“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” ~  Maya Angelou

What a fun day indeed!  I am hon­ored to share with you an inter­view with Jan­nie Fun­ster, the “princess of fun”.  Jan­nie is an amaz­ing, fun­tas­tic, smil­ing, and real friend here at the “Jun­gle of Life”, and some­one whom it gives me great plea­sure to share with you today!  When not answer­ing my prob­ing ques­tions (see below!) — Jan­nie spends her days writ­ing and singing music, being an awe­some mother and wife, author­ing her very enter­tain­ing blog, and just gen­er­ally hav­ing fun with life!

NOTE: We’re hav­ing our first ever give away here today!  For the price of a com­ment, one lucky win­ner will be cho­sen to receive a copy of Jannie’s recently released debut CD, “I Need A Man”.  Win­ner will be cho­sen at ran­dom, from all received com­ments — on Fri­day May 29^th.

And with that, please help me in wel­com­ing Jan­nie here today!

I ask her some chal­leng­ing ques­tions, and Jan­nie answers them with poise, grace, and humor…

1. Tell us a lit­tle bit about who “you” are (fam­ily, career, any spe­cial life expe­ri­ences you’d like to share, etc.)

Well, Lance, funny you should ask!  I was just telling my new clog-dancing bud­dies yes­ter­day that I’m an East­ern Cana­dian farm-raised gal from a long long line of  “Twin­kle Shoot­ing” Irish ances­tors.  Back in the Moth­er­land I entered (and often won,) every carrot-peeling con­test I could find before going off to col­lege, then taught junior high French for a cou­ple of years until I ran off hap­pily here to Texas with my landlord-love-of-my life, Jim.  Been here in the “Live Music Cap­i­tal Of  The World” almost 19 years!

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Carrot-peeling con­test!  Were I to enter some­thing like that I’d surely lose a finger…

2. How long have you been blog­ging, and what led you to start writing?

It was a foggy morn­ing at  6:41 May 22^nd, 2006 when I started my old blog as an “added fea­ture” of the tem­plated web­site I cre­ated to pro­mote our band “The Fun­sters. ”  But that blog never had (nor never would have, boo hoo,) the options of com­ments.   Imag­ine my thrill when I finally came to my senses last Sep­tem­ber and switched to a Word­Press blog WITH COMMENTS!
As to writ­ing in gen­eral, I was 4 or 5 when I scratched “I love you,” on a scrap of paper to my Aunt Tillie — which she still has!  And have kept writ­ing, with no signs or desire of ever stop­ping.  And you?

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Com­ments add so much to the con­ver­sa­tion!  And if you’ve never vis­ited Jannie’s site, get over there and check it out.  It’s loads of fun!

What’s the deal here — you send­ing the ques­tions right back at me?  Well…writing isn’t some­thing that’s always been with me — at least not at the same level as it has been for you.  Or maybe more appro­pri­ately — it’s not some­thing I’ve always done.  I think a part of it is that writ­ing feels per­ma­nent — and that held me back — the idea of a recorded copy of my thoughts.  Is that inse­cu­rity on my part?  It’s taken time to be “ok” with writ­ing.  For me, it all started just over a year ago –when the “Jun­gle of Life” was born.  It’s been a fan­tas­tic jour­ney through my mind, and with the help of so many oth­ers to make it all pos­si­ble.

3. Tell us about your singing / song­writ­ing, and how long you’ve been doing that.

I was prob­a­bly born singing.  Used to drive my friends crazy by singing instead of talk­ing to com­mu­ni­cate. (But they still hung around me – go fig­ure!)
Dreamed of being a singer as a child, but my path veered else­where.   I look now at those interim years as song research!
Then, at 30, when I picked up a gui­tar at my neigh­bor Leigh’s house and she taught me a cou­ple of chords, I wrote a song imme­di­ately.  And fol­low­ing a rather cir­cuitous, yet steady route of voice, gui­tar, song­writ­ing and per­for­mance classes, here I am –  just a reg­u­lar gal with a pen­chant for fling­ing lyrics into melodies and shar­ing them via guitar.

I still can’t believe I’ve just released my debut CD called “I Need A Man”, as in “I need a man with a chain­saw, I need a man with an axe – a guy who’s good in the gar­den, who’ll give my weeds a whack…”   (Did I men­tion half those songs won awards? ? ) And that the CD can be pur­chased off my site, only $10.00 each, with low S&H.  Packed to any­where in the world with aro­matic moon­beams and a spe­cial Jan­nie love incan­ta­tion.  Oh, I didn’t men­tion that?  How totally remiss of me. 
The CD also con­tains a pre­cious song Kelly wrote and sang in one take when she was 5 years old.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: I think this is so cool — you’ve released your first CD!!  I love the whole thing, and the last song, with Kelly singing, is very sweet.  The world is a bet­ter place because you picked up that gui­tar and fol­lowed your dreams!  And one more thing, Jan­nie — I have a chain­saw I like to play with…

On a side note, Mil­wau­kee has a large sum­mer music fes­ti­val, Sum­mer­fest, in late June/early July.  I think this would be an awe­some place for you to show­case your tal­ents (and hey, I’ll have a place for you to stay the whole time)!

