an actual recording of me singing lead

Firstly, let me start off by saying that I have no dreams of being a singer or even a musician. I did the music thing and I quickly realized that I am not gifted enough to make it. I'm okay, low-level good but not amazing by any means. As a drummer, I know that I get away with A LOT because I'm a girl. I get away with even more because I'm a tiny girl that actually gets a decent amount of volume out of my kit. My strength is that I have good timing but that’s where it stops. As a singer, I'm sub par. I have a nice, some might say pretty voice, but I don't stand out. This sounds like I'm bashing myself or maybe this sounds like I'm fishing for compliments. It's neither. I'm okay with all of this. God has given me enough ability that I've been able to have a lot of fun with music, but my legacy will never be in music. It will be in poker. That's a lie. I don't know how to play poker.

Anyways. Once I moved to Nashville I figured that I would never be doing music again. Again, I'm not trying to make it, but in IL I've gotten to be the token girl background singer on a couple of friends’ projects and I’ve missed not doing that. Honestly I don't care if anyone ever gets to hear anything that I do, I just love singing backgrounds. I love hearing how much a song can change by what I sing or how I sing it. I love trying to match my voice to sound like the person I'm singing with. I've been the background vocalist for so long that I don't even really know what my voice sounds like. I've sang lead for a couple friends' songs, but they told me pretty much how to sing and I did what I was told.

My friend Robin Ghosh (who is an incredible producer and engineer) has told me several times that he likes my tone. He arrived at this conclusion after standing next to me in church during worship and hearing me sing a bit in small group. Because he's been so complimentary and I don’t feel like he’s going to belittle my voice, I asked him to record me doing How Deep the Father's Love for a Christmas present for my parents. I also asked him to play classical guitar on it because he is a sick classical guitar player.

So he did all of this and more. I recorded the song and hit notes that I didn't think I could hit because he was confident that I do it (they're not high...I just don't have a huge range), my friend Michelle Thompson who has an amazing voice came in and sang BGVs, Rob had a Cellist come in and play (Rob wrote the parts), Rob recorded keys and guitar, and he also managed to have one of Nashville's top session drummers come in and play percussion.

The reason I chose this song is because I knew that I was able to sing it. Like I said, I don't sing lead very often so I'm still becoming aware of what I'm able to do. That's not the only reason I picked it though. I love old hymns and I love that this song is written in that style. I think that hymns are much deeper than modern worship songs and this particular song I love the lyrics to. I sang this song on Easter Sunday at the Warehouse Church in IL 3 days before I moved to Nashville and the day after I totaled my car. There's a lot tied up in this song for me.

Ok so this is a really long explanation. A few of you have asked to hear this so I thought I would post it. I hope that you enjoy it.

Rob, thank you so much for doing this for me. My parent's loved it. My mom cried like you hoped. You are an amazing friend and I know that you're going to great things. Thanks for being in my life.

http://www.mediamax.com/erinlee/Links/FD37BE3F1A

"You're not really a girl"- James Harrington

I'd like to think of myself as an enigma. For example-

I played shows almost every weekend and probably at least 2 times a weekend in indie rock band for 4 years, but I don't like to stand up and make announcements in church or play any sport that requires people to look at me.

I play drums, but I like girly stuff like tea rooms

I've been called a tomboy, but I love wearing dresses.

I love girl movies, but hate the color pink.

And the list goes on.

Again I'd like to think of myself as mysterious, but in reality I'm just insane or in other words female.

Tonight I watched Elf with the Thompson Family and taught Michelle to knit. There's another one to add to the list. Yes I'm 25, single, and I sit home at night and knit.....this is a relatively new activity for me. 25 and single isn't new though. That has been going on since April. It replaced 24 and single.

So I'm officially an old lady when I knit and wait for children to go to bed so I can sneak a frozen pizza in the oven.

Insane, mysterious, feminine, call it what you want, but you're the stupid head reading this.

75 in December

Am I allowed to write something short? Am I capable of writing something short? I know I am short...I'm told that at least once or twice a day.

Today was incredible. It was 75 degrees. I wore a t-shirt, set up a table outside to work in the beautiful sunny weather, and tonight I didn't have to wear a jacket. Amazing.

Besides the amazing weather, I was fortunate enough to see Over the Rhine at the Belcourt Theatre. I'm not good at describing things so yeah, absolutely magical. Imagine a small old theatre, a woman with one of the most incredible voices that I've ever heard wearing a long dress, jangly piano, violin, upright bass, an amazing guitarist, mandolin, jazz drums, Christmas music, blues, jazz, old country, and a band that knows what they are doing and are enjoying it. Magical. Check them out.

