A Little Inspiration. . .

This is just a snippet of a blog post by my very favorite blogger, Mir from Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda.  When I read her writing it makes me want to write more and reminds me why I've been blogging for the last five years.  I wish I could be a little less private sometimes and a little more "real" like she is but even if I can't get there from here, I can still take her advice and make sure I have a record of my life- good and bad. . . (You can read the whole post right here).

"We went in, picked up our food, and headed back to the car. As we drove home, I said, “You know, you’ve had a tough run this year. No one would blame you for focusing on the hard stuff, and for feeling like life is just more difficult for you than for most other kids, and like that’s totally unfair. But you just had this incredible weekend—one that YOU MADE HAPPEN because you are smart and strong and a hard worker—and that’s the sort of thing I love to write about, do you know why?”
“Because it’s happy?” she guessed.
“Well, partially, I guess,” I said. “But it’s more than that. It’s because how you feel when this stuff happens, it fades. You’ll have another bad day, and you’ll feel like you always feel that way, discouraged and sick and powerless. But if you take the time to write about how you felt when your name was called on Friday, how you felt when you realized your team took first on Saturday, it makes it easier to remember. It gives it some permanence and power. It forces you to really know that the bad stuff isn’t all there is. You know?”

I've had thoughts lately about just letting the blog end with, "And they all lived happily ever after. . . " and leave it at that.  I can't/won't write about personal stuff and so it's tempting to just sign off but it's still a memory bank of how I live and someday I will look back on it and think that, all in all, I had a pretty interesting life.  Mir inspires me to keep writing . . .

In The Meantime. . .

So I've been working on the post about the crazy-busy three weeks we had in January but everytime I start to work on it, I get cold and tired and give up.  When I eventually post it, you'll understand why.  In the meantime, the photos are backing up in my picture file and this one was just begging to get out.  It's pretty sweet, if you ask me. . .

Update. . .

So it turns out that I won't be posting the message from last week or my song with Steph.  In order to post them to the blog I would have to turn them into slide show videos and even then I'm pretty sure that Zach's message, at least, will be too large.  If anyone who reads this would like me to email it to them, that's easy.  And if you're a blogger who can tell me an easier, less time consuming way to post them, that would be welcome, too!!

Tony's Birthday. . .

Connections. . .

Blogging in Real Time for a moment. . .

Interesting day today and I don't want to forget to post more about it later so I'll put this up now as a reminder!!  It's what I do.  Weird, I know.

GOOD day at church.  Haven't been able to say that for awhile so wanted to make a note of it.  Zach gave the message and it was GOOD.  And relevant.  Steph and I sang a special together for the first time.  Ever.  It was GOOD.  Both of these events were recorded so I hope to post them here later in the week.  Maybe.

And THEN, Gloria found out that her good friend from school is actually her cousin.  3rd or 4th cousin anyway but she is related to people I KNOW and used to visit on occasion!  Jessica stayed the night with us last night (she and Gloria had discussed things they have in common over the last two school years- familiar names, common places) and today we had lunch with my mom for her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!) and more of the pieces came together.  My mom has done a ton of genealogy research on our family so she called me just now and I put it all down on paper. 

In this picture of my grandpa with his siblings, my dad's dad, my Grandpa Chet, is 4th from the left.  The only girl is his sister, my Great Aunt Lil.  I remember visiting Aunt Lil when I was little and I went to her funeral when I was a young adult. 

Lil's daughter was my dad's cousin LaVell and she married Gene and they had a daughter named Jeanie.  Jeanie grew up and had a daughter named Judy.  Judy grew up and had Jessica.  Gloria and Jessica have been hanging out at school for the last couple of years and now they find out they have common ancestors!!  Pretty cool.  One of these days soon we are going to visit LaVell (who I have talked with on many occasions) and show her the connection.  I'm pretty sure Jessica has already told her since it sounds like they are pretty close.  I'll be sure to post about it when it happens! 


PS I hope this Real Time Blogging takes off because I prefer it. . .

The Remodel. . . Part 4. . .

The back end of the building was the most time consuming of all to remodel due to the fact that there were many walls, false ceilings and even one room with a hardwood floor.  It's difficult to describe and impossible to take one picture that shows what the back end looked like before we began the destruction.  I won't even try to match it up with these before pictures but if you were standing in the room where Rob and Kurt build cables, to your left would be the back door onto the dock and to your right would be a short hallway.  At the end of the hallway, to the left, there was a small-ish room and straight ahead was the bathroom.  Turn left again, before the bathroom, and it's another hallway. If you were to go through the bathroom (not recommended) there would be another good-sized room with a door leading outside.  And finally, there was a fairly good sized room at the very back that was completely enclosed and even had a sliding glass door and hardwood floors. 

Before the remodel, we used all of these rooms to store our gear between shows.  Everything about the backroom was dark and crowded and made it difficult to get to what we needed when we needed it.  Of course, it got much worse when we started to tear it all down but it actually went pretty quickly and the end results were amazing.  I'll just let the pictures (and one video!) tell the story:

Ahhhh. . . Light!!!!

It's still a work in progress- the bathroom is still un-usable and we need shelving but I know that it will make a huge difference in how we operate.  A place for everything and everything in it's place!!  Right??  That's the plan!!!  And it's finally coming together!!!!!