2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010 is going to be an amazing year. I've had a lovely break and can't wait to share with you all of the up and coming adventures in music. Top Five Music Resolutions?

1. Balance my roles as wife and mother better with my music career.
2. Write and record my best album yet with gifted producers.
3. Read "Music Success in Nine Weeks" by Ariel Hyatt and blog about it weekly.
4. Get ripped (not so much about music, but good for stage presence, right?).
5. Be Queen of Pro Tools.

How about you?

Let Go

My mom and dad stopped in for a visit the other day - a special treat for me since my parents just settled down in Utah from world travels since I got married. It's been years since they've lived close by. Dad brought some old pictures along and handing them to me he said, "Thought you might want to put these on your blog." Since when did my dad give a hoot about blogging? I thought his gesture was awfully cute. We all had a good laugh, but somehow, I longed to jump inside the photographs and relive those moments.

This was our house in Madrid, Spain. I am thirteen years old and yes, I am wearing Tevas with my church dress. Yes, I am using a fitted sheet as a parachute and yes, my slip is showing. Who gives? The point is, I want to live like that girl - uninhibited and vivacious. I want to stand at the top of my world, and let go of all things cumbersome and just jump.

Carolyn Rasmus writes about this in her book, "Simplify" (which I highly recommend and have read twice.) She recounts the experience she had as a young girl when her mother bore a son. Back then no one knew much about post-partum depression and Carolyn's mother really struggled after baby Mark was born. She was told to stay in bed. So Carolyn became the primary caretaker of her baby brother. For a long time she was hurt by this baby who had not only replaced her, but whom she was now responsible for. When friends came over, Carolyn could not leave and when diapers needed to be canged, and bottles needed to be prepared, Carolyn had to be the adult. Later in her life, as a real adult, she was taking care of her old mother, bathing her. They talked about days gone by and old memories. Her mother confessed how much it hurt her that when Mark cried as a baby, he only wanted Carolyn. Carolyn was shocked. All these years she thought she was the one who had been hurt but her heart was softened to see the situation from her mother's perspective. As she scrubbed her mother's back and dried her with warm towels, tears streamed down her face. She looked up to see that her mother too was weeping. They were able to let go of feelings that had soured their relationship for years.

It is the end of a very long and trying semester of school, two finals away from letting go of so much weight. December is wasting away and I am on the brink of leaving one more year behind. My twenties are fading fast and I am left wondering, what unecessary junk am I still holding onto? It is time to pluck up the weeds that have gone unattended to by the fistfuls and chuck them to the wind.

Fight or Flight

Fight or flight is my theme as of late. Finals week begins tomorrow. My eyes are already glassed over. Pray for me. Please.

Sneak Preview

There is nothing quite like the experience of recording music. I've been writing away for my upcoming album while attending school full time to learn the technical aspect of recording. I recorded a demo for one of my new songs with my lab group for a recording class at school. Just thought I'd let you in on a sneak preview of what I've been writing. For any audio nerds reading this, it may interest you to know that we experimented with the sound of the piano pedal played alone as a percussive instrument. I think I mixed it too softly, but it comes across as a texture under the rest of the mix. Press play on the music player to the right to have a listen. I also threw together some random segments from our recording session in the video below for your viewing pleasure. Don't forget to leave me a comment! Have a lovely day.



(A special thanks to my awesome lab partners, Robby Sorensen and Nate Young!)

Dead Roses

Last night as a lay in bed next to my eight year old son, I asked him what lullaby he would like, to which he replied, "Kung Fu Fighting." Nice. So I gave it my best shot. Then he said, "Mom, your breath stinks."

"Whatever. My breath smells like roses," I retorted.

"Yeah. Dead ones."

I love boys.

The Big House

My parents recently moved to Utah from Sacramento, CA. Wanting to retire in the countryside, they bought a large old Victorian home in Sanpete County that accommodates our enormous family. We call it "The Big House."

