Family

Awesome Things

- Melody

I “made up” a new hairstyle. I’ll try to get pics tomorrow.
Getting loads of compliments on my “made up” hairstyle. I really have a lot of hair.
Our Masterworks concert was Saturday night. John Rutter’s Gloria never ceases to make me cry.
Mexican food with my family and the in-laws after the concert. Lots of conversation and hot sauce with butter. Yum.
Someone is finally coming to look at one of my prom dresses for sale next week! Yay!
I’M GOING TO FLORIDA IN A WEEK.
Hearing all of my sister’s stories about her week in NYC. I want to go back!
That sister buying me a present that I will receive tomorrow. Hooray!
Did I mention I’m going to Florida in a week?

Finally starting to make a hair appointment! Me making a hair appointment usually goes about like this:
Hair grows out way too long.
Mel gets anxious and waits forever to call and make appointment.
Mel finally calls to make appointment. Hair stylist isn’t in.
Hair stylist calls Mel back at a number that doesn’t exist because Mel doesn’t know her own home phone number.
Hair stylist is friends with Mel on Facebook. Hair stylist messages Mel and gives a callback number.
Mel calls callback number. Leaves message without another callback number.
Mel leaves Facebook message with actual home number this time.
Mel eventually gets her haircut.

And they all lived happily ever after with freshly cut hair.

What We’ve Been Up To

- Melody

My incredibly lucky sister got to go to NYC this week and skip school. Texas A&M-Commerce’s choir got invited to sing at Carnegie Hall! How AMAZING is that?! She kept sending me pictures all week and these were my favorites.
-View from her hotel at night
-The FOUR STORY Forever21.
-Central Park

It’s been a pretty lazy week, despite my monstrous music history test I had to study for. (I think I did alright! Here’s to hoping for a B…)
-LB has discovered the sink.
-The COOLEST decal I saw parked next to me Wednesday. LOST fans? Anyone?
-A favorite picture my sister took of us.
-The Blue Man Group was playing at the Cowan center (the big auditorium at UT) and they’re “stuff” was sitting in the hallway beside my voice lesson. Crazy cool.
-Just saw this on our A/C temp controller yesterday. If you’ve been in a choir you know who this guy is. If not, google him!
-Homemade calzones. 🙂
-Our new couches on the trailer.
-The best place to eat near us!
-Picking up some books at the library.

All I did yesterday was workout (every day this week so far!), do all the dishes from this shin-dig (finally–embarrassing), laundry, and listen to the Civil Wars on Grooveshark. A very productive day I’d say. 🙂

How was your week?

PS. Google Friend Connect was recently discontinued. So if you were following me through Google and can’t anymore, follow me through Bloglovin’. The link is on the left under my picture. 🙂

A Gif for Little Bit

- Melody


dress: Old Navy, cardigan: thrifted, belt: Old Navy, shoes: Buffalo Exchange

So all I had to do Thursday was sing one song in our studio class (a performing class when all the voice students in a particular studio come together and sing for each other) and take a vocabulary quiz in my vocal pedagogy class. Our teacher surprised us by only keeping us 20 minutes of the full hour in class! Woohoo!

It was raining all day yesterday and will continue to storm throughout the weekend. Too bad I’ll be beaching it up next week. 🙂 So when I came home there weren’t a lot of picture options so I decided the “best” spot was in my music room. These were the best ones that came out of 100+ pictures we took. Yeah. It’s an art. I’ve really been wanting to drive around and take “location” pictures. There are a lot of neat places around here! Jason’s response? “Make some money on your blog. Then I’ll go somewhere else.” Plus the fact that Jason is already embarrassed to take them because kids at school have seen him taking them of me in our yard and have said things to him, haha. Like, “I saw you taking pictures of your girlfriend.” HA! Plus, it’s not necessarily his favorite thing to do, believe it or not.

ANYWAY, when we were taking these, I sat on my desk in front the window and LB decided she wanted to get in on some photog action. Here’s a little .gif I made of her…

Isn’t she adorable?

In some sad news, the family cat, Pippin, died yesterday afternoon after his health suddenly took a turn for the worst. That cat was my dad’s world. They were buddies! He was the craziest, toughest, sweetest cat you’d have ever met. He protected the girl kitties from being beat up by bigger boy cats and paid heavily for it with the cat version of cauliflower ears and cuts and bruises. But he survived all of them! We are glad, though, that dad was able to be home with him before he died. If you think about it, even though it might seem a little silly, just pray for our family! Thanks, guys.

