Fam Friday: Meet Lou Lou Belle

"Cake"  Self portrait by Lou Lou Belle, herself

Len, Lenny, Lenlet, Lizbo, Linzafee, Lizzy, Yinzy, Zinzy, ZeeZee, Lou Lou Belle, Lou Lou, or just plain Lou. These are a few of the more popular choices in nick names that our family uses for our baby sister, Lindsey.

Born at the tail end of a boisterous brood of nine children, Lindsey is the crown jewel of our family. She was born brilliant and we all like to think that she has a little piece of each of us in her upbringing. I'm sure at times, Lindsey has felt more like the caboose of the family rather than the crown jewel. She reflects often that she felt looked over by the crowd as a child (we all did Lou), not really having a voice among the hoard of bubbling children. She would speak very loudly and I can still remember my siblings saying, "LINDSEY, you don't have to talk so LOUD!" If I could transport myself back in time, I would have picked up that curly headed little girl and let her yell as loudly as she desired right into my ear drum.

Lindsey had to learn to speak loudly and to have opinions. No doubt this was a survival tactic. I hope she can now see the advantage of having to be strong in a society of chaos. She is still beautifully opinionated, bold, and multi-talented. Living on her own, carving out a temporary living as a waitress and putting herself through the Art program at the U of U, she is more than just "surviving" these days. She is downright frickin' AWESOME.

As you walk into the front room of Lindsey's early 1900's apartment in downtown Salt Lake City, your jaw drops in wonder. The light spills in from the streetside window onto a chalky deep blue-green wall adorned with empty antique picture frames. Found art intrigues at every corner.  A coral colored velvet sofa beckons one to sit. A floor lamp concocted out of found parts from thrift stores provides light. Her vintage guitar sits in the corner and of course, sculptures by Esmeralda herself make for the best of conversation pieces.

Lindsey is an artist at her very core. A Jack of many trades, she once studied sound recording technology before switching to art. She is a knockout songwriter, and has a stellar "speak-y" quality singing voice if that makes any sense. She let me steal an awesome line to one of her songs to insert into one of mine ("You Don't Define Me" found on the red ipod to the right). Did I mention her wicked guitar skills?

A few years back Lenny lived in my basement apartment. Oh, how I miss those days. I used to get intense neck and shoulder pain (which I don't miss) and Lindsey would always massage it out for me on her bed while I cried into her pillow.  Then there were the times when we would sit and listen to awesome music, talking about this and that concerning song writing and mixes. 

There are few people that possess a heart as accepting as Lou Lou's.  It's a relief to know I can go to her with things I would normally speak of to no one.  Thanks for listening to my junk Lenny.  You're my best friend.  And just for the record, you're still brilliant.  

To read more about Lindsey, visit her cheeky new blog here.

Maniac Mindy

Several weeks ago during Sunday services, my youngest son Thatcher nestled onto my lap.  He snuggled me, brushing my cheeks with his hands, laying his head on my shoulder; the sort of affection from a little boy that softens each and every last cold prickly left in your body.  As he smoothed my hair into a pony tail with his grubby little hands he brought his chewy lips up to my ear and whispered intensely, "You're a MANIAC."  What?  I'm sitting in what's supposed to be the most peaceful hour of my week and my son is somehow inclined to tell me I'm a maniac?  

During the weeks that followed, his words did not leave me alone.  Then it began to occur to me that few whisperings during worship services have rang more true.  I am a maniac - always running from this place to that, never organized, rarely settled.  

Today, I felt sick.  Not sick with any kind of illness, more just the "unhealthy" kind of sick.  When I get this way, I lock myself in the bathroom and draw a hot bath.  I consume a bottle of spring water as I soak and contemplate what I am doing with my life.  Priorities are pondered as I scoop up handfuls of soapy water, letting it trickle through my fingers.  Do I go back to school and study sound recording?  Do I commit to those guitar lessons that keep pressing in the back of my mind?  Do I have another baby?  Do I train for the marathon?  Do I paint the house this summer and landscape the back yard?  People, it just doesn't end with me.  There are SO many things I want to accomplish, oodles of things I want to excel at.  Where do I draw the line?  How can I choose?  Do I have an over-achievement issue?  Do other people feel this way?  

Later in the day I stare at the petrified chicken nuggets in the back seat of the family car.  They lay stale and stiff next to the kid meal bag, next to the forgotten paper work which is crumpled under the pair of dirty socks.  Mindy, you have GOT to simplify your life.  First of all, how can you let your children eat those things?  Secondly, stale chicken nuggets seem like permanent fixtures in the back seat.  This has got to stop.  

