Call me crazy, but...

Is there a similarity in voice between Susan Boyle here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI2DxkrgpgQ

and Madonna's here:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=075992620925

(Click on the song, "Sooner or Later.")

Or am I just kidding myself? When I was listening to Ms. Boyle's rendition of "Cry Me a River" I kept thinking her voice in that one sounded really familiar, and then I got a picture in my mind of Madonna as Breathless Mahoney singing in the movie, "Dick Tracy." I thought, did Madonna ever sing "Cry Me a River"? I don't think she ever did, and when I did a search, nothing came up of her ever singing that song. But I did find a short sample recording of her singing "Sooner or Later" in the Dick Tracy movie, and sure enough, there's a similar breathy sultry sound, a similar vibrato.

I don't think anyone's made that comparison, but I do think it's there.

Yarn shop locator widget

I've just added a yarn shop locator widget at the bottom of this blog. As I love to know where all the knitting shops are in my area, it's very handy, and of course should I travel, I like to know where there might be a yarn shop. I'm going to add some of my favorites in my area (I notice one of my favorites, Renaissance Yarns, in Kent, WA, has the wrong address, so I'll go in and fix it shortly).

Feel free to add your own. I want to be sure that if I'm in your area of the world, I'll know where the best yarn shops are.

What the Alien Child's Guitar playing sounds like

The music on the United State of Mind MySpace page doesn't highlight my kid's guitar playing (indulge me--I am going into Fond Mom mode here) that much, but the band has put up a recording of a song in progress, for now called "Something New." No, that's not the name of the song, it's just "something new" they're figuring out, sharing the process of music-making, as they say on their MySpace blog. The somewhat Spanish-sounding portion at the end is the Alien Child doing some off-the-cuff improvisation. They may keep it, they may not...that's all a part of the creative process, whether it's in music or in writing.

I'm rather surprised they are willing to let people into their creative process like this, but I think it's because they enjoy the creativity so much that they just want to share. Enjoy!

Taxes - Ugh

I hate 'em. I'm always nervous that I'll make some kind of terrible mistake, and then a bunch of IRS agents and people in SWAT gear are going to come over and bust down my door. I'm not good at math, but I am good at reading every word and examining them for meaning, which means I'm scared to death that I'll misinterpret something and get it wrong. So I use Turbotax, but it just does the math, not interpret the gadzillion different codes of tax law.

This is why I wish we had a flat tax. There is no misinterpretation of, say, 10% or 15% of one's income. It would also reduce the size of government by a huge amount. However, there are lots of people who have a stake in not having a simple tax structure, such as tax attorneys, tax accountants, and companies that make tax software.

Still, the taxes are done. I can put them out of my mind for a while.

The United State of Mind - 3rd place!

I'm so happy! They did incredibly well. Third place out of eight finalists is fantastic in a three-state competition (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), especially considering the band had only been together as a whole for a couple of months, compared to the other competitors, who have been together for more than a few years.

My brother Dave was there, and he said the scores were the closest in the Battle of the Bands history: 93, 92, and 91. USM got the 91. In his opinion, the thing that probably lowered their score was that the sound mixing wasn't top notch. However, it was good enough so that the professional musicians and music professors in the panel of judges could hear what was going on, so they scored them high.

And...dare I say it? My kid apparently was one of, if not the, best guitarist of all the bands. Or so my brother says.

I am so proud of them all. They did a great job.

The Battle of the Bands is on tonight!

I think the only person more excited about the Alien Child's band and their progress is possibly the AC or my brother Dave, who gave the boy his first guitar and dog-eared blues book. No, actually, the hubby and I more excited than my brother, but Dave's over there now, taking in the experience from rehearsal to the performance tonight.

I hope they do well. Regardless, it's great exposure for a brand-new band.

Good Karma at last for the Alien Child

The Alien Child's band, The United State of Mind, has been featured in a newspaper article.

Yeah, I'm a proud mom. He felt so low in January, and he's worked so hard trying to find a job, and it's broken my heart to see him go through it all, trying to make ends meet. Well, he's still trying to make ends meet, but he's also worked really hard along with his hard-working bandmates, and now he's seeing some success. I'm crossing my fingers for him. The band will be competing in the Battle of the Bands this Friday; the Battle begins at 7 pm at WSU. Even if they don't win, it'll still be good exposure for them.

I'm crossing my fingers for all of his bandmates. They sound like good guys from Derek's report, and very talented. I like that they're all supportive of each others' creativity. I've only heard as many songs as they've put up on their MySpace page, so I'm not privy to any more than that. I do know they've been working on nine new songs and have revised "Yellow Ribbon," which is about the lead singer's experience in the Iraq war.

I think there will be a podcast or streaming audio of the concert, but I don't know where that will be posted. I guess I'll find out.

End of Proud Mom moment.

For now. :-)

Taxes

I still have to finish my tax return. Ugh. Sometimes I wish we could vote with our taxes. For example, i wish there were a list of federal government departments on our tax forms, and we could say what percent of the taxes we paid could go to this or that government department. You could decide to give an even percentage to each department, or maybe more to some you think need more funding, and less to others.