A Christmas Card from Erin

This is the true meaning of Christmas. I mean that sarcastically of course. Here's a prime example of the craziness. You know the group of women that have sent their husbands into hiding by their crazy actions and the group that is helping me to keep the man of my dreams at a safe distance (I said helping Michelle, I know that I do a pretty darn good job on my own), well last year they coerced me into doing this. It took forever and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard...okay so maybe when we all made each other have big southern hairdos. I wish that we would have recorded us walking around with the faces and hats still on our chins. I couldn't look at them while they were talking without busting out laughing. Oh by the way, one husband was brave enough to record this for us. Poor Soul. Enjoy it and we will not speak of this again.

Dancing in the Living Room

Goodness, how do I start this? Let me first start by saying that I'm pretty much crazy and the woman that I live with (Michelle, hi!) is even crazier and brings out the craziness in me. My best friend Julie has the same effect and Michelle's best friend Mary is nutty as well. When the four (sometimes five when Mary's 18 year old daughter Sarah is present) of us get together the husbands of these women go into hiding. My husband has been in hiding for quite some time now. Actually he's never surfaced and is shaking with the realization that someday he's going to have to face me, but until then, he remains MIA. Poor guy. Pray for him okay?

Let me change the tone of this for a second. I haven't always acted this crazy, well at least not to my knowledge. In fact, I'm a pretty insecure person and if you've read prior blogs I'm sure you got that point. I can pretty much pinpoint the moment that my self-worth took a dive. I was in fifth grade when I really noticed that my parent's were raising me differently from everyone else. I grew up in a fairly strict household and my parents did everything that they could to keep me innocent and for that I thank them. Sometimes I feel it might have been a bit extreme but they really wanted me to become a Godly woman and to stay pure so they did what they thought was best. Unfortunately now I say really dirty things without having any clue as to what I'm saying. I'm pretty naive still.

So while I was in fifth grade, I noticed that I was more sheltered than the rest of the kids. At that time I had a cousin that was a model. She was on a LIFE cereal box, the front of the Sears Wishbook, and a bunch of other stuff. I thought that I could make friends with people because of my relation to her. This is not unusual for a child or unfortunately even adults to do. When I told the popular boy in class, Brandon Walsh, about my cousin, he said and I quote "I sure hope she doesn't look like you". This statement from a 10 year old boy has haunted me and has been a pain in the butt to overcome for the past 15 years.

I don't say any of this fishing for compliments. Please don't comment on my looks to try to make me feel better because I'm not playing that game. I'm not trying to get attention and with God's help, I'm trying not to play that girl game anymore...you know the one,
Girl: "I look fat."
Boy: "no you don't you look beautiful"

I’m writing this because I want you to know where I'm coming from.

I like everyone else in life, have developed my share of crap that has made my life, shall we say, interesting. The older I get, the more I realize how much baggage everyone has. You either let it control you and blame it for your failures or you embrace it and with God's help, it helps shape you into the person that God want's you to be. I fluctuate between both.

For the past few years God has put people in my life that have been able to help me realize my value. I always thought that God never spoke to me, but in reality he speaks to me through people everyday and the past couple years he's been really at it. Michelle has definitely been one of the most significant people to help me understand that I'm valuable. The whole Thompson family has been HUGE in helping me feel less insignificant and all this happened when dreams where taken away from me. The dream of doing music full time was torn away from me and the dream of a future with a certain guy vanished. I honestly think that the latter one would have gone away sooner but I had a death grip on it. Both of these plans temporarily made me feel important and valuable. They were my "cousin is a model" in my adult life and once they were gone I was broken. Here enter the Thompson’s. I could talk about this forever, but essentially, this was what I needed at this point in my life and slowly but surely I started coming out my shell because I was understanding that my self-worth wasn't based on what I was doing with my life or who I was with. I now live with the Thompson’s in a different state and I work for John. Moving to Nashville threw me out of whack for awhile. Before moving I was feeling pretty comfortable with who I was and who I was becoming, but as soon as I moved I felt as though I had to start over again.

Now I finally feel like I have a place here. God has placed people here in Nashville that have been so encouraging and have gone out of their way to make me feel valuable. I feel needed here which is a HUGE thing for me and I feel that I have a purpose here. I feel like this is a major step in my journey and I'm extremely excited to see where God is going to take me. I had no plan on my life taking place anywhere but Illinois, but here I am.