"We're going on a Ghandi Diet,"  I announce to the Glediator.  "We're not buying anything for a month except the essential foods and we're getting rid of all the junk in our closets."  

"That's fine with me!" Gleddy replies with hands in the air.

Maniac Mindy is on a "simplifying" rampage.  If you have any realistic advice or proven tactics that have streamlined your life temporally or spiritually, I would eat up every word.

Tree Street Tuesdays: The Peach Patch

Mindy (left) and sister Marni (right) at The Peach Patch 1997

Normally on Tree Street Tuesdays, I would introduce you to someone new.  However, I was just too unmotivated tonight to make it happen.  Know the feeling?  Instead, I found some old pictures from The Peach Patch on Aspen Avenue from when I was sixteen.  My oldest sister, Marni (who was also pretty much my mother growing up) owned this home at the time.  My parents along with Lindsey and I (the two youngest) moved in temporarily while we transitioned back into life in the U.S.  Marni started to call the home "The Peach Patch" due to it's peach colored stucco exterior and also because it was a place where so many in our family bunked and hung out.  Two of my other sisters attending BYU already lived there as well, so we were one big happy family, all snug and doubled up in beds at the Peach Patch just like old times as chilens.

Marni is a magical, nurturing, matriarchal figure in our family.  She always has fun ideas and projects going for her kids.  One lazy afternoon that first summer in the Tree Streets, my sisters opened up the garage and pulled out boxes of vintage clothing.  We danced around the front yard and took pictures with Amy's mannequins.  Do you like how I censored this photo?  You're welcome.

"Posing at The Peach Patch" Baby Marin, Marni, Mindy Hank, Vicki, Lindsey

Here is a sneak peak into my bedroom upstairs.  I'm not quite sure what we were doing, but Crazy Katie and I are at it again.  Apparently my derriere was much larger back then.  Good grief!  Note the sweet little legs on the floor?  There were always little kids crawling around The Peach Patch; always either in a costume or nearly naked.

Crazy Katie (left), Mindy (right)

The Peach Patch wasn't some amazing custom home by any stretch.  Just your average stucco house with vinyl windows and a chain link fence.  Yet when  my mind wanders back to it, my heart is in my throat.  It's a reminder that any home (even my 1958 rambler with "church bricks") can be a place where love abides, art projects abound, laughter lingers, and kids can make memories that they'll one day blog about.  Enjoy your day!

"Piano at The Peach Patch" - Mindy (left), niece Sabrina (right)

Music Biz Mondays: Meet Kendra Lowe

Right now, I imagine that Kendra Lowe is scurrying around her basement apartment with a pic forked through her bangs (for volume of course).  Clothes are strewn across the room, a suitcase open on her bed, fancy shoes tossed inside, and her pink rhinestone studded iphone is ringing off the hook.  Tomorrow she will catch a plane to kick off the David Archuleta tour as keys player and the musical director of his band.  Way to go Kendra.  That's not too shabby of a gig.

Kendra seems to magically attract celebrity personalities into her life.  She has toured with Donny Osmond and last year alone, she worked side by side with Grammy winning producer, Rudy Perez (Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Il 

Divo) and Grammy winning writers, The Underdogs (soundtrack to Dreamgirls).  How does she do it?  PRACTICE.  Did you hear that, kids?  Kendra established a deep and abiding discipline for practicing her crafts at a very early age.  When she was three she began violin lessons.  By the time she was six, she was playing with the Utah Symphony and added piano to her studies that same year.  Somewhere along the line (probably when her family had a performing show in Branson) she picked up the banjo as well.  Sickening?  I know.  She sings too, people - REALLY well.  You should hear her sing jazz.  Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that she's an award winning dancer.

Kendra and Mindy messing around downtown SLC

There's no possible way I could list all of the accomplishments on Kendra's resume.  I've concluded that she could kick the Energizer Bunny's can to kingdom come any day with all that she has done in her young lifetime.  But this isn't what she would want me to talk about.  She's not one to toot her own horn or drop names - so I pretty much just did it for her.

Kendra has been on stage nearly all her life.  Sometimes her confidence can intimidate those who don't know her.  But if you know the Kendra that I know, you would agree that she is an incredibly giving individual.  Indeed, if you know Kendra she has probably baked you pumpkin bread, peppermint bark, or homemade truffles.  It's likely she has raised money for your charity, taught your kids piano lessons or called you up out of the blue just to say, "Hey, I've been thinking about you."  She credits God for any talent she has and she strives to use those talents to bless His children.  

