home again (for now)

It's so hard to get motivated to do work when you've been on the road so much. I don't think I've spent a full week here since the beginning of April.

We just got back from a personal trip to Missouri. It was nice to see family and all, but I was so sick of being in a car. That's pretty much all I've done for the last four to six weeks. My car and I, we know each other well.

I love traveling, still, but I think I'm ready for someone else to do the driving/flying/whatever.

When I was leaving the middle school last week, some students were helping me carry my stuff to the car. One boy asked me, "Do you have a tour bus?"

And I said, "See that little blue Honda? That's my tour bus!"

tour diary: back to school

That was a seriously long drive. I'm in Kansas City, Missouri right now, the day after a twelve hour (and then some) drive. Whew!

Fortunately, it was not such a long drive to Hayes Middle School in Grand Ledge, Michigan, where I spent a very fun afternoon with some choir students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. We were taping the event for the Be in Tune program, the last little bit the producer wanted to have in the fall segment.

I always feel a little funny when I go to a school because, without fail, someone mistakes me for a student and asks me why I'm not in class or for my hall pass. And considering some of these middle schoolers were way taller than me, it would be easy to see why the mixup would happen. It's embarrassing and flattering all at the same time.

But I made it to the classroom without incident.

I was so impressed with the students. Sometimes school events are hard because no one has any good questions, or you can tell they just don't care to be there. But these students were sharp! And later on, when we sang together, it was amazing to hear the voices coming out those kids! I think I'll have to add a choir component to my tours....

We sang one of my new songs, "Believe," together for the show and for me to use as a music video in the future. I often don't think of my songs as necessarily suitable for audiences younger than high school, but as we were singing together I couldn't help but think that wow, music really does transcend all ages.

I've posted some pictures of the students down below. I wanted to make a print for the class, but as I worked on the photos I realized they're really just web quality only. Oh well. So we'll just have to download them to our phones or IPods instead!



Filming the Q&A session. It was kind of funny, one of the things the producer wanted me to say was, "Stay in school." The opportunity to use that answer came up when a student asked, "What advice would you give for people who want to do this?" And I blurted out, "Stay in school!" without even remembering that I was supposed to use that response somewhere!



Singing "Believe" with the students. I just discovered the new American Idols....



With the mixed grade choir students of Hayes Middle School.

a command performance

So if you were shopping at Elderly Instruments a few days ago and heard someone randomly singing from the Taylor guitar section... yeah, that was me.

It was extremely random, trust me. I went to Elderly to sell some guitars and an amp, and wandered around the store while the employees tested out the equipment. Naturally, I was drawn to the Taylor section, so I pulled one down and started to play.

That's one of the coolest things about Elderly. At any given time you can hear really great guitarists doing their thing, all in the name of trying various equipment.

I noticed a gentleman walking around with a video camera filming the store, but didn't think much of it... until he approached me and asked if he could film me while I fooled around on a guitar. So I said, sure, why not. As we got to talking (I discovered he was an MSU journalism school professor taking a video workshop), he said, "Hey, could you sing a song for me?" So I did. I thought, How funny is it to be doing an impromptu performance here. Especially since people heard me singing and, curious, came into the room to see what was going on.

So, thanks, Elderly, for hosting my little unplanned concert!

my personal black hole

People who have known me for any length of time have heard the stories about how I spilled water on not one, but two laptops, forcing us to run to the Apple Store and replace my computer. To be fair, the first computer was built to last... the second one fried out but it wasn't because of the water (although I'm sure that didn't help). But the fact remains, I had two G4s and now a MacBook, thanks to constant user (me!) error.

Now as much as I love my MacBook, we haven't always gotten along. A certain OS upgrade comes to mind... but that's not what this blog entry is about.

No, it's my observation on how Apple did one less than perfect thing in designing the new family of laptops.

The G4s were kind of nice because you could flip open the keyboard and clean things out that fell under the keys. (Of course, that probably compromised the integrity of the machine... but no matter.) With my MacBook, though, you can't remove the keyboard at all.

This does not bode well for people like me. What with my cats walking all over my computer, and my constant snacking at my desk, there's always cat hair or snack fragments in the vicinity of my keyboard. Every time I try to blow the offending particles away, I only succeed in blowing them underneath the keys. This happens so often that I wonder if pretty soon my computer will stop operating due to junk caught in it.

I wonder if that's covered by warranty?

looking ahead...

