i almost had forgotten that i love st louis..but i was reminded again tonight as a friend of mine was telling me about the visit she and her husband took there last week to visit covenant for seminary. we were talking about the different areas and how she loves the city and i was pulled into my own memories of it. i just wish i had more than a week to have based my experience on. i am certain that i left a piece of my heart there and i wont be over it till i at least visit again. of course, if chris, maggie, and maya move there in the fall, as they are considering...i'll have another good reason to visit that city and find the missing piece of my heart left behind previously.

...or maybe these pieces are meant to be left scattered about so as to keep me connected to the experience

someone wrote of leaving their heart in san francisco...i guess its easy to have your heart forget parts of itself in some cities.



in other news....i started trying to shop for a wedding gift today for a friend of mine.....i'm completely stuck and i realy DO want to help the couple out as they start their home...but i dont want to give something which will become useless (considering the receivers' proneness to simplicity) or seem completely impersonal...or obscure comming from me.

updation in the nation

first of all..blogger wont let me comment on some of your own blogger entries..so please dont think my lack of words to you is a lack of love for you. i do love you! i do!


i do not update as often as i feel i should.

the fish is named "joe" for short
Captain Joe Strangebrew, in full.
he's a very happy betta fish. he seems to like me. doesnt flare up all angry-like at me..only at his own reflection (i've heard some betta stories of the fish getting angry at their owners frequently) he gets all excited and swims around in funny ways when im in the room with him. sometimes he keeps doing this even when i've just fed him and forgets to look for the food at the top of the waterline. i hope he lives a long and happy fishy-life.

i know that the entire country got hit with some of that obscure "spring" coldness...it was strange ehre..but no ice or snow in our midst. just..couldnt wear my tank tops and flip flops for a couple of days there. the warmth of sunshine has returned, even if it has hidden behind some wind and clouds.

im about to go to my second guitar lesson with my new teacher. im realy excited to be taking lessons again (of any sort, realy...get that brain thinking musically again!) its realy fun that each of my past guitar instructors have taught from different angles and styles. i feel as though, even though i havent had a LOT of lessons to progress in the guitar, im able to take the things i have learned from each experience and combine them to make for a better-rounded education. also, that owen teaches different things than loncar did helps me not to feel as though im re-learning things i already have been taught. its going to help me not feel like im wasting my time and money just to have someone tell me to practice a every week. im not only motivated to practice...but im LEARNING, too. novel idea...i know.

um...lessee...what else is going on? well..
-i spent too much money on two-for $x.00 deals at old navy this afternoon....
-augusta choral society is getting our butts kicked to be performance-ready by the 5th of may
-im starting to get a lot of hindsight on a number of my past dreams and how they fit into where God has me now....though im still out in the dark on that Germany thing.
-my hair is in tiny braids again...like i used to do in the summers...its a lot of fun..i'd forgotten how nice and cool it feels on warm days. i think i'd love to get it where it wouldnt frizz at the roots and have the whole thing braided for an extended period of time. im not black..but i think those folks may be on to something with that.

today...

today.....the layers of coffee scent are overpowering even me...and i am certain that i officialy s-t-i-n-k. its time for another shower

today...its 6:41 on a saturday night and i foresee no plans transpireing

today....doesnt even feel remotely like a saturday...if i were not already aware of it, i would have declared it completely tuesday...or perhaps thursday.

today...i nearly bought a rose bush...nearly..but chickened out

today....i want to go back to the age i was in highschool and braid my hair into 50 tiny braids

today....i think i'll try to call you on the phone. would you talk to me?

to do today: my day off edition

oh how blessed i am to have a sunny beautiful day and nothing but lazy things to fill it with!

.eat breakfast
.work out a bit
.
.lay in the sun for an hour or two
.
.buy some groceries
.play my guitar till my fingers scream
.feed my fishy

fishy fishy!

this afternoon i bought a betta fish..and i put him in an old 10 cup coffee carafe with black rocks in the bottom to simulate coffee!!

im so clever:)

so...he needs a name...a realy good coffee-related yet, still proper-sounding name.

