i swear i'm going to get over the embarrassment of 1992. i really am. honestly.
1993- This isn't when I started dance class, but its the first memory I actually remember of dance. and while i love love loved class, i hated the recitals at the end of the year. not that i didn't love getting to dress up and wear make-up and have my hair stand at even more epic proportions. bc i did love those things. as much as a half-blind, braces wearing, skinny ass girl with BANGS can love it. but the song that will forever define my dance career (and i say that incredibly liberally) was Taco's version of Puttin on the Ritz. i'm fairly certain at one time or another every single class had to dance to this song as it was an easy fall back number. but i felt so sassy! with my little cane and fancy sequined leotard. (ps, watch the video for this song bc it's weird as hell) at any rate. dance class was a big big part of my life up until i started college and sometimes i miss it dearly and sometimes i cant believe i let myself look that stupid and gangly in public. but i could probably still put on a top hat and step tap step tap step tap step tap STOMP shuffle shuffle shuffle.
1994 - in 4th grade once a week we were required to have music time. which meant our teacher got out the record player (i'm 98% it was a record and not a cassette, i went to a fairly poor school) and we had to learn random ass songs from this book we were provided with. and i scoured youtube trying to find this but it isn't even there to prove to you. but my class, my little WASP class, loved us some chanukah music. did we know what chanukah was? hell no. but when youre in 4th grade and something can burn for 8 days and nights? well thats just awesome. more awesome than that time we all got detention for having a glue fight while the substitute teacher was in the rest room. like many of these other songs, i can still sing it, at least 80%. and i'm totally not sorry. that was as multi-cultural as small town WV got.
1995 - the very first cd that i saved up for and bought all by myself. why in the world did i think Ace of Base was a good choice? Oh I saw the Sign. and it did not open up my eyes. if anything i probably regressed a few years. but i was sorta allowed to watch MTV again and if they told me this was amazing, and the 7th grade cheerleaders told me it was amazing, then it was amazing. and i listened to it over and over and over. and in waiting for dance class to begin me and all of the other girls my age would sing this and try to do the dance moves (which watching the video now is just a lot of jazz hands and spinning while trying to look seductive). i swear i blame all of these women on my horrible hair decisions. I SAW THE SIGN. AND IT OPENED UP MY MIND.
oh oh ooooh.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Settin My Life to Music: 1990-1992
hopefully you aren't getting bored of this yet, bc you better believe it's going all the way.
1990- since i think of kindergarten that year (even though it was 89-90 whatevernessness) i immediately think of aunt beth. i was incredibly lucky to have my aunt as my first teacher. if anything it helped slightly with my social retardedness, even though i couldnt process why i should have to call her 'mrs. atkins' instead of 'aunt beth.' and i dont think i ever did. but. the song i think of, and which obviously will not be on youtube, is singing the months of the year. we would go thru each month with a little tune set to it, and always end it 'and then we start all over again.' i still hadnt mastered the whole tying my shoe bit, but by God, i could sing the shit out of those months.
1991 - How could this year possibly not be all the songs from Beauty and the Beast? This was probably the second or third movie I got to see in the theatre and it BLEW MY MIND. still to this day it's my favorite of the disney cartoon movies. i appreciated that finally there was a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. I wanted to BE Belle and have angela lansbury sing to me a song that still makes me almost tear up, if i still had the ability to produce tears. when we finally got this on vhs i watched it on near-constant repeat. when we went to disneyworld for my 10th birthday i made everyone sit through the shortened play version, in the scorching sun, while the lines for the rides were actually short, bc i was not going to miss a moment of it. i always wanted that gold dress. maybe i secretly still do.
