A Year in My Life Blog

Sometimes I have these really great ideas.  Most of the time I don't follow through. I just had this great idea and I hope that I will follow through.

I have created a separate blog called "A Year in My Life".  My plan is to write something every day.  Or at least have every day represented.  I'll still blog here, but I wanted to separate the other blog.

I will start on January 1st.  It will seriously be a year in my life.  I've seen some people that do a "How do you Measure a Year" project, and I think this will be similar.  I really hope that I follow through.  I've gotten really bad about writing in my actual, physical journal.  I really hope that blogs last forever.  I do much better about blogging than writing in my journal.

If you want to follow my "A Year in My Life" blog, it's http://mylifein2011.blogspot.com
Don't look for any posts for awhile.  I'm going to take my time getting the layout done and then I'll start blogging on January 1st. 

Ode to a Marching Band Geek

It's over so fast.  And then time flies.  Suddenly it's 15 years since you were drum major.  11 years since you performed your last marching show in college.  6 years since you watched your youngest sibling march in his last marching show in high school.  Where does the time go?

I look back on my years in marching band with fondness.  4 years in high school, 4 years in college.  Hours spent in rehearsal, hours spent on the bus, hours spent at football games.  Sunburns, blisters, sore muscles, sweat stains, grass stained shoes, three pairs of gloves to keep fingers warm, 3 layers of clothes under the wool uniform, numb lips, 9 minutes on the field, the cheers from the crowd, the music, the marching....it's all adds up to 8 wonderful marching season in my life.  It didn't always feel wonderful at the time, but looking back I wouldn't trade those Falls for anything!

To everyone currently in marching band, don't take one second of it for granted.  It will be over so quickly.  Live in the moment, soak it all in.  You won't be able to be in a marching band forever.  Some of you may work with marching bands, but you won't be able to be out there marching forever.  It ends.  Enjoy the time you have now.  Someday you will look back with wonder at that crazy time in your life, where you literally ran around a football field in scorching heat, wearing a wool uniform, while playing your instrument, aiming it in the direction of the press box, even though your body is moving a totally different direction.  People told you that you weren't an athlete and you laughed at them thinking, you do what I do and then tell me I'm not an athlete.  I've been there.  I've walked that walk.  I definitely marched in your shoes.  I wish I could do it again, but I physically can't.  (Not only am I out of shape, but I spent my senior marching season in college with intense knee pain that magically went away when marching season ended.  I don't want that pain coming back, thanks!) 

I still play my flute and piccolo and will forever, but I will never march again.  It's a time in my life that I will never be able to relive.  So please, enjoy the time that you have.  Drink in the experience.  It's going to be gone before you know it!

Political Ads in Real Life

I'm so sick of the political ads on TV, radio, and in the mail.  Can it PLEASE be November 2nd already?!  Seriously, it's out of control this year.  It's RIDICULOUS!!!!

But I had a funny thought today.  What if we starting acting like those politicians in our everyday lives?  What if we did random mud-slinging advertisements against people we competing against?

For example:  What if I was up against another person for a promotion at work and I started putting up signs where I knew the boss would see them that said "Mr. X steals people's food from the refrigerator in the break room.  Do you want a THIEF as your Project Manager?" or "Mr. X routinely parks in handicapped spaces in the parking lot.  He also runs down little old ladies on the cross walk.  Now he wants to bring this reckless behavior into our company's middle management.  Stop Mr. X NOW."

How stupid would that be?  And yet, it's okay for these politicians to sling worse (and often false or semi-false) accusations back and forth?  It's so lame.

I think I'm going to create a commercial the next time I'm up against someone in an audition:

"Remember when Ms. X played in last year?  She forgot her lines and routinely sang off key.  Her dancing was atrocious!  Is this the kinda of actress you want playing in ?  This ad has been paid for by the committee to cast Angela as ."

There would be some video and sounds clips, maybe a few picture interspersed that were clearly taken out of context.

I would NEVER get away with that!  So why is it okay for politicians to do it?!?!  WHAT THE HECK!!!???

It's that time of year again...

It's almost Election Day.  You know what that means!!  FREAKING ANNOYING TV ADS!!!!!

I'm getting so sick of every other commercial being one candidate slamming another candidate.  Can't anyone play nice anymore?!  (John Hickenlooper!!!  Kudos to Mayor Hickenlooper for running a clean campaign!)

But the rest of them?  SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE!!!  You make it really hard for me to know who to vote for.  I don't know who to believe.  And if you approving ads that slam your opponent, I don't want to vote for you, either!!!

Candidate A is pure evil.  He wants to kill Candidate B.  See what he has to say about killing Candidate B:  "Yes, we should do that."  Do you want a murderer in Congress?  The Committee to Annoy the Crap out of Voters approved the content of this advertisement.

