Voice Lessons

I feel like I'm going through a nice phase of self development. I'm looking for ways to become more. One way I'm trying to do this is by developing my singing voice. I'm not a TERRIBLE singer, but I'm not far off. There's a joke in my family (not sure if it's true or not), that my Grandpa asked that none of his descendants sing at his funeral. So, as you can see, I'm not alone. Most in my family are not gifted in music. Perhaps that's one reason why I was attracted to Scott. In my sub-conscience I wanted to improve my gene pool. :) You're welcome, kids.

Okay, enough about them. Let's talk about me. I mentioned to my friend, Jen, that I was interested in taking voice lessons from her. I wasn't sure how much they would cost, but was pretty sure on a grad student income, we might only be able to afford a few lessons. As it turned out, I would be able to afford less than I thought. Jen has her masters in music performance and has trained with some pretty incredible people. She's done some different Broadway shows and is a part of a professional organization, even. Her time is worth much more than I could have guessed.

I determined that I would probably just have to wait till after grad school to look for voice development. Then one day Jen sent out an email inviting six people in our ward to be a part of a six week voice boot camp. She would do it for free, but we would each have to pitch in money to pay for an accompanist and music. We meet at our house, and Scott is our accompanist. It has worked out great!

I'm getting a chance to learn more about singing. I'm learning that I have to let go of looking "cool" to do that. Not that I've ever been too cool anyway. :) I'm learning about breathing, singing from a certain region in my head (if that doesn't make sense to you, I'm just figuring it out), and how to be more confident in my voice.

It has been awesome. I've loved every minute of it! While I know I'm not meant to become a vocal performer, I do find joy in developing some new talents.

Thanks, Jen! You're the best!

Right here. Right now.

Sometimes as the wife of a graduate student, I get a little bogged down with the life I’m excited to live after graduation that I forget to recolonize how great life is right here, right now. I tend to focus on living on a low income, making do as a family of five in a two bedroom condo, and the hardship of missing time with family. Today I had a moment of clarity while playing tennis with an 87 year old woman from Israel. She mentioned, “Oh, the sounds of the birds are so lovely.”

So, I took a moment to listen to the sounds of the birds, and then I started to see just how great my life is right now. It isn't exactly what I think I want forever, but it is so so good. Here are a few things I love about my life. Right here. Right now.

-   Playing tennis with my local women’s tennis league

-   Taking voice lessons from my amazingly talented friend, Jen

-   Biking with my friends Kristin and Keri

-   Basketball at 6 am (when I wake up) with Br. McConnell and company

-   Home schooling my children

-   Amazing friends

-   Park day, every day!

-   A clean and comfortable home

-   Healthy food

-   Healthy children

-   My perfect partner in crime, my dear husband

-   Learning to play the ukulele

-   Learning to play the mandolin

-   Writing club

-   Book club

-   Camping

-   Backpacking

-   Horses to use whenever I want to ride (thanks to Rebecca Durda)

-   Tucking in sweet sleeping children

-   Breakfast as a family complete with prayer and scriptures

-   Swim team for my boys

-   Working with the Young Women

-   Dates with my sweetheart

-   My growing plants

-   Sunny days

So next time I start lamenting the fact that Scott is a grad student, and I dream of my future, I plan to focus on the now. I love the now. I will never be here living this life again, and you better believe I’m going to enjoy it.

Question for you...

Could you live in one of these?

What if it looked like this on the inside?

What if it was only for a few years?

About the bikes

For a long time I have dreamed of owning one of these Bakfiets bikes...

The problem is, they cost about $3500 to get one of these babies. You read that right! $3500! I want to ride  bikes more as a means of transportation, but I'm not sure I can ride enough to justify spending almost as much on a bike as I did my minivan.

I worked on some ideas. How about I make my own. I looked into some different things others have done to build their own homemade Bakfiets. You take a kids bike, and adult bike, chop each in half, and then weld them together with a little extra metal in between.

I liked it, and thought I might try it out. I had some concerns about how well it would work, if the steering would be reliable, how much time and energy it would take to build something usable... Then Scott showed me this bad boy.

It's called an Xtracycle Hooptie. You can actually fit three kids behind you as you ride, one of which can be an infant bike seat. And some groceries too! One of the best benefits is that it rides like a bike, instead of driving like boat (referring to the Bakfiets).