1992 - Now. this one, it's embarrassing. But at least I know that 99% of you bastards also enjoyed this song at the time. Uggh, I'm almost ashamed to type it out. Achy Breaky Heart. what in the name of everything good and holy in this world were we thinking?? buddy let me tell you at recess, this was our JAM. i even had an achy breaky heart t-shirt from the milton flea market that was black with a neon rainbow heart (obviously broken in 2 pieces) with the title underneath. i thought i was a rockstar with that shirt. i wore it at LEAST once a week. in hindsight, the mullet should have given it away.
1990- since i think of kindergarten that year (even though it was 89-90 whatevernessness) i immediately think of aunt beth. i was incredibly lucky to have my aunt as my first teacher. if anything it helped slightly with my social retardedness, even though i couldnt process why i should have to call her 'mrs. atkins' instead of 'aunt beth.' and i dont think i ever did. but. the song i think of, and which obviously will not be on youtube, is singing the months of the year. we would go thru each month with a little tune set to it, and always end it 'and then we start all over again.' i still hadnt mastered the whole tying my shoe bit, but by God, i could sing the shit out of those months.
1991 - How could this year possibly not be all the songs from Beauty and the Beast? This was probably the second or third movie I got to see in the theatre and it BLEW MY MIND. still to this day it's my favorite of the disney cartoon movies. i appreciated that finally there was a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. I wanted to BE Belle and have angela lansbury sing to me a song that still makes me almost tear up, if i still had the ability to produce tears. when we finally got this on vhs i watched it on near-constant repeat. when we went to disneyworld for my 10th birthday i made everyone sit through the shortened play version, in the scorching sun, while the lines for the rides were actually short, bc i was not going to miss a moment of it. i always wanted that gold dress. maybe i secretly still do.
1992 - Now. this one, it's embarrassing. But at least I know that 99% of you bastards also enjoyed this song at the time. Uggh, I'm almost ashamed to type it out. Achy Breaky Heart. what in the name of everything good and holy in this world were we thinking?? buddy let me tell you at recess, this was our JAM. i even had an achy breaky heart t-shirt from the milton flea market that was black with a neon rainbow heart (obviously broken in 2 pieces) with the title underneath. i thought i was a rockstar with that shirt. i wore it at LEAST once a week. in hindsight, the mullet should have given it away.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
ps
i'm proud to say i'm still keeping up with my ShutterCal daily photo calendar. check it out if you get bored.
lovelove
lovelove
Settin My Life to Music: 1987-1989
1987: My family liked to listen to the 'oldies' if you will, especially if we were around my grandparents. we had one cassette tape that i LOVED when i was little that I always wanted played on long car trips. I think it was a mixtape bc I dont remember it having any rhyme or reason, but when I think of it I think of two things specifically: going to the beach and the song Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini . in fact i remember very clearly throwing a fit over the fact that my bathing suit was not going to be yellow polka dots. instead it was pink with mickey and minnie mouse. who didn't want to be the yellow polka dot bikini girl? it made the car ride (which at that age seemed to take months and months instead of just 8 hours) seem a little more bearable. I'm sure by the end of the trip my parents wanted to throw it out the window it was played so many times, but i would shake my little butt in my booster seat with my big sunglasses on and sing it at the top of my lungs. this is actually a really really good memory.
1988 - I'm saving the Beach Boys for this particular year even though they have been a major part of my life all the way around. uncle larry would quiz us on which beach boy was which and what the name of the song was and which album it was on. Beach Boys were very much the soundtrack of my childhood. However one specific song, Little Honda, will always stand out to me (and here you'd have thought it would have been something like "Wouldn't it be Nice" (which i do love, but not for the same reasons)) because that song makes me think of all the time at mammaws house playing with michael and laura. to say they were my only friends up until age 6 would not be a lie, and even that would be a stretch considering michael and i were mean as hell to each other all the time. but everyone needs a frenemy i guess? i digress. the tree of us spent a majority of our time at either our house, my grandmas, or laura's grandmas house. our house equaled playing outside with my collie (who i still to this day miss dearly), grandma ruth's meant chocolate chip cookies and british cartoons, and mammaws meant jumping on the trampoline to the beach boys. i'm pretty sure that laura and i had a specific dance (or arm motions, i guess its hard to call it dancing when you're jumping on a tiny ass trampoline) for Little Honda, and we'd play it on repeat on mammaw's ginormous stereo. you know the kind that old people had, that took up half a wall and also played records. if michael wouldnt play school with us (which he rarely did, the bastard. all bc i'd always put him in detention), then the Beach Boys could save the day. even i wanted to be the California girl.
