Music is an Integral Part of Life

Music moves me more than most any other thing on this earth, it is true.

I think some people are just particularly moved by music. I am one of those people. My life would truly be glum without the music in my life. I play music. I sing music. I study music. I dance to music. I believe in music's power to heal, teach, edify the mind, edify the heart. Nothing makes my tear ducts leak faster or gets my adrenaline rushing stronger than music.

So I have music on my blog. And I love it. It represents a part of my heart.

I have had some questions about why the Steinway was number one on my wish list, not that my wishes were in a particular order, but some have questioned, do you play? Oh man. This is evidence that I have truly buried my talents and therefore God will take away.

Yes I play the piano. I majorly play the piano. How does a person answer this question without coming off in any way one wouldn't want to? Does it suffice to say I almost majored in Piano? I studied classical piano since I was five and practiced 2 hours a day until a few years ago.

I had two loves in my life. Dance and Piano. I wanted to major in both, but both were all-consuming. So I majored in Marketing. :) I still studied Dance and Piano both at BYU, but I just couldn't give my heart to just one.

So I am extremely thankful that I have playing the piano as an outlet in my life. I love that my mom sacrificed time, money, effort, and her sanity to fight with me to not quit for how many years? My whole life. The thing about piano is, you don't realize you are gonna regret not studying the piano for the rest of your life until you are, well, too old to justify the time to spend the necessary hours to study anymore! (Even though I still practice. But I can't do a serious study like I did in my window of opprotunity. So THANK YOU MOM.) I would have MAJOR regrets without you MOM, that I don't think I would ever get over.

Mom never let me quit because she saw talent. Mom woke me up at 6 am every morning to practice. Mom had me practice in between drill team and ballet. Mom got me the best teacher I could have ever asked for.

And pretty much half of my life lessons were right there, in piano.

I am so grateful that I know music, it's history, that I have learned the revolutionary composers and have tried to play their music as they intended and would make them proud, and that studying music has shaped me. Few things allow me to release the feelings of my heart like playing the piano, singing a song, and dancing do.

And back to the worldly part of music, outside the classical: I LOVE LADY ANTEBELLUM. Which you might be hearing right now if you can hear the music from our blog.

And Hilary Weeks new CD. Woah.

Tears. Tears I tell ya. Beautiful music = tears.

Let the tears come.

To Be Tagged, or Not

What is it with these tags? There are just so many going around! Laundry or tags? Feed baby or tags? Shower self or tags? Do I allow myself to be tagged? Do I pretend I never saw the tag?

Too many.

Fun, but I am way behind.

Fourth picture, fourth file: Tim has a goal to golf all of the golf courses in Utah before he dies. TIM LOVES GOLF. So the fourth file in our picture file is of the top 100 courses in the world. Here is the fourth in the file. Beautiful? Beauty is in the eye of the golfer.

And if you go take a different route to the picture file, the fourth picture in the fourth file is this:

TIM LOVES THE COUGARS. And we love this man.

So, who so far is ruling the picture files? Tim ta-tim-tim.

And Trent, who is pictured in surely 98% of all pictures on file.


"Words to live by" tag. Think of ten words to live by and post them. 10 of them? We'll see.

1. Sing in your car, LOUD.

2. Let your hair blow in the wind.

3. Make music videos.

4. Love, even if you know you will lose.

5. Let the tears come.

6. Always say I love you.

7. Heavenly Father will always give you much more than He ask of you.

8. Tell the people you admire how they inspire you.

9. All houses purchased must be big enough to dance in.

10. You can never say no one else in the world understands, because He always, always does.


8 things, on another tag it was 5...I'll combine.

Tag

8 Favorite TV Shows:

1. American Idol
2. So You Think You Can Dance?
3. The Office
4. 30 Rock (If it's clean)
5. Eli Stone
6. Felicity (yes, love love love)
7. Friends (when it's clean)
8. 24 (when it's not violent...oh wait)

8 Things I did yesterday:

1. PUT BOXES IN THE ATTIC, YAY
2. Played with Trent
3. Watched Celine My Love, Live
4. Let the cat out of the bag about my Celine obsession
5. Made some phone calls
6. Bought a Bissell Proheat Carpet Cleaner (yeah, my baby spits up a lot)
7. Took three samples of the Almond Rocha Cookies at Costco :)
8. Put off going to the gym...again

8 Things I Look Forward to:

1. Seeing my Grandma Calder
2. Celine Dion next week
3. June 2009, WELCOME HOME MY BRUDDERS! (Could not happen soon enough!)
4. Hot date with Timmy on Friday
5. CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!
6. Holding my baby
7. 7:10 pm Monday - Thursday
8. My To Do list being completely done (ha!)

