On my way home just now, I heard Stone Temple Pilots on the radio. On the local classic rock station.

*hobbles away with walker*

Someone at work has expressed an interest in hiring my band to play for her daughter's wedding reception. We currently only have about 2 1/2 hours worth of material, and would need 4 solid hours for a wedding reception. The wedding isn't until July, so that should be plenty of time to get enough material together.

We definitely need to add some ballads, since we only currently do one.

What are songs that you think are absolute musts for a wedding reception??

Hi El-Jay! *waves*

Wow, I'm not even sure where to begin...

Life is a wild ride right now, and I'm doing my best to hold on tight and enjoy it.

( Band Stuff )

This poll was inspired by an entry on my friendslist in which one of my LJ friends admitted that she is NOT a Beatles fan. *gasp* The horror!! :o

Now, I generally don't pick "favorites" when it comes to things like bands, albums, songs, movies, ice cream flavors, etc, but if someone held a gun to my head and demanded that I pick a favorite band of all time, ever, it would have to be The Beatles.

I'm always genuinely shocked when someone doesn't like them. So, I'm curious....

Poll #940345
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Are you a Beatles fan?

If you have a "favorite" Beatles album, which is it? Why?

If you have a LEAST "favorite" Beatles album, which is it? Why?

If you are NOT a Beatles fan...WHY? WHY OH WHY?

Am I the only grown adult who still acknowledges my Half-Birthday? I'm 27 1/2 today. 6 months from 28. w00t. I think once I hit 28, I'll have to officially claim my age range as "late twenties". As it stands, I still consider myself early-mid twenties. :x



I've owed dzuunmod interview answers for over a month now, and taterbug160 since last week.

( Interviews )

I'm usually afraid of Valentine's Day. I often have bad luck on Valentine's day. One year, with my (now ex) boyfriend, I leaned over the table to give him a kiss, and my hair grazed the candle flame and started on fire. One year, with Ryan, I started choking during dinner and had to do the Heimlich Maneuver on myself, because he didn't know what to do. (This was immediately followed by my teaching how to do the Heimlich Maneuver, lol.) A couple years ago, I surprised him with a night in a Jacuzzi suite. My car got stuck in the snow pulling into the hotel, and the first couple of hours of our "romantic getaway" were spent on the phone with AAA and waiting for a tow truck.

( Read more... )

Oh, and P.S. My home computer is all better now, thank you very much to everyone who offered assistance!

Just a quick post to mention that I am overwhelmed by all the ways being in a band is (positively) affecting my life. I intend to go into detail in the near future, but am feeling particularly thankful to myself for creating and sticking with this opportunity. This new chapter in my life is an exciting one.

Heh, the chorus to this song (which Ginger Presley is covering, btw) says it well:

Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride.
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh no.
I've got to keep on movin'.

I hope you're all having lovely weekends. :)

So, in all of my frenzied picture posting last night, I left out a few details from the weekend.

Saturday afternoon, I got to hang out with Ed (touretticmonkey) for a couple hours. We haven't had a chance to hang for a couple weeks, so it was awesome to see him. He made some delicious chili, (I'm always well-fed when Ed's around!) and then we took Hayley for a walk to a park to enjoy the gorgeous day. Getting to the park near his house requires walking past the sewage treatment facility, and there is a building on the property with a sign that says "Hog Pen" and has a picture of a pig on it.

( Read more... )

In other news, Ryan and I had received a few Best Buy gift cards over the holidays, and we used them to purchase a.....device, I guess? that is a DVD/CD player, VCR, and receiver all in one, and came with surround-sound speakers. We got that all hooked up, and then Ryan figured out how to hook the computer up to it, too. I used to hate using the computer to listen to music, because our computer speakers were so crappy, but now listening to music on the computer=surround sound!! Awesome!! I am in love with i-tunes.

I do have a question, though. (Actually it's Ryan's question, but I told him I'd ask y'all). In i-tunes, what does "Consolidate Library" mean? Ryan was going to just try it and see what it does, but got nervous when it said that once done, it couldn't be undone. Help?

Last night, we de-Christmas-a-fied the house. One of the benefits of not going all-out on the holiday decorating is that it doesn't take nearly as much time or effort to tear it all down and pack it all away again. :)

Happy Tuesday, everybody!! :D

Ever since I have started playing guitar, I have been resistant to Ryan teaching me anything on it. I physically tense up and kind of pull into myself when he tries to teach me something or give me pointers.

( Last Night, it all came out... )

After we both felt comfortable that it was all settled, we reflected on the exchange, and complimented each other on specific communication skills. We managed to resolve the whole thing without either of us raising our voices or being intentionally hurtful. Since peaceful conflict resolution is one of our biggest challenges, this made us both feel very proud, of ourselves and of each other.

