Tag: hlsr

Uh-oh…

It is 7:20am, and I am only just climbing into bed for the night. And, of course, “for the night” now means “for not quite an hour,” because I want to see the llama and alpaca show at the livestock show this morning, and they start around 8am… yikes.

But, you know what? This was a fantastic night, followed by a great workout this morning, a hot, cleansing shower, and a long-awaited teeth-brushing.

Thank you, God, for this crazy day that was today (Thursday). Wow… thank you. May I give it all back to you through expressing your love in the world around me. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

No doubt…

… that was an awesome concert.

Gwen Stefani is another one of those artists who played an important role in my childhood. I remember singing the choruses to two of No Doubt’s songs while dancing around in the living room at our original house when I was only about four years old. They were “Spiderwebs” and “Don’t Speak”. I didn’t know what most of the lines meant, and I even had a few words wrong (“I gotta scream my phone calls,” instead of screening them, because had no idea that screening a call was something that existed), but I loved those two songs. To this day, I can still see the image I had in my mind of this woman climbing around and walking inside this massive spider web, while her landline phone was ringing in the distance. The phone was yellow, by the way. I genuinely thought she was telling a story of how she was doing crazy stuff, like walking in an actual spider web – she was out living life – instead of sitting around, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for calls. I’ve related to it that way ever since it came out almost 27 years ago, and I have no expectation of that changing at his point – if it hasn’t changed already, I think it won’t at all.

So, all that being said, Gwen Stefani is kind of on par with Ricky Martin in terms of how it played a role in my early childhood. Naturally, when she sang “Don’t Speak”, therefore, I cried a bit.

And then, for Spiderwebs a coupe songs or so later, I went nuts jumping around and dancing.

I did that on several songs, of course, many of which I had either forgotten had been Gwen Stefani’s songs or that I had never known were Gwen Stefani’s songs.

Of course, she ended the concert with “Hollaback Girl“, and I then discovered that it wasn’t, “Mmm this much. Mmm this much,” but “Mmm this my sh**. Mmm this my sh**.” Rather different lyrics, yes, and the real ones don’t actually fit musically as well as my version of them. So, I’m sticking to my original understanding of the lyrics on this one.

All in all, it was a great and fun concert. And she even declared, “Praise Jesus!” at one point, which was baller in a whole new way. And no, Blake Shelton did not show up. She said early on that he was “babysitting” her kids… and my friend said, ‘I believe that is just called ‘parenting’.’ 😛 But the concert was filled with songs, and she even went over by about ten minutes, she had packed so much music into it. It was great.

Thank you, God, for the absolute blessing that was tonight and today on all levels. Please, especially, bless those who showed love to me today in particular, that they feel your love more fully tomorrow. Please, guide us all to be your love through our lives. Help us to be who you made us to be. And thank you for this opportunity of life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Unknown dreams

Talk about dreams being manifested that we never new we had, I went to the rodeo tonight with my mom, and my brother and sister-in-law and one of my brother’s childhood best friends met us as our guests. Fancy parking pass and chute seats and all.

It was black heritage night, and it was Bun B and a whole line of black heritage rappers, which was why we had been given the tickets by some older friends of my mom’s – just not their style, you see.

Most of the music, I didn’t know myself, but I’m a fan of good music – good rhythms and lyrics and beats and all of it make for a good time for me (though I often can’t understand any words in music, not just rap) – so I was enjoying it for the most part. Though, I was quite tired.

Just as my mom and I were going to head home, a couple songs came on that I not only knew, but loved (for ridiculous reasons, obviously). And what was the one that blew my mind here?

“Ridin’”. Never had a clue I would love to hear that in concert, but here we are, and I loved it! I felt like a little kid who just got to see a herd of unicorns fly by. It was way cool. Chamillionaire and “Ridin’”, y’all…

But get this: THEN Lil Flip comes out and dives into “The Way We Ball”! Y’all… the little girl in me was delighted to have me fulfilling dreams she never even thought to dream… It was super cool!!

(By the way, if you don’t know here songs by name, look them up! It’s likely you have heard them! They were both big hits around 2005 and 2002 respectively. And I had no idea the guys were from Houston until tonight!!)

Also, fun fact, Bun B’s birthday is next Saturday, March 19!! He put on an awesome collaboration and mini-festival in just a one-hour show tonight for over 73 thousand people, and I am grateful to have been present for it. What a lovely accomplishment to have as a sort of birthday present to himself! Happy Birthday, Trill OG!! You rock.

So, thank you, God, for that very unexpected blessing. Brief as it was, it was powerful, and I am grateful.

Just wow…

Praise be! Amen!

Post-a-day 2022

March 2

Firstly, Happy Texas Independence Day!! 186 years ago today, Texas gained its independence from Mexico and became a Republic, The Republic of Texas. When it later agreed to join The Union, it maintained the right to fly its flag at equal height with the US flag, for it joined as an independent republic.

On that note, the Texas state sport is rodeo. My mom and I went to the rodeo tonight. I attended seminars all day for the Ranching and Wildlife Expo, which were awesome, and my mom joined me for the last couple, which included demonstrations and dinner from and by Prasek’s Family Smokehouse. Talk about fascinating and delicious… I got to see how to cut up a deer and a wild pig, and then I got to eat deer tamales and sausage. Wowza.

Before all that, though, when I was on a break from the sessions, I stopped at the military area at the rodeo, and ended up doing the Marines challenge on the pull-up bar. Apparently, pull-ups and chin-ups are both allowed, but I’m too much of a purist for chin-ups in a (technically) pull-up challenge. I ended up tying with the leaderboard score for females, but I was truly proud of my awesome and strict pull-ups, all will full extension and NO legs. It was a fascinating and oddly fulfilling experience to have a handful of Marines counting allowed for me as I did them. (It was also satisfying to hear their initial reactions of support to witnessing my first pull-up, as they realized that I wasn’t just some average girl in a dress.) The Sargent told me, “You have to earn this shirt.” And I did. And it was awesome. I’m the back, it has my childhood quote: Pain is weakness leaving the body. I love it (even though it’s dry fit!).

