mandythompson.com

ignore me.

I saw something like this over at my buddy Josh’s blog (yeah, he’s the up-and-coming photographer responsible for my pic at the top of this little blog – and if you live in Ohio, you should book him).

Now what was I saying? Oh yeah! I know a lot of newbies have wandered over in the past few months, so I thought it’d be cool to have a little meet-n-greet here. Leave us some facts in the comments, please!

1. Name
2. Where you live
3. What you do
4. Blog url
5. 1 strange fact about yourself – the stranger the better!

I’ll let this role through the weekend so all of you can sneak in and take a peak at all the other wierdos!

Continuing along with our theme of domesticity this week, we’ll now begin our discussion of grocery stores.

There’s a grocery store here that makes me wanna cry every time I go. Its like Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve – and no, I’m NOT kidding or exaggerating at all. 21 checkout lines, ALWAYS backed up with at least 6 FULLTOTHETOP buggies.

If I survive an aisle but forget something on the aisle, I WILL NOT turn around and go get it. I only have ONE shot to find it. ONE SHOT. There’s no turning back, or else I might become a pillar of salt or something. It is impossible to navigate through the aisles. Knocking over end caps. Running over old ladies. It’s awful. AWFUL.

I’d rather spend $20 extra dollars a trip, and go to the quieter store, than frequent that madhouse.

Can I just say that I LOATHE that grocery store?

A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about the same store in a different nearby town. I’ll drive the extra 3.5 minutes to this one, because it’s just as cheap, and much more… subdued.

Praise Jesus for friends.
And empty grocery stores.

Which reminds me:
tomatoes
rice
lettuce
chicken
cereal
milk
eggs
corn
asparagus
bell peppers

Yesterday, the strangest thing happened on my blog.

See, a handful of you started talking about laundry in the comments of a sincere and heartfelt post about us reaching our potential. LAUNDRY. With great passion and detail.

So, I thought I’d do my part to foster a productive (and focused) discussion today… I give you:

(insert a huge symphony of dun dun DUNS)

“The Laundry Post”

1. We share 4 sets of washer/dryers with 90 people in our apartment building.
2. Water always stays in the barrel of the front-end-loading washers. Yes. Other people’s dirty laundry water. And it almost always smells like mildew. And that’s not a mild “ew” either – it’s a STRONG “ew!”
3. We allot $25/mo in our laundry budget. Because it costs $2.25 total to wash/dry a load. Robbery.
4. I go through 4 doors and up 1 1/2 flights of stairs to get to the laundry room. (Don’t ask about the 1/2 – it’s complicated. And I’ll probably end up in the fetal position just talking about it.)
5. If I time it just right, I can get TWO loads going at the same time. This means I can knock out all 7 loads of laundry in less than 5 hours.
6. My husband will be the first to tell you that this process actually takes far more than 5 hours. I usually leave clean/folded laundry on the couch for a day or three… Because I’m lazy like that. K. Leave me alone.

Anyway, sorry. Enough about me. I forgot this post was supposed to be about YOU. For the sake of building community around here and all that blah blah, do you have any important laundry information that you feel the need to share?

No really. I’m interested…

zzzzzzzzz……..

( )

Suddenly, I’m getting hit with questions about “my new CD.”

And I don’t blame you. This whole “project” has morphed into something I wasn’t planning. Did I just call it a project? Um. It was supposed to be a creative session to maybe churn out a half-dozen demos of my best work. Didn’t see this coming at all…

Here’s how things went down: Brent surprised me by recording ONE of my songs in the fall, and I loved it so much that I begged him to do some more. He said “fly out and we’ll see what we can get through.”  So I packed my bags, collected 9 possible songs (even though he said we were aiming for 4 to 7 max) and headed to Oregon.

Y’all… I didn’t even bring my guitar.

We spent the week working through stuff – pulled together his band to play on some of the songs – talked about CD design, marketing, photos -  came out with TEN decent songs, a really FUN photoshoot, and plans for how to finalize everything in the next few months.

So.

Yeah.

I guess I’m working on a new CD right now…?

iTunes, here I come.

I think I’ve hit it. I’ve been here for 4 1/2 unbelievable and jam-packed days. Getting very little sleep. Laughing a lot. And doing what I love to do…

If we’re not recording music, we’re listening to it or writing it or talking about it. ahhhhh…. This is amazing.

I’m beginning to think that I won’t be able to adequately thank Brent for what he’s doing – in producing this project for me. Lining up musicians. Setting aside all this time. Y’all have no idea.

I can’t wait for y’all to hear the shapes and textures that these songs are forming. I’ve shared most of these songs here on the blog, many written in the past year or so… You’ll recognize a lot, but you’ll hear them in ways I never could’ve put down for you.

So yeah, my days are full. My cup runs over. And I’m flat exhausted right now.

But, having the time of my life.

More to come…

Again, I have no words for how amazing all this is. So, I’m limited to just showing you as many snippets as I can… Brent let me lead for a moment:

1) Tonight we’re planning a live chat at 8pm EST / 5pm PST, over at Brent’s blog… We’ll have a live feed streaming to the internet, so you can get to know Brent and Tam and Josh some more! Can’t wait to see y’all on the net. Please come say hey!

2) This is Joshua White.

This is what Joshua White can do:

Josh is another blogger that’s chillin’ at the Hodge Lodge this weekend… And, y’all, he’s as attached to his camera as Tam is attached to her iPhone. He’s a great guy, works for a great church, and has a GREAT heart for life and ministry and art and people…

Throughout the weekend he’d snap photos of moment after moment after memory after memory, and has a ton of random shots ready for y’all on his blog.

Enjoy!

Photo by Joshua White.