I wonder if it's possible to get blue screen insurance? If I could, and I'd had it, I would want to claim on it this afternoon. I was writing a song that was going to get me my first Dove Award (right). The backing was clicking away on my mobile rig and the lyric was all set out the way Holly likes it (left justified). Then, all of a sudden, the screen on my laptop went blue and kindly told me it was switching itself off to avoid damage.

 

Frankly, I would have rather have had the Dove Award and a dead laptop.

 

Nevermind. Maybe Guy sells blue screen insurance? I must email him.

 

Yours digging deep to remember my lyric,

 

S.

We've been promising ourselves a family trip to London and today we actually got to do it. We had such a great time. The main event was Poppy and Moo’s first haircut. There’s a place in Chelsea that specialises in everything cute for children and they cut children’s hair as well. And for a first haircut you can get a certificate with a pic and a curl to keep for bringing out at 18th birthdays, weddings and other stuff.

 

So we got up at 6.30, had a nice cup of tea, packed the car up and were out of the house by 7.15. The sun was just coming up and it was a wonderful English winter day – blue sky but freezing. This was Moo’s first visit, so we celebrated once we saw our first double decker bus. When we were crossing Battersea Bridge Poppy asked if the Thames had crocodiles in it. I’m sure there’s stuff in there that’s a lot more dangerous than a croc.

 

First stop was our favourite place for breakfast – a café in Knightsbridge called Patisserie Valerie. It bakes its own croissants and other exotic cakes and is the only breakfast place I know to feature in Egon Ronay (a dude who only writes about great restaurants). Had a big breakfast. Moo learnt to suck from a straw. It’s one of the few places that I know that’s managed to maintain a vibe at the same time as being an institution.

 

We then went to the 11.30 service at HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) – home of Alpha. Such a great place, inspiring teaching and is the only place I’ve been to in England that comes close to the well resourced churches in the US. We love everything about HTB. We used to be members there before we were posted to Holland. I remember being in Nicky Gumble’s home group at Christmas time and, because he was the Chaplin to Harrods, he got free mince pies. Yummy. Thinking about getting a little more involved there now that Tim Hughes is heading up the worship there.

 

Lunch was that another favourite haunt – The Bluebird Café in Kings Road. Sunday lunch is always a bit different there because people tend to bring children in. I’m sure I saw some of my former investment banking colleagues from UBS and DrKW there (the last couple of years hadn’t been kind to them!).

 

Then on to Daisy & Tom – the children’s shop, again on Kings Road. I don’t know if it’s a big deal for all parents when their children have their first haircut but for us it was. Poppy has got wonderful flowing blond hair and we just didn’t want that to go, so the hairdresser had strict instructions to cut off as little as possible. Moo’s haircut was a big deal because it really did change him from a baby to a proper little boy almost in the few minutes it took. Also, he REALLY didn’t enjoy it. In the end it was cut with him being held in his mother’s arms, watching a video of Thomas The Tank Engine over her shoulder. But he does look a lot better for it.

 

On the way home we stopped off at my brother, who’s married to Sandra’s sister and had joint ‘tea’ with their three lovely children. Poppy (and I think Moo) always love going to see their cousins and Poppy kept asking when she’s going to see them again all the way home.

 

So now, it’s nearly 9 o’clock in the evening and I feel like I’ve been in London all week. Got a busy week ahead – preparing for my next Nashville trip on the 13th Feb, a little more work on a bunch of other cowrites and a little business.

 

Yours looking forward to my bed time,

 

S.

 

Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit here!

It strikes me that getting a cut on an album is a little like driving to a meeting in central London during rush hour… so much traffic headed in the same direction and so many stop lights that have to turn green. And without a great idea it’s likely that the car will run out of petrol (gas) before you get half way there. Even then, you need a lot of time and patience. But last September I felt like I was watching a Porsche 911 gliding through empty streets and all the lights were green, all at the same time.

 

I was in Nashville one afternoon cowriting with Twila LaBar in one of the writing rooms at Brentwood Benson when we heard a knock on the door. It was Barry, the studio manager at BBMP who’d just finished a mix of a song Twila had written with Joel Lindsey, called ‘Orphans of God’. We had to break off and hear it because, well, there was a real buzz around about this song.

