Mardi Gras Madness

Well folks, its that time of year again. I adore Mardi Gras and because of this fact I will not be practicing or blogger for the next couple of weeks. Instead, I will be drinking/parading/dancing/laughing with a little bit of work thrown in there too. 


Happy Mardi Gras and Le bon Temp Roule! 

Are you hardcore enough?

I'm in one of those, "screw it, it's too hard, and you should just save yourself any further embarrassment" kinda moods. It's probably because of my lack of sleep from the night shift so I'm trying to ignore it... we'll see. 


I'm sitting here listening to Cut Copy instead of the music I'm supposed to be spending the kid's nap time practicing. I wish that I could just be a lead singer of a rock and roll band. Yes, I just said rock and roll band. I mean, this is the music that I mostly listen to so it's only natural, right? The only problem is I don't play an instrument and this dream would require me putting a band together... not going to happen. And I have another issue. 


I think I may be getting more of a thirty-something mentality rather than a twenty-something, and I'm just not that cool anymore. I look back at my early twenties and think, "Wow, did I really do that?" which is a sure fire sign that your just not that cool anymore. I used to actually live a credible rock and roll lifestyle. Now, I'm a disneyfied version of my old self... that still likes to drink. Also, I find myself becoming increasingly annoyed with these "hipsters." I'm not really sure if I was ever an actual hipster, but one of the main reasons I think that I may have been is my staunch denial of ever being one, total hipster reaction. BUT, I was not obsessed with being so fucking cool like a lot of these hipsters I encounter. This I know! I digress, the point is I would love to adorn myself in my coolest garb and wail into the microphone as a shake my hair in my face, but that ship has sailed. All in all, I think I'm ok with that. 


Here is a video of one of my favorite local rock groups that is, along with my more hardcore self, no longer. It brings me back to the good old days...huh...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Ah, Valentines Day... sike!(Do people still say that?My guess is no.) I promise not to write anything about love on this February 14th. No, today the subject is time. As in, where in the fuck does it go? 

One of my biggest challenges with this new endeavor is that I'm a working mother of two little girls(a three year old and three month old) and my husband, who is also a nurse, has to work an opposite schedule for child care reasons. After all responsibilities have been addressed, there is about 0.5 seconds left in the day to devote to music and blogging about music. The reality is that priorities have to change, and I have to accept that sometimes I can't get it all done. 

So on that note, I am making this post short and sweet. I managed to sneak in about 15 minutes yesterday to record a song. Although I promised not to WRITE anything about love, I didn't say anything about SINGING!

Sorry, I couldn't resist... 

Idea of the Day

For some reason, every time I put on the TV lately it seems like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is showing. I love this movie and I LOVE Marilyn. This movie inspires me to want to be a sexy lounge singer. My vision is me doing a sort of Marilyn meets Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys type show. The hair, the makeup, the DRESSES, I mean, talk about Ah-mazingly fun. And of course, the singing would be important too... I would totally go see a show like that. Would you?


So I'm struggling a bit with feeling like a raging narcissist for starting this blog. It is strange to have a website devoted entirely to my own ambitions. However, my intentions are that this blog will be inspirational to anyone following. I suppose that it will take some time to stop feeling embarrassed about posting poor quality videos of me singing. In the words of the wonderful Miss Marilyn Monroe,"Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius and it is better to be absolutely ridiculous then absolutely boring."

Wedding singer anyone?

My lovely sister-in-law posted this video of me singing for their wedding. I think the wedding singer thing is a great idea to make quick money doing something I love. How do you market yourself as a wedding singer? hum....

