Sunday evening, Dec.21^st, 8:30pm:

Sitting in the airport in Dallas, I’m surrounded by what has become part of the normal ‘sounds of the season’ for me since I moved away from home. Chatter, flight announcements, the score of the local football game, passengers bantering back and forth with the ticket personnel about delayed flights…yada yada yada. I’ve always liked to fly. When I was little I would jump at the chance to go with my parents to pick someone up or see someone off at the airport. I think I just always liked the thought of going somewhere. I wanted to go somewhere.  Now that I am somewhere, or somewhere else I should say, I have lost a little of the excitement I had before, but still enjoy walking by myself through the masses of people with their different colored bags and watching cities get smaller and smaller outside of the little window.

It was a little bit after Christmas 5 years ago when I moved to Nashville to start school. The day before I was supposed to fly out, we got snowed and iced in and my flight was cancelled like 15 times. Portland doesn’t usually get very much snow so it was an unexpected (and unwelcome on my part) storm. I had been waiting so long to move to Nashville, and it felt like the weather was plotting against me to stomp on my dreams! A little dramatic I know. After a couple days of eating soup and checking the flight status every half hour, we were finally able to get to the airport. The trip that was supposed to give me several days to get settled in and sight see before school started, turned into me finally getting to Nashville with only one day to find my dorm before classes started and my mom had to turn around and fly home. What a way to start out.

Almost every year since then, when I’ve gone home for Christmas, we have had some sort of weather difficulty getting to and from the airport. In a weird way, it kind of serves as a little reminder of that first trip when I moved to Nashville and how far I’ve come. It’s become part of my Holiday season, part of Christmas. Fly and reflect. Today is no different.  My flight is delayed about an hour and a half and dad is at home right now getting the chains put on the car so they’ll be able to make it to the airport to get me. Yup, every year the same thing. But this year I don’t have the frantic feeling I did five years ago. This year I am enjoying my extra time with the traveling people. I feel satisfied that I’ve had a busy and full year of music and work and friends and I’m ready to get home and spend time in my home town with my home people. Yeah a little delay is no biggie. Fly and reflect. I am blessed.

Sausage balls: Bisquik+sausage+cheese whiz

Forgetting that I don’t like touching raw meat,  I committed myself to making sausage balls for my work’s annual Christmas ‘treat week,’ where each department is designated a day to bring in food for the company for the week before Christmas. Sausage balls are just as bad for you as they are completely delicious, and a holiday breakfast situation is not quite the same without them so I volunteered to make them.

Well, Journal Communications (my treat week destination) doesn’t know how lucky they are that the sausage balls made it to their paper plates this morning.  Not only did I almost quit the baking process while wrist deep in raw sausage and fake cheese due to my gag reflex, but I had a little run in with our wintery weather on my way this morning. Sausage balls, purse, gloves and book in hand, I stepped out onto the metal stairs in front of my condo. Not being able to see that the stairs were completely encased in ice, I slipped. Before I new it, my glasses flew off my face, book, purse, and yes the sausage balls, flew out of my hands and I landed at the BOTTOM of the stair case…hard! I wasn’t sure If I should laugh or cry, cause man that hurt! Without getting too graphic, lets just say I have a 6 inch bruise that got bigger by the hour throughout the day. Luckily the container containing my special treat was air tight and still attached when I finally made it to solid ground, and we both made it safe and sound to  work, a little late:)

After my morning mishap, the rest of the day went pretty smooth. I ate my fair share of treats, I got a little Christmas shopping done, made a stop at Kroger to get supplies for a quiche for tomorrow (tis the season for potlucks) and ended up meeting up with some friends at Cafe Cocoa, a coffee shop in Nashville, to listen to some music. All is well that ends well.

Today started out very unclear. It was foggy, work felt jolty and altogether annoying, I got lost in a city I’ve lived in for several years now, and I couldn’t find my glasses (which I don’t need all the time, but they would have been very helpful while looking for unfamiliar street signs in fog on the way to the county clerks office.) 

Usually, when I find myself feeling foggy or stressed, I do one of two things: bury my head and hide from the world while contemplating my life, or become Miss. Productive and start doing as many things as I can till I find what needed to be done. Both tactics make me feel better in the end, but today I chose number 2.  

As I went through my day I became a snowball of tasks and thoughts, tasks and thoughts. Attach order numbers to contracts, get coffee, file, organize, file, run out to my car, still foggy, 65n, 40w, Rosa Parks blvd, turn right, SHOOT should’ve turned left, get back around, stand in line, wrong line, get my tags, back in the car, wait for a spot, idiot took my spot!, go inside, wait, get my stamps, foggy and dark, get my mail, sort the mail, pay some bills, go to my desk, when did that get so messy, back to the kitchen, put away clean dishes, mugs don’t fit right, organize my cabinet, back to my desk, dust, throw away bits of paper, still feeling foggy, overwhelmed, underpaid, nothing fits right, not enough room, still haven’t taken my new hard drive out of the box yet, better do that, I hate technical stuff, where to plug it in, of course the outlet that I need is already full of plugs on top of each other falling out of the wall, there is NO ROOM for the ONE thing that I’ve been NEEDING to plug in…

And then it hit me…I have a major outlet situation!

