C is for Clutch

Way back in 93 I was 16 and music was (and still is) my boyfriend.  I went through the journey of learning my roots of classic rock that is Bad Company and Zepplin, to discovering the anger and political commentary that was the metal gods of Metallic and Overkill.  From there, I was introduced to the punk rock of Fugazi and Minor Threat and eventually discovered the local hardcore scene and fell in love with bands like Madball, Sick of it All and Leeway.  My girl and I would go to shows basically every weekend and have a good time listening to these bands play their hearts out.

One such evening we were at Studio One and some random band takes the stage.  The singer introduced themselves and they tore into their first song with a vengeance.  The sound was unlike anything I had heard at this time, heavy rhythm guitar setting the pace throbbing and thumping into my spirit.  And then I heard the singer say this line“HariKari with a combine come dancing with me” and I lost myself.  Straight up frenzy!!! The lyrics to “Shogun Named Marcus” are some of the best wordsmithing I had heard up until this point in my short life.  

A few of the reasons Clutch became and always will be one of my all time favorite bands is that in the 23 years I have been listening to them, the sound has evolved as these musicians grew up from the hillbilly hardcore I first fell in love with to the amazing jam band they are today.  Each and every song tells a story not just a personal tale, but a tale from history or a story that they need to tell.  

If you watch The Walking Dead “Regulator”  may sound familiar to you.  They used the song for the episode Nebraska.  I love this song because it is about the passing of time and looking back on life with a smidge of regret.

“Soapmakers“ is another story that the band tells.  This song transports me into the backwood Appalachian hills filled with magic and wisdom of it’s residents.

Whenever they are in town, I go see them.  There is nothing like a Clutch show and I have the pleasure and luck to living in their home state and seeing them at the 9:30 club.  Neil Fallon – the singer, is a true showman.  He isn’t flamboyant, however, he is one of those dudes that has charisma +5.  They play mostly clubs and festivals – no arena rock here, which I am grateful for.  In a club you can get up close and personal.  The sound doesn’t travel very far to reach your ear.  Each time I have seen them (and it has been at least 23 times) they sound tight and you can tell that they are having fun up there.  There is nothing like being in a crowd of die-hard fans signing along.  It gives me goosebumps thinking about it!

Check out those links.. let me know what you think….

Blaze

photo credit: 173_Bardakci – Tur Abdin via photopin (license)

This pic could very well have been taken of me at the same age.  The first twelve years of my life were spent on 100 acres in a small farming town outside of Corvallis, Oregon.  

I was fearless when it came to my old mare, Blaze.  I would spend the day on her back, soaking up the sun, exploring the land.  The back part of the property had a stand of trees with a creek running through it.  I take her down there and pretend I was one of Laura Ingalls friends, and we were homesteading the great frontier.

Blaze was an ornery girl.  If she didn’t want to be ridden, she would rub you off by getting to close to the trees or the fences.  Her favorite move though, was to take off at a canter and then stop short.  I would tumble off and hit the ground with a thud, sometimes hard enough to knock the wind out of my sails for a minute.  Blaze, my noble steed, I imagine chuckled to herself in these moments.  She hung around to make sure I got up, investigating the grass near my stunned body in feigned indifference.  If I lay there still, and feigned severe injury, she would nuzzle my body, slightly pushing, trying to knock the breath back into me.  Getting more insistent with each nudge.  When I would finally get up and dust myself off, I imagine those beautiful soulful eyes washing with relief, as she pranced just out of reach, causing a rousing game of chase the pony.  She always let me catch her, eventually.  
I think she looked forward to those adventures as much as I did.  

A is for Accomplishment

I signed up to do the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge.. YAY!!! I don’t have a theme for the month.. Since I just found out about it today and well.. Themeing takes time.  So winging it each day!

A is for ACCOMPLISHMENT.  One thing I don’t give myself much credit for is my accomplishments.  I get so busy in living this life I am living and don’t think about stopping to smell the roses and celebrating what I have actually done.  The other part is that lovely thought process of, this isn’t important or this is what you should be doing anyway, so why party and make a big deal out of it??  

Well, because I NEED TO!!!  I need to stop and celebrate the fact that guess what, I am a pretty awesome human that has done some pretty awesome stuff.

I have:

Moved cross country on my own! Yup – I decided I no longer wanted to live in Phoenix and explored some cities – chose Baltimore.  Signed a lease, held a garage sale, packed a moving truck and me and my pups spent 4 days traveling the 2200 some odd miles,  Been here for a year and half and I am not just surviving, I am beginning to thrive!

Jumped out of an airplane!  Amusing the people on the ground because my screams were comical!

Joined Toastmasters and gave my first speech in public.  I HATE BEING IN THE SPOTLIGHT! But, i found a voice in speaking, and I want to do more.