Stay tuned every Monday to learn more about unique and interesting music personalities.

Meet Jackson Gledhill, Part Two

Look Jackson!  You're on the internet!

I love how much you make me laugh!  Last week when we were at Target, remember how I ordered a cup of chili?  Remember how you said in a really loud voice, "Mom, chili gives you diarrhea!"  Then when you could see I was embarrassed, you pulled your pants up to your chest and started circling the table saying, "Chili gives you diarrhea! (snort, snort)  Chili gives you diarrhea!"  I started laughing so hard - the kind where my body was shaking but no sound was coming out.

Let's get one thing straight.  Your bed head rocks the casbah.

This year you have done so many new things!  You played soccer, you learned to snowboard and skateboard and you won those trophies in the karate tournament!  (Don't worry, it's not like Thatcher was mad about that.)

You lost your two front teeth and even pulled them out by yourself!

I'm sorry I forgot about the talent show this week.  Sometimes I make mistakes.  I love you so much.  Can we still be friends?

Fam Friday: Meet Jackson Gledhill - Part One

Birth control and myself have never gotten along.  I was only nineteen when the Glediator and I got "engagged," as my mother would say.  The pill made me so sick to my stomach.  "You'll get used to it," Dr. Savage reassured.  While the nausea faded somewhat, I began to discover a few months into my marriage that taking the pill would guarantee on onslaught of tears and thoughts of doom and gloom about twenty minutes after consumption.  I was relieved to find that all the depression was from the pill and not from being married to Mr. Hot Stuff.  I tossed them into the garbage nervously, but concluded that nothing could be as bad as taking the pill - not even pregnancy.  Sometimes I am really smart.  Sometimes I am really not.

Soon after (like 48 hours), a little Gledhill was conceived.  More nausea.  More tears.  More doom and gloom.  What was I thinking?  I wasn't.  I was only a teenager!  

When Jackson was born, everything I did from then on out was guess work.  My mom lived in a foreign country and I was the eighth of nine kids, so I didn't have any knowledge of what to do with a baby.  I was frightened and awkward at first with a case of the Postpartum Blues I wouldn't wish on anyone.  We didn't own a rocking chair, so I just sat on the edge of the bed and nursed.  Ouch.  My back was never so sore in my life.  We didn't have a crib or a bassinet.  Jackson slept in his car seat next to our bed.  Of course my love for the little guy welled up in my heart like a flood - never wanting anyone to touch him, checking on him every five minutes as he slept to make sure he was breathing.  He needed me and I needed him to teach me how to be a mother.

Jackson is witty and very intelligent.  When he was three, I remember this one day from toddler hell when he was pulling things off of shelves, breaking the family heirlooms and destroying anything that dared cross his path.  He even chucked  a billiard ball at my face after I dozed off on the living room floor.  After nearly a full day of such behavior he dumped a bag of sugar and a bag of flour on the kitchen counter and floor, topping it off with a few cups of water.  Where was I?  Probably passed out on the living room floor.  When I came downstairs to see what was going on I had HAD IT!  "Jackson!"  I cried.  "Why do you keep doing these things?!"  I got down to his eye level and firmly gripped his shoulders.  "WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?!!!!!!"  I started into a fit of rage when Jackson peered up at me under his shaggy bangs and pled:

 "Mom!  I choose LIFE!"  

I paused.

Then I began to laugh.  Hard.

Then he began to laugh.  Harder.

I picked up my little man, drew him close in my arms and told him I was sorry I got so mad.  

When I think about how growing into motherhood was a difficult process for me, I now see from a different perspective that maybe the nurturing and matriarchal aspects of it that I have lacked have allowed me to be more of a close friend to Jackson.  I try to see him as a fellow passenger on this journey through life.  I'm definitely not the perfect candidate, but I'm here to help him through it the best I can.  I want him to know that I choose life too.  Life with him, messes and all.

Tree Street Tuesdays: Meet Fauneil Purcell and Family

Fauneil (left) with family.  Brandon (top), husband Luhi, Lily and baby McCaan (hope I spelled it right!)

