New Years Resolutions, and lots of backtracking

I'm slowly but surely getting this month long blog finished. I did it on Friday, then I've thought of tons of things I left out. So here, in a rather disjointed fashion, are some thing we've been up to since before Christmas.

Right after the kids got several xbox games for Christmas, our xbox broke lol. I sent it off to be fixed and it cost us $90. I made the kids pay $30 a piece and I paid the other. I felt it was only fair that they feel some of the pain from it, and maybe they will take extra good care of it this time. It should get back to us some time this week.

Before Christmas I did a blog post on myspace, which I rarely do. But I guess I'll include it on here real quick because it kind of tells my new policy on Christmas lol:
"I decided last night during the TSO concert that I’m simply going to reclaim Christmas for myself and turn into something that makes me happy and not depressed. It will all be in the attitude that I take towards it. I started wondering why is it that I love Halloween so much. And I decided that I love Halloween because it is inexpensive, it involves costumes and dress up, there is always chocolate, you get to walk around outside at night and breathe in fresh air, usually all the family gets together with the kids to visit and to watch them have fun, I am not forced to face the facts of how much money I DON’T have, and I don’t have to feel ashamed or bad because I haven’t bought presents for people.
So. I’m going to turn Christmas into that very same description for myself. From now on. The only Christmas presents I will ever buy will be for my kids and Rusty (and grandkids WAY on down the road). And the only gifts I will ever give anyone else will be chocolate. And I won’t allow myself to feel bad for not buying people gifts. So I’m removing the whole gift giving/guilt aspect of it. Christmas will be inexpensive for me from now on, starting this year. The grandparents give enough money to the kids for Christmas that they will have plenty to supplement what we buy them, and I won’t have to feel guilty because I couldn’t get them a lot – they will have plenty of supplemental money to deal with. We will get together with family and visit and watch the kids have fun. Now that I’m teaching high school, I’ll get to dress in Madrigal wear every December so that will cover the costume portion of it. I’ll just have to take some walks outside at night to finish off the plan.
Not that I don’t WANT to buy gifts for people. I’d love to. But every year I end up in the HOLE big time over Christmas. And I’m just putting my foot down at this point in life and saying its over with. Christmas, to me, is about music, people, and foods that you don’t see the rest of the year. And that’s that. If I can keep Christmas JUST about those things then I will begin to look forward to it every year instead of dread it. I’m already looking forward to it right here right now. And it feels good. I’m going to go to Bama and visit with family, I’m going to visit with family here in town, and I’m gonna visit with friends at some point or other. I imagine I’ll eat some chocolate and I intend to make lots of home made chocolate candy to give people. I will shop for some things the kids want, but mostly they will buy their own with their big wads of cash. I think I’ve had my fill of dress-up for now, with the Madrigal Dinner and all. I just need to go outside and look at the sky on Christmas Eve, listen to some really great music, and then watch my kids have fun and I’ll be set. And all that for FREE!!!!
Yes, indeed. It’s going to be a MERRY Christmas for me!!!!!"
And I was right - it was one of the best and most memorable Christmas's. I did kind of feel weird doing anything differently than usual, like maybe I was not doing right. But overall, it was all worth it to not have the bad feelings usually associated with overspending or not having enough

I only have two New Years Resolutions: 1. To get this weight back off, 2. to keep up with bills and checkbook better, and 3. to blog once a week. I have gotten off REALLY bad on all 3 since I changed jobs lol.


To make long stories short, Christmas was great. We went to Bama before Christmas, and visited with Rusty's family during Christmas. Fun was had everywhere. But never enough time to visit all you want. I'm just gonna post up some pictures. I did a pretty crappy job at taking pictures, as in hardly took any. I really spent all this vacation just being worn SLAP OUT. That and eating so much that my total weight gain is now over 30 pounds and I'm now in food PRISON for the next 5 months. I brought home tons of work to do over the holidays and didn't do ANY of it. I guess that was for the best. I needed the dang rest! But I am very glad I got to go to Alabama, even if it was a short visit. I had a really good time watching Emma and the twins play. Makes me miss "babies". But they are beautiful children, wish I could see them more often. I really liked the new lakehouse. Might as well just call it a new house! lol. It's really nice, and I can't believe how many TV's mom has put in there lol. Tanner just HAD to take a bath in the new gigantic bath tub as soon as we got there. It was definitely nice to have more than one bathroom for the first time ever. No waiting in line! BUT - I still tried to go to where the old bathroom was everytime I needed to go, just out of habit. But that's now the front door. So that made it really odd lol. We got to visit a bit with Dad and Johnnie at the Rigsby's, just not long enough of course. Saw lots of folks, ate lots of food again. Tanner and Tyler started arguing and fighting constantly so I ended up having to get on out of there a little earlier than I intended. But once we were leaving, I had to wonder if they hadn't done it on PURPOSE so we could go back to the lake to see Chloe who was waiting on us. Who knows. But I'm looking forward to a longer visit this summer some time.