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Mandarin (Bountiful Utah)
2. PF Chang's
3. Cafe Roma in Beverly Hills
4. The Roof at JSMB
5. Flour Girls and Dough Boys
6. Chile's
7. Cafe Rio
8. Every one of them! Because that means no dishes for me!

8 Things on my Wish List:

1. Steinway Grand
2. Boat
3. To sing like Celine
4. Trip to Hawaii
5. Lake Powell water level to be high again
6. A different president elect of the United States
7. healthy kids
8. for all of the people I saw converted in Venezuela to be three times in white

5 Things I love about fall:
- the chill in the air that tells me Christmas is coming!
-not getting SUCH a bad time for listening to Christmas music
-getting tickets to all of our favorite Christmas events
-the feeling of the season of Christmas
-wearing sweaters

5 People I'm Tagging:

I TAG YOU ALL!

That's right! Every single tag. TAGGED. :)

Our Little Lion's First Halloween

He's got the tongue down...

Grandpa Calder

Carving with Grandpa, Nana, Aunt Miranda, Uncle Curt, and Aunt Allison






Joe Dirt, Joe Dirt's Girlfriend, and Little Lion
(we thought Trent's real locks were a good lion's mane, and I LOVE my guy in a mullet)

Bet you thought you knew me...

Did you know I have a seriously intense and somewhat dangerous Celine Dion obsession? No, most of you did not. Unless you knew me when I was a wee teen, when it all started. This sounds so bad, I know, but let me tell you a little bit of how far this obsession goes:

For YEARS I wouldn't talk about my love for Celine, because to even talk about it would be blasphemous because words could not do justice for how deep my eternal love for Celine, the person, really was. When I went on my mission, I vowed to calm down in my obsession, but my love still runs deep and eternal.



Still, I feel the words do a disjustice for the deep obsession, but let me give you some examples:

* I have every single song Celine ever recorded, that includes French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish. That's right. 257 songs, 18.7 hours. And I can sing along to them ALL. Every last one. (It would be entertaining for you to hear me sing in Japanese, I know.)

* I have watched her concert DVDs/Videos/and every time she's been on TV hundreds and hundreds of times, over and over. I have a whole library that is frequented more than I care to say.

* I have been a member of TeamCeline for a while, and I know all the important dates and facts about her life and family.



* I have given Celine a Book of Mormon, with my testimony inside, and have dreamt I have shared the gospel with her several times.

* Every family vacation to Lake Powell was complete with Celine Dion on the ski boat stereo 24/7. My brothers say they forgive me now.

* Whenever a new song comes out, my dear friend Aubrey (fellow accomplice in this obsession)and I listen to all of her songs in chronological order up to the present. We then go to the store at midnight to purchase the CD.



* We also listen to the chronological song playback before we go to her concerts. I have been to Celine's show in Vegas three times, and next week will be with her, tenth row, in Salt Lake as part of her world tour. Once I was fifth row at the Vegas concert, and when she sang, If I Could, she was literally five feet away from me. VERY surreal.

*I literally squeal, jump in the air, and cry listening to her music. Trent, from the womb, knew her music well from car rides of Celine on full blast, and once when he wouldn't settle down only the sound of me singing Celine calmed him. (Oh boy, this is getting bad...)

* I used to celebrate her birthday every year. (Cringe...really bad.)



* Pretty much every boyfriend I ever had, the one thing they tell me when they see me, is that whenever they hear Celine, they always remember me.

* Tim had to limit the number of Celine songs we put on our wedding video and wedding dinner CD favor. He just couldn't have half the songs be Celine.

* And oh yes, I've got paraphernalia.


I could go on and on and on...I really think I've made you sick by now.

But truly, this post did pittance to the depth of it all. If you only really knew...

I am trying to be better. I am being a little better. But in TEN DAYS, there she will be in front of me again. And it will be fabulous!

Thanks dad for coming, to pick me up when I fall.

MVP

Congratulations honey on getting MVP at work, again.

Not Recognized

Does anyone else have this?

When Trent sucks on the computer cords dangling from the desk (since he is in the suck-on-everything phase), I know what he's sneakily done, because a little bubble pops up on my screen:

'USB DEVICE NOT RECOGNIZED'


Phew! He is really alive...

No Nap

Mom puts Trent down for nap #1
But all she hears inside the room is Trent having fun
Mom slowly opens the door to check on little boy
This is so funny mama, you thought I'd take the ploy?

Mom comes in to find a boy wide awake
"Oh no little boy, you need nap time for sanity's sake."
Little boy laughs to see such sport!
Because don't you know, "Mom, I'm in charge."
And that's the final report.


(Video below. Enjoy.)