tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Sore In Places Ready For More

I hurt in places I didn’t know I could hurt lol. Sore…I am taking another class today. Yesterday was upper body… Today who knows? It sure did rev up my metabolism. I was full of energy all day. I got a lot done around the house as a result. It also seemed as if the extreme temps didn’t bother me as much. It was probably 117 degrees yesterday. Usually we don’t get this kind of heat until July and August! I can’t believe that I still see people jogging in this heat. They must have a death wish because that is just crazy! The wind has been blowing hot air around. We are hoping for the monsoon season to start. Afternoon showers raise the humidity but cool us off. No sign of the monsoons because the dew point is still too low. We are stuck in a high pressure pattern that is just baking us. Plants and my lawn are looking stressed out… The intense sun rays burn holes in the lawn. When you go outside when it’s 120 degrees the heat penetrates your skin and it burns. It’s  a very intense sensation. Even just minutes out there feel dangerous.

I put the  white string lights up for Alissa in her room. We added the tissue paper flowers that Zoe had made for her Father’s Day gift. I think it’s cute. Alissa loved it! She was very excited for me to put this up. I’m all for trying to make her transition here more homey. It isn’t easy on any of us… I’m sure she will become more comfortable in her new life when she starts school and gets into that routine! Grandparents raising kids is pretty common I suppose. We are in the adoption phase of this case now. Waiting for an adoption specialist case worker to contact us. Someone will hopefully help us get set up with an attorney and info. as to this next phase soon.

I don’t know how long it takes to come to a place of exceptance that this is your new life. Of course I want the best for this child! Of course I have a need to help! Reality is harsh though and, the output of effort and energy in this direction is great. When do you resolve this undertaking in your head? How long does it take to make peace with this?

Click on the arrow below…

Have a terrific Tuesday! Enjoy summer in your neck of the woods! I would like to hear from you, my readers

tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Fitness Boot Camp Father’s Day And Anticipating Roger…

I started at Tempe Fit Body Boot Camp! Today is the first day of my 28 day fitness challenge. It was a definite intense workout with 40 second interval varied, training. I used free weights, kettle ball, pull up bars, medicine balls and good ole sweat worthy burpees, pull-ups and push ups and spider push ups. I have to say that I picked the hottest part of the year go try to start something new. It is at an indoor facility and we went @6:00 am. maybe it won’t be too uncomfortable? It was 96 degrees here @ 5:30 am… Only getting hotter from there! I was relieved that I wasn’t the only new person, all kinds of people are just starting. All different fitness levels as well! I am attending with my friend Mel and, our teenage girls. I have been pretty good at power walk jogging, consistently. I am glad to find out that I’m not in terrible shape. I was pretty able to keep up the pace. The routines are new to me so it will take time to get all of the reps in. I need to become familiar with the different circuits. Good, intense workout!  What would it be to really get in to shape and look my personal best at 54 years old? Part of my, never ever give up philosophy!

Now to clean up this house from the Father’s Day festivities… We had all kinds of projects going on in crafts, making tissue flowers with shreds of tissue paper everywhere. Got out the card making colored pencils, glitter glue and stickers lol… Dishes to put away , a fridge begging/ calling to me to clean it out! Laundry, bed making, mopping and vacuuming all clamoring for my attention. It isn’t even 9:00 am and I’m thinking “Calgon, take me away”!

Here are a few random pics from the Father’s Day festivities…

We went to Dim Sum. A fun experience in dining. Little bits of different delicacies in pots and dishes on rolling carts. My  Asian husband knows what to grab. I leave it to him to pick for us. He has fun with this! We took Granddaughter Lizzy to experience this with us. She is attending a Mandarin Program in elementary school in which, half of her day is taught in Mandarin. The other half is in English! I have to say, she wasn’t as ambitious and adventurous when trying new food lol. It was cute to watch her try to navigate the foods on her plate. Alissa bless her heart will eat darn near anything and she trusts us completely. If we put it on her plate, she just excepts that is what she should eat. I have also rather adapted that through the years as well. I don’t however indulge in the strange to me things that my husband will eat. I draw the line at chicken feet and sea snails! No thanks…

While in the Mekong center, we stumbled upon this cute new addition to my seasonal treasures! This will surely come out to play during Chinese New Year/ Vietnamese  “Tet”!  The lion dance! Click on the arrow for  a small video clip of this guy in motion.