Ah, it is so nice to be home! I've done nothing for the last two days but watch movies, read books, play with my cats, and generally be a bum around the house. After the last few weeks I definitely needed a mental and physical break. But now I'm back to business, catching up on emails and dreaming up lyrics....

Speaking of music business type stuff, my husband and I met Denise, the 4th Fridays promoter, last night for a ministry training. Denise and her husband (Rufus Harris, a Detroit-based jazz/rock fusion artist) have begun doing a monthly prison ministry, where they put on entertainment programming in various Michigan prisons.

As Denise was going over ministry guidelines, I was getting really intrigued and excited. I've worked with at-risk and troubled youth before, and done urban missions work, but this is a population I've never worked with before. (I suppose in a roundabout way you could argue that I have - the whole point of working with at-risk youth is to make sure they don't end up in a prison, or worse, but technically....) I'm not scared about going into a prison or of the people there, but I am a little worried about making a fool of myself. I still recall doing a Bible study with a bunch of teenage guys, and, as an icebreaker, all of us shared our favorite cars. Not being very into cars myself, I floundered a bit. Looking back, it was kind of funny - ten guys, the adult leader (a guy), and me. All of the guys shared these muscle or sports cars... and then when it was my turn they all looked at me expectantly. I grasped the first thing that came to mind: "A VW Bug." Which is cute car, but not a manly car by any means. I could visibly see all the guys deflate at my response, and I lost any credibility with them after that!

But hopefully these guys won't care about my favorite car, but the message I bring!

tour diary: cup of grace coffeehouse and home sweet home

Home at last! It took us the better part of two days, but we're back in Michigan again. And just in time - it's really pretty now that spring has arrived! I'm going to have to plan tours like this more often... leave Michigan when it's gross and cold, go somewhere warm, and come home to beautiful weather and blooming plants.

We ended our tour in Humble, Texas on Saturday. Humble is a town just north of Houston. It's funny, but I didn't hear a trace of Southern accents until we hit Houston. Then the "y'all" drawl came out in force! It was definitely unexpected, considering I had been in Texas for a week at that point.

We played at Cup of Grace Coffeehouse, a church-sponsored monthly event held at the Lake Church of the Nazarene. Churches in Texas are not was I anticipated, in terms of buildings. A lot of them looked like businesses and stores instead of the stereotypical church building (steeples, bell towers, gables, etc.) I normally associate with the term church. It made it hard for us to spot our destination! But it was also refreshing, to see churches break out of the mold.

While Cup of Grace was hosted by one church, it apparently draws support from many of the area churches (and trust me, there are a lot down there!). Which is cool, it's great to see community like that, instead of competition, which sadly, happens quite a bit between ministries. The people were incredibly friendly and it was easy to see they genuinely cared about their mission and each other.

I loved going down to the Southwest and seeing new sights, but I must say I am equally glad to be home! Even if it means being woken up by my two cats fighting on the bed at five in the morning... it's good to be back.



Meet my new friend Marsha, one of the volunteers at the coffeehouse. What a sweetie!

tour diary: just off main coffeehouse

Hello hot weather! We're near Houston, where it's 81 degrees right now! Wow! And to think I go back home to 60 degree weather in just a few days.

Last night we played in the small Dallas suburb of Grapevine. It wasn't named for all the wine stores you see on the main strip, but they're becoming known for it.

The coffeehouse, which was created and run by the next door church's singles ministry, is this really cute space. And huge, too. The church found that, as an outreach, they've done really well by not having the coffeehouse located inside the church building, but they're apparently making plans to move and aren't sure if they're going to get to keep the coffeehouse building. I hope so - it's a very cool place.

I had a great time meeting some of the coffeehouse patrons prior to the show. (It was a good thing too, I was so sleepy from dinner and the heat it was good to have some mentally stimulating conversation!) Everyone here has been so friendly, we've really enjoyed getting to know the people of Texas on this tour.

I also found out how small the world really is - a person I met at the Seekers show, who is a regular at Just off Main and came to that show as well, happens to know my producer in Nashville! We were randomly talking about indie Christian artists, and suddenly the conversation swung around to the producer that all those artists had in common. So funny! Talk about your six degrees.

We're playing our last Texas show tonight in Humble, just north of Houston. I'm happy to play tonight but really excited to go home in just two days. I haven't seen my bed, my house, or my cats for close to four weeks! I wonder if they'll even recognize me when I get home!