Today was a crazy day, after a crazy weekend. Friday night, David and I did some shopping. David bought some shirts at the Disney store, his says "Grumpy U" on it and mine says "Bee Happy Every Day." I also bought a pair of hot pink Converse high tops! Now I am styling! On Saturday, we went and saw the youth at David's church perform The Sound of Music. That is one of my favorite musicals, and I wanted to sing along the whole time! (I didn't, though.) Afterwards, I got autographs from most of the kids, which they seemed to enjoy. We were both really impressed with the production. The kids did a marvelous job! Great job, guys! Thank you for a truly enjoyable performance. After we left the church, we went out to Garland to visit my grandmother in the hospital. We had a nice visit with her. She is doing fine and went home on Sunday.

Sunday was a good day, also. The choir kids were nuts! I took them to the gym for Palm Sunday rehearsal five minutes early, because I was ready to get rid of them! We were working on our program for Palm Sunday. We are singing two songs with the Sunday school children. Since there are three groups of children and three directors, we divided ourselves up among the kids. I'm in charge of directing the preschool kids. I tell them when to sing, and when to wave their palm branches. (However, I do not think giving a bunch of children palm branches is a good idea. They'll play with them when their not supposed to. Oh, well). I then got a surprise phone call and found out that Andrea was in town, so we got to go eat lunch with her and visit. Sunday night was orchestra rehearsal. Don worked us really hard! Plus, he had us percussionists running around like chickens with our heads cut off! It was an enjoyable evening.

I found out yesterday that I won't have to go up to Denton anymore on Mondays! Hooray! This means I get to save on gas money! I had a dress rehearsal with the Wind Symphony last night. We performed at St. Andrew. It is an absolutely beautiful church! The sanctuary reminds me of the Meyerson. Except for the cross hanging from the ceiling, it didn't even look like a sanctuary. I hope we get to play there again sometime!

Well, it is late and I am tired. Good night, world!

New web site: Heather's site! Check it out!

Friday morning, Mom and I set out early, swinging by my aunt's house and getting her, before meeting up at my grandparents' house. We then set off for Mississippi. We all went in one car (a Suburban), and amazingly enough, I did not wind up in the middle seat the whole time. We had a fun drive up there, singing along and dancing in our seats to the cds playing from the stereo. We got to Jackson around five-thirty, visited for awhile, then journeyed out for dinner. We went to Copeland's, which is a New Orleans-style restaurant. I tried some wonderful hickory smoked mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. (I'm still craving those mushrooms. They were that good. A group of women were there wearing their Sweet Potato Queen tiaras. I commented to Mom that we should have worn ours.

After dinner, we were back at Aunt Carol's house. We had so much snack food! I did some damage to the Cheese Nips and Fritos. Saturday, we headed out for the parade. We had matching green shirts that said "Wannabe" on them (if you're not one of the Queens, you're known as a wannabe) and tiaras with green feathers attached. We saw all kinds of crazy outfits on the different queens. A group of tiara-wearing women were across the street from where we stood, we kept doing our "Queenly Wave" to each other (elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist). The parade was lotsa fun! There were a LOT of floats, most of which threw beads and other trinkets. We all caught a bunch of beads. I caught a frisbee, two cups, a luggage tag, and doubloons. I also was given three flowers from people in parade. (They didn't throw those, they walked up and handed them to me.) We came back for a snack lunch (and a quick shower for me) before going to church.

Church was at this beautiful church not far from Aunt Carol's. It was different, in that it had the altar in the center of the church, with the pews all facing inward. It was so pretty with all the stained glass. After church, we started cooking dinner. I had my leftover mushrooms and potatoes from Friday, We sat on the patio and enjoyed the wonderful weather! It was a really, really fun night.

The drive back was pretty uneventful. We stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast, and they had one register open, and no change. That took forever, but it's okay. We made it back around quarter to five, and then had just enough time to unload the car and relax a bit before going to youth with David. He was all pumped up about his mission trip to Costa Rica and was telling me all about it! I am really happy that he was able to go, and I want to go next year! The kids talked about it, too, and I got to see some really great pictures! I'm glad they all had fun and came back safe and sound.

I don't have to go up to Denton this week! I found out lab was cancelled this morning, and I don't have class on Friday. Hooray for saving on gas! Well, I need to go eat some dinner before heading off to dance class. Make it a great one, everyone!

Since David is in Costa Rica, I have been going over and checking on his apartment and feeding his cats. Just like last time, right after I finished cleaning the litter box, Ash comes in and does his business in there! Bad cat! He also kept following me around and meowing, wanting me to pet him/scratch his ears. However, when I went to scratch his ears, he would walk off! Then he'd get mad, hiss and paw at me if I didn't pet him. Weird cat! I guess he just wanted some attention.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

At band rehearsal, we got the concert order, as well as another person to help cover percussion parts. I was so mad at myself, though. Last week, I totally nailed this really tough mallet part on one of the songs. However, last night I just couldn't get it right! Arrrrrrgh! Oh well, I'll get it next week, i'm sure.