Finally, do you ever have those days where you get homely consider if you just want to skip brushing your teeth and go straight to bed? Tonight was one of those nights for me. Of course, I likely never would do that, but the consideration arose today, and big time. I am worn. out.

Goodnight!!

Post-a-day 2022

Always be humble and kind

Tonight, I bought my own real pair of western boots that not only can I wear to help work on my brother’s property, but that look amazing and totally beautiful;

my mom ended up not being able to come to the rodeo with me and our family friend, and a different friend’s cousin canceled on coming with her and her mom;

the family friend and I met up, therefore, with my friend and her mom;

the two adults (because my friend and I are the children of the group) really hit it off, like old pals;

we all four got to ride in the Grand Entry at the rodeo, on two separate wagons;

I checked for tickets to the concert one last time, and found that there were exactly two available, and right where I wanted, so I bought them;

we discovered that our seats were an error, just as I registered a text message from the ticket office telling me the same thing;

the ticket office e-mailed me even better seats in exchange and kind of as compensation (like way, way better seats);

the two seats next to the two I’d bought ended up being open, and so my friend and her mom didn’t have to split up from us after all (to go to their own two seats elsewhere in the stadium);

Tim McGraw was lovely, as ever, and shows signs only of continuing to be fabulous all around as a human being, as a musician, and as a man (a side I have come to appreciate more and more as I have grown up, especially considering the previous two parts);

Clay Walker just casually showed up to duet with Tim McGraw on one of my childhood absolute favorites (Did you know that Clay Walker is from Texas?);

we had a wonderfully easy time exiting the stadium, grounds, and parking lot, as well as getting home;

and I was lent a truck to be able to visit family next week.

All in all, it was an absolutely magnificent evening.

All week, I wondered about tonight and what to do, because I realized that this concert actually was important to me, due to my deep childhood connection to the artist and his music from back then… and, at every worry, I chose to trust God, and let go of the concern, instead evaluating my present options and doing what I felt encouraged and pulled toward when I asked God.

And then, here was tonight, like Christmas for a small child, with everything landing wonderfully into places I had never quite expected.

Nothing could have worked so well, if things had gone as planned – they still could have been quite good, but nowhere near how they turned out.

In a way, this all goes to show how life can be so much better than we anticipate or think up ourselves – perhaps some divine inspiration in more parts of my life could be just the right thing right now…

Thank you, God.

Hallelujah(!)

❤

Post-a-day 2019

How far we’ve come

I saw the light
I’ve been baptized
By the fire in your touch
And the flame in your eyes
I’m born to love again
I’m a brand new man

As these words rang out across the stadium – quite clearly, surprisingly, seeing as where we were – my lips were already moving in synch, silently matching every word since the initial “I”… and tears welled in my eyes, beginning almost immediately to overflow.

I was attending the Brooks and Dunn concert at the rodeo tonight in Houston, kind of as a celebration of my life, for my birthday – something for me, on my own.

I’d asked my mom to stick around with me, but she was ready to head home, so I was okay hanging on my own for the musicians and their music.

When I was about eight years old, I attended the Brooks and Dunn performance at the Astrodome, also for the rodeo.

During their performance, when walking around on the dirt, they pulled two ladies out from the audience to dance with them.

I remember distinctly being upset and embarrassed as the one lady proved, after two quick but failed attempts, that she could not do any sort of partner dancing, let alone the by of two-stepping one of them wanted to do with her.

Rather than rejecting the lady, reading her out for a better model – that’s actually how my brain analyzed it at the time – he just grabbed her around her waist/hips area, and swung her around in a circle or few.

My frustration at this lady for having been unprepared for such a monumental opportunity – dancing with Brooks and Dunn – was not only projected blindly, but had me consider how I would have done, if I’d been the one pulled out onto the floor…

I was rather confident that I would have been able to manage it.

However, I fully acknowledged that I was not certain.

And so I made it my business immediately after this event to make certain that I knew how to two-step and could do it with just about anybody on demand.

Fast-forward a couple decades, and see me at the concert tonight… I found it almost ironic that, though I never anticipated to be pulled out to dance with Brooks and Dunn, here I was, two decades later, likely one of the best country western dancers in the entire stadium, knowledge, ability, and a world title to prove it.

Isn’t that at least a little bit totally crazy?(!!!)?

Anyway, so I can dance, and extremely well, but that’s only part of my mentioning all of this.

When the guys began playing and singing tonight, I was in instant and somewhat constant tears (even throughout the whole show!), right?

Right.

And it occurred quickly to me, This is the power of music.

I was somehow transported to my life when I listed probably daily to Brooks and Dunn music, as I simultaneously saw all that had happened between them and now, how what felt like a lifetime and ten different people ago had somehow led me to today, to who I am today.

There was a lot of good and a decent amount of bad in there, especially early on, and it was a very, very full time all throughout.

And, somehow, here I am, experiencing it all again, while feeling empowered by the open bliss and joy for life I felt back then, reminded of the sadness of what I went through off and on, and encouraged by the fact that I have made it to here so far, and I’ve plenty more wonderful expansion and beautiful growth yet to come for myself in my life.

All of this from music, specific songs and notes and voices and instruments all put together in a certain way, as though, almost, specifically and intentionally with me in mind.

It was of the best kind of medicine.

And this reminds me of how my high school band director always used to tell us that music is a language… tonight, their music spoke directly to me, throughout every place within me.

Post-a-day 2019