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I’ve always been a goal-setting go-getter, but my mother’s death has added new perspective to the relentless ambition that kept me from seeing myself as whole/enough and that kept me from living in the moment. My mom worked like a dog her whole life while raising two kids and then made a courageous decision to go back to school. She worked her ass off and earned two degrees in speech therapy, then eventually began her dream job working with kiddos she loved so much. She was the most ambitious person I’ve ever known. Right after all that hard work finally started to pay off, she got diagnosed with brain cancer, had to stop working, and died shortly after. This has taught me an important lesson. It’s lovely and admirable to have dreams, set goals, and work toward more knowledge, more growth, more money, more ability to make a difference. But all that hard work didn’t amount to much in terms of outcome. It amounted to a lot in terms of memorable moments and meaningful relationships though. The process was the powerful part, not the result. As this new year begins, I refuse to spend ALL my energy focusing on what I don’t have, what I want, where I hope to end up, what I’d like to look like or have or do or achieve to finally give myself permission to be happy. Instead, I’m choosing to wake up every day and take grateful inventory of what I already have. To know I am worthy of love no matter what I do or don’t accomplish in my life. To do my best and forget the rest. Grief dug a hole and planted some wisdom seeds that are juuuuuust now starting to take root in my heart and sprout in my actions. It’s weird and scary and unsettling to notice your identity morphing into something else. Sometimes my new thoughts feel like they don’t belong in my old brain, like a new me is taking over, and I’m afraid to leave the old me behind because I’m more familiar with her. But I’m trying to let the change happen as slowly and peacefully as possible, and I’m grateful to my mom for continuing to teach me. Here’s to a happy NOW year. I hope you got a chance to smile or make someone smile today. 
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To kick off the new year, I invited some of my local lady music friends to come over and talk about their experiences pursuing careers in original music. I had been feeling a little frustrated/exhausted as a solo songwriter and knew some of my other music friends were having similar experiences. I'm friends with so many female musicians on social media, and San Diegans are good at being supportive, but I know we only see a sliver of the full story in online content. I figured it would be great to get together in person to share, support, and basically let ourselves be vulnerable in front of people who understand. The brunch was a great success and we plan on continuing to meet throughout the year. We've also established a shared Google doc & calendar that will hopefully in time be populated with lots of resources. One thing I've noticed in this industry is that people tend to be hoardy with information...my hope is to squash that vibe and pool our collective knowledge in order to make the journey a little less strenuous. If you're a female musician/artist based in San Diego who is actively pursuing a creative career, please contact me to get involved! (Shout out to one of my favorite duos The Harmaleighs for the name inspiration)  Thanks to friends at The Music Mermaid blog for promoting my new single The Hound! This is a wonderful site to discover new music - go check them out!  Thanks to the folks at Radio Westeros for giving The Hound a shout-out on your socials! If you're a Game of Thrones fan, go check out their website and podcasts!  Here it is, folks: the new music video for "The Hound" - directed by Josh Lerma. If you haven't yet, go check out the official premiere article & interview at Global Texan Chronicles! Please do me a favor to support this song by doing any/all of the following:
Purchase on iTunes & leave a review Like/Comment/Subscribe on YouTube Add to a Spotify Playlist or create a Station Share on your own social media sites So excited to share that on it's release day, my new single The Hound was listed on iTunes.com as a Bestselling Pre-order and peaked at #13 on their Singer Songwriter charts, fitting snugly between two of my favorite music inspirations, Tracy Chapman and James Taylor! Thanks to all of you who pre-ordered the song and helped it have a tiny little moment among the greats!   Thanks to my friends at Global Texan Chronicles for premiering my new single and music video for The Hound! Read the full interview and watch the video here!  Here's a little tune I wrote about the frustration I felt after cutting ties with a religion whose followers didn't seem to be embodying the things I felt were most beneficial to being a person of faith (for example, loving everyone, having compassion, not judging people). Somehow I feel like those people get to keep god in the custody battle even though they demonstrate behavior that my idea of god would abhor. Sometimes you just gotta have a stern talk to god and tell her you're worried about the people she's been hanging out with. Lyrics: 1. quit hanging out with those friends they mess with your reputation as long as they keep judging what they think is a sin i just can't stand for them 2. quit letting them spoil your name don't you feel like you're being framed? they shoot you like bullets of blame and i don't like their aim don't you feel the same? 3. i'd love it if you could come back not just airplanes and panic attacks i just don't think that it would last considering our past so i don't even ask 4. they say every day that they serve you they're lying cause they got the nerve to make me feel like i don't deserve you i got no one to turn to god dammit i urge you 5. to quit hanging out with those friends they mess with your reputation i don't like to give ultimatums but i fuckin' hate 'em why'd you even create 'em? quit hanging out with those friends  Thank you to Tim Pyles and the folks at 91x San Diego for spinning my new single The Hound for the very first time on the radio! So thankful to live in a city that shows love to its local artists! Check out the full playlist from the show here.  Thanks to Olivia from Sexy Pillows Podcast for inviting me to be a guest on her show! She stumbled upon me and my song "Turn into the Wind" while she was doing an episode about The Wind, and she asked me to come on and talk about how the song was inspired by The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Take a listen here! 
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