Soundtrack to My Life

Music just grabs at my soul. I know I am not the only one. Sometimes music puts words to feelings I had but couldn't start to figure out how to say. I am always looking for new interesting music and am not disappointed by a few of my favorites. There are just a few people who always get me with their lyrics and I know I can browse my library of stuff from these two or three people/groups and come up with something to fit my mood. Always.

Currently:

Lighting strikes

inside, my chest to keep me up at night

to dream of ways

to make you understand my pain...

Drop his name

push it in and twist the knife again

watch my face

as I pretend to feel no pain...

How come the only way to see how high you get me

is to see how far I fall

God only knows how much I'd love you if you'd let me

but I can't break through it all...

Good to know it's all a game

disappointment has a name, it's heartbreak warfare...

I belt these lyrics out at the top my lungs, tears streaming down my face with a few names running through my head. I love that these lyrics can say exactly what I am feeling right now.

Christmas Spirit Day 3

Today I downloaded and listened to the vocal styling of this amazing 10 man acapella group, Straight No Chaser. I have been a fan for a while but this is the newest CD and let me tell you, some great stuff on this thing. 12 days of Christmas is worth a listen for sure. I love Christmas music and this may be on that list of favorite Christmas Albums.

Nah-Nah

Just here to remind you to "Get Jiggy With It".

thank you Will Smith for this priceless phrase and sentiment.

Oh, and by the way...

"Every body, Rock your Body...Backstreets Back..."

Brought to you by your friendly sponsor...the nineties.

The Grammy's

I admit it whole heartedly, I love music. All styles, genres, and beats. So tonight was a wonderful evening for me. The Grammy's. I still get giddy and excited at the idea of them. I love the live performances to see who I am surprised to enjoy performances from and who I am disapointed in. And then there are the awards.

I cross my fingers, hold my breath and grit my teeth as winners are read. Tonight was no exception. So here are a few of my favorites and a few I would have been ok to missed.

Yay for my favorite Adele winning best new artist! I fell in love with her voice about a year ago when I first heard her song "Hometown Glory" and she became my solace in her beautiful alto tones on her amazing cd. Not to mention I think she is amazingly beautiful. I loved her performace of "Chasing Pavements" which is one of my favorite songs. Enjoyed the Sugarland addition at the end of her performace, but I enjoy Sugarland.

I have never liked Kid Rock, but was surprised to find myself enjoying his performace.

I loved Hennifer Hudson. She is an amazing singer with a full and powerful voice. I was touched at her emotion and I LOVED her dress. Where can I get that?

I was happy to see Alison Krauss and Robert Plant win for their amazing Cd. I loved their colaboration and was happy to see it so well recieved by the music world.

I love Coldplay and am always happy to see them perform, but I am always disapointed.

And yay for Blink-182 showing up together and them "playing music together again".

Not a Miley Cyrus fan but I do like Taylor Swift and was pleasantly surprised to enjoy their duet.

Dave Grohl. Hot. Wonderful. I love him on drums, oh what they hey, I always love him. And Paul McCartney was ok too.

Ah, my boy John Mayer won for Say! Love the song and love him. I became a fan years ago before he had a record deal and have loved seeing the progression. His performance was so bluesy and I loved it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Radio Head performance. I miss listening to them. I may have to start putting them in heavy rotation again. The Grammy's are good at reminding me of stuff like that.

Justin Timberlake. Is it just me or is his voice not changing and sounding more and more like a whinny teenagers everyday? Yeah, you could say it annoys me. And the singing out of the side of his mouth is not that attractive. Thanks though.

The tribute to the Four Tops by Smokey Robinson, Ne-Yo, Jaime Foxx and the lone surviving member, Duke Fakir was so much fun. Had to have been hard for Duke though to realize that he is the only one left.

All in all it was a night of pure pleasure for me. One more reason to love February, the greatest month of the year.

Shoot!

I had a long and crazy day my friends! I will give the quick synopsis and head to bed...

I went to work. Screaming kids annoy me. Smoking mom's annoy me. Screaming kids with smoking moms who won't come get their kids annoy me. I still love my boys.

Went to a photo shoot with my friend Cassie...she had her head shots and a bunch of pics for her portfolio taken. It was very interesting to be there and to see how the photographer and stylists worked. Very cool.

Went to provo and saw my sister, bro-in-law and nephew, Caius. We celebrated Christmas, a few weeks late, I know, but between schedules and snow, this was the first time we had a chance! I put Caius to sleep and he was so cute! We played a game a phase ten and laughed our way through it (It's a Prom party, you know, like a palm pilot!) and talked about some pretty funny stuff. We really enjoyed it. It was good to see family for a few hours.

I drove home the 75 miles completely on cruise control and munched on chocolate, belted out songs from the Ipod (from john denver, 30 seconds to Mars, Nsync, Pam Tillis, Cake, Yo-Yo Ma and some Ne-Yo).

Now I am home, after forgetting my camera at work today. I had so much to take pictures of today too! Oh well. I'll let your imaginations paint the pictures.

