I haven't posted in a year

It has been so long since I posted I couldn't even remember how to get to my blog. I do have very good reasons for slacking off. I don't regret it or feel bad that I haven't taken the time. Actually, I have still kept a journal of sorts for my life and our family, just in a different form. It is much more fun that scrap booking, or blogging or anything I've ever done. I have been writing songs. Last January I started writing songs. Before last January I'd never written a song, I've never even written a poem. I loved it so much and was so obsessed that I let a lot of things go un-done. In the spring instead of planting a vegetable garden I started taking guitar lessons. I did vocal exercises in the morning instead of taking a walk or working in the garden. I wrote songs instead of all the summer canning I usually do. The millions of apricots, peaches, pears, apples from our trees were given away or fell to the ground. I didn't care. (my husband was pretty bummed) All I wanted to do was write another song. I'd love to go into all the details of why I started writing songs or why I started working on improving my voice and learning the guitar but Sarah is throwing another massive fit and it is such a long detailed, personal, spiritual story I don't think I can go into all of that in this quick post. Plus I'm wondering if I should play catch up and post pictures from the past year instead of launching into this personal story. I didn't stop taking pictures this past year. I kind of wish I would have. They are all piling up and making me feel overwhelmed and like I'll never get them organized! It's all so overwhelming that I don't even want to begin to sort through all the pictures on my computer and in my kitchen drawer...........but.......I'll just start here and see what I can do.

Sarah just finished her fit and came and said "sorry mom" and now she's gone to play at her friends house. My house is silent and all my kids are at friends or quietly playing in the basement. Wo, wow, what the heck is going on? I'll take that as a sign to just keep typing.

Fall of 2009 I said a little prayer. It went something like this. "Dear Heavenly Father, I really miss singing. In my teens and twenties I had opportunities to sing in choirs, quartets, duets. I don't have any time or opportunity so sing and I miss it. I don't have the guts to volunteer or go seeking opportunities to sing so.......if anyone asks me to sing, even if its a solo, I'll say yes. Amen"

Let me back up. About 4 years earlier my friend had asked me to sing a solo for the children in our ward to teach them a new song. I said "no, I don't sing solo's" That was the last time anyone ever asked me to sing. That's why I said in my prayer "if anyone asks me to sing even if it's a solo, I'll say yes" even though I'm pretty much phobic of singing solo. On with the story. I knew God would answer my prayer, I knew I'd get asked to sing. I've said enough prayers in my life to know what happens when I ask for something. A few weeks later my friend sat in front of me at church and heard me singing and complimented me. A short time after that she asked me if I'd sing a solo for this Relief Society meeting she was in charge of planning. I of course said........"Yes" even though I was terrified. She gave me the song she wanted me to sing. I listened to it on a cd she let me borrow. It was a song by Hillary Weeks called Who You Are. It was completely not in my range. I physically could not sing it. I thought maybe who ever played the piano for me could play it in a higher key and I could sing it in my choral soprano voice but the song was like a contemporary Christian type song, not a choral soprano hymn. It wasn't meant to be sung all high. This was a problem for me since in high school I learned how to sing in my head voice as a soprano and that is the ONLY way I could sing. My type of voice sounds great singing in a choir or singing a hymn with an alto harmonizing but not so good for a song like the one I agreed to sing. Oh dear. What have I agreed to? I could always tell my friend to ask Heidi H. or Debbie R. they both have beautiful alto voices and could sing this song easy. But, I said that prayer...... and if I turn down this chance when will another one come? I can't just ask for a chance and turn it down when it comes. Trouble.

I started to have these nagging little thoughts "If I can sing high I should be able to sing low."

"It doesn't make sense that I can't sing on key in my chest voice but I can in my head voice"

"It's not logical, my dad can sing so well, I should have that genetic ability in me somewhere"

"I wish I could sing with my whole range and my whole voice"

These types of thoughts wouldn't stop circulating through my head.

These thoughts would keep me up at night.

I decided I would just start practicing the song. I put my twins down for their awesome 3 hour nap, put the cd on in my kitchen and sang along. I sounded bad. Off key. very little control. No vibrato. And worst of all it hurt to sing in my chest voice (chest voice is when you sing low in more of your talking voice). In the past that's why I never really tried so sing in an alto range, because it hurt. I had always believed I just couldn't sing that way. Well now I was just not accepting that thought as true anymore. It didn't seem logical. I didn't seem right. I practiced the next day and I still sounded bad but it hurt less. I practiced all week and at the end of the week I could get through the whole song without it hurting my voice. After the second week I could pretty much stay on pitch. Another week and I had some vibrato on most of the notes. What!!!??? All I had to do was practice and I could sing with this part of my range?! I know that sounds so simple but it was a major revelation to me. I was almost 36 at the time so it felt like a big deal to me that I had this part of my voice lying dormant my whole life.

I was pretty shocked and happy that I was sounding better and better. I got on the Internet and started googling trying to find anything I could on singing lessons, vocal exercises etc. Eventually I found a website called Singing Success. It was great and basically said anyone can improve their voice. Your vocal chords are just muscle, they can be strengthened and become more coordinated. They had a set of cd's with voice lessons you could buy for $200.00. No way was I going to spend that kind of money. But the website was full of encouraging information and I felt hopeful I could improve my voice to sound good enough to sing a solo. Luckily my friend asked me to sing in late Oct and the solo wasn't till mid January.

I better stop here. I need to go to bed.

I realized as I was contemplating NOT posting this (because it's so personal and it's scary to share personal stuff) that is has been a year to the day since I've posted. It gave me the chills and made me feel like today is the day to start blogging again.

I'm just going to have to click "publish post" Yikes I can't do it. Yes I can.