Mod Mom Turns One: It's Blogaversary Day in IndieDom!

Uh huh...it's my Blogaversary...whoop whoop!  Na na na na...you say it's your Blogaversary...na na na na na na...Happy Blogaversary to ya!  Happy...Happy Blogaversary to me...Happy Blogaversary to me and to you...

You get the idea.  I've been doing this for a year as of today.  And you know what?  I still love doing it.  In fact, I love doing it even more.  What a wild, terrific ride it's been!  I've gone to a couple of blogging conferences, I've met a lot of terrific people - both online and in person - and I'm proud and happy to be a part of the blogosphere and the community of amazing people out there (that's all of you!) who read, write, comment, share, dare, care, go with or without underwear...

I feel pretty fortunate to have had some pretty cool opportunities to  share my work outside my own little corner of things here in IndieDom.  I'm having a great time over at Aiming Low, my monthly music column "Linda Roy Records" at Funny Not Slutty, Bonbon Break and I'm having learning so much on the open grids at Yeah Write and the Speakeasy each week.  I was kinda nervous about how it would do, but I started my own blog hop I Don't Like Mondays and throughout all of this, you guys - my friends and compadrés have been there reading and supporting and sharing your comments and stories and fabulousness.

Thank You!

You guys rock.  Without you, I am nothing...but a lonely old guitar playing mama writing jokes and laughing at them all by herself in her little old empty house from the hours of approximately 8 and 3 on weekdays...hey...where's the violin?  Cue the violin?  Kris? Janice? Ed? Jonathan?  None of them are answering.  Okay...well then you'll just have to rub your thumb and forefinger together and simulate the worlds' tiniest, saddest violin instead.

To celebrate and to show my appreciation...I am giving away 25 of my band Jehova Waitresses drink coaster CD single. If you want one, just shoot me an email with your home address and I will send you one.  I won't come to your house to bum coffee or put my boots on your good coffee table, so don't be afraid.  I mean you no harm. I only wish to rock you.  

For you and me, my friends...I have a feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful blogship.  And we'll always have the blogasphere.  

Here's a look back at my very first post.  Enjoy and y'all come back now, hear? 

Love, 

            Mod Mom xoxo 

Musical Gear vs. Investment or Why We Still Don't Have Floor In In Our Living Room

photos by: elleroy

My husband works pretty hard.  In fact, he works all the time.  He's a self employed architect who, as I type this, is busily designing a client's waterfront dream digs and will be for most of the night.
In between bursts of design inspiration or when his computer crashes, deleting his last 20 minutes of work, he grabs his guitar and noodles a bit, writes a riff or a verse.  That's kind of what we do.  In between work, household duties, listening to the play by play details of our 5 year old's latest Star Wars battle, listening to our 12 year old's complaints and just plain exhaustion, we try to work in some creativity.

Making time to hang out in our garage studio and rehearse or record is one challenge.  Miles (5) wants us to be in the house even though his 12 year old brother is there with him.  My oldest son, a fledgling guitarist in his own right, would rather be hanging in the adult club house jamming along.

The next great challenge is the guilt over whether to spend money on our "habit".  Sure, lots of people have expensive hobbies. Hell, before we had kids we were Civil War Re enactors.  (Did I really just admit that? In public?) It's expensive to sleep on straw, wear wool and eat off metal plates, trust me. We don't have a boat, we don't camp, we don't go to Vegas.  We play music.  But when hubby bought me an expensive Gibson acoustic guitar for Mother's Day several years back, my extreme excitement was tempered a bit by the realization that we could have gotten the kids one of those kick ass jungle gyms that sit in the backyard of every McMansion and no kid is ever seen on.   A few months ago, hubby bought some high quality microphones for our studio and I wasn't a good sport.  I still start the occasional sentence in dripping sarcasm with "Well it's a good thing we have those microphones..."

Then came Saturday.  I came upstairs to check on the laundry, and as I passed through the bedroom, I saw something hanging on the wall that hadn't been there last time I walked in.  It was a 1965 Rickenbacker electric guitar. A FREAKING 1965 RICKENBACKER!!

Now you have to understand one thing; I have wanted this particular style of Ric for over 20 years.  An old band member of ours had one he used to let me play and hell - there's even one on the cover of Tom Petty's "Damn the Torpedoes". You know the one. This one is a bit more unique - hadn't seen one like it before. But it was made a month before I was born, which makes it even cooler.  I totally did not see this coming.  He's good with the surprises.  Went out on a weeknight.  A WEEKNIGHT!!  At 10:30.  In the pouring rain.  He endured at least a half an hour of Grateful Dead music.  All so he could hang this guitar on the wall and let me know that he not only enjoys, but EXPECTS to see me do something more with my days than banish the ring around the collar.

Double happiness! Rapture! Utopia! Chased with a little bit of guilt. First because my kid was staring me down like Clint Eastwood on a bad day, seeing that HE hadn't gotten a new guitar since last month.  And secondly, because although I know that every guitar we have is not only a most excellent vessel for our creative indulgences, a grown up toy, a kick ass conversation piece, but, being that some of them are vintage - damn good investments.

Thoughts run through my brain.  Wow, we were just talking about putting in that patch of floor in the living room so we don't have to explain for the 3 billionth time why we have a square of plywood at the base of the stairs.  I'm running out of creative comebacks. "It's rustic." "It has a certain textural patina unsurpassed by such overdone materials as say - marble."

We still haven't started a college fund!  I know my kids are brilliant and will probably receive scholarships or maybe win Season 30 of The Apprentice.  But...just in case...

I take the guitar off the wall...I scream a little bit. Okay, there was definitely a little jumping up and down involved.

By Sunday morning when Clint Eastwood is cracking a smile and I'm showing him the chords to "All Along the Watchtower" and he's showing signs of thinking his mom might just be moderately cool...maybe just a little bit less embarrassing than usual, I decide that this guitar is a good investment.  Not just for the money, but because if it gets my kid to see me as a person beyond the nagging parental unit who's very existence seems to stem from and derive pleasure from getting him to pick up after himself and do his homework, if I can teach him something that he considers useful AND fun, if we can connect on this level AND I can possibly stave off the almost inevitable intrusion of Jay Z or Cool - whoever bursting forth from his bedroom speakers....then I'll have done my job. And it'll have been fun. For both of us.

And the dogs piss on that part of the living room floor anyway.

photo