Running around like a mad woman today with my mind going a mile a minute, led me to one outlet. It wasn’t rocket science or a really deep meaningful insight into my life, or even something that I hadn’t thought about before, but it did put a level of clarity into my fog today.

I am an outlet. I only have a certain amount of energy. I have one Job that gives me benefits and a relatively flexible schedule, one job in the music industry, and one job doing the most important thing to me, music. Unfortunately the last job is one I don’t really get paid for yet, forcing me to prioritize differently than I want to. I have been juggling plug’s and draining my energy.

Problem not solved, just identified, but that’s good enough for me this evening. At least I got my dishes put away and my tags renewed. I think I’m going to go pick up my guitar now. I have a meeting tomorrow at BMI.

It is Sunday, the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend and I can’t believe it went so fast! My weekend has been jam packed so far. I have some family in town so we did the big yummy meal on Thanksgiving, (props to my sister who prepared most of it! she is awesome). Friday we decided to avoid the frenzy at the mall and headed down toward Chattanooga. We stopped at a precious town on the way for coffee and a walk around a church that looked more like a castle, and ended up getting to Chattanooga in time for dinner and a little Christmas celebration! It was so cool, they even had boats parading on the water decorated in Christmas lights, which being from Portland, made me a little nostalgic. Yesterday we went to the Bellemead Plantation which is one of my favorites around here, and it was decorated for Christmas as well so that made it more special. Did you know that in the 1850’s, they would only bring in a Christmas tree for a couple hours for a party or something, then they would take it down? You learn something new everyday. Anywho, I took them to the Loveless cafe for dinner which is a famous place to go here in Nashville, the biscuits are light and buttery and the food is down home, well worth the trek.

So here it is Sunday already. I wanted to take a moment before the transition between Thanksgiving and Christmas was over and there is no trace of fall left, to say that I am thankful. I thought about writing a list of all the things I am thankful for, but I think the message can be summed up by just acknowledging that I am. There is so much power in saying ‘I am Thankful’, to live your life with a thankful attitude. It is very easy, especially for me, to get caught up in what you have to do, what you should do or say or have, what steps you need to complete to get what you want looming out in the future, what you haven’t accomplished yet, what doesn’t look like you thought it would. If I start to think “I am thankful” instead, there are a flood of things in my life right in this moment that I am thankful for. This Holiday season, and even after, I want to try to remember to think and act from a thankful mindset. Imagine what that could do.

Thank you for reading this:)

This morning I had an opportunity to meet with a great songwriter to chat and drink coffee, one of my all time favorite pastimes. I got ready and headed out the door toward music row. In my effort to not be late, I ended up pulling up to Edgehill Cafe 11 minutes early. So…instead of going inside and waiting like a normal person, I decided to drive around the block a couple times so I could walk into the coffee shop right at 9am on the dot. I drove around and parked 2 streets up, Weird I know, but I was a little nervous and the fresh air clears my head.

When I finally made it inside and we did our introductions, we ordered our coffee and settled in for a chat. She was so warm and immediately put me at ease. We talked about where we were from, what my goals were, and our similar taste in music (Patty Griffin and Brandi Carlile of course!).

I’ve had many great conversations with other songwriters and publishers before, but while the advice I get is always useful, it often starts sounding the same. Today was a little different. I felt a clear message from her about being myself and finding my way with the opportunities coming around in the new age of our industry. It takes hard work she said, but it’s not about ‘If’ it’s about ‘when’, If I’m always ready then my time will come.

The piece of advice that stood out the most in our conversation, also happens to be something she said was the best advise ever told to her. You have to keep planting seeds and moving on. Plant a seed then move a couple feet and plant another one, don’t stand around watching and waiting for that first seed to grow. If you keep planting seeds, than by the time the first row of corn has grown, you’ll be on the forth row down!…or something like that, she definitely said it better than I just did, but you get the picture.

That little piece of advice hit home with me. Lately I’ve been feeling a little too stable. I’ve been working at both my part time jobs, writing and playing a few writers rounds. Nothing wrong with that, but I haven’t been feeling productive, like I’m watching other people around me move ahead and I’m standing still. But after coffee today, I felt rejuvenated. I think that I knew in my mind that I’ve made some great connections and I’ve made progress, and I was waiting around to see where that would get me. I’ve been watching my Corn! Luckily my rut didn’t last too long, my restless spirit swept though, picked me up, and plopped me in a chair across from a great advice giver at a coffee shop on music row today.  Thank goodness.