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Talk about adorable! The G-kids will enjoy looking forward to watching this guy. I decorate for all of the holidays. I especially enjoy paying homeage to the different ethnic foods/flavored and some of the traditions. Kind of a taste the world philosophy. My hope is that my whole family will embrace different cultures, traditions and enjoy the diverse world that we live in! I also hope to encourage them to learn more and become interested in this world as a whole. 

Zoe, bless her heart came up with this lovely idea on her own. I just bought the materials she needed to construct this fun bouquet! She and her Dad enjoyed scratching away yesterday. He was thrilled to get this gift from her own ingenuity. We are doing to construct a pretty lighted garland with the flowers that she made. Alissa will have a pretty tissue flower garland in her room!

Lastly,

This private event post came to me on Facebook from Roger Hodgson! I have no clue what this is. The event info. only states a time of 5:00 pm. this upcoming Saturday ! Hardly any details as to where or what this Private Event is… It states it is a public concert. I am assuming it will be online as the other people that were invited are from various parts of the U.S.? Should be interesting and fun whatever this is! I’m all in when it comes to seeing Roger Hodgson, one of my most cherished idols! Maybe he will reveal to us why he has chosen this select group for a private event? Interesting!  I can’t wait to find out what this is all about!

Click on the link to hear my SoundCloud cover of – “Fool’s Overture”, written by Roger Hodgson. I really am a huge fan!

Have a terrific Monday! I hope you are all enjoying summer and can beat the heat! Yesterday is hit 120 degrees here in Phoenix. Today we are only going to hit 116?!

tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Dad’s Day The Supporter’s And The Shaper’s

Missing this great inventor today. My father, Arthur L. Phipps. He invented this polystyrene insulation. A big industry even today! I was always and still am so proud of my Dad. I miss him so much! He passed away a year and a half ago.

Today is a day for celebrating Dad’s! The good men who love, shape and support the lives of children!  They provide a frame in which to navigate life from. Not even necessarily their biological children! In celebration of this, my kids and G-kids met at our local community pool in an effort to hang out together and beat the heat.

Elizabeth June!

Kadee Lynne!

Aaron Jackson

Thomas Jerry!

Korbin Leedy!

I made two different batches of these for our get together. Loaded with sugar but so delicious! Easy as can be as well!  I made some with chocolate chips and butterscotch morsels. The other bars are chocolate chip/m&m bars. Both have coconut! So yummy and they were great to bake and take to the pool.

Have a wonderful day in celebrating the special Dads’ that have meant the world to you!

tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Chapel For Tears And Fears

My birthday present! Haven’t had a chance to use it yet. It’s so lovely and sturdy! Nice, nice stoneware! I decided that I would collect the seasonal pieces of the Temp-tations stoneware. This is a spring and summer piece!  So pretty! Thx Tara @QVC! With the amount of heat projected to hit Phoenix this weekend, I can’t see myself turning on the oven. It may be record breaking heat! Like 120 degrees HOT! Don’t have much ambition to cook when temps are 115 and above. Salads become a mainstay.

Father’s Day is around the corner and I want to try to make it special. We have talked about trying to beat the heat this weekend at a really nice local community pool. Nice water slides and features are in abundance at this quaint neighborhood park. We are meeting Britt and the G-kids there for a potluck. I will be baking later this am before the heat of the day.

Weighing heavily on my mind/ heart today is my daughter. Alissa’s Mom. She is redefining hitting rock bottom. Her bottom appears to be bottomless! She now is in the hospital for health issues! I suspect that she has been ill for a very long time! She awaits surgery today to have her gall bladder removed. This gal has been through so much pain and heartache, losing her whole world… I have been so worried for her. Now a really difficult painful health issue on top of it all? Kidney infection and pancreatitis as well all at once? Surely this is her rock bottom? I feel so bad for her having to lay there in a hospital bed contemplating all of her harsh realities. Her husband, a real schmuck has left her. He won’t when return her calls. Laying there feeling abandoned by all of us I’m sure. Heart wrenching to watch. I’m doing the best that I can to encourage her and trying to help her with a game plan for her future. The reality is that I have her daughter. I am in the process of adopting her daughter because the state took her parental rights away. Surely on some level she must completely resent me for having to do so. This is what I question about religion… The things we are called to do sometimes are horrendous ! I never thought that I would have to do the things that I have done to my own daughter. Taking her most precious and dearest treasure, her daughter from her. UGH!