Last night I went to church. I sat in-between two boys that were both being rowdy and disruptive. I tried to get up and move and two times I was pushed back into my seat. Last night after church I went out to eat and I was teased and people remembered what was going on in my life. I knew everyone there and I'm starting to have history with them. Gosh I can't believe that like 6 or 7 months ago, Whitney and Peter asked me to go out to eat for the first time with their group after church. I felt so uncomfortable and didn't know anyone. I can't believe that there was a time when I didn't have anyone to sit with at church and I remember the first time that I sat with Peter and Whitney and felt so excited that I actually had people that I sort of knew to sit with.

Last night I was driving home thinking about this and just thanking God that this is happening. It feels so right. I feel like I'm where I should be and because of that I'm more confident than I have ever been. Please don't think that I'm super spiritual, because I'm not. I'm a horrible Christian most of the time. So I'm driving home in my car absolutely giddy and when I arrive home a spontaneous Christmas tree decorating party is going on in my house where more of my friends are decorating our Christmas tree with the Thompson’s. There's hokey Christmas music playing and everyone is singing bad harmonies in bad opera-like voices while decorating the living room and then a dance party breaks out. We all dance like idiots to my Rat Pack Christmas CD because we all know each other and we know that we are broken crazy people and the Thompson's house is an environment were every knows they're valuable and because of that you can dance like an idiot even though you're completely insecure about your dancing. It was amazing. Kelley you were missed.

This was really long and probably doesn't make any sense or flow and I applaud anyone that made it to the end.

2:30am

I did it again. I feel asleep in front of my computer 2 hours ago. I often will lie down on my bed to check my e-mail and fall asleep. This is not unusual. It happens too often. I'm too lazy to walk upstairs and take out my contacts and do the necessary things to get ready for bed. I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere and when I'm tired, I crash. This happens most frequently when watching movies or TV and it has happened in the presence of pretty much everyone I know. Don't take it personally. I'm not bored by your company. When I'm tired, my body shuts down. My mother falls asleep EVERYTIME she sits down to watch a movie. She has dubbed this problem cinematic narcolepsy. Don't ever ask her opinion on a film, she'll tell you that she didn't like it while the truth is that she only saw the first 10 minutes of it.

Okay so why am I writing this? Like I said I fell asleep in front of my computer. At 2:12 am I heard a subtle knock on my door and a little voice calling "Airwin". Little Jesse (3) comes in and crawls in my bed because according to him "he had a bad dream about dinosaurs" (I'm almost positive that's what he said. I was still half asleep). With a quizzical look on his face he asks me if I was sleeping and comments about the fact that my light is still on. I mean come-on he's not allowed to sleep with his light on and there's monsters in his room (or at least he makes me check for them anytime I put him to sleep). He asks me to get him a drink of water (he tells me that it would be so ahMAzing to get a drink of water) so we go upstairs to do that. While he's sitting on the toliet watching me take out my contacts and wash my face, he makes this statement "Airwin, we should stay up ALL NIGHT and get lots of dwinks of water". I told him no that he needed to go back to bed and take him in his room and lie him down. He asks me what time it is and I inform him that it's 2:30 and time to go night night. He says that 2:30 is not bedtime; 8 o'clock is bedtime. So I try to explain to a 3 year old that he sleeps through 2:30 every night, but I know it's lost on him.

He's now asleep. I just wanted to share this because it is so funny to me how much my life has changed in the past few months. I love it. I knew parenting was a huge responsibility before I moved, but moments like this remind me how self-sacrificing of a job it is. Being a mother has to be THE most underappreciated job and it has made me appreciate my narcoleptic mother so much more. Yesterday morning he woke me up at 6 by knocking on my door (you see, he has a gate on his door and has started climbing over it). I vaguely remember telling him to wake up his brothers. I’m not a saint all the time or ever actually. Well I'm going back to bed, but I will leave you with a couple of my favorite Jesse quotes as of recently-

While painting with me, I was trying to help him write his letters, he yells "I know how to draw letters. I am SO a grown up!"

This afternoon while his parents are setting up the Christmas tree, Michelle mentions something about the base for the tree and I overhear Jesse exclaim. "I know what a bass is!!! It's a guitar!!!"

May your dreams be lacking in dinosaurs.