I still can't believe that this happened...

Stefan Wernborg, Utopia

April is a killer in my house. Not literally, of course, but with both of my children's birthdays in April, and the inevitable (and lovely) visit from Grandma and Grandpa, not to mention all sorts of musical craziness, well... I'm a little behind.

So. My sweet Evan required not one, but TWO birthday cakes, the first of which was specially made by Grandma (as per his request), put in the freezer until the big day, and then frosted by momma (c'est moi). We had that cake ON his birthday, which was a Monday, so no friends, and Daddy had only 45 minutes in which to come home from work and blow out candles and unwrap presents, then zoom back to campus. Oy. That was kind of a hassle, but I suppose you are only nine once, and when you absolutely require a cake made by Grandma, and that it must be eaten ON YOUR BIRTHDAY (two weeks after Grandma had gone home to the other side of the country), well, then, I suppose you are entitled to such parental bending-over-backwards.

Cake #1 for Evan...
Cake#2 didn't sit for a portrait.  I was a little busy wrangling small children at that point.
But, it was yellow and green and quite cheery.

The second cake was made and frosted entirely by momma, and ready for what turned out to be an exceedingly good time with close friends and their kids, the core group of whom were born within 5 weeks of each other and have literally been hanging out together since birth. If you can't have cousins close by, this is a darn good replacement. We hung out from something like noon until 10pm. At one point, we had to go out and get more food...

So. Of course, there was also Miss Milla's cake, and required Cupcake Army for preschool, which I've already told you about, so I won't really get into that here. But, suffice to say she is the cutest little birthday-girl, and we have yet another memorable video on the YouTube. Last year's video installment is still being quoted in my circle of friends and family. Who can resist a three-year old, getting more and more excited, pumping her 'lil fists the air, going, "WHOOOO! I **LOVE** CAKE!!! WHOOHHH!!!"?

I must now apologize to Miss L for the overabundance of exclamation points and the caps in the previous sentence. But you were there. You KNOW. It actually happened like that. I think in this case, you will let it pass...

So. That was April family-time.

The other thing is also not so small.

Those of you are my irl (in-real-life) friends, have probably seen me posting all sorts of nonsense about my music on Facebook. Some of you even take the time to listen, and thank-you-very-much. There's a link up at the top of this blog to more music, in case you care to peruse it... I wouldn't be bragging if I told you that it's what I do best. It's the one thing about myself where I set aside the hard wired humility and just say it like it is. I am a singer. And I happen to be surprisingly good at it. Really. I'm all kinds of trained and everything. By a former Metropolitan Opera House Soprano. No kidding. So I've got some chops. I'm not going to pretend that everything I do or have made is something that everyone will want to listen to, but, I've done a little bit of everything (Puccini to Dylan to Trip-Hop to Industrial and back again) over time and have come to meet some incredibly talented people. I'm so lucky that they let me sing for them.

Which brings me to this other thing.

I go through fits and spurts in my life... A little of this one week and a little of that next week. So, musically, I hadn't been doing much lately, as I'd been pretty obsessed with crocheting pebbles and leaving them on beaches.

Long story short, over the past year and a half, I've been working with a band in Sweden. Yeah. THAT Sweden. The one I've never been to. The one I'd never really thought about, and now, suddenly, want no more than to go there and work with these guys in person, would that be so much to ask? So. I'm in a band in Sweden. Sorta. I'm the girl where the song title says "featuring so-and-so", because, the core band ("Chrome") is two guys and they pull in all sorts of interesting talent to get their ideas made. Out of 11 or 12 songs on their planned album, I'm on like, four of them. Maybe more by the time all is said and done. Who knows. It's a work in progress.

In any case, several months ago, One of the two guys in Chrome asked if I'd sing for this solo thing he was doing... Which was in no way unusual, because I sing all kinds of things for all kinds of people, oddly enough, the majority of whom are Swedish. Go figure. So, Stefan asks me to sing, and I do, and he posts it on this online music forum as usual, people comment on it, and it's this wild piece of rhapsodic/epic Swedish Metal that actually runs through several different genres in it's whole 6+ minutes, blah, blah, the world keeps turning, life goes on, etc...

Until last week when he posts that he's just released his first album, and it's now available from virtually any download site you can think of and ohmygod, he's thanking ME for being part of it, and Holy Hannah, I'VE NEVER BEEN FOR SALE ON ITUNES BEFORE!!!

I'm still a little giddy.

So. This, of course, throws me into a fit of music making, and letting the pebbles sit in the nest, wholly unattended, and I really need to so something about that....

But see... it's like a dam breaking... I've literally written 7 songs in the past three days, not all of them good or even worthy or listenable. But still. It keeps happening, and I kid you not, I am completely powerless to stop it...

So there's that.

And if that weren't enough, the OTHER Member of Chrome and I have just finished up a truly, TRULY lovely song for a dear, dear friend who really needs it right now. Really. It's very nice. You'll like it. We call it "Radiant".

Oh, and if that weren't enough, I'm currently working to mesh two different song ideas into one, and yes, also for someone in Sweden. But someone else. Weird, huh?

I've been singing for DAYS. And I couldn't be happier.

You can check out Stefan's album here (ubetoo). Or on iTunes.  Or Amazon, even.  Better yet, BUY IT. You know... If you're into that sort of thing....  The album is "Utopia", and I'm on track 4, "Then What?"

Crazy.

Love and apologies for shirking my pebbly-responsibilities....
Julianna