We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot. Eleanor Roosevelt
I really have to stop being such a bitch. I don’t know how to stop being such a shithead. I told my husband to go F himself and I really didn’t want to I just can’t seem to stop myself. When everything is messed up I have a tendancy to pick on ppl that r close to me. I suck ass………..
I wish I could be all sunshine and flowers for you but life just doesn’t work that way. I adore you all and I am trying my best to be smiley, but at the end of the day I am crying.
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. Dante Alighieri
I am in a crisis and I don’t think I realize it yet. I know I’m falling apart, I see little bits and pieces of me lying around and don’t quite know how to pick them up and put them back into place. Here a piece, there a piece, everywhere a piece piece. I talk to people everyday and act like everything is ok but it’s not. I am in pain and there aren’t enough showers to wash everything away. There is a huge part of me that wants to be left alone…………..and yet, and yet…I’m a suffocating flower, suffocating under Mom’s thumb, Michael’s thumb. Everyone wants a piece of me, when do I get a piece of myself????
Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician’s music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind. Charles de Lint
Yes my friends, it has finally happened! I have lost my mind. I’m not entirely sure where it went, but if you see a gray mound of jelly wandering around could you give it back please. It doesn’t have any ID. It doesn’t know exactly where it’s supposed to be, it’s only lost gray matter wandering aimlessly. If you happen to find my mind please ring the doorbell and run, as fast as you can, because as soon as my mind comes back I have no idea what’s going to happen. Ever since Gracie died I have not been myself, you know that saying you never know what you have until it’s gone. Well, believe me it stands true. I have only been functioning on about 1 piston since she left. I can’t focus on much, although I try. I miss her so much and just knowing she is gone makes life that much less brighter…Sorry, I don’t mean to ruminate. I just feel so much more alone than I did a week ago.
With that I leave you with Dokken…..
“You’ve got to follow your passion. You’ve got to figure out what it is you love–who you really are. And have the courage to do that. I believe that the only courage anybody ever needs is the courage to follow your own dream.” Oprah Winfrey
Well, it is back to Business as usual. I am playing tonight at The Crescent Brewery with a new Lead/fill guitar player that I hired, Bill. I hope everything works out and we have a really good turnout. Things have been so busy this month that I have only had time to add in one new song, “I Don’t Want to Know” by Fleetwood Mac. This month I promised myself that I would try to add in som more Celtic/Welsh tunes and some other stuff. I have gone back to work as a professional house painter and have been working with Joe Rubens and hios crew. So far it is going well. I like the crew and am having fun with them. Other than that life is pretty good my friends! With that I leave you with Fleetwood Mac…
You and I will meet again, When we’re least expecting it, One day in some far off place, I will recognize your face, I won’t say goodbye my friend, For you and I will meet again. Tom Petty
Today is Gracie’s funeral and even as I sit writing this the tears are pouring from my eyes. It is so hard to say good-bye. In this life I have very few friends that I am really close to, I have a lot of aquaintainces, but maybe a handful of people that are so close to me they know me better than I know myself. Gracie was just like that, she would call me on my BS when she knew I was wrong and she always supported me, as a friend and with my music and art. She would never leave my house or hers, or anywhere for that matter without getting a hug from me, she demanded it and for her I would gladly give it. The fact of the matter is I don’t want to say good-bye, I don’t want her to be gone. I want to hear her funny laughter, I want to hear her voice, I want to look into her eyes. I know that she is not feeling any pain anymore, In know her body is finally at rest that was, in the end ravaged by diabetes and numerous strokes. For that I am grateful, I would never want for her to continue suffering and in Grace’s own way she left this Earth when she knew it was her time. Grace will forever hold a special place in my heart and in my soul. She may be gone but she will never, ever be forgotten.
Aquarius Horoscope for week of April 25, 2013
“I prefer by far warmth and softness to mere brilliancy and coldness,” wrote Anais Nin one of her early diaries. “Some people remind me of sharp dazzling diamonds. Valuable but lifeless and loveless. Others, of the simplest field flowers, with hearts full of dew and with all the tints of celestial beauty reflected in their modest petals.” I suspect that even if you normally love cold brilliancy, Aquarius, you will need an abundance of warmth and softness in the coming days. To attract the best possible embodiments of this influence, get clear about your favorite forms of it. Be picky! Don’t accept sloppy sentimentality.
Plant orchids on a strip-mined hill. Sip holy water blessed by a smart teenage girl. Bear in mind that you are the Chosen One, and so is everyone else.
