So far, so good.

Things have been going really well for me this fall. I must say that I'm feeling pretty lucky. I've been playing some really fun shows, meeting some great people, I am enjoying my new cottage, the children's choirs I direct are always entertaining, my private teaching is still fun, and I'm going to Mexico for Thanksgiving. What more could a girl want? As always, I'm very grateful and excited for all of the opportunities that have been presented to me.

I have had a creative two weeks, and I have six songs ready for the studio. I'm really looking forward to getting started with this next project, and can't wait for you to hear what I've been working on. So far, the majority of my songs have been written for piano. My last two albums mainly consist of guitar songs, so this will be a welcome change! I'm hoping to get started with recording in the next few weeks, and I'll possibly be ready to share one or two of the tracks before the end of the year. We shall see.

I hope you are all looking forward to the holidays, and I hope that you get to spend some great time with your families and friends. Thanks for all of your support.

Take care,
Kristen

Sloan Wainwright is fantastic.

I had a great evening. I've been trying to get into the Good Folk Coffee House for some time and finally made it down there tonight to play as a sort of audition during the open mic. Open mic nights are held before the featured act comes on and I got the coveted spot of playing directly before the feature. (This means that you will be heard by the biggest crowd, because most people try to avoid open mic nights - myself included.)

Anyway, I played my two songs and it went really well. The audience was into it, the woman who does the booking was very complimentary, and the featured act of the evening (Sloan Wainwright) was wonderfully supportive. I met some great people, passed out some cards (it's all about the networking you know) and enjoyed the night.

Sloan was great! If you can ever catch a show of hers I highly recommend. Well, just wanted to post a few pictures and share the love with this talented lady. Really, she's like the flower child of our era - an incredibly postive person. Enjoy, and I'll talk to you soon!

Don't forget about coming to The Space on Tuesday!

Much love,
Kristen

New Show. New Song. New Dogs.

That's right, I have a show this Tuesday, October 30, at The Space in
Hamden, CT. I know it's a school night but I'll be finished with my set no
later than 10:00 so come and tough it out. This is a great venue, and I'm
the featured act of the evening. Music starts at 7:00 and I go on at 9:00,
so get there a little early!

Today has been a great day so far because I just finished a new song that
will hopefully be ready for Tuesday night. I've been working on a few
things, but this one just finished up faster than the others. I don't have
a title for you yet, but hopefully by the end of the night on Tuesday I'll
have a live recording that I can post online. All I can really tell you is
that it's a piano song, so for those of you who have been asking me to
write more songs on the piano - this one's for you!

As for other news, I don't really have new dogs, but our landlords' dogs
have been sleeping over and hanging out lately. I posted a picture of the
boys for you to see. The guys are pretty old so they really just lay around, but sometimes I can get
them to fetch a ball once or twice. Anyway, Buddy is on the left and Casey
is on the right. They're just too cute!

Hope everyone is well, and I hope to see you at a show soon!
Kristen

Tuesday, October 30
9 p.m.
$5
The Space
295 Treadwell St.
Hamden, CT
203.288.7876

Friday, November 2
9 p.m.
$5 suggested donation
Jitters Coffee House
1273 Queen St.
Southington, CT
860.747.1100

Saturday, November 3
11 a.m.
$ 10
Rooms With a View Fundraiser
Southport Congregational Church
524 Pequot Ave.
Southport, CT
203.255.159

My show last Friday.

Thank you to those of you who came out on Friday night, I had a great time! I got to meet some new people, play some new songs, and eat some great food (Rachel's food is the best!). I will definitely be back there sometime soon. I posted a photo for you to take a look at. There were torrential downpours that evening so that's why I look like I just stepped out of the shower.

As for shows coming up, I'll be playing on Tuesday, October 30 at The Space in Hamden, CT. Hopefully I'll see you there!

Take care and have a great day!

Reasons why I love having music as my job:

1. I love Mondays. Most people dread them. Monday is my day off, so I look forward to it every week. Yesterday I slept in, went out for lunch, did a little more unpacking, did a few loads of laundry, went for a run, and watched some episodes of West Wing.

2. I get to wake up and go for a jog whenever I want because I can stay and work as late as I want. Today that included finishing my jog on the beach (see previous picture).

3. Singing literally pays my rent. Fortunately, I don’t mind living in a small space, which allows me to actually sing for my supper. Saturday night was one of those nights. I played at the Bethlehem Coffee House, had a great set, had a lot of fun, met some new people, saw some old friends, and sold a bunch of albums.

I feel very lucky, blessed, fortunate, whatever you would like to call it to live the life that I have, and I am so grateful that this is what I get to do. Thanks to people like you who continue to support me by coming to shows and buying albums I get to do what I love. For that I cannot thank you enough. Have a great day.

Settling in.

Well, yesterday's blog was way too long, so I'll keep today short and sweet. Now that I'm living in this cottage my office is less than a mile away. It's a gorgeous walk, especially in this fall weather. Yesterday, I paused when I got to the public beach and took this picture. This is such an incredible place to live, and we are very lucky to be here. Tonight I'm playing a set at a Coffee House held monthly at the Bethlehem Congregational Church. It's a great evening with food, wine, and tea. Not much more to ask for. I'll post some pictures tomorrow when I have them, but for today I'll just leave you with the beach. Have a great day.

Great story.

Ok, so I told you that I have moved to a cottage near the beach. Well, I love the water, so this place is perfect for me. (That, and the fact that I now only have a 1-mile commute to my office – sorry, Bryan.) The other night I was bugging Bryan to come and play catch with me on the beach – I still have an old softball that was signed by my entire 6th grade team as well as the glove that I used in middle school, and Bryan has a glove that my dad gave him – so we were all set. Anyway, after a little convincing, Bryan agreed to come and play for no longer than 10 minutes.

