Thank You For The Music!

I have the coolest husband in the whole world! For his 31st birthday (which is today, Happy Birthday Baby!) he let me take him to see THE MUSIC OF ABBA WITH ARRIVAL FROM SWEDEN. They are, of course, an ABBA tribute band. And not only that, they are the only ABBA tribute band with the exclusive rights to identically recreate exact versions of ABBA's original clothing, and been given permission from Bjorn and Benny (the two BB's in ABBA) to perform one of ABBA's unreleased tracks. Okay so I was a little excited.
I first fell in love with ABBA when I was a little girl and heard the song FERNANDO, which is still my favorite song by them. During the 80's I learned to love more of their music as another of my favorite groups, ERASURE, began to cover their songs. TAKE A CHANCE ON ME, LAY ALL YOUR LOVE ON ME, AND SOS became instant hits. In high school, DANCING QUEEN became a favorite song. I just seem naturally drawn to ABBA songs! Even on my mission, as a farewell tribute to one of my favorite companions, my other comp and I dressed up in our then stylish Chicago Bulls jerseys (20 Pesos at the flea market, thank you), decked out our hair and makeup and made up a dance to TAKE A CHANCE ON ME, which we then horribly performed, much to Sister R's delight (thankfully there are only two other people in the world to testify to this!) Point is....I love ABBA!
The concert was great. There is no wonder why this group is allowed to do the official tribute. They sounded exactly like ABBA. Did I mention it was awesome!? I even got D to stand up and dance on not one, not two, but three songs (MAMA MIA, TAKE A CHANCE ON ME, DANCING QUEEN). He was happy when they played his favorite song, CHIQUITITA. It was so much fun, and thanks to my worlds greatest Stepmother-in-Law for hooking us up with the tickets. And Thank you for the music, ABBA!(and ARRIVAL).

NA NA NA NA HEY HEY HEY GOODBYE!

Well there is no going back now. I said I was going to cut it all off, and boy did I cut it all off. The initial cut was just under 11 inches. That has been placed in a plastic bag and will be sent off to Locks of Love tomorrow. To smooth it out I think I lost another inch or so. I am loving it right now. My head feels so light and my hair feels so healthy. We will see what happens tomorrow when I have to actually style it on my own! So in case it flops and never looks nice again, here is my photo documentation that once upon a time my short hair looked cute. A big thanks to my Sister-in-Law E. for the cut and highlights.

Play it again, Sam.

Just got back from a week in California. Had a blast and will post on that later, red ants and all!!! But for now I just wanted to post a song that I love by Sam Beam. This guy on Youtube does a pretty good job. The Lyrics are amazing. They are so poetical. Hey, I am a writer, how can I not love beautiful lyrics? Hope you enjoy!


Here are the lyrics if you want to follow along!


Iron and Wine -- Passing Afternoon -- Sam Beam

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last
And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

The First Chapter

It has been a crazy week as I have spent everyday of it driving back and forth to my sister's house to watch her kids while she is at girl's camp. So I have not kept track of my writing. The bad news is...I am behind of where I wanted to be on my word count. The good new is...even with kids and dogs, lemonade stands and car repairs, I have still managed to work on my story everyday and I am liking where it is at. I found that when I wrote AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS, I spent almost two months on the first chapter and once I felt that I had it right, I zoomed ahead with the rest of the book. For me it is all about getting it right at the start. I am hoping that by next week I will have Chapter one where I want it. Anyone want to do a read through for me?
On another happy note. I do have a working title for this second book. THE PATH OF THE STARS. I like it. I hope you do too.

UVU, Neighborhood of Fire, and the Great Cupcake Debate

It has been an eventful week. On Monday UVSC celebrated its move to UVU and now is an official university. There were a lot of festivities, but the best one was watching D fly over the crowd in one of the three twinstars the aviation department has. The kids sat on the grass and when he came overhead they started yelling "Hi Daddy" It was pretty cool.
























On Tuesday we celebrated our neighborhood of fire. Good food, great friends, and the kids had all decorated their for the annual ride around the block. Even little L participated this year. His big wheel was not decorated because he had ripped all the streamers and flags that M had so carefully placed on it. He wanted nothing to do with decorating his bike. But when the moment for the ride came, he was in full force, making it around not just one, but both blocks. He was the last one in, but he did the whole thing by himself. We had a great time until the fireworks. I hate fireworks. I hate my kids having them, I don't mind sitting at a safe distance and watching them, but I hate the worry associated with them. The big problem ones for me are sparklers. This year, after I was told that the previous year people had been giving me bad looks because I had not brought sparklers for my own kids and the neighbors had to share, I broke down and bought some. Never again. It was not the million kids that swarmed me when I pulled them out, they were all cute and polite. I had no problem sharing (as I am sure my neighbors didn't the year before, why do I listen to these guilt trips?), but with that many kids someone was bound to get hurt. Well someone dropped one. It lit my blanket on fire and M trying to help stomp out the flame, lost her flipflop and had the lit sparkler go into her foot instead. Poor thing. I felt so bad because she is a little of a drama queen and so when she said she had been brunt, I assumed it was from one of the sparks and made her walk home wailing in pain while I gathered C and L. Then I got home and washed the burn only to find a nice hole in her foot. She insisted on a Band-aid, and I insisted on lavender oil. Next year I am thinking Glow Sticks!




















You may not believe this with my distaste for fireworks, but 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I love to make flag cakes, and BBQ and, play outside. When I was in the Philippines on my mission, I was sad because I would miss 2 fourth of July's. I ended up making all the elders candy flags. So when I saw these cupcakes with blue and white sprinkles I just had to get them. They are so sinful, I know, but I had some great justifications of why I had to bring home a package from Costco with 20 extra large cupcakes.

#1...I was being frugal. I had a coupon!
#2...I was being patriotic. They have star sprinkles!
#3... I was being a good mom. My kids beg me all the time to get these cupcakes and for the past year I have been saying no. Now was my time to spoil my kids!
#4...I was helping out the economy by making this purchase. I was doing my American duty by putting my money back into society!

Now tell me, with all those fine things, don't I deserve a cupcake? (or two?)

Write Here Write Now

Well, July came with a bang. I had hoped to have an entire day to write, but my children decided that would not be the case. Still I got in over 2,000 words in the few hours I had. Not a bad start. Except about 1,400 words in I was not loving the story. Once again I knew more outlining was needed. Zareepa! Wouldn't it be so nice if you could just come up with an idea and write it, knowing how everything would work from the get go? I sure think so. So I was faced with a dilemma. I want to do the BIAM challenge, but if I had to do the research (which is essential if you want to write anything worth reading) that wasn't going to happen. Then my good friend and fellow writing group member pointed out to me that I already had a story that I had done all the research for, a character that I knew and loved and an idea that I had been playing with for the past 2 years. I thought it would be jumping the gun to write a sequel to AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS before I even knew if I could get the thing published, but now I think why shouldn't I? There is a character who is just dying for a story of their own and a lot of the research has already been done. So as I love change I am going to give this character a chance. So here it is: Write Here Write Now I pledge that for the month of July I will write this person's story. And if I change my mind somewhere before the 31st will someone please come over and slap me?