4. Jan­nie, when I think of you – I think music (and maybe bra-flinging).  Besides music, what else makes your spirit soar, your heart skip a beat?

Ah, Lance,  I love the explo­sion of spring­time, a per­fect glazed donut, my husband’s (land­lord ?) sweet whis­tle, my daughter’s laugh, my mother’s hugs, my dad’s grin, my broth­ers’ spon­ta­neous accor­dion and har­mon­ica  hoe-downs, my sister’s twinkle-shooting eyes.  The wind on my face.   The sun on my roses.  The scent of  the pines every­where as soon as I step off the plane at home.  My morn­ing cof­fee –  light and a bit sweet.   My new “Moun­tain Mist” scented brand of laun­dry soap.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: What great things in life, all of these that you’re deeply con­nected to (the laun­dry soap t00?).  Some­day, we shall meet for cof­fee — my treat!  You can bring the donuts…

5. What do you see as the real pur­pose of your blog (in other words, why do you write)?

Lance, the real pur­pose of my blog is to take over the world (but don’t tell any­one, okay?)  To get and give a lit­tle fun and love and fun­ster­ment.  But mainly to be heard.  How ‘bout you?

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Your secret’s good with me!  Jan­nie, when I think fun and love all wrapped together — you’re it!  Keep shar­ing your voice, in all the ways you do.

More ques­tions for me??  So, what’s the pur­pose of my blog?  I write to get things out that I have in my head and in my heart.  And in that process, or jour­ney really — it helps me to bet­ter under­stand myself, and to really live the life I want.  There’s some­thing about writ­ing it down for me that makes it all more real.  So, that’s why I started to write.  I also find that I write as a way to con­nect with oth­ers.  Like with you!  And every­one who vis­its these pages…you all add so much!

6. Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you in the last year.

You mean besides find­ing  that won­der­ful box of assorted but prac­ti­cally brand new mis-matched socks at a yard­sale?   Yes, the one-same yard­sale where I scored the (over) half a tube of super glue that was just the ticket to mend my cow-milking tro­phy that crashed from the shelf the night the fan­dango party got a lit­tle wilder than usual!  Well… my hubby sur­prised me with a beau­ti­ful new white kitchen sink for Moth­ers Day.  Installed!
And the joy and love I’ve grown to feel for all my blog­ging buds – that was pretty unex­pected, and wel­come, indeed.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: This is what’s so great about you, Jan­nie.  And to every­one read­ing here — this IS Jan­nie!  In an off-the-wall sort of way, she is able to write some­thing light-hearted and deeply mean­ing­ful in the same para­graph.  Jan­nie, I love it!  Espe­cially the socks!!

And the con­nec­tions with oth­ers in the blog­ging world — I’ll agree that’s a pretty sweet gift indeed!  Have fun with your new sink (although Jim is mak­ing me look bad!)…

7. If you had to pick one thing as your great­est achieve­ment, what would it be (and why)?

Finally get­ting to be a mom, after years of heart­break­ing infer­til­ity and mis­car­riages. Hope­fully rais­ing a nice lit­tle human to bring more sun­shine than rain to this (and all other,) planets.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Jan­nie, I can’t even begin to imag­ine how dif­fi­cult those years must have been.  You have some­one very spe­cial in your life now, and from every­thing I’ve wit­nessed, she’s a true off­shoot of you.  That’s tes­ta­ment to the great job you’re doing as a mother!   Our galaxy has a bunch more sun­shine!

8. A fun day with your fam­ily – tell me what that might con­sist of.

Oh, a dream fun day would be wak­ing up in a great lit­tle hotel in Paris with a fab­u­lous view, hav­ing café /croissant on the ter­race, then enjoy­ing the Orangerie museum, where Kelly and I could explore to our heart’s con­tent after Jim set­tled into a nice ham­mock beside the museum deck.  (Kelly and I can tire him out!)  He’d be kept well there with lemon­ade and tran­quil­ity at an even tem­per­a­ture of  75 beneath a shady tree.  Then we’d all three have a leisurely lunch on the Champs Ely­sees and  stroll mer­rily through the Tui­leries, up to the Lou­vre. But not actu­ally go in the Lou­vre,  but head over to Pere LaChaise to look for Jim Mor­ri­son.  And that evening attend a party at the Ritz, Place Ven­dome — with every one of our friends and fam­ily, who’d been flown in and put up cour­tesy of some secret-admiring phil­an­thropist.  And my hair would curl just right for the occasion.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Wow!  I hope I’m on the “friends” list (and it’s not just to get a free trip to Paris).  Jan­nie, I love your imag­i­na­tion, it fits the whole “Fun­ster” name so well!

