Date: February 21st, 2009 (Saturday)

Time: 6:00pm

Venue: Richard’s cafe, a great little Cajun place off of Whites Creek, just 10 mins North of downtown

Come join my friends, and great writers, Brittany Moses and Alexis Thompson, for an hour of great music and laughs. While we are all three solo songwriter/artists, together we call ourselves the Back Porch Party, a name inspired by many parties in college spent on the back porch pickin and singing together.

Hope to see you there!

Moriah

While I am so grateful and happy to be in Nashville chasing my dreams, one of the hardest parts about being away from home is feeling like I’m missing out on the biggest parts of my friend’s and families lives. This year alone, my younger step-sister and three other friends are getting married. First to get hitched is my best friend Nikki. I missed out on a lot of the preparation, but I was there for the wedding and even got to spend the day before with just her and I running errands and tying up loose ends for the big day.  We had so much fun and I’m so excited to share it with you, so here is part one of my Best Friend’s Wedding:

Moriah

Date: January 27th, 2009

Time: 6:00pm

Venue: Richard’s Cafe (15 mins from Music Row)

It is already January 12th, and I haven’t written anything in the new year! It’s not that it’s been void of excitement or work or music, in fact there have been several “blog worthy” situations. However, sitting down to write my first post of 2009, I don’t feel right about mixing stories about new years, shows, the Titans game, or photo shoots with the most impactful thing that has happened so far this year.

I have been getting updates from one of my best friends back home about a girl that we went to school with who has been battling cancer for the last couple years. Katie was diagnosed with cancer a couple years ago after going into the doctor to get a mole checked out. They tried several treatments but were unsuccessful, and she was sent home to be with her family for the last weeks of her life.  I haven’t seen Katie in several years since we graduated high school, and while we were not close friends, hearing about her situation touched my heart and I dreaded the call I got today. She past away early Sunday morning, she was only 24 years old. The paper back home ran several articles about her and I went back through to read them today. What an inspiration. Even in her last bit of time on earth, she sent a message about the importance of remembering that we are mortal and encouraging everyone to live each moment to the fullest. 

Most of us have lost someone, or several maybe, from the “home team.” People who have been in your life, people you grew with, who played a more significant role than you realized sometimes, people that you never think to be anywhere but in the exact place you left them. There is Loss in my home team tonight.

It looks like we will have snow on Christmas! Its been a powder snow covered winter wonderland for the last couple days. Just like most cities that don’t get too much snow, the news has been showing nothing but coverage of what they are calling ‘The Arctic blast of 08′. I have included a picture of my dad and sister building his monument in honor of the Arctic blast of ‘08 in the front yard…I come from a long line of characters.

My sister and I got a little cabin fever the other day and decided to walk to Grandma’s house. Over the hills and through the woods, we saw skiers, kids with sleds and a couple buses stranded across the white roads. We were truly walking in a winter wonderland. For those of you that are from a place that has snow all winter long this sounds silly, but Portland usually doesn’t get snow till January, so this is a special treat.

I’ve been feeling especially Christmasy, wrapping gifts, eating Christmas cookies and making plans with friends and family I haven’t seen in a while. And of course listening to Christmas music, which I’ve been doing since the day after thanksgiving. The snow just adds to the spirit.

It is now Christmas eve. The season has gone so fast! It always does I suppose. This is my favorite time of year. I love the magic. I love the story. I love the excuse for as much food and gatherings as possible. I love the colors. I really love the music. I could listen to Amy Grant and Bing Crosby Christmas albums all year probably:) Christmas inspires a new hope and peace for the world. We all need a little Christmas after a year of going and doing and getting things done. It has come! time to enjoy a silent night, a holy night, and then a Holy Joly Christmas!

I know that tonight, I’ll be dreaming of a white Christmas.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Hoildays!

Moriah

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.