What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?
There are a LOT of lyrics that have stuck with me over the years, but I’ll start with the most obvious.
“Now is not forever.”
This is a line from the Alter Bridge track “I Know It Hurts,” from their 2010 release AB III. That song got me through a very tough time, and that particular lyric stood out so much that it became my first tattoo.
“…your destiny is not defined by what you failed to see.”
Another Alter Bridge lyric, this one from “My Champion” (The Last Hero, 2016). This is another reminder that I think everyone could occasionally use.
“If you believe in nothing else, just keep believing in yourself.”
I swear, this is the last Alter Bridge lyric! But to be fair, Myles Kennedy is a hell of a songwriter. Anyway, this is taken from “All Ends Well” (Fortress, 2013). The full segment continues with “There will be times of trouble/It’s gonna hurt like hell/This much I know: all ends well/It all ends well.”
And last but not least – also last because I have to stop at four or we’ll be here all day. Music is such a huge part of my life that I could discuss this for hours.
Hey y’all! It’s been a minute since my last check-in, and I hope this one finds you well.
This month has been surprisingly therapeutic for me. It didn’t start that way. I had to cut someone out of my life who meant more to me than I ever did to him and it was very difficult. I struggled with it a lot. I let myself cry, I almost let myself message him, and then I decided fuck it! My tagline became “Dry your eyes and remember who the fuck you are.” And while I won’t say I’m over it, I will say it hurts less now.
The events in May have helped immensely. It started with Mother’s Day. I worked on the actual holiday, but Mom and I celebrated early by exploring a few areas around Huntsville. We hiked almost 7 miles and just…absorbed nature. It was really, really cool – even if we’re not sure the “waterfall” we went to actually constitutes a waterfall. Lol. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures at the bottom of this post.
One of my cousins from Indiana came down that weekend, as well. I didn’t get much time with her; however, we did have a big family dinner on Mother’s Day, which made Mom incredibly happy.
The very next weekend, my brother and I went to a Marilyn Manson show. Now, you may be thinking “ok, you’ve already seen them,” and yeah, you’re right. But I haven’t seen them with my brother. This concert was major for a couple of reasons.
My brother is the OG Manson fan in our household, yet he had never been to a show. I got to take him to his first Manson concert!
Tim Skold is back in the lineup, and if you know me at all, you know I love Tim Skold.
Songs that were in the setlist that I never thought I’d see Manson perform: “Great Big White World,” “Coma White,” “The Nobodies,” and “Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World.”
Manson looked and sounded great. As my brother said, “Okay, sober Manson. I see you!”
The night was perfect. My brother was so relaxed and happy, and we stuck to tradition and went to Waffle House after the show. Oh! And we tried Hattie B’s for the first time. That was some damn delicious chicken!
Fastforward to the very next weekend. An old friend of mine, Brian, had tickets to The Rise of Rock World Tour, which featured Dorothy, Stone Temple Pilots, and Godsmack. He invited me to go with him, so I did. We had fun during Dorothy, then we had to move to the interior area of the amphitheater because of a storm. Unfortunately, the delay meant Stone Temple Pilots only played six songs, but they were awesome! The new vocalist, Jeff Gutt, nailed it. (He used to be in Dry Cell, a band you know if you ever owned the Queen of the Damned soundtrack.)
Godsmack is always a kick ass show. I’m not a huge fan, but Sully Erna knows how to work a crowd. Most of my favorite songs were on the setlist, except “Moon Baby,” “Bad Magick,” and “Greed.” I’ve accepted I’ll never see them do those…
Can I tell y’all how therapeutic it was, having back-to-back weekends during which I got to scream along with artists who helped me through my angsty teenage years? Man. It was fantastic.
The last stop on May’s healing journey happened yesterday. I went and got a tattoo. I used a different artist than usual, though it was the same shop, and she knocked it out of the park!
Okay. It’s picture time.
Beaverdam Swamp Boardwalk Green Mountain Nature Preserve Green Mountain Nature Preserve Alum Hollow FallsGreen Mountain Nature Preserve Madison County Nature TrailMadison County Nature TrailMadison County Nature Trail Madison County Nature Trail Madison County Nature Trail Madison County Nature Trail Madison County Nature Trail Outfit for the Manson showBrotato!During “Tourniquet.” I was so excited that he wore the stilts!
