HIV GANGSTA'

My cousin took this picture of this billboard off of the interstate in New Orleans. I still have the giggles about it so I had to post it on my blog! Is this NOT hilarious??? I can't believe this is legit! And hopefully you can read each of the "HIV Prevention Mobsters" names--if you can't, here they are "da Gonorrhea BREAKER, da Crabs ASSASSIN, da Chlamydia CRUSHER, da HIV Awareness ENFORCER, Lady STD KILLA, da Condom FATHER, da Trich TERMINATOR, da Syphillis ELIMINATOR, da Herpes HIT WOMAN, da HPV SLAYER." People, this is where I'm from. OMG. Too funny!

--also note: FREE condoms! YES!

Homemade Pudding Pops? Oh YES!!!

Ok I haven't tried these yet but I SO want to! Don't y'all remember pudding pops? Jello brand made them and they are SUPER hard to find these days. I follow a food blog that had a post about making homemade pudding pops and I was so excited about it! You can find all her recipes and varied pudding pop ideas here at OURbestBITES. I can't wait to try 'em!

PD Singing Videos!!!

This is one of the songs I did before David Osmond's concert. This is one of the songs I did at the Children's museum in the morning. I sang NINE songs in a row then! That's like 45 minutes! I am so not used to that! It really caught up with me by the end of the day. I tried not to talk all afternoon just to rest my voice a bit. This is one of my new favorite songs...I still haven't seen the movie but I want to!

Inspiration

I have to blog about what happened to me Saturday! A few weeks ago I was called by a lady (JanaRae) who is involved quite a bit with the community and is basically an event planner for Pioneer Day celebrations. She heard me sing at a church event (farewell) over a year ago. She had asked me to sing the national anthem at the big rodeo last year--but at the last minute it didn't work out. She promised to keep my name on file and call me for another opportunity in the future. Well she kept that promise and called me a few weeks ago, asking if I'd be interested in singing at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new exhibit at the Children's Museum. Of course! David Osmond was involved in that ceremony, and also performed before I showed up to do my thing. Another country western band was singing when I arrived. Their name was "Saddle Strings" and they were so cool! I loved them! They could not have been ANY nicer to me. They let me use their sound equipement for my "gig" and got me all set up on a sound check.

So I started singing. I think I sang 9 songs--about 45 minutes' worth. It was super windy (which was a bit of a challenge) and my huge sunglasses I was wearing kept sliding down my nose (so I had to fidget with them a lot--annoying)! BUT it was SUPER fun!!! I was pretty nervous for the first song, but as I kept singing I began to relax a bit more. My audience varied a lot since people were milling about waiting to get the free tickets to check out the new exhibit. There were some people that were so sweet and just sat and watched me sing ALL of the songs! One of those people was a middle-aged guy named Jerry. Little did I know Jerry would be my new BFF.

After I quit singing, he approached me. He introduced himself as JanaRae's husband (oh!) and said he had an idea. He wanted to see if David Osmond's people would be okay with me doing a warm-up performance before the show at the big ampitheater in town. (I was like, WHAT?) He just had one condition. I had to sing "Johnny & June" again. Agreed. So he grabbed his wife and they totally agreed it would be awesome--next thing you know she was handing me her cowgirl boots (no joke, she literally took them off her feet and insisted I wear them) and told me to show up at 7pm and plan on singing for a half hour. GAH! I was sooooo excited! I texted like everyone I knew to tell them my good news! The only problem was that I sang for so long in the morning, I could tell my voice was strained (I don't sing often enough to keep the vocal cords in good shape. But hopefully I'll change that problem soon). If I would have known about the evening's gig, I would have sang a few less songs to save the voice! Anyways, I tried not to talk the rest of the day (or as little as possible--y'all know that was a challenge for me. Roob kept teasing me about how nice it was. Hardy har har).

