It All Started with a Green Teapot

"Why do you put the red pillows on the red sofa, and the blue pillows on the blue sofa?"
he says "Because that's how it's SUPPOSED to be?" So I asked "Who says? The Catalogs at the store? The people on T.v?" and he replies, "No, when you Buy it, that's how it comes!"

To me this is perfect in describing how most people follow most people. They decorate, they act, they buy what they're supposed to by. Why would you put the blue pillow on the red sofa, and the yellow chaise lounge pillow on the blue sofa, and why wouldn't the red pillow look good ON the yellow chaise lounge? So with No hesitation at all, I marched my 5'2 self over to the red couch and put one of it's brilliant red pillows, on the blue couch, and took the blue pillow and put it on the bright yellow chaise lounge, and took the bright yellow from the chaise lounge and put it on the red sofa, and YEAH my eyes are now free....as before they were locked on each piece of furniture, no 'flow' no 'traveling' for my visual bliss, no Movement in the house...NOW there is movement.
The next 2 hours were spent with hubbie and I moving from place to place in the main rooms, and re arranging the plants, and all of it with the art, talking art, drawing pictures on the thick textured paper that I sprawl out all over our dining room table....
The paper was that 'impulse OMG I NEED ART" type thing that randomly happens...planning on spending a few bucks turns into a bit more once I hit that art store...just a few things.
Then it was the 'regular shopping'..this is where things get dangerous....Now I try to be good when I'm in stores, but I get sooooooooooooooooo distracted by ALL those colors everywhere, everything screams LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!
Hubbie grabs this giant Green tea pot...because he is determined to find a way for me to get rid of my very cute, very small, NON WHISTLE blowin Thrift store tea pot. I LOVE that teapot, was only .50 cents and it worked fine..it boiled water...just didn't whistle.
And being the Big tea drinker that I am...OooOooo Yeah! He holds it up, and looks at me..."We should get one."...well who am I to say no?
Now...
in my world, this means....WOOO we can do a lil Impulse buying? Of Course....I didn't say this out loud, I just figured it's better I let it slide, and just kind of let it happen from there...ya know? once in awhile just 'throw something in the cart'..lil things, things he might not notice right away. So he says "I'll be right back, gonna go check out the Movies'...this is his Favorite part..so he goes and leaves me in the OMG I NEED it all isle....
Towels, thanks giving is coming...my Whole family will be here, and we should really get some new towels, and what about dishcloths, i NEVER do dishes, I have a dishwasher, and IT does the dishes...but Thanksgiving time, well...mom LOVES the kitchen, that's where people end up 70% of the time in my house or my mothers or my sisters....we cook our senses in each other, sip coffee, drink great red wines, laugh, and do our silly things..while the DUdES seem to gather round that dining room table and talk Sports or whatever it is guys talk about....So I'll need dishcloths and towels in the kitchen, and of course that great blue kitchen rug, cuz it just POPS with the other colors in the kitchen, ... like that awesome Green Teapot!
And....and...and UT OH
hubbie comes back and my cart is jammed high with blue and green towels, rugs, and I forget what the hell else I had in that cart, but the moment I turned my head as some brilliant color Screamed at me from one of the shelves...it was gone. I still had the great lil rug (hell it was 5.00 and Beautious!) and the oven mits..which i also do not have, because i take everything out of the oven with the cuffs of my shirts, they are always a bit long, and make perfect pot grabbers for hot dishes in the oven...but my mom doesn't necessarily wear super long sleeves like I do, haaa...so I had to have those too.
We spent a bit out of the budget, and of course, put things back as we went along, laughing as we found something else that 'fit'.
Then it was time for a the home department, plants, plant holders, ettc..some of our Summer plants have taken residence inside now, for the winter. St. Johns Wort, lemoney herbs that Bulge out of the tops of their planters and we found this great tropical plant, a "Corn Palm" i think, looks like a lil palm tree..tipped over in the dirt, about 70% off it's regular price...I walked by it and said "I can revive this one'' so we rescued it and took it home, repotted and put in this brilliant blue planter....
The teapot has it's place on the stove, the Corn Palm has a new home, and we drew a picture that a 5 yr old would be PROUd to hang on the fridge!

