Debbie

So last week ( Wednesday)  I had another funeral. This time it was a member of my family.  I lost my Aunt Debbie.  She passed very unexpectedly and a day before her 72 birthday.  She leaves behind my 3 cousins and their kids as well as her husband.  I have so so many fun and awesome memories with her. Growing up she was my favorite aunt because I spent a lot of time at her house. My cousin is only 10 months younger than me so we pretty much grew up together.  Unfortunately over the years, we didn’t see eye to eye on so many things and we were estranged.  I can tell you that it’s a very weird and strange feeling to lose someone that you once were So close to and then not.  I grieve and miss the aunt I had with the fond memories I have.  I hurt for my cousins that lost their mom.   My cousins daughters were very very close to their grandmother and my heart goes out to them .   I am at 3 funerals this year and still only in February. 

The only good part of funerals is seeing your family and one of my cousins lives in London. He just flew home today but obviously we don’t get to see him often and I love every minute I can spend with him.  I got to have dinner with him and family last night and I’ll take what I can get.
Friday is Valentines so of course i'm not looking forward to that AT ALL!! Still going thru many "firsts" as a divorced woman.   Joy to the World!!

Rise above this

Hey there internet friends!  I have posted songs a few times by the group Seether.  Here lately , I’ve been listening to them every day. I was looking up some stuff about them on Wikipedia that lead me down a rabbit hole and discovered the meaning of the song Rise Above This.   The lead singer’s name is Shaun and he has a sister Lucy and  had a younger brother Eugene.  Shaun wrote the song for his brother to help him get out of a depression.  Unfortunately, in 2007, his brother jumped from an 8^th floor window of a hotel that the band was staying at in South Dakota and died.   In 2008, the band made a music video for MTV2 and during the filming, they had to have several takes because Shaun couldn’t stop himself from sobbing. The video portrays a boy who is leaping off a building and when he does, his family all falls down right where they are.  In video, they eventually bounce back up and has Suicide Hotline at the end. 

After learning about this I can totally tell that Shaun’s been crying on the video and it breaks my heart.

This song is on one of their earlier albums from 2007 named Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces.

I know this post is a little depressing but I also like learning about real facts and meaning of songs. I have suffered from a lot of depression lately and I listen to this song a lot.  Thought you may find it interesting too . They write the majority of their songs even though many years ago they did cover the song Careless Whisper by George Michaels and it did very well. 

Their last album was released in 2017 and I really wish they would release a new one.  I saw them in concert last May and so glad I did.

My rocknroll weekend and tornadoes

My weekend- Saturday morning i picked up my niece and went to garage sales. I totally scored on some vintage Christmas items!! I got that awesome Christmas tree that is narrow for a window sill from an estate sale. Then the next stop, I came across this box of vintage hand blown glass ornaments that are 2 layers in the box. Yall i got for 2$ on those ornaments.  I also grabbed some old silver items for my Steampunk party for Holliween.  I also bought a bumper boat raft that goes in the pool for 2$! It was originally 160$, then had a clearance sale price of 57$ from Macy's and i paid 2. Yay!! My nieces had fun playing with it on Memorial Day when they came over. I wish there would have been 2 of them. It does a good reverse and you can steer it. 

 The BFD concert was a long lineup of bands : The Dirty Nil, Glorious Sons, Bad Wolves, Thrice, LIVE, In this Moment, Seether, and Shinedown.  We missed the first 3 bands because Todd didn't want to go down there in the heat all day. I did want to see Bad Wolves but it was a good compromise because we still got to see 5 bands.  It was soooo fun!! We went to this event 3 years ago when Shinedown was headlining then.  I was not too familiar with Thrice but i ended up liking them. There were people that knew every word to their songs so they were popular.  Live was of course excellent and one of the main reasons i bought the tickets. That was my 3rd time to see them and i saw Ed Kowalcyk when he was solo.   In this Moment was a shocker. They were very much all about the theatrical side and WOW did they!! Truthfully, i wasn't a fan of them live but have since listened to them on Spotify and i like many of their songs. The singer is female and she's a screamer.
Seether was flipping AWESOME and i would definitely see them again !!  Shinedown never disappoints and they were the headliner for a reason. Great stage performance - lots of fire and lights, etc.  I just really enjoy them and pretty much like every song they do.  It was a great concert and i got my moneys worth!

Oh did i mention i got a tattoo our last day in Amsterdam? I got a raven for my mom. When she turned 50 she got a raven tattoo, i was going to do the same last year when i turned 50 but didn't quite make it.  I am so happy with it! 

