TRGX4!: January 2013

Saturday, January 12, 2013

January 2nd week

1/8/13 - It's tough times here. Busy as heck, and just tough in general on top of it all. But we manage to keep going on. Guess that's how it's done eh?

We were unable to get tyler back into school here this semester due to outstanding bills at USM. Apparently if you apply for housing then find out you didn't get enough financial aid to pay for a dorm room and you cancel your application for housing - you get stuck with a $1200 cancellation fee. It might as well be a million dollars as far as we're concerned. It is just as impossible to pay by Jan 14. I guess the only alternative is for him to sit out a semester and work and get it paid for. It might even be a good thing for him. Most of what people learn at age 21 are not necessarily from school but from the real world and the school of hard knocks. As long as he gets back in by fall 2013 we can handle a small bump in the road.

I've been rehearsing something or other every single night. Steel Magnolias on Sunday, Wednesday, and Fridays (soon to include Saturdays too). Aladdin on Monday Tuesday and Thursdays. I sometimes think that I like it this way because it gives me something to focus on that isnt really all that important in the grand scheme of things. But most of the time I just think I'm crazy and stupid for booking my time so tightly. It's just that time of the year though. Musical season.

I've don't do New Years resolution per se. But I always find some other creative way of putting it. So this week I have diagnosed myself with a serious, potentially deadly "life disease". It is, however, curable. The prescription for my particular strain of the disease is: less technology - more outdoors, less playing music - more listening to music, less ignoring and avoiding problems - more attacking problems, less carbohydrates - more protein, less work - more family, less forced extroversion - more meditation, Then I've got to have surgically removed the monkeys on my back, the thorns from my sides, the storm cloud that is attached over the top of my head, and some things I've allowed to get under my skin along the way. Lol

And that's my only hope for survival. Lol.
So that's my dramatically creative way of saying the changes I hope to make in the new year lol.

I've been working hard on the Steel Magnolias play and I've had the best time. I've spent lots of time each week with 5 other females, working toward a common goal and socializing at the same time. THIS NEVER HAPPENS in my world lol. It's been really nice hanging out with other females on a regular basis. And I'm even starting to feel slightly comfortable being on the stage. I didn't say all the way comfortable. But it's no longer making me freeze and go blank when I'm up there. Lol

That's about it for this week. I hope I've not made a completely depressing post. Lol. But January is just that kind of month. My boys are doing good. Rusty is preparing to run for South Ward Alderman. The future beyond January shows hope of better things to come. Jut got keep treading the water through the difficult January days.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

First Week of the Year

12/29 - Girls, even when they are over age 20, still giggle and giggle and giggle. It has tickled me this evening hearing giggles from the next room instead of the loud cursing and screaming and obscenities that I usually hear from a room full of loud boys on video games. Tonight they have mixed company over for a movie. They CAN behave when they want to. Good to know.

12/30 - I enjoyed filling in on piano at a small baptist church this morning. It was the same church I got married in 22 years ago. It's a nice church with space for probably a couple of hundred or so. But there was a congregation of maybe 25, and that's if I include the preacher. I had heard some years back that there was a split in the church, for some unknown reason. And that the church was barely hanging on. And that did appear to be true today. Sad. The young man leading the music, who asked me to fill in on piano, is a former student of mine. He was a senior my first year at the high school and such an awesome kid. He is finishing up his degree in church music at the local baptist college - Mississippi College. So it was a real treat to work with him and see how awesome he is doing. I was paid a little, enough to get some groceries at least and it was money that was much needed. But I've determined that small baptist churches pay way less than medium sized Methodist churches lol. I also got the pleasure of listening to an old fashioned, old school, yelling hollering and sweating Baptist preacher. And I'm not being sarcastic, I did enjoy it. Took me way back. So many churches these days have "progressed" into all the new styles of services and preachers "discuss" more so than "passionately preach". I do prefer to NOT be yelled at, but I did truly enjoy the nostalgia of the whole experience. If was fun.

12/31/12 - today I was patting myself on the back over my recent discovery that if I bought a gallon of buttermilk I would ALWAYS have milk when I go to make cornbread. Since milk is such a hot commodity in my house and we always run out no matter how much I buy. Then it occurred to me that my discovery was not unique and I am certainly not the first. As I was hit with the memory of making cereal at mamaw Gin's house as a child and pouring the only milk I could find on that day. Which ended up being buttermilk.

I've spent most of today cooking New Years food because I don't want to spend my last day off tomorrow doing cooking. Pork roast, with turnip greens, green beans, okra from Mamaw Gin/Papaw Jr/Papaw Pat's garden. Corn, blackeyed peas, cornbread, and some crappy leftover stove top stuffing that ive hopefully dressed up enough that people will eat it and make it worth the money I gambled on trying it for the first time ever. Rusty has been on vacation this last week and a half also and has been heavily involved in a computer video war game of some sort. So I've had the TV to myself for a few days and I've been able to watch hours and hours of DVR'd true crime shows. Or, as Rusty calls them, "How to Kill Your Husband" shows.

Happy New Years Eve everyone.

1/1/13 - planning ahead is smart. I was very happy to simply warm up the food instead of cook for hours today. Happy new year everyone, and may 2013 please bring us all some financial relief and some personal happiness and inner peace!

1/3/13 - I had to return to work today. An entire day of meetings, then straight to Aladdin rehearsal til 8:30. I'm not really looking forward to this month. It's going to be a hard month. All the way around. Seems things just always get harder and harder. But I guess sooner or late something will give. But as they say, things could always be worse! But I do find myself already looking forward to summer lol.

I'll close with a few pics from recent times.