Gotta go, I’ve got some seeds to plant…

Yesterday was election day in America. The election has been the topic of conversation, the test of some friendships, the revealer of character, the irritation of some and the inspiration to most for many months now. I spent election day at work, played a gig in the evening and made it home in time to see them announce the 44th president of the United States.

Since I’ve known who I was voting for for a while now, I decided to vote early to avoid the big crowds on election day. However, when I showed up last Thursday, I ended up in a line that wrapped around itself through the library with the rest of Green Hills. Most people in line were texting, talking on their phones, drinking Starbucks or chatting about the key issues with their line buddy. It felt like we moved about six inches every half hour and I was tired and stressed about being late for work, so I tried to avoid eye contact as to not get pulled into a conversation. When I finally made it to the front of the line to check in, I knew I would be hassled about my Oregon drivers license so I was prepared with electric bills and bank statements to prove my residency. This of course took a while, so by the time I got to my electronic voting machine I was kind of pissed that there were only four questions after all that! I made my selections, got my ‘I voted’ sticker and headed out the door.  

A tired looking woman in mismatched cloths and a scrunchy around her wrist, walked out at the same time as I did.  ”How about that huh?” she said, I smiled and nodded and kept walking. She didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that I was in a hurry, and continued on to tell me about how she’s been working double shifts this week but couldn’t wait to vote so she took a shower and came here straight away to put her two cents in. She carried on and on about her life until we parted ways at her car. 

Her enthusiasm despite her circumstances, had rubbed off on me during our conversation. For a moment back there, I had let the minor frustration of the crowd and the line get in the way of the amazing thing I was taking a part of. I had just stood in line for an hour with a wildly diverse group of people, all showing up early to participate in our country. That’s what is beautiful about America. We have a choice and we have each other. Our diversity make us such a unique country, and I started feeling blessed.

As if to drive her point home, she drove by as I was getting into my car and yelled, “Have a good day you!”

That same spirit is being renewed in the hearts of millions of citizens with the start of this new Presidency.

God bless America.

I started a Blog on the Images of Nashville website in the end of the summer, and am now excited to have a new home for it here on my very own “.com”   It’s been kind of whirlwind learning how to navigate my way through this new world of blogging, but it has been so fun being able to express myself in a new way and tell my story a little bit.

I continue to have experiences that make me stop and say, “did that really just happen?” and this fall has been no exception. I have had a few events in particular that have made their way into that category.

Habitat for Humanity

I was blessed to be able to be involved with the music row house for Habitat for Humanity for the second time this year. On October 12th, Cal IV, the publishing company I work part time for, teamed up along side volunteers from Chicks with Hits and CAA, to do a day of building for Habitat for Humanity. It was so fun to see the music business folks and songwriters show up in their grubby cloths and guzzle down coffee as they started the day at an hour most of them hadn’t seen in a decade. But the positive energy that flows when a group of people come together for a cause is inspiring, and the results were beautiful.

And the ASCAP Songwriter of the year is…

On October 13th, the CAL IV crew put aside their grubbies from the previous day and donned their Sunday (or Monday in this case) best! The Ryman Auditorium was full of suits, sequins, songwriters and stars all coming to pay respects and/or receive recognition in Songwriting for the year from ASCAP. I sat with a couple of my best friends in the balcony and could feel the energy of the room buzz with the chatter and sound equipment. My favorite part of this event is that the songwriters of the top five songs of the year get to preform. The performances are usually a slightly different and more colorful version than you hear on country radio. One of the Highlights of this particular awards show was that they did a tribute to Reba, and I don’t care what kind of music you listen to you, that woman is impressive and an inspiration to woman all over the world. After a string of songwriters that came up and preformed their Reba hits, she came out and sang one of her old tunes with refreshing grace. While the whole night was fun, the best part was when the final award of the night was presented, the Songwriter of the year award. Hailing from a town 10 minutes from where I grew up, Cal IV songwriter Dave Berg got the honor that night and the excitement spread around the crowd as he made his way up to the stage to give his thank you’s and play his hit, ‘these are my people’ one more time with co-writer Rivers Rutherford.

Eric at the Opry

On the evening of October 17th, Eric Paslay had a black guitar strapped around him as he paced the halls backstage at the Grand ‘ol Opry. He wasn’t talking much, I could tell he was nervous. The weight of the the fact that he was playing on the Opry stage for the very first time, showed in his eyes. He was there playing guitar and singing back up for Sarah Buxton. They performed two songs, including one they wrote together. As I watched from the side of the stage it felt so surreal. He looked like he belonged up there, but at the same time, it seemed like just yesterday we were playing at the Red Rose Cafe my freshman year of college.  After they were done, we were back stage while people chatted and greeted and walked around us. He stood there, staring out past the heads of the musicians, to the lights beneath the balcony, and I think we were both thinking…”did that really just happen?”