RELEASED TODAY: THE HEALER. Click to check out Christoph’s new work.
Category Archives: friends
Chili Peppers + Give it away now = Goodwill Store
So, I’ve been packing to move for four days. Five to go before the movers come. When we moved three years ago, I swear we got rid of HALF the crap we had been collecting for 25 years. How is it possible we have more crap? The trophy husband has taken 23 bags of clothes to Goodwill…which brings me to this…
Maybe the bass player could use some of these clothes.
By the way, that’s my buddy Chad playing drums. We’ve been friends since way before the Chili Peppers were formed.
Going to pack more stuff…
Christmas is HERE!
It’s here, it’s here! I mentioned the other day (here) that my friend Skip Pruitt has a new Christmas CD. I’m jumping up and down!!!
Light the fire, make some hot chocolate, get yourself some holiday spirit!
cdbaby.com click to hear a sample Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Happy Birthday to ME!
Well, another year has flown by. They seem to move faster now that the kids are grown and gone. We used to measure time by what the kids were doing: She was in seventh grade; He played baseball that summer. But now, there is no measurement. Days just slip by and another year is gone. How strange.
As I grow older, I have mixed feelings of both peace and sadness. Peace that I don’t have to impress, climb the ladder, drive the perfect car, live in the perfect neighborhood. Sadness that so many things are now out of my control. When you’re young, anything is possible. All you have to do is decide where you want to go, how you want to live, who you want to hang out with, and it can happen. When you age, you don’t have as many choices. I will never run for president, join the military, or become Miss America. Not that I was going to do any of those things anyway, but it’s sad to have the choices involuntarily taken from me.
As you age, it seems life both contracts and expands at the same time. It contracts due to the lack of options but expands due to the growing number of family, friends, hobbies. In my case, the lack of options for the future has been replaced with an obsessive determination to get everything done. Now. I think I’m running out of time and there are not enough hours in the days.
My mother, father, and grandmother all died in their fifties, and I always thought I would too. Well, if that’s true, I’d better get busy doing all the things I want to do, because I’m quickly moving closer and closer toward the end. It’s not really a morose thought, just a simple fact like, “Hey, better run to the store and get toilet paper.”
Aging is a very strange thing. This ring was once put on the finger of a beautiful young woman with the world at her feet and the dreams of being a wife and mother shining in the distance. Though the skin has wrinkled and the dreams have, over the decades, become reality, that young heart is still beating inside. The things that were once important – getting that promotion, cutting the grass, holiday shopping – have been replaced with the simple act of spending time with the ones you love. Period. Some family and friends are younger, some are older, some are your lifelong companions. You never know which ones will still be here on your next birthday. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. That’s the most interesting thing about aging – the finality of it all.
Love everybody and tell them so today.
Monday Music – When you can play like this, you can PLAY!
Whew – these books have taken over my life for the last two weeks. Let’s do something different!
I’d like you to meet someone. This man is very dear to me. I’d like to introduce you to the incomparable Skip Pruitt. We spent a few years on the road together, and he is a dear! We spent more nights than I can count, sitting at the dining table on the tour bus, coloring pictures of The Little Mermaid and watching the same movie over and over again while heading to the next town…and the next…and the next. We only had one VHS with us (Yes, it was a few years ago), and believe it or not, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the movie, but I DO have blackmail photos around here somewhere of him coloring pretty pictures! Now, why would we only have one movie with us but have a whole box of crayons? I think my next Monday Music blog will be about packing for road gigs.
Anyway…
Skip is a master. His tone, his soul, his stage presence, his professionalism are second to none. His love for the music, the melody, the meaning of the song simply oozes out of every note he plays. He has a new Christmas CD coming out November 21st and I can hardly wait!
In the meantime, this will have to tide us over. This is my FAVORITE gospel song, written by the great Richard Smallwood. Skip puts a whole new meaning to the song Total Praise.
Anna Belfrage’s A Newfound Land
Okay, there’s too much going on today to keep quiet!
My dear friend Anna Belfrage has release a new book A NEWFOUND LAND. It’s the fourth in the Graham Saga. Geez, that cover is beautiful!
I admit, I just started this series a couple weeks ago, but I’m totally hooked on these characters. It’s a timeslip, it’s stuff that couldn’t possibly happen, it’s a complicated and intriguing story. I can’t wait to read A NEWFOUND LAND, but I want to finish the others first. From what I understand, you don’t have to read them in order, but I’d like to.
Check out the first three at Amazon. A RIP IN THE VEIL, LIKE CHAFF IN THE WIND, and THE PRODIGAL SON.
And check out her blog and the Graham Saga facebook page. Gawd, these covers are gorgeous!
“Very Inspiring Blogger Award” (cue applause track)
How awesome to be nominated for the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award!”
Thank you to my nominator and fellow author Anna Belfrage. Visit her page for the most amazing insights and prose.
The rules for this award are as follows:
1. Display the logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. State 7 things about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.
5. Notify your nominees.
Well, then, let’s get busy.
Seven things about moi…
1. I have a host of animals and always room for one more. Just don’t mention any of this to my trophy hubby. He starts trembling and mumbling incoherently. My current menagerie all have “people names,” except for Meatball. Meatball is a brown and white female guinea pig, so-named because of the way she curls up like a little meatball. Also, I’m not the one who named her. She appeared on Christmas morning as a gift/friend for my other piggy, Cee Cee.
2. I want goats. Not just any goats. I want one of those goats that bleats like a person yelling. I’ll call him Billy. I also want one of those goats that faints when you sneak up on him. I’ll call him Wilson. Every time Billy yells, Wilson will drop. You just have to enjoy the little moments.
3. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. I write. I sing. I cook. I love games and friends and critters.
4. I want to buy ten acres and plant a HUGE veggie garden, so I can stop going to the grocery store.
5. I have panic attacks when I enter grocery stores. Too much visual stimulation, I guess. My stomach gets queasy just thinking about it.
6. I am a professional musician by night, but I hate noise. I am most happy walking in the woods or playing in the creek with the pups.
7. I am aging well, which has nothing to do with my physical features. Turning thirty was traumatic. I totally ignored forty. Fifty is not bothering me a bit. I am getting more comfortable in my own skin as I age. That’s good, right?
My Nominees (in no particular order)
1. Ashley Jillian has one of the sharpest wits on the web today.
2. Wendy’s “Our Lineage” – bringing genealogical to life. I can’t get enough!
3. Donna’s “Always Backroads” – filled with magical moments…and photographs.
4. Will’s “What If It All Means Something” – the adventures of an up-and-coming writer.
5. Deborah the “Genealogy Lady” has an amazing cast of characters on her WWII blog.
6. K. J. Wolf – blogs without any sort of filter which translates into laugh-out-loud hilarity.
7. The Worlds Top 10 of Anything and Everything is just plain amusing.
8. Author Pat Fitzhugh’s blog is filled with ghost stories and southern charm.
9. Author Sandi Layne writes of history, books, history, books, and more history and book.
10. Playful Meanderings is a pleasure to read!
11. I love the Belle Grove Plantation and will visit someday.
12. Elena Levon – beautiful, simple, deep.
13. Egle Pruckute – bits and pieces.
14. Amazing photos at Kalabalu’s site.
15. Author Dianne Gray from Australia.
Lori Crane 