I know in my head that raising Alissa is the right thing and a good thing for this little girl. It is however the cruelest most harsh reality for my daughter. It tears at my heart that my daughter is hurting so much! When I got the text from my daughter, I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that she is having health issues. When I saw her last in court, is was clear to me she was ill. The whites of her eyes had a yellow cast to them and I recall telling her sisters I was worried about her liver. Turns out, that is a common symptom of gall bladder disease. I believe she has been ill with this for a long time. I really have hope that after the surgery, she finds that she feels better than she has in a long time!

I’m hoping that she will get to a point emotionally that she decides it’s time to fight and advocate for herself. Become proactive and show us all what it is to come back from the depths of hell rather than linger there… Hard as hell to watch and be a part of this horrific downward spiral. I will do my best to encourage and be there for her without preaching and imposing my will. I know ultimately this is her fight and plight to overcome. I can tell you for sure that I am really tired of watching this kid sink to the bottom! You never stop worrying about your kids. You hope that you can trust them to take good care of themselves and excersise good judgment in most things…when they don’t as adults, it’s hard as hell to watch!

I went to the hospital to visit my daughter. I missed seeing her before surgery because they took her in early. I waited in the surgery waiting area. While I was there, I visited the serene little chapel next to the OR suite. I haven’t set foot in a religious dwelling for years. It felt nice to be in this small, serene, quaint room. I prayed for my daughter. It felt good to take time to do that!

• Update-my daughter is starting to feel better and recovering well after surgery yesterday! Thank God! I am truly grateful!

My Escape…

tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Domestic Bliss Where’s My Kiss

Father’s Day is projected to be 120 degrees! My daughter Delcee tracks the weather and sends me screenshots about what’s coming. Delcee told me that it hasn’t been this hot in June since 1990! I’m not looking forward to the heat. We had a bit of reprieve this weekend here in Phoenix. The top temp was like 103 which, is doable.  When the weather is sooooo hot you can’t get cool unless you soak in something cool. It’s hard to sleep because you can’t cool down well even with AC. Gone are the decent electric bills. I envision $400.00 dollar SRP bills are coming soon…

This is pretty much what you want to eat when it’s hot. This is Asian Chicken Salad. I see salads in our weekend plans…

I put together a video using my Casual Conversations SoundCloud track and some pics from my photos. I had fun putting this together yesterday while drinking my coffee. Here ya go!

This is from my domestic engineer perspective, (housewife). Anything to break the monotony. Being a housewife is fraught with continuous looping…rinse, load,run, put away, repeat! Wash, dry, fold, hang and repeat! Scoop, sift, bag, clean, pour and repeat! You get the picture. Continuous looping cycle of life.

It’s fun to take time out to envision something more for myself, if only in my dreams! A fantasy, in which I dream of getting paid! Don’t know how Rick Davies, the songwriter, would feel about me using the song in this way. Hopefully, he would find the humor in this?

Beat The Heat Retreat With Roger

Could use some fine tuning! Timing issues lol. This was fun to do yesterday! I have never put vocals to this song as they are way out of my range. Talk about a challenge! The good thing is the vocals don’t have to perfect, just heartfelt to capture the essence of this song… It was fun to play around with. When I cover Roger Hodgson songs I appreciate the genuis behind the song. Very very complex with a great degree of difficulty! What a great mind and ability to compose! The original with an orchestra available for view on YouTube is beyond grand…their are no words for how all encompassing the sounds the whole amazing composition. It just brings you to tears it’s so awesome! An emotional journey. The original is soooo grand! This is about the most scaled back version that is out there lol. 

