My niece and I making our latest movie masterpiece.

I don't have any kids myself, but have one sister named Jenny, she has two kids that I adore, and we do a lot of crazy fun creative stuff together. Trevor is now a teenager, so he's rather busy with other things, but Annelyse is my buddy, my partner in crafting and crime.. so we make movies. Here is the latest when she got her first pair of skates. I do the filming, directing and editing.. Annelyse provides the the star power, she is also does all her own stunts. With a little help from my Imovie effects.  Hope you enjoy!

A musical visit with patients and nurses!

Here's a short excerpt of bringing all my harps to Marion Cancer clinic in Central California. It's always so amazing to me how quickly people can play. I think it amazes them too. The thing about the harp is, its so much more friendly to the beginner than people realize. I love it so much to see people light up when they hear the music they are able to play. And all the harps playing together in surround sound is quite something to hear.

Mostly I see people being empowered by the experience. Most are dealing with very serious health challenges and to accomplish this unique thing that they didn't realize they could, I think that makes them know that other things are very achievable too.  So that's why I do this. I love every minute of the workshops. I have to admit that loading and tuning the harps is more of a task. It takes me about two hours to set up, and with 17 harps its about 600 strings to tune. One by one. But I try to think of that time as a meditation time. I am usually struggling against the clock still tuning as people are coming in, but I think I'm the fastest tuner in the west. I also set up my projector with images, do a little concert, with all the harps in a row behind me, like ships. I tell stories of the harps, and we have questions and answers. After the intermission I select a harp for every person based on their personality, or body size, or medical condition. I see big smiles as each person holds their harp, and we commence making music. Its that rare time, when you know you are in exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing, and all is well in this place and this moment, and its my favorite feeling in the world.

A musical visit to an elementary school!

As part of a Central California tour we stopped to visit an elementary school in Taft, California. We brought all of our instruments hoping the kids would be interested. They were so many of them and they were so young! So you never know what could happen, but we hoped for the best and sure enough it was a rousing success. We shared all about our instruments and played for over 400 kids.They were totally attentive and interested and with some very, very good questions.. "how old are you?" "are you married?' and so on. It was a true highlight of the trip. Here's a peak of a song we all did together.