1993 Suzen Kay

Back in 1993 I was in the peak of my 'so called music career' opening up for entertainment that came rolling through Minneapolis, playing all the local venues from lil cafe's to large venues with big stages. For awhile I had a band, but mostly I was solo.
I went under the name Suzen Kay.
When my 'Papa Jule' passed away,
I changed my name to Suzen JueL, to honor him.
This is the man that gave me the gift of music.
My whole family was pretty creative and crazy,
always singing something,
Papa would bring out his harmonica,
my dad would slap on the Spoons,
my gramma would grab the old Washboard,
my lil sister and I would get papas black combs with wax paper over them and we would blow and hum into it and make a funny kazoo type sound.
We would sing and dance and laugh for hours.
My papa
passed away of Alzheimer's about 10plus years ago, and since then I have been known as Suzen JueL.
My family was supportive and my grandma was thrilled when I told her this...
after all, my Papa Jule gave me my first guitar,
one he had handmade the year I was born...although it was by pure curiosity that it ever ended up in my hands.
I was all over in things as a child,
always going into Papa's attic and digging around,
looking at all the cool stuff they had in there.
WAY on the bottom of a pile of books and suitcases was this old black case....I pulled it out a bit further and once I saw what my little hands had come upon...I yanked it out, opened it up and saw this very small Classical Guitar with a wide neck and nylon strings.
I ran downstairs "PAPAAAAAAAAAAAA" and showed him the guitar,
as if it had dropped from the heavens.
My eyes Wide and Wild, my Papa smiling, he knew what was coming and without hesitation gave it to me.
I was about 11 or 12, and decided to take lessons. That didn't last very long at all, I was a terribly shy kid and my guitar instructor wanted me to sing "Delta Dawn" while I played it on my guitar.
I stopped. I looked at her..and asked "Are you serious? You want me to Sing?"...and as if it was just like making toast, she said "well, yes''.
I stood up,
I put my guitar in it's case,
and I walked home.
No Way!!!
SING? haaaaaa!!!!
I couldn't even SPEAK in front of people, now you want me to SING? nope.
I bought some books with guitar chords in them and spent hours in my room, learning the chords, singing and writing songs.
That was the greatest gift I could have ever had.
It gave me strength, it gave me courage, to know I could actually Create Music!
So, that is the story of Suzen Kay/JueL...that is why I am what I am, because it's not just me that makes me who I am, it's those that influenced me, it's those that had so much faith in me, it's those that encouraged me to actually Pursue what they knew was my Desire, my Need in life.
Coming across this old poster, from the days when I performed all over the Twin Cities, brought back SO many memories, so many good ones.
I was fortunate to have been able to perform with such talent in the Twin Cities, and Attempt to get over the 'stage fright' to be able to Express what is in me and make sense of it, through words, through music, through expressing, that's what it's ALL about to me, Expressing what is inside...
and sometimes, people relate, and sometimes they don't.
It doesn't really matter to me who understands or doesn't...it matters to me, that I Expressed something that was in me, got it out of me and shared it....that's what my Papa Jule did.
With his hands, his creativeness he made a guitar, he passed it to me...along with SO many other things.
He was also an artist, he painted, he drew, and he made things, great things.
My Mother (my papa Jule's daughter) also paints, she writes, she plays the keyboard, the banjo, the guitar, and the accordion...
Gifts get passed, and each generation takes it in a new direction.
My fathers side of the family (French) also has quite a few amazing talents in it...artists, performers.
Gratitude for these people in my life, all of them...is magnificent and unforgettable.