Our gardenia bush that smells amazing the second you open the back door. I am so happy to have it! 

Yesterday, we were under Severe weather and tornado alerts in our area. My supervisor came running out of her office and told all of us to head home now because it was heading our way. Some funnels had already been seen and wasn't sure if they were going to touch down. A few minutes from home, the radio broadcast told exact times that the weather was hitting our area. It was 2:07 on my clock and the storm was going to be over our house at 2:20. The alert said clearly to Take Cover!! I rushed home and let dogs out of kennel and we ran outside in the rain so they could take potty break. I was yelling Hurry Hurry hurry!! Then we ran into house and i scooped them up and got into bathtub.  The dogs were so good and they could tell something was up. They didn't fuss and try to jump out .  Once it passed over- we had thunder and sideways rain, we got out.  Todd is in New York and Jersey this week on business. They too were under tornado watch. 

Everything is Ok at our house. Just debris and leaves to pick up but no damage. Unfortunately, the tornado hit down an hour east of us and tore things up pretty bad. They got hit last year too so its so sad.  I saw today that the US has had over 500 tornados in the last 30 days. yikes!! 

Stay safe!!

Castles and stuff

Hey my lovely peeps!! How is everyone? I didn't get to visit a single blog this week and i'm just skidding in on making my post for the week.  Its been crazy busy in graduation season. My stepdaughter graduated high school this past Wednesday night. I have a wedding and 2 more graduations to make in this next week. I am soooo ready for this long weekend!! We're chilling tonight and eating leftovers and watching Dateline. That's usually our Friday night routine and i'm more than Ok with it. Tomorrow we're going to a swimming party at some friends house and eating tacos so that makes me happy. Sunday, we're going to be at that all day music fest concert that i'm soooo excited about. The top 3 headliners are Live, Seether, and Shinedown. I know i mentioned recently in one of my posts.  Monday, chilling in our pool and my cousin and her family are hanging out with us. That's my weekend plans.  Do yall have anything fun planned?
I thought i would wrap up with more Amsterdam pictures.  On one of our day tours, we went to Haarlem which happens to be the original Harlem and its what ours in NYC is named after. Haarlem is also where Corrie Ten Boom hid Jews from the Nazis.  We didn't get to tour that but it was cool to see the building where it happened. There were some buildings that dated back to the 13th and the 14th century.  That blows my mind!! That's the kind of stuff we enjoyed seeing and experiencing while in a different country.
We also toured a castle called Kastle De Haar.  The original castle was around 1391 and it eventually burned down. It was rebuilt in 1892. It had a beautiful church on the property that we didn't get to tour but a wedding had just taken place there a few days prior.  How cool would that be?!!  I  have always wanted to visit a castle in Europe so i can scratch that off my bucket list.
So here are a lot of pictures.

Please be safe this Memorial Weekend.

Winner of the Battle of the Bands

Good morning.  This battle was super close and for a while it was a tie. I have never voted on my own battles and thought i was going to have to vote. I received 2 more votes over the weekend and both of those votes helped seal the deal.  The winner of the battle is Celtic Thunder 11 votes to The Killdares 9 votes.  My vote would have gone to The Killdares but it wouldnt have mattered. Which by the way, they are playing this weekend at the Green Elephant if you were in Dallas.  If you were in Dallas though i would invite everyone of you to my Holliween party this weekend. I've been decoration for a month getting ready for it. I'm taking Friday off so that i can wrap up everything. I need to get some bales of hay from Dad and go to Sams. Last year i filled up 2 carts with wine and snacks.
Today is the funeral for my friend "J".  I have my concert t-shirt in the car.  The dress attire for the service is to be no suits at all and everyone in concert t-shirts.  How cool is that?!  I think its great they are staying so true to exactly how "J" would want it!
I am in a CPR class for the next 4hours getting re-certified.  I am on my company's safety committee and our CPR certificate expires next month so we're doing it again.  I dont mind. It will keep my mind busy for hours.
I'm wrapping up today with another one of my favorite songs right now.  Its by Seether who is on my list of faves.  The album was released last year in 2014 but you know how radio will release one song at a time.  Its called Nobody praying for me.  Its explicit because of the word F**K so just giving you heads up.  Skate on by if you're offended by the F-bomb.  It wouldnt be my choice to have it in the chorus but i still really like the song.   The video is intense too. They have a message for sure. They said the video is to have people think for themselves and not the media all the time.

Also real quick, thank you for the positive encouraging and loving comments from yesterday.  You have no idea how much each one of them meant to me yesterday!!!
Have a great day!