My First Music Video made by the Dafthermit

This lovely music video with my song Moonbeam was made by my dear friend, Andy, the Dafthermit, who travels the Highlands of Scotland with his precious wife, Mel, and their 2 cats and 2 dogs in a black bus that was custom made by them. Andy used his photography, and film of Scotland, plus some of my personal pictures to make this video. Listen closely and you can hear the winds blowing across the fields of flowers in Scotland.

Please stop by to see more of the dafthermits videos HERE and his blog featuring stories, films and photography about their travels living off the grid HERE. Fabulous! FABULOUS!

I'm happy to announce my tests results came back normal. First time I've ever been considered normal... I'm going to savor it. Thank you for all your prayers, and good energy sent my way. And thank you Andy and Mel for making such an amazing video for Moonbeam---and me. I adore you!

Thighs Does Matter

There's one kind of robbery that's the worst kind of all. Oh it's sneaky, and if you're not watching closely, you'll lose your ass. You can often uncover the underhanded deed when you're standing in the check out line at the store thumbing through a magazine, patiently waiting your turn. Then BAM! The covert crime jumps up, and smacks you in the face! Literally...

Right there on page 72. You find a shot of yourself in the Victoria Secret ad but someone cut YOUR head off your body, and placed some strange woman's face where yours used to be! What really sucks is when you start screaming about this blatant form of thievery to the people standing in line with you--they just look at you like you're a loon, or a complete loser, even if you have proof you've been robbed. This has happened over, and over, and over to me.

I finally found a way to get revenge. FaceinHole. Look at my furrrrreeeeking gorgeous thighs would ya??? My face + someone else's body. A thigh for a thigh. Brilliant! I love the way my mind works sometimes... I'm not only taking back my thighs... I'm taking back my life!

I was talking to Superman tonight on the phone and told him, "I'm going to be living with Gusto this next year." I quickly added, "You understand I need him in my life right now! One day I'll live with you..."

I realized I'd let the cat out of the bag when Opie Taylor sauntered over, and meowed, "What about me??? I thought you were living with me!?"

Lord my frigging life can get complicated so dang fast sometimes. I'd just blurted out I was planning on having an affair to Superman and Opie T.

You know what Superman said???

He said, "There's room for all of us in your life, including Gusto." Opie just purred.

You see, peeps, I want to make 2010 the best ever. I want to take every step possible to conquer PTSD so I'll stop losing precious time being sick, spending long hours at the doctor's office, and the hospital like I did today getting my Echocardiogram done. Or the time it takes to recover from being worn thin by stress related illnesses. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!

I've been looking for my mantra, my word for the new year, my motto for 2010, my mission statement for seizing the moments I've missed while I've been blind dating Stress. I found it.

GUSTO...
I'm living with Gusto
in 2010

After I came home from the hospital today I took a much needed nap. I had a lot of time waiting between phases of the test today to think about what I wanted to change in my life to make the quality better. So I decided to cozy up to Gusto. And it felt darn good. After being such a bold little tart, he agreed to move in with me right away. Pfftttt... No Pre-Nup needed.

So that's the thighs of it, peeps.
I've been living with someone else's head
on my body for too long...

I'll update you about the results of my tests as soon as I get them. Lawd knows I'm gonna need a good heart to keep up with 3 men... and a lacy pair of Monkey Pantz to show off my sessy, new thighs. Oh, baby!

Heart Waves

Journal art "Love Grows Here"
Pen and Prisma colored pencils

Tomorrow I'm having the stress test to determine why my EKG was abnormal with an inversion in my T wave. I've been focusing on my art, and not much else. Lots of heart art going on around here. I'll be posting the new work soon.

Tour of Nostrildamus

Woodstock Lily sings for you

Lille Diane and Michael Tsang, 'East Winds"

About a month ago, maybe less, I was looking for an old tape to let Superman hear a version of 'Over the Rainbow' I recorded. This song is one of my all time favorites without a doubt. In my search to find the recording of this one song I found another cassette that I didn't even know I had. Thirty one years this tape was buried. It survived several cross country moves, musky basements, and storage units living in beaten up cardboard boxes. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it appeared in a drawer as if MAGIC. It wasn't even labeled. Why I picked this particular cassette up is a mystery in itself, except to say, something much larger, and grander, than myself is working on my behalf.