But THIS is actually my house the morning we tried to pack our bags and head out of town. Yikes.

The drive is very therapeutic for me (if the boys have some form of technology to entertain them along the way).

Jackson took plenty of self portraits in the back seat. Isn't he handsome?

Pocamindas in her head dress.

I don't even know how to explain this.

I think I might know where my memory problems come from.

My Mom always has unlimited quantities of pomegranates on hand during the holidays.

My Brazilian body building brother in law, Alex and his son, Enzo. So precious.

My sister Angi and her husband Ryan brought fresh greens all the way from Seattle. We made wreaths and swags to our hearts' content.

Thatcher spent 48 hours building a fort out of cardboard.

Good thing we brought crazy glasses for everyone, because WHY NOT?

Hope you had a lovely time with your families over the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Thankful Country Concert

I was first told that the sign in this photo reads "The Thankful Country Concert," then was later told that the translation was wrong and that the word "thankful" actually meant "charity." Too late. "Thankful Country Concert" is WAY better.

On Thanksgiving eve I started to blog about how I was strangely lonely and empty even in the midst of a hundred family relatives. After writing for an hour about why I was feeling sorry for myself, I read over my ramblings, felt much better and then deleted everything. Who wants to be self centered on Thanksgiving? Apparently I DID -- for about an hour. While I was trying to distract myself from my melancholy, I came across some photos that turned my hardened heart to mush.

Last March, Sam Payne and I were invited to do a music tour for a handful of orphanages in Bulgaria. Words can not describe how that experience effected me. To say it was amazing sounds so trite, but it was, indeed, AMAZING. The very last orphanage we visited was up in the mountain village of Bratsigovo. I don't know what it was, but there was something very special about that place.

Sam was a child magnet.

This young lady is 15 years old! Many of the children are small due to improper nourishment and lack of stimulation as infants.

SO sweet.

The children were getting there costumes ready for a performance that evening in which Sam and I would sing for them and they would dance for us.

The picture does not do it justice, but I instantly fell in love with this theater. More than a hundred years old and nearly unaltered since the day it was built, the architecture and furnishings were to die for. We were destined to find each other one day. It was love at first sight.


Backstage, I caught a glimpse of this gorgeous young woman in her costume waiting in the wings for her entrance. Her beauty stole my breath and I wanted to freeze the placidness of that moment.

The dancers were exquisite. I wept at the sight.

I have never known an evening more surreal than the one spent at
"The Thankful Country Concert."

Funny Business

In case, you were wondering, the ball in this shoe is Thatcher's Gobstopper which he temporarily put there so he could take a break and jump on the trampoline, then suck on it later.

Latest Funny Business:

1. During a recent funeral for Thatcher's pet mouse, Wheely, he stated in his eulogy, "He was like a brother to me."

2. Three more mice have been purchased and laid to rest since then.

3. Tripped on some steps on campus causing the contents of my backpack to scatter all over the ground, including feminine hygiene right at the feet of an innocent male passerby.

4. Had to return a bra to Target. The only clerk working was a 21 year old fumbling young man. "There's no price tag on this," he said, his voice cracking. "Could you go get me another one?" he asked as the bra trembled in his hands.

5. While using the bathroom, the phone rang. To my chagrin, Thatcher answered it. "My mom is on the potty. She can't talk to you right now." It happened to be the CEO of a major organization. Awesome.

TAXI!

I met singer-songwriter, Pitch, at the Taxi Road Rally

A week ago I came home digesting a multitude of thoughts from an educational feast at the TAXI Road Rally in Los Angeles. It took me nearly a week to get my groove back after which I attended yet another conference for women entrepreneurs (more on that soon!). If you are in the music industry, or are aspiring to be, I highly recommend the TAXI Road Rally. There were some great classes and some just so-so, but the real value lies in the networking. I met some fabulous people, and got invited to perform for some workshops by Ralph Murphy (VP of ASCAP).

