Sunday is my younger sister, Anne's, bridal shower! Whoop whoop!

Sorry for the long post, I promise I won't wait so long next time! Have a great day, everyone!

Whoops!

I haven't posted in, like, more than a week!! So sorry, folks, I've been crazy busy and have a million pictures I want to share or I would write a post now. But sadly I have to leave for work in about ten minutes so I will do my best to fill y'all in this evening. Photos and everything! It'll be a long post, just to warn you now. :)

Have a great day!

P.S. Soy milk on cereal isn't quite the same, mostly because it turns the cereal into total mush really quickly, unlike regular milk. Sadness.