1989. This is where shit starts getting embarrassing. (All songs prior to this were clearly just adorable in my adorable tiny adorableness) When we were little, before we started mimicking everything we saw on tv, my parents still watched MTV. and that is where i fell in love with the Bangles. The Hair! The clothes! The guitars! The Egyptian Walking! I wont even lie to you when i say that I can still sing every word to Walk Like an Egyptian. I think I spent the better part of age six walking like an egyptian. not sorry. when it was time to bath i would line up all my california raisins and my smurfs and my snorks along the tubwall and serenade them with this song. over and over and over and over. If anything, I'd like to personally blame the Bangles for my hair (especially the BANGS) that cursed the next 12 years of my life.
and that folks, takes us through the 80s. you think i'm a hot mess now? just you wait.
1988 - I'm saving the Beach Boys for this particular year even though they have been a major part of my life all the way around. uncle larry would quiz us on which beach boy was which and what the name of the song was and which album it was on. Beach Boys were very much the soundtrack of my childhood. However one specific song, Little Honda, will always stand out to me (and here you'd have thought it would have been something like "Wouldn't it be Nice" (which i do love, but not for the same reasons)) because that song makes me think of all the time at mammaws house playing with michael and laura. to say they were my only friends up until age 6 would not be a lie, and even that would be a stretch considering michael and i were mean as hell to each other all the time. but everyone needs a frenemy i guess? i digress. the tree of us spent a majority of our time at either our house, my grandmas, or laura's grandmas house. our house equaled playing outside with my collie (who i still to this day miss dearly), grandma ruth's meant chocolate chip cookies and british cartoons, and mammaws meant jumping on the trampoline to the beach boys. i'm pretty sure that laura and i had a specific dance (or arm motions, i guess its hard to call it dancing when you're jumping on a tiny ass trampoline) for Little Honda, and we'd play it on repeat on mammaw's ginormous stereo. you know the kind that old people had, that took up half a wall and also played records. if michael wouldnt play school with us (which he rarely did, the bastard. all bc i'd always put him in detention), then the Beach Boys could save the day. even i wanted to be the California girl.
1989. This is where shit starts getting embarrassing. (All songs prior to this were clearly just adorable in my adorable tiny adorableness) When we were little, before we started mimicking everything we saw on tv, my parents still watched MTV. and that is where i fell in love with the Bangles. The Hair! The clothes! The guitars! The Egyptian Walking! I wont even lie to you when i say that I can still sing every word to Walk Like an Egyptian. I think I spent the better part of age six walking like an egyptian. not sorry. when it was time to bath i would line up all my california raisins and my smurfs and my snorks along the tubwall and serenade them with this song. over and over and over and over. If anything, I'd like to personally blame the Bangles for my hair (especially the BANGS) that cursed the next 12 years of my life.
and that folks, takes us through the 80s. you think i'm a hot mess now? just you wait.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Settin My Life to Music: 1984 - 1986
1984: my mom singing me the hymn "How Great Thou Art"
This song will always be forever ingrained in my memory of being little and living in the old house. I had a small (major) fear of the dark and mom would have to read to us before bed. To get her to stay longer, I'd make her sing, especially if it was storming outside. The only song I remember clearly though is this one. I've grown up hearing it in church but I will always associate it with mom. And I honestly think I like storms now completely based on the fact that she always sang this for me when it stormed. We had a tin roof and my bed was right beside the window. that is a good memory.
