Archive for April, 2009

My friend Britt rocks.

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Our clothes for the Little Lambs in Kijabe, Kenya

I can’t believe that I didn’t get a picture of her WITH her beautiful handiwork, but my friend Britt apparently has a strange fascination with packing. She offered to come over and finish packing up the clothes from the drive, which frankly, have been seriously overwhelming to me. Behold her handiwork. And yet, now, I look at it and think about how we have to move about 450 pounds of clothing with us through the UK…

Ellenton, here I come!

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Yes, I know. I had enough to do. What was I thinking to book a women’s retreat three days before we leave in Florida? I’ll tell you what I was thinking: I’ve met these women and they’re great!

Yes, it’s nuts, but I’m flying to Tampa. This morning I sent out press releases, tried unsuccessfully to finish booking a safari, emailed the people in Mombasa again, confirmed the van in London and canceled the other car, tried to connect with my manager and radio promoter to start the new single, and talked with Chris about booking while I’m gone. Answered a bunch of email, got Salvation Army to do a pickup at my house, and tried to finish packing clothes for orphans. Packed up this show, and I’m sitting typing this on the plane.

I’m really looking forward to this because it’s what I love to do. And because I’m not going to think about everything that needs to happen before Friday until I get home. You want to see freaking out blog posts? Wait for the next couple entries, ha!

Houston, we have a problem

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Well, I’ve been packing all those clothes for the orphans from the clothing drive, and it’s official. There’s not way in the world we’re going to get all that into a sedan with our kids to haul it all over the UK until we get to Nairobi. And yet, it would cost us about $800 to leave it at the airport for a week. Yikes.

So I spent about 2 hours this afternoon trying to locate a mini-van. There aren’t many, apparently because the roads are so small there, no one drives them. Oh, joy, we’ll have the biggest car when we can’t remember to stay to the left! At least it’s automatic, so we don’t have to remember how to shift on the other side while driving on the other side. See, there’s always a silver lining. 🙂

St. Susanna’s and Andrea Stephens

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Me and Andrea (down front) with my mom and several of the women from St. Susanna

Had a great time with Andrea Stephens today. She has a ministry to teen girls and to women based on her B.A.B.E books (Beautiful, Accepted, Blessed, and Eternally Significant) and talks about true beauty in the Lord. We met down in Florida last winter and did the show at the teen detention center together. She asked me to drive down and do music on this event in Cincinnati at St. Susanna’s.

How fun to get to know her better, and to be with all the sweet people at St. Susanna’s. We loved getting to know you! Hopefully we’ll be back soon. 🙂

We have to do WHAT?!

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Well, now we’re panicking. We leave for the UK and Kenya tour in one week. I’d said to my husband, “Let’s not forget to (fill in the blank)” so many times that I sat down to write a list really quickly, and, um, had two pages of a yellow legal pad filled in less than 10 minutes. Yikes. That did not make me feel better, just make me freak out a bit. Okay, as Dory says, just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

This looks strangely familiar…

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Back home again from Nashville. As I was driving through Cincinnati for the fourth time in five days, I couldn’t help thinking that I have to drive back here again for a show on Saturday. Arg.

Did you say goat toenails?

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Ken Lewis with his goat toenails, Paul in the background

Today we had a bunch of meetings and GMA-ish stuff, but in the middle of all that Chris and I went with Paul to the final tracking session for the single. Ken Lewis is putting world percussion sounds on the song, and he couldn’t do the regular session because he was recording in Korea (oh sure, that old excuse).

He was pretty amazing, and I love that stuff, so we were watching him add a lot of percussion “bling”. He takes out this long rope that has all these little one inch square, brown, papery little things sewn to it and wads it up in his hands with a Tibetan bell rope. I spent the whole track trying to figure out what that was, so when he was done, I had to ask.

“Oh, that’s goat toenails.” Um, what? “Yeah, it’s goat toenails. I pick up weird things all over the world when I’m traveling. But they make a cool sounding shaker, don’t they?”

Actually, Ken, yes they do. They sounded really cool. And yet, I wonder, does knowing that there are goat toenails (and yes, people, I assume he means the hooves!) on your track take away any of the worshipful feeling? Hmmm….

Here we are at GMA

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Virginia Hill and my booking agent Chris in the horse-drawn carriage we leapt into at a red light

Francis Drost, my manager Wally, me, and Stephanie Newsome after our showcase at GMA

Wow, I can’t believe it’s only been 24 hours since I got back to Nashville. GMA week (Gospel Music Association’s conference) is pretty intense, but it’s been great for me so far.

I got to hook up with my friend and booking agent, Chris, and that is so fun because we don’t get to see each other that often. I also got a see Virginia Hill who is a good friend, and she was so scheduled this week with interviews that we never thought it would work out to hang out, and here I ran into her and we got to grab a quick dinner within about 10 minutes of arriving. God is fun.

I had a showcase today at The Listening Room in Nashville and I felt pretty good about how it went. I also got to sing the new single which was fun – it’s not quite done yet, but we got it together enough to introduce it to the radio people who were there. All in all, a busy, but very fun day.

And back home

Sunday, April 19th, 2009

Yesterday went great – it was a lot of fun to work with Paul, and he really is amazing. He thinks on a different level, and it’s fun to watch his mind work. We got up this morning and took my friend Megan to breakfast (thanks for letting us crash with you, Megan!) and then headed home. I have church tomorrow, and then a blocking rehearsal for our new VBS play, and then I’m driving BACK down to Nashville tomorrow night for GMA. I’m definitely memorizing this path…

Back to Nashville

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Well, I’m headed down to Nashville tomorrow morning to record the lead vocals on the new radio single. On this song, they’ve been tracking without me since I couldn’t work out the scheduling. That’s not really my preference, but everything I’ve heard is just beautiful, so I really can’t complain. 🙂

I’m very excited to do the new song today because I’m working with a new producer, Paul Marino, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what God will do with this, and getting to know Paul better as an artist.

I also get to go with my husband, which doesn’t happen very often, so yea, road trip!!