Today is a great day, not only of healing and reconciliation, but also coming together. Winthrop Rockefeller
Yesterday was an absolutely wonderful day. My daughter showed up extra early to help me work on the house so after B-fast we got right to it. We spent the day listening to music and laughing and talking. She did great with the scraping and caulking while I cut in the trim around the picture window and facia. After we went grocery shopping and she stayed for dinner. Here are the results of our labor….
I am happy and can’t wait for the whole thing to be done, and then it’s on to the interior. With that I leave you with the Beatles…
The Farwell
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.
I finished making the poster for Gracie’s Funeral and Celebration of her life. It is for everyone who wants to to sign and then I am going to have it framed to give to Dan, her husband. The poem at the right hand corner is posted above. I was asked to put topgether two songs for the funeral for her by me so I decided on “Landslide” and “Nights in White Satin”. I am going to miss her so very much….
With that I leave you with my versions of Landslide and NIghts in White Satin….
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shallbegin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. Kahlil Gibran
I don’t even know where to start this blog today. One of my dearest friends and my daughter’s God-Mother passed on Wednesday night from most likely a stroke. I got the news yesterday afternoon and I am still in shock I think. I have gone through the tears, the rage, the pain and the sadness. Gracie was sucha beautiful person and had the most giving spirit. In the 24 years I have known her she was an unfailing friend and even when we got mad at each other we always worked it out and maintained our friendship. Gracie was the kind of person who could make you laugh, make you so mad that you just could spit nails, she loved to give and was always giving me special gifts. The very last thing she gave me was a singing bear. I have to go through today to scan pictures of her for the wake, my friend Brenda is coming by to help me with it. Here are the last pictures of her from last Christmas and I believe I told everyone then that she was not doing well. All I can tell you is that my heart is broken and I hurt…I will leave you with Terry Jacks….
“The trouble with our age is that it is all signpost and no destination,” said writer Louis Kronenberger. I’m concerned that you may have fallen under the sway of this kind of myopia, Aquarius. A steady stream of useful tips and clues has been appearing, but you’re missing some of them. Your long-range goals aren’t sufficiently clear, so you don’t always recognize the significance of new revelations. Here’s the cure: In your imagination, create a vivid picture of your next big destination.
The Maasai people of Kenya don’t have running water, toilets, or electricity, and their per capita income is $300 a year. They use cattle dung as plaster in building their homes because the scent helps repel lions, which dislike it, from venturing too close. And yet they are as happy with their lives as Forbes’ magazine’s “400 richest Americans” are with theirs — even though the latter may live in 10,000-square-foot palaces withstained glass windows, French patio doors, limestone kitchen counter tops, spas, wine cellars, and Olympic-sized swimming pools.
This assertion comes from “Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being,” a report done by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin E. P. Seligman. On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is “extremely dissatisfied,” 4 is “neutral,” and 7 means “extremely satisfied,” the Maasai, the Inuit of northern Greenland, and the wealthiest Americans all scored 5.8.
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Newt Gingrich
I can not believe I did it, but I did and I am so proud of my self! I was waiting and waiting for Aron to send me the Welsh translation of the song I wrote called “No Feeling” and he never sent me the full translation. Soooooooooo, I found a web site that translates for you. It is done, including pronunciations, which took me 2 hours by itself. It does no good to write the words down if you can’t sing them properly. Well, it’s done! It is now called “Dim Taymlad”. The only thing I haven’t done is sat down and actually played/sang it in Welsh, which I will do tomorrow. I am so happy, and I am even more pleased that I did it myself. The real test comes when I sing it in public, hopefully someone won’t come and tell me I have been singing about a cow in the barn that needs milked LOL:) It was a great day my friends…..WEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 🙂
With that I leave you with Jimmy Cliff….
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. Edgar Allan Poe
My wonderful friend at Hope The Happy Hugger gave me a brilliant idea! Her topic today was Lists. I made a list of my 5 goals for the near future and on this list was to finish my “Dream Scape”. I have been working on this collage for a little over a year now. How it works is that when I have a dream that sticks with me after I wake up I write it down in my journal and if the images are somehow strange or disturbing I find magazine and newspaper clipping or draw images of the dream and add them to my “Dream Scape” collage. Some of my dreams include numbers or words so I write the words in an anagram so as not to betray anyon that I may dream about. I had stopped doing it for a bit, but I have found that it’s time for me to move on to another piece of work. So, my friends, it is my goal to finish up the “Dream Scape” in the next month because I have other ideas swirling around in this busy mind of mine. Here is the pic of the “Dream Scape” as it sits today. I will post more as I add more images to the collage….
With that I leave you with Yngwie Malmsteen….
Go with the flow!-Ancient Hippy Saying
The wind is really blowing today so I will be spending my day indoors. I feel like I can accomplish a lot today! I am going to spend my day working on music today and making a lasagna, YUM!!!!!!!!!! My friend in Wales, Aron Elias, is sending me the translation of a song I wrote into Welsh from English and i am looking forward to hear what it sounds like in Welsh. I am also going to spend today translating Llongau Caernarfon back in to Welsh. So those are my plans for the day. I hope this day finds you happy and well 🙂 With that I leave you with Simon and Garfunkel…
As you may know I am in the process of repainting my poor old house. I am doing it alone so I have to do it in small chunks, which means scraping and prepping first, then going back and painting the body. The very last thing I will do is the trim. Here is the right front 1/3 of the house. The colors on the trim on the window sill are the test colors. We have decided to go with the green on the left. Here are the before and after pics….
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.” ― Benjamin Franklin
The weather was not cooperating yesterday, so the only thing I accomplished was to secure a PT/FT job with a local house painter. It was completely unnessesary for me to get a job, but I wanted to have a little something extra to achieve some personal goals over the next few months. The writing has been slow the last two weeks and the only other thing on my plate really is working on the acoustic project. I found a Fleetwood Mac song that I am going to do called “I Don’t Want To Know” and I have asked a friend of mine to translate a song I wrote into Welsh for me. The only other thing is I am translating Llongau Caernarfon back from English to Welsh. It’s beautiful outside so I am taking mom to get her haircut and then I think we are going to go to lunch. After that it’s back into the painter’s whites I go, I roll, I roll, it’s painting the house I roll….LOL 🙂 With that I leave you with FM…..
Well the first 1/3 of the front has been scraped, caulked and puttied. I am just getting ready to cut in the trim, etc…. I’m just waiting for it to warm up outside. Then after I get done with all the cutting in my baby will get it’s first 2 coats of fresh paint that it has seen in probably 20 years. The hardest part of a job like this is all the prep work. The painting goes fast. I have chosen a hunter green for the trim color and can’t wait to see how she looks when she’s all done! 🙂
Boy am I ever slow………………But, I thought I would share some of the pictures from the Easter Sunday we spent at Mike’s nephew, Paul’s house. I never get a break from cooking dinner so this was a nice treat….
Mike’s Niece Carrie and her daughter
Dillon, Mike’s Great-Nephew
Me & Mike’s sister Judy
Mike, Judy his sister & his nephew Paul
Mike, Judy and his Niece Carrie and his Great-Neice
Stick em’ Up Pardner
The hunt is on for eggs!
I Love This Song….My Addition to Dolly’s Music Passion Game and of course you have to love the Muppets! 🙂
Determination gives you the resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you. Denis Waitley
Well, after speaking with Brother Bob, my bass player from Cymry, I have decided to keep the acoustic project going. Just because things went wrong for EZ Street there is no reason that I shouldn’t keep my solo project going. After he talked me through it he said for me not to give up on myself, and I won’t. Thank you Brother Bob!
I am on sabbatical as of right now, been too busy to think of about my OWN needs as of late. Jim Diamond
I have chosen to take a sabbatical for a multitude of reasons. I have blown up my old Facebook page and created a brand spanking new one under an alias. I am also not answering calls from anyone but my closest friends and my family. The reasons for this are many. Being a performer and being in the public eye is very difficult. The problem lies in the fact that I love music and I love playing and singing, however, there is this problem. The problem, and the part that hurts me the most, is that people can be very hurtful and people can be vindictive. Frankly my heart can not take that kind of pain. I am going to continue on doing music in one form or another, but for all intensive purposes EZ Street will never exist again. I just need a lot of space, room to find out where I am going on my musical journey, room to grow and evolve. Since I have made this choice over a week ago I have found a peace and solitude I haven’t felt in over a year. So, my friends, the journey begins…..
With that I leave you with one of my fav Boston songs that kind of exemplifies what I am feeling….
Aquarius Horoscope for week of April 11, 2013
In Samuel Beckett‘s novel Molloy, the main character talks about a long overland journey he took on foot and by bicycle. Before the trip, he had read somewhere that when people are lost in a forest, they often imagine they’re moving in a straight line when in fact they’re going in a circle. That’s why, during his own travels, he intentionally walked in a circle, hoping thereby to go straight. Although this might sound like a loopy strategy, Aquarius, I think it will make sense for you to adopt in the coming week. Your apparent path may be very different, maybe even opposite, to your actual path.
I invite you to keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you . . . the steady flow of benefits bestowed on you by people you know and don’t know. What works for you? What makes you feel at home in the world?
To achieve what the Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind,” you dispense with all preconceptions and enter each situation as if seeing it for the first time. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,” wrote Shunryu Suzuki in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “but in the expert’s there are few.”
As much as I love beginner’s mind, though, I advocate an additional discipline: cultivating a beginner’s heart. That means approaching every encounter imbued with a freshly invoked wave of love that is as pure as if you’re feeling it for the first time.
I have just finished watching “The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha” on Netflix and it was such a touching documentary of the Buddha’s life and journey from having everything a person could offer, to throwing it all away and going on a journey to find answers to all of the many questions he had, to suffering. Finally coming to the realization that all the knowledge he needed was already deep within him. I was going to go to the Dharma Center last night, but I changed my mind and am continuing on with my reading. I ordered the “Tao Te Ching” for my Kindle today. I have decided that I can do this journey on my own. Everything I saw on the documentary today confirmed what I already know, Be Your Own Light! With that I leave you with the Rolling Stones….
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~Henry David Thoreau, 1854
I am going on sabbatical for awhile, how long I do not know. All I know is that I have some questions that need answers. What this means is I am at the end of one journey and beginning another one that is entirely different. It means that I have disabled my Facebook account permanently and I am not going to be performing publicly for awhile. I am also not answering phone calls from anyone but my family and closest friends. One thing I am doing is going to The Dharma Center tonight to begin the next evolution. I recently finished reading “The Gospel of Buddha” and suddenly realized that I needed to actually go to a teacher if I ever expect to achieve the enlightenment I so dearly want. One other thing I will continue to do is my blog, after all, this is, more-or-less, my journal of self-discovery.
With that I leave you with Alan Parsons….
American author William Faulkner won a Nobel Prize for literature, an indication that he had abundant talent. The prose he wrote was often experimental, cerebral, and complex. He was once asked what he would say to readers who found it difficult to grasp his meaning “even after reading it two or three times.” His reply: “Read it four times.” My counsel to you, Aquarius, is similar. When faced with a challenging event or situation that taxes your understanding, keep working to understand it even past the point where you would normally quit. There will be rewards, I promise. You’re got more strength and intelligence than you realize.
I found Rob Brezney’s horoscope for me rather ironic. I am going to visit the Dharma Center this evening in my further search for understanding, not only of myself but of my journey. I am putting music on hold for awhile because it causes me as much pain as it gives me joy, an exact 50/50 split. So, my friends, I am on a self jouney, a sabbatical of sorts. Wish me luck. 🙂
With that I leave you with Blind Faith…
A fish study that pales in comparison to the brainwashing of humans
A Writer with a Difference
A great WordPress.com site
A great WordPress.com site
We eat. We cook, We try try. We Laugh. We explore. We learn. We nom. And yum. :)
Enjoy being you!
The Spiral Weaver exploring Mysteries of Life through Everyday Wisdom
Fashion and Fun after Fifty
Le blog givré, pétillant et coloré pour tout ce qui me passe par la tête : mode, beauté, art, culture, cuisine, politique, société... / The frosted, sparkling and colorful blog for all that pass me through the head : fashion, beauty , art, culture, cooking, politics, society...
From the literary and legislative trenches.
Travel, Art, Stories, Photos, Stories, Film, Videos, Animation, Drawings, Writing
Inhale Joy, Exhale Gratitude
Everyday, Everywhere We Are Guided Towards Happiness
My images are different, like your brand needs to be.
365 days a year, one song at a time.
Steve's body of work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element.
Transforming Education, and Leadership, Transcending Where We Each Are in Life
Just another WordPress.com site
Thoughts, words, random me...
I like to support interaction
Proverbs, Jokes, Humor, Sayings, Quotes
Just another WordPress.com site
Life is a Revelation...be encouraged
Electronic thoughts Follow me and enjoy !
The Journey
Poetry, story and real life. Once soldier, busnessman, grandfather and Poet.
Just another WordPress.com site
Where derision meets concision.
the holiday-grabbers travel adventure
Just another WordPress.com site
Just another WordPress.com site
Public Discourse
"Where did the full moon leave its sack of flour tonight?"—Pablo Neruda
A Collection of Oddities Calculated to Amuse, Enlighten and Horrify.
not the same procedure as every day
New music reviews and interviews from a music nerd, finding, reviewing and interviewing the best new and undiscovered music that Earth has to offer.
Could be worse, you could be reading the NME....
"Where Less is More"
Exploring Consensual Reality
CYMRY 