 

We sat down in the deep white sofas of the studio control room and Barry played us the track. The intro started and you could tell from the first few bars that it was an obvious pitch for the next Avalon album. There were a couple of slots on the album still to fill at that time.

 

As Barry played the track Twila, Joel, Barry and I sat back in total awe of the demo and how incredible it was the way all the creative variables came together to make a thing like ‘Orphans’ come about. Joel and Twila explained a little about how the song arrived, that they’d sat in a room like the one we’d just come from, knowing they had a very cool idea and just needed to craft it in a way that would make it shine. They had certainly nailed it. 

 

Well, last week Avalon’s album, Stand, came out and ‘Orphans’ is track #3. After just 4 days of being released, the song is already standing out. Here are the initial results from listeners of the album who were asked ‘what is your favourite track on the album’:

 

58% - Orphans Of God
14% - We Will Stand
13% - Love Won’t Leave You
11% - Somehow You Are
1% - Slowly

 

Nice work my friends. I’ve got a feeling this song is going to go places.
 
Yours feeling privileged to have seen a moment like that,

 

S.

We just had our first 'Turkey Moment' of 2006. We woke up to find someone had thrown a stone through the back window of Sandra’s car. Great. Guess it was someone messing about on the beach. If it was deliberate (and I think it was) they hit the wrong car. My car would have cost four times as much to repair. That’s the ‘half full’ way of looking at it. Although they could have hit one of the windows of the house and that would have been even worse.

 

When the police arrived we discussed the possibility of someone targeting Sandra as a result of her work. There’s something chilling about thinking that. We went down that road when we lived in Nigeria. I’d just arrived as financial controller of Shell’s operations there and stamped out a lot of dodgy stuff. Not long after we had a serious security scare, which I won’t go into right now. But we were confronted with the real possibility that someone had paid over the $10 a head it took to kill us both. Well, it doesn’t feel like that now. In fact we feel blessed to live in a place where this kind of thing is very rare indeed. But it was still a turkey moment for us and I never know why these things happen. They just do.

 

When the police left I ran the car to the repair shop and it’s already fixed and looking good as new. Grateful to Grandma for stepping up to take Poppy to a doctor’s appointment. Thanks Angela.

 

Yours thinking there must be a song in there somewhere,

 

S.

Sandra was reading Poppy her bed time story tonight, one about costumes from around the world. They were playing a game to see how many Poppy could name. She got right the Chinaman, the Mexican lady and the Eskimo. The next man she described as 'chicken'. When Sandra asked why, it transpired the man was actually from Turkey!

 

Yours enjoying some great British Sunday night drama on TV,

 

S.

I’ve been clearing out the garage today to unearth one of my oldest friends who had a profound impact on me a long, long time ago: my childhood piano. My earliest memory of it was when I was about Poppy’s age (4), sat on the floor or our living room with my ear to the side of the sound box while my mother played ‘Minuet in G’. It made me laugh until I cried but I was captivated by her playing and truly inspired by it.

 

And it was this piano that was to travel with me on one of the most wonderful journeys of my life – together we discovered harmony, melody, rhythm, chord progressions, how the songs I loved to hear were put together, we wrote new songs together, I recorded it on my first 4 track portastudio and I rehearsed live sets on it, wishing I could take it with me wherever I went to sing and play. It became such a part of me that I was able to see its keys moving in my mind to the notes I could hear in my ears. I guess it was my first virtual instrument, only in my imagination rather than on my computer screen.

 

As a result of the fun me and my old chum had, I’ve always been a total believer that a ‘real’ piano is not an optional extra for a home with young children. And here we are, suddenly it seems, with a little girl who’s at the age I was when I was so inspired, and the piano's living right at the back of the garage in a shameful state. Part of it's shabbiness is down to a half finished job my father started when I was in my teens... he wanted to paint it white but never got past step 1, taking off some of the varnish.

 

So, we’ve decided to give it a bit of TLC. I’ve made enquiries and to give it a proper face lift, tummy tuck, lipo, 24 porcelain veneers, new clothes and a hair job will probably cost about 5 times what it will be worth at its ‘reveal’. But that’s not the point. The point is this: if there’s any chance of it inspiring Poppy or Moo the way it inspired me all those years ago it will be worth a million bucks.

 

Yours hoping that I look after my other old friends better than I have that piano,

 

S.

