Crashing California

I started the Daniel Fast last week. I felt that the Lord was calling me to this for a while, but it's such a pain, lol, it took me a while to commit ... after Murray left and after having Mexican food for a solid five days, I was ready to clean out my body and center my soul and mind upon what the Lord had for me. It also turned out that the day I began was the first day of Lent (!) How coincidental, ha! So I am certain that this is my season to seek, praise and learn about what it's like to just BE in His presence. (Sidebar, I am not doing the Fast for 40 days, lol, just the normal 21) I wasnt' sure exactly what I should be praying about in the beginning, but I really feel so strongly that Jay and I are in such a new season, that I am focusing my prayers around that. Yesterday the Lord hit me. I've been reading and praying in the morning and journalling like usual, but this time going through the Daniel Fast book that I have, so each day is a bit different and...

I've been marinating the content of this blog for quite a while — 2014 is turning out to be quite the year, no understatement ... In the last four weeks, we had layoffs at work, which resulted in me becoming a one-woman creative services dept for our entire organization and losing my partner in crime, which proved to be quite a bit more sad and stressful than i had expected.  I celebrated my 36th birthday in Maui, with a cold and came back to a fire-storm at work, which is just beginning to let up. And as of today, we are officially a one-income household, with Jay leaving his job at BBros (which is actually a very GOOD thing, it just holds a lot of unknowns for us, but, this is not new). A year ago, at this time I was experiencing a songwriting and worship retreat that was essentially knocking my spiritual socks off in every way.  I was surrounded by ladies with hearts like mine and each of us was finding our "wings" (as Rita Springer calls it).  It was an emotional an...

  As some of you may know — or not — I am embarking on a journey to do my own music project. I have no goals or aspirations with it except to craft the songs from my heart and make them available for sonic consumption.   I have wrestled with the "purpose" or  theme for the effort for some time, years actually because in the beginning I wanted the album to be about my dad, or for my dad, or a slap in the face of my Dad, etc., etc, and I finally came to the realization that it doesn't have to be about him at all. His choices have shaped me some, but I don't need to sit in that puddle of mud anymore and so began a "re-drafting" of my project. Since coming back from Dallas almost a year ago (!!) from a life-changing experience thanks to Rita Springer and her DIVE School, I have also been steadily journaling and writing, and becoming a better songwriter I would like to think ... or at least more practiced, and hey, practice can only make better, right? So, ...

I figure we can't ignore our other birdie babies =) Here's a recent video of them singing in the morning =)  Sunny is usually the obnoxious one (as shown here in full glory) Oscar makes a surprise appearance at the end. Sweetpea is the one in the front, who really does live up to her name. Sweetest bird on the block. ... alright, enough about the birds right? Till Next Blog! love, a.

Max enjoying the foam from Jay's latté I know, I know, we've become "those" crazy bird people. Yes, 2013 seems to have been the year of the birds for the Huzil's.  Our little family "flock" has been growing, and growing and our little home is now full of noise, food and poop. It's almost like having real kids. (Although we all know I can't speak completely to this, since we have no kids). I wanted to introduce you to Max (Maxamillion) Our latest—and prob. last ... hopefully last!— addition to the family. Max is a green cheek conure, a small parrot from South America.  He's quite a handful, and WAY more demanding than our little lovies, Sunny, Baby, Oscar and Sweetpea. But he's also, way more interactive, intelligent, and completely hand trained. He is pretty close to having a real little person. He's messy yes, NOT noisy at all (compared to the lovies, really! They can make your ears ring) and demands your attention.  But ...

Sometimes I wish I could turn the world off. Everything competes for my attention.  The next person selling something. The next thing that's going to make my life easier, more attractive.  This computer screen that I sit at all day, almost every day, for 8+ hours has too many rabbit holes to go down at any given time and my eyes become filled with the next thing to buy, the newest touching story or the latest horror story. ----------------------------------- I've been reading Matthew (yes I finally got into the new testament!) and I've slowed my reading down to almost a passage at a time because there is so much MEAT in these words I'm reading now, it's best to take a paragraph at a time and focus on it, instead of doing chapters. I am in Chapter 6 and reading about Jesus' teachings on money and worry and something has always pierced my heart in particular ... the whole section reads like this: 19  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,...