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Happy Independence Day Weekend!
For the 300 songs project this week, I thought it was ironic that I was singing a breakup song by a Brit today (since the US broke up with Great Britain all those years ago), but the votes on Facebook made it hands down the winner. Next week, I'll post the Beyonce tune. 🙂
Watch for my badass boots and my Grandfather's military jacket from WWII. Later this year, I'm hoping to have my Dad's military medals, and when I get them, I'll show them to ya!
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I'm proud of my family's military history, and I'm grateful to ALL the men and women who put their life on the line every day to keep our country in one piece. Say what you will about the current regime, these people risk everything so I can sit in my living room and sing to you. "Thank you" doesn't begin to cut it, but it's what I've got today. THANK YOU!
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I may be ill this week, but I'm not skipping my weekly video. It's time again for another musical medley mashup!
This time, it's the most well known Sunday song of all time (that classic Commodores hit, "Easy") with a little country thrown in for good measure (that Tim McGraw hit "Watch The Wind Blow By").
Lionel wrote his song as a breakup tune, while the other is just a feel good, kick back love song. Put the two together, and it's a fun little anthem about freedom and doing what you love on your own timetable. Enjoy!
Four ounces.
It's approximately what the iPhone 5 (and a variety of other every day items) weighs.
And since the start of the year, that's my net weight loss for all of 2014.
Four ounces.
For the past two years, I've logged my daily weight (well, as often as possible), high or low, I've watched my body fluctuate around the same 10 pounds. And I'm still 90 pounds away from what most reasonable people would consider a healthy weight for my age and body type.
To an outsider, four ounces is laughable. It's barely a tick on the scale, and yet it's one worth celebrating.
Why?
Because I'm past the half-way point of the year, and I'm still trending downward.
See, I started the year above my normal weight - by about 3.5 pounds. That means, not only have I lost that extra baggage from the holidays (and my birthday party!), it means I've actually made progress toward my ultimate goal.
Plus, in June, I started a 3-day fast, which gave shaved another 4+ pounds off the scale. But I didn't fast for weight reasons (more on that in another post), so when the fast ended, I wasn't surprised to see some of that weight return.
But not those four ounces!
I'm no small woman. I know that. I also know that there are lots of moving parts to my own weight loss journey. Food sensitivities, emotional eating, and other stuff I'm just now discovering. Like my Cinderella complex. For as independent as I am, I keep hoping my Fairy Godmother will come with her magic wand and miraculously flush that 90 pounds off my body, give me a gorgeous dress and send me off to The Ball in my fancy glass slippers.
My coach called me on it this week. When I told her about my resistance to following through on my weight loss goals, she pointed out how good I am at getting things done - when it's a priority for me.
Zorch. She got me. It's fun to talk about what I've done well. It's sexy to talk about plans and goals.
I've worked over the last six months to see that four ounces - but not consistently. I'd put my head down for a while - anywhere from 5-21 days, and then I'd shrink back. I gave my power over to other people and put myself in a position where I didn't have healthy options available to me.
One of the practices I've instituted this year is re-commitment. It's easy to get on board with something, but when you hit The Dip, it's also easy to fall off that bandwagon, and never return. Re-commitment is permission to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start over again with what you've said matters.
When the scale starts climbing, or the exercise gets monotonous, it's easy to give up, grab a jar of Nutella, and forget about what really matters.
When your friends invite you to go fun places - like Cops & Doughnuts in Clare - it's easy to get lost in a sea of sugary goodness and succumb to the temptation of tasty treats. It's easy to give up on your long term goal for some short term socialization and delicious debauchery.
And in some ways, I did. In others, I didn't. At the end of the trip (which was fabulous, by the way. Did you see my mugshot on Facebook?), I hadn't gained a pound.
Of course, I hadn't lost any, either. But my wins included:
One week later, and I can proudly proclaim I'm down almost 2 pounds from the trip - and then there's those glorious four ounces.
Re-commitment takes guts. It takes courage to say "Hey, I fell down, and I'm not gonna stay down." It takes balls to say "I made a disempowering choice (or series of choices), but I'm going to get back on track."
It takes cojones to say "Yep, I've dropped the ball regularly on this in the past, but now, I'm re-committing, doing some things differently, and we'll see how this time goes."