Organized a pet food drive for my former company.  It was the first time I was ever the lead on a project like this and when I saw the amount that we raised, I cried.  I cried because it was me, and my Lucky boy, that got it off the ground and got it done.

Just thinking about and writing out those four accomplishments, they brought a smile to my face and I gave myself a bit of an internal high five.  I need to sit down and write out my history of accomplishments, even the small ones, like getting out of bed when I was to depressed to function after my break up.

Oh, and I joined this challenge, and wrote a first post… that is an accomplishment!

Weekly Goal Reflection

photo credit: Night is now falling ,So ends this day via photopin (license)

Money:  I made it to payday and didn’t die.  It was a bit frustrating to not go out and buy things and have to remind myself to be prepared or suffer the consequences.  I did forget to defrost meat for dinner one evening and ran out of butter so rice with tomato sauce was my dinner.  I also do not particularly care for eggs outside the quiche type things I make for breakfast.  Lessons learned.  Goal this week is to not spend except for those things planned.  Only outward expenditure this week is groceries.  Not breakfast on the way in, not lunch because I didn’t plan.  Not vape stuff.  

Writing: I haven’t been writing daily.  This is a planning thing and I am seeing it.  What topic to write about? What voice do I want this space to have? I want this to space to be a showcase of my writing and also of my growth as adult out in the world.  I have some ideas percolating in my brain and now it is just a matter of planning and getting them out.  Stories about how I got here, and what I am doing, developing myself as a coach and other topics I want to explore.  I am working on developing a running content idea folder.  Right now to push my reading goals, I am going to be reading to review books. Yay Me! My goal for this week is to publish the review and “icebreaker” by next reflection.

Reading: I have yet to pick up a book to read for this month! Right now, I have The Desire Map ready to be read on my journey back from being out of state.  My goal is have that complete and a review of it up by next Sunday.

Spring Cleaning: I am almost done with my spring cleaning.  It feels so nice to declutter and get rid of things that I am no longer using and no longer need.  I want to get my space cleared out by the Full Moon so I can do a negativity clearing ritual. Goal is to purge out remaining bin and store the rest.

Where I haven’t made progress:

Meditation and 6am wake ups have fallen off my radar a bit.  They are important and things I do want to be doing. With being sick, I slacked on wake ups.  Meditation – it is something that I am not in the habit of doing and need to make it a habit.  So at least once this week I will meditate for 5 mins.

This exercise in doing a weekly review raised my awareness to the fact that if I am not checking in, I am not holding myself accountable and stuff falls thru the cracks.  I am gonna post my monthly goals to my mirror at home also so I see them in the morning as a reminder.  I already have them as a sticky note on my desktop and the more reinforcement the merrier!

 

Money, Money, Money… MONEY!

So the theme/focus for March is going to be money.  I am rather disappointed with myself since it is the 4th day of the month and I have $20 in my accounts that needs to last me until my next check on the 11th.  Tomorrow, I will be spending $10 to go see my guy.  I have food, the pups have food and my basics are covered, but still.   I work a well paying job and I have no money.  And I don’t really have a safety net.  I don’t have anyone to bail me out if I miss my rent payment (well, I do but really do I want to borrow money when I make a pretty decent income???)  My credit is not stellar (again, history with money) so a personal loan right now is out of the question.  One of the big goals that I have for 2016 is to move in with my guy or at least closer to him.  In order to make that happen, I need to have $2000 saved up by Jan 1, and I have 4 cents in my savings account.  FOUR CENTS!!!!

With the plan that I had set up at the first of the year, I should have had $515 in my savings account and I have 4 cents????

How did I get here?

I blew thru my savings last month because of some mistakes I made at Christmas and commitments that I made to purchase things that I really shouldn’t have agreed, but did.

I have slacked at being prepared with meals.  Looking over my spending for the past couple of months – buying breakfast on my way into the office can average $5 – $8 depending on what I am getting and lunch averages about $10.  So $18 dollars a day on just food, not including dinner?

Lack of impulse control on purchases.  Ok – my bad habit right now is vaping – the Guy and I go to a vape shop and let me try out this new juice that is $20.  I don’t need the juice, specially when I just spent $100 ordering some stuff online.  Need to get that under control.

I have my budget set up and I should be able to meet my savings goal and still have some money left to go play with.  I just need to stick with it and work on it.

March Goals

It is my goal to write daily.  This blog is a means to that goal.  It will be a daily brain dump of stuff that I find, at least for now.

Found here set goal, make plan, work, stick to it, reach goal – a success concept presented with colorful sticky notes

 

March Goals
– save $336
-play with dogs
-write daily
-read Desire Map
-meditation practice
-wake up @6am
-Get Living Space Cleared out of clutter
-House Clearing Ritual