Music. According to Kim.

I figured out pretty early on that the only way I could make this series work is if I was completely honest about what I struggle with myself. So before I get to the songs that I've chosen to feature in this installment, I'm going to tell you a little about what's been going on with me this year. As some of you know, I have rheumatoid arthritis and was first inspired to start this series during arthritis awareness month (May) last year. The first post wouldn't end up going up until June. The best laid plans and all that. I decided to keep it tied to arthritis awareness, but really, the goal behind this series is to use music to try to encourage anyone going through a tough time. Whether they also have rheumatoid arthritis or not. It's been over a month since I last posted. 2017 has been a tough year in regards to my health. My rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has spun completely out of control and I was without a rheumatologist for a few months. My pain levels have bee...

Welcome to the first actual installment of my music therapy series. In case you missed it, I wrote an introduction to this series a couple of days ago that you can find here . The quick introduction is that I use music to help me cope with living with rheumatoid arthritis - with life in general, to be honest - and wanted to share some of the songs that help. Music has been proven to help with pain and depression, among other things. The power of music knows no bounds. This series will be ongoing, with the second installment coming later this week. For these first two installments, I've decided to take you all on an emotional progression of sorts. We're going to start in the dark and work our way towards the light.  Before we get into it, I did want to mention an article I read a while back that suggested that listening to sad music all the time can make you more depressed. It's a valid point and one that I agree with. So why include sad songs? Because sometimes that...

Ah, the Christmas standards. You really can't have Christmas without any of these. It wouldn't be the same. So what are my favorites? Keep reading and find out.

I've been wanting to write about the Grand Ole Opry ever since I started this blog and for some reason it's just never happened. So I'm very happy to be getting this post out there as part of my CMA Fest recap. Just a heads up: this is pretty picture heavy. In case I haven't mentioned it before, clicking on a picture should enlarge it. Every picture I post is one I took, unless I say otherwise. All of these in here are mine. CMA Fest really got me in touch with the zoom on my camera, I'll say that. I'm going to talk more about this particular Opry show after the break, but first I wanted to talk a bit about the Opry in general. Starting with some basic facts that I'm sure some, if not many, of you will already know. The Grand Ole Opry is a radio show broadcast on WSM 650AM. They've recently created an app and you can listen to the shows on that as well. The Opry started in 1925 and is the longest running radio show in the United States. I've been t...

 Well, it's that time of year when blogs and country sites all over create lists just like this one. I always enjoy reading these lists because it's interesting to see who people choose and why. I'll be honest. When I decided to make my own list, there were some artists who came to mind instantly. But choosing the rest was very hard for me. I didn't base this on numbers or sales or anything like that. Rather, I tried to think of which artists interested me the most this year. Which ones stood out among all the others and why. In doing so I realized that a lot of artists impressed me this year. Some of whom it almost pains me not to include. But there could only be twelve. There will be artists that you may be surprised to see on here and some who you'll be surprised to not  see on here. Some of which surprised me when I chose or didn't choose them. So who made the cut? Well keep on reading to find out. Including some of my pictures in here because why not? T...

This is a little different, but I'm going with it. Good to change things up some, right? Hopefully you already read the review of Changed  by Rascal Flatts. If not, it's the post right below this one if you want to get caught up. Picking up right where I left off...

I think I'm renaming this month as album review month because that's all I've done. Trying to get caught up before even more albums come out. I'm going to get to this newest review shortly, but first, I'm going to take a second and give my readers a heads up about a new website that's going to get launched sometime next month, This Day in Country Music which will be found at  http://www.thisdayincountrymusic.com/  once it's up. These are people who love music, who love country  music and are very excited to get this site up. In the meantime, you can go check them out on Facebook,  https://www.facebook.com/ThisDayInCountryMusic , or on their twitter @TDICountryMusic. They specialize in country music trivia, history and facts so if you love country music, they are definitely worth checking out. I've learned some pretty interesting things from them that I probably wouldn't have known otherwise. So yeah. See what you think and if you think it's cool,...

It seems like most successful artists have a certain kind of tempo or groove or feel that is so incredibly them . It's when the band and artist are just cooking and where it seems like they are the most at home. That's what it's like; a home base. If you listen to any artist enough and start paying attention, you'll start to pick up on it. For an artist like Josh Turner, his sweet spot as I'll call it, is when he does songs like "Your Man". For Keith Urban, take something like "Put You In a Song". If it's Alan Jackson, it'll be something like "Chattahoochee" and if it's Kenny Chesney it'll be in songs like "Livin' In Fast Forward". I'm not sure I'm explaining this well or not, what I'm basically saying is that there's certain songs that you just know belong to the artist in question. What does all of this have to do with Rascal Flatts? Easy. "Banjo" is like that; my very first ...