Bella Senora and other vocal warmups

In order to appease the Evil Nun at the church Gzilla and I are getting married at... and to hopefully make this whole "getting married in the Catholic church" thing as easy as humanly possible, I agreed to cantor at Mass. For you non church goers (which to be fair, was be up until two months ago--ha!) that means I stand in front of the church at the little pulpit and lead all the songs. All of them.

This past Sunday was my first time singing in front of people in over five years. Needless to say, I was slightly terrified. Especially because I did everything to prepare. I got my music ahead of time... didn't know ANY of the songs... taught them to myself via virtualpiano.net and learned that I actually DID know three of the songs, just with different lyrics. I met with the organist a week ago to rehearse, and I borrowed a digital recorder from the radio station (that my boss said he would never forgive me if I lost or broke it, so I guarded the damn thing with my life). We didn't check the battery beforehand... and because the battery was so low, it didn't record ANYTHING. So the processional/entrance hymn that I didn't know, I couldn't rehearse. The mass parts that I wasn't terribly familiar with, I couldn't rehearse. I did all my homework! This was supposed to work!

Plus, when I went to rehearse, I warmed up my voice and everything was fine. Right as I go into church...I get some weird allergy attack and I totally lose any note that's above a C. Now I'm worried that I'm going to suck, get thrown out as a cantor, and get on the Evil Nun's bad side again. But yesterday, I woke up 2 hours before Mass. Drank more water than was probably necessary, and warmed up my voice a whole heck of a lot. And I didn't suck.

I might not be acting anymore... but at least I can still keep up with my singing at Mass. They have a choir, but they rehearse on Monday nights (I have knitting group!) and they perform on Sundays (I have work!) so I'm not joining that choir. I'm hoping that by cantoring at Mass, some of the other newly engaged couples will ask me to cantor their wedding. That'd be awesome.

This is either going to be a great idea... or an epic fail.

I'm going to this "event" tonight that a local magazine is throwing... it's a "Beauty Bash" and I can't help but picturing a bunch of nicely dressed ladies beating up other nicely dressed ladies with hair dryers, make up bags, and other beauty paraphanalia.

The website for the magazine has little to no information about what to expect (just where it is, how much tickets are, and a very short list of the goings on of tonight... no details) so I'm a bit nervous. I have little expectations, because I have no clue! I know QVC does a Beauty Bash every year, and I KNOW what they have in store (most of the time, women who go walk away with close to $1000 in gifts from the QVC retailers. I want to go so. bad. but I can never get tickets...they sell out in SECONDS.)

I'm hoping to do a bit of bridal espionage tonight... check out salons, see what they have for bridal parties and whatnot. I haven't decided if I'm going to just have everyone do whatever they want with their hair, or if I'm going to pay to have their hair done. I don't know if I'll have a budget for that, that's the problem. By then, my sister will have her cosmotology license, but she's in the wedding, and it would be a lot to ask for her to do everyone's hair. Even though she's already offered (to do either everyone's hair or everyone's makeup). We'll see.

My biggest problem right now... when I look at pictures of last year's Beauty Bash, everyone is all dressed up! Like LBDs... heels... updos... CRAZY. I don't have time for that! I also don't have anything to wear! At the moment, I'm wearing my fancy jeggings (leggings that look like jeans) and a gray tunic sweater. But the sweater is very casual looking, and I'm afraid I will look frumpy. Ack! Do I completely change and put on a dress? Do I run over to the mall and pick up a fancier tunic to go with my awesome jeggings? I'm leaning towards the latter...

Great. Now I'm going to get lost ALL the time.

Gzilla's car was broken into last night. But they didn't smash the windows. In fact, we can't figure out HOW they got into the car. The alarm on the car is very sensitive, and that didn't go off. He's pretty sure he locked the car, but it's possible that he didn't.

Last night as I'm sleeping in a Benadryl-induced coma (or trying to) Gzilla wakes me up and asks me if the GPS was in the car. It was. Then he says "well it isn't anymore." Sometime between 10pm and 11:30 someone got into his car, took our GPS, and left. Didn't take the Sirius radio. Didn't take the briefcase (which had school papers in it, so it wasn't of use to anyone, but still). Didn't take anything...except our GPS. Which, honestly, was kind of a piece of shit anyway. I'm just glad they didn't break the windows of the car, because THAT'S a pain in the butt.

Luckily, I was able to get back to sleep just fine. But this morning... when I got into MY car, I noticed that there was an X (written on the inside of the windshield with a finger) on the drivers side. I noticed it yesterday... but didn't think anything of it. Didn't think "Gee, I didn't draw an X on my windshield... how did that get there?" That is... until after someone was in Gzilla's car. My car doesn't have anything of value in it. There's an X on my windshield because there isn't a GPS in it. But I always lock my car door! How the crap are these people getting into my car without breaking a window or triggering the alarm?