Today was a Jazz Band Festival at MSU; there were a number of area bands that came in town to compete. Here is our high school band Christopher plays in:



Getting ready.

(Chris is the 2nd trombone from the left.)
He had a short solo in during the first song and did very well!!
The had an awesome gal that sang 2 songs with them; she really belted them out!!

At the end of the day before they gave out the awards, the MSU Jazz Band played some songs for us with their guest performer, Tony Garcia.

Their pianist also sang as well and she was very good!! (for my brother, yes, that is Jerry Hoover standing next to her)

They all did a fantastic job, but unfortunately didn't place. Of course I'm going to be bias and say that they SHOULD have placed, but compared to the others I really thought they sounded better. Another local school also beat them (but I won't say who because I really don't want any 'hate comments' from angry parents) but I really thought we had performed better. (And in tune!!!)

There is a concert tomorrow at the school featuring the concert and jazz band, so I'm hoping to get some video. It's hard to believe that all these end-of-the-year contests and concerts will be Christopher's last!!

The way my week has been, it's amazing that I can even think enough to type this note. Work was crazier than usual, and after next week I'm sure I will be thinking about doing something rash like drinking regular Coke instead of Diet, or sneaking into a local Brown Derby and buying something to help me 'mellow out'. (okay...so I probably won't do the latter, but I did have some 'straight' Pepsi today that tasted mighty good!!) And lots of my co-workers have been sick, so I'm also trying NOT to end up like them.

Our last winter storm ended up not being quite as bad as they originally thought, which was probably for the best. It's still amazing though that once again by Sunday and Monday we could see 60 degrees for high. Right now at 8:45 p.m. it's 26 degrees.

Tomorrow is a High School Jazz Band Festival at MSU; Christopher plays in the jazz band for his high school and they are competing against 9 other area schools. So my Mom and I will be heading over in the morning to hear them (they play first) and then stick around to listen to the others. I hope to get pictures. (you know, the kind your kids hate to see you post)

My Mom also sent me a funny email today, and it went like this:

A Quick Stress Test

There is a very, very tall coconut tree and there are 4 animals:
1) King Kong
2) An ape
3) An Orangutan
4) A Monkey

The 4 have a competition to see who is the fastest to get a banana off the tree.
Who you think will win?

Your answer will reflect your personality. Try to answer within 30 seconds.
Got your answer? Scroll down to see the analysis.
>
>
>
>
>
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If your answer is

Orangutan = dunce
Ape = moron
Monkey = doofuss
King Kong = numskull

Why????? A Coconut tree does NOT have bananas!
Obviously you're stressed and overworked. Take some time off and relax!!

Have a great weekend!!!

Alas, yet another winter storm is on the way to the Ozarks. (sigh) Don't get me wrong, I LOVE snow, it's just that this winter we have seen more of the icy-slushy stuff. (BIG sigh) And you can't make too many "ice-men" if you know what I mean. (sigh)

Full Moon????!!!

After my "Monday on Tuesday" today at work, I wondered to myself.."is there a full moon?". Well, I checked my handy-dandy wunderground.com, and yep....oh...wait a minute....today was only "Waxing Gibbous", with 99% of the Moon Illuminated. TOMORROW is the full blown "full moon"!! Great....I thought our phone calls TODAY were just plum out of this universe, now I have to face tomorrow's calls!!

I wonder....do they sell prozac in a spray-mist form??

Yesterday Billy helped officiate a wedding of a couple of college students that had been active at the BSU. He was asked to help along with the bride's cousin. Part of their ceremony was "Unity Sand" as opposed to a unity candle. Here is the table before the wedding; the middle glass jar would be filled part of the way with white sand representing 'God', and the other two containers are colored sand representing the separate lives of the bride and groom. During this part of the ceremony, Billy explained that to the audience, then poured the white sand into the middle jar. Then the bride and groom would simultaneously pour their sand on top of the white sand. Then at the very end Billy poured the remaining white sand on top. It went very well!!







This was right after the ceremony was finished. I was going to take more pictures during the wedding, but was afraid I would take a picture at the wrong time and the photographer would confiscate my camera. So I had to wait until it was almost over with.



The cakes:



Chocolate fountain!!!



The students enjoying the chocolate fountain:




The couple cutting the cake:







Picture time with some of the international students.




Removal of the garter...(ooo-la-la!!)




The winner of the garter. (he is actually engaged and getting married soon!)




"Where's my bouquet??"



On your mark...get set....GO!!!



The winning 'bouquet-catcher'!!




Bride and groom sharing the first dance together:


"Come on..you know you want to dance!"

The bride sharing a dance with the Indian students.

