January is FLYING BY

And I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your support, and WELCOME to all our new Patrons!! ♡ Whoppie Senior cards are currently in the mail, so keep an eye on your mailbox! 🥳🎶 This month has been crazy busy for me (when is it NOT?!?) so I wanted to make a blog post and update y'all on everything that's going on.

There's a really fun new video coming out on the main channel on January 30th, and the topic of the video is a secret I've been keeping for a few months. It's been SO tough not to tell you anything about it -- almost as tough as me not saying anything about the Obverse album with Dan Briggs & Chris Allison that just came out!

 A lot of people are asking for more behind-the-scenes looks into how the album was recorded, so I'll probably post a Patreon cut of a longer interview here. I had to edit down an hour and a half of footage from us chatting, and it was really difficult to make it 15 minutes (including the intro and playing). Working with Dan and Chris was such an incredible experience, and I really hope we do more things together!

Does anyone else have an Xbox, or an Xbox Game Pass? Because I've been loving the fact that I can just try out whatever game is available there (for a limited time, of course -- however long they're listed as a Game Pass game). I recently tried playing a game called Road 96 (which is currently on sale for $5 on Steam!!!) and really loved it, especially because of the soundtrack, which I had no idea was sung by my favorite band Cocoon! I used to listen to Cocoon back in college, so this was really a pleasant surprise. If I'm playing games by myself, I like games where my brain can kind of zone out and relax. I'm not ALWAYS a huge fan of puzzle games; it kind of depends on my mood. But if I'm playing games with somebody else, then I love puzzles because I can chat about them and figure it out together.

My tinnitus is still bothering me and it gets a little worse during the winter, but I'm finding ways to deal with it. This year will be 3 years living with tinnitus, in June (can you believe it?! I remember my blog posts back when it first happened)... but my day to day life feels just like how it used to before I even got tinnitus at all. I'm so proud of the work I've done with accepting it, and I'm very careful about my hearing. The other day I went to a workout class called "RipStix" , which involved weighted drum sticks (not to be confused with the skateboard thing called "RipStik") and I was so excited to try something new. The instructor seemed a little frazzled because she showed up late, and she asked, "who has never taken a RipStix class before?!" and me, being me, raised my hand. She was like, "oh wow, we have a newbie in here! And she took a spot right in the front! That's so exciting, I love to see it!" and she went to turn the music on. I swear, I'm not over exaggerating when I say: the SECOND this woman pressed the play button, I started to feel nauseous. The song "Believer" by Imagine Dragons starting ABSOLUTELY BLASTING into my face, at a volume level I've never heard in a public space before, and it was so loud I genuinely started sweating. I looked around to see if anyone else was bothered by it, but they were all focusing on the warmup exercises. I felt really embarrassed, but within 2 minutes I was rolling up my yoga mat. I'm sure the instructor thought it was too difficult or something for me, and I really wanted to convey somehow that the music was potentially damaging. I tried to wait until after the class was over, but she was teaching a new class directly after that one, and I didn't want to interrupt and run in and tell her, "HEY! I care about ear health, and I think you should, too!!"

I usually keep an extra pair of earplugs on me at all times for moments like this, but it's harder to remember when I'm at the gym. There are places I get too comfortable and forget that I sometimes need earplugs to protect my hearing even further, and it's hard when nobody around you is wearing them. Sometimes I feel really dumb putting in earplugs, because when I was young that might have been something I wouldn't understand. "Why is that woman putting in EARPLUGS for a workout class?! What a baby!" ... I hope nobody was thinking that. I went to a local wrestling show over the weekend and brought my earplugs with me, and I didn't care if anyone thought it was stupid.

I finished reading a book called Project Hail Mary recently, and if you're into Sci-Fi, I HIGHLY recommend checking this book out!! They're making it into a movie next year starring Ryan Gosling, and it's always fun to read the book before the movie :) My therapist recommended a book called The Let Them Theory, and I read a lot of the sample pages because right now there are over 1,100 people waiting for a copy on the Libby app!!! I've never seen such a high demand for a book before on that app, so I was thinking the book must be really great. I don't usually buy books anymore; I really prefer to use library resources for them, but if anyone else has read this one, please let me know what you think of it!

I just booked an exciting new project for a harp recording on a TV show, and once that is published I will absolutely tell you more about it because I'm super, super excited about it!

Have you read any good books lately? Tried out a fun piece of music gear? What TV are you currently watching? I'm keeping up to date on Severance and trying to watch the new episodes as they come out every week, but sometimes it's hard to keep up!