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."