Overall it was a very nice wedding. Billy did a great job considering it was his first one to officiate! He didn't sound nervous at all although he told me later his legs were shaking!!

It's Friday....I made it. Monday is another holiday for us State workers....President's Day. I guess that helps take care of all those other President's birthdays in addition to Washington and Lincoln. (although in Missouri we do get a day off in May to honor President Harry Truman)

But if it help to make all you others out there feel sorry for us, after Monday we do not get another holiday off until May. (I know you are all feeling SO bad for me...)

We chose our two Supervisors yesterday and I am happy with the choices. I will move into my 'new' position March 1 which means a move into a new office. At least it's only right next door.

Billy is helping with a wedding tomorrow; Jeff Montgomery and Missy Hurd are tying the knot. It will be his first to help 'officiate'. They are a neat couple and we wish them the best of everything!!

Well, thanks to my wonderful son and husband, my car looks normal again. The sunshine helped melt off the ice from most of the streets and sidewalks, but the trees are still pretty much covered. With the winds expected to pick up tonight and tomorrow, let's hope not too many break off and fall on more powerlines.

Our new Clerk came in to the office today for a brief 'Hi, nice to meet you' tour of the office. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed though. We also started interviews today for the supervisor job I will be leaving at the end of this month to take on the Unit Manager job. It's kind of weird interviewing people that you supervise; makes you wonder if they want the job because they think they can do it better than you, or they think I didn't do anything anyways and it will be an easy job for more pay. We actually have 2 different supervisor positions open, and will finish up tomorrow and probably have a decision made by Friday. I am rooting for...............HA!! I'm not THAT blonde!!

24 Hours Later

Here we are, 24hrs later. The roads are icy, schools are still out, but we never lost power. Compared to the last ice storm, that's a huge blessing! Here is my poor car; might not be able to thaw this baby until Spring!!







This is one of the traffic cameras; most of them have these huge icicles hanging in front of them:

We have had some flurries this morning, but otherwise it's supposed to clear up by this afternoon with a high of 28!!! Woohoo!! Tomorrow and Thursday should be in the 40s, before we get another round of snow or something on Friday. What a Winter it's been!!

Well, so far so good. Our lights have flickered a few times this afternoon, and awhile ago I heard a transformer blow somewhere in our neighborhood, but so far we still have power.

The sleet/freezing rain stopped around 2:00, but at 5:00 has started up again. They say it will continue through the evening, so it wouldn't surprise me if we did end up losing power.

The dishwasher was full of dirty dishes so I started it in hopes it will get through the whole cycle in case we do lose power. (I really didn't want to handwash them; I guess I'm kinda spoiled, huh?) I also made sure and turn on the garbage disposal; you forget about all those little things when you have no electricity! We do have a generator from the last ice storm, so at least we have a backup for heat if needed.

So here I sit; with my mixed nuts, iced tea and police scanner. It's always good to know who is still dumb enough to drive around drunk and get pulled over and arrested. People still beat each other up too. Which means we will have more business in our office on Wednesday. I guess they think the police are too busy helping motorists get out of ditches and such. I can also hear where the trees around town are down and who still needs a bus ride somewhere. Billy has been at the office all day 'catching up' on things since he was unable to go in on Friday due to still being sick. But he loves this stuff.

Here's one of our trees in our backyard; one of the top branches just fell a few minutes ago. FUN times!!!

Thundersleet!!!

I think that sounds like a superhero name....."Here he comes to ruin your day!!!.....THUNDERSLEET!!!" However, that is what we are experiencing in southwest Missouri this fine Monday morning.....



I got up extra early so I could be sure and be at work on time; Billy volunteered to take me and we got there around 7:25 only to find out we were CLOSED!! We have a 'phone-call' system, but I guess that didn't work this morning! There were 4 others that were there as well, and apparently hadn't heard the closing on the news either. Luckily everybody else did, but I don't think they made a decision until around 7:00 which is kind of late considering we have several who live outside of Springfield and are usually on the way by that time. Oh well....tomorrow is also a holiday for the State offices (Lincoln Day), so I get an extra day off this week!!

So here I am; listening to the freezing rain hit the windows, the lightning and thunder, eating a hot pocket and drinking hot raspberry tea. Hopefully we won't lose power.

I try not to say much about my job situation on this blog, only because you never know who will be reading it. (Like my co-workers.) =)

However, since the announcement from our Governor on who he has appointed to replace our retiring Circuit Clerk, there has been much 'buzzing' going on not only in our office, but around town. I won't elaborate to much on this article in our local newspaper, but here is the link so you can read it for yourself:

http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080208/NEWS01/
802080388/1007/NEWS01

I'm not a 'political' person. I don't think I could ever run for office because I'm not one to say bad things about somebody, even my opponent. (Isn't that what most politicians do??) If you scroll down all the way to bottom of the article, readers are allowed to comment on the story. As you can see, they are not 'positive' in any way.

