I don’t even know where to start. November 22, 2008

It’s been way too long since I’ve updated my blog!  October was filled with the craziness of the MOPS convention in Dallas, Carina visiting, getting Oscar neutered, Hanson tour, and a couple of Sixers shows.  Needless to say, I’ve been playing catch-up for a few weeks!  I’ve thought to myself many times, Gosh, I need to update that blog! It seems so overwhelming at this point that I’m not even sure where to start.

Even though tour, I tried my best to keep adding one new ‘green’ resolution to my list each week.  I haven’t posted anything, but I’ve been doing - and that’s really the important part!  I’m hoping to set aside a few moments to get Fifty-Two Green up to speed!

I’ve found a new love/project!  (I know, just what I need is something else to try to accomplish!)  I downloaded a trial version of Adobe’s Photoshop and absolutely fell in love with it.  Many of the first days of November were consumed with Photoshopping all of my photos from the Walk Around The World Tour.  Alas, I’ll never be able to afford the program, but it was amazing to experience it for 30 days!  I actually discovered that I had downloaded the trial for CS3, and CS4 is now out.  I’m in the process of attempting to download the CS4 trial, and hopefully have the program for another 30 days!  It really is an incredible tool and I wish like anything that I had a spare thousand dollars to drop on it.  Alas, my financial priorities are elsewhere….

Speaking of financial priorities, I’m proud to report that Alex & I are officially out of debt!!  We didn’t have much to begin with, but after listening to Dave Ramsey, we decided that we want to operate on a cash-only basis from now on.  We paid off our car, my student loan, and our credit card.  It was a thrilling feeling to close our Capital One account and be able to quote Dave: “What’s in your wallet?  MONEY!”  Of course we have many more ‘baby steps’ to accomplish, but for now, we’re very satisfied with being debt-free!

Even on tour. October 12, 2008

This week begins the craziness of The Walk Around The World Tour, for me at least!  I’ll be attending 9 shows in the next three weeks!  Often tour means many meals eaten on the road in a hurry, equating with lots of trash created.  My resolution for this week is that even on tour, I’m going to do my best to stay ‘green’!

Probably the biggest way we’ll be green this year is to carpool to every show.  I’m not attending any shows alone, and for most of them, I’ll be riding with two or more people.  Not only does this strategy allow us to split the cost of gas and share the driving time, but we’ll also cut the amount of gas we would use in half or more!  Carpooling to shows is definitely the way to go – besides, it makes tour extra fun!  This week I have to credit everyone I plan to ride with this tour: Ashley, Chrissy, Emma, Erin, Karen, and Kim – you guys are the best!

BYO… M? September 22, 2008

It’s officially fall, and that means I’ll be visiting Starbucks a lot more than I do in the summer!  I’m not sure what it is about the slight fall chill that makes me crave coffee.  I drink it more from September to November than I do even during the coldest winter months!  With all of those to-go drinks can easily come a lot of paper and plastic waste.  So this week’s resolution is to bring my own mug whenever I visit a coffee house!  If I forget the mug, then I’ll just have to make do without coffee that day.

I actually went 3 times last week, and thankfully had planned ahead and brought my favorite travel mug each time.  I adore the logo and saying on it (Hanson: highly caffeinated since 1992), but perhaps even more I adore that it was free!  I won it during the spring leg of Hanson’s “The Walk Tour.”  At each show, fan club members were able to get their membership cards scanned and entered in a drawing for free merchandise.  After the opening act, the winner was announced.  In Falls Church, I was that lucky winner!  By that point I’d already purchased everything I really desired, except the mug.  It was $25, and in my opinion that’s way too much!  I’m thrilled to have it, and it reminds me of tour and especially that show every time I use it.

So this fall, not only will I be helping to save the planet, I’ll be reminiscing about a wonderful tour and advertising for my favorite band.  Does life get any sweeter?

Street team! September 14, 2008

I’ve been on Hanson’s Street Team for more than a year, and this week, I finally did my first real work for it!  I don’t even know if I should call it work, because it was just downright fun!  When I lived in Maine, there was basically nothing the ST was asked to do, and it was highly disorganized.  Not long after I moved to Maryland, I met the MD ST Leader at a show and quickly made friends with her.  (Shout out to Erin!)  It had been way too long since I’d seen her, so on Thursday we arranged to do some promoting for the show in Falls Church, VA.

…

Erin picked me up on Thursday at 1:00 (not 2:00!!).  After some mild drama with how I was going to get to the gate to get her on base, we were on our way to VA to hang up fliers and walk around the awesome town of Falls Church.  We started off by going to the venue (Erin’s idea) to see if they had any fliers.  Oh boy, did they!  The venue (The State Theater) actually printed up their own very nice postcard-sized advertisements for the show!  We gave a few of our ST fliers to the nice girl at the box office, and she gave us a bunch of theirs to pass around.  Then we just started walking and stopping in stores to hang up fliers.  We were not only able to hang up quite a few posters, but also plan out meals for about seven days’ worth of camping in Falls Church.  HAH!  There are a lot of really yummy-looking restaurants in that city, though!  We hung up fliers in two especially cool places: one called the CD Cellar and one called Let’s Play Music.  The former was a used CD store in a very cool space in a tiny strip mall.  We even browsed their selection a bit and I was very impressed, though saddened at the lack of any Hanson whatsoever.  The latter was a music lesson space with a very cool owner.  He told us that at one point, he almost recorded in the same studio as Hanson at roughly the same time.  The guys ended up recording somewhere else close by, he said.  He seemed very impressed by them, and he might even come to the show!  (By the way, their logo has the cutest guitar-playing cartoon man I’ve ever seen, and he slightly reminds me of Isaac, haha!)

…

Today, I was able to participate in a car wash to raise money for HIVSA and other causes that Hanson supports through their website, takethewalk.net.  The event was organized by Jaime, one of the MD ST girls.  I’d met her at the Falls Church show last spring, but sure didn’t remember until I saw her today!  I left my house at 7:45 and got to Erin’s by about 8:30.  She drove us up to Perry Hall, which is about 30 minutes northeast of Baltimore.  We helped set up for the car wash/bake sale with Jaime and two other girls (Crystal and Angela).  It was ridiculously hot outside, and we were pretty excited to do some car washing!  Unfortunately I think more people came through the parking lot trying to get Chick-fil-A food on a Sunday than came for the car wash, but we still managed to wash probably 15 cars.  We made quite a bit of money for the different causes, thanks to lots of promo on Jaime’s part!  I’ve never done a car wash like that before, and it was a blast to be able to do something so simple that will help so much.  I might even see what I can do about hosting a car wash here on base.  The Chief Selects do them all the time in the huge parking lot by the gas station/base theater/Home Traditions store, and it’s close to the road so there’s plenty of exposure.  Who knows?

…

I’m completely excited about being a part of a Street Team that actually does things to promote the band, their shows, and the causes they’re involved in!  GO GO MD ST!