Musician’s Widow

You’d think I’d be doing a major happy dance to see tax season come to an end. And I am!

But I admit, it also comes with a tinge of sadness, too. There’s always things left that I didn’t get to do during my time in Texas for tax season. And I do so enjoy having so much time with family. I love my parents. I adore my niece and nephew. And there just never seems to be enough down time to spend with all of them.

This tax season was one that I was really the most healthy! No major sinus infections for a change, and I got the tooth ache thing over with early. It was nice to not be miserable for chunks of time. (And it was quite telling how many clients came in and commented that I felt so good for a change!)

It was also one of the craziest work-wise. It was the first season that as April 15th drew near I started to feel panicked that we weren’t going to make it. In fact April 15th is usually a pretty relaxed day at the office. Last minute pick-ups are about all we deal with. Today we were battling computers, lists, double checking the lists, getting things done… it wasn’t awful, but it also wasn’t as relaxed as usual.

But, its done. It’s in the books. Now on to the long list of extensions we filed. Now on to normal life again. Back to Nashville soon. Back to the bar and back to more focus on this blog and photography.

I look forward to good things this year… and I’m excited for it! But… I AM a little sad, too. And for now I think that just means all is right in the world, and that I am happy wherever I am and it means that I am also always sad to leave no matter what.

Photo Share is my personal replacement for Weekly Winners, since that link exchange is no longer happening. It’s just my own challenge to take great photos through the week, as it gives me a venue to share some of them on this blog. Consider it my own little P.S. on the week before.

Photos this week taken with my Sony DSLR A230. Edited using Lightroom 3… or using my Droid Razr and Instagram. You can probably figure out which is which.

Swing and a HIT

Hey batter, batter!

Lucky 19

MMmm… beer.

Sunlight fading

Walking through the grocery store the other day, I wanted to try something different. I wandered to the beer cooler and found… nothing interesting. Nothing that caught my attention. But as I walked away, stacked up against a cooler nearby was:

Batch19, proclaiming to be a “Pre-Prohibition Style Lager” and boasting a 5.5% ABV, grabbed me with their unique bottle and, well, it seems all things prohibition-days are popular right now. (If anyone can get me a bottle of Chicken Cock Whiskey I’ll… I’ll… write your praises in this blog?) It jumped into the basket and came home with me.

From the Batch19 Facebook page:

Inspired by an authentic pre-Prohibition recipe, this bold, hoppy and balanced lager derives its bold taste by using a rare combination of hops including Hersbrucker and Strisslespalt. Hersbrucker hops provide herbal notes and Strisslespalt hops deliver notes of black currant. We are aware of no brewer in America who uses this combination today. Deep-gold in color, naturally filtered and unpasteurized, Batch 19 has 26 IBUs and an assertive 5.5% ABV.

Ok, we got all the technical stuff out of the way, lets move on to the more fun part. DRINKING IT.

I like Lagers… they might not be my first choice, but I rarely run into one that I don’t like. So I wasn’t surprised to like it, what surprised me was to like despite its hoppiness. I’m not a fan of hoppy beer, but this one… maybe it was the combination of the two types of hops. I don’t know, but I LIKED it.

The biggest surprise for me what its flavor lasted. I run into beers that are “pretty good” when good and cold. The cold making the hops palatable, but as soon as it warms up even a tiny bit I can’t finish it. I enjoyed Batch19 from the first cold, cold drink all the way down to the last not-as-cold one.

I’m glad I still have some bottles of this in the fridge to enjoy over the next few days. I’d buy it again!

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This is the last week before April 15th, and I’m pretty out of it come the end of the day. Between tax season and Muster planning, my plate is overflowing. I need to get some sleep (its only 3:30 am!) but I just couldn’t let another day pass without a post!

Last Friday, I drove down to San Antonio to see my husband for awhile. I loaded the address of the venue they were playing into my phone’s GPS and away I went.

I knew there was one section of the route that the GPS wanted me to take that I did NOT want to follow. For whatever reason, Google Maps likes taking me as the crow flies, which in Texas usually means ending up on little Farm-to-Market roads in the middle of nowhere. That can be fun and all, but when you’re hitting those areas after 3 pm, you’re subject to school buses on top of the already lower speed limit. It is NOT the fastest route, no matter what Google seems to think.

