english really is my SECOND language

i haven't updated this sucker in a long time. mainly because i've been working 50 hour weeks. when you work 50 hour weeks at a job an hour away, you really only have time for sleeping and eating outside of working. but it is time.

i've been thinking about a lot of things lately about work, and life, and all kinds of other thought provoking things. here's kind of an update.

before my current job, i had a life. not only did i have a life. i had calluses on my fingers. good calluses that didn't peel a week later. i had an almost 5 octave range. my guitar did not collect dust and i went through a song-writing book a week. want to know how long i've been writing in my current one? almost 3 years.

i am mortified and ashamed at this fact. mainly because the Lord provided me with a priceless talent and gift that i am not using. also because nothing makes me happier than writing and playing. it is how i connect with Christ, it's how i purge my overactive brain, how i express what my speaking cannot. music is my language. i am more fluent in expression through music than i am with words. my husband can testify to this.

there are lots of musicians. lots of people who play and sing. lots of people who truly appreciate music, regardless of region, root, and genre. not many, though, that can really say that music is their first language. i was humming before i was speaking. i could true sing harmonies at the age of 5. music expressed more to me as an infant than expressive faces and babble.

john mayer, for example. john mayer's first language is music. there are lots of other artists i am convinced that are the same. there's a list that i won't list right now. but these are those i can listen to and just weep. not because of what the song is necessarily saying (although that can be the case), but because someone is speaking my language! someone is communicating beyond a bunch of consonants and vowels, strung together like pearls in hopes that someone will understand. music comes from the soul.

i don't want to be more fluent in english than music. my soul is dusty and dry and it aches. playing my guitar the other night made me weep, not because of my own music or talent, but because God speaks to my soul through my first language. i always feel closer to the heart of God when there is music, when i am singing his praise, when i'm utilizing his gift.

please ask me. ask me if i am playing.

have you finished your christmas shopping? i have not. almost. but not.

maybe i'll throw a new years party. i throw good parties and have lots of good serving pieces that i need to use. i also got some really great hors d'oeuvres recipes and ideas. hmmm....

christmas is in a few days. are you ready? i'm ready. for a break!