Silver Rose, Louie Baker on the left, me on the right with dark hair.

The tape had several live recordings of songs I'd written on it, and didn't even remember I had recorded, as well as songs I'd performed with two bands; Silver Rose with Louie Baker, and East Winds, a duo with Michael Tsang, both during the 70's. This has been an emotional, and jaw dropping few weeks with discoveries of my musical career preserved as a part of my continuing musical legacy.

My Dad played with 50's icons Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Johnny Horton. He met my mother, an aspiring vocalist, who sang backups on a couple of recordings that ended up on jukeboxes, not as hits but as fillers. My daddy had a drinking problem, as do many musicians, and it got in the way of him having the brilliant career he was born to have. My grandmother told me a story about a night he was playing with Johnny Horton. Johnny told her, "Dub is one of the best guitar players out there but the bottle is his first love. He won't go anywhere till he leaves her behind." Sad, but true, this has happened to too many extremely talented artists, musicians, and writers.

As you all know I have been using creativity, and a creative to do list to help me heal from PTSD. It has not been an A-Z process for me, and truthfully, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting, or rewarding, if everything just "fell into place" with no effort or learning on my part. I'm learning so much from Dr. Ed, and, Michele Rosenthal, at Heal My PTSD. But in saying that, I've experienced some hard hills to climb out of this valley of PTSD, and at times, my body has been dragging my dreams down due to setbacks health wise.

Finding these tapes has given me the courage to begin undertaking one of the goals on my list; to record another album. I will not allow PTSD to rob me of my purpose, my calling, and my God given talents to accomplish my dreams. I've had these dreams since I was 10 years old. My amazingly talented son, Jake, will be working with me on this project singing backup, and laying down all the music tracks. Yes, he can play everything! Superman is at the helm as my producer, and protector. Dylan is in charge of managing me. (hehe Lord knows I need that...)

For the last few weeks, Superman has painstakingly worked to digitize and clean up as much hiss off these recordings as he could, then he saved them to an mp3 format. So.... with a wee bit nervousness, mixed with a huge "I just won the Freaking LOTTERY!!!" attitude, I introduce a collection of songs on my side bar for your listening pleasure.

My personal favorites are: Moonbean, I Never Meant To Hurt You, Over the Rainbow, and Girl In The Mirror. There's one country song on here I wrote called, 'A Child Like Me'. I grew up thinking country music was all there was because of my family history. I've since learned to love and appreciate all music. "A Child Like Me' has a Christian message layered with the idea that we all want to be accepted by our Daddy's, whether it is Daddy God or our own birth fathers. I've always had a spiritual heart, and have always been a seeker, looking for God, for answers, and spiritual love. I worked in the Contemporary Christian music business from 1987-1998. I had the honor of being the opening vocalist for the phenomenal Wayne Watson, winner of tons of Grammy's and Dove Awards, in 1989.

yes, I had big hair... didn't everyone in the 80's????
Wayne Watson, myself, and Scott Alan, a DJ at KDAR, Oxnard CA

If you're on Facebook you can fan me there at Lille Diane: Singer-Songwriter and on Reverbnation. I'd be so honored to have you listen to my songs (they're up there on the top right on the player) and cheer me on to taking my healing to the next level.

Bronzed Knickers and Diamonds

About 10 years ago I was opening a bottle of wine, and as soon as I started twisting the wine opener into the cork I could tell something was not right. I was right. The cork was so dry, my twisting against the glass caused the neck of the bottle to shatter in my hand. In all the years I've opened wine bottles, I've never seen this happen to anyone. My ring finger was cut so deeply in the finger pad area, it required surgery, and stitches.

Shards of glass are still working their way out of my finger all these years later including a piece now. It's deep, and while it's not causing me much grief, I know eventually, I'll have to address it. I've had to go to the doctor several times in years past to have festering pieces of glass surgically removed. Other times, the glass pops through my fingertip like a sprout in springtime, and all I need is tweezers to pluck it out. Simple as that--all it needed was time.

