**PUBLIC** Pulling myself out of C.H.A.O.S.

or, as FlyLady so eloquently put it: Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.

I did it. I subscribed. And you know what? It feels pretty good. Yeah, there are twenty some odd emails daily, and I don't use all of them, but she encourages you to delete the ones you don't use or are finished with so you don't clutter up your Inbox. Never felt so guilt-free about deleting email in my life.

It feels nice to relax about housework and to be able to focus on one thing at a time. I am concerned that this relaxed me will be short-lived. I have been really unhappy in these last few months (and for good reason, I think) and would hate to think that now that I have some peace of mind it is merely the eye of the storm.

I am looking forward to paying off some debt, getting rid of a lot of junk I never use but was saving for some reason (like all the glass jars in the cupboard that I was going to decorate the lids on every day for the last six years). I threw out a rather large amount of socks yesterday. That felt good. Now I have room in my sock drawer for more socks! That worked so well, I think I'll go through my underwear drawer and get rid of all the granny panties I never wear...

Anyway. It feels good NOW. NOW feels good. Maybe I should snap and spend the rest of my life in a state of perpetual optimism, choosing only to listen to or acknowledge things that keep me in that state. Oh wait, I can't do that--my mother-in-law already has that covered. BAM!

There will be bad days I'm sure. I'm determined to not let them get the best of me again.

**PUBLIC** Music available soon

So I have this band, see... and we were supposed to be touring by now, but for some reason the recording and mixing of our demo is taking for-freaking-ever. Since GuitarMan is a professional sound tech, he's doing a majority of the mixes himself. At first I didn't have a problem with this. Then I heard them.

I will grant that a raw recording of a voice sounds rather stark. However, I don't like or appreciate the amount of delay that was added to these latest two mixes. I wanted just a little to take the edge off and make it sound a lot less like Karaoke night, y'know? And, of course, the guys all love it, think it sounds fabulous, are talking about getting airplay at a local independent station, bla bla bla.

Um, guys? I hate this mix. I hate the synth you added. We sound like 80's EuroTrash with all the delay and synth. It's fuller, but I don't think this is what you really wanted to fill it with.

I love singing, I love writing songs, the guys are thrilled to have me and my talents in their group, but I think there are some serious creative differences emerging here. I guess I'll have to learn how to use whatever program it is they're using to mix all this and FIX IT. Ugh. I hate how my voice sounds on this recording!

And if we don't come up with a name soon, I am going to skin somebody. I have already told three people that we are "The Blue Band" just to be obnoxious. I tried to get an email thread going last week and this was the only response I got:

After much careful consideration may I propose:

Uncle Pietro McWinston and the McWinston brothers featuring Wynne
Winnie McWinston

OK?

Our drummer, bless his heart, has been suggesting this name since day one, and every time he says it it's with a big goofy grin that makes us all think he's not really serious about what to name the group. Not to mention it's probably the stupidest name for a band I've ever heard. I didn't have the heart to reply. This email made me think that maybe he was serious all along. Ouch.

So, I have web space, a mess of bandwidth, and some average-to-good HTML skillz... I think I'll post those recordings on my site. This will have to happen soon before I forget about it, so feel free to pester me via wynnec at rocketmail dot com. Then you can tell me what you think of our music and what our band name should be.

I vote for "Martha Nell." I think that would be a cool band name for what we play.