Sadie & Me

Zach informed me last Wednesday that he would be spending most of the weekend in Chicago with some friends, which meant I would have total responsibility of Sadie for two entire days. The initial thought was a little scary, but we actually had a pretty great time, the two of us. In total, we went on four walks, spent countless hours playing with her favorite tug o' war toy, and made some great headway in the potty-training department :)

I even managed to be sort of productive when I wasn't playing with Sadie. I bought and put together a cute little table for my office and did some much-needed reorganizing/filing/decorating. I also did laundry, vacuumed, and prepared for the workweek...all before going to bed by 11 pm each night. I know you're jealous!

I woke up this morning to a beautiful, perfect day, and could feel the magnetic force leading me to the pool. After my jaunt around the neighborhood with Sadie, I walked down to my mom's and spent a few glorious hours in the sun, reading magazines and being reminded of how much I love summer.

Now I'm ending this perfect day on the couch with my hubby and my puppy, watching some great TV and reveling in the thought that tomorrow is my last Monday at school for a long time. So hard to believe.

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Baseball and Babies

That's my nephew, Mason. He is a Cardinals fan like me...not a silly Cubs fan like his Uncle Zach. We got to hang out at the game last week, and we had a great time. Especially since the Cardinals beat the Cubs :)

My brother and I gave my dad tickets to a Cardinals game for his birthday, so the three of us are going next week. There's nothing more summery than a baseball game, so needless to say, I can't wait. I need a little summer in my life.

Besides baseball, the real summer kickoff is my birthday! I'm turning 26 a week from tomorrow, which I find pretty much impossible. A few months ago, I wrote about Zach turning 26 and how I got to cling on to 25 for a little while longer. Well, "a little while longer" is now mere days, and then I will officially be past the midpoint of my twenties. Scary.

In other baby news, Sadie is exhibiting all the classic signs of puppyhood. Chewing, nipping, peeing (mostly outside...mostly), and being so cute that it makes up for all her bad habits. Here's one last gratuitous photo to end this rambly post:

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Introducing...Sadie!

This is our brand new baby, Sadie. She's 8 weeks old, almost 8 pounds, and a complete handful. But we are already head-over-heels in love with her, not to mention that she has made us the most popular house on the block! Zach and I have more new friends under the age of 12 than we can count. It's hard to resist this face, isn't it?
And the puppy's cute too. Just kidding ;) We are learning that it is definitely hard work raising a puppy, but very worth it. Middle-of-the-night potty trips and all.

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The Sound of My Own Voice

When I was growing up, I hated listening to recordings of myself, whether it was my speaking or singing voice. In high school, after making and listening to an audition video for a college application, I cried. A little dramatic, I know, but I was surprised (in an unpleasant way) by how I sounded.

Over time, I have gotten used to listening to playback of my voice. Since I record so many songs for my work, I have to listen to them over and over again during the editing process. I also have to hear myself as I walk through the halls at school, since so many of the classrooms play my music therapy CDs for their students.

This weekend, I recorded an interview for a podcast by a music therapist in New York named Wade Richards. It was so much fun to listen to it once it was finished (which you can also do here) though I am ridiculously critical of myself. I'm trying to become less so, but it's slow-going. At least I don't cry anymore :)

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Grand Plans

I can't believe it's May. Furthermore, I can't believe my birthday is a month from today, and I will be 26! Heading into my second quarter-century has gotten me thinking about the future quite a bit. I am extremely satisfied with my life and career at this point in time, but I can't help but feel that there are certain goals I need to accomplish while I'm still in my twenties. You know, like become famous, make my first million, etc. I kid, but the truth is that I can't shake this feeling.

So what am I going to do? Well, for starters, I will not be providing music therapy at Hope during the summer for the first time in three years. Instead, I am going to take that time and invest it in some very focused work - songwriting, building my business, and expanding my music therapy blog, among other things. I'm hoping this will pay off in the long run, though I will miss the extra paychecks. And the kids, of course.

Also, we're getting a dog. (I just typed "god" two times on accident.) A golden retriever named...well, you'll just have to wait and see. We are counting down the days until she is ours. This doesn't exactly have a place on my aforementioned must-do-in-my-twenties list, but it does have a place on my must-do-in-life list.

And that is where my list ends, for now. But I am always brainstorming...and who knows what else will fall out of the sky, the way things tend to do in my life :)

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Emperor of Daffodils

Late last year, a guy named Joe Frawley discovered my little blog, listened to my music, and liked what he heard. He got in touch with me to tell me so, and asked if I'd be interested in collaborating with him. I love to try new things, so of course I said yes...and now I'm an official member of the Joe Frawley Ensemble.

Joe's work is like nothing I'd ever heard before. I'll let you read what he writes about himself and his work on his website:

I am a pianist/composer/sound collage artist whose work falls between the cracks of several different genres, though I manage to find an audience with fans of ambient, experimental, and post-rock music. My approach is to combine original piano music with found sound samples, which I process electronically to simulate subsconcious states-- dreams, trances, auditory hallucinations, involuntary memories. I'm particularly interested in the effects of recontextualized speech samples and how they interact with each other to create new meanings. I also try to exploit the musical qualities of speech and aim to put the spoken voice on equal footing with musical (and other) sounds. The resulting work invariably suggests a narrative, though I try not to impose a particular story upon the the listener, preferring instead the individual and subjective interpretations of imaginative minds. Other interests include creating and photographing found object assemblages, and l have lately been experimenting with video montage.

Joe and I have become friends and frequent correspondents solely via the internet, and Greg Conte (the other member of the ensemble) and I submit our musical contributions to Joe via email. Joe has put together an amazing EP entitled Emperor of Daffodils, with a release date set for next month. This is what he writes about it:

I came across this You Tube video- and apparently there are others like it- of a young woman doing her makeup, talking about which eyeshadows she likes, how she puts on lipstick, etc. And then people would comment back saying "you're so pretty", "that shade looks good on you". It occurred to me that a web cam functions something like a magic mirror to some people, as in: "Who's the fairest of them all?" And it wasn't just one video, she had dozens of them. A lot of the samples you hear on this project come directly from that source. This was the initial fascination, which then lead to further explorations of the idea, from slightly different angles, including the male perspective. I have always found it fascinating, for example, to watch a woman put on makeup. It's a whole world I know nothing about, and have no place in- the world of feminine beauty rituals. This is what lead to the idea of an Emperor of Daffodils (that is of narcissists- the flower in French, narcisse, is named after the mythic figure). I imagined it as a fantasy for a man to have dominion over an empire of self-loving beautiful women, a fantasy which could easily turn dark, as you can imagine. This CD has been the most strictly programmatic work I have made, and I found working within the limits of the concept to be creatively liberating. I am encouraged by the results of this recording and hope to do more collaborative work in the future. –JF

Are you ready for something completely different? Go listen to excerpts of it here.

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