Big Dreams & Simple Pleasures

Okay, I knew we would have a great weekend and I knew there would be a lot of free shows at The Home County Folk Festival in London Ontario this past weekend, but I had no idea the caliber of musicians or that the *free* shows included Bruce Cockburn!  Admittedly, I only really know Cockburn’s hits but what a privilege to hear his incredible guitar playing and distinct voice on some impressive new songs as well as the ones that everyone was singing along with.  It was just him and his guitar, playing to a packed park under a beautiful moonlit sky.  I was in complete awe.

We also heard the likes of The Foggy Hogtown Boys (what a voice on the bass player!!!), Jason Collett, The Great Lake Swimmers, Lynn Miles and Royal Wood, just to name a few.

We saw Royal Wood at an after hours show at Aeolian Hall (lovely venue!) which was the only show we payed for.  It was well worth it!  With beautiful, jazzy kind of vocals, he played piano or acoustic guitar while accompanied by a very soulful bass player on either upright or electric.

Lynn Miles was also a favourite.  With her powerful voice and lyrics, it was no surprise that she was chosen to perform right before Cockburn took the stage!

My personal highlight was getting on stage to sing harmonies with friends Jane Lewis, Katherine Wheatley and Sam Turton on Sunday!  I hadn’t even realized they were performing so I was glad to have bumped into Katherine the day before to get the scoop.  Thanks for making room for me!

So, now that I can say I’ve performed at this fab festival, I am determined to get a slot next summer!

What a fantastic job by organizers, volunteers, sound techs and everyone involved.  We had such a great time and I hope to see you in the crowd next year!

Thanks for listening!

Last night I started the first of 6 Tuesday nights in Guelph at a guitar chord workshop with a fantastic talent; and fellow awesome red-head; Katherine Wheatley!  I’m so excited because in 16 years (yikes!) of playing guitar, I’ve only had a few lessons in the past year or so.

Katherine was one of the teachers; along with James Gordon; in a song-writing workshop (my first ever!) that I took last September.  She is such a solid guitar player, she helped with my song (“A Different Man“) chord progression and encouraged me to get more familiar with my fretboard.  So, I took her advice and signed up for her workshop!

Last night was a great start.  We are starting in the key of “C” and building triads on each scale degree.  Okay, no need for details but I’ve got lots to practice!

At the end of the night, one of the other students, Mark, said that friends of his hold a jam at their house every Tuesday night.  He asked if any of us were interested… another student, Ray, said he would go and, after a moment or two, I just said “yes!”  So I followed them and when we got to the house, everyone was just hanging out before the jam.  We went inside and I saw that they had a great little set-up with a full drum kit, keyboard, mics, amps etc.  Mark, Ray and I plugged in and played a few tunes.  Then everyone else came in and we had about 10 or more people playing in this little room!  It was so fun!  I got a great response from playing two new originals: “But I’m Not Sleeping” and “Alice”.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy playing and singing along which was so cool for me since I’ve never actually played those songs with anyone yet!

I had to drive back to Aurora and was trying to politely excuse myself, but they asked me to please do one more before I left and, well, I had to oblige!  We jammed “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and I got to wail away and again got a great response.  What a way to spend an evening!

So, I said “Yes” to a chord workshop.  As I say to many people, I’ve always been a writer, then I started to sing and guitar followed.  Guitar has always been my weakest point as a musician and music theory has always scared me… actually, it’s more embarrassing than anything… but now I’m doing something about it!

I also said “Yes” to an impromptu jam with a bunch of relative strangers!  I was nervous, but it turned out to be a such a positive experience.

It would have been easy to ignore the invitation to either the chord workshop and/or the jam, but I’ve recently decided to get out of my comfort zone more often and challenge myself.  Yesterday was a great start and I’m so glad I stepped up!

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose oneself.”  ~Soren Kierkegaard

Thanks for tuning in!

A few years ago I signed up to receive a free, quarterly magazine called “What’s Cooking” from Kraft.  Now, the recipes are all on-line.

The recipes are generally very simple, easy to follow and, frankly, the pictures of the finished product are very inspiring!  I have enjoyed using and modifying these recipes over the years.  It’s kind of an on-going joke in my house that I never really follow a cooking recipe to the letter, but that creative aspect is part of what I love most about cooking… well, and tasting the results!

Here is an example of one of my successful modifications:

I made “Better-Than-Ever Beef Enchiladas”  into a vegetarian dish!

-My original recipe called for a 540 mL can of black beans which I used but, oddly, they seem to have forgotten to include that in the online recipe!  It’s kind of important!
-Instead of ground beef I used about 1/2 cup cottage cheese and extra salsa.
-I used grated extra-old white cheddar,
-I used an organic Italian dressing,
-I added garlic and chili spices instead of cilantro since I’m not a huge fan of cilantro and my hubby doesn’t really like it at all.

Here is how it turned out, we loved it!

Let me know what you think!

Thanks for tuning in.

I am a singer / songwriter / guitar player / vocal coach.  I have run this website since 2001 and have recently turned it into the blog you are now reading… thank you for that!

I have been on a pretty cool journey over the past few years.  My husband, Glenn and I have made some changes in our lives that we never would have envisioned when we met 10 years ago.  When we moved to Aurora, Ontario, my home town, in 2003, we became active in the Green Party of Canada.  In May of 2005, we started the Newmarket-Aurora Federal Green Party Association, and Glenn was nominated as the candidate.  He ran in two federal elections, 2006 and 2008, both being a test of our wills and our relationship, but we have come out stronger than ever.

Getting involved changed our lives for the better.  Now, everything we do is with a consciousness of progressively lessening our footprint on the earth.

What have we done?  Here’s the short list of the big changes:

◆    We moved from a medium sized detached home to a smaller town home
◆    We sold a car and became a one car family
◆    I found work locally instead of driving a daily commute totalling over an hour and a half
◆    Glenn changed jobs and started commuting to work on the GO Train
◆    We started vegetable gardening in our tiny backyard
◆    In the summer, we try to buy food exclusively from local farmers

It seems like a lot and, well, I guess it is!  Of course, none of this happened over night, but the benefits have been so worth it!  Our health is better, we have both lost weight in a healthy way, we have more financial freedom, we still have a beautiful home we are proud of, and one of the best benefits is our peace of mind.  We can’t do everything, but we can do what we can.

I started this blog to share with you some of my stories and discoveries.  Thanks for tuning in.