I see this as a metaphor to having PTSD. On some days when a scary thought comes racing through my head, or a negative one, I can use my own mental tweezers to pull it out before it starts infecting my thoughts. But for the most part, I still need professional assistance to help me work through the layers of trauma. I've tried to hold these fears in, fearful I'd be judged for being scared to get in a car again, or judged for not just "getting over it". Heck, I've even barked at myself to suck it up, and to put my Xena Princess Warrior bronzed knickers back on my lily livered arse. That's the part of me that's over the car accident, but the larger part of me is still on hyper drive, or as Dr. Ed says, "my fears are on steroids."

Try as I may I cannot hold these feelings, and thoughts in forever. I'm only making it harder on my body, and my recovery, when I do that. This is why my tummy troubles have kicked into warp speed. It's all connected to my body's injuries, and my tummy's the place I hold my stress. I've been having some of the worst panic attacks I've ever had these past few weeks, hence, the worst pain in my abdomen for a long time. Dr. Ed says I need to let it out. I won't break into a million pieces of glass if I do. If I allow it all to come to the surface like that sliver of buried glass I won't go comatose and die in the prenatal position--even if my body tells me I will. And it has told me that.

He asked me if I ever knew anyone who had cried themselves to death. He said a human can physically maintain a good crying jag for about 15-20 minutes before they wear themselves out. I instantly thought of my son when he was little, and after a tantrum or a bad day, how he would cry himself to sleep. I suppose I thought I "should" be past crying at this stage of my PTSD. Perhaps a healthy crying session will clear the way for more healing, and will create less stress on my tummy.

The glass bottle in the picture is full of sand, and pieces of broken glass that I picked it up in a parking lot after we finished the 5k Race for Hope (to raise money and awareness for brain tumor research) in Washington DC the day of the accident. I remember asking everyone to wait for me while I squatted like a kid in a sandbox, scooping up the brightly colored pieces of glass mingled with sand on the hot asphalt. It was from a mosaic pattern that adorned this particular parking lot in downtown DC, and time and traffic, had caused it to crumbled pushing 1000's of tiny sea-like glass free. To me it was a candy store of recyclable treasure, and I would have stayed for hours collecting this wind fall of potential art material if I'd been able to.

Time always has a way of giving me answers in unexpected ways much like this bottle has been a visual lesson to me. I never once shook the bottle to make the pretty colored bits and pieces of glass rise to the surface. Time did that all by itself. Just as the slivers of glass in my fingers cannot be squeezed or forced out of my finger before it's time, neither can the PTSD shrapnel in my head. It's working itself out at a pace I can handle. Time is what I need for things to shift into place so I can heal properly.

I've been called Diamond Lil my entire adult life. Why not now, too, even if I feel like a diamond in the rough most days? Diamonds come from coal, and it's pressure that creates diamonds. Poets have long compared tears to glistening diamonds. Who knows, maybe a diamond sheds a tear to free itself from the dark sheath of coal, and darkness. Or perhaps all I have to do is open the lid on this bottle to let the miracle out... Time will show me, of this I am sure.

New Year New Contest

Lisa, from Eco Yogini, was one of 94 people who entered the contest last fall to name my new home. There were hundreds of fabulous entries. "The Lily Pad" was also suggested by several people but it was Lisa's name I picked out of the hat--literally. The prize was a custom painting created for her by me.

Yesterday her painting arrived at her door.

Click Here
to watch her open it.

Her fiance, Andrew, captured the moment of her
opening the package from start to end.
Adorable... simply adorable.
This was so much fun...
I'm thinking up a new contest.
For those of you who leave a comment here
AND at Lisa's blog,
I'll put your name in the hat TWICE!
Stay TUNED for prize announcement!

Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice"
16 x 2o Mixed Media

I just finished her a few days ago. I'm taking an online class with Suzi Blu, "The Goddess and the Poet".

I haven't been feeling that well. I'll keep you posted. It's related to the scar tissue in my abdomen. Send me some hugs and hot cocoa. I'm praying I won't need another surgery. I hope this guy will be my surgeon if I do. He looks wise and I'll bet he's wearing his Monkey Pantz.

Dr. Emery to the rescue.

Best Gift All Year

Happy Birthday, Emery!
He made his debut last New Year's day.
I'm blessed to have such a beautiful family.

First headphone experience. LOL