For The Love of Music

OK! I LOVE music! It's gets you grooving and moving, or calms you down after a long day! It just depends on the genre you choose to listen too! In my case it's pretty much everything! I remember when MP3's first came out and my son wanted one, probably because music was one thing he could really relate to.  (His story is for another post to explain that last statement.)  Anyway, I remember getting him an MP3 player and having the worst time trying to get music loaded on it.  I am not a stupid person, but the instructions for that fine piece of technology and some of the later programs or whatever they were called that offered the music, well, they all left me with a lot to desire!!

So, finally, since he was a kid, and irresponsible like most kids, we got him an iPod Shuffle! That year they were really cheap since Apple had come out with the Nano, I think it was called.  Which really dropped the price and size of the Shuffle to something that if my son broke it, it was OK!  (We still have that Shuffle and it has been passed down to his brothers, until they got their own I Pads~ which would be a great topic for another post).  I loved the sound of that little 1"X1" square and it really held a lot of music, so I got myself one too. The sound quality of the Apple ear-buds, in my honest opinion, and their products are a force to be reckoned with for the money!! I loved my Shuffle, especially since my husband gets tired of hearing music, therefore I got to listen to all my favorite types of music, by myself! I love doing this while I clean the house, just makes it easier and time goes faster.  Did I mention how easy I-Tunes is to download, then load their files on to the Shuffle, iPods, iPhone, etc... Much easier than the other 4 programs I tried to use, and that was so long ago that I can't ever remember which ones I tried. The only problem was that, in those days, if you lost your music, ie..PC, where all the music was loaded and just happened to crash, you had to kiss all those downloads bye-bye! Money down the drain! Was not a pleasant experience. Imagine my surprise when my other son got his i-Pad and now I got all that music back, for FREE!! Which convinced my husband when it came time to get new phones, because both of our laptops died and the desktop left a lot to be desired too, and we still had flip-phones! So you guessed it, we got  i-Phones. We still have the 4 and 4s, even though they just came out with the i-Phone 6 recently, which works great for us!!  Portable handheld PC's, phones and i-Pods all in one tiny, compact piece of technology!

So, fast forward to October, 2014! I finally bit the bullet, took everything off my i-phone to make storage space for the latest iOS 8 update!  Of which my biggest file is my music! It was OK though, Apple even made loading all those songs back on so simple.  But, while I was going through my purchased music, I had to endure some of the songs my son downloaded.  Endure is not really a strong enough of a word here!  We used to censor his music in the beginning, because there is a bunch of negative music out there these days, which is really sad! This lead to a conversation with my husband when he asked what I was doing, because although it was easy, it was time consuming.  I let the DH (remember to look at the top for what DH stands for) listen to some of the songs that said son has downloaded.  Some not so bad, but the majority of it was, I'm not even sure what genre it would be called, oh my goodness!! It could possibly be called heavy metal? I know when I listened to 'heavy metal' it had a lot of screaming, usually from the guitars, but this is far worse.  Who could possibly think screaming at the top of their unintelligible lungs with screaming instruments is music? We were lost! It's his generation, WOW!!  I couldn't even dance or groove to that stuff! All we could do was shake our heads!

Thankfully, I've downloaded all the songs I wanted from i-Tunes of my past purchases, and that torture is OVER! Whew! I survived! Now, if I can just get the other 2 boys to not like that stuff! Wish me luck!! 

When Does It Get Too Cold For The Crickets?

Sooooo.............. I woke up at 3 a.m., usual time of night to hit the 'little girls room'.  When I got back in bed, I accidentally missed the coaster that I keep my lidded, large with handle, Tervis tumbler in.  I sat it back up thinking that there wasn't enough water in it to spill, when I heard the trickle of H2O hitting the floor.  CRAP! So, I had to scramble, in the dark, to the bathroom to grab a towel, turn the light on, waking the DH, to wipe up the water! Of course by now, I'm wide awake, sort of!!  I wasn't quite awake, but enough that a funny sound was coming through the open window (yes, we still do that sort of thing this time of year).  Being in this new house, I've seen and heard all kinds of strange things.  Being out in the county, they still use the old siren horns to alert the volunteer fire department, and that was what I evidently heard. I think this, because shortly after it started, I heard the truck sirens going the opposite direction from my house. The volunteer fire house is literally about a 1/4 of a mile around the corner. Anyway, the sound caught my attention and sleep alluded me by then.  So, I got closer to the window to try to figure out the noise, when of course it stopped! ERGG! I sat there for a minute, listening to nothing other than the crickets! CRICKETS? It's in the 40's outside and I hear crickets? OK! I know once the temps start getting into the 60's that a lot of insects can't move, but obviously, crickets are not one of them! I love the sound of crickets, many a summer night they have lulled me to sleep. But when it's that chilly, and after the shock of having to clean up the water, it was not lulling to hear them! Know What I Mean?  So, here I am at 6:30 a.m. writing about the crickets.  I don't know why my brain got caught on the temperature and the noisy crickets, but it did.  It's one of life's mysteries I guess!