It does bother me however that if that person was apparently in our office on Friday, some indicated we were already 'concerned' about our new boss. Guess that just goes to prove you have to be careful about what you say to anybody, or it might end up in the paper!! (By the way...it wasn't me.)

I am willing to give Mr. Helms a chance before I make any assumptions about his ability to 'run' the office. I always try to find good in people, even if they mess up at times. (Isn't that what God does for us??) And I am definitely NOT perfect!! I was raised to respect my elders, and respect those in authority over me. Sure, there are 'boundaries', but for the most part I know that if I want to keep my job I am to respect their decisions and do my job to the best of my ability.

I'm hoping that Mr. Helms will do the same.

I seem to be fascinated by the weather lately; we either have really mild winters or really cold ones here in the southwestern part of Missouri. The mild ones we usually have rain, and the cold ones are snowy. But this winter is the first one I can remember in a long time where we literally go from spring-like weather to winter weather every few days.

I really don't recall having bad enough storms to have tornadoes in January or February; some blame it on 'global warming', some on La Nina. I read one news story where a relative of a person who died in the recent storms said that she "struggled to grasp why God would take her sister. That's his wrath," she said, looking toward the wreckage. "For some reason, he's not happy right now and this is. ... Nobody understands God's will. I sure don't understand it.

Said Anita Goodnight, the sisters' aunt: "God didn't do it. Satan did."

I've always wondered why God created such a devastating weather phenomenon. Every since I was a kid I've always been deathly scared of thunderstorms. My mother used to cover my bedroom windows with a blanket so I couldn't see the lightening flashes. At times our family would actually drive to a downtown parking garage to wait out the storms. I remembered at times begging my father to drive us there when warnings were issued. Ironically, that was probably the worse place to be; if that garage had collapsed, we would probably not have survived.

I remember during one storm I was in our car with my dad and sister (can't remember if my mom was with us) and he had stopped under a highway overpass and my dad & sister got out of the car to see if they could 'see' the tornado passing over. Me? I was huddled in the fetal position in the back seat wishing we could just go home! (or to the underground garage!)

I admit that as I got older I learned to tolerate storms more; I'm okay during the day, but at night I still get a little nervous. In the 12 years we have lived in our current house, we've not had a tornado hit. The January storms were probably the closest that one has come to hitting our neighborhood since we've lived here. I always wonder if the next one will be 'the one'.

So in my 43 yrs of life, I've never seen or been through a tornado. I've had dreams about them, watched them on TV, read storm chaser blogs about them; tried to 'face my fear' so to speak. But I will admit that when a storm hits in the middle of the night, I still wake up hearing the thunder rolling while it's still miles away. And I usually do not get back to sleep until it passes by.

My faith that God will keep us safe through the storms has gotten stronger over the years, but I will always wonder if the next one will be 'the one' that will hit home. Either that or I move to Alaska. But I don't think that's the answer to my fear, do you??

35th Anniversary

Today was Billy's parent's 35th wedding anniversary, so some of the kids took them to Cracker Barrel while Billy and Chris set up the 'surprise' at their house:


The happy couple!! (yes, my father-in-law wears overalls....but if you knew him you'd know that it fits his personality)


Here are 2 of my sister-in-laws (Wendy and DeDe) and Wendy's husband Tim. (and me...but I didn't know I was going to be in the picture, or I would have tried to look goofier than I do.)

Here are 2 of my nieces; Jessica and Tiffany. (Tiffany is getting married in June.)




And the surprise gift to them....a 32" flatscreen television; their 'console' TV gave out months ago and they had been using a smaller one that they placed on top of the old one. That is where the flatscreen will have to stay until they get a cabinet. Needless to say, they were definitely surprised and very happy!!! (I'm sure Billy was explaining some of the features of the TV...)


This is a child's rocking chair that has been in their family for years, and Sydney likes to sit in it (or at least put her dolls in it) when she goes over there. Not sure what Chris is doing. (Billy's younger brother Jerry is in the chair.)

This is what happens when you let Sydney take pictures...you get feet.



Sweet Annabella all ready to go. We had a great day and it was neat to get to help celebrate such a milestone in someone's life.

Well, our 'big' snow ended up being 2 -1/2 inches. They cancelled school at 10:30 p.m. last night, and probably wished they hadn't when they woke up to only 2-1/2 inches of snow.

It pretty much was melted by noon.

Billy's parent's 35th wedding anniversary is tomorrow; all the kids got them a gift, but it's a surprise so I can't put on here what it is until after tomorrow. =)