Life By Lindsey Rae

I actually had a couple of semi-interesting thoughts today I was going to write about, but I have a super bad migraine tonight and so now I can't focus enough to write anything...so I may have to try another time...
Ahh! My head hurts sooo much!!!
Well, at least it's better than it hurting everyday like it used to...every few days is somewhat bearable.

Ok, one funny thing that I learned today:
So, this receptionist from one of my Dr.'s offices called me and left a message on my voice mail, saying, " This is the doctors office Just calling to remind you about your follow-up appointment on Monday. You can call us back if you have any other questions."
Uh, yes, I do have a question: Who are you? I have at least 5-10 doctors that could be calling me for a follow-up appointment, so I'm pretty sure that's a question I need to find out.
I called the number back and say, "Uh, I hear I have an appointment, but who are you?!" haha. They told me that according to HIPAA law they can't say the name of the Doctor or clinic. It's just the "Doctor's office". Kind of weird. I never knew about that before...at least none of my other doctor's offices do that...

I downloaded the GIMP software today and now I have another thing to distract me while I try to figure it out. It's pretty cool for being free and all. It's kind of Photoshop-ish, but it doesn't seem quite as difficult as Photoshop....(although it's been awhile since I tried to use Photoshop).
I used to do all my photo editing with Microsoft Digital Image Suite, which was pretty OK for what I was doing. It is fairly user friendly and I knew how to use it well enough to get things done fairly quickly (except for the fact that I am a perfectionist and everything takes me a long time).
We can still run Windows in a virtual machine inside our Macs, but then to use the Windows machine, I still have to switch back and forth. It's not difficult, but then not quite as convenient as just using one machine.

Speaking of pictures, I need to post some more. But, Jerrod is going to re-build my computer again in the next few days and I am not uploading much onto my machine until then...so when I get completely settled with my new computer, I will have everything again and hopefully will be able to post something more interesting with pictures and video!

Did you know that pigeons are smarter than you?
Ok, maybe it depends who you are. haha.
Anyway, this is some interesting stuff.


Pigeon Genius

I think I forgot to mention that last week I got a ticket for parking in front of my driveway. Yes, this is a true story.

The city of Mt. Juliet has a law that you can't park on the street between 1:00 and 5:00 AM. We usually keep all our vehicles in the driveway, but I happened to move my car out this day because I was trying to be thoughtful and helpful and do something nice as Jerrod was going to mow the lawn (for the first time) and I was trying to make sure he had enough room to get the lawnmower out of the garage.

Around 2:00 in the morning I realized that my car was still parked in front of the driveway and not IN the driveway and so I ran out there to move it and sure enough, I already had received a parking ticket, courtesy of the Mt. Juliet police. I can't believe they don't have any bigger crime to find than me on my quiet street (which is partially still under construction), and give me a ticket only an hour after the no parking time. It's a $20 ticket! For parking in front of my own driveway! (Actually, with the right 2 wheels pretty much in the driveway anyway). Not nice at all!

Jerrod is giving me his Mac this weekend. I'm excited to get it. I'm probably going to want to play around with it a bunch, but I have so much other stuff to do right now!

I have an announcement to make:

After two and a half months of living in my house, I have managed to keep my side of the closet clean. It has not been messy yet! Even Jerrod acknowledges that I am doing a good job with it, and I think he is very surprised about it, considering my past track record.
Since I started sharing a closet with Jerrod in this new house, I knew I would have to try harder to keep it clean to prevent excessive stress on his part.

It's funny to me, because I hadn't even thought much about it until recently. Now, in the past couple of days I've realized that after I started hanging up my clothes, it magically stays clean!

I've been very neglectful in writing anything here in the past while. I have just been either busy, tired, both...or not feeling like doing anything. So basically, I guess what I have been up to recently is:
- Songwriting
- Painting, both a bathroom with Jerrod and an old cedar chest I acquired a few months back. (more on that disaster later.)
- Practicing some recording with my new at home set up
- Playing with my camera and starting to make some videos
- Thinking a lot about what to do for my Primary class
- Planning lessons and shopping and making things for my Primary class
- Reading
- Researching things I am working on for music, art, primary, etc.
- Hanging out with Jerrod
- Doing a little scrapbooking, here and there...
- Sleeping more than I want to and feeling not so great some days.
- And more or less of the usual...It all sounds pretty usual!

Sometime last year, when Jerrod and I were in our other ward and teaching the 8-year-olds class at church, I remember we walked by a class of smaller kids, who I am now assuming must have been 3 or 4, and they were learning about how Heavenly Father gives us fish. The lesson was called, "I'm thankful for the fish."
At the time, I said to Jerrod, "I want to teach the lesson about the fish. That sounds like a fun class. haha."
Well, I guess I got my wish, because I am now the new teacher of the 3-year-olds in our branch.

Jerrod and I both got asked to do new things at church. Jerrod is now the branch missionary leader. It's going to be a little bit of a big job...mostly because he has to be to 7:30 am meetings on Sunday's, and we are, of course, not morning people. I'm feeling a little bad for him about that. The branch president stressed to him many times that he really feels that this is the most important calling in the branch. They just started this branch a year ago and they haven't seen the growth in our area like they had hoped because of the housing market being as slow as it is. So, we need to work on our missionary work a lot. Which, of course, every branch or ward does, but when a branch is new, we have to work extra hard to strengthen it.

As for me, I went in and sat with my new class this past Sunday and came to find out that they are quite the handful. A bit out of control. Our primary presidency told me that they didn't have the most structured time in nursery...I guess because they didn't always have a consistent teacher or schedule like needed to. (There is a shortage of people when you have a smaller/new branch, I guess.) So, apparently they are not used to having much routine at church.
I understand that they are 3, but I don't think this means that they are allowed to disobey when an adult tells them "no". I will have to see how it goes once we get going. I am hoping that once we get in a schedule and they come to expect that, they will start to calm down some.

In my efforts to allow myself more productive vocal practice sessions, I've decided that I am going to start doing some recording myself at home. I want to be able to listen back to myself and analyze what I am doing more closely. I also think that it will help me to feel more confident going into the studio. Being primarily a live performer, it's somewhat difficult to get used to the studio setting and adjust to the environment. For example: wearing headphones, like you have to do in a studio, changes the pressure on your ears and so you have to learn to hear things differently. I don't think it's the most natural thing for someone who has a lot of voice training.
I got a mixer and have a new microphone coming to me. Now all I have to do is learn how to use the software. I'm going with Cubase. Just the LE version, but a challenge for me when I have no experience with it. I feel like there are a lot of things I am focused on recently and my head is full of a lot of new stuff.

Ok, so my computer is rebuilt and back to me. (Jerrod put XP back on it instead of Vista, to speed things up, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet...)

Anyway, on Saturday, I tried made a little video and this is the first chance I had to post it. I'm going to have to play around with the settings and editing more on the camera, I think, but this is my start.

It's a couple days after the fact, but here it is anyway.