well it's been a weekend of delayed flights. sitting here now in the westin lounge in edmonton, waiting to leave for an already delayed flight home. at least here there's beer and free internet!!! (not like sitting in the edmonton airport). today has been a really great relaxed day.... since our flight isn't until the early evening, I got a late check out and lay in bed most of the day, watching cable tv..(i decided to take today off from working on the funding applications, since i got so much done on the plane and in my downtime yesterday). i had a large room all to myself with 2 bathrobes... so i made sure to wear them both!! i took a very pampering shower and moisturized. it was very nice to just slow down for a bit and feel like i had no demands on my time. i think it helped my back to feel a little better, although it's not by any means recovered. i wonder if it was my high heeled boots that did me in more than anything... this weekend was the first time i've worn boots all year.

i forgot to mention in my posts yesterday and the day before, but on Friday night the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards were given out, and of the 4 nominations, we took home 2! (Best Female Artist and Best Songwriter). we received the news via text message on our way into Yellowknife. It's nice that an album I produced / cowrote / etc won some awards... nice!!

anyways, once i get home it's back to business....I'm down to the last few days of working on the funding applications. I'm quite far along now and it feels good. I'm excited to hand it in... and not have to think about it for the rest of the year! i'm also excited about my show at The Central this weekend, it will be our first gig with Denton on drums (Denton is going to be the drummer on my new record and we've been wanting to play together for a long time.) this will be our chance to test drive some of the new songs for the record. then after this week, i'm officially on a little holiday... and i can worry about holiday shopping.... groan.

xox
k

stuck in yellowknife... our flight is delayed by almost 2 hours and no one told us until we tried to go through security for the umpteenth time and they refused us saying they were closed! we hopped an airport shuttle back to the hotel so we could get some wireless internet (junkies!)...

my back is sore, i think it's been the stress of the last few weeks of getting my application together or something... very tired and hungry.

k

hello from yellowknife! it was a long travel day, (flew from toronto to edmonton, then edmonton to yellowknife) but we got treated really nice on the Canadian North flight from Edmonton to Yellowknife... who ever heard of sushi being served on a plane???!!! :) saw the Northern Lights from the plane window as we flew through them... found that i'm one of the only lucky ones who's cell phone works up here! it was -34 (Celcius) when we touched down tonight, and tomorrow they're predicting a high of -20. balmy!

actually, being from winnipeg, these temperatures aren't that unusual... although for Winnipeg this would be the thick of winter, not November! :)
ok and as i just typed this, power outage in the hotel! thank god for laptop batteries. now i'm in pitch black. except for the light of my laptop screen... yellowknife is MUCH darker at night than other areas of the country.

kinda spooky!

k

i think the problem is that i feel like i'm always on borrowed time... there's no actual free time unless i'm miles away and unable to work on anything. i'll rent a movie, and it'll be like: i'm gonna watch this movie, but then i've gotta do blah blah blah blah blah.... it never ends.

i've gotten a lot of work done on my funding application in the last few days, however. it's much easier now that it's started... the starting is the hard part, like many things in life. now i just have to pick up and continue. write about how i plan to succeed. write about how i will measure that success.

it would be so much easier if i could just say that my "artist statement" is that i plan to continue writing and making better and better records. unfortunately, if i did that, one of two things would happen: a) i'd get the cool jury and they'd think it was great and give me the funding anyways and it would be one of those cool stories that bands tell about their past OR b) it wouldn't fly and i wouldn't get the funding and i'd not be able to make the record the way i want.

so, i can't really take that chance... cuz let's face it... in the end, the federal government has to see a reason to give out the money and all... and i can understand that from a business standpoint... but from an artistic standpoint it can be a bit of a drag to have to write essays on how you will measure your success.. i mean, talk about something that can instigate a writer's block!

k

apologies for the long wait between posts... it's been a heavy time... i'm getting some new demos ready for my funding applications and to have around play for some people that i'd like to be involved in the creation of the new record. i had previously made rough demos when i wrote the songs, but i hadn't prepared them with anyone but me in mind, so didn't worry about things like volume, balance, cleanness of parts, etc... it was more for my own sake, fleshing out my ideas quickly as i wrote the song.

in order to do this, i did cancel some chapters shows last saturday and this week, but i did still play in kitchener last friday. wow though, what a night! what normally should be a 1 hour drive took literally 3 HOURS to get there, which put me in to Kitchener way late, and i didn't get started playing until 8pm (instead of 7pm as scheduled). thanks so much to don for pitching in to carry in some gear when we got there!! then...... AFTER the show, traffic was still horrific (there was an overturned tractor trailer on the highway) so it took yet another 2 1/2 hours to get home. in all, i drove 5 1/2 hours to play for an hour and a half.... lol. we stayed entertained with the iPod and listening to traffic reports on the radio. thank god we ate before we left kitchener or i would have probably been eating my own arm off in the car.

i saw Death Cab for Cutie in concert at massey hall on monday and it was really inspiring... normally i have really bad ticket-buying luck, but this time i had front row tickets!!! (the result of stopping in the middle of tour on a drive to Ottawa to get internet in a cafe in Belleville and log on to the band's website at the EXACT time the pre-sale started). the band sounded great and i went home a very happy girl.

i have to get the november newsletter happening... things have been pretty busy so i'm a bit behind on everything, but i promise you'll have it soon...