Infants

I feel so terrible! I have left my little infant blog alone for quite sometime. It's not healthy! It needs me. So here I am, back to feed it with my posts. :)

First of all - Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year! I hope everyone got what they wanted for Christmas. I sure did... and then some! I'm a music nerd and so I asked for a keyboard midi to hook up to my computer for a music notation program, Finale. I got it. It made me very happy. But also I've got THEE coolest parents ever! They got each of their kids their very own ice cream maker!!! It can be either electric or crank and looks kinda old fashioned. It's a 6 quart so it will make plenty of ice cream. :) I will make some ice cream this week and it will be delicious and it will all be because my parents are just rad like that! I searched and searched for a picture of it online so I could show you all, but alas, I don't know where they got it and none on google like quite as cool as mine, so I will be sure to take a picture of it for all of you to see while it's in action making me either some lemon or strawberry ice cream. I'm very excited.

Not much else is going on here. Saturday was a big Christmas party for my mom's family. It was crazy and fun, but what else would I expect for the Goodmans? My sister set up a studio type thing in one of the rooms of the church for silly pictures for all my cousins. It was a HIT! I was naturally the assistant and even got some pictures of my own. So fun. When I get them I'll post them for all of you to laugh at. And you will laugh.

So I'll try to take better care of my infant blog from now on.

Merry Christmas!

Cat Suicide!

Yes, this is my cat, Sobe, trying to suffocate herself. I'm not sure why, but as she was laying there peacefully on my bed she decided to put her face right into the blanket and try to kill herself. Maybe it's my music, I'm not sure. Or maybe she was just sick of our family. But she's only 4. Not old enough to be sick of us yet, RIGHT?! Right. Luckily, about 5 minutes after she tried smothering herself, she repositioned her head OUT of the blanket. She lives on!

Moving on.

I love Thanksgiving weekend! The whole thing! The fooooood, the shopping deals, the family, the laziness, and the fact that it means you are close close close to Christmas Vaca! So I'm going to tell you about mine!

Wednesday: All my classes were canceled so my mom and I went SHOPPING in Tucson!! Most of the stores were having their black Friday sales all weekend, so I got some great deals without the mean crowds. I even got me some BOOTS! I'm very excited about these. They are sooo soft on the inside to keep my legs nice and toasty.

Thursday: I must admit I hit the snooze button a couple times before I decided to get up and help my mom with dinner. When I finally decided it was basically my duty to get up already and pitch in with dinner, I went upstairs and sure enough, as soon as all my cereal had been eaten I was put to work making the stuffing (which, by the by, turned out just absolutely delicious!!) After that was all made and cooking my mom sent me back downstairs to stop smelling (aka: shower) So I did and got all purty for dinner and just as I was finishing, my sister, RiKenna the photographer, called me with an emergency. She was doing a family photo shoot with 80 people outside in the wind! Wind and expensive photography equipment (tall lights with umbrellas and such) - NOT a good combo. So I was called over to hold the light stand. The wind had already blown one of her lights over the day before and busted it pretty bad and when it happened again to her other light she knew she had to call me. Lots of complications and lots of minutes later we ended up with one light plus her camera flash. Not ideal, but of course my wonderful sister made it work because she's amazing! I ended up holding the ladder she was standing on instead. After that adventure we were an hour and half late for dinner, but it was still delicious!!!! I sat down to eat and of course my sister needed me again for another photo shoot with my parents before the sun went down. So off we went. You see my parents got a new car and wanted pictures in it. These pictures aren't the ones my sister took, but this is the car. It's beautiful and soooo amazing to drive!


Friday: Black Friday. I went to Tucson with a couple of friends and it was crazy. We didn't even get there early. Like really, we got there around 12:30. Our first stop was Kohls and after we saw the line for the cash register wound around the entire store, we left! We went to the mall and it wasn't so bad. Did some shopping then came home.