No this isn’t another Apple story. It’s a Poppy story. You see, she’s had an ear infection (we think) for about a month now. It means that she doesn’t hear that well. It took us a while to discover it. She kept on saying,

 

“Daddy, will you turn your voice up please”

 

... because she thought I was simply talking in hushed tones. But yeah, after her saying it a few times we did our own test to see how bad the problem was. I whispered “look at that lovely guitar-shaped swimming pool” or “would you like another birthday cake”. These were both guaranteed to jump start her interest.

 

The outcome is like a very old relative living with us. The house has already got noticeably louder because it’s not just communicating with our daughter that creates more noise it’s everything she listens to like CDs and the TV. Occasionally Sandra and I catch ourselves unintentionally shouting at each other in conversation. So if I happen to startle you when we next meet, please excuse me if I shout. It’s nothing personal, just what I’m used to back home.

 

Talking of being startled – here’s something that came over during a chat last night with Ross. It arrived without warning and almost gave me a heart attack… thanks for waking me up at a particularly tiring part of my Berklee chat. Well, it was 1.00 in the morning after all. I needed it more than you’ll ever know.

 

 

Yours needing some ‘Victory V’s’ to relax my vocal chords,

 

S.

I knew I spoke too soon.

 

After another grinding day opening router ports and talking to call centers at Apple, Belkin and Netware my G5 finally decided to sing for us. My Apple case notes were so long that even THEY didn’t want to read them all. I think my G5 must have heard what I was going to do to it by the end of the week if it still didn't work.
 
So on my way home tonight from my in-laws I popped in to the studio just in case one of my chums in Nashville were on line to test it properly (the G5 is in the writing room at the studio, rather than at home). And sure enough, I had my first proper iChatAV with Guy this evening. And it was indeed remarkable. To click ‘full screen’ and jump into a world I love being in is such fun. No travelling for 22 hours. No 6 hour jet lag. Nice

 

Dare I say it, but tonight the battle I had getting here is beginning to seem less important. It’s nice when a little bit of good news does that.

 

Yours from planet geek,

 

S

The world just got 5,000 miles smaller.

 

America and Britain celebrated today. My first transatlantic video call with Sue Smith. Although Sue and I had already chatted across the PC/Mac divide using AOL IM and iChat, we were both sitting next to each other in Holly and Guy’s front room. So I don’t really count that. But having Nashville’s morning sun come shining into the afternoon darkness that shrouded the writing room of my converted fisherman’s cottage somehow gave us both a buzz. And it really was like having a proper chat. 

 

No thanks to Apple. I ordered my G5 two months ago because of its ‘best in class’ video conferencing. Well, it still doesn’t work today and already the machine is out of date. I give it a 5% chance of it lasting the week. If I don’t return it to it’s makers I will throw into the sea. Together with it’s designer mouse and magnetic remote. Today’s triumph was down to my Vaio and an odd little piece of software that lets me use my camcorder as a webcam. A passable substitute for an iSight. Was the celebration sweeter for having to wait such a long time? Er, a bit like I would imagine the relief I’d enjoy after having my arm sawn off. But thank you Sue for being so patient. I’m very grateful.

 

One day I’m going to write a book about absurd corporate behaviour. The comedy of being passed from one technical helpline (in one country) to another technical helpline (in another country) will certainly be in there. The next time someone asks me to ‘hold’ while they take five minutes to read my case history afresh, I will say to them, “no, shut up and listen to my side of the story”. After two months of dealing with Apple technical support I don’t want customer service. I need customer therapy*.

 

Yours still believing that they might just somehow pull it off,

 

S.

 

* until they contract that out to a call center in southern Spain

Been a good week. Finished the studio upgrade on Monday… finally. For techies out there - all my plugins are loaded onto a new VST server along with a terabyte of disk space and 4 Gigs of RAM. So now I can run Garritan Orchestral Strings (via Gigastudio) alongside Ivory without any problems (except GigaPulse!). Taken a while to get to this but the sound is just incredible. Just like Prague! And stable. This frees up my other pc's to process pure audio and plugins (Waves, Sony and TCE) for mixing and mastering. I’ve also kept RMX on there because I love to drag and drop loops into SX3 for programming drums. You can’t do that from a server. At least I haven’t found a way.

