New Life: Part 1 - My New Guitar

I haven't been the greatest at keeping people posted lately — on shows, on new songs, on my life, etc., because I'm not always a great communicator. I love hearing from everyone, I just always forget that I need to reply in order for it to be actual communication. So...I've decided to keep people updated more often, and hopefully I'll actually stick to it this time! We'll see, but I'm thinking that this will be the first of many blog entries...feel free to read them, or ignore them!

Quite a few changes have occurred in my life in the past few months. Some of the changes have been chosen and welcomed, while others have been sprung on me and I've adapted. All in all, my life really rules. I pay my bills with music, I have amazing relationships, and I live in a cottage on the beach. Who could complain? Not me — not even a bit.

I recently purchased a beautiful vintage series Martin guitar. It is amazing. It has a beautiful rich sound, and I LOVE to sing with it. It's the most wonderful guitar — ever.

There's a bit of a story that goes with this new beauty...

I had been saving up money this year, to reprint "Paradise Exists" (for those of you who don't know, that was my first album, released in 2002) because I only have about 20 copies left, so my savings account was pretty full and I was ready to order when...SOMEONE STOLE MY GUITAR!!!! Not cool. Let me fill you in...

I have an office in a church. In addition to being a lovable singer & songwriter, (feel free to gag or giggle here) I am a private music teacher and the youth choir director at a church. So, the church gives me an office that I am in all of the time, where I teach my choirs, give lessons, write songs, do e-mails...you know, fun stuff and office stuff. Anyway, once a year the church has an annual fund-raiser that involves me moving out of my office so that vendors can sell things in a marketplace as a part of the money-raising. It's kind of a pain — not gonna lie — but they give me an office rent-free, and it's a forced vacation from boring office tasks, so who's going to complain? Not I.

During this time, I always continue with a regular lesson schedule, I just give them in the sanctuary of the church rather than in my office. It always works out fine. Well, this year, as I was packing up my car at the end of the evening I left my guitar, in its gig bag, either in the sanctuary or the back hallway as I was moving my box of books into my trunk. I obviously got distracted by something (what? me? distracted? never...) started talking to someone, and by the time I got into my car, I thought that I had already loaded my guitar in the trunk. During this fund-raising week, the church is full. Tons of people come to the event, tons of people are involved with putting on the event, and tons of people might love to play a stolen guitar...

From time to time, I leave my guitar in the trunk (not anymore - I assure you) so I didn't think anything of the fact that I hadn't seen my guitar for a few days. It's always either in my office, in my house, or in my trunk, so when I didn't find it at the church, I looked in my trunk. And when it wasn't in my trunk, I looked in my house. And when it wasn't in my house, I looked in my attic, the basement, the refrigerator. You name it, I checked. (I even checked the glove compartment...) The guitar was gone.

I cried. A lot.

I couldn't talk about it for almost a week without sobbing like a lunatic. This was my guitar. It was a Christmas present from my parents in college, it was a beautiful Martin DX1 that had been played and loved for years. I wrote three albums worth of songs on it, I recorded with it, I played hundreds (maybe not that many) of shows with it, and it was gone. Also with the guitar and inside the gig bag was my song book. All of the songs that I've ever written were in that book, so that was just a bunch of salt in my very open wound.

I was not a happy girl for a few weeks.

So, back to this church thing, (seriously bad karma for whoever took this guitar — stealing a guitar from a church? Really?) I feel very lucky to work where I do, and the people in this church are an amazing bunch. When the pastor announced my missing guitar, trying to find out if anyone had any info, (I couldn't make the announcement because I was still getting too choked up at the word "guitar") the congregation decided to take up a collection to help me buy a new one. Did I mention that I have the best life?

I took my savings, (sorry, "Paradise Exists") used the money from the church, and used money that my parents gave me for Christmas to buy the most wonderful guitar that you ever did see. You can do the research if you want...compare the price of a Martin DX1 (my former, but faithful guitar) and a Martin HD28V (my new guitar) and you'll see why I can tell this story now with a smile on my face!! This is my lifetime guitar. When I'm rich and famous (or old and equally as poor) I'll still be playing this guitar. That rules. There are no more upgrades for this chica.

So that's the first change in my life that I've needed to update you on. The next time we see each other, I'll be standing behind a different, new, more shiny guitar. Hopefully, you'll love it as much as I do!