If you wanna see a few videos from the Manson and Godsmack shows, you can check out my YouTube or Instagram. I also have a few more interviews I’m getting scheduled soon, so look out for those!
Heyyyyy! I hope everyone is doing well! I didn’t do a check-in for March because, honestly, I forgot. (Whoops.) I was dealing with a few things and struggling a little emotionally, and no one wants to read about that anyway.
However, my April has started off great! I’ve been spending a lot of time with family and I did an interview with an artist that I’m a pretty big fan of (which will be posted next week), so yeah. I’m killing it right now.
I wanted to mention a few things I enjoy outside of music – and it’s mostly because I’m going to post some pictures below and I wanna give the background for them 😏
If you’ve been following/visiting the blog for a while, then you already know I love to read. I also play video games, explore cemeteries, and try to find nature trails to walk with my mom. But what I have been doing quite a bit of lately is cooking.
Both of my parents are fantastic cooks, as are my brother and sister-in-law. My grandmothers were, my aunts on my dad’s side, a couple of cousins, my best friend… You get the point. I’ve been around delicious, and almost exclusively homemade, food my entire life. Obviously I’ve spent time in the kitchen. But recently, my brother and sister-in-law have been letting me experiment. I haven’t done anything, like, out there, creatively, yet I’m proud of a couple of meals I’ve fixed, or contributed to, over the last few weeks.
Made spicy chicken ramen for Mom and Dad.Made seasoned pork ramen for my brother and his wifeMy brother did the ribs, and I fried the potatoes and made the lemon meringue pie.
I’m not gonna lie: it’s really basic shit at the moment. I did help my brother and his wife make pasta from scratch a while back. I like being in the kitchen. It relaxes me. I’m going to continue to learn and try new things, so y’all should prepare yourselves for more food blogs 😄
Hey, y’all! I hope 2026 is treating you kindly. For me, personally, it’s already been a weird year. More ups than downs, if I’m counting, but man, the lows are…low.
I started – and binged all of – “Alice in Borderland.” I’ve fully dived into this year’s reading challenge. Mostly, though, I’ve just worked. I have some concerts on the horizon, both big and small, which keeps me going.
Anyway, I just wanted to hop on and check in and share a few photos I snapped in January and February. Haven’t taken a lot of pictures in March yet, but I have two shows in the next week and a half, so I’m sure there will be a deluge of images by month’s end, ha ha.
January
My BFFs’ cat, ChurchPork loin wrapped in bacon, smoked by my brother 🤤My BFFs’ other cat, Autumn My brother and sister-in-law’s cat, Hanzo My brother and sister-in-law’s other cat, Lucifer
2025 was a rough year for me on a personal level, but I would like to celebrate two of my victories here.
First, it was a banner year for the blog. I’ve had Mostly Music up and running for a decade (woooow), and in 2025, this little page garnered the most views I’ve ever had.
So, THANK YOU to everyone who has checked out or shared my posts, and to all the musicians/artists who released kick-ass music for me to share.
The second victory is on a more personal level. I started working out back in…April. I decided I just wanted to tone up a bit. My reasoning was pretty dumb: I didn’t want to disappoint this guy I was talking to, and I feared I wasn’t skinny enough for him. Whatever the cause, I found a couple of low impact, at-home workouts and dedicated myself to them (with a few lapses here and there).
Sometime in the early days, I ordered a dress. A dress voted on by my Facebook friends, and one I absolutely never would have worn out when I first purchased it. This dress became aspirational. The day I could put it on and be comfortable in front of the mirror, I’d know I reached a goal. And, well…
I’m down about 10 pounds, and I’ve lost at least a couple inches. The guy that inspired all of this is still in the picture, somewhat, but my goal now has very little to do with him, and honestly, I’m pretty fucking proud of that.
It’s the first page of a new chapter today. Let’s make this book worth reading.
Happy New Year! I hope all of you had a wonderful 2025 and that 2026 is even better ❤️
I haven’t shared a life update with pictures in ages, it seems, so here we go!
