Inspiration Hiding In The Daily Mail

It was in a medium-sized manila envelope and I had no idea what it was …

Since I don’t have any magazine subscriptions walking to the mailbox isn’t really all that exciting for me. I mean I get a kick if I find a card in there for birthdays and Christmas, but other than that I hardly get anything in the mail worth celebrating.

I mean there was that time I wrote a letter to the Hawaiian Chocolate company just on a whim to talk to them about their chocolate and a few weeks later I got a sampler box in the mail.

Dude! Just like that. Customer service at its best!

But now I just get bills, rejection letters, and customer service at its worst.

You know, my most recent bill from Sprint didn’t really have all these great emotions bubbling to the surface. You see I had just gotten a bill from Sprint for $238 … a bill that was supposed to be $110. So after a livid conversation with Andrea G. over at customer service where there was nothing that could be done about the promises I received from my last interaction with a Sprint customer service representative I’d given up on the positives of mail entirely … until a couple of days ago.

I unloaded the large amounts of junk mail and bills onto the kitchen table and found that manila envelope from an unfamiliar P.O. Box. Had no idea what it was, seeing how I hadn’t recently ordered anything the contents were unknown.

So when I opened it and found the newest Zac Brown Band CD staring at me, I found a moment of gratitude right there. I had purchased tickets to their concert a while back and apparently missed the email stating that their newest CD would be mailed to me, just for buying tickets to the concert.

I remember that happening last time, but for some reason it escaped me this time around. So among the bills of adulthood I found this awesome surprise.

 

 

Inspiration in a medium-sized manila envelope. All their songs hit my heart strings and make me feel something and it was a great gift just at the at the right moment.

“Don’t give up … hold on a little longer.”

That’s my favorite line from this song … a dreamer’s song. It’s really one of my mottos. So if you’re having a rough week, trying to bounce back, catching the wave after you’ve wiped out, take a listen to Roots by Zac Brown. It’s a dreamer’s song that keeps you chasing what you wake up every morning hoping for …

The purpose continues.

Buen Camino my friends.

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Mixed Tape Monday

I only got four today. Five would be great … but it’s four. I wasn’t feeling five.

They kind of snuck up on me today … on Country Monday. Each of them had something different that sort of pulled at my strings, and stayed in my pocket until night time. So I thought I’d share. Got some great storytelling out there with this kind of music, the kind of stories I feel, read and like to write. No fluff, just the real deal.

Now I’d heard the Bentley, Rhett and Zac Brown songs before but I had never heard the Keith Urban tune and it just blew me away. I’m not much of an Urban fanatic, but this song was something you look for when trying to find a great partner, someone who’s strong when you just don’t have it in you, this is something you wish you could be for someone you love. I enjoyed the heart and strength of it.

Good storytelling always inspires us to be better, whether it’s in a song or in a book.

 

Break on Me — Keith Urban

Riser — Dierks Bentley

Die A Happy Man — Thomas Rhett

Broken Arrows — Avicii Featuring Zac Brown

 

 

 

 

Fourth of July Sprinkle-Worthy Moments

All you want to do on the Fourth of July is live like a character featured in an amazing line of a great country song sang by Garth Brooks, The Zac Brown Band, Tim McGraw, Allan Jackson, George Strait, Blake Shelton, Sugarland, Faith Hill or Trisha Yearwood.

You want barbeques, family, good times, good music, tasty drinks, relaxation, fireworks and a moment of appreciation for the soldiers out there in the world.

You wanted Zen moments on a hot summer day.

The top five things you did not want …

5. You did not want to go to the market for the third time in one day because someone forgot the tomatoes.

4. You did not want to spend time scrubbing toilets in the afternoon.

3. You did not want to go to your in-laws.

2. You did not want a cranky toddler who was in full-blown crazy mode for two hours because someone “forgot” when her nap time was while they were at their parents’ house … the same nap time she’s had for the past three years. The same.

1. You didn’t want to come home to find someone in your family had cooked 10 out of the 12 burgers in a frying pan … on the stove. Not on the grill … you know the BBQ grill.

You needed a life-preserver because this day was looking nothing like a country song.

Who or what saved it in the end?

Being able to still watch the matinée showing of Earth to Echo with my son.

Being able to eat a hamburger … the one cooked on the grill.

My iTunes playlist that featured Five O’Clock Somewhere at exactly the right time.

Cold Framboise.

Kids with sparklers and glow in the dark neon glow sticks.

Ben & Jerry’s.

Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and patriotic sprinkles.

 

🙂

 

Hope your Fourth of July had sprinkle-worthy moments.

🙂

 

 

How Country Music Snuck Up on Me

Ever wake up wretched…thinking I need a damn miracle today? That’s how I used to feel every day while working as a substitute middle school teacher years ago. I know what you’re thinking…why didn’t you just slit your wrists? Yeah I know. But bills were bills and there were no writing gigs. So there I was classroom after classroom of pimples and raging hormones.

Feeling like jumping off a cliff everyday at three o’clock. Then while I was driving home, I turned the radio dial and found Allan Jackson with Jimmy Buffett  and thought damn…it is five o’clock somewhere. Giddy up!

 I don’t know how it happened but after that I’d become a country music fan. Growing up in the inner city you don’t really hear Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Allan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Reba, Blake Shelton, Garth Brooks or Alabama…it’s more Sonora Dynamita, Fito Olivares, El Buki, Bronco, and songs like “I’m Your Puppet,” “Supersonic,” or “Rapper’s Delight” that blasted the boombox. I wasn’t aware of something called country music until college, but I thought that belonged to the Texas Longhorns, hillbillies, or people living in Nashville. I didn’t want hear songs about dogs or tractors by someone with a twang…and now I wish I had a deep twang. Ohh Josh Turner. Ohh.

I probably could have used country music all my life, including, relationships. These chicks are badass and the guys aren’t bad to look at either. They got lungs and the twang. But what drew me in were the stories. They had their happy songs but the ones with guts hit the spot…talking about failure and surviving it. I thought damn! These are my people, even if they do drink whiskey. They might not use a lot humor in their songs, but they got a little sass and adventure, and that always makes me laugh.

I knew I was a fan when I started raising the volume and little by little the dial went up from a seven to a twenty. And there I was singing away at stop light, but I was still undercover as the windows were rolled up. Couldn’t be singing away by King Taco…that’s Banda Macho territory. I needed to be blasting “El Gato y el Raton,” or Enrique Iglesias.

But after a couple of years I heard the one…the one that made me roll down the windows. She was fairly new on the country scene but this song…made every chick carry a bat in the back of her car. They felt her pain. They knew what she was talking about because they thought if that ever happened to me I would do that too. Carrie Underwood…“Before He Cheats.” I rolled down that window, pumped up the volume, and turned up my best karaoke voice. The guy with the shades in the spruced up, cherry Impala just slightly lowered his glasses, snuck a peek and shook his head in laughter.

We’re chicks…we’re crazy like that.