Happy, happy, joy, joy!!!

Good morning, bloggers (and those who don't blog but just read them!!! You are important too!)! Thursday is quickly becoming one of my favorite days of the week. For us it's always been our Friday because my husband only works four days a week so Thursday evening when he gets home starts our weekend. Gianna LOVES waking up and her daddy being home. He usually leaves long before she wakes up so she is always thrilled to come crawl into bed with us and see he's still there.

Thursday mornings are now my day for piano lessons too and I can't begin to tell you how great it feels to be learning this now. I've practiced hard all week, not that what I had to practice was super hard but I worked hard on it. I learned to play the simple version of "Ode to Joy" and I taught myself the 7 major pentascales on piano which also means I can now play 7 chords on piano. Yes, I'm pretty excited about all of this. I'm eager to learn something new today and having something to work on for the rest of the week. I'm still learning to be comfortable with the piano but I feel much better then I did when I sat down at my teacher's piano last Thursday. I know with a lot more practice I feel as comfortable behind a piano as I do with a guitar. This piano thing has also inspired me to try and sharpen up my guitar playing skills as well....so far I haven't taken the time to do that but I'm planning on it soon.

I still haven't written any complete songs yet but I'm slowly building ideas and lyrics. I write them down and put them on Beej's desk since he is going to be my co-writer, at least we are going to try that! He's so much more talented then I am especially musically. I'm eager to see what we can come up with! We've talked about doing a full length album but I think I may just try an EP right now, 6 or 7 songs. Just to see how people respond, figure out how I will promote it and get comfortable with playing and singing the songs....so much goes into making an album, even a small on at home. It's not just write and push record.

We spent yesterday with my piano teacher (who is also my friend now I think I can safely say!) and her mother and sister - we did some serious scrapbooking! I am completely caught up now. And I love that feeling! So now hopefully I can scrapbook each event as it comes and not let it pile up again. We have Father's Day Sunday so I'll have to scrapbook that sometimes soon and then Fourth of July, etc. I'm learning new techniques and getting new ideas so my pages are looking different now. It's fun to go back and see how my scrapbooking has progressed over the years. I love taking the time to preserve the memories and faces I love so much.....digital scrapbooking is fun and cute but to me there is something a little more personal and loving about taking the time to do it by hand. Not to mention it's a creative outlet I enjoy. I love getting with other women and just chit chatting and hanging out. We had so much fun with the Hawkins yesterday - they are too funny and so comfortable to be around! It was a really relaxing time.

For now I'm off to work out - someone told me yesterday that they hoped one day reading that I work out would inspire them to work out but that it never has! I laughed! This is my thing, I hope I do inspire someone - someone who really wants to do it. But not everyone wants to work out and that's OK! If you are perfectly happy being who you are then I am proud of you. It's the people that complain 24/7 about who they are but won't take the steps to change. Be who you are and be proud of that and if you aren't then have the strength to take the steps to change. It's a hard thing - I continue to struggle every day to be honest. I have skipped out on too many work outs over the past few weeks although I still usually work out at least 5 times a week. I've just been doing random work outs from P90X and Insanity right now. I'm getting ready to do another round of Insanity. I'm hoping for my birthday to get the new Beach Body program called Turbo Fire - it's supposed to be kinda like Insanity but maybe just kicked up half a notch! Plus it's a woman that does this one and she supposedly picks kick butt music for her programs too....it's brand new, just released yesterday or so so it's the full retail price of $120 plus shipping which I can't swing right now but I'm hoping maybe if I put together all my birthday money I can get it! I really want a new program and this one looks awesome.....so I WANT IT!!!