We crossed the street and started walking along the sidewalk that would lead us to the beach with about 15 minutes of good daylight left on a gorgeous night. As we were hopping off of the sidewalk to get to the beach this attractive, very Southport-looking, blond woman came frantically running up to us with her little pug dog named Chester. (I won’t tell you her name simply due to privacy, but she was very friendly.)

Anyway, she came up to us asking, (yelling, really) “I lost my keys, could you please watch my dog? I was out on the jetty and I fell, and I lost my keys, could you just watch him for a minute I just need to go and look where I fell…” I’m sure she said more things but Bryan and I tried to settle her down, he watched the dog, and I helped her look out on the jetty. Basically, we were just looking down big cracks between huge boulders, and it was getting darker fast. We looked all around the jetty (as she repeatedly yelled at herself and kept reminding Chester that his mother was “an IDIOT,” the tide was really low, so we even walked down to the dirt ground and searched around. Bryan got the dog out on the jetty (which made him a little nervous, Chester, not Bryan) and started helping us look. The dog was barking, two little kids and their babysitter showed up and started helping, - it was an all-out search.

Long story short, we looked for at least 45 minutes and couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black and we finally had to admit defeat. As we had been searching we received more information from the woman. She had just moved to Southport from Manhattan, hadn’t owned a car in years, so she had gone that day to buy a car. She had picked it up a few hours earlier, and thought it would be nice to bring the dog to the beach, so she put all of the dealer keys and keyless entries in her pocket and took Chester for a walk. As they were walking he needed to relieve himself, so she was carrying his waste (which she kept referring to as doo-doo – it was KILLING me!), the keys, his leash, and her glasses. As they walked back on to the jetty, she slipped on one of the boulders. She fell in a crack on the right side, and he fell in a different crack on the left side. (This was the area we were looking in almost exclusively.)

At this point in the evening, we invited this woman to walk back with us to our house so she could use our phone, or so that we could give her a ride to her home. She was nervous about leaving her brand new car alone at the beach because it had her phone and her purse in it (with her ID, credit cards, etc.) so she walked back one more time to make sure it was really locked and there was no way in. We started to follow her and decided that rather than walking across the parking lot we would just cut across the beach. About halfway to her car Bryan looked down, and there were the keys! It was unbelievable. There was hugging, yelling, good karma wished upon us (100,000 pounds to be exact), and introductions made. We hadn’t even introduced ourselves until we had spent an hour with this woman and Chester. But we’ll never forget her, and I don’t think she’ll forget us either.

So, I didn’t get to play catch on the beach, but we had fun anyway, and made a new friend. Plus, with how well things have been going for Bryan and I (the new cottage, I have a bunch of shows, he’s been speaking a lot for Simply Smiles) if anyone needs any good karma I think we’ve had more than our fair share, and would be glad to pass some along. Have a great day.

Moving Sucks! (But it's totally worth it)

Well, Bryan and I just finished moving the last box into our new cottage that we're renting near the beach in Connecticut. We are living in a gorgeous town, about an hour north of New York City. Things are going great! I have to tell you though, I don't want to move for about 10 years now. It was too much. I can't believe how much stuff we have! And that's even after we were selective.

I've set up a music corner in the living room, and I have an office less than a mile away where I can book shows, teach lessons and choirs, and update my website. Things are going pretty great. We need a little bit longer to get settled in, and then you're invited for a visit!

Game for a Cause

Today I took a break from music, and went to the UCONN football game. I had a great time! I got to tailgate, hang out with friends, and cheer on a successful team. What more could anyone ask?

A little over one year ago, we lost a passionate and loving friend, Eric Nagrabski. Today was the second annual memorial football game, to celebrate his life with good company, good food, and great team spirit. Today's update is dedicated to Eric, you will not be forgotten.

For more information about Eric, or to contribute to his scholarship fund, please visit: ericscholarship.com.

So...what did you do this summer?

I spent the first half of my summer in Oaxaca, Mexico, as I have been known to do. This summer was particularly exciting because of the projects that we had lined up. In June and July we built six homes for families that live and work in a garbage dump (and I don't mean a nice sanitary dump like the ones we have here in the U.S.) and we started constructing a second children's home in a small village named Cuicatlan. The reason that I thought of this today is that I was going through some photos from the summer and this one stood out. On one of our visits, apparently I decided it would be great to give one of the boys, Jorge, a death hug, and Bryan thought it would be just as entertaining to do the same to me. Good times. It is easy to see from the photo why I continue to spend a lot of my time in Mexico - we have so many laughs and such a good time with these kids. For more information you can visit: www.simplysmiles.org .

Law & Order for brunch

Those of you who know me at all, know that I love courtroom drama. Law & Order is my addiction of choice. I also love sports dramas (the whole underdog thing) but today is all about the law. Yesterday, I was eating brunch in the middle of nowhere Connecticut at a nice place on a lake, and who walks in? Christopher Meloni, a.k.a. Detective Eliot Stabler. I spoke with him for a few seconds (and didn't even stutter!) he was very friendly, and I'm pretty sure that he now considers me one of his closest friends. Have a good day everyone, and if you run into my buddy Chris, tell him I said hello.

Back in the game...

I'm finally getting myself in gear and ready to play some music. I am still living in Connecticut and am just getting started with making connections and playing some shows. The last few years I've been focusing on other things, and I am definitely glad to be back here. My next show is on Saturday, October 13 at 9 p.m. at a Coffee House in a church. It's a great evening, there will be three featured performers and the food is great! When I know more details I'll post them so you have the most up to date information. As for today, it's brainstorming time - I've been writing and I'm ready to head back to the studio.
Have a great day,
Kristen