I'm off to see if I can slumber some more, before I have to teach the kids! UGH!! It's OK though, it will still be a pleasant day!!  Especially since the day promises to be beautiful, clear skies and in the low 70's! I love this time of year, hence the open windows!

I really hate doing taxes!!

Well, there is nothing like waiting until last minute to do those darned TAXES!! UGH!! Just got done, it's ll:25 pm, October 15! Literally under the gun, wouldn't you say? Actually, this year, we knew we'd be moving and had truly planned on doing them on Tax Day, April 15.  Unfortunately though, on April 14 at 7pm, while meeting my oldest to renew his phone contract and get him an iPhone finally, my precious sweet Betsy conked out on me.  She had been acting up for a while, which we later found out she just needed a new distributor, but she had the worst timing! I didn't know how we were going to pay for her repairs, it was tax day and I had not even begun to gather all the information I needed to file.  So, extension city it was! In retrospect, if I had known then, what I know now, I'd have just scrambled on April 15. In the words of Larry the Cable Guy, I'd have just "got'er done!" LOL! I'd have had the money to get her fixed.  But, it actually worked out for the better.  My parents helped us out and got it fixed for less, because they know wonderful people who understand life's circumstances sometimes.  Anyway, my wonderful, big sis let us borrow their extra truck and a trailer to move with, which took 4 months to do, and they kept my car at their house until we were done.  So, it all happened for a reason and it all worked out, what more could one ask for? So, Uncle Sam just got to make a bit more interest on the money I invested, but now I'm getting it back! Woot! I'm clicking my heels!

Night Y'all!!

Darn If I Didn't Do It Again!!!!

OOPS!! It seems I did it again! It's been quite a while since I've posted! Oh well, I've been busy and so much has changed, for the better I might add, for our precious family!  We are still self-employed and surviving, thank goodness.  However, we have moved into my in-laws old house, which has given my boys their own rooms and us a very nice, large garage, albeit, we can't get any of our cars in there, LOL! Typical, right?  Actually, it does house my father-in-laws 'toy' Corvette for the time being.  He's mentioned selling it, since he's now remarried and has a very steep driveway ,that is not friendly to ground hugging sports cars, let alone trailer hitches on 4-wheel drive pick-ups (speaking from experience).  Anyway, we started moving into this house back in April and we still have items in the old house that we need to deal with, most of which I think is going to go bless someone else's home.  It really is kind of silly taking 6 months to move, but, I'm sort of glad for it. I can't imagine just packing everything up and taking it all to a new home in one trip! At least I can decide what I want to keep and what I want to give away, before I bring it here. Don't get me wrong, there is quite a bit here already that should never have come. Oh well, if I ever move again, at least I'll be lighter in the move, LOL!

Anyhow, TIME has been my enemy, not my friend!  I don't know where it sneaks off to hide from me, but it's quite efficient at doing it.  During the 1st few months of our move, we stopped schooling for the year, and we picked it back up to finish last years work about 2 weeks after moving into our new home. I don't find schooling my kids hard, but it does take the time from us.  This year, luckily, my youngest is becoming a little bit more independent, which frees me up a bit, whew! I knew the day would come, and it's slowly getting here. 

So, if  anyone is wondering why I'm writing today, well, it came up in a conversation at lunch today.  Unfortunately, the husband of a co-worker, from my job I left 9 years ago, passed away and his funeral was today.  A lot has changed about me in the past 9 years, so at first people didn't recognize me, but once they did it was as if I had never left those folks.  They were a great group to work with, some of the nicest people you'd ever meet and in respect, I'm thankful for FaceBook, because it has allowed a few of us to stay in touch.  Anyway, after the service, a several of us were able to go out to lunch and have fellowship.  It was a lot of fun and brought back loads of memories of lunches spent with several of these same people.  One of them asked me if I had a blog, how they knew to ask is beyond me, but yep I do! Although, I'm extremely poor at keeping it up, like you couldn't tell by the lapse in between posts, LOL!!  So, I thought, once I got my son off the laptop, I'd see just how long it had been. (Really wish I was good at adding those cute little emoticons right now, because I'd put the one with the surprised look here ~ you'll just have to use your imgagination!)  I swear it seems like I wrote the last post at the begining of this year, not 2 years ago! It's fun, so maybe I'll try to be better at keeping this up, although I refuse to make a promise, as you can see I'm not good at it.

Good Night!!