What to do with so much (free) time

The last month or so has been awesome / boring / fun / memorable / sleepy / inspiring / draining / fulfilling. 

After returning from my trip to Nashville, I got a much-needed week of relaxation, where I stayed at home and caught up on the many smaller details of life that hide themselves while “normal” life is happening. A mere seven days after being home I repacked my bag and headed down to California.

Side note…If you ever go to Pasadena, make sure to visit Carmela Ice Cream on Washington…THE BEST.

For two weeks I stayed in the Golden State with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. I was the official keeper of the young, as I was employed by my brother to be on-call babysitter for my niece, since my sister-in-law was due with #2 at the end of my stay. (When I say “I was employed by my brother,” we all know what this means…I just hung out, played around, and ate his food.) Having that two weeks to spend with them before my move east was an outstanding memory, even though the new baby didn’t come until a week after I left :)

While in Pasadena I caught up with old friends, ate a lot of good food, and even played acoustic at a church just west of LA. Playing at this church is always a blast, because you get to interact with some outrageously talented people who live off the city’s music scene. I was honored to jump into a band with players who are involved in numerous bands around town,  soundtrack production, album production, and a menagerie of other musical endeavors. I was without a doubt outmatched by all these musicians, which is a fun/awful place to be in…you get to learn from all these cool cats while feeling like a dungo. Okay cool.

After coming home from sunnier weather, I’ve been mostly hanging out, which brings us to the awesome / boring / fun part. I’ve been doing a lot of nothing, which is rad…for a bit…and then it drives you crazy. In response to my madness, I’ve been working on my guitar tones, honing my songwriting, and even venturing out into other styles of music via some random ideas and modern technology. I recently created this stream-of-conscious electronic song on Ableton, and named it after my two-week-old niece, Berlin. It’s still a work in progress, but you can have fun listening to the randomness of my brain in form of song for now on my Soundcloud page.

MOVING NEWS

We picked a date! The plan is to move on January 31st. We’re all (Joel, Joe and myself) getting PUMPED about moving, while dealing with the ensuing nausea and heart murmurs from fear of stinkin’ moving to the other side of the country. The plan is to travel to Idaho the first day, Colorado Springs the next, possibly stay a day or two, head out to Missouri, and finally arrive in Nashville on the fourth day of driving. It’s going to be pretty crazy and many driving-charlie-horses will ensue, but we’re stoked nonetheless.

Please keep checking back on this blog and my other social media sites in the next month, as I’ll be posting about our house search. I have some fairly recent news that my friend over yonder is going to let Joe and I stay at her place for a few weeks while we find the perfect house! A HUGE blessing and answer to our prayers and hopes. Joe and I will be making the road trip over (along with my dad and a friend), and Joel will be flying in once we have a permanent place found, mostly so he can bring anything that we forget from Oregon :)

Thanks for all your support, love, and care. Until we have the chance to chat again, enjoy this picture of a picture of the great Carl Weathers that I took in the bathroom of a Pasadena bar. Yolo.