PackRat n Love Songs

My husband did the best thing he could have done...he cleaned the house over the weekend, while I was away, and FINALLY I was motivated to do my own cleaning. I have BOXES still unpacked from our Big Move SEVEN years ago. So finally I began sorting through some of them, trying desperately to get RID OF THINGS THAT I NO LONGER USE...not sure why I save things I never use, like old folders from back when I worked at Time Warner, or magazine clippings, or Ralph Lauren catalogs. I don't need this, but that lil Pack Rat in me saves Everything!
There was this great box full of old scrap papers with various patterns on them, lil plastic bags of red flower clippings, music sheets that I never used, since I'm quite uncertain on how to read or write music...the Proper way...I just write my songs, draw pictures of the chords, so I remember what I was doing.
Tucked in between those folders of magazine clippings and torn out pages of perfume samples, and under countless books I filled with poetry and doodles, odd drawings and bizarre dreams, is this little piece of paper...kinda stopped me dead in my tracks...with little notes penciled in and a scratchy written title "My Name is Susie!!!' yes THREE exclamation points..because apparently at that age, I was VERY DETERMINED to let people Know My Name. I think I was about 7 or 8, not sure.
Even funnier
on the backside I wrote my babysitters name and her boyfriends -Cindy + Ron FOREVER...Susie+___ FOREVER and my sisters name and her 'boyfriend' FOREVER...because FOREVER is a serious thing when you're Seven!
This was probably the funniest thing I've seen in years, perhaps being a Packrat Paid off :)

After 2 years-SLCD Time

Second Life(tm) has been an amazing foundation for creating a virtual world where musicians and artists from all over the world, can collaborate, share their experiences and help each other with those improvements that everyone could use from time to time.
It's also a platform for those who want to take their songwriting and performance to the next level, a chance to 'test the waters' and feel out the new song before you actually place it on that CD, and get some feedback with those new lyrics, or ideas for some new Cover Art.
There is a Global Outreach if someone wants a great photographer, or a genius at Scripting..or someone who can Terraform the land, build a wonderful build...who just happens to be on the other side of the world...Second Life(tm) brings the Whole World together on one grid,
with over 65,000 active users at any given time,
how can one NOT get support or find people that need their support!
And thanks to some great minds...great things are happening and have happened and continue to happen.
Thanks to technology, many have come up with ways for Musicians to sell and distribute their songs, or CD etc...and most will take a small percentage of sales, nothing more than anyone else would, it remains competitive.
Soooo, a Musician Friend of mine, Tukso Okey, brought me to this amazing Sim with these Listening Booths All over with various musicians on each one...each one plays about 3 songs by the musician who's 'booth' you happen to be standing in.
There were people all over going from Booth To Booth listening to the various songs by each artist.
Tukso showed me the vendor he had, with his CD on it, in it's entirety, instead of just one download at a time. Not that this is new in SL, because it's not...but the combination of many listening booths...and I'm talking A LOT of them with the ability to check each artist (who chooses to rent a booth) and the CD Vendor, the Radio, the ability to listen to the music YOU want to hear, anywhere in SL, and share it with others.
Now YES we can do this with 'radio streaming' and our own streams in sl....but I like the idea that my fans, and many fans of many musicians can share the music they like with others in more than one way, and I like the idea that People can just Download my CD from SL, right to their media player.
Each 'booth' gives a the listener a chance to sample 3 songs, and/or purchase the CD right at the Booth, plus the Musician gets an amazing looking small simple vendor, that looks like a CD Booklet, which the musicians fans can click on, and purchase the CD,
which they can put directly onto their hardrive and also listen to in SL on their Land or as they explore through SL.
It truly is an incredible Sim and Bones Writer is the Man behind the Scene here...very pleasant to work with, very professional and well seasoned in what he does, as he too is a musician and knows those lil bumps in the road we encounter from time to time. So, within the week, mine will be up and running...
Now I've had this idea of a New Cd for a couple years now, and most of my longterm dedicated fans know the crummy system on that.
They would pay through paypal, wait 2-6 weeks and then get my cd. Since most of my fans are Overseas, it would take especially long to get to Germany or London or Australia. Even Canada took awhile to receive the CD they ordered from me.
THEN I put the 're release' of Without My Wings on iTunes, and that took 6 weeks before it went up on the iTunes page, Rhapsody, Amazon......but it was worth the wait...especially for those outside of the SL Grid.
But to have the option to put the CD's on the vendor...right in SL, where the base of my fan group is...is an opportunity for so many musicians...of course, Quality of the Recording DOES MATTER, and being original DOES Matter..selling a CD with someon else's songs on it, well that's just not cool or legal (unless you have permission of course).
So after making several CD's and mailing them in those yellow envelopes with 3$ worth of stamps on Each one, and doing that over and ovr again....well it was hardly a profit for me, but it was definitely an experience. And some of my fans know...I can be a lil SLOW on actually MAILING things, haaa...That is why I'm thrilled to my toes about the vendor, and by next week....I will have my first SLCD available to the SL Fanbase.
The songs, will be songs I've written over the course of the past year or so, and are largely based on personal experience both in and out of SL.
I have had some amazing experiences with some amazing souls, and then I've had some Bad Circumstances as well.
The only way to heal fully for me, is to paint it out, write it out, sing it out...so that is what I did. I will be choosing about 10-15 songs based on the past year or so...of course I won't be putting them all on one cd...I'll grab the ones that felt the best to me, and the ones I feel I've had the best response from, as far as my fanbase goes...
You All Know Who You Are and my fans are such an inspiration to me!!!!
I'm quite open with hearing their feedback on What Songs ROCK YOU!
What songs make you go BooOoo! haaa and so on and so on...it's a crazy world eh?
SO I ask again.....if you are in SL you can just Message me there....or you can comment here....
What are your favorite songs? What ones inspire you? What do you want to hear more of?
and the list goes on......What ones would you like to have on your ipod, or Media Player or CD?
Now listen close when you hear me sing
Cuz if you Really like something....I love hearing it, and I can never hear enough Good.
I grow from it, and then I give it all back in any way I can...paint it, let someone vent, help someone else...and of course
the hardest thing
letting others help me, when I fall down....(don't ya HATE that part? haaa)
I'll close on this......and always always always
Say my name
shout me out
write me down
....make some comments....send some good Karma, and this world....well...it just keeps spinning same as always.
peace all! Much Love n Peace and Pretty Stars!

