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Although I know most of you probably read this blog solely for the design ideas, I think some of you actually want to get to know me as a person. Well, this post is for you and for Dolly Parton fans!

Do you have any idea what I was doing last Thursday night? Only the most wonderful thing one could be doing on a beautiful night in Tulsa, OK! I was watching the “9 to 5” musical at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center!

Now, Dolly Parton makes an appearance every so often here on the blog because she is one of my most favorite people in the world. Tim knows how much I adore Dolly and he surprised me with tickets to the movie turned musical! Imagine me beaming from ear to ear when I found out that we would be sitting on the second row!!!! Dolly herself must have been sending me some crazy positive vibes because normally we wouldn’t pay for such good seats, but somehow we got to sit up close and personal for a balcony seat price!

Here’s Dolly in the movie “9 to 5” that debuted in 1980 (4 years before I was born, but it somehow managed to be one of my favs!) Isn’t she beautiful!

In the musical Dolly’s roll- Dora Lee- is played by Diana Degarmo.

Diana was the runner-up on the 3rd season American Idol. Before that she performed in Dollywood, which is Dolly Parton’s very own theme park. I went there when I was around 7 years old and I still have very vivid memories of it. . . it was awesome in case you were wondering! 🙂

(Here’s Diana.)

Anyway, Diana did a fantastic job playing Doralee. I swear if I closed my eyes I would have thought Dolly was there singing. Diana has really worked on adding that Dolly twang to her voice. It was quite wonderful, so I found a video so you could hear for yourself! This is Diana singing a song from the musical. The song is called “Backwoods Barbie.”

Ok, so some of you newbies may be wondering why I am so gung-ho over Dolly and “9 to 5.” Well you see, I’m a sucker for a good, inspiring story. And although there is a lot of comedy to the musical, the underlying message tells us to stop settling for less than we’re worth, to fight for what you want, and to believe that you can achieve everything you want even when adversity is all around. This is a similar story to Dolly Parton’s own life. She grew up in a one room cabin with 11 brothers and sisters. Her family was “dirt poor” and far from any sort of show business. But somehow Dolly made her dreams come true and became the Queen of Country Music! All of Dolly’s music has undertones of this can-do attitude and I absolutely love it!

So if you have some time, you should definitely check out 9 to 5 when it comes to your hometown.

Here’s a little taste of what you’ll see if you go (without the real Dolly unfortunately)!

Tim scored some major points with this surprise! He’s pretty great!

See y’all tomorrow!