Well, the wedding...
practice was on Friday and everything went without a hitch.  I ran through my songs 3 times each and we had no problems at all.  The church was very small and there was no sound system, so we had hauled our own up into the balcony.  Everything was working perfectly and it seemed the wedding was going to go without a hitch.
Saturday Curt and I got there, checked the equipment, and it was fine.  Started the music to seat the guests, it went fine.  We got the nod from the pastor at 4:00 to start the walk-in music and I sang.  it went really well.  the music was balanced perfectly to my voice and from the sanctuary, it sounded like a recording.  Exactly what we go for.  YAY!.   I settled in to watch the ceremony.  The pastor went into pouring of the sands to meld the families together and I stood up in preparation for my next song.  That's when it happened.  A loud POP from the speakers and the whole system shut down.   I look over at Curtis with pleading eyes as he fiddles with plugs and knobs.  the Pastor looks up at me and I look down at her and mouthed MALFUNCTION.  The ceremony carried on with no music and I steadily got angrier and angrier at Curtis.  there was one connector that had given us trouble at one point on Thursday during run through and it seems that was the culprit during the ceremony.  It shorted out the entire system.   I had been nagging him for 2 weeks to get out my mixing board and mic to make sure everything was in working order, but he put it off until the frigging day before, which I despise.  I have said it again and again, there are far too many what ifs in this world to wait until the last minute.  My husband is a last minute excuse maker and he just ruined a wedding.  I was furious and there was some pretty vehement words being whispered between us in the rafters of that church.  A trip to radio shack and a 5 dollar bill would have kept this from happening.  I could have killed that man.  Killed him.  In church.
I was so embarrassed, I didn't even want to go down and face my family.  Tears were inevitable.  I tried to give back the money I was paid, but my aunt would have none of it.  My cousin and his new wife were super nice about it and gave me a hug.  "Shit happens" Aunt Bonnie said.  Sigh.   I didn't want to tell them that it could have been avoided if my husband wasn't such a douche bag.  If I had thought quicker, I could have flipped the mic and sang acapella, or threw out a blessing song or something.  Damn.  I was too mortified to think of anything but crying at that moment.

Jessie (the bride) asked if I was going to the reception and wanted us there, so we went.  I had later found out that Jessie and Lorne had not picked a song to dance their first dance to.  I saw this as a window of opportunity to be able to sing the second song I was paid to sing and still make the moment special.  I talked to the DJ, who had 2 glasses empty and 1 in his hand already, who had pretty much the same set up as Curt and I did.  Since he was a professional, I assumed he had a clue as to what he was doing.  I gave him my music and trusted this would go well.
The moment came and I walked up and announced the dance.  The DJ (obviously looped) flipped on his player before turning up the volume, so I missed my intro.  Seriously!?  I hit the button myself and restarted the music.  He turned the volume up obscenely loud and proceeded to fiddle with his mixer while I sang.  From my vantage point, I could hear no base at all and my voice was blaring out of the speakers with the tinny aftertaste of a mono stereo.  Curtis was sitting in the corner with his head in his hands and my aunt Bonnie was trying to get the DJ to turn the music down so you could actually hear me sing.  Ugh.  it was the longest 3 minutes of my life.  When it was over, several people mentioned that was the worst DJ they had ever heard and my Cousin Kurt spent a few songs with his hands over his ears.  I suppose that time it wasn't my fault, but I still felt bad.  Only Hope was not meant to be sung that night obviously.  I gave my cousin a hug, showered him with "I'm so sorries" and left.

So, that was my first wedding destruction.  I suppose I should consider my odds pretty good, since this will be my first and I have done this quite a few times.  I have to admit though, Curtis is on my shit list for a while.

Because of the no-child-left-behind system put in place by the Bush administration, Public schoolers have to do this statewide testing every year.  since Lucas' home school is publicly funded, he has to test every year too.  We go to a hotel in Eau Claire and I usually have him do all of his test in 1 day.  Having ADD, this makes it a very long, hard day for him.  if I split it into 2 days, I have to drive to Eau Claire twice at the butt crack of dawn, try to find a place to plug in my computer and work and usually am very unsuccessful in getting the internet to work.  This year though, I reserved a room and we stayed the night, splitting the testing into 2 days, swimming in the hotel pool and getting room service.  I had direct connect internet so I could just plug and go--it was good.

I took Emma with me and when I got Lucas all settled to test, we went to Big Lots and get her a toy to play with (she picked a my-little-pony set with 3 ponies, brushes, combs, hair things and beads) and  a little golf set I got for 3 dollars with balls you hit into the mouth of a hippo.  I picked up Lucas a plug-and-play video game.
Emma played quietly and I worked.  When Luke was done testing for the day, a teacher delivered him to our room and we had lunch.  He played his game and played with Emma until I was done working at 5 and we swam and then had room service deliver us supper.  We watched TV until we were tired and fell asleep.

Emma decided though, to have nightmares all night and every 45 minutes or so she would start screaming about puppies and "I'M TIRED MAMA!"  (Ug, I'm tired too), before she would doze off for another 45 minutes.  It was a long night for all of us.  I woke up at 8 and shooed Lucas off to testing.  I woke up Emma and we walked down to the lobby for breakfast.  I started work at 9 and Emma played with her ponies until Luke was done.  At 12:30 we checked out and was on our way home.  On the way we stopped at the thrift store.  I wanted a treat too.  I found 2 pampered Chef bread tubes (flower and heart) for a dollar a piece, 2 pretty mugs for 99 cents a piece and a Home and Garden bean pot (new is $40.00) for $3.00!!! and some turnover makers (I'll use them for hot pockets).  It was a great thrift.

So we went home.   I was TIRED.  As soon as Emma walked in the door, she lay right down on the dining room floor with a poncho she found on the porch over her.  Evidently, she was perfectly happy sleeping right there still in her coat and boots. Luke too went into his room to lay down and I set up my computer to finish work.  Curt (maybe he is sucking up after the weekend), was washing dishes and the house looked pretty good, so I didn't have to clean anyway.  I did want to try out my bean pot though, and put some chicken tenderloin in there, then in a separate bowl I mixed 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup and 3 cans of mushrooms (undrained) and 2 tablespoons of seasoned salt.  i mixed all that together and poured it over the chicken.  It worked really great.  The chicken was super tender and moist and the gravy went over rice.  

This morning, while I am writing this, I decided to use that chocolate merlot I bought and disliked in a chocolate cake.  I haven't tried it yet, but it did rise up and spill all over the oven.  after I got the finished cake out, I turned on the oven cleaning feature and there were several small fires in there.  The house is full of smoke and the drama never ends over here.  It's part of my appeal.