There's something enchanting about growing up in a small town.  Perhaps it's the sweet smelling air, the tighter sense of community or even just a greater chance at getting that part in the school play.  My next door neighbor Fauneil (Gleason) Purcell grew up in the home her grandparents built and on land they staked claim to with their own hands in rural Fairfield, Montana.  With a population of 659 people and nothing but barley fields for miles you might think that the song on a young girl's lips wouldn't reach past the tractor in the next field over.  She could never have guessed as a fifth grader when she started taking voice lessons that one day her voice would be heard from stages in places as exotic as Italy, Israel and Africa.

Fauneil is a soprano.  Not the usual soprano you stand next to in your church choir.  She has a spectacular range, effortlessly reaching notes that I didn't even know existed.  She received a bachelor's degree from BYU in Music Education and went on to get her Master's in Voice Performance and Literature at the famous Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  She has performed as "The Fire" in Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortileges among other operas and sang with the BYU Singers for four years.

On her first date with now husband, Luhi Purcell, she mesmerized him from stage in a golden sequined gown as she sang a solo in a performance of Bach's Magnificat.  Fauneil and Luhi settled into the house next door on Cherry Lane five years ago.  We were ecstatic to have a young couple next door with small children like we had.  Luhi is a warm Polynesian man who wrestles the neighbor kids on his front lawn and break-dances at our church parties like there's no tomorrow.  Would you believe that he hosts a ladies night out EVERY year in honor of Fauneil?  He advertises it all year long by leaving themed invitations, gifts and even a custom t-shirt on all the door steps of Fauneil's neigboring girlfriends.  This year's theme?  Pretty in Pink 2009.  I wear my pink t-shirt that sports the phrase "In case you're wondering, I'm superwoman" with pride.  Last year he made soup and chocolate fondue and arranged for us to all have pedicures in his living room!  The Glediator tells Luhi to stop shaming all of the men on Cherry Lane.

The Purcells host block parties all summer long in their front yard.  We all lounge around, delighting in homemade salsa and summer salads while the grill smokes in the background.  The Glediator lazily jokes with Luhi about one day being neighbors on acres of land in mansions made of stones salvaged from old buildings in Europe.  But the truth is, they never want to move from their sweet little spot on Cherry Lane.  I myself would sorely miss hearing the faint sound of a soprano doing scales through my kitchen window.  

Music Biz Mondays: Snoop Minnie Min

Have you ever wondered what the insides of my nostrils look like?  I thought you might.  Wonder no further my friends.  The Glediator calls this "The Flare."  What?  Have I scared you away?  Has your perception of Mindy Gledhill the Lovely Singer crumbled in three seconds flat?  I'm sorry for any disappointment, but not all my photos are airbrushed and edited.  Yes, this is the same person:

Perception is a huge part of the music business.  It's a lot of fun creating illusions and selling them to people!  You should try it sometime!  Seriously, it is awesome and I LOVE this business.  But sometimes it can get tricky when you've been creating a perception so long that you start to fall for it yourself.  Then you feel let down when you don't measure up to the illusion.  I intend to always keep it real, you know?  Though not a Jessica Simpson fanatic, I think it's pretty cool how she has told the press to buggar off about her weight gain declaring, "I'm still beautiful!"  Way to go Jess.  

But this post is not really about Jessica Simpson.  It's about the music business and all of the sickly talented people that get to create these so-called perceptions.  Starting next Monday I will begin a series called Music Biz Mondays.  Anyone who wants to learn more about the music biz should stay tuned - fo shizzle. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Glediator!

The Glediator, Sick Rock Climbing Skills in Rock Canyon

The Glediator is hot stuff.  Nevermind this picture was taken ten years ago when we were dating.  He's still as handsome as ever - and a true gentleman to boot.  

I don't think I've been an easy person to be married to.  I've followed a career path that attracts a lot of attention and involves being on stage and creating a fan base.  The ironic thing about that is that the Glediator has more talent in his left pinky than I do in my whole body.  He's just a lot more quiet about his abilities, never wanting to attract attention or be in the spotlight.

When we were first married he up and decided to start a furniture manufacture, designing, chopping down the timbers and building all the pieces himself.  It grew and it grew.  He eventually even invented and built machines that made the manufacturing more efficient.  I watched, envious, one night as he upholstered and sewed a leather/log sofa.  I'm sorry, but a man with muscle definition and sewing skills?  That's a fantasy come true.

How does he do these things?  He somehow just inherently knows.  He sold the furniture manufacture last year and started on his newest business venture - Element SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Sound nerdy?  It is.  A man with muscles, sewing skills, and computer genius?  Double fantasy come true.  (Triple fantasy when he wears his glasses and reads Homer's Iliad).

