Well it's been a long time since I have used blogger back in 2013 wow. If you find this blog I have a new website at Music Mike Here check it out.

5 Ways to Wellbeing

Taken from The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand program "5 Ways to Wellbeing" program. click here
I guess we all need to feel well and in a good state of mind, no matter who we are and what we believe.

1. Connect: click here 
2. Give: click here 
3. Take Note: click here
4. Keep Learning: click here
5. Be Active: click here

In each point it explains how we can connect Individually, in the Family, as a Community, in Schools, for Older People, and in the Workplace.

I like the ideas this brings into light and gives some interesting points to look at. These ideas can help anyone stay in a good state of mind. It all comes down to a well balanced life, getting out there and taking small steps to better our own lives.

Priorities in our Life

Are your priorities in order.
The things we put first in our life, weather it is putting things off, procrastinating, doing things we want, our of selfish pride. not thinking of others, saying yes to please people even though inside we are grumbling about it, saying "why did I say yes, I don't have the time to do this I am too busy as it is". Here are some things to think about that may help you to put things in perspective.

First there are 4 types of love mentioned in the bible. they are in this order.
1. Love of God to man (God Love)
2. Love of husband and wife (marriage Love)
3. Love of parent and child (parent Love)
4. Love of friend (friendship Love)

also I have heard it said that in out lives we should put things in this order.
1. God: he should be number one in our life
2. Family: we are to look after our family providing for them, bringing up your children in Gods ways.
3. Others: after our families needs have been met. we are to help others out.
4. Self: this comes last, although we are to walk in Gods ways and seek to please him working to put away sin we are also not to do things for ourselves out of pride or for our own selfish reasons.
This is just my little thought for today, something for you to think about. Blessings to all.

More to life........

There is so much more I could do if I had the chance to upgrade my music equipment. first I would get an AC-33 acoustic busking amp and a better singing mic.





next an ipad so I can have all my sheet music on it.



Note: even though I would love to upgrade some gear, and it costs money etc. I am happy to use what I currently have mentioned in my post click here. maybe even find different and unique things to do with what i have already.

Maybe its time for me to start rethinking some of the things in life and step out and Trust God for something More than I already have.
It is really easy to be so comfortable where we are that we hold ourselves back. Safe in what we have in life and what we know. At times I wonder if there is more to life than what we, can so easily, make it.

I encourage you to stop and look back over your life and see where you are, what you have already done, then think about what you always want to do / where you want to be. and look at the steps of how you can get there.

Busking setup and other Stuff.

Here is my current busking setup. 

AMP: Line 6 MicroSpider. Portabel busking amp with 6 C size batteries $300 The MicroSpider comes with built in guitar effects including a channel for acoustic guitar. also mic input and a mp3 player input.

Power Supply: PowerPac PP12-7.5 12Volt, 7.5Amp Hours  (better than Csize batteries) $30-$50 
Vansen SDR-1500 Regulated Power Adaptor $20

Miceophone: cheep $30 one from www.trademe.co.nz. (needs upgrading) and mic stand. 

Instrument: Seagul acoustic guitar or Greg Bennit Sammic Baratone Ukulele, Harmonica with playing stand  Other Gear: Mic stand, folding Music stand, Portable trolley click here $100 small folding chair. any will do. as long as it is is a good hight of the ground to sit and play similar to click here. small Plastic box with lid to store gear. similar to click here. also i attached a 2 pipes to the back of the trolly with a cover on the bottom to cary the mic and music stands.  

 appart from the instruments a similar setup would cost around $500-$600 dollars to setup. 
it depends on what you are doing. as to what exact gear you end up getting. 

micro spider amp demo 

I have also seen people using the Rolland street cube amp which is a nice cheep amp for busking

also rolland have now got a new busking amp for acoustic guitarists called the ac-33. this is a great amp and one day i am going to upgrade my MicroSpider with this. the nice thing is that the amp has a built in overdubbing looper. Phill Keaggy does a nice demo of the amp here

Aer make a really nice portable battery amp but they are up there in price.

Here is the Aer live on Queen St Auckland played by Luke Hurley

here is just my experience and ideas on the subject of busking gear and setup.

It's All About Music.

Hi all its been a long time since I have updated my blog here on blogger.
I just want to let you know that at this time in my life I am Focusing on my musical tallent.

In September 2012 when I needed a new computer I decided to get a Macbook Pro. I did this for many reasons. one being so i could  use Garageband and start developing my musical tallent. earlier this year i also brought a Chord CCU1 usb microphone. this is a great mic for singers and musicians alike.

Also at the beginning of the year My church Eden Assemble Of God (AOG) welcomed Pastor Mike Grahame and his family to our church. Ps Mike's main ministry is Worship and he has taken over the leadership of the Music Ministry. Under his direction, guidance and abilities we on teh music team are growing and developing our musical abilities.

Ps Mike also has a dvd training series from the musicademy click here. musicademy provide traini9ng resources for worship musicians. each dvd is on a different instrument including, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, bass, singing etc. which he has given to each of us. I have recently started going through the acoustic guitar training. This is taking me back to the basics and helping me to train myself once again. I have come to realise that we need ongoing training and to up skill ourselves.

So using my computer and these new skills i am gaining i am going to compose, write, and record songs both covers of others songs and my own songs.
I am going to upload some of these to my new music page on soundcloud. click here or my youtube page click here so you can listen to them and enjoy my music.

I do hope my music is a blessing and encouragement to all of you out there.

