Sunday, June 27, 2021
Facing Fear in Every Storm
Monday, June 21, 2021
Harvesting the Crops After the Rain
Throughout times in our life as also happens in seasons of a year we will go through a drought or a time of sadness. We can feel sad, depressed or even without emotion. In a drought the grass turns brown and needs watering, needs cared for and attention; much in the same fashion as we feel when we start to feel down.
Every day when we wake up we are given the chance to breathe new life. To live a fresh start. It's normal and ok for everyone to experience times of sorrow, doubt and emotional times when we just don't feel like we are enough. However, don't live there forever. I lived there. I lived there for a long time and it hurt. It still hurts to see those old pictures, the look on my face and the sad in my eyes. Every day wanting to try to start again, but something would trip me up and I would find anything that I could to give myself a reason to not get out of bed. Spending my days sleeping, crying for hours on end with no real reason for it, and feeling that no one cared. In my mind no one cared that I was in bed, no one cared that I was crying. No one cared that my hair wasn't done or that I was gaining weight again or that I hadn't changed clothes for three days....I cared, but I wanted so much for someone to care and in my own mind I had created the vision that no one did.
During my life I have always been a giver. I give what I can. Time, heart, money... I give a lot. I give chances, phone calls, handwritten letters even a hug or a smile. For one single moment, my heart hardened. I felt like my giving wasn't appreciated and that was a ridiculous mistake. Never in your life should you give to get something in return. I have never given to get something in return and for a moment I forgot that. My life turned upside down. My job went away, I felt empty and unappreciated. I didn't want to give anymore when it seemed I was getting nothing in return. I had worked so hard and for what? Again, the first rule is to give without the expectation of receipt.
It takes one positive person to help someone realize that life can be good. We can make our lives better each and every day if you give yourself the chance to do so. In recent months I have experienced a massive change for the better. It feels so good to be the giver again. Every day when I wouldn't get out of bed I could see the sadness in my kids' eyes. I could feel the anger from others, but as long as I was doing what I wanted to do I didn't really care. Was it what I really wanted to do? No... but I couldn't for the life of me find a reason to get out of the bed and give myself to the daily routine anymore. I had one person who would message me and call me every day asking for my list of five things that I was grateful for that day. Eventually I started making it a point to wake up and ask him what his list was before he asked me. Every day it would get easier. That was his gift to me and I am so grateful to have received it. No matter how much I argued and how much I wished to deny his gift when he first offered it to me, I eventually accepted it and my life is getting better for it each and every day. Just today in discussion I told him he was the best friend I had and I meant it.
Being a giver doesn't mean giving every minute of your time or spending every penny that you earn. It's the little things. Giving the little things get you through every day. The good mornings, the smiles, the hugs. Seeing the smiles in return and hearing the laughs, the gracious thank you coming from their heart. That is what giving is all about.
Still one of the favorite writings I've heard to this day comes from the song "Humble and Kind". There's a final line of the song that says,
When you get where you're going don't forget turn back around
And help the next one in line
Always stay humble and kind...
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Rebuilding after the Storm
A lot of you are new to my writings, some of you are my regular readers. Thanks for always being on my journeys with me. It's been a very long time since I've had the time to sit down and write. Today I made a point to do it, because my mind needed the release. The past 12 months of my life have been something of a whirlwind; a tornado if you will. The rain had already started many months before that, but the real storms brewed over the summer, fall and winter months. How I survived, I really don't know to be honest with you.
A year ago today my life took quite a turn. I'm a pretty caring person and someone really figured that out and took the best of me, the best of my heart and it's taken most of my soul and happiness. I couldn't quite get the words out for this blog for the last few months until today I was reminded of the song "When you love someone." by Bryan Adams. It probably stung me the hardest out of everything I've heard or anything that's been said to me in the past 4 or 5 months. Two of the biggest lines in the song for me that just hit today were, "You'll deny the truth... believe a lie.. there'll be times that you believe that you can really fly."
I really did believe I could fly, I believed everything, but I don't believe I'm the first person who ever deals with this in their life, but dealing with it for the first time in 22 years, that was a complete new world for me and having it hit as hard as it did; that hurt. It hurt hard. They learned that I was a complete music fanatic, a superfan of their music and thing just went pretty hard and fast from there.
Taking advantage of someone with an open heart and blind eyes to the entire world is a pretty easy task. When we break though, it's a tough break. It's a hard recovery. We don't bounce back after a situation like that . If I can't stop myself from being a victim of this type of thing, how can I help my kids avoid it.
How will I teach my daughter that every man that writes her a song isn't awful? When deep down it will always remind me that the one who wrote music for me did it with a purpose.... to make me fall into the routine of asking me for money. Favors. Help. That not every man out there is truthful to her heart as much as she would like to believe it.