I don't mean for this post to become a bragathon.  I don't mean to make it seem like we have the perfect marriage.  We don't.  We put up with a lot of junk from each other over the years.  Love doesn't usually come without fighting for it.  So today I celebrate the love that we have forged.  Happy Valentine's Day, Glediator!

Fam Friday: Meet Esmeralda Valentine

There are nine children in my family.  My two brothers were born first and then seven girls like pretty maids all in a row.  The Glediator always tells me, "That's a lot of estrogen in one household!"  Dad saw to it that his girls were the basketball team he always wanted as a father.  Most of us were pretty athletic and played sports growing up.  But Amy was born with a poem in her heart and a dance in her step.  

When I was five or six she started a dance studio in her room for the three youngest little girls.  With a pseudo name like Donna Deluxe and a platinum blonde wig on her head, we were in make-believe heaven with our older sister, dancing around the room to Wham and Cyndi Lauper.  Amy's bedroom was fascinating to me as a child.  Poems were penciled on the wall, her switch plate covered in a collage of ABC gum wads, acid wash jeans lay on the floor and then then there was the sprawl of Wet 'N Wild cosmetics on the bathroom vanity.

During her college years, Amy studied art.  Found objects, salvaged junk, broken body parts from dolls, and mannequins, mannequins, mannequins were EVERYWHERE in her apartment!  

The beautiful thing about Amy is that she embraces who she is, never concerned with meeting anyone's expectations but the ones she has for her own hopes and dreams.  We're talking about a woman who once changed her name to Esmeralda Valentine, who has an open obsession with fecal matter, who once lifted road barricades (orange vest, helmet and all), a blacksmith by trade, married to a Brazilian body builder ten years younger than her, who at 35, just had her first baby boy (Enzo) earlier this week.  

"Poo is Art" - Amy at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston

I can't wait to welcome baby Enzo into this family of bubbling aunties.  

I want to tell him all about how his mother gives the shirt off her back to perfect strangers. 

How her work ethic rivals that of Paul Bunyan.

How she always tells the best jokes.

How our family would never be the same without her.

Blogging Shmogging

I'm still rather new to this whole blogging thing.  It took me a while to get into it.  After reading other peoples' blogs about their perfect recipes and idyllic children, it seemed to me that my lackluster attitude toward cooking and "parenting by the seat of my pants" style were not enough.  I would feel more down than inspired.

My online publicist pressed the issue claiming that it would be "good for business."  I resisted.  She started one for me--even wrote the posts herself, bless her heart.  But that didn't feel very authentic and I hate feeling like a faker.  So I started writing.  Little by little I began to remember how much I love creative writing.  Now it seems, I am a pathetic blogging maniac--always checking my friends' blogs for updates and re-checking my own for any sign of a comment.  Ridiculous.  Please, blogging veterans, tell me it gets old. 

This blog is to be a place where I can just be Mindy; a place where there's no expectation to put my best foot forward.  Expect off the cuff remarks, photo essays highlighting the rotten food and mountain of dishes in the sink, and a promise of the most CRA-ZAY (as Hailey would say) family pics you've ever seen.  But please, also expect shared inspiration, music topics, and interviews with the down-to-earth people that I love.

Tomorrow will be my first Fam Friday post.  Each Friday I will introduce you to a member of my family.  Get ready for some seriously shocking photos . . .

Mindy and sisters Angi (middle) and Vicki (right).  Backpacking trip, Olympic Coast, WA.

Tree Street Tuesdays

Before the snow fell yesterday, I noticed little hints of bulbs pressing through the chocolate colored soil in the garden.  Spring in the Tree Streets is always anticipated with the same excitement of a four year old on the night before their fifth birthday.  Come Mother's Day, all chit chat revolves around the how-to's and what-nots of gardening.  

Not more than sixty years ago this land was still doused with fruit trees of every kind--apricot, pear, apple, peach, plum, cherry, hence the nick name "The Tree Streets."  Orchards spilled down from the mountainside up until the time it was developed in the Brady Bunch era.  Old-timers recall when 900 East was nothing but a dirt road.  There were only a few families thriving on this rugged mountain terrain--The Muhlesteins, Leichtys, Calders, and Taylors.  Descendants of these families still live here.  I spoke with Joan Muhlestein on the phone tonight.  She is the grand-daughter of Joseph and Alice Muhlestein who originally broke ground here in the late 1800s.  She still lives in their pioneer home on Old Willow Ln. and claims she will "stay there until she croaks." 

