Open Mic

Hubby and I were the "feature" at an open mic last night. For those who are uninitiated, an open mic is usually held in a small room in a cafe, a church hall, a community building.....where ever someone will give you space. Anyone can participate. Most of the time it's "old men with guitars" as we say. Just regular people who like to come out and sing and play an instrument. Often better-known (and better-abled) singers come out to use the open mic to try out new songs they've written....sort of a practice for gigs they might have in the future. Usually everyone gets one or two songs, but the feature gets a half-hour. Hubby's friend Betsi runs an open mic in Concord, MA , http://www.elizabethmandrioli.com/twice_told_open_stage.htm and offered to let us be the feature. Hubby is an excellent and very versatile musician. He's written many songs....most of them unfinished. So our first challenge was to pick the songs and the second challenge was to get them finished. Most importantly we had to practice. When Hubby sings on his own, he "wings it" a lot of the time, which is great. It makes for some interesting and wonderful songs. But when he wants to sing with me, we have to practice. We did practice quite a bit in the past month, and he did finish writing his songs. We sang five or six songs. For some he played guitar, for one song he played banjo, a couple on the ukelele and one on the keyboard. I'm not sure how we sounded, but we had a great time. And that's the bottom line. We want everyone to enjoy the music, but more importantly we want to have a good time at it. Hubby already has that attitude. He doesnt' care what people think and usually I'm the opposite. I fret and worry and get all worked up. But last night I went in with the attitude of - 'I'm here for Hubby, to enjoy ourselves and I'm going to let myself go and have fun"....and I did! Hubby's son Kenny came with his friend Matthew. Hubby was extremely pleased that he came out to see us. And Matthew signed up and played and sang a beautiful song.....such talent! I'm glad he came on after us! Five things I am thankful for: 1. That I have the whole day off today and can get lots of stuff done this morning before going to babysit Emily this afternoon. 2. That Hubby and I had such a good time last night. 3. That the sun is out even though it's "briskly cold". 4. That the price of gas is going down, down, down. 5. That I'm not rich enough to have money in the stock market because that is also going down, down, down!