When you look at me

I forgot to mention two other blogs you should absolutely check out. I post on both:

This Is What Our Love Sounds Like
Sarah and I take turns on my tours updating this. We post a song a day that makes us think about eachother. One of my favorite blogs I've ever been a part of.

No Place On Earth
This is my photoblog. I try and post a new photo every day, but sometimes there just isn't anything interesting to photograph. I am by no means a professional.... or even a hobbyist. I just take pictures of things I find interesting on my iPhone.

Tremble, little lion man

I'm home for a few days from tour. Tour has been... hectic. We're having a really good time, but for some reason I feel like this time we've all gotten a lot less sleep and everyone's a little grumpy. This two day break is definitely much needed. I'm spending the next two days with Sarah, which makes everything fantastic.

Speaking of which... I realize I just dropped the fact that we're moving in together without any details. There's not a whole lot to it really. Before we ever started dating, we had been joking around about the idea of moving in together as roommates. We figured we had a lot of fun hanging out and both wanted an apartment, so why not get one together? I'm sure a lot of it had to do with our desire to be together. Regardless, once we started dating, the idea came up again. We were laughing about it, but realized it was something that didn't seem silly. I told her obviously if we were to live together, we're not having separate rooms. We know that for a lot of couples, it would be too soon. Neither of us are the types to live life by other peoples' rules. We move on our own schedule. Our lives are based on what we feel is right. We're incredibly happy spending every minute we can together. We move in July 1st and are so excited. We've got some awesome plans for our bedroom and I'm sure there will be lots of pictures and updates here once we get going. Our roommate is going to be my best friend, Liam. He's also the other singer of my band and someone I lived with for over five years. I haven't been so excited for something in a long time.

Your sweet moonbeam

I'm in Mobile, AL. I don't know why, but I never pictured this place being such a busy, eclectic city. We spent some time in the mall promoting our band today and there were tons of rocker kids who had heard of bands we compare ourselves to, and a few who had even heard of us. I'm blown away. We're staying in a swanky hotel room tonight because of the awesome kids who bought cds in the mall and helped us afford it. We're struggling in the money department, but then again who isn't?

I've been having an off day today. A lot of little things happened that have frustrated and worried me, but I'm doing my best to fight through it. I've begun to notice a shift back towards negativity in the world and I'm not a fan. I'm an optimist by nature (for the most part), so I like to see the positive in most situations. I can never understand people saying they hate the world and everyone in it. Granted, I'm sure they don't exactly mean it, but it still makes me sad. I've had rough times where life didn't seem like it could get any worse and I did my best to get through it. I did, and now I'm completely happy with my life with a few small exceptions.

We have a stop at home in a week and I get to see Sarah. I'm out of my mind excited for it even though we've been gone less than a month. Once I go home from this whole tour, we're moving in together. She's doing all the paperwork now and we're just waiting on the results of the application. Fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly.

Swallowed in the sea

I'm in an incredibly good and optimistic mood right now.

I can't pinpoint the source of my optimism. There is a lot of good in my life and today I'm just feeling that pretty strongly. I wrote in my offline journal today for the first time in about two months and it felt great. Ended up writing over three pages, which is abnormal for me. When I'm updating frequently, my journal entries are short. I feel like so much of my bright mood right now is because of Sarah. We spent the last few days/nights together and it was wonderful. Saturday she came along to our performance at Bamboozle. She hasn't seen us play in quite a long time, so it meant a lot to have her at such an important show for us. One of my favorite things about Sarah is how amazing she makes me feel about myself. She's always dolling out compliments about how attractive she finds me and how I help her stay on the ground when she feels like she's losing her grip. I love hearing those things. Hearing her say them always makes me smile like an idiot. We're gearing up for an even longer period of time away from eachother since this next tour is almost two months long. She doesn't seem worried, and I'm certainly not. It was hard to be away from her for so long the last time, but our relationship is strong already. She showed no signs of wavering, and so I'm confident in this one, and the next, and the next.

I confronted my usual source of stress (money) head on and I feel a little better about it. Writing things down, making lists, organizing the already organized... those things always help me feel like I'm in control. Even though sometimes being in control for me doesn't mean I'm where I'd like to be, at least I know that whatever is happening is a direct result of actions I've taken. I'm a bit of a control freak, I guess, and I like it that way. With the band, I've lost control of so much since we got signed that I think I need to latch onto whatever I can and hold on for dear life. We have a tour manager now who is pretty competent. He handles the money, which is scary for me. When I handle the money, I know where it's coming from, where it's going, and how much (or how little) we have left. At least then I can ration it out and know what we need to do. Now, I feel like a fish out of water. I'm trying to come up with ideas of how to be more involved without stepping on toes.

I've begun studying for that dreaded massage therapy board exam again. I've promised myself year after year after year that it would be different and yet I never pass or even get around to taking it. I want to say "this is the year... I'm going to study and I'm going to pass," but I've proven myself wrong so many times that I don't even want to say it now. The books that I've shoved into my brain time and time again sit mockingly on my bookshelf and the student loan payment that I make month after month are just too much. I can't handle knowing that I put so much money and time and stress and emotion into something that still hasn't paid off in any sense other than that I can give Sarah a wonderful massage every now and then. As happy as it makes me when she tells me she loves my hands, I need more. I'm passionate about massage therapy and the importance it has in turning things around a little bit today. Healthcare is increasingly focused on pills and reactive treatments as opposed to leading a healthy lifestyle and more natural solutions. I want to be a part of that, whether the band is successful or not. So, onward I march.

I suppose that's all for now. I miss writing so often, but time to write is so limited. Hopefully I can squeeze in some time here and there.