 

On Tuesday I gave the new configuration a test drive with a draft demo of a song Gina and I are writing called ‘You Knew’ (thanks for a wonderful idea Gina, it was great to have you guest blog, would love to hear more blog from you). We’ve got a little finishing off to do on the song but it’s going to be great. Holly made some cool suggestions which we’ll work on. But the studio worked like a dream.

 

After finishing that off on Wednesday morning the piano tuner arrived. He’s a nice guy, but a little scary (I mean proper scary, not Belinda scary). Thinking about it, every piano tuner I've ever met is just a little bit scary. He lives with his elderly mother (never left home, I think) and it looks like she still cuts his hair and dresses him in the morning. I asked him to tune the piano ‘to his ear’ rather than to what his machine says. That might sound risky but golly, after a painful two hours of "DONG... DONG... DONG..." he did a brilliant job. Guess even scary people can be cool.

 

Yesterday was set aside for education – more mastering tutorials (from Waves) and I started my first course of the year at Berklee Music School. Berklee is an amazing resource… if any songwriter out there hasn’t tried it then check this place out:

 

 

I’ve done nearly all the songwriting courses (plus others) and each one has been incredible. The one I’ve just started is Hit Song Forms, a short course but I’m already learning to look at the craft in a new way (thank you Berklee). A major benefit of the class is hooking up with an old chum running it (Shane Adams) and other songwriting obsessives like me. There are some very seasoned writers on this program. I'm looking forward to getting to know them and learning a lot from them and Shane over the next 6 weeks. 

 

Today will be more Berklee and trying out a ballad idea that’s itching to be worked on. Think I might write that in the studio. When the piano sounds so great it totally inspires me.

 

Yours wondering if the learning curve ever flattens out,

 

S.

Today was a wonderful day.  Started out the morning at breakfast with Holly Zabka and Sue Smith talking over some "business".  Then it was off to Brentwood Benson for a co-write with Twila.

 

We ran into Wayne Haun who is producing the next Calvin Hunt project.  We asked what he was looking for and went from there.  We wrote a song called "Shelter Me" for Calvin.  We'll pitch it to Wayne and see what happens!  

 

Lunch was a quick trip to Mongolian Grill with Joel Lindsey, Caleb Collins, Lisa Qualsett and Twila LaBar.  It's just so fun to take a break from the madness sometimes and go fill up with great food! 

 

Twila and I finished our song and then I wrote with Caleb for a very short time.  We got something started that I'll continue to work on at home. 

 

Lisa and I headed to the Bluebird Cafe tonight for the "writers in the round" performance.  Amazing, encouraging, intimidating and inspiring.  What a night!  I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing the writers enjoy themselves and their peers so much.  I left feeling like I have an incredibly long way to go, but determined to somehow get there. 

 

I'll write with Kevin Stokes tomorrow morning, have a meeting at Brentwood-Benson, then it's off to the airport.  

 

I am aching for home.  I am so grateful for the chance to make these trips to Nashville, but overwhelmed by joy at the thought of what I get to go home to.

Decided to lift the tone of my blog from my last one (Sick joke)...

 

I’ve often wondered how come some of history’s greatest painters have also been masters in other arts like literature or music. Take William Blake for example. He lived about 2 minutes walk from my studio here when he wrote the lyric to one of England's most traditional songs, 'Jerusalem'…
 
Click for a clip
 
I can understand the link between poetry and lyric writing (although sure, they’re not the same). But he’s also one of the world’s greatest painters. How does that work? And there are loads of other examples out there - Angelo, da Vinci, Duchamp etc etc.
 
So does God make one person more creative than another?  Or is it something to do with the creative process itself? E.g. is creativity a process that’s suddenly discovered and applied universally? Did their greatness in one area create a buzz in the other area (like Ricky Gervais and Madonna writing children’s books!)? I shudder at making these links because I'm not sure who in my generation will be regarded as a classic creative in two hundred years time.  
 
Now, I’m not saying for one moment that I’m on the scale of any of these icons. But today, as I was messing around in the studio, I thought of a new hypothesis that I can relate to: creative distraction.
 
Here’s how I'd define it:
 
Creative distraction is when my creative child asks to play with another toy instead of the one I want it to play with
 
So, for instance, when Marcel (Duchamp) got to work one day, maybe he just thought “Hey, I fancy bending a few bits of metal today instead of painting a master”. And before he could say ‘pain aux chocolats’ he got as obsessive about that as he did his painting.
 