I turned 38 back in August. I was spoiled by my BFF and her husband that weekend. They took me to dinner, then I crashed at their place and did nothing but eat junk, watch movies, and swim. (Oh, and indulge in her fantastic cooking!) It was a much needed break from reality and did wonders for my depression. When we went out, I got dolled up and, honestly, I looked cute as hell. So cute, in fact, that we were barely inside the restaurant before a waitress ran over to tell me how cute I was. Lol.
My two work besties showed up, as well, which completed the perfection that weekend was. I spent Sunday with my parents, who bought me a red velvet cake. Then, on Tuesday, one of my older coworkers left a homemade lemon cake for me. I felt very loved.
In early September, I attended the Carbonstone show in Birmingham. They opened for Julien-K, Spineshank, and The Union Underground. Hanging out with Corey and Chrystal again was a balm to my soul. I also got to meet Ryan Shuck and Amir Derakh from Julien-K. I almost chickened out, but Chrystal made me say hi to Ryan when he walked past their merch table, then Ryan was like “Come over here” and led me to their merch table. I bought a vinyl of my favorite album, Death to Analog, and we took a couple of selfies. It was an extremely good night, capped by my college football team winning their game.
Chrystal CoreyRyan and Amir
And now, it’s October. My favorite time of year – spooky season – is here. Which means, of course, that I’ve been living on fall drinks from Starbucks and Dunkin, and my mom and I have been exploring local cemeteries. Our most recent day out was spent at Athens City Cemetery. We actually have family buried there, but we kept our ventures to the older graves.
This is the Confederate Circle, taken from a bit of a distance.
October, November, and December are my favorite three months of the year, even if Christmas doesn’t excite me the way it did as a child. This year, though, my brother and his wife are back in Alabama, so maybe Christmas will regain some of its magic!
I had never had a panic attack, but there I was at work and suddenly, it was like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldn’t draw a full breath and I was jittery. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
It wasn’t long after that I decided to put the blog on hiatus. I was constantly feeling like I couldn’t breathe when I was at work. And yes, there were a lot of things to be stressed about, but no more than usual. I thought maybe I could deal with the job stuff if I wasn’t putting pressure on myself to post here every day.
Then, it got worse. I was unhappy at work. I cried more times than I care to admit. My boss gave me a two week unpaid leave of absence, hoping the break would help. However, at this point, it was no longer just work. I was miserable, period.
I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and each time I tried, I couldn’t hold onto the conversation. I wanted to sleep all the time. If I hadn’t had to go back to work, I’m pretty sure I would have simply laid in bed and done nothing. That mental state made my job much harder.
I hid out at my best friends’ place, and I sought solace with a coworker who is fast becoming one of my favorite people. These respites were a blessing, but they weren’t going to solve the bigger issue.
So now I’m on a low dose of an antidepressant. It seems to be helping. I’m not as stuck in my own head as I was. I’m not really happy, either. I’m just…here. Existing.
I don’t feel that I’m ready to come back to blogging full-time. I miss writing, though. I’m still keeping up with the 2025 playlist because I owe that to all the musicians out there, and I just updated my reading challenge. (I hadn’t done that since May.)
In other news, my birthday is this week! My best friend is going to spoil me with dinner and painting and horror movies and swimming. We’re gonna get dolled up when we go out; I bought a new dress and everything!
I hope this post finds all of you well, and I hope I’ll get motivated to start blogging again soon. Maybe seeing Carbonstone in September will help with that…
I visited my brother in Colorado for his birthday. He and my sister-in-law have moved since I last saw them, and their new home is in the middle of nowhere. Actually, it’s in an area considered to be a ghost town, which is right up my alley, haha! Needless to say, I wanted to explore all the deserted structures nearby, but we also visited Bishop Castle, North Lake, Monument Lake, a few cemeteries, and Lathrop State Park.
It sounds like we were constantly running around; however, we had plenty of downtime, too. We lazed around the house with a fire going, watching horror movies and TV shows (mostly of the cooking variety). My brother caught up on “Outer Banks,” and his wife and I got him hooked on “Squid Game.”
It was so relaxing. I didn’t want to come back. We’re already planning my next trip. I want to go out in the summer, because I always seem to go when it’s cold. On the other hand, Marilyn Manson is touring in September and has stops in both Denver and Albuquerque, soooo…
Anyway, here are some photos from my trip.