Hope your spring break is great! Happy weekend!

These Are My Thoughts

- Melody

I made a vow to myself to exercise and eat breakfast every day this week. So far so good… but it’s only Monday. I figured I’d challenge myself and see what I could do before spring break when WE GO TO FLORIDA. SO. DANG. EXCITED!! If it’s anything like last summer I’ll never want to leave! Family, sand, and margaritas here I come…

I’m currently working on an extremely long music history review for a test Wednesday. I love the teacher but preparing for the tests is a week long activity. Yeeesh. I have a lot to do tonight and tomorrow. Blahhhhhh…

I’m long overdue for a leg shavin’.

Jason has a love/hate relationship with video games. I’ve recently learned about him that he will fall in love with something for a couple of weeks then kind of fall back out of love with it. That is what is happening with this game Borderlands. I think I got it for him for Christmas or something one year? Well, since we cancelled cable we’re finding all kinds of stuff to do. Hence the recent love affair with this game. He’s currently playing it like he has been for several hours. I took a nap, ate dinner, worked on some homework, and worked out. Meanwhile, the scathes and spiders attack him while he tries to find corroded crystals.

I haven’t really seen our cats in three days. Friday I was at my sister’s concert, and I stayed the night at my parents that night so I was gone all day Saturday. Sunday we went grocery shopping and were out for several hours. I think Little Bit hates me.

Speaking of Saturday. THE most amazing thing happened to us. So I spent the night at my parent’s right? (Because Texas A&M Commerce is about 2 hours away and we left early to eat with my sister before the concert and the -AMAZING- concert was 2.5 hours long! 2 hours back=1:20 am.) The next day we were all lounging around when my Mimi calls my mom. They had bought new couches and were GIVING my parents their practically new leather ones! WHAAAAAAT?! So guess who inherited my parent’s 2 year old couches?! UH, HELLO. WE CAN BOTH FIT ON THE COUCH NOW! We’ve gone from futon, to a couch from the home-ec room with a dead black widow in it, to new FREE couch and loveseat! Our living room actually looks like a living room now. Thank you to my dad, mom, Mimi, and Pawpaw for moving things and giving things away! We LOVE you guys!

Oil and Gas

- Melody

So many times I think I should always have the windows up when I’m driving. When I’m consciously thinking about it and wondering why the car is so stuffy I finally roll them down. And I never regret it.

Today, on my way home from school, I was stopped behind an old Jeep at a red light. With my windows down I smelled gas and oil. That smell took me back. Way back. My grandparents on my mom’s side lived in White Oak for as long as I can remember in a log house on a dead end road. An oil derrick sat on the left side of the house creaking and squeaking at all hours of the day. If you live in East Texas you know that White Oak has a very distinct oil smell on account of all the oil there. (duh.) When I smelled that Jeep’s exhaust I remembered her. I remembered my grandmother. I remembered that log house and that old Chevy suburban that sat in the grass. I remembered that squeaky black derrick and that row of trees outside the bedroom window.

I remembered Chety, or as I knew her, MawMaw. And I missed her. Not in a there-is-a-lump-in-my-throat kind of way. I missed her. Who she was. All the parts I knew and all the parts of her I didn’t.

So I stayed behind that Jeep for as long as he’d let me to smell that smell. To smell her. To smell that log house and the inside of that suburban that smelled like sweet tobacco and oil.

My whole way home I smelled memories. Sweet tea with lemon, cow pastures, and her.

The Pop-In

- Melody

Saturday night the fam-bam and our BFFEs popped over for a little spaghetti and chit chat. The BFFEs decided they needed to buy out WalMart’s stock of soda! They will be regifted… 🙂

From top to bottom:

1. Gavin and Holley!
2. Dad SHOWING US UP with his Indian song.
3. Making fun of me for taking pictures.
4. GOTCHA RUDY!
5. Apparently spaghetti wasn’t enough for Holley…
6. The drinks..
7. Ahh.. a fire to counteract the torrential rain we were experiencing.
8. Jason fell asleep.