Self Deprecation is a Bitch

There is a fine line between productive self criticism and obsessive self criticism. I think I crossed it long ago. I can name 50 negatives about myself to the 1 positive. If someone were to say to me, "Hey Leah, what is really great about you?" My response would be something like "well nothing is really 'great' per say, but I'm an alright mother and I can sing ok BUT......" follow list of negatives. This attitude toward myself is a big barrier to success in any area of life. And again, I don't want to raise my daughters to believe that it is normal or healthy to be so hard on yourself. Upon further reflection about why I quit singing, there is the glaringly obvious reason that deep down I have felt that no one would want to listen. If I had a bad day singing or got the smallest bit of criticism then all of a sudden I was delusional to think that I could ever really be a singer. This trait of mine carries over into all aspects of life. Even in nursing I am greatly hindered by the thoughts in my head that say, "you will never be as good of a nurse as------ because you are not that (insert adjective.)" Anyway, I feel that addressing these issues is just as important as practice, if not more important. You have to be able to see through the rain to see the rainbow, right? 


So on another subject, I have been looking at craigslist musician adds. My original thought was that I would respond to anything that seemed halfway promising. I think I may have to revise that plan. Most adds are looking for a singer for their cover band, which is fine. However, when I go to respond to these adds I am stopped by the image of me singing Proud Mary on Bourbon with a bunch of sixty year old men(nothing against 60 year olds.)I don't know, I guess it couldn't hurt to at least explore some of these posts. After all, beggars can't be choosers... rollin, rollin, rollin down the river....

Day 1

First, I am so excited about all the positive responses and support I have received thus far. I have to be honest. There was a part of me that was really worried that this might be the cheesiest idea I've ever had, but now I'm totally pumped. 


So today I was brainstorming about what to do now. I decided that the obvious place to begin is with practice, practice, practice... But then I thought, practice what? I have a background in classical music so I would need to drag some of that old stuff from my memory, you know, to get the wheels turning again so to speak. But I don't want to just sing the classic stuff. I am very interested in exploring the whole jazz genre. I don't really have a lot of experience with this type of music but I did record a couple of jazz tracks like 7 years ago that turned out pretty good. Of course, all copies of that demo have disappeared from the face of the earth. My parents even lost their copy. Anyway, I have decided to pick 4 or 5 songs from both genres to practice. I will be posting those selections at a later date. 


Ok. The last part of this post was not planned, but I thought it would be a good addition. I spent some of the day singing random songs while the girls napped. Then I got the idea to record myself with my phone so I could listen to myself better. THEN I got the idea to post it on here. Soooo here it is. It is not that great(a few really pitchy moments and a cat in the background), but that is what this thing is all about. I can't improve or go anywhere if I am afraid of my imperfections. 


For your listening pleasure....

The History

This is my first attempt at a blog. Not really sure what format this whole thing is gonna take, but gotta start somewhere. How about the beginning. Here goes:

I am starting this blog in a creative attempt to follow through with a "dream",for lack of better word, that I simply cannot force from my consciousness. I have learned throughout my adulthood how to accomplish a "goal", but a "dream" is entirely different. A "dream" implies that something is too good to be true and therefore illogical to attempt, to me anyway. The problem with this "dream" is that it will not go away. It has been with me since I can remember. I have tried and tried to ignore/deny/procrastinate/nay say this damn thing into a lock box in my mind for years with no sustained luck. So here I am. 


The particular "dream" that I am writing about is to get back into singing, preferably making a little money while doing it. Most people who have only known me the past 5 years or so don't even know that singing used to be a large part of who I was. I have been singing since childhood. However, there was a series of events(partying, self exploration, boys, work, babys, etc...) that lead to me giving up this passion. At the heart of this abandonment is a big fat fear of failure, and a feeling of not worthiness that is really the root of the problem. It's been easier to say, "well I coulda..., but I didn't really try." The thing is I don't want to tell my daughters when they are older that I don't sing anymore because I never really tried. I want to set an example that the outcome is not the important thing. I am learning  that there are worse things than failure. The fear of living with regret is far greater. 


The purpose of this blog is to help hold me accountable for following through with this "dream". I don't have a specific vision or way of getting there yet, but I am going to use this blog to document my trying. I don't anticipate most entries being as serious as this first one because this is not a goal to achieve, but rather an experiment to see if I can really be a wife, mom, nurse, AND singer, hence the name of the blog. I will end on this note. When I first decided to go into nursing I heard several times, "So what about singing(I was a music major and originally moved to New Orleans to sing)? Are you going to be a singing nurse?" To which I replied, "Why Not?"