Cleaning up the house.

My cleaning has begun yet again. 

My day usually consists of, 

1. Getting up (around 10am), 
2. having a small feed, 
3. getting on my computer and just blobbing, 
4. going to work for 2hours in the afternoons, 
5. get home and jump on the computer 
6. try to cook some dinner if i don't get distracted. 
7. go to bed between 10pm and 1am

This cycle goes on and on and my house begins to suffer. i get things out dump them where they are and such like. 

1. I get lazy, 
2. I put things off, 
3. I spend to much time on my computer,
4. I can't always see where i can start. 

Last year Needing a new computer i saved up for a Macbook Pro got a good deal and was able to do it. I got it for a few reasons but one was so i could make use of Garageband and record y own music wright songs etc. 

I have played a few times on garageband testing out how to use it but... i have not really done anything serious with it yet. 

Recently this year i saved for a usb microphone to add to my Garageband setup. but have not made good use of this either as i don't have a place to set it up. well I do but its in such a mess that i cant use it properly. 

I am sick of this, if i don't do something then soon its was a waste me getting the usb mic etc  

Over the past week I made a start once again to clean my house. I want to get my office/music room cleaned up so i can really get into playing, recording, and writing music. combining my usb mic + garageband or jamming along with my favourite music. 

so I have made a start. i will be doing some documentation along the way using pictures, videos etc. to encourage myself and share with the world. 

I received an email from the Flylady network the other day that encouraged me so i have posted it below. Flylady is a ministry to people who are messy it has grown into an extensive group of like minded people with tips, tricks, and hints for all kinds of things relating to how to clean up the clutter in your life. (for more information of flylady and the flylady way click here or see the facebook page click here)

This email encouraged me 

Drove My Car Into The Garage

Dear FlyLady,

Five days ago I did something I haven't done in over six years,- and two cars ago... I drove my car INTO my garage!! I was truly in shock to the point that I sat IN the car INSIDE my garage for several minutes just looking through my car windows into the garage thinking, "this is for real! I REALLY am sitting in MY car in MY garage!"

Finally I laughed at myself and told myself to get out of the car and go in the house. The next morning I went out the front door as usual and had an EMPTY driveway and thought , "WHERE is my car??".ha-ha. it was only for a moment but it made me smile. So I walked back inside and went out the door that leads into my garage... I opened the door and stood there saying, "There's a car in my garage!! ..there's a car in MY garage!." (Of course I was saying this to my little dog who is my constant companion.)

Do you know that when I let him into the garage EVEN THE DOG knew something was different and did his little "doggie happy dance spinning around and barking".??!.. It's not finished yet, but now I even get excited and want to go work in there some more because of the great sense of accomplishment it gave me that I CAN really do this. I can see progress and feel hope. I do want to share a tip that Flyday might not think is best BUT it sure worked for me.

As I worked through the piles and boxes I tried to remember the "give away, throw away, put away" motto, BUT I kept running into things that I just couldn't decide or make up my mind what to "do" with it!! I was so double minded about certain sentimental items or things I might want to keep or give away.

Then I remembered what teachers in school taught me about taking a timed test... if you don't know an answer to a question-skip that one- don't lose time-move on to the next question and keep going. THEN at the end of the test if there is still time left go back to the one that snagged you up...Wow!- for me that translated into realizing that is exactly what I was doing in the garage!.. I was getting "snagged up on ONE item when there were literally at least a hundred others to "decide" about.

So I put that principle into place. I created my own , "I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT " pile. I put the things I got stuck on into a box beside me as I went through the garage. It worked GREAT! I kept moving forward and making progress... and not stressed about "did I do the right thing with "that last thing?"... THen a couple of days later when I went back in the garage to work some more- almost without thinking about it I could glance at my "I don't know what to do with it box" and chunk out another two or three things without any double mindedness at all.

Eventually my newly titled "box" emptied out too while I kept moving along. I sure hope this might help someone else that gets "stuck" with double mindedness about clutter items. The car in the garage has given me so much hope. It is one of the "worst" areas of my entire home. NOW I can use the garage for a "staging area', as I move things out of the inside of my home to "clear a room" of unnecessary items- and use the garage to be my sort and toss, or giveaway consistent place. It will work for me now that I know I can stick to grabbing another "de-clutter" box as I go out the door on an errand. and finally on a safety note-about my cluttered garage- I found a DEAD PETRIFIED CHIPMUNK!!--.. with clumps of dead chipmunk fur and other things I won't mention. Ewww! It was so gross!!. I had to put on double house cleaning gloves, a face mask and cleaning brooms that I knew would go straight to the garbage with the dead chipmunk...I realized that my clutter had put me and my little dog in a serious dangerous health hazard.

If my little dog had eaten that dead animal he would have been SO sick, and perhaps died, along with HUGE vet bills!!... The garage clutter is a BIG fire hazard too. So grateful the Lord has protected my little dog or me from getting sick from having a dead animal in my home with all the diseases they carry. I hope no one else out there has dead animals under boxes, but of all the thousands of people that read this I bet there is at LEAST ONE OF YOU who does!..please go check and protect your pet's and your health. and you don't have to recover from "unexpected dead animal" trauma!...or expensive Vet bills!

Believe me I , "screamed like a girl!!" when I saw that thing! ha-ha. Living now with a sense of joy and accomplishment.

God bless each of you.
Flybaby in Alabama

FlyLady here: Grab your declutter kit and your timer and fling your own clutter!