This is another reason that song hit me so hard today... "When you love someone, you'll do anything. You'll do all the crazy things that you can't explain." Never in my life would I have imagined what I was willing to give up for another person. Love is supposed to do that to you right? You're supposed to sacrifice, but to what extent? "When you love someone, you'll sacrifice. Give it everything you've got and you won't think twice. You'd risk it all... no matter what may come. When you love someone."
Being someone who cares about everyone is a curse and it's hard not to give everyone a chance in life. As I grow older it makes me harder in my heart, it makes the tears fall a little easier. You don't want to believe that people can be so deceitful or hurtful, but they are out there. Ultimately I'll still listen to my heart because that's the path I've always chosen. If I didn't, I wouldn't have my two kids in the first place and God knows I am ever so thankful for them every single day of my life. In the end, I am hurt; but I'm thankful for the lessons I learned in the last year. My inexperienced eyes were surely opened to see that not everyone has a good heart, and not everyone loves like I do. Big hearts are open, but they are also open to heart break. As much as we try to protect ourselves and our kids; it will happen. When it does, open your arms to those who need the embrace. It hurts. More than I remember. "Your lonely nights have just begun... when you love someone."
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Music Means Something...
Monday, October 12, 2020
What do you dream...
Friday, September 4, 2020
What's in a song...
It's been about 9 months since I've blogged... life has happened. I need to commit to this, because writing really soothes my mind and clears my head. The last few days I've had a couple of topics I really want to focus on so my readers are probably going to get slammed this week. Writing and music are the things I go to in life when I need a release, and big things are hitting me. The only way I've been dealing with it, is music.
When you listen to a song, what brings you to it? Is it the type of music that the song is? Do you like country music, alternative music, pop music? What keeps you interested in the song... How many times do you listen to the song before you listen to the words? Do you feel the music?

I've always been one to listen to the lyrics, I'll rewind a song and start it again a few times. There's something special about someone who can write lyrics that bring out a memory or a time in my life that make a song touch "that" place in my heart. If you don't listen to a song this way, you really don't understand it. Lyrics to songs can place you in all parts of your life. In high school, growing up, through a death, through a love or a love lost. They can help you cry or celebrate. Lyrics help you remember the good and the bad, because believe me. Your life, as wonderful or awful as it may seem... someone has been there before; and an amazing songwriter is telling that story.
Lately, my life... if you follow me personally hasn't been a beautiful bed of roses. We've gone through a lot of sadness and trauma in 9 months. My grandmother passed, my kids' grandmother passed and my father almost left us. After 21 years as one household, we have decided to make it two. Covid. Covid happened and music all but died. Music, the one thing that held all of us together for 21 years... as crazy as that sounds, was not there to hold us together. Then, music came back.
https://soundcloud.com/lifelikeviolence
A friend of mine started sharing what he wrote, and it really connected with me. I don't know why, or what about his lyrics that did it, but they just came through. There's one song in particular, "Believe in Yourself" that really touches the heart and if you find time in your day, you need to listen to it. The lyrics are so solid and deserve to be heard.
Please click on the link and listen to the song, you won't be sorry- it's breathtaking.
Through all of this, I have never let go of IC Promo. Music feeds, music heals. I have to thank my wonderful friend Roger for that. He has been such an amazing supporter of my ideas, my promoting and introducing me to the bands that I needed to know. Through IC Promo, I have met SO MANY amazing musicians. Well over 2,000. I've met musicians I'm a fan of (super cute fan girl like...omg I can't believe I met them!) I've met musicians I've never heard of... I've met songwriters who have written songs that I loved when I was a little girl on the farm and even the guy that wrote "All About that Bass" ..yes it's true, and he was pretty cool. My favorite weekend every year is the Wild West Songwriter's Festival in Deadwood, SD. It's a must for me, listening to the songwriter's stories, why they wrote the songs, their personal interest in the song. Once you hear that and attach it to the song; you'll never hear the song the same way again.
Through all of that, the purpose of the blog is as the title says, "What's in a song?" Once you really get involved in all parts of the music, it's really something to just separate the lyrics out.
One of my favorite songs for lyrics is "Bless the Broken Road" - Now I know most of you will be referring to Rascal Flatts when you think of this song, but the song was originally written for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1994. I have also met this songwriter, and his story for the song was unbelievable. A friend of mine has a description of why he wrote each of his songs on his SoundCloud, and it really attaches the song to the lyrics. More musicians need to do this. I know that a lot of musicians are afraid that their songs won't make money if they put them on these platforms; but to me this shows that it's more about music. It's about getting people to listen to their words, what they write.

