Ahhhtumn

Today took my breath away. I bring my camera just about everywhere I go, and often take shots right out of the car window...my husband was driving and the beauty that surrounded us was impossible to ignore. I rolled down the window and aimed my camera out, clicking everything. I'm not looking at anything when I'm shooting these pictures, I just click until I get home...300 Photos later!
This one was one of my favorites, we live north of Minneapolis, and the colors of the seasons have hit us this year with an amazing display, and I can hardly stop talking about it.

By clicking the picture, you'll be taken to my Flickr Site, where there are A lot posted in one of the Collections, called Autumn. It is by far the most amazing Fall I've ever seen. Today was about 70 degrees outside, and everything had the most wonderful smells, the wind was warm off the lakefront as we drove and the smell was that of heat and indian summer, decaying earth. Really gets me thinking, how Beautiful the death of our summer is...it leaves with an incredible beauty, something we only see for a couple weeks a year, and then it's gone, then the trees go bare, and the grass goes dry and brown.
Today was overcast, my favorite kind of day to take photos, there is a certain ... almost eerie quality to the landscape, but something so amazing and beautiful. How that life leaves us, as if screaming in those radiant reds and golds, the kind of Autumn yellows that make it appear as if the sun is shining, when it's not.
When I was young I used to say how I wish I could have one of those Brilliant yellow Trees in my yard, all year around, so when the sun wasn't out, it would give me the illusion that it was. There is No time of year that is as powerful to me, as Autumn...
Spring is amazing with the new fuzzy life it bursts up from the earth...and summer is water, swimming and thunderstorms....Winter is so bare and cold it makes me want to hibernate into a sunny haven somewhere and never set my eyes on the bareness it offers. The beauty of bare trees, black against white snow will always stir up handfuls of emotions...but the Brilliant reds of autumn, the way the sun seems to almost burn the color right into the leaves, leaves me speechless...my camera doesn't do it one bit of justice.
All I have is a 3.2 Megapixel Camera, and it appears to be my biggest Challenge to take a good photo with this camera. (if anyone has a great camera they don't use....I'll be more than happy to take it off your hands!!!)
It saddens me to think.....any morning now, there will be a hard frost on the ground...we've come close, and my Basil has died, but my Oregano has done absolutely fantastic! Our garden in the back yard, looks haunted and aged, the corn stalks all yellowed and dry, tomatoes covering the ground, the cucumber patch is all yellow and wilted, and one big orange pumpkin still sits in the sun, absorbing these last days of the warm weather.
Feel free to go to the Flickr Page and check out some of the other photos...there are several collections, including art, live music, and photos of the most amazing time of the year to me.
So for us here in the midwest, our winter approaches, and in Australia, spring is coming...and that blows my mind, how things come and go, at different times for different parts of the world.
Feel free to share any photos you may have, of your part of the world...what's going on in your back yard?
Thanks for reading :)
-Suzen JueL