I guess one thing I can't go without mentioning is that this is the year Tanner officially found out there is no Santa. And I now no longer have any "baby babies". He went to my car at the lakehouse to get something and found a bag of interesting stuff in the trunk. He brought the bag into me and said he didn't look in it. But of course we all know better. I just said, look it's time we have a talk lol. I told him the news. He told me that he already knew and that he had known for awhile he was just keeping it all up so he wouldn't disappoint me and Rusty. So I guess all is well that ends well. Made this year MUCH easier. In fact, we were able to talk Rusty into letting Santa come 2 days early so they could play with their stuff sooner and I could sleep late on Christmas morning. It was terrific! We had all pretty much decided not to do any gifts among family this year. And that went well also. I was not bothered with guilt and worry, I am still broke after Christmas but probably not nearly as bad as I would have been. All in all, it was a great Christmas even if we never got completely decorated, didn't do gifts, and had to fly at lightning speeds to different places over the course of a few days. We got it done.

I went back to work last week, a week early, to begin rehearsals for the big musical. It's going well, just much slower than I had anticipated. Which means we're REALLY gonna have to work our tails off to have this thing ready by March. It's going to be SO much fun, and the kids are SO excited about it all. And I have chosen some REALLY good kids to work with. They are awesome so far. Yesterday was our last rehearsal of the week and Cheryl wanted to practice making a cake for our big cast party at the end, and to see how many kids a cake would feed. So she made a big Cat-in-the-Hat cake and brought it at the end of rehearsal. The kids were ecstatic! They took pictures of it, and of each other, and half of them have posted it on their facebook sites. A lot of them have put stuff about the musical next to their status on facebook. Which makes me feel really good about it all, to know they are that excited about it. If what I'm doing is being mentioned on FACEBOOK, then I truly have something going on, eh???? lol

Speaking of musicals, my mentor teacher from across town called me yesterday. She had a proposal. She and I are already taking turns doing Madrigal Dinners each year. I did it this year, she will do it next year, etc. She is going to propose to the district that we do the same thing on spring musicals. Like, one year she does the Madrigal Dinner and I"ll do the musical, the next year we will switch. She says she's been doing this for 14 years and it's wiping her out, but no principal has ever been willing to let her change it until NOW. I told her that I'll go along with her on it, and support it as well. Because I can't imagine having every year like this forever. Even though I"m enjoying the heck out of it, I believe I'll probably burn out twice as fast if I have to work this hard EVERY year. And plus, it will keep us from trying to sell tickets for the same things to the same people. People won't choose hers over mine, or vice versa if that should EVER happen lol. So.....if the district people and my principal will agree to it, we will put that into effect next year. Which means I'll do a musical and no dinner, and she'll do a dinner and no musical.

One thing we did accomplish over the holidays was a major overhaul in the band situation, including two shows. We already had the new singer lined up. And as it has turned out, her boyfriend has been helping us out with the sound system and all as well. While I was in Alabama they hired a new drummer named Bernie, he's around 25 I think. And we had a falling out with our bass player (that was destined to happen sooner or later) and he conveniently quit before we fired him. So, we just moved Keith over to bass and did about 3 practices maybe? We played New Year's Eve at the Tallulah country club, then we played Jan. 3 at the local hotspot called Beechwood. Oh, the stories to tell. But first let me say how awesome it was. To have rehearsed so little and sounded so good and impressed so many. We did very well. Mistakes, of course. But I'd still say that we did better both nights than we've done ANY other night thus far with the other folks. It's amazing the difference. I'm glad we got to do those two shows, and to "bond" during that week of working together. The next 2 months for me will be hellacious, and everyone is aware that I won't be able to do much until March. But we plan to practice on the weekends and work up a bunch more new stuff and get everything REALLY together.

So far it's been LOTS of fun working with a couple of younger folks. I've truly started to feel old for the first time, though. But it's not a big deal to me after all. I'm doing real well with that whole thing these days I think! lol We're discussing new song choices, and the three younger folks are coming up with stuff we've never heard of. And, to us, it's just SO hilarious that they've never heard of some of the stuff that WE just figure EVERYONE knows. After a few days of all being together, one of them asked me.....what IS that stuff you and Keith are taking?????? I wasn't sure what they meant then I realized........OH! That's BC Powders! I can't remember which one of them it was, but whoever it was didn't know what a BC was. And they were like.......what do you take them for??? They thought it was such an odd thing to do lol.

