Thursday, December 18, 2008

Start of a New Season

I signed a publishing deal with Essential Publishing yesterday and I am grateful to continue to be able to be using the gift God gave me to encourage people with music. I have grown so much as a writer at Brentwood Benson. I am so blessed that they took a chance on me seven years ago. I want to thank some of the people who have gone out of their way to help me in my journey. Marty Wheeler signed me to Brentwood Benson Music Publishing when I started. His belief in me was so foundational. Holly Zabka has some of the best instincts for songs and has been patient with me as I have grown. I am a better writer because of her. I could list over a hundred writers that have added tools to my songwriting "toolbox". Some of the ones that stick out are Tony Wood, Sue Smith, Brandon Heath, Joel Lindsey, Kyle Matthews, Jess Cates, Laurianne Cates, Ricky and Randy Jackson, Craig Monday, and Steve Dean. And for all the others over the past seven years that I've been in the room with chasing ideas, I am so thankful for you as well.

For all the songs behind and for all the ones to come, I am grateful.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Re-Decorating the Christmas tree

Sarah has a co-worker at work named Julie. She has travelled with us to New York City and Los Angeles for our trips for Belmont East and Belmont West. Several times on those trips we would have funny conversations at the end of the day that would involve a high point and low point.

Okay...so cleaning up after having your drywall repaired is not as easy as it might sound...especially at Christmas. I have never had to un-decorate a Christmas tree to take it out of the stand and drag it outside so we could shake the dust out of it...Low Point.

We were trying to clean because my brother and his family are staying with us over the holidays. They called us from the airport here in Nashville to tell us they were on their way. When I answered the phone I was hanging lights like Clark Griswald on my front porch. By the time they got to the house, everything was ready...yesssss...definitely the High Point.

So we have started the transition into the family part of holidays and it has been wonderful.

I hope this Christmas is so meaningful for all of you this year. Go out of your way to serve your family. There is so much life that comes out of it.

GREAT worship song...

Check this song out. It's a guy named Chris Quilala. It's called Your Love Never Fails.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Christmas Craziness

Merry Christmas to you all...

I can imagine talking to Santa Clause right now and him asking me what I would like for Christmas. I honestly don't know what I would tell him but if I was being self-indulgent, I might ask for a Wii for Christmas. And Santa's next question would be, "Have you been a good little blogger?" I would hang my head and with a pouting face say "No Santa, I have not". And then Santa would laugh like a bowlful of jelly in his red suit, his big black belt, his white beard, his nose like a cherry, and with a voice like the Soup Nazi would say, "No Wii for You!!!"

Sarah and I have had an eventful past few days and worthy of a blog...

Tuesday night Sarah and I met at the mall after work to eat dinner together. She wanted to do some Christmas shopping and I was headed over to Christ Community to see Jeremy Cowart do a presentation about his life as a photographer. Jeremy did a GREAT job. On my way home, it was raining like cats and dogs and I called Sarah who had been home for a few minutes. You never want to hear a person on the other end of the phone say "Honey, I don't want you to get stressed out but..."

The back half of the conjunction "but" made me drive a whole lot faster trying not to hydroplane on my way home. So, again it was raining hard and had been for two days. I think they said that some areas got 6 inches. I walked in the front door and Sarah was wiping the water off of the hardwood floors and trying to grab pots and pans to collect the water coming from the first floor ceiling. Because of the amount of water, we ended up placing the big containers that held our Christmas decorations to catch it. For the next hour we were walking around the house like Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew trying to figure out if it was the roof leaking or if it was the plumbing.

So the last few days have been spent watching a whole get cut in our ceiling by a plumber so he could get to the water line that fed one of the toilets upstairs. And as I am writing this morning, this is my view as I look up from my computer screen. The guy in the pictures is Francisco and he is fixing our drywall. Thank You Francisco!!!

It snowed last night here and also because of the white drywall dust, it's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas.

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas.

Santa, is this post enough for a Wii?...and maybe Tiger Woods '09?
:)