Maybe this explains why I get sucked into technology, building SongTools out of an Excel spreadsheet and making a studio out of a fisherman’s cottage? My creative child just wants to play in a different part of the playground. Maybe this explains why I’m writing this right now? Golly.
 
Yours feeling like I’ve just disappeared up my own sense of self-importance,
 
S.

Ladies and gentlemen... please give it up for... my very talented cowriter... 

 

Gina Boe

 

S.

 

****

 

Greetings to everyone, especially all my friends abroad.  Okay, my one friend abroad...Simon.  I'm so thrilled to be the guest blogger for today.  Lisa Qualsett and I arrived in Nashville last night around 9:30.  After getting our rental car (upgraded to a PT Cruiser, thank you very much), we headed to the Hampton Inn off of Cool Springs Blvd.  That's very close to our writing home for the week, the Provident Building, home to Brentwood-Benson Publishing.  We settled into the room, then went to eat nachos at TGIFridays.  Way too much to eat that late at night, but it was awesome!  Then it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Unfortunately, there wasn't as much sleeping as Lisa would have liked.  Must have been too excited about the week's activities!

 

As we were getting ready this morning, we turned on the TV only to find out that there had been a murder-suicide just a few blocks away.  That got the creative juices flowing! 

 

We shook of the heebie-jeebies and made our way to Starbucks for our pre-writing caffeine.  Sue Smith met us there for a few minutes, then the three of us headed to Brentwood-Benson.  Sue was my first co-write.  It's so great to start off a week having time with Sue.  She's gracious, encouraging, funny, not to mention a brilliant writer.  Hey I use the word "brilliant"!  We began working on a lyric that is in the country / sounthern gospel vein.  We finished the chorus before going to lunch with Lisa and her co-writer for the afternoon, Twila LaBar.  We met at the Green Hills Grille.  Good friends, good food and more laughter than you can imagine.

 

One of our biggest laughs was over Simon's turkey adventures on Christmas.  Love that story!  We thought about ordering strawberries au noggin topped with cream in honor of Simon's quote, but our waiter was a bit confused. 

 

Sue and I got back to work on our lyric and got it finished by about 4:15. We're giving it to Aaron Crabb to write music.  Can't wait to hear that!!

 

Lisa and I left Brentwood Benson about 5:30, freshened up and went to eat at Buca de beppo.  Again, great food.  I think everything tastes better to me down here because I don't have to cook it or clean up after it!  After a short stop at Barnes and Noble, we are now in our jammies and contemplating our co-writes for tomorrow.  Hopefully tonight will bring more sleep. 

 

I am missing home terribly.  I know Perry and the kids (Hunter, Hannah, Harrison and Houston) are doing well, but I almost can't think about them too much or I get too homesick.  I am a true homebody, so these trips are always difficult simply because I miss everyone. 

 

Guess that's it for now.  If it's all right, I'll check in again tomorrow night too.  I'll try not to be so long-winded!

 

If you want to get notified of a new blog you can sign up here:

 

 

S.

I hate it when our children are sick. Especially when I'm woken up at 3am to the sound of Poppy throwing up over our bedroom carpet. It means rearranging the whole house… scrubbing, shampooing, wiping, washing clothes, bedding, hair, furniture. And at that time of night I wished more than anything that it was all a bad dream. But ‘that’ smell still lingers upstairs this morning. So I guess it really did happen. I’m grateful that Sandra’s so much better at dealing with these things than I am.

 

I decided to turn to one of my Christmas presents – a book of funny quotations – to see if I could cheer us all up. Here’s a medical one from Tommy Cooper:

 

“A man goes to the doctor with a strawberry growing out of his head.
The doctor says, ‘I’ll give you some cream to put on that.’”

 

Not exactly a ‘sick’ joke but it still made me laugh.

 

Yours trying to see the funny side of it all,

 

S.

 

P.S. I blame Belinda

One of Sandra’s New Year decisions last year was to return to practicing law after a few years out to have children. She’s a barrister. Not a barista. A barrister studies hard to earn the right to represent people in front of a judge in an English court. A barista studies hard to pay for college by serving coffee (see pics below).

