YESSSSSS!!!!

Our Titans have won two in a row!

Tennessee Titans 28
Houston Texans 22

Ebony & Ivory

I love this! These girls are twins! Yes, naturally conceived, carried, and birthed twin girls! One black and the other white. Kylie Hodgson and her partner, Remi Horder, are a British couple both born to mixed-race parents. Kylie recently gave birth to these beautiful girls.

The odds of such a miracle as this is about one in a million. Experts say that it is likely that a sperm with all white genes fused with an egg with all white genes, and then another sperm with all black genes fused with an egg with all black genes.

It just goes to show that we are all made of the same "stuff"--flesh & blood--that God created us to be, regardless of the color of our skin.

And Speaking of Dolly...

I thought I'd try this costume on for, ahem, size in anticipation of the upcoming Halloween holiday.

Hello Dolly!

Last night, I was lucky enough to get an invitation to a closed dress rehearsal for Dolly Parton's upcoming European tour! I took my little girl to see Dolly in concert for the first time. I'm raising my girl right...her first concert was seeing Barry Gibb and her second Dolly! What a great start!

Dolly, as always, looked amazing (for 60!!!), and sounded better than I have heard her in years. She was her same self deprecating, hilarious self, with some of the old familiar jokes: "It sure is a good thing I made a ba-jillion dollars off of Whitney's version of 'I Will Always Love You", because it takes a whole lot of money to make a person look this cheap!"

Musically, the band was right on, with my favorite fiddler, Jimmy Mattingly, back where he belongs after touring with other artists, including Garth. One thing about Dolly's band, is that they always come back to her when she tours again. Her backup singers have been with her for years, and Richard Dennison, the vocal leader, has taken on various roles in her organization since the 70s. They were so sharp, but how could they not be with Jennifer O'Brien and Vicki Hampton rounding out the 3.

The show had some, well, cornball moments--then again, if anybody can get by with an astronomical cheez factor, it's Dolly. However, I would lose the Kenny Rogers dummy, and have Richard sing the duets with her, like he used to. I just couldn't get past that one. The Elvis set was cute, and she made it a great lead in to her biggest hit and finale, by telling the story of how Elvis wanted to and was going to record "I Will Always Love You" until Colonel Tom ruined it by demanding half of Dolly's publishing. Even back then, Dolly's impeccable business acumen steered her right and she refused, scrapping the deal. Of course, she made it funny by joking that Priscilla and Lisa Marie didn't need her money, they were rich enough! LOL!

My daughter says she wished she could give Dolly her phone number and a big 'ol hug. Well, maybe someday! We had a wonderful time, and I'm thankful to my dear friend for thinking of us and putting us "on the list".

Quotes for Today

A couple of random quotes...one inspirational and one comical.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the truly great people make you feel that you, too, can become great." --unknown

"It's a good thing I had a bag of Marijuana instead of a bag of
spinach. I'd be dead by now." --Willie Nelson

Finally!

We won!

Titans - 25
Redskins - 22

A Great Week...

What a great week. I have just returned from Washington DC. The purpose of the trip was to perform for a Convocation of the Executive Teams from around the country for the hospital system I work for. The performance went exactly how I was hoping it would, and it was very touching to watch the slides of special moment from the 3 days as I sang. I truly enjoyed getting to know some of the folks from the hospital I work at and their spouses...I would never had gotten to know them any other way because they exist in a totally different world than I do.

One observation: the Sisters (nuns) imbibe! At one point, I thought I was beamed into "Sister Act" when I walked into the sports bar at the hotel, and there's a nun sitting at a bar table in there with a bunch of guys having beers. LOL!!! Talk about surreal!

One of the mornings, I took a couple of hours off from the sessions and took in the Holocaust Museum, WWII Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial. It was extremely intense and inspiring. The Holocaust Museum was one of the most sobering experiences of my life. The sheer terror that these people were put through completely disgusted me. I will say that I was so impressed with the museum itself. The way they designed it was that it is on three levels, and you start on the top floor and you chronologically experience the history. There are artifacts including the uniforms they had to wear, actual letters written, and tons of pictures. To look at the pictures of these faces and seeing the promise of the future in their eyes--and then to know what they went through rips my heart out. I am so glad I was able to go and take it all in.

The flight up was perfect. It was a clear day and I was able to see the beautiful sights from the air on the entire trip. The flight back was another story. We had the hardest landing just short of crashing that I have ever had! It felt like we were going way too fast and way too high, and evidently I was right...he slammed that plane down on the tarmac so hard that we all let out an "Oh, God!" or an "Oh, shit!" depending upon where your mind was at that moment. Since I had a Sister (nun) sitting immediately in front of me, I chose the former. I'm thankful we were safe, especially since if the thing would have crashed, our hospital system would have been screwed, because every senior executive was on it! (Not a good thing...isn't there a rule that the President and Vice President are not allowed to travel together? Perhaps that should apply to corporate execs, too.)

So it was a good week indeed. If you would like to see pictures from my trip, just click on the Flickr badge, which is the last thing on the list on right hand column of this page.

Good job, guys...

Well, the Titans sure did give it their best shot today versus the Indianapolis Colts. They dominated most of the game, and really showed up to play some football at the RCA Dome in Indy. They didn't win the game, but they sure won some of the respect back that they had lost.

Good job...hang in there...we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel!

Just A'Singin'

This coming week at work is going to be kind of unusual considering I do not currently work in a music-related field. I am a singer (ya think? I live in Nashville, after all!) and used to do some background, demo, and live gigs in town a lot more than I do now. Motherhood has taken priority out of necessity.

However, I have been blessed to be able to use my voice to touch lives right where I work. I can't even begin to describe how happy I am to have an outlet for my singing bug. Tomorrow, we are having an employee picnic, and I have been asked to perform during the afternoon for our associates. That oughta be a blast.

Then, next week I have been honored to be selected to go to Washington DC to perform for the Executive Teams from around the country for the hospital system I work for. I am really stoked about this opportunity and am beyond thankful for it.

I am excited to be able to do something more than the usual daily grind at work. It is things like this that give me that extra shot in the arm to keep pressing on when things get really tough.

I will report back on how it all goes...


P.S. On this day I raise a glass for my Daddy who would have been 70 (!) years old today.

Absolute Evil...

I have come to the conclusion that a whole new brand of evil has been unleashed on the world when almost every week you have innocent children being shot in one of the few places they should feel safe, their school. There have always been bullies in schools. Even back in the 70s, I was picked on--even once beat up--in the semi-urban public school I attended...the big difference was that the weapon was words, a fist, or a stick to do the damage. I'm not justifying that, but it now seems mild compared to what the hell is happening now.

I'm sick of hearing these stories. Literally sick. As I listen to the news about the little girls in the Amish community who were shot execution style by a grown male (I refuse to call him a man), my stomach is turned. All I can think about is my little girl, and wondering what she will have to face in the next 10 years.

It pains me to know that I will probably have to teach my daughter how to react if someone busts into a classroom with a gun. It has come to that.

What has caused this? Parents neglecting their kids? Hours of video games desensitizing kids to violence and death? The daily reports of suicide missions by psycho religious zealots? Blood and guts on TV and in the movies? Depression, anger, and despair?

I submit to you that there is one common denominator to all of the above: the root is evil. The only way to overcome evil is with good. Therefore, my prayer tonight is that God will comfort those who have had to go through the worst day of their lives today, and that somehow we will have the determination needed to fight back for our kids with as much GOOD as we can possibly muster.