Ordinary Lie

So ya bit the Buddha hanging around the neck of temptation...and you thought about it, and then you wrote about it. You put the whole truth out there, laid your cards on the table, and they turned their heads, so afraid of the truth.
And no one really knows, but you.
So you move on, you swallow your poison and thank your stars, you never gave him the
time.

Ordinary Lie

well i sat up straight and tall
i was tryin to take it all...inside
i saw you walk away
you were askin me to stay...that's not my style
but you got somebody else
and you put her straight thru hell...that ain't right
well ain't she lucky..that i never gave you..the time

i saw it clear as day,
how you turned yourself away, from your light
ain't nobody talkin about
the things that you said last night
now you're back where you belong
but your heart keeps feelin wrong...you can't hide
you ain't nothing but an ordinary lie

you were tellin me you had it all under control
there's nothing i believe
and you watch me slowly leave
i'm out the door
but you were thinking about
how you had it figured out
A in your mind
and there ain't no way
i can live with
an ordinary lie

so keep on moving on
take your woman in your arms and thank your stars
cuz time has a way
of healing all those ordinary scars
people take their chances
life is full of circumstances, we cant' hide
but i can't live my life, with just an ordinary lie
you just count yourself lucky that i never gave you the time
ain't she lucky that i never gave you the time

Some Call it Faith...

When it comes to "Religion, or God, or Jesus'' or all mentioned, or none mentioned...
that's basically the bottom line.
Grew up Catholic,
get on my knees to pray,
hold the rosary,
wear that paper picture of Jesus with the Burning Heart of Thorns around me neck,
in case I died in my sleep...I would go to heaven.
Went to a Catholic School, and in my later teen years, decided to join a different Church, of hard core Bible Thumpers, we handed Jesus out on the Street at AC/DC concerts, yeah I'm sure we annoyed everyone, but I believed what I was doing was what I wanted to do.
Nothing lasts forever,
some Huge changes took place in my life and I moved into a whole new direction,
very uncertain of where I was goin...I love KNOWLEDGE, and I love the freedom to choose,
whatever seems to 'grasp me'....thing is, I read about Everything! Atheist, Agnostic, Buddah Views, Catholic Views, Tarot, Astrology, and on and on the list goes.
I loved seeing it all, and realizing, no matter what 'direction' people followed, no matter 'what group' they associated with, they all had one thing in common....
Knowledge.
And many of them believe their way is the RIGHT way.
See that bothers me
I'm not God, in fact, as far as I know, no one has had a direct conversation face to face with him/her...and no one has died and a year later, came back and said HEY!!! IT"S TRUE there ARE Pearly Gates,
and my friend went to THE Burning Pits of HELL because they didn't Believe.
Nor has anyone come back saying "Yes there is an 'afterlife'...trust that. I
N fact...science has done many studies,
because it would be nice to PROVE it was all real....or even Disprove...just so that SOMETHING was proven!!!
One thing that came up that I read years ago, was how our Brain works when in 'death' and moving into 'death'...lots of chemical changes,
we see lights, we feel a sense of peace....
it's a science, Wish I could remember where I read it...but I'll google things and get much info...anyone who Googles, gets lots of Information.
I'm all for FAITH, in fact, I wish I had that FAITH I once had....but...
I don't,
and tried as I have to believe in something.....I don't quite believe in the whole Religion thing.
I believe there is SOMETHING behind it all, but I don't necessarily have a name for it.
I believe Jesus Existed, but that's as far as it goes.
He was an INCREDIBLE man, and also a HUMAN man.
And his 'followers' wrote great things of him, but he did not.
The Catholics removed about 12-13 books from the Original Writings of the Bible that the is put out to read, and believe ONLY what is written,
but what about what was not 'for our eyes' because those that put the pages together, didn't really LIKE the other books,
they contradicted this and that and this and that. Again, GOOGLE is your friend to research with on this one.
Bottom line
I'm not against the FAITH that people have.
In fact I think it's an amazing thing. I'm not against those that have no Faith in what other faiths tell them IS RIGHT or IS WRONG.
I don't believe in Hell,
I believe in RIght and WRong, because I'm a human being and It's not my intention to go around Harming people.
MOrals and Values are top to me.
I don't believe in anyone at any time shoving their personal faith in my face,
because they are determined to 'Save My Soul'...
I don't believe in Judging others based on what they believe or what they Think.
Keep it away from me if I don't ask for it.
Don't Sell me your Jesus, Don't Sell me your Personality or your Faith...
just be you,
cuz i like ya that way.
I think the mOre we Know....yep...the more we Know.
I think NOT to hear lots of perspectives is a bit selfish.
If you wanna talk about what you Believe, then be an awesome listener on what The Other Person Believes...
We're all threads in one big Tapestry,
All diff colors in the Big Stained Glass WIndow of LIfe.
We are all beautiful, no matter what we struggle with, believe, or don't believe.

