Back by popular demand...

A picture taken by Derek at Sealion War a couple of weeks ago while I was harping in a field for some friends...

I would like to say that I haven't been blogging because I am too busy but that wouldn't be _entirely_ true. There has been a lot going on lately but I think I just needed a break from the blog... happily I am back!

Exciting times are coming up in my life... my Relax to the Max 2 week intensive chair massage training course is coming up and I am currently prepping for that by going through the manual and doing a fair amount of homework.

After the massage course is finished I have a day off and then (dadadadaaaaa....) I am going to be recording my new cd (so if you are one of those people who would like to pre-order please get in touch with me so I can put your name on the list). I will be recording at Amo Audio with Adam Biggs in Richmond. I went to check out the facilities and found them to be quite wonderful. My friend, Andrew Chan (harpist extrodinaire) has done some recording with Adam (clips are on the Amo website) and highly recommends him. I am hoping to get the recording done and put to bed by the end of August so I can send it (along with my artwork and layout) away for replication and hopefully be getting my order back sometime at the beginning of September (a good time to start thinking about Christmas presents for people). The album is titled "Celtic Angel" and will be available from my website as well as from local independent music stores in Vancouver and (hopefully) I will be talking to some larger distributors and finding out about getting it into some of the major music stores. I will let you know when I find out which locations Celtic Angel will be available in.
This album will be a compilation of (*gasp*) well known celtic folk music as well as some from England and a few original tunes of my own.

My personal life is getting hectically busy too... but I am looking forward to everything I have coming up.
Next week Derek and I will be leaving for a five day "family" vacation... that is to say: we are going to Kelowna to spend Wednesday through Friday with his parents (Brian and Cindy) and sister (Katie) and potentially some aunts, uncles and cousins. Then on Friday we are all setting off as a caravan to visit Derek's grandparents (Sig and Christine), in Williams Lake, who are having their 50th wedding anniversary... BIG congratulations to them! :) It is _also_ Sig's 75th Birthday (he doesn't look a day over 50) and Derek's 26th birthday. I am bringing my harp up to play during the reception for a while and bringing the massage chair up to help some of the (almost) "in-laws" feel better.

Derek and I will be coming back to town on Monday and have a few days at home before we head off the next Friday night to the island for my 10 year high school reunion (I know _everyone_ probably says this but... WOW! How time flies!) I can't wait to see old friends. Having gone to a private boarding school was a really interesting experience but one of the saddest parts about it was that, at the end, all of your friends return to their homes all over the world and the chances of seeing them again are a LOT slimmer that usual with old school friends.

Then when we get back home I begin my massage course and then the recording. Once I am done recording I have about four days free and then Derek, our friend Sam, and I will be heading out to Calgary for about four or five days before we come back to BC to go camping with friends in the Shuswap area for the August long weekend.
I hear that the camping trip is always a blast. The f00f group (I will let Derek explain the name) goes to an old logging site (which you are allowed to camp in) and grabs the whole thing for the group (which is usually pretty large). The campsite is right on a private lake and surrounded by nothing but wilderness for miles... my kind of weekend!

Upon returning home from the f00f camping trip I am planning to head to Pennsylvania for Pennsic War XXXIV (driving there with... someone... I haven't figured that part out yet) which is an SCA event lasting a week and a half which on average has something like 12,000 people attending every year. I am still not sure how I am going to get enough $ together to get there (as I will be spending most of July doing massage course and recording) so i am just _hoping_ that something miraculous will fall into place by then.

When I get back from Pennsic I will have a couple of weeks of summer left (and should be pretty rested by then) so I will be taking my massage chair down to Kitsilano Beach and trying to make a little money while the weather is still nice. I will also be starting to seriously market myself for doing corporate chair massage (as I will be able to get insurance for that once I am done the Relax to the Max course) and start heavily promoting my CD release (for which I will most likely try to have a CD release evening (concert, party, something similar).

So that's my summer in a nutshell. Somehow, I have managed to book myself _almost_ all the way through until September (when Derek and I will be going to Hovander Park in Bellingham for September Crown - SCA event - during the labour day long weekend). How plans change! Back in March I was planning on spending most of summer hanging out in Victoria with friends... ah well... c'est la vie!


(killer kitty cute story... reminds me of our cat, Pukah):
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/06/09/cat-bear.html