Saturday: Helped my sister with another photo shoot for our cousin's senior portraits. I help her with everything. I'm basically her unofficial lighting expert. Maybe I should just quit school and work for a photography place. Hmm... for some reason, I don't think that would get me quite as far as music. Ehhh... guess we'll never know since I'm not quitting school, no matter how much I would like to.

Sunday: Just church and a fireside. It was weird though today for dinner. It was just me and my parents. No one else. It was quiet. Usually there is a mass of people every week and this week it was just the fam. It was a nice break for the chaos, but honestly, I'll be glad for the chaos again next week. Love my parents and all, but sometimes quiet dinners are just plain boring.

Well I think thats it.

Oh, one more thing, I cut my bangs! You like????

ummm... ignore the face.

Toes

Today was probably the funnest day I've had in a very long time. Aural perception was actually fun because I was getting it, then just playing in the piano lab, and texting Dani and my mom all day. It was definitely a great day even tho my mom and my best friend are on a road trip together... without me. :(

But moving on from the sad, onto the GLAD! Today my piano class was cancelled due to Trish not being in town. -Can I just say the I LOVE college for this reason. When a teacher is out of town or can't make it to class for one reason or another... CLASS IS CANCELED! No subs, no nothin, NO CLASS! and now again... moving on- So because Trishy Trish wasn't there, a small group of us girlys went to the Beauty School and got some fabulous pedi's!! I had to rush mine because they were busy and couldn't get in till 2:30 and I had class at 3... but it was still fabulous!! The girls that did them were so much fun and we just had a blast eating candy cane things and just chillin like girlys do sometimes.

Final product: cute... not crusty feet! Seeeeeeeeeee?

To those girlys that went with me-
I love you all and we def need to do stuff like this more often. I love laughing with you all! And being girly. :D

And to everyone else-
Sorry... I'm not addicted to blogging. Bad addiction? I think not!! Form of journal writing, like everyone wants me to do? I think YES!!

Stake Conference

Saturday night and Sunday was stake conference for the Safford, AZ stake. It was an amazing experience to hear from all the wonderful speakers that came. They really helped strengthen my testimony of the gospel and especially of temples. So I would just like to take this moment to say how much I love the gospel and love what it does for me in my life. It really gives me a sure knowledge of what my purpose is here on earth. I love knowing that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and wants me to return to him someday. I love know that I have a Savior who was willing to die for me and my stupid sins, so that I can be made whole again. I love temples and all they represent and all of the work we can do inside of them. I love that Joseph Smith was willing to take a chance on spreading the gospel. I'm so glad he did so that I can have it today.

I got me some SOUL

So tonight was one of the many end-of-the-semester recitals for the music department at EAC and I was singing in it. I decided that I would sing one of my English pieces because I've only ever sang boring Italian at these recitals. Well I totally switched things up with this English piece. You see... It's a kind of a gospel song. It's called "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" and it's very simple, but if done right, it can be very powerful. It's a slave talking about how she feels so alone and so far from everything. Lately when I've been practicing it for the recital, I've tried to put more feeling into it... like imagine myself as a little black girl in the pre-civil war times, but tonight when I sang it, I just poured my SOUL into it. It was the most amazing feeling ever. I don't know that I've ever put so much heart and thought into a solo piece. Like sure I've had this kind of experience when singing with a choir because of all the memories attached to the song, but never on a solo. It has made me want to do this with every song I sing. To really understand the text and everything about the song.

Tonight I was not just Jaron Lines. Tonight I was the performer Jaron Lines.

It was a good reminder of why I love music and performing. Performing lends itself to so much opportunity. Anything is possible when you are performing!

Baby

I used to think myspace was for middle/high school, facebook was for high school/college, and blogs were for people with babies. Well my world has been turned upside down with all the blogging going on around me. Most of it done by people who DON'T have babies. I loved reading all the witty posts and from then on my mind was consumed with possible witty posts. So now it is time for all those witty posts I have been thinking of to come to a life of their own.

So welcome to the world, my little baby witty posts.