So, Ryan got an ipod from his step-mom for Christmas. This is our first experience with such a device. After a rocky start, he got some stuff figured out (with some minor help from me, who faked my through knowing the first thing about an ipod). So, long story short, we now have itunes on our computer, and he has been playing with it non-stop, lol.

Last night, he was showing me some things with itunes, and I ended up spending like two hours getting music put from the Windows Media Player thingie to the itunes thingie. I have that part mastered, I think.

So, now that I have this itunes thing, I'm wanting to branch out a little with technological.....y'know, stuff.

This is going to sound like a ridiculous question, but I am 100% serious.

What's the deal with podcasts? :x

Boy, am I glad that is over! :x

Friday night, I hosted a ladies night (later named Vag Fest) at my house. Out of the 30-some women I invited, 4 showed up. Even though it was a small group, we're all pretty awesome vagina owners, so we had a blast. We barely put a dent in all of the food I made, which meant that I didn't really have to cook for the rest of the weekend, lol. We ended up heading to a bar near my house, and eventually ended up down-town, after which Lisa and I were driven home by a cab driver who thought my name was Chihuahua. That was a first. After I arrived home, I ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting with adudeabides and yayheaven.

My experiences Friday evening got me pondering on why I often find it challenging to develop close friendships with women. I'll save those ponderings for another day, though.

( Read more... )

A special thank you to adudeabides, yayheaven, and lotus_n_my_hair. Whether or not you realized it, you made my lonely weekend a lot less lonely. You are wonderful friends. :)

Today, it's back to the grind at work. Both my manager and supervisor are out this week, so I'll likely be signed on to the LJ Chat thing-o (the only IM I can use at work) most of the week. Hit me up! :D

w00t!

touretticmonkey is my hero. :)

If you would like to experience my favorite Christmas tune, Clicky! Make sure your speakers are turned on!

*hugs and kisses Ed*

Seriously, Ed, thank you. My new-found perkiness has my co-workers thanking you, too. :)

*blink*

The Winter Solstice is already upon us?

Christmas is in 4 days?

*blink*

Where did this month go? Screw that, where did this year go?

I'm just not feelin' the holidays this year. There's no snow on the ground, and as nifty as it is that it's warm enough to rain in December, I really do prefer a white Christmas. I didn't decorate my house nearly as much as I usually do, and I still have most of my holiday shopping left to do. Bah humbug.

Ryan will be hittin' the road within the hour for a jam-packed weekend of out of town gigs. He'll get home on Sunday, Christmas Eve, and we'll have to rush off to my mom's church (I hope I manage to get through the door without bursting into flames again this year) and then to her house for our annual festivities.

Last year, Ryan was gone on Christmas day for a gig. That was a little bit of a bummer, but since he and I normally have our celebration on the Solstice, it wasn't the end of the world. This year, he's gone for the Solstice, and I'm bummed. :( I'll be celebrating by my lonesome, I guess. He told me I should open my present even though he's gone. Ummm....NO. He wasn't supposed to get me anything anyway. My new coat and trip to Kansas were supposed to be my gifts. He's a stinker.

I haven't heard my favorite holiday song ONCE this year. Can't a girl get a little "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" to brighten her day? *sigh*

( In Other News )


Well, that was nice and whiney.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and if you're celebrating any holidays, I hope they're filled with love and joy.

As part of this whole self-discovery thing/personal growth thing that is a permanent fixture in my life, one of my goals is to get comfortable performing music in front of others again. Music and performing used to be a huge part of my life, and it's an interest that I had been letting slip a little. Some of you may not know this, but when I was in college, I was a music major, so when I say it was huge part of my life, I mean HUGE.

It has been at least 3 years, I think, since I've performed in public. I had gotten to the point where I felt like I had lost so much knowledge and confidence that I wouldn't even sing in front of close friends and family anymore. I want that part of my life back, because being a musician is important to me, and playing music/singing makes me feel good-talented, worthwhile, accomplished...

A good first step in this process was purchasing the recording unit I talked about here. Being able to hear myself was like "Wow! I don't suck!" It made me really want to get into singing more, and to put more effort into it. It also made me want to learn a lot more about the guitar and improve at that. It also also made me want to brush up on my music theory knowledge and music reading skills, and learn how to apply them to the guitar.

Anyway, last night, I had my first official guitar lesson. ( Read more... )

Wow, for a five day weekend, that went by fast!!

I was sure I was going to make some headway on the list of entries to write, but alas, it was not to be. I was so busy with family, friends, and food (WAY too much food) that I didn't have much time for interneting.

