The One Where We Exchanged Phone Numbers

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have never been much of a hugger. Hugging is a personal thing to me. Really, physical contact of any kind is pretty personal. I maintain my personal space most of the time. Hugging is generally reserved for people for whom I feel genuine love and affection. But over the past few years, I have had to adapt to hugging culture, and decide that I have some degree of love and affection for more people than I had previously thought. Therefore, more hugs. Although, in all fairness, I have noticed that hugs are not “one size fits all.” There are many different kinds of hugs. Where am I going with this? Well, twice in two days I have gotten hugs from perfect strangers. Because of my new CD. So, good story:

I spent the evening stuffing padded envelopes and boxes with CDs for mailing, and then sticking labels on. I loaded all the CD orders in a huge box, and at 9:00 a.m. I drove down to the little post office in the canyon. I knew that my fifty parcels were going to take awhile to process, so as a little thank you I took along one of the CDs. It took about thirty minutes to post them all, and about halfway through the postal employee was admiring the artwork on the mailing labels, which is the same as the CD cover. I told her thank you, and that I had brought her a CD.

She was so excited that she opened it up and actually kissed my picture on the inside of the label:). She insisted that she would be playing my CD and showing it to everyone who came in. She called it her “marketing program.” She took me into the back room (I have never been in the back room of a post office before), showed me a bunch of options for free packaging and loaded me up with samples. She instructed me that on my next batch of mailing, I was to call her and make an appointment for a “secret meeting” a half hour before the post office opens. We exchanged phone numbers, and then a hug. I can say with perfect certainty that it was the most warm and friendly postal experience I have ever had. And the hug thing… second time in two days. I think this is going to be an interesting week.

By the way... the photo was taken near the Trabuco Canyon post office in 1969. And it still looks just like that.

The One Where She Killed the Car Battery

So I don't have a decent CD player. Most of the time I don’t care. I have perfectly awesome M-Audio monitor speakers connected to my computer, and so listening to music in here is great. But I finally mastered a finished CD today. Yes, I met my deadline that I set myself a couple of months ago, and DK and I spent much of the day finishing up the artwork that will grace the CD itself, as well as the jewel case insert, etc.

And I was all proud of my CD... particularly because I made something of a breakthrough in the quality of the mastered CD and was pretty much dying to listen to it. Sort of like when you get new clothes that you love, and you keep wanting to try them on? Well, no CD player in the house. BUT my Suburban has a really nice Bose sound system. Hmm. It also has a battery that has seen better days. So tonight I sneaked out to the car, and listened to the CD in there. I turned on the engine every ten minutes or so to recharge the battery so that I could get through all the songs. At one point DK came out and asked, “Aren’t you afraid you will run the battery down?” and I smugly answered, “No.” Well, not five minutes later I went to turn on the engine and... CLICK. I tried again. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK. Dang it. Don’t tell DK but I ran the battery down in the car.

The One Where Her Bloggiversary Came... and Went

I have clearly been in need of a makeover... and I’m not just talking about the blog, here. I have let a few things slide. This is the least amount of sleep I have gotten since I had newborn babies... I guess my CD is aptly named. My deadline to finish all the music for the CD is Friday. I have every intention of making that, even if it means I let everything else go. I have been a pretty lame wife, mother, friend, primary teacher, housekeeper, laundress... and the list goes on. So four more days aren’t going to matter.

And I realized that my one-year mark for this blog... it came and went a couple of days ago. Ah, well... I will write something profound another day. I’ve got nothing. Not this week. This week I am wavering between tears (Oh! go listen to the song I just put up on the other blog, right here. Look at the painting, and read the words. I couldn’t even get through it without getting teary-eyed, and I wrote it!) and... anyway, wavering between tears and, well, a little bit of naughtiness... I keep thinking of interesting prank ideas. Today is DK’s birthday, and he is not a fan of pranks. So I will refrain. For today. But if, tomorrow, you find your shoes glued to the floor, or your Facebook hacked with a picture of a gigantic fat guy as your profile pic, or 5,000 plastic forks stuck in your front lawn... you will know it is just me, blowing off a little steam.