here's some photos to get you better acquainted:

a story for the evening: coffee girl sings four songs

once upon a time there was a little girl named rebecca. she loved to sing along with the radio and with her mom's tapes. rebecca often stayed up past bedtime making pretend concerts in the shadows of her bedroom. she used to say that she'd love to be a recording musician if it meant she wouldnt have to ever sing in front of PEOPLE. as rebecca grew up (and became known simply as "becca") she continued to grow in her love of singing..and to collect quite a lot of albums from female musicians whom she could sing along well with. when it rolled around to college selection time, becca was still scared to sing in front of PEOPLE...ALONE. so she became a flute major and continued to sing outside of her flute time..just..not alone..not in front of PEOPLE.
after a few months of this, becca realised that her desire to sing could not be quenched by being a flute player...and she decided to take the step across the line into the shoes of a voice major. that spring, she sang for the first time in front of PEOPLE...ALONE...to fulfill recital class requirements. from that day, forward...becca found that the stage gave her a surge of excitment. a rush that cannot be explained or felt any other way. becca was a singer..and even though nervous...she loved it.
now we'll fast forward through some boring parts to...today..the same becca..but post-college and a few more lit-up stages later...though realy only a few stages...not a large collection of them.
becca is now happy and managing a coffee shop in a small city (large town) in the south. and today..she debuted as the girl on the other side of the counter...the coffee shop singer. not for a full concert..just 4 songs in the middle of a two hour set...but still...she was very excited. even more exciting..that 1. she recieved lots of good queries and comments about the first cover (she looks to the sky, by sherri youngward) 2. her family was able to come out and support her 3. her wonderful friend michael springstead was in town for the weekend and participated in performing two songs becca and he had written together over the last couple of years. and 4. it will probably all happen again at some other time in the future.

more coffee
more stages
more boys with guitars and various drums


set list for the coffee girl:
1. she looks to the sky-sherri youngward
2. the lines of my earth-sixpence none the richer
3. i'll see you in december-michael and becca
4. storybook life-michael and becca

i want a piano

it just struck me this afternoon..that i miss having a piano to come home to. i miss practicing music..i miss playing around on one..and i am always going to want a piano...so i should start keeping my eyes open for one.

i need a good old church piano sale.

my coffee stage debut!

so..this saturday night i'm debuting as a coffee house singer. ive sung many places..but never in a coffee shop..though i've been in charge of the music lineup at this place for over a year and a half!
some friends of mine signed up to play and i asked if i could sing some numbers in their two hour set. we're practicing on friday and these are the things i'm bringing with me to choose from...maybe jonathan and owen will have more ideas or help weed these down...

sherri youngward-she looks to the sky
switchfoot-let that be enough
sixpence none the richer
-angeltread
-circle of error
-melody of you
norah jones-painter song
caedmon's call-piece of glass
u2-love is blindness

anyone else got suggestions which might fit vocally along these same lines?

i dont think any of you are within distance of augusta to come hear me..besides my brother father mother sisters :)

its a beautiful day


what should we do?



lets go for a walk


and we're walking!




yay:)

the rakes progress

i dunno if anyone who's just reading this and hasnt seen my house would remember our jungle of weeds which developed last summer and were killed last fall? well...yeah..i killed them with weed killer..but then i didnt get out there to pull them up right away..i was kind of afraid of the massiveness of the job.

what happened last year was...we'd had a new drain added to our septic system..and with that, they had to bulldoze the entire back yard. it made the place a very rocky..and very fertile..mess. weeds and stuff grew easily in the knewly organicaly fertilized yard...but even if we'd had a mower, we couldnt have used it back there for how uneven and rocky the yard had become...so the weeds grew...and then i broke down and began watering the back yard with weed killer every couple of days till they were at least dead weeds, instead of flourishing ones.

anyhow...i finally got tired of them..and knew that if i didnt get out there and take care of the dead ones, new ones would grow up in them and we'd have even worse of a mess on our hands!
so...today i grabbed a rake, put on some gloves...and tackled the yard.

okay..these weeds were probably around 3-4 feet high..and average about a quarter inch thick..but since they all were killed last year..they mostly popped right out of the ground..and those with roots too deep broke off right at the surface. it wasnt nearly as hard of a job as it could have been. realy, the hardest part is getting everything into piles...which i now have 4 or 5 of in the back yard. oh if there were three of me!

all in all, about two and a half hours work..on an augusta spring day (about 70 degrees) i'm sweaty but not miserably so..i feel good.

there are some new non-dead weeds out there..and i pulled up a bunch of them...but by the time i was done clearing out the twigy dead ones...my hands were blistered and my motivation to pull up live weeds was gone. so..another day, i'll get my weed killer and spray those guys:)

and another day, i'll ellect people to help me move those piles...with shovels and more rakes, maybe. or i'll clone myself a few times..and we'll all do it together.

i cant help but think that there has got to be an afordable way to make that backyard into a normal nice usable piece of land again....