Archive for the ‘Halestorm’ Category

Hello,

Remember me?

Yeah, me neither.

I have been telling myself that I need to write a blog post. I guess I’m finally taking my advice and doing it. I’ve become rather bossy inside my head.

Life has decided to give me a big middle finger.

I’m going to try and make this short, and see where it gets me. My kids are also on fall break. What does that mean? It means I’m secretly writing this on my phone hoping to get through it before someone gets hungry or hurt.

Aug. 21st I went and preformed at the Hollywood Improv. I was trying to juggle everything so blogging kind of went on the back burner. Also I had a book coming out Sept. 13th that I was getting ready for.

How was your set, you ask…

https://youtu.be/TGEOSsFCo1k

It was amazing. The audience seemed receptive to my brand of Jackassness. I’m pretty sure I floated off the stage.

That was on a Sat. Three days later the foundation I was firmly standing on shook. I’m still trying to recover my footholds and feel secure in day to day life 

I received a text from my dad saying that my mom…MY MOM…had a stroke. If you have been one if my loyal followers you would know how special my mom is to me. She is the one I take to Halestorm. She is the one I word vomit all my problems to 

My dad is the worst at relaying information. Hell, he’s the worst at answering the phone. I’m pretty sure when he sent me the text he pressed send looked down at the electronic rectangle, shrugged, thought I don’t need this any longer, and chucked it into a magical ocean that appeared to take the only form of communication I had with him. Suffice it to say it was the longest three hour drive of my life.

When I got to the ER my mom could only say Hi and I love you. She kept repeating it over and over again, while internally I was begging myself not to have a complete break down.

In the ICU she was only allowed to have two visitors. I convinced my dad and brother to go get some rest. Here is the thing about ICU they don’t want you to stay. I had one hard chair and nothing else. It didn’t matter I wasn’t leaving her.

That night she was woke up every hour. I was with her throughout the whoke thing. It was also the night she looked at me and said, “I love you, Joy” then turned aroud and corrected herself to,  “I love you, Sissy.” Yeah, the tears flowed.

The second night they realized I wasn’t leaving and a nice nurse brought me a blanket and pillow. 

My mom had a stroke that was caused by a clot breaking free from an aneurysm. Aneurysms run in my family. My grandma and aunt had one both at 56. (in about 10 years I suppose I’ll go get checked) Her aneurysm didn’t bleed or burst. It just had a piece break off. Of course my mom doesn’t do anything half assed. She had a huge aneurysm in the front of her brain in the middle of where the artery branches. 

She had surgery where an amazing surgeon and team placed a coil in the aneurysm and two stints on each side. 

I’ve never understood people wearing sports jerseys, but I can tell you I would proudly wear a jersey with her surgeons name on the back. Also her PT, Norman. He was a PT god, I watched him use PNF stretching where she moved her leg for the first time. He also let me do the PNF on her. Yeah, always the teachers pet. Or at least my mom teased me of that. 

Keeping myself busy in the hospital

Every day my mom improved. She was in the hospital for a month. I’m so proud of her. She is now home. She can walk without her walker ( I named it, Paul) She still gets frustrated, but it is amazing to see her get better and stronger every day.

 

Also during that time I pushed my book release back to Sept. 27th. I worked my ass off to get everything done but I had a lot on my plate. 

I made teasers and banners of my beautiful book cover. I ordered paperbacks for the signing I have on Oct. 22nd. On my release date I was so damn excited. Until around 11 o’clock when I got a message asking if I meant to spell Survivng wrong.

Nope

No

I sure did not

I looked at that damn cover over a thousand times and not once did I recognize it was wrong. 

Ughhhh

I called my printer but it was too late to find out of theg had been printed yet. The awesome customer service lady said she would email me if she was able to pause the shipping. Imagine my hysterical laughter when she sent me my tracking number. 

I owned up to it live on Facebook. Explaining that Surviing Faith paperbacks will be at the signing because I didn’t have time to order another set.

Readers were supportive and understanding. Some even saying they wanted the misspelled cover. The cover is now fixed so any other books I order will be spelled correctly.

So that has been my life lately. I’m still crusing along. I have a paperback giveaway going on right now. To enter all you have to do is add a review of Surviving Faith to amazon. I’ll pick the winner live at the author by the beach signing Oct. 22Nd. Also keep an eye out for the costume I’ll be wearing. 

Hollywood Improv

In October I took my mom to see my favorite band Halestorm. I decided I was going to throw a signed copy of Breaking Faith up onstage. This of course happened when I fangirled the fuck out of her in June. Here is that story
https://itsjoysworld.net/2015/06/15/i-hugged-lzzy-hale/
I made my mom stand in front of the sign with the book. Don’t mind her hand she fell at a waterpark because they didn’t properly mark a dip. She is slowly getting some use out of it.

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My mom is my biggest fan. She thinks I can do no wrong. That being said she made sure to tell everyone what I was planning to do. That woman is a phenomenal saleswoman. My kindle sales were up just from the people she was talking to. She had people pulling up there Kindle app on their phone and downloading Breaking Faith.
After standing in line for a couple hours we were finally let in. As we were herded inside the Rainbowroom in Fresno my anxiety skyrocketed. My brain started yelling at me that throwing my book onstage was the worst idea I had ever had (that’s saying something)
I started imagining throwing my book and having it land on the ground never making it to the stage. So it could be swept away with the discarded tickets and empty cups at the end of the night. Or worse making the stage and knocking Lzzy or Joe out. Or worser (I know) hitting the stage and causing a fire.
Ugh.. These thoughts were paralyzing so as Lzzy Joe Josh and Arejay began their acoustic set I stood there holding this damn albatross. People around me were hitting me and whispering in my ear to throw the stupid thing.
The band ended their acoustic set and left the stage as they were getting plugged in. Everyone yelled at me saying I missed my chance.
My anxiety was in full swing. When this happens I shut down and want to just forget my idea. I also didn’t want to ruin my night. I was watching my favorite band play.
When they came back I tried to get into the concert but it is hard to throw your horns \m/\m/ when you are holding a book.
Lzzy launched into their song
I am the fire. I adore this song and the lyrics were just what I needed to push the voices in my head down.
I was still worried about not making it to the stage so while they were taking a break I tapped on a man next to me. He was super tall and he was there with his wife and kids. I figured he was cool and he could toss it over his kids heads without worry of hitting them.
He asked if I wanted him to wait until they came back to the stage. At first I said yes, but then I realized I didn’t want him to have to hold it and hinder his enjoyment so I told him to just toss it then.
He did.
It landed on the stage and slid.
Everyone around me cheered. It was insane like we had all accomplished something together.
Joe picked it up and I almost had a heartattack.

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He asked the guy who threw it if it was his book. Once again everyone around me started screaming and pointing at me. It was surreal. I’m not going to lie I felt like a rockstar.
Joe asked if I wrote it and signed it. I nodded my head with my mouth hanging open.
He said Thank you and put it on LZZY’S keyboard. Holy shit.
When she came out and moved it so she could play I freaked out. Breaking Faith stayed on her keyboard as she serenaded it with one of my favorite songs.

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I’m not sure what happened to it after that. I’m going to hope she has it somewhere and the pages are not being used as toilet paper for a transient but either way it was awesome.