Gethip Mama

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Crazy fun month

It seems that August has just been one trip after another after another! We started the month by going to Spirit Lake, Idaho (in the panhandle) at Tad's mom's place. We played in the lake, went on a boat ride where we saw osprey hunting, their nest, and a Mama moose with her calf. That was cool. We also went canoeing and kayaking, and to "Silverwood", a fun amusement park. We all had fun.

The following weekend, we went to Dan & Jessica's again because David & Jana (with all 5 girlies) came to visit. That was great fun! We had campfires, went shopping, ate some more of Dan's amazing smoked ribs, and of course played Shanghai Rummy. I even won!

After that we hung out at home until Baby Carolyn and I flew to Boise on August
18th, then to Raleigh, NC with Mom & Herb on the 19th. We stayed there for the night, then drove down to their beach house in Myrtle Beach, SC. Amy & kids met us there and it was so busy busy and fun! It was a little bit diffucult to plan outings around Carolyn's nap schedule, so between that and the 3-hr time zone change, her sleep schedule was realy out of whack, which translated into really nasty nights. She only let me get a decent night's sleep once, and another time mom took her and let me go back to bed. Normally she sleeps 12 hours without a peep (yes I know I am VERY lucky). She's still not totally back to normal now, but doing much better.

We did lots of sight-seeing, and of course went to the beach a few times. Normally they like to go early in the morning or in the evening, but there was so much wind from whatever hurricane we were just on the outside of that it wasn't really enjoyable in the evenings. One day we went right in the middle of the day, and that was much better. The hurricane was causing a bit of a riptide so the surfers were staying pretty close to shore, and the waves were pretty harsh - not that that was enough to deter Andrew or me from bodysurfing. Baby had way too much fun at the beach. I will post pics later tonight.

Herb's son-in-law Ralph is the piano player and orchestrator-in-residence at the Carolina Opry, and he hooked Amy and me up with tickets, so we got to have a little girls night out, which we figured we hadn't done in like, 20 years. The show was wonderful - as good as I've seen in Las Vegas or anywhere! After that we did some last-minute souvenir shopping and then went out to Sonic for a fried ice cream blast and onion rings. Yum! Thanks again Mam for babysitting all the kids!

We left on the 26th, and lt me tell you it was intense. I got up at 5:30 Idaho time, finished packing and helping mom clean the house, then we made the drive to Raleigh, where we found out that due to a mechanical failure in a flight tower in Texas, our flight was delayed. It ended up being okay though because our connecting flight in Chicago was also delayed. We got to Boise just fine but Baby's car seat didn't, so we got a loaner. I got Carolyn down and went to bed at 1:30, so yeah, it was a 20 hour day. Gross. The next day they delivered the car seat just about an hour before I flew back to Seattle.

Craig's week was not quite eventful as mine, and he was very very VERY ready for us to come home. He was very sweet and tidied and vacuumed the whole apartment before he cam to get me, which was so nice. We spent the next couple of days relaxing, unpacking, recovering, and then this weekend we went to the fair on Friday. Then on Saturday Zach & Anna called us and offered us tickets to the rodeo with them, so we got to do that too! All in all, a very eventful August with LOTS of travel. I suppose it makes up for last August when we didn't do a whole lot besides prepare for the baby!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Chopped it!

I've been complaining that I wanted to cut my hair for over a month now. Long hair was just not working for me anymore. It's too hot to wear it down, and I was really bored with putting it up. And even when it cools down, long hair takes more time to look good than I am willing to deal with for now. So this past weekend while my sister-in-law Jana and I were at Dan & Jessica's, she obliged me and off it came! Here it is!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Jazz! Recording! Fun!

Saturday we met at noon, had a final run-through of "Bless the Broken Road" - a country song that he turned into a decidedly jazz arrangement, set up the equipment, and started recording around 1:00. All together we had 16 tunes, which we were able to get done in 5 hours. Waters of March (in both languages) took a few tries, but there were several other tunes that we didn't rehearse before recording, and took one take. That makes me happy, because then you know that they are truly in the moment and for that reason, jazz in its purest form. I did "Here's to Life" again, which I also did with him on my first c.d. in 2001, and despite that fact that we have done that song together dozens of times, we did it completely differently than we had ever done it before. It was REALLY really REALLy really REALLY fun. Of course the music isn't perfect, but it isn't really supposed to be. What it is supposed to be is honest and authentic, so I am pleased.

I just realized that I haven't said anything about what's on the new c.d. The title is "The Sweetest Season", and most of the songs are inspired by marriage & motherhood. There is also a tune inspired by all of my jazz teachers, and a few inspired by my siblings.

I am going to have a c.d. release party in a couple of weeks, and I am leaning toward also releasing a "best of" c.d. at the same time just because I have PLENTY of material for one, and some people who aren't totally into jazz might enjoy having some classical/opera interspersed.

Caz is cool

Caz is pretty much the hippest cat I know.

He was on the West Side doing a reading session for ACDA in the days leading up to my recording, so we decided to record here in the music building on his way back through town rather than going back to CBC. Friday night (July 25th) we got together to run through a few things.

Now Caz is acknowledged by Vijay (my jazz director here at CWU) as the most prolific composer/arranger in the vocal jazz scene. Caz composes original tunes that are being very happily adopted by groups in the tri-state area, is an amazing arranger, and an unparalleled poet/lyricist. FreeForm (the group he founded and continues to direct at CBC) has also received national recognition on multiple occasions. Add to that the fact that he records, masters and mixes all of FreeForm's recordings - two of which received awards from DOWNBEAT magazine (basically the jazz equivalent of ROLLING STONE) and the fact that he is also a really good jazz piano player, can scat your ears off, and yeah, he is a ridiculously talented individual. And lucky for me, a dear mentor and friend. The music I had was from 3 sources: a Disney book, the fake book he wrote as his masters' project, and an online company. Many of my tunes were from his book - nicknamed the Cazology - but he spent a lot of time going through the online stuff and even the Disney book, and "fixing" things. Of course 99% of people would have no idea that they needed fixing, but he is just that brilliant, and I got to reap the benefits. After that we went through some of the tunes that he was less familiar with, then we called it a night.

A week behind

Right after my recording was done, I got super busy helping Delayna & family prepare to move. So, I am a week behind in posts. So the next two posts are from two weekends ago - (July 25, 26). Then after that I will get to this last weekend.