1985: The Gummi Bears Theme Song
How can I not have one cartoon song in there? I wanted to BE a gummi bear. I loved this show so much and would hop around the house before, during, and after. Bouncing here and there and everywhere. If anything, all the bouncing got me outside more often, which lets all get real, I needed. I turned the yard into Gummi Glen and tried to convince everyone that kool-aid was gummiberry juice. (not a loser, i promise)
1986: Songs from the My Little Pony movie
I swear I've talked about this movie recently, but I LOVED THIS MOVIE. We had it on VHS taped off of tv. And when I watch it now I can STILL sing along to all the songs. and now I appreciate and find hilarious that the characters are voiced by Cloris Leachman, Danny DeVito, Madeline Kahn, Rhea Perlman, etc etc etc. I would line up my ponies and sit and watch the movie with them and have a glorious time. (side note: this is why I fully support putting kids in daycare at some point before they go to school bc then they wont be socially retarded and consider plastic ponies some of your best friends)
This is probably the most boring part of my music selection. It gets much much more embarrassing as the years go on.
This song will always be forever ingrained in my memory of being little and living in the old house. I had a small (major) fear of the dark and mom would have to read to us before bed. To get her to stay longer, I'd make her sing, especially if it was storming outside. The only song I remember clearly though is this one. I've grown up hearing it in church but I will always associate it with mom. And I honestly think I like storms now completely based on the fact that she always sang this for me when it stormed. We had a tin roof and my bed was right beside the window. that is a good memory.
1985: The Gummi Bears Theme Song
How can I not have one cartoon song in there? I wanted to BE a gummi bear. I loved this show so much and would hop around the house before, during, and after. Bouncing here and there and everywhere. If anything, all the bouncing got me outside more often, which lets all get real, I needed. I turned the yard into Gummi Glen and tried to convince everyone that kool-aid was gummiberry juice. (not a loser, i promise)
1986: Songs from the My Little Pony movie
I swear I've talked about this movie recently, but I LOVED THIS MOVIE. We had it on VHS taped off of tv. And when I watch it now I can STILL sing along to all the songs. and now I appreciate and find hilarious that the characters are voiced by Cloris Leachman, Danny DeVito, Madeline Kahn, Rhea Perlman, etc etc etc. I would line up my ponies and sit and watch the movie with them and have a glorious time. (side note: this is why I fully support putting kids in daycare at some point before they go to school bc then they wont be socially retarded and consider plastic ponies some of your best friends)
This is probably the most boring part of my music selection. It gets much much more embarrassing as the years go on.
Coming soon to a blog near you
Since I have been the suck on blogging lately, I bring to you a new series of posts titled something roughly like Putting My Life to Music 1983-2011.
I've been reading Rob Sheffield again and love how he talks about his life in terms of music and vice versa. So I decided that I would finally sit down and think about what song describes my life for each year.
1983 is my cop-out year, since thats when I was born and only excelled at shitting myself. So I looked up what song was Number 1 on the day I was born. It is: Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart. "
I personally think this is boo boo garbage, but, you can't really pick what day you were born.
More years to come...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I've been reading Rob Sheffield again and love how he talks about his life in terms of music and vice versa. So I decided that I would finally sit down and think about what song describes my life for each year.
1983 is my cop-out year, since thats when I was born and only excelled at shitting myself. So I looked up what song was Number 1 on the day I was born. It is: Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart. "
I personally think this is boo boo garbage, but, you can't really pick what day you were born.
More years to come...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
I'm sorry I have dropped off the face of the planet. Moving and unpacking and work issues and traveling has caught up with me and I really have just had no desire to write at all. And I don't think things are going to calm down anytime soon, so please be with me if I don't update regularly.