People move here and they never want to leave.  The Glediator has lived on four different streets in this neighborhood throughout his life.  I have lived on three since I met him here in 1997.  We have tried to move away, but somehow get drawn back every time.  I love the people who live here.  A significant part of the population teach or once taught at BYU.  Professors and scholars of every kind have been infiltrated into the grid.  Artists, writers, actors, musicians and the like seem to appear on every corner.  Our home on Cherry Ln. was previously owned by Newell Daley.  He penned "I Feel My Savior's Love" and taught trumpet lessons to a young Kurt Bestor in our study.  

I am delighted to introduce you to these dear friends and neighbors.  Starting next Tuesday I will begin a series called Tree Street Tuesdays by posting a weekly interview with someone from the neighborhood.  In fact, I have a few other series in mind.  Stay tuned for Musician Monday and Family Friday!  I think I might have an alliteration addiction . . .

Glutton-Girl Strikes Again!

Gluttony is derived from the Latin word glutirre which means to gulp down or swallow.  In my language, pigging out would be a synonymous  term.  I fear I've been one serious oinker this week.   As you may know, Monday was a very eventful day for me.  I ate nothing but a breakfast burrito from Mi Ranchito.  No time.  By Tuesday morning I was ready to go into hibernation mode.  I slept almost all day.  Then Tuesday night I didn't sleep a wink.  My body's state of equilibrium took a turn for the worse.  I took one look at my sunken eyes in the mirror and said, "To heck with it all!  I'm going to eat whatever I want, when I want, and I'm not even going to so much as LOOK at my running shoes for the rest of the week!!!"  The results are in:  3 mint oreo milkshakes from Carl's Junior, 2 orders of chicken taquitos from El Azteca Taco Shop, 2 trips for take out at Bajio, 5 (soon to be 6) of the most amazing cupcakes I have ever tasted in my entire life, pasta with salsa rosata from Gloria's Little Italy (one of my favorite dishes) with their crazy delicious garlic bread, followed by two pints of coconut and donatella gelato from Meastro's.  Those are just the highlights. 

While gluttony is considered one of the seven deadly sins, I must confess, it has felt AWESOME.  At least, it did for the first several days.  Now?  I am starting to feel like a beached whale.  It's time for Glutton Girl to transition back into being Granola Girl.  

New Songs

Many of you have been asking about the two new songs I sang at the benefit concert.  They have not yet been published and are not available for purchase but I'll be happy to leave them up for a few days.  Both songs are copyright 2009 Blue Morph Music.  Please enjoy them!   

Syn-er-gy

Photograph by Haley Warner

Synergy:  The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Over the course of the last 24 hours I have envisioned myself as a spirit surveying the beautiful collage of events in slow motion at the Nie benefit concert.  At 7:15 p.m. over a hundred people wait at will call, hopeful to get a seat in a sold-out 7:00 p.m. show.  Splashes of color flood the lobby where oil paintings, jewelry and furniture among other treasures, have been lovingly given to be auctioned off.  Volunteers that arrived in the morning are still scuffling around ten hours later, attending to every whim, every detail.  Backstage, the green room is alive with laughter.  Snacks and drinks are consumed. Matt Mattson strums a guitar while the Thrillionaires spout off witty song lyrics.  Krista Maurer magically seems to be in three places at one time banishing this disaster and that with the flick of her wand.  From the shadows of the back of the theater, Rod Elwood illuminates my shoulders with star dust.  Joe Anderson turns knobs and mixes instruments that reverberate through the hall and settle on our ears like a soft kiss.  I move across the stage and look into your faces.  I open my mouth and a voice flows out that doesn't feel like my own.  

It feels like a gift.  

You feel like a gift.  

Together we give.  

It is breath taking.

Backstage, behind curtains, two adoring parents listen as their daughters sing like angels.  They are the recipients of this night's display of love.  Yet, they may not yet comprehend just how much they've given to us and our hearts are full to the point of bursting!  This is synergy.

  

Still In My Jammies

Sorry.  Recovering from the most INCREDIBLE night of my life.  Will post details soon.  I'm off to meet my twin brother at the Italian Place for a Philly 'N Everything sandwich.  For now, you can view some photos of the concert captured by the talented Haley Warner here.  A million thanks to all of  you who came and supported Nie Nie.

Love For Nie Nie Concert Today!!!

Click here to buy tickets to the concert tonight.  The theater is almost full so hurry!  This is going to be awesome.  I love you Stephanie.