Is it any wonder why I would clamor at the thought of meeting this man? I so desire to just be in his presence and look into his eyes. Maybe just a tad of his brilliance would rub off onto me? Many people cover Roger Hodgson, Rick Davies of Supertramp. What strikes me as funny, more than a few times people that view my covers of these, ask me for the sheet music. When I tell them I don’t read music and don’t have any, they ask me to change camera angles so they can see my fingers better. I hear that it is impossible to obtain sheet music for Supertramp songs. If you can find it, it’s terribly expensive I hear!  Lately, people have been asking me to help them or tutor them. I get kind of annoyed as I would hope that my TouTube channel is just for entertainment value. I give enough of my time  and energy away for free as it is

tynajoymetzner

Music, Home, Family, Relationships, Life and Living. Daily Life

Letting My Secrets Come OutTo Play

I suppose I’m like all the other wannabe artist out there who long for a music career. Lots of us vying for a lucrative, slice of music industry recognition. Putting ourselves out there on SoundCloud, YouTube, and anywhere else we can find to upload to for exposure. Living life in between the madness of creating content. Always waiting for our “big break”. It’s so funny because after a few years of doing this, you start to wonder if you are the only one who thinks that what you create is any good. Your friends and family have long since jumped ship on your creative endeavors. They no longer have interest, so you don’t talk about it. You just create and upload, and hope for the best in silence. You give it all you have but in silence… You quit sharing that personal side of yourself for fear of bothering others with it. You no longer share your hopes and dreams, they become silent. As if they just went away and cease to exsist. You feel as if you live a double life and are stealing moments from other obligigations to create. Almost as if you are sneaking around with your time rather than what you should be attending to. You have long realized that nobody takes that part of you seriously. You begin to see that they rather think that part of you a joke. You see that friends and family don’t believe in your ability to do something noteworthy, (pardon the pun). It becomes a real disappoint that try as you might, you just aren’t good enough. In kindness, you say to yourself “well, this is all subjective” ! Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder! You think/wish and pray, that you could find a way, to appeal to the subset of people who would like your music.

The silence becomes deafening regarding originals. Nobody wants to even listen to originals! You throw links out there to your originals on social media… Only to find, no views, no listens…You try to figure out how to get people interested enough to spend 4 min on your music…I don’t know how anyone gets anything heard! So I’m going to put all of my originals here in one post. I have never done this… If I had a CD, this is what it would sound like… This may be the closest thing to actually having a CD that I  will have…

What does it take to get you interested enough to listen to me…? Meat suits, funny eyewear, bling on every finger? What gimmick, what attention grabbing quirky thing do I need to do, to get you to hear me?

For anyone out there willing to take the time to listen…I could use subscribers! Please subscribe to my YouTube and SoundCloud channels!

Your support means the world to me!

SoundClouds:

YouTube Videos:

For what it’s worth… Although I don’t yet have enough original material here for a whole CD, I like what I have! Collectively, it has it’s own feeling and overall vibe. It melds well together and seems to be my style, whatever that is. Like many musicians I can almost envision what this could be if I had money to throw at it! A great arranger, mixing and mastering could make this awesome! It must be a dream come true to hear something you have written complete with all of the fixes and adornment. In it’s absolute best possible form and sound…When I was young, I would ponder what it would feel like to hear a song you have written and performed, on the radio for the first time. I would daydream with complete all encompassing feeling what this would be like. As if, it were my reality. I don’t think anything on earth, could give me more personal joy than this fantasy!

In another life, I would hope like hell to find, and surround myself with people who believe in me as an artist. I would try like heck to find people who could help me realize my full potential here. In kind, I would do the same for them. A synergistic creative love-fest for music and creating together. That has always been my dream. It’s empty and shallow here alone…To be a part of something grand, would be my personal nirvana! Life couldn’t get any better than that! Nobody does it alone, it takes a village.

I’d love to break the stereotype that only young artists make it. Look at all of these old rockers still out there making music and sounding great! Why the hell did society decide only young people are cool and desireable/marketable? I would love to kick some ass and help break that way of thinking. See, I have grand, (large) dreams! If only lol…

For now I will set about executing what I can do in life… The dishes, cleaning the cat litter, caretaking and grocery shopping are all on my agenda for today. So back in my head, in silence go my dreams-