I will leave you with this photo:
The dog knows she is in trouble and will not look me in the eye. Hah.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I will leave you with this photo:
The dog knows she is in trouble and will not look me in the eye. Hah.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, March 14, 2011
the moving. oy.
so the moving process is.... going. i won't say well, bc it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing, but overall it wasn't as painful as i anticipated. i LOVE our new place and all the room we have and that it's actually like our first "real home."
however. we currently have no water.
after figuring this out and trying to get the apt people to come all day saturday, they finally came on sunday. during this time we'd been rednecking it up and using gallon jugs of water to do things like flush the toilet. haha. well as it turns out, when they finished building this building, they forgot to put a water meter on our apt. woops. so they gave us the emergency phone number for the utility board on sunday, who we called. as it turns out, they don't consider no runnin water an emergency, to call back during business hours. so we called back today and they cant come out to look at it until TOMORROW. so we've had to plan out when we'll be back across town packing up so that we can shower and stuff there. it's been annoying, but at the same time funny, bc only shit like this happens to zach.
other than that, it really is nice. i'm in love with the view off our balcony and the fireplace, two things i will take photos of once we get everything set up and put away. i fell asleep in the floor infront of the fireplace saturday night like a cat, and i have a feeling that will happen more often than not. and its nice to have the king bed back in my life, bc i can stretch out and not kick anyone in the kidneys. and a seven minute drive to work? yes please!
in other news, the 2 week govt extension is up on Friday and they are still no closer to coming to an agreement. which means i may have a paid vacation coming up. while that would be nice, it's just going to cause more work and longer hours for us later. but who knows. they could fix this and all will be fiine.
anyway. i'm exhausted. pictures to come soon, i promise!
lovelove!
so the moving process is.... going. i won't say well, bc it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing, but overall it wasn't as painful as i anticipated. i LOVE our new place and all the room we have and that it's actually like our first "real home."
however. we currently have no water.
after figuring this out and trying to get the apt people to come all day saturday, they finally came on sunday. during this time we'd been rednecking it up and using gallon jugs of water to do things like flush the toilet. haha. well as it turns out, when they finished building this building, they forgot to put a water meter on our apt. woops. so they gave us the emergency phone number for the utility board on sunday, who we called. as it turns out, they don't consider no runnin water an emergency, to call back during business hours. so we called back today and they cant come out to look at it until TOMORROW. so we've had to plan out when we'll be back across town packing up so that we can shower and stuff there. it's been annoying, but at the same time funny, bc only shit like this happens to zach.
other than that, it really is nice. i'm in love with the view off our balcony and the fireplace, two things i will take photos of once we get everything set up and put away. i fell asleep in the floor infront of the fireplace saturday night like a cat, and i have a feeling that will happen more often than not. and its nice to have the king bed back in my life, bc i can stretch out and not kick anyone in the kidneys. and a seven minute drive to work? yes please!
in other news, the 2 week govt extension is up on Friday and they are still no closer to coming to an agreement. which means i may have a paid vacation coming up. while that would be nice, it's just going to cause more work and longer hours for us later. but who knows. they could fix this and all will be fiine.
anyway. i'm exhausted. pictures to come soon, i promise!
lovelove!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
lent
for lent i am giving up:
1. snacking after 8pm. this is very sad as I love ice cream.
2. calling zach a cockbag. not only is it mildly offensive, it's disturbing to picture.
i swear i'm going to post longer posts soon. we have started the epic disaster called Packing. i only threatened to leave zach twice, which i consider a good day.
1. snacking after 8pm. this is very sad as I love ice cream.
2. calling zach a cockbag. not only is it mildly offensive, it's disturbing to picture.
i swear i'm going to post longer posts soon. we have started the epic disaster called Packing. i only threatened to leave zach twice, which i consider a good day.