P.S. As for the blog, I know it really does need a makeover... the mp3 player doesn’t currently work, and next week when I have a little time, I will make it so you can listen to music on this blog again. For now, enjoy a little navidad over at “All About the Baby.” xo

The One With Jif in the Skeleton Costume

Okay, seriously, now... how cute is my grandson? (and my daughter-in-law the pirate is pretty cute, too). Well, Saturday morning my son Skippy (who is six) came and woke me up. He had tears in his eyes, and he told me how disappointed he was that we didn’t put up our Halloween decorations. The main problem is that we have this really adorable Halloween advent calendar from Pottery Barn Kids from a couple years back, where last year I left treats, cars, little mini skateboards, notes and such... and here we are at the 25th of October, and we haven’t even hung it on the wall. So guess what... yup. I got out the Halloween decorations. And my house is pretty much a disaster. But Skippy... he is happy. So it was worth it, right? Say right. Now I need to come up with something to put in the remaining advent pockets. And quickly.

One last thing... the shameless plug. Please please please go over and check out the Christmas blog. I just added a new song, and I will add another tomorrow. If you haven’t purchased your CDs, hurry hurry! They will be shipping out in just over two weeks to everyone who pre-orders. And when you go over, leave some comment love! I start to think I am the Lone Ranger.

The One Where She Can’t Figure it Out

Okay, so... fellow bloggers help me out here... I can’t fix my Christmas blog. Despite everything I have tried, it keeps putting all the items that belong in the sidebar (gadgets, profile, followers, etc...) at the bottom of the blog! I tried removing my third-party background. That didn’t help. I changed the template, and changed it back. Nothing. I am using the same template (Minima Lefty) that I use for this blog, and this one is not having any problems. Does anyone have a fix for me? It has been like this for about three days, and it is seriously driving me nuts.

Here is the link to go look:


Oh, and while you are there, listen to the sneak peeks of music for the new CD I have on there. And for goodness sakes, leave me a comment or two! Let me know if you can figure out my problem... (and I am talking about the blog problem... I’m just saying...)

Okay... I give up. As soon as I posted this, the problem FIXED itself. I don’t understand... but I’ll take it. If you know why I am having this issue, you can still let me know! And go enjoy the new song I just put up.... there are three now!

The One With the $22 Bread

In my opinion, nothing is going to top DK’s post from yesterday... I am pretty excited about pre-selling my CDs. And make no mistake: I have been hard at work. It is 1:07 a.m. and yes, I am still at it. I had four different singers over today to record, and now I am trying to make it all work together. With varying degrees of success. If you haven’t ordered your CDs yet, go down a post and click the link. It is super fun! And don’t forget to check out my “All About the Baby” blog. I am going to put up another song tomorrow (okay, well... today, I guess it is), so there are some sneak peeks.

But tonight I am stopping for a moment to ponder where my bread is. I am going to guess somewhere in the air over the midwest. I did not have time to make a package today, but one of my boys was in need of bread. It happened to be Ethan, in Virginia. He pointed out that I have never (not once) sent him a package, and that furthermore the chow hall at the Naval Base does not even try to approximate home cooking. That is sad, but true. What he really wanted was homemade bread. Homemade bread is less delectable after three or four (or six) days. So I made the bread... all white, as per request. Sliced it, bagged it, and headed over to Fedex with two very soft, fresh loaves. There the Fedex employee who saw me cramming the loaves into one of those three-inch high Fedex boxes was very offended. She yelled across the room: Stop! You’re squishing that bread! She insisted on finding me an larger box and padding the bread so that it would arrive fluffy instead of a compressed ball of dough.

The package... it wasn’t my best work. A quickly typed letter from Mom, a Nightmare Before Christmas CD, the bread, and a well bubble-wrapped jar of homemade jam. But it was the best I could do today. Or this week. Or this month. And I couldn’t help but think: Two loaves of homemade white bread: 50 cents. Fedex standard overnight shipping: $22. A package from home: Priceless.