Well, here's some pics. They're all kind of in random order. That's one difficult thing about this blog site is that when you upload pics it is then difficult to rearrange them. So not gonna worry with it this time:

This is Claire, our new singer. She's adorable, and much more mature than you would assume by looking at her blue,pink,green hair and piercings lol. We really, really like her.

The "lady" on the left is the one who cussed us out New Year's Eve. We were still setting up around 8:00, we were supposed to start playing at 9:30. She wanted us to play a song right then and there apparently. Eventually she came and grabbed one of our mics and started screaming "Play a F-ing song, G-D it!!!" Then she proceded to tell us that we sucked because we weren't playing an f-ling song and we were just a bunch dumbass drugheads and she was gonna make sure we didn't get paid. BOY did I want to tell her a thing or two lol. Rusty says that just goes to show money can't buy class......all this happening in a country club lol. She was out by 10:00. But she did finally get to hear a f-ing song at least.

Me, in my own world, my own element.

Keith having a blast and kicking butt on bass.

Rusty with his New Year's Eve hat on. I thought he kinda had the Stevie Ray Vaughn look going on. He said he looked like a drunk indian lol.

Tyler, posing for a pic but blinking lol

Tanner. He just KNEW that little bitty present had to be something really awesome because it was heavy. It was an Ipod Nano.

But.....it doesn't LOOK like $1100 does it?????!!!! Money don't buy much these days.

Claire, with the feather in her hair lol. I'm seriously considering having her put a streak of pink in my hair this summer. What the heck, eh? I wonder if pink covers gray better than brown does......lmao

Dillon, Claire's boyfriend and our new helper. We got 2 for 1 in that deal for sure!

Our new drummer, Bernie, hanging out with people more his age. lol

Terri and Cheryl at the Beechwood. That's the only thing that sucks about playing in the band is I can't sit out there and hang with my girls!

Tyler and Blake at the lake. Why the heck did I only take two pictures at the lake???? Because I was still crazy and had not regained my mind yet I suppose.

Blake and Tanner at the Rigsby Christmas. Same story there, no pictures. And I'll regret it. Look at that HAIR.

Tyler at the Rigsby Christmas

I was able to go back to my old school, where Tanner and Brooke go, to visit on the last day of school before Christmas. It was really nice to attend the Christmas singalong and NOT have to be the one putting it on! I loved it! It was nice to see the kids and my former co-workers and celebrate the day there. But, I gotta say, the whole time I was thinking......boy am I GLAD I made that job change. I totally LOVE my new job as opposed to that one.

Oh yeah, almost forgot! We took the kids, including Brooke and Blake, to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra this year. Mine and Rusty's 5th time to see them. The kids really enjoyed it from what I could tell. Tanner was definitely amazed. I took pictures and video as good as I could. But we were up high and in the back so most were blurry. Here are a few though.

Blast off!

It seems all my people are finally starting to take me seriously about the amount of work that I have had in store for me this year. I TRIED to tell them lol. Before I took this job I discussed it with Rusty, told him how bad I wanted to do it but how much time it would involved. He was all for me doing it. I tried to explain to my kids and my family just what I had in store. Everybody was like oh yeah, ok, we see. But no one truly saw did they??? lol. Rusty and the kids are doing well though. They are still supportive in all that I do and have been doing their best to help me at home. Rusty even cooked dinner and had it ready for me tonight at 8:30 on my first night time musical rehearsal. The kids have been trying to keep the dishes clean, bad as they hate it. But most everyone is coping and I'm glad. I hear complaints from family and friends about me not having the time for this or that or the other. But I assure you I'm keeping up where I need to. Might just be BARELY but I am lol. Believe me, I miss seeing folks and doing things for myself more than anyone else does. But as far as all my time being consumed, I TOLD yall! lol. But really, I think just this first year is going to be the hard part. Making the adjustments needed for me at home. And it's just very important that I prove myself this first year and accomplish as MUCH as I humanly can. Once that is done, I won't have to work quite as hard. And I can begin to have a life again. It's just this FIRST year I have to give 150% to ensure the success of my future years. So, yall will just have to keep bearing with me til June cuz it's what I have to do lol. At least I'm enjoying it. Nothing sucks worse than a job that you HATE. This summer will definitely be one of the most welcomed summers I've had in ages though. I will need the break!

ANyway. I've spent so many days on this one, I don't know if it even makes sense anymore. But just gonna post it I guess. And by the way mom, "Gardner Room" sounds like an awesome idea for me......go with that one!