Buzz the Emu

I've been on vacation for the last week or so, with the 4th of July holiday thrown in there. I will write later all about that adventure, but for now, this is one of the many things I have been up to...

Buzz the Emu

Buzz is a private detective and owns an eighties car, a DeLorean. He is very vain and goes to the barbers twice a week. Sometimes he has problems fitting his head in the car, so he has made a hole in the roof to avoid ruining his hairstyle, but he didn't' realize what the wind would do to his carefully coiffured locks.

The Musical MJ

I know I just wrote about music, but sorry like I mentioned, I cannot breathe without music. As we all know by now a VERY influential music artist suddenly left the earth the other day. I have been referring to Michael Jackson as MJ for a while now,since mentioning his name in recent years is not associated with his music. But for me, it has always been about the music. I liked the Jackson 5 growing up and liked MJ's solo music. I love to dance and like him or not, you have to admit, MJ knows how to dance and makes music to dance to... Yes, I have been listening to my MJ playlist for days now, dancing around where ever I am, hoping that where ever MJ is now, his heart is full knowing there still are LOTS of people out there that know it was all about the music.

My Guitar Heroes

I've said it many times, I cannot breathe without music. I wake up with it playing in my head, I can tune in to a song barely audible in a store or restaurant and I never leave home without my beloved iPod. Today on my long ride home from work I decided to listen to the news instead of music for a bit. When I did go back to listening to music, I tuned into the radio instead of my iPod doing some station surfing. A thought crept into my mind, why do I rarely hear my two most favorite artists on the radio and how did I become so enamored of them in the first place with little radio exposure?

I discovered G Love & Special Sauce about 10 years ago, when "Rodeo Clowns" was briefly played on the radio. It was played enough for me to become slightly obsessed with finding all the previously released CD's by the band. I now consider G Love & Special Sauce my favorite band. I see them at least once a year, sometimes 2 or 3 times a year!

I am not quite sure of the time frame of when I discovered John Mayer, I was watching MTV with my Dad one day when the video for "No Such Thing" came on. I was mesmerized by this very tall boy playing the guitar. Heavier Things came out pretty soon after I saw the video, that was when I discovered that the song I saw was on Room For Squares, there was TWO CD's by this amazing boy that plays the guitar! I have since met this boy who plays the guitar, and consider him one of the most talented musicians today.

The very interesting thing about these two guitar heroes of mine, is how very similar they are. They both absolutely LOVE music, the same as I do. They are two of the most amazing guitar players I have ever seen. They both play a National Steel (my absolute favorite guitar!) They both have a great career despite not getting much airplay on the radio (at least in the LA market...) And I follow both of them on Twitter.

Dancerina

Like most little girls, I wanted to be a Ballerina when I grew up. I loved to dance, I loved the clothes Ballerina's wore, I even had a Ballerina doll, Dancerina. I took Ballet lessons for many years, switching as I got older to other forms of dance, as my Aunt was a Dancer/Instructor at Steven Peck Dance Studios. This past weekend I attended the Long Beach Ballet's production of Beauty and the Beast. As I watched the beautiful performance I had a tinge of regret having not stuck with my Ballet lessons, but at the same time I realized I truly am a Dancerina at heart. I still love to dance and I often lean toward wearing dresses that look an awful lot like a Ballerina's outfit, full skirt, tulle & fitted bodice. My Aunt still dances, though she took some time away to raise a family, she went back to being a dancer and at age 50 she became a real Ballerina, dancing on her toes!

Me & Dancerina, my Brother Stephen & his guns...

Finding Friends

I have been on some sort of "social networking" website for nearly 10 years. First Friendster was the place to be, then along came Myspace, a place for friends. Soon you starting hearing about this facebook site, it was all too much. For a while you were either on myspace or facebook, they are two different kind of people that populated those sites. At first I most definitely fell into the myspace side of the argument, but then things shifted a bit. I don't know if it was changes being made on both sites, but all of a sudden I found myself abandoning myspace and embracing facebook whole-heartedly! I know the immediate hook was having a guy I grew up with finding me, and then it seemed each day after someone else from the past would find me. I have since found many friends from the past that I had lost touch with and it has been great getting to see them and catch up. I have met up with friends from elementary school, junior high, high school, former neighbors, people I met working at Nordstrom, old dance partners and friends that got-married-moved-away-divorced-moved-back (you know who you are...) I have over 130 friends on facebook, 5 are family members, 28 are classmates, 49 worked with me at Nordstrom. I still get random friend requests from friends that surprise me and every once in a while that one person finds me that I thought was lost forever, you know who you are...

Communicating Among Friends

I talk to Nancy nearly every day. I email Jen nearly every week. Jen and Nancy are my closest friends. I have been friends with Jen for 20 years, we met while working at Nordstrom in 1989. I also met Nancy at Nordstrom, but a few years later. Jen and I "talked" to each other every day at Nordstrom through emails, all day long... and that is how we still primarily communicate. We occasionally speak on the phone, but it usually a brief conversation, usually when one of us is on the way to the others home. I very much enjoy the fact that we communicate through the written word, it is SO us! Nancy and I talk on the phone all the time. Even when we worked together at Nordstrom, I only knew Nancy from phone conversations, it was many years later I finally worked with her in person. Nancy and I talk on the phone nearly every day. Sometimes we will text each other if we can't talk, but is is a rare occasion that we email each other like Jen and I do. I started thinking about this the other day when I was at the car wash waiting for my car, talking to Nancy on the phone. When we hung up I checked my email and had a couple of emails from Jen that I replied to. That is when I realized the dynamics of how I communicate with my two closest friends.

vince the rhinestone spider

I bought a new crochet book Saturday called Super-Cute Crochet. I have several Amigurumi crochet books and certainly did not need to add another to my already growing collection, but as I flipped through this book at the store, I shut the book immediately when I came to this project and went straight to purchase the book. I made Vince on Sunday.

vince the rhinestone spider
Vince used to be called Incey Wincey, but now he prefers to be called by his proper name, Vince. His hero is Elvis Presley, although he also likes Neil Diamond. He’s an expert piano player due to his eight hands and loves to belt out some rock n’ roll classics. He tried learning to jive, but kept tripping over his feet.