Musician’s Widow

Today’s Making it happen Monday come from 30,000 ft in the air as I am traveling to Texas for a busy week!

I have a few meetings for photography and web-site work. I’ve tried to get away from web-site design the last few years. I just haven’t felt like keeping up with the code changes and advances at the internet evolves. However, it’s the thing that just keeps coming back around to me. So I’ve given in and accepted maybe its what I should focus on more after all.

So here I am, going when the work is taking me, both creatively and geographically. With many connections in Texas, family and business-wise, I’m off to go where the work is.

When this country was growing, families traveled to settle lands to the west, where there was farming and mining to be done. They went where the work was… And even in this digital age, when the world is smaller than ever thanks to cell phones, email, internet, Skype, Facebook, etc. sometimes you still have to go where the work is to make a living and chase your dreams. Our ancestors were not stagnate, and neither should we.

Photo Share is my personal replacement for Weekly Winners, since that link exchange is no longer happening. It’s just my own challenge to take great photos through the week, as it gives me a venue to share some of them on this blog. Consider it my own little P.S. on the week before.

Photos this week taken with my Sony DSLR A230. Edited using Lightroom 3… or using my Droid Razr and Instagram. You can probably figure out which is which.

Set up for a great day of grilling

Tompkins Guitars

Tompkins Guitars

Web in the fog

Nature’s string of diamonds

Steaks. Good.

Officers on horseback

Sunday is Father’s Day, but I thought I’d get a head start and make this Friday’s Five be about my Dad.

1. My dad is giving and big-hearted. He’d do anything for his family, and that’s a fact I treasure and sleep peacefully at night knowing. He’s taught me to stand on my own two feet, helping me be an independent woman who knows what to expect from others and myself, but I also know if I fall he’ll be there to catch me. There’s a comfort in that… a comfort I could never put into words.

2. There’s an E-card that reads, “It’s not that my standards are too high, it’s just that my daddy set an amazing example for how a man should treat me.” Yup. That pretty much sums it up right there.

3. I’m 32 years old, and I still call Dad for advice and his opinion. His thoughts are priceless to me, and I’m never too old to need his guidance. I’m extra blessed to know when he gives me his advice, he’ll still respect whatever decision I may make in a situation… even if it goes against what he advised. (Though… really? The chances of that happening are pretty slim.)

4. In so many ways, I am my Daddy’s daughter. Not only am I total Daddy’s girl, I am following in his footsteps of wanting to be self-employed. I have a lot of the same tastes, and my sense of humor definitely comes from him. I can’t listen to all those Daddy-daughter songs without getting teary. The other night, the Dixie Chicks song, “Wide Open Spaces” came on… and I still got a bit choked up at the line, “As her folks drive away, her dad yells, ‘Check the oil.’”

5. “No tears,” he said. “No promises,” I responded.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, DADDY!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Tonight, after doing lawn work, my husband and I did what we are slowly turning into a tradition: grilled out. Steaks, potato salad, beans, corn on the cob and a mix-your-own six pack.

One of my beer choices was Redd’s Apple Ale.

After I popped the bottle open and took a drink, my exact quote was, “Oh my hell that’s good.” I didn’t care that it is 5% ABV, I practically chugged it down it was so yummy. (I had to stop myself to take the above photo.)

Described on their Facebook page as, “Crisp like an apple, but brewed like an ale, Redd’s® Apple Ale is an apple flavored golden ale with low malt and bitterness cues. With a crisp clean finish that allows the natural apple flavor to come through, this ale is for those times when you are looking to branch out and try something different.”

Frankly, it drinks like really good apple cider. Red delicious apple, to be honest. There’s no bitterness to it whatsoever. No tart taste of many of the popular ciders today. It’s just… smooth. Sweet. Yummy goodness.  Absolutely perfect after a day of lawn work. I was sad I only had one to drink! But it was probably for the best… I’d have easily downed a six pack. So. Very. Yum.

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Sunday night, a co-worker and I walked up to Starbucks to grab a coffee before we started our last night of CMA Fest work. We met a couple of young women also going for coffee before heading to LP Field for the final night of concerts. The girls asked us if we hated the week and all the people converging on the city. Without missing a beat, we both went, “No! We love it!”

And its true. We do.

Oh I stress over parking and the fact that so many roads are closed downtown. I worry we’ll get overwhelmed and not be able to handle the volume of drinkers. I grumble a bit that I have to leave a minimum of 10 minutes early to get anywhere on time. But deep down, I love it.

I love showing off my city. I love music, and I love seeing others love music. Tourists in town for CMA Fest are also some of the most amusing to people watch. Oh, don’t think of us as mean for that! You, too, you chuckle if people came to your town and tried to “dress the part” and overshot in their mission. Think Marty McFly in Back to the Future III only with glitter. Lots and lots of glitter.

The money brought in from out of town is also wonderful. The music is what keeps this city alive. (And its too bad many don’t realize that. Its a rant for another day.) Country music fans coming in from all around the world in that one week keep this city afloat year-to-year. And for that, I am forever grateful.

But more than all of that… ALL of that… I love the people. I have people I consider dear friends all over the country — all over the world! — that I may only see once a year, but who are still dear souls to me in my heart. I look forward to see them year after year, getting to catch up and laugh and hug tightly. I joked I’ve been doing this a long time when I can tell you what a bunch of Australians I see once a year drink without hesitation. But I could! And let me tell you, Australians are some of my favorite “tourists” ever.

Another year is in the books, and I am already looking forward to next year!

The other night, my cat walked into the kitchen, sat down and started mewing. I knew what he wanted. He wanted some catnip. We put it on a scratching pad on the kitchen floor, so if any spills its easy to sweep up. My cat was sitting right where we give them catnip, so there was no doubt what he was begging to be given.

I tried to ignore him. But he was relentless. Until I finally gave in and gave him the catnip.

Then it hit me. He got what he wanted. The squeaky wheel gets the grease… the mewing cat gets the catnip.

When you want something, you have to be relentless in that want. Be the squeaky wheel. Be the mewing cat. If you want something bad enough, you just have to keep trying. Keep asking. Keep working. Keep on keepin’ on.

Now, it does take some finesse. If you want a meeting with your boss to ask for a raise, don’t be the mewing cat and call his office incessantly to get that meeting. You might find yourself with a pink slip instead of a raise in your next paycheck! But you still need to be firm and give the boss plenty of reasons you deserve that raise. Can’t get a meeting? Send an email, or talk to the next person in line that could make that raise happen. Or if you can’t get a raise where you are, start looking for a job that is a step up. Be relentless… but also be smart about it as well. Do what you have to do.

The best way to persuade people is to show them what you want and why its a good thing for you to have it. In a round about way… you make it their idea. (Because, lets face it, no one can make anyone else do something short of torture and blackmail and last I checked that was illegal.)

That mewing cat? I could have just kept ignoring him and walked away. In the end, he persuaded me that the best way to get peace and quiet back in my house was to give him catnip.

Persuasion. That’s one way you can me making it happen this Monday.