Currently listening...

1. Armin Van Buuren - The Sound of Goodbye
2. Jes - Imagination (Kaskade remix)
3. Sunlounger - Another Day On the Terrace
4. Sultan - No Why (Starsweeper Summer Breeze remix)
5. Robbie Rivera - Float Away (Ali Dubfire remix)
6. Starsweeper - Sexual
7. Rui Da Silva - Touch Me
8. Coldplay - Don't Panic
9. Rise Against - Swing Life Away
10. Sunlounger - White Sand (Armin Van Buuren remix)

My friends and I create albums. We don't just make "mix-tape" compilations, we actually compose a track listing according (as much as possible) to beat matching, style, etc. Our albums have titles and the most recent one we made was "Skip's Picks, Vol. 1" which contains some of the songs listed in this month's posting. The CD is all trance, but not too hard.

I first heard a DJ friend's mix of No Why about a year ago and fell in love with it. I had never heard of Sultan, but loved this mix. Since then, and especially recently, I have heard more and more from Sultan, and have come to appreciate him as a producer, and a DJ. I got to see him play at the Depot the night before Thanksgiving, and he was INCREDIBLE!

The Sound of Goodbye is one of my favorite Armin songs. It is dark and dirty and I love it! The other track from Armin (well, his remix anyway) is White Sand. The guitar in this song makes me so happy every time I hear it.

I love Jes' voice. Skip and Girl found Imagination one night and couldn't stop talking about it. I have to say, I agree with their high opinion of the song, but wouldn't expect anything less from Kaskade.

As always, all the tracks listed are definitely worth checking out. They make my life enjoyable, or when things are really bad, at least bearable.

The Clubhouse!

One of the BEST ideas we have ever had was last Saturday night. We discovered an entrance to the attic in our hallway, and decided to go exploring. S___ hoisted us up on his shoulders and we disappeared into the darkness. It was so dirty up there!! We had to find a beam each time we put our foot down, but G___ and S___ and I carefully meandered our way to the front windows and looked out. It was so cool to see the street from that perspective.

When we finally got S___ to let us back down, we were covered in insulation and dirt. I had a couple of good scratches on my right forearm; battle wounds!! So now, we're going to make a "No Girls Allowed" clubhouse up there with a rope-ladder and everything! It's going to be so much fun! Grand opening next weekend and as far as invitations go, you know who you are...

Update #2

Obviously almost every post is an update, but my very first post back in February was titled "Update #1" and I'm structuring this one exactly like that one. So here it is...

I live next to SLCC with my best friend and her two girls, my goddaughters.

I do not have a job.

I am still not married; not even close.

I am not dating anyone at the moment. And I don't really have the desire to.

I still live less than five miles away from my family and while I was seeing them more frequently for a while, I am back to hardly seeing them at all.

I will be 25 on my next birthday in March. And I CANNOT wait!

I have never been as happy as I am right now.

I did not know I had the capacity to love as much as I do until I met my "Crew" this year.

I have the most amazing friends. I know everyone thinks that they have the best friends, but we actually do.

mommy moments and unemployment

Since I am unemployed, I have become a part-time nanny for my goddaughters, who I live with. I posted earlier about having them home sick with me, but I also have them frequently in the evenings as well.

Wednesday morning G___ took Allee to school and went to work early. I was supposed to get Kalaya up and ready for school, and her dad was going to pick her up. I went in to wake her up and started calling her name, rubbing her back, gently shaking her and even giving her patty-pats. She told me her tummy hurt but I know she doesn't like getting up in the morning and told her that I would make her some toast, and that would probably help her feel better. Apparently, I'm not very convincing because that had absolutely no effect on her whatsoever. I called G___ and told her and while I was on the phone, I turned around and Kalaya had her hand over her mouth and I could tell she was vomiting. I grabbed her pajama top (which had been tossed on the floor in the middle of the night) and dumped her hand into it and then grabbed her to take her into the bathroom. I was still on the phone, while carrying Kalaya and getting thrown up on. Fine, whatever. She's four, and it really didn't bother me all that much.

I put her in the bathtub, stripped the bed and started a load of laundry with sheets, and both mine and Kalaya's pajamas. I put fresh sheets on the bed and new pajamas on Kalaya and we went and climbed back in bed. I had a bowl next to her and we were cuddling with her CareBear. My back was to her and all of a sudden, I heard her coughing and once again, my shoulder was covered in vomit. *BREATHE* It's okay. These things happen. But there's a bowl ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HER!! *BREATHE*

So we went through the whole ordeal again of cleaning up, but instead of getting back in bed, this time we sat on the living room floor, with the bowl in her lap. This time, I'm ready.

Well, she was fine the rest of the day but all I could think was this: This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen until AFTER you have children. Again, it honestly didn't bother me all that much, but even still...I got thrown up on twice but a sweet, sick little girl.

Regarding my job hunt: Today marks the 52nd day that I have been unemployed. I have applied for close to 100 jobs and have had two interviews. The few weeks I've had off so far have been nice and while the main driving force behind my job hunt is the income thing (go figure), I am already extremely bored and fear that too much more of this will drive me to a Fear and Loathing type experience, dragging my family with me. Only in this case, we're going to Mexico.

Currently listening...

A little late on the posting again. This is my list for November:

1. Wippenberg - Chakalaka
2. Keemo & Tim Royko - Beautiful Lie
3. The Mitchell Project - Alive
4. Agnelli & Nelson - Holding Onto Nothing
5. Portishead - Cowboys
6. Coldplay - Don't Panic
7. RJD2 - Smoke & Mirrors
8. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
9. Postal Service - Such Great Heights
10. Armin Van Buuren feat. Racoon - Love You More

The first four tracks are from a CD that a friend made titled "November Trance" and if you would like a copy (because it's worth listening to the whole thing) let me know and I will get you one. Beautiful Lie is my favorite track on the CD, followed closely by Alive.

The next few are songs that I listened to in the airport on my way too and from Kansas. They are songs that I have enjoyed for years (in every case except for Smoke & Mirrors which I've been enjoying for months) but don't listen to as frequently. Definitely worth checking out, or revisiting.

And Love You More was introduced to me by a good friend a couple of weeks ago. The vocal mixed with the trance background is a perfect match, in my opinion.

Sign language

We left a friend in charge of Kalaya one day. Not for the whole day, just for an hour. What we came home to was sweet little Kalaya Maggie Vincent doing sign language. This friend had taught her how to say "I love you, Mom," in sign language. Here's the picture:


Since the picture is a still, and motion is involved, I'll explain it. To say, "I love you, Mom," in sign language, you put your hands above your ears and extend each index finger. Then, in rapid motion, retract and extend each finger while moving your tongue in and out of your mouth like a lizard. Easy enough.

The other sign she learned was the actual "I love you." I showed her how to do it and positioned her hand correctly. Then she started waving it around and translated, "I love you forever!" I think it's going to catch on.

So yesterday I asked Kalaya to do "I love you, Mom" for me so I could take a picture to show people how to do sign language. Her response at first was no, but then she said okay, if she could do the Shep face first. Not big, just little. So here's a picture of that: