Believe it or not, this tree drops brown crispy dry leaves year round. I should have taken a before picture so that you could see my clean up project. Now that it's done, you see how dead the grass is. We go through this every year. It's still too hot to seed the for fall/winter grass. It's still 104 degrees here in Phoenix this week. This morning started off beautiful allowing me to tackle the ton of leaves and dead grass thatch clean-up. Along with trimming the dead branches out of my oleanders on my side yard. 
I actually don't mind doing yard work at all. It's a good workout! Monday-Wednesday, I worked on a fun musical project. It didn't turn out musically as good as I had hoped it could. Who knew that this song, would be so hard for me vocally?
Anyway, I decided after countless attempts to get a good take, to just get the vocals there. I decided that the lyrics are so powerful that maybe you can overlook the less than perfect vocal effort? Maybe, you can see past that and look into my heart a little bit... Since it was an audio track, I created a video from my own pictures and home videos to post to my YouTube channel. I'm thrilled with the outcome! I personally think it is artful in and of itself.
Creating a video from family gatherings and everyday life with my music in the background, is my own kind of art! If I'm honest, I'm not at all sure that anyone else would find any enjoyment and worth in any of my endeavors. Any and all art is so subjective!
My homemade videos may only be my unique way of scrapbooking. It sure is entertaining to me! I guess the answer in all of this should be obvious by the lack of views I get on my homemade everything iMovie creations? Within minutes of uploading this new video to my YouTube channel, someone watched and thought enough of my endeavor to comment on it. It was nice to hear!
If you at all interested, here is the link...
I've had some interesting occurrences while trying to cover John Lennon songs. I haven't spoken about them because I was trying to wrap my head around theses rather supernatural events. I also don't wish to be pegged ridiculous or somehow not credible.
I just kind of wonder about these strange happenings and I try to make logical sense of them. When I Cover songs of people that have passed away, or are living for that matter... I often question myself about what they might think of my attempts to put my own stamp on something they created and made great. I want to assume that my spirit of great love and adoration for the artist would be obvious and would be perceived by anyone looking in, as such!
Well, about four Christmases ago, I set about trying to do my best cover of John Lennons', "So This Is Christmas". I moved all of my equipment into my front room among my three Christmas Trees for ambience lol. I worked hard to get all of my ducks in a row to get a good take!
Production always takes awhile! Warming up and coming up with good takes is not easy! Shooting a video looks easy but it's not as easy as it appear especially all by yourself. Anyway during the day, I was video taping and creating the SoundCloud audio. I did hours of playing and trying to get it just right.
During the audio recording portion of my cover, while I was playing the song, I suddenly lost all power to my keyboard! With my iPad still recording I can be heard saying "what the heck?! Hello? What's going on? This is weird hello? " I got up to troubleshoot this crazy odd occurrence. Fearing that I blew a fuse or that my keyboard was malfunctioning... I suddenly realized that my keyboard had been unplugged from my amplifier... I was the only one home and I had been sitting there playing for hours and suddenly, my keyboard was unplugged? I had a hard time finishing that cover. It still makes me scratch my head... Huh??? What the heck happened there lol??? By the way, I kept that audio track for a few years before I deleted it... That, was so strange...
I haven't even thought about that event at all in years. We have road construction going on in the neighborhood so I shut my studio door to cancel out any construction noise during recording.I have hung my costume jewelry on the back of the door to keep my necklaces from tangling lol.
While I was practicing this cover- Again, all alone in the house, I hear what I deduce is my cat jumping on the closed door. I'm assuming that the cat wanted to come in the room. It was a loud, jumping and thumping noise that made the door shake and my jewelry swayed and rattled against the door loudly. I stopped playing and ran to open the door. When I looked out, nobody was there! I checked down the hall for the cat... my kitty had been sleeping in my closet! Oh my I was perplexed to say the least! I still am... ????
Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you... Think me nuts or crazy, these things happened and I have no reasonable explanation for them. Talk about "Mind Games"!