 

She decided to re-enter the profession in a different specialisation (nailing criminals, rather than international finance deals). It was an aggressive career move because her knowledge base is one of the most important things to her, and that all changed. Just takes a lot of time to acquire and feel confident enough to stand up in front of people. Especially a judge.

 

Anyway, yesterday she made us all really proud… it was her first day on her feet in court as a criminal barrister. YEAHH. And she nailed two criminals. Nice work, Sa. Poppy, Moo and I gave her a round of applause at bath time. She deserved it.

 

I remember in my City days I changed sector – analysing media companies rather than energy companies - and I still remember my total elation coming out of my first client meeting having ‘pulled off’ my new presentation. These are important milestones and worth celebrating.

 

So last night we celebrated with a curry. Nice curry as well. She’s scoring a lot of points at the moment.

 

Yours hoping she doesn’t see this and call 'objection',

 

S.

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions. At least, not in what they’ve become. To me they’re a cliché. Something no one takes that seriously. A list of things I’d like to change but don’t really believe I will. At best, they’re a joke at a New Year’s Eve party. At worst, they’re a sadness. So I don’t do them.

 

But I do believe in New Year decisions. It usually takes until the middle of January to prayerfully get them right. The last couple of days I’ve been getting flashbacks about starting work in my old investment banking office after the holiday season. Bit like PTSD. But having left all that behind I now get a cool feeling starting a new year. Bit like waking up early in the morning and planning my day. Not overplanning, but thinking about what excites me and deciding how I can move toward it. Asking ‘how do I want my year to end?’ and just deciding stuff. But these are things I will almost certainly do. Skills I will acquire, organisations I will add value to, relationships I will define differently, and ultimately the person I will become. Inspiration has always been there in the past if I look. I believe God sends it like manna.

 

This year I can already feel where my decisions will be made. For the last 10 years or so I’ve divided life into categories and everything fits in somewhere. Depending on how I score at the end of 2005 the decisions for 2006 will flow. I’m going to have fun with this.

 

I’d encourage anyone who hasn't tried it to make at least one New Year decision this year. You might get hooked.

 

Yours feeling a little blinded by opportunity,

 

S.

Last night Poppy woke up with a bad cough. She came downstairs and found me in the drawing room watching 'Lost' on TV. It was the one about Hurley and the numbers. She climbed up and snuggled into my arms all coldy and sleepy, then turned round and half whispering with a croaky voice said "He looks a bit girly... he needs a hair cut doesn't he Daddy". I just agreed with her.

 

Yours thinking I should book up an appointment this week,

 

S.

Happy New Year everybody.

 

Well, reading 'The Hawkins’ Christmas' a week later makes me smile. My plan was good until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Sandra was putting the finishing touches to the turkey while the oven was warming up when she saw sparks out the corner of her eye. We weren’t sure exactly what the problem was at first but after an hour or so of pressing buttons and seeing what worked and what didn’t, we realised the oven element had blown. Not the best timing. So we put our thinking caps on and decided to cook the turkey at the studio.

 

The studio is four minutes cycle ride down the coast but the thought of strapping a 21 pound beast to my back and dangling a baking tray and tin foil from my handlebars didn’t really work for me. So I put it in the back of my car and Christmas evening was spent going backwards and forwards to the studio to make sure it wasn’t on fire, the turkey really was cooking (we’d not used the oven there before) and the whole studio wasn’t being smoked out.

 

At 9.45pm, as I drove through the streets of Felpham like I was the leading car in a funeral procession, I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if the police had pulled me over. In the end, the bird and I arrived home and Sa and I sat down together for our Christmas dinner at about 10. The special champagne was rescheduled for Boxing Day and we didn’t spend quite as long over an amazing meal as we were hoping. But we still enjoyed it and it was worth the wait.

 

It’s amazing how I can do my best to make things happen but sometimes it just doesn't work. Did it ruin our day? Not really. But it certainly didn’t make it! I don’t understand why it happened but that’s not the point. The point is that we had a wonderful Christmas despite the turkey because of the many golden moments we shared with the children, family and friends.

 

So now, at the beginning of 2006, I really hope there aren’t too many turkey moments in store. But if there are, may God give me grace to see things in the context of His greater plan and the incredible blessings that He pours down on me and my family every minute of every day.

 

Yours still wondering how to get the smell of turkey fat out of my studio,

 

S.