There is an ad I keep hearing on the radio that makes me laugh.  I won't give any specifics, but suffice it to say, they list of two things that a particular third party supports and they are inferring that these things are bad.  I laugh when I hear it, because my reaction is "And what's so bad about that?"  It's just funny.

Is it November 3rd yet?  The ads will go away.  I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Art Controversy leads to Opera Awareness

Without going into the details of the controversy, suffice it to say: there is a painting at the Loveland Museum and Gallery that is quite the stir. It's opening up a lot of debate here in town.  Based on what I have heard, I have no desire to go look at it. I wouldn't have gone even if I hadn't heard about the controversy, actually.  I'm not really an Art Gallery kind of girl.

But that's not why I'm writing this blog.  Something kind of funny has happened due to this whole thing with the museum.  There are literally hundreds of people at the City Council meeting tonight.  I was at the City Council meeting tonight to, at least at the beginning.  I was there because there was a proclamation read declaring the week of October 29 - November 7, 2010 as Opera Awareness Week in Loveland, in conjunction with National Opera Awareness Week.  There were a few of us there from Loveland Opera Theatre to accept the proclamation (most of which I wrote, by the way), and Juliana gave a short speech.  Then the mayor said a few things.  It was really cool.

But what's funny is that all of those hundreds of people there for the museum thing heard all of this!   They probably wouldn't have heard it otherwise.  They probably would never have known that Loveland Opera Theatre even existed.  I still have no desire to go to the museum and see that painting, but I'm thankful to the protester for inadvertently raising Opera Awareness in Loveland.

We didn't stick around after our part was done tonight.  I'll watch the news tonight and see if they say anything about Opera Awareness Week.  Something tells me they won't.  I just really hope it doesn't get out of hand at the meeting.  There are a lot of angry people in this town right now.

P.S.  Can I just say that it's a little surreal to have your former high school band director be the mayor of your town?  It's also a lot of fun!  I mean, how many people did the mayor wink at during the meeting tonight?  :)

My Vlog Debut

No, I don't have my own Vlog.  (That's a Video Blog, in case you were wondering.)  I might eventually, but for now my computer's internal microphone is not working very well.

Today, I paid a visit to my friend CJ's Vlog!  Check it out:



I had a blast and I will probably making more visits to The Charles Kelly Vlog!

Nothing broke...and nobody cried!

Today, I had a glimpse of what it's like to be a mom!  All of you moms out there will probably laugh at this, but I don't care.  What I did today was a first for me, and I'm so glad that we all survived!

I babysat Emily, Rebekah, and George today while Craig and Robin went to a funeral.  Since tomorrow is the Loveland Opera Theatre Gala, I had a ton to do at work this afternoon.  So, at noon I piled the kids in the car and headed for Loveland.

(I should point out right now that I have only once, that I recall, taken all 3 kids in the car somewhere.  We went to McDonalds once and we all survived that.)

Our first stop was my house to pick up my computer.  Got the kids out of the car.  They came inside to say hi to the birds.  George rearranged Melissa's candles on the coffee table.  Nothing broke.  Nobody cried.

Next we went to my boss's house so I could drop off one thing and pick up another thing.  I left the kids in the car with the door open because I was inside for literally one minute.  (Emily even commented that I was really fast.)  Nobody cried.

Off we went to Art of the Rockies to pick up easels.  This was the place I was most worried about.   There are SO MANY THINGS that could have gone wrong in there.  Luckily, we instituted a strict NO TOUCHIE policy right off.  And I carried George most of the time.  Emily and Bekah were very helpful with the carrying of the smaller easels!  And they also discovered the Thomas Kincade Disney Fine Art painting of Cinderella, so that basically trumped everything else in the store.  So nothing broke...and nobody cried!

We managed to get all the easels in the car without breaking any of them.  Emily had to crawl under some of them to get to her car seat.  (Yes, she could have gone in the other door, but she was already halfway there before I realized what she was doing!)  We then waited about 10 minutes to pull out onto Lincoln.  Special thanks to the guy who let me in.  Traffic was INSANE!!!  (The protesters at the museum half a block away weren't helping the traffic flow, by the way.)

We got to Mr. Neats (Yes, it's not Mr. Neats anymore, but that's what we still call it.  Does it have an official name from the City now?  I have no idea.)  We had to park down the street, so it was a little bit of a hassle to get all of the easels, all of the kids, and all of our other stuff into the building.  But we did it!  Thank heavens for the stroller.  Otherwise, George might have wandered off.  But nothing broke, nothing got lost, and nobody cried!

I got the kids settled in a back corner and they watched a movie on my computer.  The fruit snacks from Grandma were then passed out.  They had definitely earned them!!  Once they were set, I got to work.  They did okay.  I had to corral George a couple of times.  And we had one potty run.  But they did really well until Craig and Robin came!  Here's a picture of  my little helpers:

We all survived!  I'm so proud of the kids for being good and being good helpers!  It was a fun day!  And nothing broke.  And nobody cried!