Stress Break!!!!!!

We've had a week of unseasonably warm weather for this time of year and although it appears it might be over at least it was a nice respite from the snow and ice. Yesterday after helping at the Bishops Storehouse for church which involved a lot of heavy bags of food to lift and carry I had thought that I'd go into work and get some overtime. However after eating lunch I ended up falling asleep on the couch and then moved into the bedroom and slept some more. Once I awoke I was still entertaining thoughts of going in and working for a few hours because frankly, we need the money. However I quickly realized that I'm not fully recovered from my previous illness and that I needed a break.

My best friend called to let me know that his band was going to be practicing and that they had a guy coming out to help set up the mixing board so that they could record their practices and at some point in the future record their songs so that they can be released. Now I have a bit more than a small interest in their songs as I've helped write the lyrics to quite a few of them. Once I called my wife and found out that she was at a friends and wouldn't be back for awhile I knew my mind was made up. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that they had already ordered some pizzas and I never turn down free pizza.

After a quick shower I jumped in my truck, rolled the windows down and plugged in my Ipod. As I roared out onto the road I cranked some tunes and was immediately taken back to a time when I was younger and had much less stress in my life. I selected two new songs that I recently added and blasted them out. "Blue Tip" is a song that will be on The Cars first album in twenty three years and following that I played "78" by Michael Monroe which will be on his new album due out next month. I like both songs very much and it was nice to fly down the highway with the volume up and the windows down just like I used to do when I was young.

Once I was at my friends house I greeted everyone and started wolfing down the pizza that was left, although not necessarily in that order. The band had been on hiatus for quite a while due to Shane (guitars and vocals) being in Afghanistan for a year and Tommy (drums and lyrics) dealing with ulceritive colitis which ended up with him having his colon removed. Now they're trying to get back into the groove of things and of course come up with a new name for the band. By the way Alex (bass) rounds out the group. Shane's friend John was there and he was working on the mixing boards to get the sound cleaned up which did take up a chunk of time. Once the sound was decently in order we recorded several songs and then John picked up the guitar and Shane the bass and they jammed. Later Shane moved back to guitar and Tommy's son Chris played the bass for another extended jam.

It made me wish that we had been recording that as well since it all sounded pretty good to my neophyte ears. Then it was time for me to pile back into my truck and get home but first I burned all of the recordings onto a disk so that I could listen to them at home and get some ideas for some future stuff. On the way home my wife called and requested that I pick up a few things at the store which I complied with as fast as possible. Even with that it was a nice stress break for me to relax and enjoy something creative and to start learning something new and fun. Unfortunately in life I've found that I don't do this nearly enough and it's a situation that I need to rectify. For me it's important to do various creative things because it keeps my mind alert and keeps me growing as a person. As my son gets older I think it becomes more and more important for me to do things like this.

So the blog is a way for me to be creative with my writing and I intend to be more serious with it. Also, I've finally decided to start writing my script ideas that I've mulled over for years and am presently about one third of the way through my first one, a zombie flick. Actually I already have a lot of the sequel already thought out too. Whether anything comes of this or not doesn't matter right now. What's important is to sit down every day and write something because nothing else can happen until that part is done. Once the writing is taken care of then I can think about the rest. All in good time everything in it's place. Right now I'm having fun flexing my mind. Once I reach a milestone I'll announce it on here so keep checking back or better yet follow the blog so that you can be informed every time I post new stuff.

Until then keep learning, use your mind occasionally and make sure you take enough stress breaks and I'll see you somewhere.