Stop-Scribble-Sing!

**preface: this post isn't really about eco, nor yoga, but mostly music and food :)

Andrew and I make an interesting pair. I am extremely comfortable at adding ingredients willy nilly, cutting veggies and preparing (no-sauce) salads but I'm not super comfy with kitchen gadgets. If it beeps, has wires, or does anything even remotely gadgety- Andrew is IN.

Although our vow to make weekly meal plans lasted one week (...) in the spirit of leftovers, eating healthy and saving money, we bought a pre-cooked ham (not local, not organic, BUT pre-cooked!). I would be the one cooking said ham; as Andrew works until 7pm and when he informed me that his awesome probe-thermometer would do just the trick, I balked. Nope, I was just going to put the ham in the oven and figure it out later as it cooked for a while... (can you tell I'm not very organized?)

I came home today and found this beautiful note stuck to our fridge... lol. We've been playing around with Adobe Illustrator this past weekend after I found this phenomenal invite template and thought: Perfect! I guess Andrew thought it would be fun to create via Adobe Illustrator a nice instruction manual on how to use an oven probe-thermometer. Sigh. :)

While I dawdled, procrastinating from the inevitable interaction with the PROBE (hehe), I had a sudden- I should WRITE MUSIC moment. As there have been a few comments here and there about my song writing I thought I'd just share today's experience. I was much more prolific when I lived alone as I seem to only be able to write and compose in solitary mode. Today wasn't quite ideal, I am exhausted from being sick all last week and I was HUNGRY. Can't focus on lyrics

and chords when my belly made really obnoxious noises! So two pieces of chemical-free toast (local!) with natural organic peanut-butter (mmmm), a guitar, a pen and a piece of paper later and I was ready to go!

Sometimes songwriting is awesomely flow-y, kinda like a vinyasa class with no pauses or uncertainties. I have a bunch of lyrics (poems I guess) pre-written, have some chords in my head and off I go! Those days are beautiful. Today was not one of those... lol. After ten years of composing and not being the best string picker, bar-chord player I have a somewhat limited amount of variations. Today I decided to forego the capo (black dealy that brings the

key up a half step-fret at a time), it's so easy to use as a female singer, but it's kinda like cheating. (If you look closely you can see my war-wound!)

Also, I've been getting pretty darn good at playing the bar-chord for Gminor! With small fingers, I don't quite have the finger strength or length to really play chords where my index finger "bars" an entire fret- so it's always an adventure! It took about 20 minutes of just playing, mumbling a few words, coming out with a few really clear fantastic lyrics and melodies and I was IN the groove. YES. I had something, a little melancholy but I could figure this out. Stop-scribble, play same line a zillion times, NEW LINE- sing sing sing!!! stop-scribble CONTINUE.

Then the phone rang- my mom calling to check up on me. She reads this blog, so I think she was a little concerned. I love my mom. It was a good thing she called too, as you can see my finger wasn't actually pleased with all the Gminor playing. And all of a sudden, Andrew arrived- OMG it's SEVEN!!! ACK. Although neither the rice nor the veggies turned out, an hour and a half later (who knew that it would take SO LONG to cook a pre-cooked ham??) the ham was ready. We each managed to swallow courageously the gooey rice, mushy veggies and have now made organic nachos. And will watch Planet Earth (LOVE). (lyrics to the new song with chords strewn in there and brackets to signify possible chorus, verse, bridges... maybe).

Thank you so much wonderful readers for the kind words of support and light!

Blessings!