There was a saying some decades ago that went something like, "wouldn't it be great if the Pentagon had to put on a bake sale to fund a war, instead of schools?" Used to be, you kinda sorta did. WWII was funded by people buying War Bonds, and people literally did have bake sales to buy War Bonds to fund the war. The rate of return wasn't great, but people all over felt it was their patriotic duty to support the war.

Anyway, it seems to me that if we could choose what percentage of our taxes went to certain areas of government, we'd probably see some massive cutbacks.

Or, we could go to a flat tax. That would save a lot of money, but it'd probably mean the IRS would suddenly be a much smaller department...which kind of is the point.

Shoulder aches made better

I'm getting old, I swear. Got a pinched nerve some weeks ago that won't go away, which makes it hard to write for long periods of time. However, I want to give a shout-out to Nancy at theferriswheels.etsy.com, who makes these pads you can heat up in the microwave and put on your neck and shoulders. These are not the wimpy little things that drape over your neck, these are large cozy pads that go over your neck and drape down your shoulder. They really cover a lot of area. I bought one and draped it over my shoulder, and it covered my back down to my shoulder blade, where the pain mostly radiates from. VERY nice. I was able to write again after doing some stretches and putting a heated pad on my shoulder.

Also, I found it can cover my feet when they get cold, too. Having toasty toes during a cold rainy evening is pretty close to heaven.

More hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn!

I have become the Mad Dyer. I found that I really, really, really like dyeing roving, and then spinning the result. And, since I am sick and tired of the wet, cold rainy and even snowy weather we have been having (although today was blessedly warm), I dyed more roving some weeks ago in bright summery colors and have been slowly spinning them into sock yarn. I should mention I don't use precious writing time to spin yarn--I only do it when I am tired and have no brain left for anything else than watching TV (spinning yarn is my way of making TV time useful). I decided to name my yarn something warm and summery and not cold northwest-y. The one to the right above I called "Bahamas Vacation," because that is where I wish I were right now. The one below to the left is called "Dry Tortugas," which is not an alcoholic beverage, I found, but a string of islands. For some reason I think "Dry Tortuga" should be some kind of cocktail--it just sounds like it should. Perhaps it is...I am not very informed about mixed drinks.

And then there is the other one I had posted about earlier, the one with primary colors, which I decided call "Primary Thoughts."

I'm selling them at my Etsy site; I've decided that I'm going to try to use the proceeds from yarn sales to buy the Adobe Creative Suite software (as well as to continue to contribute to building an orphanage in the Congo, which my church is sponsoring). My software skills in that area are not all up-to-date. I'm fairly up-to-date with InDesign, and Adobe Acrobat professional, but that's it. My Dreamweaver software is years out of date. I hate not keeping up my skills.

As for dyeing roving...I am going to dye some more, but that will have to wait until I get this novella done. Meanwhile, I have some red/coral red wool roving that I'm combining with black wool, which should look rather dynamic.

I also bought some supplies (foam brushes and citric acid--I understand citric acid is non-toxic, smells better, works just as well, and is less expensive than vinegar for dyeing) from the Dharma Trading Company. I used to get their catalog years ago, back before there was an internet, lost touch, then found to my delight that they now have a web site. They speci

alize in fiber arts and clothing blanks (plain white cloth and clothes you can paint/dye/etc.) and their prices are very reasonable. Check them out!

I am so glad today was warm and sunny. I found some weeks ago that I'm severely vitamin D deficient, which has contributed to a host of on-going health problems I've been having for years (fatigue, some memory loss, muscle soreness, insulin resistance, and on an on). So I've been taking vitamin D supplements, and decided to go out and work in the garden today to soak up some Ds from the sun, even though the soil is very muddy. The lawn squishes when I walk on it, seriously. I knelt in the grass next to the flower bed in the front yard, felt my knees becoming decidedly wet, and discovered that mud liberally covered the knees of my jeans. Ugh. Very deceptive that lovely green grass. So I got one of those kneeling pads for gardening, which was not much better, because it was spongey and thus soaked up the mud from the soil. My knees absorbed more water than mud, because the spongey pad no doubt filtered out the mud particles and let the water through.

But, I found to my delight that the danged squirrels didn't dig up all of m

y bulbs like they usually do each year, and I found some slug-damaged hyacinths as well as some over-crowded tulip bulbs and daffodils that were just sprouting. So I separated these bulbs to give them some breathing room, and with any luck they'll grow all right into some very nice flowers.

Only one set of daffodils, though. I had planted more than five sets last year, and I only found one set. This does not make me happy. However, there is a good bulb farm--the Van Lierop Bulb Farm--not too far away from here, over in Puyallup. I bought some bulbs there, and was smart enough to take my camera with me to take some pictures of the lovely tulips they had growing in their gardens at the time. Here's a few pictures of them, below (and above).