July 30th

When we got home from the elimination show there was a celebration around the pool with food, wine, beer, champagne and one very special gift. I had my face buried in a piece of chicken when I see my sister walking up to me by the pool. My first thought was "Liz, how did you get in here?" I FREAKED OUT! She was sent as a reward for doing a good job on the "Lithium" performance. Seeing her walking up to me was like seeing my entire family all at once. I got a huge hug and felt the world grow a little smaller. I could feel all the love of my family through her. She told me how proud she was of me and to keep doing what I'm doing. That meant everything to me. Liz already knew my friends. They were all taken back by how much Liz knew about them from the show. It opened our eyes to the fact that millions of people are seeing us perform every week. Everyone was so cool to Liz and made her feel at home. I appreciate Ty singing Liz a song; MiG spending time having a conversation with her; Suzie and Tara telling her stories about our times here.

My favorite moment was showing Liz the Hollywood sign from our back yard. She has never been to California and had never seen the sign. Liz had such great things to say about the whole experience and I really needed to hear those beautiful words. Thank you Liz! I learned a lot in a short time at the vocal clinic. Hanging out and watching the other singers get a vocal lesson actually helped out a lot. After the vocal training I finished the Daphna and Heather song with Suzie and Jordis. We were laughing our asses off trying to think of lyrics. Writing that song was therapeutic and helped us get over the loss of those beautiful girls.

Song selection was fairly easy this week. Dave Navarro told me I need to perform a ballad type of song this week so I was excited to see "With Arms Wide Open" on the wall. I was not a big fan of the song when it came out a few years back but I am falling in love with it the more I hear it. It reminds me of my 4-month-old godson Michael and I will be thinking of him when I sing.

My regular routine is to get my song on my mp3 player and go running. I ran for 45 minutes and learned the lyrics and sang it out loud. Later in the evening I learned the Creed tune on guitar and practiced it some more.

We went to a club called "Prey," we were VIP and had a table. Hugh Hefner was seated next to us with some waify ladies but he only wanted to meet the Rock Star ladies.

We had a blast at the bar, I hung out with Jordis and we talked and she mixed all the cocktails for the group. Jordis is so damn cool. A group of us eventually hit the dance floor and raged for a few songs. A lot of people in the bar knew who we are and I got a few compliments on "Lithium." Pretty freaky having strangers call out your name. That will take some getting used to. The paparazzi were taking photos of us as we were leaving the bar. Totally crazy life we have here at the mansion.

Jordis and I worked on a song for a while but we were too tipsy to get anything accomplished, so we called it a night.