Let's see...Wednesday morning began a 5 morning-streak of sleeping WAY too late. I slept until at least 10:00 am each day, which is completely unlike me, but it was much needed and appreciated sleep! Wednesday evening, I went with touretticmonkey (Ed) to a Vegan Thanksgiving dinner at his Grandparents' house. I was a little nervous to meet his Grandparents and his mom, (especially since they knew of me as "the married chick that Ed met online and dated briefly before deciding to be 'just' friends") but there was really nothing to be nervous about. His Grandma and Grandpa are absolutely delightful, and while I think it took his mom a little bit to warm up to me, I think we hit it off just fine. And the food was incredible. After dinner and tea we all sat around in the living room just talking and sharing stories and such. It was very nice!

( Read more... )

Ryan and I decided a few weeks ago that there aren't nearly enough musical instruments in this house. Especially drums. We didn't have CLOSE to enough drums in this house, what with the two doumbeks, the bongos, and the 3 complete drum kits. :x

( So, we picked up these beauties. )


In addition to the lovely drums, we got a great deal on a digital recording unit. We had been talking for a while about getting one, so that we can record music right at our house.

The unit arrived about a week and a half ago, and the next night, we recorded our first song (a cover of "Change" by Blind Melon) within about an hour and a half! Ryan made the drum beat right on the unit, and recorded the bass track using our electric guitar. I recorded the guitar track and two vocal tracks (melody and harmony).

( Pictures! )

I've hung around in recording studios while Ryan has recorded before, but I've never actually been a part of the process, and it is really cool. It's amazing to hear a song come together, layer by layer, track by track. And I was pretty impressed with my guitar track! I was surprised at how....not sucky it was! My vocal tracks aren't my favorite, but I haven't sung into a microphone in several years, so it took some getting used to.

As soon as I figure out how, I'll try to post some of our recordings so you can have a listen. :)


I love it that Ryan gets such a good price on this sort of thing, being an employee of the music store and all. We decided to get all this, and then not get each other gifts for Christmas/Yule/What-have-you.

I'm gonna go ahead and cut for length right off the bat.

( Read more... )

-Started drinking at 8 am.
-Got to meet and hang out with iam_misbehaving, who took lots of probably awesome pictures!
-Saw lots of Ryan's family that we don't get to see often.
-Watched the guys put on an AWESOME show.
-Got DRENCHED, windblown, and hailed on in the severe storms that slammed us shortly after the guys got done playing.
-Had an interesting bus ride home, with everyone (including me) shedding as many articles of wet clothing as possible.
-Stopped at a bar half way home and watched various band members/groupies sing bad karoake.
-( cut for sexual content )

The bathroom is done. Totally done. It cost twice at much as we'd hoped it would. Thank goodness for a decent income tax refund this year, or we'd not have $0 credit card balances right now. Really, for a nearly complete renovation of a bathroom, we got off easy, money-wise.

And the outcome is.............I LOVE it. I just keep walking in to the bathroom, looking around, and smiling. I'll take pictures and post them for y'all this week sometime.

( Read more... )

(Oh, I'm still working on answers to the rest of your questions. I should get them posted this week, I think.)

The Natural kind of high, even! (The maryjane induced highs are much fewer and far between these days, which is mostly going well...)

So, I've been diligently working at my guitar goals, (detailed HERE).

My "January Song", Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow) has been progressing quite nicely. It's certainly not perfect, but I can play and sing through the whole thing fairly smoothly with few mistakes. I'm extremely proud, as I thought one of the chords in the chorus (B Minor) was going to be the death of me.

Tonight, I played and sung through it for Ryan, and when I finished, he applauded and said "Time to put that one in the bank, babe. What's the February Song?"

Well, the "February Song" is Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd). I pulled out the tab for THAT, and realized the only chord in it that I didn't know was A Minor. I consulted my handy-dandy chord finder book, and discovered that A Minor is a very simple chord (especially given that I already know A Major and C Major, and that it's pretty close to both of those). So, um, now I can pretty much play the February Song. I still have to get the vocals just right, and figure out some of the rythms, but, essentially, it's going to be a piece of cake. (I'm not attempting the intro/solo yet, as right now, I'm focusing on learning as many chords as I can.)

With the ease of that, I decided to look at another song I've been wanting to learn, but that wasn't put on the monthly list of songs (Just Wait-Blues Traveler), and realized that A Minor was one of the chords in that (which I now know how to play) and that the only other chord in it I don't know how to play was F Major.

Back to the chord finder book. Now, F Major is certainly not a piece of cake, but compared to B Minor, it's not too bad. I imagine I'll have both Wish You Were Here and Just Wait nailed within a couple of weeks.

I'm feeling pretty good about my progress on the guitar. :)

For anyone who's interested, Lyrics to the songs mentioned above under the cuts:

( Strong Enough Lyrics )

( Wish You Were Here Lyrics )

( Just Wait Lyrics )