And it takes supreme levels of courage to do that in the face of well-intentioned friends and even haters, who've seen you fall and don't expect you to ever get back up.
When you do get back up (because you're awesome like that), you celebrate that win. Dance! Sing! Shout! Tell your friends! Paint a mural! Blog about it! Take pictures!
Even if it's "only" four ounces.
Don't focus on the thirty-eight steps you still have to go to see the finish line. Just focus on the step right in front of you. Take THAT step and see what shows up. Then take the next step, and see what shows up.
Rinse and repeat until you see the finish line.
You've got this. I believe in you.
See you there!
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367One of my favorite Jim Brickman tunes is not just a great love song, it's a powerful reminder to own your dreams.
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As a musician, an artist, a creative that's blazing my own trail, there's a lot of resistance. It comes masked as rejection from family, friends, peers, and the industry itself.
But the worst is when it comes from within myself.
I was a freshman in college. I had applied for a prestigious Music Composition program in the midwest and after submitting scores and failing an instrumental audition, I was given a provisional admission to the School of Music, but not the Composition program. I figured it was because I'd never had a music lesson in my life, and that my first semester voice lessons were the gateway to program entry.
I was wrong.
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Well, the auditions for Season 7 of The Voice have come to a conclusion for me. I filmed this yesterday on our way out of town. The audition was awesome, and while I didn't make the cut, I'm completely happy with my audition and learned a lot along the way. A post will follow in the coming days. For now, enjoy one of the songs the judges didn't get to hear.
"Let me be a lesson to you of what NOT to do."
When you're a celebrity on par with Jonah Hill, that's probably not the ideal phrase to be uttering to your fans. In this case, though, Jonah's sincere apology on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon after being caught on camera making a grossly inappropriate comment has done a lot to mend fences.
[I'll also go on the record as being ignorant, because I didn't realize the comment he made was now considered "a homophobic slur". I grew up hearing that phrase from men and women alike in my neighborhood. Not that it was a pleasant thing to hear, I was just a little surprised that it was a nuanced term.]
From the paparazzi video, it's hard to know exactly what was said, but Jonah indicated he and his family were being verbally attacked on a personal level by the photographer and "was genuinely hurt by this... and in response wanted to hurt him back".
To borrow a line from The Dixie Chicks: "There's your trouble!"
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One of my favorite songwriters just happens to be a retired football player. Back in the 1990's Mike Reid co-wrote a few tunes with Allen Shamblin, and this one is one of my all-time favorites. The first time I heard it was on Kirk Whalum's CD by the same name, and Mike was the vocalist. There were actually several songs by Reid on that disc and I fell hard for his music. I think he's one of the most underestimated songwriters and composers of our time. He's been a classical pianist, written for the stage, and you're probably familiar with at least a few of his songs. Oh, and he was an All-Pro football player before I was born. Is there anything this guy can't do?
It was only later, I'd heard it was made poplar by Collin Raye, and I was disappointed that he cut the middle section out of the song, since I think it really drives the point home about how powerful love can be. Anywho, this is one of my favorites, and I'm seriously considering it for my audition for The Voice if I make the cut for the open call next week. It's down to this or "Get Here" - made popular by Oleta Adams - but that's been done overseas recently.
What do you think? I'd love to get your comments below.
(Author's note: this post originally appeared in 2011 on one of my old blogs. I've freshened it up a bit for you today.)
One of the things that really annoys me are those folks that say they want change, but don't take action when answers are provided.
It dawned on me why they don't budge.
Picture a huge file room in your brain. There's a file clerk in there, taking in "evidence" for the various files in the "cabinets."
The file clerk never takes a break. He's contstantly filing away bits of information in the various files.
Let's say, in one cabinet, you have two files, one marked "I can't sing", the other marked "I'm a good singer."
Then let's say you're invited to sing in a local Karaoke contest.
Quickly, you run to the file clerk and say "pull out the files to help me decide what to do!"
The file clerk, never missing a beat, pulls out two files. One is significantly larger than the other. The one that says "I can't sing" weighs 100 pounds, while the other has only a few slips of paper inside.
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One last clip from the May show. This is our original jazz arrangement of that classic Mowtown hit "Tears of a Clown".
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If you missed the May show, you can catch the replay here.