Unfortunately, the location of my “don’t-go-the-way-the-GPS-says” was in a town I’ve gotten lost in more times in my life than I care to admit. Its seriously my Bermuda triangle. It’s sad, really. And just as I feared, I got all turned around and nothing looked right to me. I ultimately ended up following my GPS down lots of little FM roads, with lots of local Sheriffs looking to help their county pocketbooks, instead of hitting the tollroad with a speed limit of 85 mph. (C’mon Google maps. You can NOT tell me that going 55 down little two-lane roads as the crow flies is faster than hitting a 3 lane toll road going 85.)

Once I finally hit the tollroad, I was good to go. Or so I thought. My GPS kept telling me I’d be exiting onto “183″ or something like that, so I kept an eye open for that. I was coming up on a split, and I moved over to stay on the tollroad I was on… it wasn’t until I was committed to that stretch of road that my GPS told me to “stay right at the split” forcing me to miss yet another turn and dropping me onto a totally different state highway in 5 o’clock traffic and sitting through stoplights three or four times.

My 2.5 hour drive turned into almost 3.5, and my nerves were SHOT. (I am not even going to go into the idiots I dealt with… like the guy who blew through the yield sign and that I almost made pee himself when I laid on my horn as I avoided t-boning him… thank God I had slowed down from the 85 mph I’d been doing in anticipation for his stupidity.)

Luckily my Saturday went much better. Travel was a breeze and I got to spend the evening with my (to be a cliche teenager) BFFs.

I LOVE THESE WOMEN.

I am blessed with two amazing women that I call both best friend. One I’ve known since Kindergarten with a history that’s impossible to ignore, the other that amazing college friend that you know you’ll have rest of your life. Both like sisters to me, I cherish every time we can make it work to get together.

Our venue this weekend was downtown Bryan, TX. It’s definitely a place made for people our age, and it was just such a refreshing change of pace for me. I love my bars in Nashville, don’t get me wrong! But the class of the place and area was just… refreshing. I always say I can hang in a dive bar and be happy just as fast as I can dress up and hang in a fancy restaurant and be happy.

But the best part of our venue choice was that we were able to sit around a table, drinking wine, talking for hours on end without interruption. Another friend joined us for awhile — one I haven’t seen in 5 years — and it was such a treat to catch up with her as well!  The night was so very good for the soul, and I really hated to see it end. I already look forward to next time!

Sunday night brought the ACM awards. I’m not going to comment too much on it. I just know it left me very sad… sad of the state of the industry that I love so much.

I seriously feel like the class and respect it demanded all through the years has diminished to catering to… to… what I don’t even know. I work in a bar. I can take dirty jokes. But I was put out with the number of them thrown through the night. I remember when it was more about honoring the greats of country, not doing whatever it takes strictly to get ratings.  I remember looking forward to awards night, glued to the TV. Now, I force myself to watch, and I end it wondering why I bothered.

My biggest complaint since last year is making the “Entertainer of the Year” award fan-voted. There are fan-voted award shows already. Keep this one strictly Academy voted. To me, making the top award fan-voted dilutes it down and makes it just another popularity contest. I happen to be one of the few people who might not be a Taylor Swift fan, but for several years championed her getting the Entertainer award… because she IS an Entertainer. And it doesn’t matter my personal opinion of Blake Shelton, he’s become the current face of country. He’s the one people associate with the genre now. He deserved it, too. These are the angles that the Academy would vote from… or at least SHOULD vote from… in my personal opinion. (And yes, these are MY opinions, not anyone else’s.)

Finally, I got to watch my niece play ball tonight. She’s a fierce softball player, and I think it is going to carry her far. Her team (Born to Win aka BTW) was taking on a team the next town over.

My niece at bat… a swing and a HIT!

What a game! I have to say, its getting more and more fun to go to games as she gets older. They ended up playing an extra inning due to it being tied, but had to call it when it got too dark to play safely. It was like being left with a major cliffhanger… they were ONE out away from winning the game… or one batter away from losing it. I like to go with the first one, though.

I hope someone lets me know how it ends when the finally get to finish playing!

I was afraid this would be the only game I’d get to see, since the season started so late this year. But it looks like I’ll get to catch one more on Monday before I head back home to Nashville. Here’s hoping for a win!

Photo Share is my personal replacement for Weekly Winners, since that link exchange is no longer happening. It’s just my own challenge to take great photos through the week, as it gives me a venue to share some of them on this blog. Consider it my own little P.S. on the week before.

Photos this week taken with my Sony DSLR A230. Edited using Lightroom 3… or using my Droid Razr and Instagram. You can probably figure out which is which.

Egg on my bumper.

Barbecue dinner.

Albino bluebonnets.

Bluebonnet.

Rainy day.

Empty glass.

Ferris wheel.

Wonderland of the Americas

Girls night out!

Happy pup.