Monday, March 7, 2011
I can't sleep bc I napped all evening and also bc there is tandem snoring beside me. I'll write a real post about our weekend adventure later, but I wanted to take a minute to be sappy and say that today makes one year with zach. I think that long earns him the use of his real name and not The Stranger, don't you? Everyday I am so thankful that this ridiculous man from Kentucky came into my life.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
a life update if you will
So we are (in theory) signing the lease at the new place in 2 weeks. I'm excited to get started moving and i'm getting rid of a lot of stuff. do you want books? i have books you can have. lots of them. I'm also excited that i'll be able to sleep in an extra half-hour in the morning. woot woot!
we were supposed to have a stupidly busy day at work today only someone dropped the ball and we sat on stand by. all day. princess cant handle that kind of boredom. speaking of work, if you've been watching the news at all you'll have seen that our dear govt doesnt have a FY2011 budget yet and will run out of money on friday at midnight if they haven't figured something out. this means that if nothing happens, the govt basically shuts down. that includes the DoE. and state parks and the vets admin and pretty much everything except the military. what does this mean for me? well, if there is a shutdown (which best case scenario wont happen, worst case scenario would last at maximum 3 week) then i have no work to do and cant go to my office since it's in the compound. the silver lining however is that thanks to my contract the company has to pay me anyway. so at best i could have a 3 week paid vacation. while i would LOVE this obviously, no one wants this to happen bc it's going to screw other people. a lot of other people. so who knows what's going to happen.
so i had a battle with expedia yesterday bc the stranger and i decided to get a bitchin hotel room for our weekend in pburgh since its our anniversary and all that romantic garbage and we're going to see Tosh.0. the moral of the story is that expedia screwed up the dates on our reservation and then wouldnt change or refund it. i tried calling customer service and got no help. i tried emailing customer service and got a canned response. at this point i lost my shit and went to twitter. after about 10 annoyed tweets expedia contacted ME, listened to my complaint, and fixed it. while i'm glad they finally fixed everything, i'm really annoyed that it took bitching on twitter for anything to happen. but i guess that social media really is the way of the future and all that garbage.
i'm still totally in awe over the gaga show. the new video is weird as hell, and yet, not surprising. but i'd go again, if anyone out there wants to go!
much love and sunshine
So we are (in theory) signing the lease at the new place in 2 weeks. I'm excited to get started moving and i'm getting rid of a lot of stuff. do you want books? i have books you can have. lots of them. I'm also excited that i'll be able to sleep in an extra half-hour in the morning. woot woot!
we were supposed to have a stupidly busy day at work today only someone dropped the ball and we sat on stand by. all day. princess cant handle that kind of boredom. speaking of work, if you've been watching the news at all you'll have seen that our dear govt doesnt have a FY2011 budget yet and will run out of money on friday at midnight if they haven't figured something out. this means that if nothing happens, the govt basically shuts down. that includes the DoE. and state parks and the vets admin and pretty much everything except the military. what does this mean for me? well, if there is a shutdown (which best case scenario wont happen, worst case scenario would last at maximum 3 week) then i have no work to do and cant go to my office since it's in the compound. the silver lining however is that thanks to my contract the company has to pay me anyway. so at best i could have a 3 week paid vacation. while i would LOVE this obviously, no one wants this to happen bc it's going to screw other people. a lot of other people. so who knows what's going to happen.
so i had a battle with expedia yesterday bc the stranger and i decided to get a bitchin hotel room for our weekend in pburgh since its our anniversary and all that romantic garbage and we're going to see Tosh.0. the moral of the story is that expedia screwed up the dates on our reservation and then wouldnt change or refund it. i tried calling customer service and got no help. i tried emailing customer service and got a canned response. at this point i lost my shit and went to twitter. after about 10 annoyed tweets expedia contacted ME, listened to my complaint, and fixed it. while i'm glad they finally fixed everything, i'm really annoyed that it took bitching on twitter for anything to happen. but i guess that social media really is the way of the future and all that garbage.
i'm still totally in awe over the gaga show. the new video is weird as hell, and yet, not surprising. but i'd go again, if anyone out there wants to go!
much love and sunshine
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