The most haunted building in TrinidadMonument LakeNorth LakeBishop CastleLathrop State ParkThis was at one of the cemeteries in AguilarSame cemetery Another Aguilar cemetery Walsenburg cemeteryNot far from where my brother and his wife live. I Googled it and the area is defined as a ghost town.
It’s day one of a new year, and while I am not known for preaching positivity, I will say that we all have a chance to make 2025 great.
I don’t know how y’all fared in 2024, but it wasn’t such a terrible year for me. I got to see and meet Danny Worsnop (Asking Alexandria/We Are Harlot) with my mom, and she amused him so much that he told a story about her on Facebook. My dad took me to the Marilyn Manson/Five Finger Death Punch tour for my birthday. I have been a fan of Manson for almost 25 years, and it was my first time seeing him. As an added bonus, The Funeral Portrait opened the night (and they were phenomenal). And while we’re on the subject of concerts, I finally made it to the promised land: one of my best friends took me to see Creed for Christmas! I missed them during their heyday – I was, like, 10 – and that always depressed me. I was so excited about their reunion, and they were worth waiting for. Mammoth WVH and 3 Doors Down were the openers, and both bands kicked ass!
On a personal note, my best friend moved back to Alabama! I had missed her and her family terribly. I gained self-confidence this year. My friends and coworkers helped immensely with that challenge. I like myself better at 37 than I did at 17.
The negatives for 2024 were huge, I will admit. We lost my paternal grandmother in October. She was my last grandparent, the one I spent the most time with and knew the best, so when I say that it’s been a struggle… More than my own grief, I’ve been very concerned about my dad. It’s only been two years since his youngest brother passed. Now it’s just him and my uncle Chris. If you could spare a thought for them, that would be lovely.
I’m also stuck in a job that doesn’t make me happy, but I plan on changing that as soon as possible. I guess that’s a minor complaint overall, though it does impact me almost daily. Still, I’m thinking positive! I will find something better in 2025!
Happy New Year to all my readers/followers! I hope this January 1st finds you well. Drop me a comment and tell me a good thing about your 2024, or tell me what you’re looking forward to in 2025.
Here are a few pictures from the past 12 months.
Danny WorsnopJericho RoseMe and Dad at the Marilyn Manson showBirthday!Halloween with the bestest and her family 🎃With Jesse at the Creed show 🤘🏻Creed at State Farm Arena 🔥Christmas 🎅🏻
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?
I saw this prompt from WordPress and decided, why not? Then, I gave the question and its answer some serious consideration. A couple of my responses are no-brainers. The others…well, they are small things that I suppose I take for granted, but nevertheless, they make me super happy!
1. Family
All-encompassing, huh? Okay. Let me get specific. One of my absolute favorite things in the world is ending my day with my mom, watching either true crime or cooking shows. And I love listening to my dad tell stories about him and his brothers when they were younger. And I love hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law, playing video games or watching documentaries.
2. Music
Music ties in directly with family because my parents are responsible for my love and vast knowledge of music. I can’t live without it.
3. Books
Reading brings me so much joy. I’ll usually choose to read a book rather than watching TV. Curling up with a good book and a cup of coffee (or tea) is my idea of Heaven.
4. My cats
I mean, come on. Duh, right?
5. My coworkers
So I don’t always love my job, but I do have a pretty amazing team around me, which sometimes extends beyond the walls of our workplace. My favorite coworker story? The first time my mom had a seizure, we called an ambulance and rushed to the ER. Well, I had been sending snaps to my work bestie, Rocky. He was at the gym, and when I told him what was going on, he asked if I wanted him to come to the hospital. Before I even had the chance to answer (to be fair, I wasn’t staying on top of Snapchat at that point), the outer doors opened and I looked up to find Rocky walking into the waiting room, still in his gym clothes. It was only about 15 minutes later they let us back to see my mom, but the fact that Rocky sat with me and my dad for those 15 minutes told me that we were really friends, and not just on the clock.
And those are my 5. I’m a simple girl. It doesn’t take much to make me happy. I have to say, though, that this list probably would have been fairly different a few years ago.
Mom ❤️The brotatoDad 💙MarcelineVladRockyOne of my work moms 🩷 (She loved that shirt so I ordered her one.)
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