My mom once said to me
THERE iS NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU THINK
it's what you DO with those thoughts that make them Right or Wrong.

We have a sense of right and wrong...not because it's the 10 commandments,
but because we have a sense, or right and wrong.

There is a LINK on the side of this webpage, under LINKS Of Interest...called Agnostic.
I like how Wikpedia explains such things.
Much Peace...
We are all Entitled to Believe what we want...
No one is to be judged because they believe something different.
IT's bad Karma!
Focus on your path...cuz whatever path you choose, it's because you Believe in it.

Check out new original song "Jesus Was a Monkey'' http://www.myspace.com/7juel
a lil insight to what I'm writing about....the thought has spun....

Emotion

Back in August of 2007, I went through some pretty major changes, and had a cool opportunity to play some great Venues in Wisconsin. On this particular night, I had met the Awesome Ham Rambler of Blarney Stone (Second Life*tm*) What an awesome Guy! He came to see a short Acoustic Blues set I had done at Blue Moon, in Oshkosh...It was a lil difficult for me to post this one, back when I did, because I am a rather Emotional Performer, it's not unusual to feel the songs I perform, as if the events that sparked them are just as real to me then, as they were when I wrote the lyrics. In fact, it was difficult simply to perform and try to keep my face 'normal'...finally I said FK THAT! When I perform, it's all raw, it all comes out the way it does, the emotion of the song, is always great...it's easier to do a song that I feel and take those lil risks of having the emotion seep out all over, than it is, to hold it inside. I believe what makes Music, is the emotion in the song.
An actor must go into role, to feel the role they are playing. Being an artist, I find that often I go right back where I was when I wrote the song, and when the song is over....usually I'm right back in present moment again. Snapping right out of the 'rawness' of the song, into the present moment. There have been times where the emotion lingers a bit...like a dream, but it passes, and there have been plenty of times that the tears come out of a song, and thankfully...the song keeps going, the emotion is on the surface, and again I say...as much as I struggled with those emotions and always will in life, because life is an emotional experience...it's better to let them out, then to keep them inside. Some of the best musicians, look quite 'real' wh en they perform...their faces giving away the pain, the love, the joy, the rawness of that experience, all over again....and it's a lil different each time...but it's always beautiful.
http://www.thesixtyone.com/profile/#/JueLResistance/ For New Upload of "EMOTION"