Monday, July 20, 2009

My Defense Mechanisms

I have come to learn that when faced with hard times, my dreams seem to know how to calm my spirit and give me peace.

Last night I dreamt of: Johnny Depp

I never dream of him. I usually dream of Jack Sparrow(though he did make a cameo last night...lol) But something must have set off a trigger to dream of him.

So, onward, ho!

I was in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie(go figure.....) and I had to play one of the women Jack was talking too. I had to wear this peachy/pinky frilly dress and had to fight for his attention with another woman. Needless to say, he chose both of us, but I was the one that got to wrapp my arms around his waist.

As we exited off the scene, the director yelled cut, but Johnny(Jack), the other girl and I just kept walking to the dressing rooms. We hung out with a bunch of people and unwound.

I thanked Johnny for his patience with my lack of acting skills and he said that I did great for never having a gig before, not to mention my favorite pirate. I asked him how he knew that- he pointed to my dressing room. It wasn't hard to figure out. Ha.

Later that night, I headed to some festival where a friend of mine was doing karaoke. I had to travel through this large crowd and go past a band to get to the tent where she was. I finally made it and she through me up for "No One Else on Earth" from Wynonna Judd. I hadn't done that song in so long, but she said I would know it once I jumped in. I started in , and the crowd gathered round. They hooped and hollered as the song ended and wanted more. Dorri told them they would have to wait a song or two till I got up again. So they hung around.

I chatted with a couple people and a line of people came walking past. I recognized Johnny right away and called out his nickname he let me give him so I wouldn't give him away. I didn't want him to get hurt from screaming fans nor did he. "JD!" I yelled. He turned and looked my way.

He headed over and I quickly made stride with him to block him from curious eyes. Good. No one had seen him. I sat and talked with him and told him that I was going to be singing and he would get to see me in my confort zone. He was excited and then my name got called. I gave him a smile and he asked if I was nervous cuz he was there. "Pffft" I said, waving my hand to him, "Honey, this is like bread and butter." I got up and headed in front of the screen.

"Whatcha got me going?" I asked Dorri. My eyes grew wide in terror. "I can't sing this! I have never done it before!" She told me to relax, and it will come to me.

"At last...." I began to sang and the crowd turned and wooed. "Bear with me, I have never done this one before," I rattled out in the short 4 beat measure. "My loooovvve has come along...."

I smiled when I saw Johnny nod and sit at attention. I focused all my attention on him and made it through the song with ease.

I walked over to him and he got up and pulled me in an embrace and pulled me out on the dance floor. I laid my head on his shoulder and placed my hand over his heart, where he placed his over mine. "Won't Van be upset if she sees you like this with me?" I questioned. "No," he whispered. "I talk about you all the time like you are my little sister and from what she has heard, she loves you and can't wait to meet you." I looked up to him, smiled and placed my head back on his shoulder.

Then I woke up.

Dreams have a way of comforting you in times of trouble and need. This dream prepared me for watching my parents St. Bernard pass on today. I have great memories of him, but I have comfort knowing that he will be well and he will be out of pain. It's going to be hard the first couple days, but the happy memories will soon take over.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Great Are You

There are no words to express the wonderful time and uplifting experience I had last weekend in Nashville.

For those of you who don't/didn't know, I headed down to Nashville to meet up with a bunch of amazing people! The downhomies, AKA extreme fans of the band downwhere. downhere is a Christian Band (you should check them out at www.downhere.com) and we had our first Downhomie Gathering in Nashville which we dubbed downhomiepalooza. Yah, it's a mouthful, but there was never a dull moment!

I couldn't wait to finally meet the people that I "talk" to daily on the boards. We met Thursday night, hung out and played Apples to Apples. After the first 20 minutes of awkwardness, you couldn't shut us up or separate us the rest of the weekend!

Friday morning, we headed over to Feed the Children to do some service work. I was expecting it to be like Feed the Starving Children where you stand in a line and put your little scoop of food in a bag and it gets shipped all over the world. This was different. We boxed up lots and lots of Crocs shoes and prepared boxes for the next group to fill. Jeremy and Glenn from the band came and helped and I was surprised on our break to see Jason and Marc! It was such a great time. I am sure that they were scared to be meeting up with 20-something "fans". But I hope we proved them wrong and showed them that we really do know how to control our "fan-isms".

Later that night we headed to the Centricity Music building and got to speak with Steve Ford who is the Marketing Manager and John Mays who is the Vice Prez of the Record label. Centricity is the label of downhere. We were asked numerous marketing questions and basically were told that we are now part of the Marketing/Street Team. YAY!

We headed to dinner with the band and the Centricity Staff. I wanted to chat with MArc, since I don't get to talk to him much and I wanted to get to know him more. I ended up chatting and sitting across from Jason and John Mays and I am grateful for that. I had great time chatting with them.

After dinner, we headed back to Centricity and ate THE MOST delectable cupcakes on the face of the planet from Ivey's Cakes. It was like heaven on earth! Once situated, we got a private showing from downhere with a bunch of songs that WE requested. It was awesome!

Then, we were surprised with an armful of goodies!
1. A photo album to write our "yearbook" letters in from Gina.
2. A lovely tote from Jess Lewis who is the owner of www.tolivebeautiful.com
3. A notebook with the Centricity logo from the Centricity people
4. A prerelease of Matt Papa's new CD (which is AWESOME!)
5. Annnnnnddd.....downhere's new Christmas CD!!!!! We have been trying to get the guys talk all day about it, but most were pretty mum...lol

Needless to say, our cool, calm collected selves turned into fangirls. It was awesome. It was hard to go to bed that night and we hung out til 1am

Saturday was "us" day. We hung out all day long, explored Franklin, then headed to Opry Mills Mall and did a scavenger hunt that was crazy good!! And then back to the hotel for more fun. Poor Carson was stuck with Emily, Hannah, Kate and I and downhere Karaoke the whole weekend. Though, I think he was enjoying it immensly!

Sunday we had church in our room and it was hard to say goodbye. I love these people so much like my extended family, I would do anything for them. It was great to finally get to meet them all and hang and I can't wait to do it again. It was an experience I will never forget.

God was moving through all of us and I am grateful that he brought us all together to experience it. We all had one thing in common: downhere, but we left knowing each other better than we could have imagined. And only God could have helped plan something this good. It was awesome to see God in all of us. Thanks to Gina for putting this all together. You ROCK, girl!

Ahoy! Thanks for stopping by. Sometimes life should be an open book and here you will find that true. My mind is always on full speed and I will be heading over many waves. I hope this journey is as much of an adventure for you as it is for me~ ~Mindy