Oh, and don't worry, I will take a picture of my Christmas gift from my sister and post it tomorrow. You will love it. It is totally me and it is from (drum roll please!) IKEA. I can almost see Liv anxiously awaiting this post. haha!

Rock Out

As my moods change so does what comes out of my ipod. And yes, I am addicted to my ipods. One is always on in my house, car or wherever. I have a great love of music. I spent thousands of hours devoted to music in one way or another. My music collection reflects it too.
So, when trying to come up with something blog worthy to post about, I popped the cake into the oven (because when am I not cooking anymore?) and belting out a song when the idea popped into my mind, just post your playlist and call it good.
So, here is what is on the heaviest rotation in my life. Hopefully you will find a song you know and love as much as I do, or feel inspired to look up a song and fall in love with it.

1) One Bad Apple, The Osmonds. I have an odd fixation with Donny and I just can't seem to break away! When I went to the concert a month ago I fell in love with this cheesy 60's number and it has been playing regularly ever since.

2) Ready to Begin, Mandy Moore. More than just her pop princess roots I love her slightly off beat sound and her lyrics sing to my love of folk music. I would have been a hippy, or at least loved the music. Plus, this particular song echo's my sentiments on a few things at the moment.

3) Incomplete, Alanis Morissette. I love the stories that Alanis tells in her music. And this one like Mandy's, speaks to my heart right now.

4) Your Joy, Chrisette Michele. This is such a tender song. It makes me think of my Dad and how much I love him and how much I took for granted. It has a haunting melody and her voice is soothing and rich.

5) No Good Deed, from Wicked, Idina Menzel. I adore her range in this song and her heart wrenching emotions that fill every note. I feel her pain and heartache and belt this song more than you would probably like to know. Yay for Broadway!

6) Jesus and Gravity, Dolly Parton. Like country or not, Dolly is awesome. That little lady has a voice and she is a pretty awesome person to boot. I love that chorus, "Something holding me up, something pulling me down...I've got Jesus and Gravity..." when my life is overwhelming and I can't tell up from down, these are the words that run through my mind. My mother would cringe, hating the twang that resonates with country music, but there is more of my Dad's blood than hers when it comes to music. Give me bluegrass, hick music and watch me lose all ability to sit still!

7) Love in this Club, Usher. Ok, ok. My sister is Rachel and she rubbed off on me ever so slightly. And I can not tell you the completely hilarious times that this song has brought on! Logan leaning over and whispering this song to me in sacrament meeting, belting it at the top of our lungs at the top of a mountain, and introducing it to a couple in their 50's so they can sing it in a talent show for our singles ward! I love this song.

8) Pumpkin Soup, Kate Nash. Love it. Dance to it. Work out to it. Love it.

9) Settlin', Sugarland. "I ain't settling for just getting by, I've had enough so so for the rest of my life, Tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high, Just enough ain't enough this time, I ain't settling for anything less than everything, yeah "

10) Sola, Insite. I took about 6 years of Spanish in school. I hated it and loved it all at once. I love the language, hate to to try to study for the class. I adore Spanish music. This song is in Spanish and I love it. I rock out to it (since it is a more alternative style) all the time and I get the oddest looks when I am belting out this Spanish song driving down the road. People can't quite believe the Spanish coming out of this white girl. But I love it.

Donny Osmond

Well I am a lucky girl. My friend Tricia in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and she got me some tickets to the Pioneer Celebration Concert featuring the Osmond family tonight. It was crazy! A dream of mine has always been to see Donny Osmond live, and tonight was that night.

There were no camera's allowed in so you will just have to take my word for it or catch a re-run of it on BYU-TV. But it was a tribute to all things Osmond and some great pieces of music from Motab. The Osmonds sang some of their old school hits like; One Bad Apple, Yo-Yo and medley's of the ones no one can forget. You can't go wrong with "She's a little bit Country, He's a little bit Rock n' Roll..." Marie wore this one dress that was completely sparkly that made us laugh and Tricia in the choir was telling us how nervous Marie was about wearing it because she thought it was just too much. All in all it was lots of fun. Donny was all I dreamed of.

For this great evening I got my awesome friend Logan to join me. Now what a great friend he is, he got off work early to come, got dressed up (slacks and button up shirt, no tie required!) and went with me. I couldn't ask for a better friend at the moment, and yes he is ONLY a friend. No attraction between us. Really, it is a brother/sister thing. I cook for Logan (have I mentioned that? I cook three meals a day for him. No lie. He pays me and it works out great for me!) and all things are great fun with him. Plus, he got a new song to sing for his American Idol audition in a week!

So, I only got a few pictures of him and me so you will have to enjoy these. And I am posting a sampling of what Logan can do on the mic so when you see him on AI you can say "hey, I remember seeing that guy on Nichole's blog!"

JM Inspirations

I have been a John Mayer fan since before he had a record deal and to this day I am a HUGE fan. I have been digging this "Work in Progress" from him and thought I would share in his simplicity and melodic inspiration. Love it, hate it. I think he is genius.