But wait, there's more!!! It's not NEARLY as expensive. It is a third of the price of the Bakfiets!

Here's a video so you get the full experience...

I should also mention that this lady is my inspiration. Here's an article about her.

What am I?

My little brother accuses me of being a hippie. I've been changing a bit, and embracing things that are a little outside the typical Idaho-farm-girl mentality I've always had. I'm not sure when I stared to change my views on things, but I thought I'd make a list of the a few of the things that have evoked the "you're such a hippie" response from my little brother.

Things I do or would like to do that might make me a hippie...

Cloth Diapers. I actually do this. Sometimes I use disposable, but right now we are 100% cloth.

Homemade deodorant. I've been using this for about four months now. I love it.

Homemade dish detergent. I've been using this for about six months.

Homemade laundry soap. Six months on this one too.

Homeschool (Waldorf Style). We started in September, and we love it.

Biking. I totally want one of these! I'd love to bike to most places rather than drive. I've had a hard time finding a way to transport my kids and this seems like the perfect solution.

Grass fed farming dreams. Our big goal is to have some acreage, get some chickens, a milk cow, some pigs, and a horse or two, a dog. This might be our top priority for our ten-year-plan.

Tiny house fascination. I love the idea of building one of these things. I'm not sure why... but it just looks really cool.

Wooden toys, nothing battery operated. This is a product of homeschooling Waldorf style. We are slowly transitioning our toys to all be open ended imaginative toys.

Beekeeping dreams. Scott went to bee school. Now we want to have bees. I think we'll wait until we have more than a patio to keep them on.

Clean eating. I don't do this yet. But I wan to. We have slowly over the past few years been limiting our refined foods. We try to do more whole grain things. Less sugar. More foods in their natural state.

Juicing. I bought a juicer. I use it once a month or so. I'd like to use it more, but so far I've been neglecting it.

These are the thing I can come up with right now. So I have to ask myself. Am I a hippie. The answer I usually give myself and others is, "No". And I think that's an accurate answer, but I still have to ask myself. What am I? What motivates me to do these things? I'm not sure I've found the answer to these questions.

Natural Bridge Caverns and Safari Zoo

We went down to San Antonio to watch my brother's kids for a few days. While they went to school, we did too. :) We decided to check out a cavern near my brother's house. It was about ten minutes away. Right next to it they also had a safari style zoo. We drove through it and enjoyed feeding all sorts of animals. The most memorable were the zebras and the ostriches. I wish I had pictures of them.

The zebras came up to our window and opened their mouths for us to toss in the food pellets we were given. It took us a little while to understand what they were doing. Smart smart animals. It was all I could do not to reach out and pet their soft looking noses.

The ostriches were a little more scary. They have the longest necks. We were too afraid to try and feed them the way we did the zebras because they could easily fit their little heads into our car if we weren't careful. They even tried to get in though the sun roof. They also pecked our windows when we rolled them up. Wow, never thought I'd be afraid of an ostrich.

The caverns were cool too, but it was a little more stressful for me. Gracie didn't appreciate them as much as the boys did. She also loved practicing her squeal in the cavern since it made cool echos. Thankfully, the four other people in our group didn't seem to mind. I was happy it was a small group.

The boys did a good job about not touching the stalagmites. They were really good and seemed to enjoy learning all about them. Jeff was most fascinated with how they got electricity into the caverns. He stumped the tour guide with a few of his questions.

Jeff is full of questions about almost every single thing he encounters. It's fun to teach him the things he is interested in learning about.

Thanks to my friend Keri for taking pictures for me. She also cam with me to help watch the kids. She was SOOO much help. And, she got good pictures for me to keep the memory as well.

A few days

Well, I've got a few days under my belt now. I've been excited to think about how limitless our possibilities are. For example, Today I talked to my friend who has horses and we worked it out that I can take Jeff to work with them. I'm planning on taking him once a week, but we'll have to see how it all flows. I'm discovering that developing a good rhythm is one of the most important and most difficult things to create. When I talked to Scott about it, we were both excited about making this available to Jeff. He LOVES riding horses, and is naturally confident with them. He just gets right on and lets the horse know what she needs to do. He rides a horse named Brownie. She's a sweet mare that is from Idaho. We had an immediate connection. :)