I knew I needed to find a guitarist to play for me for Ralph's workshops, so I wandered on over to the open mic the first night there. After an hour of of scouting, I told myself I was going to bed if the next guitarist didn't knock my socks off. To my great fortune, the next guy was the Real McCoy and I nearly rushed the stage like a crazed teenager after he sang his song, "Skippin'."

Me and Pitch with VP of ASCAP, Ralph Murphy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Pitch."

If I could bottle Pitch up and label the ingredients, it would say something like this:

23-year-old San Diego native, student at Berklee College of Music in Boston, 1/4 Japanese, fearless performer, big dreamer, creamy voice, follower of Christ, former Worship Leader for Presbyterian Church, "Christ the King," lives in the "Justice House of Prayer" in Boston, will always devote his life to Worship, mentor and advisor to students at Berklee, loves the women in his life (mom and grandmother).

Thanks for going out on a limb and collaborating with me at the rally, Pitch. Please enjoy this clip of Pitch singing "Skippin'" at the TAXI Road Rally 2009 (but please forgive my borderline offensive camera skills.)



Find Pitch on Twitter, Facebook and http://www.myspace.com/pitchmichael

Flexible

What's going on in this picture?

Looks sort of exciting, right?

This was a shoot I did back in March this year for KBYU television. The idea was to have children interview a professional about their career (that part was pre-taped) and then air it in between PBS Kids segments of Arthur, Word Girl, Angelina Ballerina, etc.

But, GUESS WHAT???

It never aired. It's not like I lost sleep over that, but I have scratched my head a few times, wondering what happened to that footage.

In fact, a flood of events come to mind of instances where I put my heart and soul into something much more emotional than the above scenario, only to later conclude that it just wasn't going anywhere. But now and again, I receive epiphanies from on high that make me realize that my efforts are not spent in vain. For example, this week I will be singing for the vice president of ASCAP. Over the last few years I've sung in the offices of record executives from labels like Columbia, Sony and Interscope. Those meetings eventually went nowhere. But the good news is, I'm not really that nervous to sing for the VP of ASCAP this week. I think I would be if I hadn't been put in those high pressure situations before.

My Aunt Rosemarie said to me a few months ago, "The key to happiness in life is flexibility." I could have kissed her when she said that. In fact, I think I did. Being flexible to whatever comes at you works wonders. So what kinds of things have you invested your whole self into, with little to no results? A relationship? A career path? A financial investment? I'm here to tell you: don't sweat it.

Your ability to be flexible with the outcome will always yield positive results in one form or another.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Love, The Gledhills

A Harvest of Good Times

Halloween is nigh and that means that Christmas will be here in a blink. We've been trying to make the moments last, but with every fluttering leaf, Fall fades from our view and will soon settle beneath the snow.

Here's how we've been celebrating the harvest:

Pumpkinfest!

Every year, my sister Jenny holds what we call the "Pumpkinfest" at her organic community garden in Sandy. I'm not sure if Marni (my oldest sister) got enough pumpkins.

Thatcher and I force a smile after spending over FOUR HOURS in the ER for stitches. That's what happens when I go to school and Thatcher attempts to carve a pumpkin with a butcher knife in secret. Nice.

Baby Emmit might get wheeled away and hucked in the back of Marni's FJ.


Goblin Valley!

What better way to start October than to go camping with all the boy cousins at Goblin Valley? The weather was perfect UNTIL it stormed and hailed that night and me and the boys piled in the back of the Jeep to wait it out until morning.

Once again, me and the Thatch Man force a smile. It was a long drive for a kid with stitches.


Scarecrow Extravaganza!

My mother-in-law loves Halloween more than life itself. Every year we craft scarecrows in our own likeness and plant them in the flower bed in her front yard. But wait, which of the scarecrows above are the Real McCoy?

C'est moi.

Happy Halloween!