So off & on throughout the day Jerry would send me the cutest text messages with funny things like "livin' the dream" and other motivating things (how cool is this guy?). He also sent me contact info for the sound guy so I could get set up to do a sound check. So on our way down to the ampitheater, I text the sound guy letting him know I was arriving and to find out where I needed to be (this was about 6:45). He text me back "you are supposed to be here NOW." Uh, ok. It wasn't even 7 yet? So I get there and finally meet up with him. He was a bit more abrasive than I was prepared for...first of all he (and his other sound guy) were a bit frustrated that I had my songs on a CD and not on an iPod. They actually had to play the CD through an xBox (no joke)! Then he was all put out that he had to do a sound check with me AFTER they had opened the gates and started letting people take their seats. He also said to me "so look, if you're going to do this sort of thing for laughs and giggles, you need to be here HOURS before the show starts. The Osmonds have been here since 3:30." OUCH. I wanted to cry but I didn't. Just then Jerry showed up and kind of became the dad figure. He explained how he knew it was last minute and he was sorry for the inconvenience but that all they knew was to have me here by 7, etc etc. Then Mr. SOund guy got a little bit nicer, so that was good. Jerry looked at me and was like "just blow it off" so I really tried to do that and just focus on the cool opportunity coming my way. Next thing ya know the sound guy handed me a mike and walked away. So I was assuming it was sound check time.

I've done sound checks before, but never a "real" one, so I wasn't sure what to do. They started my cd and I began singing. As soon as I thought it sounded good, I said that into the mike and I stopped singing. I kind of stood there all awkward wondering what to do next bc not only was the song still playing, but also there was quite a big crowd of people just STARING at me. So a few bars pass and I look up to see the sound guy (they have the sound booth behind the audience at the top of the seating) freaking out doing all these hand signals at me (which I could only interpret as "keep singing!"). Well I wasn't sure where I was in the song AT ALL and had to just keep standing there all awkward until I recognized the music on the chorus. So I started singing again and finally the sound guy gave me a signal for "ok stop." Then he says into a mike "exit stage right!" and I wasn't really sure which right is stage right, so I quickly exited to my right to go hide in the wings. ARGH. What a stressful learning experience, right? Man!

Anyways, then I was trying to put on a confident face backstage bc I wasn't really sure where to go, what to do, where to put the mike he had given me, etc etc. Wow it was nuts. And HOT. I started chit chatting with the MC (he was a great guy) and one of the Osmonds (Nathan) started talking to me and said I sounded good out there. He also told me about his new CD coming out, etc. He was a nice guy. He was excited I was doing country music bc that is what he does. So he starts telling me all this stuff about being in Nashville and writing songs with all kinds of big names you'd know. I was like "oooh cool" because I can't even imagine how awesome that would be! Ok I'm getting sidetracked. Anyways, I still had like almost an hour before the show started. I made a quick bathroom run and that is when I discovered I had my shirt on inside out! LOL. So I had been on stage earlier with a big tag (it is pretty big, too) hanging off my hip! Lovely.

JanaRae found me backstage at one point, and took me into the Osmond's dressing room and introduced me to everyone in there. I got to meet one of the original Osmonds (Alan) and his sons (except for David). They were all very polite to me, which was nice. Then I just hung around by myself, mostly. Just waiting. The anticipation was really killin' me. FINALLY the show began and I went on! I sang 4 songs (it was supposed to be more like 6 or 7, but good thing it was only 4 bc my voice was running out on me during the last one). I was nervous & a bit stiff, but overall I wasn't as nervous as I had expected I'd be. When I was done I had to walk through some of the crowd to get to Roob & Jase. A bunch of people were telling me how much they enjoyed my songs (really? Awesome). That put a big smile on my face!

Then David came out and did his thing. I have to say I noticed that he had way more energy & audience interaction than I did. I made a mental note to step up my game next time around (hopefully there is a next time) and get the crowd a bit more pumped up. I had been so stressed out beforehand that I was totally focused on remembering the words (which, by the way, there were lyric cheat sheets taped to the floor for the Osmonds--nice idea) and singing as best I could. Overall today was really great and I was thrilled to have the experience. I got thrown into the fire, so to speak! But I learned sooo much. I've really been inspired to work more on this singing thing. I also plan on finding a vocal coach. I'm on the hunt. I'd like to keep getting help so I can improve my voice & my confidence level.

Hope you enjoy the videos!

4th of July Videos

1.) Jase throwing those "snap-its" or "pop-its." He loved those things!
2.) Some of the fireworks show with the family
3.) Jase holding hands over ears during show BUT he sure loved it!