Down to the wire

I'm taking some community college courses in HTML and multimedia design, and boy am I behind. I'm too old and know better, so how did I manage to put my projects off just like I did when I was in high school and college. I thought I knew better now. I told myself I wouldn't fall into my "old" school ways. I was a terrible student. Always put major projects off until the last minute. But, I can't pull all-nighters this time. So, now what? Work all weekend (Mother's Day!) and do the best I can I guess. To tell the truth, my grades don't really matter. But, they do. They matter to me because I want good grades. I'm actually working way harder than I did in college. I just have way less time for school work. So, when I don't use the time I planned to set aside, it's gone. There is no more. No more time, that is. So, why am I sitting here writing about it. Becuase I can. This is my scheduled vent and relax time. Good night!

It's May

It's May and we have snow on the ground. Not just a little dusting, but we had about a foot of snow when we got up Friday morning. It didn't psyche me up to drive to Denver for my morning classes at Swallow Hill. And, my kids were very disappointed to not get a snow day. But, once I drove about ten minutes south I saw why - we got a foot, but just a couple of miles south got maybe half a foot, and by the time I got to Denver, it was just a light white blanket.

So, we've gotten more snow on and off since then and with our north facing house, our front yard will be white for a while unless the temperature goes up and stays up. This is spring! I'm used to spring snow storms, but in early to mid-April. I prefer to have spring come to stay by May.

Musically, I'm too busy to think about songwriting or performing. I'm finishing up courses at my local community college and trying my hardest to get caught up. I'm way out of the swing of college things. It took me a while to realize that I needed to treat the last few weeks of school as cram time. Major projects aren't done yet. Actually I finished one and have one to go and two finals. I'm way out of shape mentally for this. And I can't pull an all nighter. Too old and too many family and work commitments. But, I am doing a way better job than I did in college of not making excuses to professors. By that I mean that I am not making excuses. I'm just plugging away and getting the work done even though I did put more off than I should have. Which all means that all I can deal with right now is schoolwork, my morning classes that I teach and presenting a program at a MOPs group on Wednesday. And then there's helping backstage at the elementary school talent show, getting one daughter to rehearsals for the dinner theatre, getting the other daughter to her activites, and finding time to actually have a conversation with my husband, hopefully a few a day. Whew! Who has time for music? I'm trying to find time to write in my journal at least four mornings a week, walk the dog, and breathe.

Tuesday Update

I really really really did plan to update my blog from the road over the past few weeks as I toured the Jefferson County Libraries. But, I got busy, tired, whatever, and just didn't make the time to do it. So far this month I've done about a dozen shows, taught classes, written a few songs, and dealt with the usual family stuff and a little more.

But, mostly, I had fun!!! Doing shows for kids is great!!! I love it! And my three new songs are way fun to do in concert. So, now I have to figure out a way to record them. Which means, of course, that I need to practice, get together a little band, practice with them, and then find the time and money to do it. Which means that I will probably record them by myself in my basement this week. And then, maybe someday in the next year or so, I'll record them for a CD which now has a working list of over ten songs.

My one recent setback (well, actually I've had several setbacks, bad moments, whatever) happened yesterday when I got turned down to perform at a Boulder Songwriters Showcase. They take place once a month and I had finally gotten up the courage to apply for a slot. What helped was I attended the last one and the featured performer (who produced one of my CDs and also does childrens music, but in addition to his adult gigs) pointed me out from the stage and said I should play there. So, that got my hopes up. But, I got a polite email back from the guy who runs it saying that he picks the performers based upon his own personal preferences and he doesn't think kids music fits in with the audience they get. Frankly, I didn't think they had all that big an audience last time, and I could probably bring in a few people that would normally not go to that kind of thing, but, ... I think I'll keep that thought to myself and not put it in an email to him. What I do have incentive to do now though, is record one of my new songs that is "appropriate" for adults and it so happens I wrote it for kids. So, yes, I'm a little pissed and a lot hurt, but hopefully it will wake me up to the fact that the only decent recordings I have are my CDs which are primarily little kids stuff and not a lot of originals. So, I need to get to work on getting good recordings of songs I perform a lot, even if they're not CD ready yet.

So, life as a musician and songwriter goes on and now back to parenthood. Time to pick up a child at school and get her to a dinner theatre rehearsal. She's the real star, I think.

 

New CD

The master went to the plant last week. Final proofs were approved yesterday and today, so...sometime next week 1,000 "Wiggle and Whirl, Clap and Nap" CD's should be on their way to Boulder, Colorado. Read about it here and let me know and I'll send you a kazoo with your CD, for just $14, shipping included.