On Saturday, Artur (my husband) and I headed off to visit his family (brother, Celso; sister-in-law, Steph; niece; nephew; and sister, Idilia.) Now, I have a confession to make: I usually dread these visits. I usually fail to implement the brilliant suggestion Ariel & Shya make about doing things as if they were your own idea. Instead, I usually sit in their living room, or in their garden, and make small talk while I count the minutes until we can leave. For, while I love Idilia very much and am very close to her, the rest of the family I have just never connected with at all. I’ve given myself many reasons for this, reasons that mostly allow the responsibility to fall outside of myself! : we’re so different, we have nothing in common, they’re not interested in me, I’m not interested in them, we don’t care about the same things, they’re boring, they just talk small talk, there is no chance to get deeper with them – no chance to make a real connection… So, every time I would go, while holding tightly to my judgments, my heart closed to any other possibility of what it might be like to be with them. Well, the weekend started out with me still like this, and, as we set off to drive south, Artur and I started bickering a bit, and I realised it was because I was resisting the situation and blaming him for it. So I stopped, right then, apologised, and made a commitment to myself to embrace the trip, the people and choose to actually have fun!

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Recently, I’ve been searching for great musicians to create a band, and I recorded a demo track to present “my sound”. I recorded it on my computer in my living room. I sang, played and arranged everything on it. It was so much fun to write and record! I’m working on more demo songs and getting in touch with many musicians in the New York area. I’m very excited about it all. I’ve been receiving lots of positive feedback on it. As music has come alive in my life again, I’ve also been taking a very cool songwriting class with some really lovely people at Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York. I’m learning so many different ways to write songs and so much about the music industry. I might even attend a songwriting camp in Nashville one of these weekends. It’s all an adventure!

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