Today, I had group supervision this morning. Due to the week off, I had a serious case of the "don't want to's", and did not want to go. I did, of course, but only two of us were there for half an hour, then someone else showed up for the second half. After the meeting, I went upstairs to the research room and crunched numbers for my research project. We tried doing a different statistic than two weeks ago, which came out insignificant. We tried doing it two different ways, and it came out the same. However, then we tried a different statistic and it did come out significant, even after we did it a couple of different ways! The project was looking at spirituality and coping styles in diabetic patients. The statistics we ran found that people who have a high level of spirituality are more likely to use distractive coping, which makes since, because praying or meditating does distract from the illness, even for a short while. I was really, really excited that we found significance! Now all I need to do is do a literature review, write an article and submit it for publication in a journal and/or presentation at a conference!

Here is a site related to all things Irish! As part of my Irish heritage, I take great pride in St. Patrick's Day! Enjoy!

I also got a phone call from Behavior Innovations today. The manager of the facility had a death in the family, so they hadn't been able to discuss my interview yet. They wanted to call and let me know the situation, so I wouldn't feel discouraged. (Which I was feeling discouraged about it.) So I have a better feeling about it now. Yay!

I have a funny story from Sunday morning. As many of you know, I play percussion at church. Sometimes Howard and I switch off playing drum set and accessory percussion (congas, triangle, claves, shaker, wind chimes, tamborine, etc) Anywho, I was covering accessory percussion. We typically open up the service by singing two songs with the congregation, then the music director tells them to sit down, and leads a prayer. Well, I was trying to clip the triangle to my music stand during the prayer, and not only did it not clip, it hit the metal part of the congas, and made a nice loud "ding". I bent over and said,"Shhhh!" to the triangle (Why I did that, I have no idea. It's not like the triangle was going to respond) I realized after I stood up that the microphone next to the congas was turned on! However, I don't think I got close enough to it to pick up my shushing the triangle. If it did, no one said anything. I did get a laugh out of it, though.

Well kids, that's a wrap for today! Go make it a great one!

Birthday Greeting: Happy Birthday, Ralph!!

This past week. What can I say about it, except that it was extremely stressful? I had an exam in my biofeedback class last Wednesday. Thus, I spent the weekend studying. Which is a crummy way to spend a weekend, if you ask me. Tuesday, I was supposed to have two patients. One of which shows up sporadically. So we had a chat about adherence to the sessions. We'll see if she shows up tomorrow. I then had to run to make it for my next appointment, who stood me up. Wahhh! Wednesday was the exam. It wasn't a cakewalk, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was pretty brain dead after it was over, though.

I mentioned previously that I was considering submitting an abstract for Research Appreciation Day. Well, after my exam, I met with my supervisor, and the two of us tried to crank something out. I was getting really frustrated, as every time we tried something, we were met with more and more problems. It was finally time for me to leave and I felt like we made no progress. (We did make some, but it was small.) Since that was my last day up there, I decided that I would not do Research Appreciation Day, and instead submit the finished article to a conference or journal. I was very wound up that day. David was rubbing my back later that evening, and it was all one big knot. I think my knots had knots on them!

Thursday was my interview at Behavioral Innovations. It turned out to be fifteen minutes away from home. The hours and the pay look good, and they acted like they liked me. I should hear something by the middle of this week, so I'm on pins and needles until then. I think it'd be a really neat place to work! Everyone cross your fingers and say a prayer for me. Thursday was also spent working on a presentation for class on Friday. I was supposed to have a power point presentation and a paper to hand out. I stayed up really late to get it finished, and guess what? The first person to present ran over, so I didn't get to present. I was partly frustrated, partly relieved. And kind of annoyed that I put that much effort into it, for nothing. Oh well, I'll present in about a month. Anywho.....

The weekend was good. Friday night was nice and lazy. Saturday was really busy. My cousin takes Irish step dance lessons and was having her first dance festival, which are called feis (pronounced "fesh"). My mom and I went out to see her. Her class danced three times, although I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the three dances. She did a good job, though. I then had to run home and get ready for praise team rehearsal, which went well. I spent the rest of the day at Heather's house. We exchanged Valentine's gifts (yes, I realize it is a little late), painted our nails, did our hair and basically just had fun being all girly. We ran up to Wal-Mart, that's where I got my shoes. I tried them on, then ran over to where the floor was tile and started doing some of my dance steps, to test out the dancability of the shoes. A mom and her daughter walked by and were looking at me funny. (Well, I guess it's not every day someone just starts doing the cha-cha in the middle of Wal-Mart). I explained what I was doing, then they thought it was funny. I did, too.

Sunday was spent hanging out with David. All in all, I had a very good weekend. Sunday was nice and relaxing. I really needed that. Today, I turned in my graduation application and all that paperwork. Everyone mark your calendars for May 8th! I looked up the schedule online, and I am part of the ceremony at 4:30. (I was hoping for 2:30, so I could have the general commencement and my graduation ceremony back to back, but they didn't ask my opinion.) Tonight's dance class was fun. We learned the samba! It is very rhythmical, which I like. During our lesson, we focused on the waltz and swing. It was a fun night!

Anniversary Greetings: Happy Anniversary, Mike and Barbara!

Birthday Greetings: Happy Birthday, Carol!

Internship News Greeting: I have an interview with Birdville ISD for internship next school year!

Texas History Greeting: Happy Texas Independence Day!!