Welcome, new recording!

My new recording, The Month of January, arrived last week. I ripped open the boxes and just looked at the CDs all lined up inside.

I love the cover.
Those white and soft swirls, looking all dreamy and snowy.

Every time I design a big project like this, I learn more. I do believe I learned some good tricks with this one.

It has been quite a busy, creative and productive 6 months. Creating the music video in the fall and releasing it at my "To Drive the Cold Winter Away" concert in November was a huge undertaking. Talk about learning new things — I was using lingo by the end of that project that would have made me fit in with the techiest of them.

And then the idea — how about taking the music I’ve recorded for publicity and grant applications and put them together into an album. I looked everything over, did some careful listening…and miraculously the pieces just seemed to fall together beautifully. Almost like a story. I recorded a few more pieces so that all my originals would be on the album and sent it off. Started making plans for releasing it at the St. Patrick's Day concert.

The album is gorgeous, but it’s a little scary, putting my babies out there for the world to hear. So far, people who have received advance copies have been very enthusiastic and positive about the music. I’m so glad.

All in all, a good use of my normal hibernation time during the month of January. Hibernation can wait, right?