It's been a minute

So it's been a while since I updated... the weather turned. I've been soaking up the rain, and swimming in laudry.

However, I wanted to throw out a song for you who follow... a song of the week as it were...

When Did Your Heart Go Missing - Rooney

Turn the radio up!

The weather has gotten AWESOME! here.  Seriously.  No no no... SERIOUSLY AWESOME!

Awesome enough that I'm driving around with the windows down, radio up... wait let me do this right...I've started to "roll the window down, turn the radio up push the pedal to the ground".  This (of course) means I've needed some high quality jams and I've turned to the radio up and found a bunch of old awesome songs, and then some commercials and then some really crappy music.  Let me tell you, that can just kill a day.

So I'm itching for some new music and to the benefit of the world new music is coming. Here's some albums you need to check out from some bands you can count on to take an awesome drive and make it a-mazing.

Carney - Mr. Green: Volume 1

oh I know, with a band name like Carney you've already got the circus tent and jugglers in mind. Simmer down and come back to the city. Check them out at www.carneyband.com and check out the video for "Love Me Chase Me". If some how you manage to watch the video with out drooling all over your keyboard you'll have noticed that they're FANTASTIC.  

Hanson - Shout It Out

If you know me at all you will have noticed that I'm a Hanson fan. Not one of those "Oh my god, you're a Fanson. I bet you know what color toothbrush they all have." Hanson fans. No no, I'm the kind who just happen to have awesome taste in music. If you've been living under a rock or tuning me out for the last 13 years, go check them out. You might just be pleasantly surprised when you do.  Check out the video for "Thinkin' 'Bout Somethin'" (and you know I cringe with all those apostrophes) and check out the new material at www.hanson.net

Caedmon's Call - in the works

Ok this is kind of cheating... and completely different. The album is in the works but if it's half as good as Derek Webb is making it sound on twitter it will be something awesome this fall.   

Ozarks

She pauses as hair falls across her face
A shiver builds resolve in her shoulders
She's quit counting scars she's earned in this place
And let the burn marks fade as ashes smolder.

In the far corner he sits in a chair
Watching as the door swings wide
There's too much to say in the thin mountain air
But he's found silence is the best place to hide.

Suddenly, although nothing happened
She covers the mars on her arm
He grimaced at the scars her tears can't dampen
The price to pay when love comes to harm.

a breath of fresh air to fill your lungs

It's no small secret that I've been over analyzing just about everything I've ever said and or done in the last few weeks. I've been super cranky, had terrible headaches, and general grumpies. 

Last minute I heard about a This Is Energy show tonight at the Hard Rock. Lucky it was free... and it was a Battle of The Bands... something about it felt like everything I needed tonight and it felt a little full circle. The first time I saw Adam (and Britton) perform was at a battle of the bands in a tiny little dive downtown before I was old enough to drive. So I yonked my mom's car and headed out when I would normally be in bed.

I've never been so glad for a lack of sleep. If Dave's guitar playing wasn't enough to lift my mood, the kiss off "If You Ever Make a Come Back" and "Let the World Know" were enough to let my frustration rise to the surface and steam away. By the time the guys launched in to "Just Breathe" I was willing to listen to a simple message that I've been all to willing to ignore as of late. I find it funny that I'm willing to listen to it now when Adam's singing it not to me, but I'm not willing to listen when Andrea's all but shoving it down my throat. There is something cathartic about a drum line pounding through your chest, a guitar playing your heart strings and a bass rolling through your ears. There's something healing about listening to a performance so passionate you have to close your eyes to keep from crying.

I had to ask Adam if he was still attending the church that we shared for that brief year and a half, or even the church that left me with scars and threw me into the church were we first met. He's not and somehow that's more refreshing than I can even explain. But it leaves me with one thought. God works all things for good. He was willing to turn one hellish experience into an chance to know someone who would play a role in encouraging me in my darkest hours. Even if all it led to was a reminder to breathe a decade later, God's got a plan we just have to follow it.

Alarms and chimes

I spent some time this weekend just enjoying some simple pleasures, good jazz and a good book. I'm not entirely sure where I discovered these small passions. Sometimes I feel like the only member of the family who will put on a record and curl up with a book. More often than not I hear from my mother how she just can't get into the books and movies that my dad and I will lose entire days to. I also rarely hear my dad turn off the tv so he can lose himself in a great album. But somewhere there is a combination of their passions that turn me in to a book worm with an ear for a smooth trumpet and silky guitar.  Thank God for that.

I needed that. I find that I need time away from people with a good book and good music. There are little "crankiness alarms" in my head that start sounding when I don't. I started realizing this and really embracing my coffee shop moments while I was away in college. It was the best thing I could have done and I'm not entirely sure why I let myself get away from it when I got back home.

Song of the day: Summer time by Duke Ellington

Flames of Memory

A soft breeze, gentle as satin
Wafts across the path
Well beaten, smoothed over by
Clydesdales and wagon wheels.
I look back, still as marble
Remembering and forgetting
A tiny flame, barely candle bright
Burning our concrete bridge.



Song of the Day: Not What You Want by Ingram Hill

Burning bridges

A comment was made to a friend today that sometimes you just have to burn your bridges and walk a way.
That's easier said than done when your bridges are concrete.
I started seriously considering if I'm neglecting burning my own bridges for the sake of not getting smoke in my eye.
Still I'm waiting by the phone... hoping my bridges don't have trolls living beneath them.