what changes await?

yesterday, i told you this blog was about to undergo some changes. today i'm going to tell you what they are.

for starters, i want to be more regular about my blogging. there have been a few months where i've attempted to blog every day.. it never happened, though it did get me to write more often, and i liked that. starting in october, i'm going to attempt to blog every weekday. i feel this will be a little less daunting of a task than blogging every day. i've also come up with a theme for each day:

monday meals: lately i've been spending more time in the kitchen, learning to cook new things. i'll be sharing some of my favorite recipes with you on mondays. this will also force me to try new recipes more often :)

tuesday talks: tuesdays will just be whatever i feel is on my heart to say that day, like most of these blog posts have been.

wednesday wisdom: as i've also been starting to read more often, i'm going to start sharing quotes on wednesdays.

thursday thoughts: like tuesday, thursdays will be a day where i share whatever.

friday photos: i'm downloading an app on my iphone reminding me to take one picture every day for 365 days. october 1st might be a weird day to start, as opposed to january 1st, but october is my favorite month of the year... so why wait? so on fridays i may share that day's photo, a week's worths of photos, an old photo, or someone else's photo. i don't know. just something to look at.

that being said, i know that life happens. i may find a quote i absolutely can't wait to share with you and post it on a different day. i might not feel like saying anything on tuesday. i might want to say something on saturday. so while this might not last or might have a few exceptions, i'm going to go ahead and give it a trial run.

you in?

change is in the air

the leaves are (slowly) starting to change, the weather certainly has changed (over 20 degrees cooler than this time last week), and soon it will be my favorite month of the year - october.

the change of seasons always inspires me to make changes in my life - big and/or small.

including this blog.

stay tuned.

september's silence

i haven't had much to say this month. it's been a pretty busy month, but busy in a good, relaxing kind of way, rather than a stressful, hectic business. i was busy enjoying the last few days of summer, and eagerly anticipating the cooler weather that seemed to take it's sweet time getting here. today is the first day i can wear a hoodie, and as of friday it was still in the mid-to-upper 90's here in nashville. i hate heat, and love fall, so i was ready to see those high temperatures go.

so what have i been busy doing? so far this month i've had the privilege to attend 10 concerts* (with two more scheduled this week, that'll be 12 total this month). i've made new friends, i plan to have read 4 books by the end of the month, attended two documentary screenings (children of war and the country club - both highly recommended), a benefit for exile international, volunteered with extreme makeover: home edition, spent a weekend in kentucky for a family wedding, and hosted a jewelry party for my friend deanna.

it's been a good month. but october has been a long-time favorite of mine, and i know this year will be no exception. i'm really looking forward to everything i have planned for the month, as well as all the surprises and curve-balls life will inevitably throw.

*i use the term "concert" quite loosely. this doesn't necessarily mean paying lots of money to see a well-known band. it also includes several free outdoor shows of local bands, or friends gathered around in a living room for a house show, etc. welcome to nashville.

i'm a hypocrite.

almost five months ago,(has it really been that long?) my lovely city of nashville suffered a 500-year flood. i'm sure you know this by now. for a few weeks following the torrential downpours, all i was focused on was the flood: what do we do? how can i help besides not showering (no, really, the mayor asked us to not shower/shave/etc for a few weeks to conserve water, as one of our treatment plants was down.)? which of my neighbors need the most help? even now, five months later, two of our biggest sources of revenue (the opryland hotel and the opry mills mall) are still not open. i was constantly checking twitter, looking for places to help, listening to stories of lose, stories of hope, and finding myself frustrated by tweets that seemed irrelevant to such an important issue.

my friend alan said it best with the following RT:

RT @molesbrian I kinda just wanna shake all of you tweeting about nonsense and yell, "MY TOWN IS UNDER WATER!!!!!!"

i retweeted it myself. but this blog post isn't about nashville's flood.

it's about me. it's about us. it's about my brothers and sisters half-way around the world.

how can i be so upset at people not caring that my city is under water, when 90% of the time i don't care that children are being abducted from their homes and forced to be soldiers? how can i complain that it's 95 degrees on the first day of fall, when right now there are men, women, and children who don't even have access to clean water?

i'm a hypocrite.

it's so easy to ignore the problem when it's not in your face, a part of your daily life. so what can i do about this? what can we do? how can we make these issues impossible to ignore?

i don't really have a solution here. i can give $7 a month to mocha club. and i can give $7 a month to exile international. and so can you. and we should. it makes a difference. but sometimes, money isn't enough. i look at people like bobby bailey, who founded invisible children and the brave. here is someone who is using his talents to tell the world about these issues, and empowering others to act. but i don't have that kind of talent. i don't make films. i can't sing songs about changing the world. what do i have, besides $14 a month?

i have a blog.
i have a facebook page.
i have a twitter account.
i have a voice.
i have a government who wants to hear my voice (even if it doesn't always seem that way).

it's not fair that i live a life of luxury because i happened to be born in a certain country. it's even less fair if i choose not to speak out against the injustices of those less fortunate.

i feel like i suggest a lot of music to people

but if you only listen to one piece of musical advice from me, let it be this:

andrew ripp's new album, "she remains the same", is out on itunes today. i promise you won't regret this purchase. it's already clocked over 10 playcounts on my itunes. and if you live in any of these cities, go catch him and dave barnes live. if possible, andrew is even better live than recorded.

here's a clip of one of my favorite songs off the album, "savior":