9. Deep-down, Jan­nie, what makes you, “you”?

Well, Lance, you’d really have to ask the Great Almighty what he used for ingre­di­ents in me.  But I’m guess­ing poetry, pan­sies and pas­try were in the mix!  Maybe a hint of two of mis­chief.  And a flash of  pinkish-blue.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: The “Great Almighty” did one fan­tas­tic job with you!

Clos­ing Thoughts: Jan­nie, it’s been awe­some hav­ing you here today!  Your thoughts — whether on your blog, your com­ments here, or in the music you sing — they all are uplift­ing and just plain fun!  I love how you’ve went out after some­thing you believe deeply in — your music.  And this is proof for all of us here, that tak­ing some risks with our­selves and really lis­ten­ing to what our heart is say­ing — can lead to some pretty amaz­ing things happening!

Jan­nie, thank you for being here today, and for shar­ing “you” with all of us!  You are sun­shine to our planet, and to all the plan­ets we know about, and even to those that haven’t yet been dis­cov­ered!

Photo cour­tesy:  Brandi Reynolds

“The world needs dream­ers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dream­ers who do.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Are you a joy rebel?

What?  What is that?

The sub­lime art of being authen­ti­cally you.

There’s a move­ment going on — one I’m excited to be a part of!  The ‘joy rebel’ move­ment.  Do you want to be a part of it?  I’d explain it, although I don’t think I can do it jus­tice.  So today, I have Brandi Reynolds, cre­ator extra­or­di­naire of this bril­liant idea here, to explain it a lit­tle fur­ther.  Read on  to learn more about this idea and what it’s all about.  And get a glimpse into Brandi’s joy rebel within her, shin­ing through!

1.  What really led you to cre­ate this “joy rebel” move­ment? And how long has it been going on?

Hon­estly, this path started for me in 1999, though I had no name for it then.  I found myself divorced at 23 (from my first hus­band — I’ve since re-married to a fab­u­lous guy), in the mid­dle of a col­lege semes­ter with another year to go, $80 to my name and sleep­ing on a friends couch.  And for the first time EVER, I real­ized that I didn’t have to react to, run from or deny life. I had a choice.  I could go to a bar and find some­thing to numb the pain a lit­tle bit or I could step up and take respon­si­bil­ity for my life. I chose to step up and set out on a spir­i­tual and cre­ative explo­ration. I think I am more proud of the moment I made that choice, scared to death and broke as hell, than I am any other moment in my life.  It wasn’t a joy rebel­lion then, in fact there was no dis­cernible direc­tion at first but that is the true start of this jour­ney I am on.

In early 2009, I found myself again at a cross roads.  I’d cer­tainly explored the last ten years.  I’ve learned so much and now real­ized it was time to put some focus to this path that I was on.  What did I want to do with my life?  How did I want to show up in the world?  I truly thought I knew some of those answers yet sud­denly found myself ques­tion­ing every­thing I was doing.

What came out of that time of ques­tion­ing was a cre­ative focus and a will­ing­ness to put forth action to make that focus grow.  I needed a touch­stone, a mantra and slowly, the idea of ‘joy rebel’ came to me.  To me, being a joy rebel is about being authen­ti­cally myself. At 33, I feel like I am just now find­ing my real voice. It’s about embrac­ing the light­ness of true joy and also lis­ten­ing to rage against the machine and being okay with that appar­ent dichotomy. It’s about decid­ing that it’s not irre­spon­si­ble to refuse to let the US media, lob­by­ists and approx­i­mately a bil­lion retail­ers dic­tate my emo­tions.  And most impor­tantly, it’s about hav­ing FUN.  I was so tired of the self help tirade and found that I didn’t feel joy­ful read­ing one more book on how to fix me.  Not that there aren’t a lot of help­ful books out there — I cer­tainly ben­e­fited from them.  It was just time to start putting the tips and prac­tices to work and BE joyful.

So, I posted some­thing about it on my blog in Feb­ru­ary, invit­ing oth­ers to claim their authen­tic­ity and embrace joy and it’s just grown from there.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Thanks for shar­ing your story, Brandi, and how  you’ve got­ten to where you are today.  And this move­ment — it really is all about hav­ing fun.  Check out her site, it’s FUN all around!  I believe I dis­cov­ered Brandi’s site in late 2008, and was instantly drawn to what she writes.  Stop by.  See what’s going on over there.  Read about these ‘joy rebel’ mis­sions, and more.  It’s all good, and it’s all real.

2.  Do you stay up late at night com­ing up with mis­sions to use each week?

Why YES! Yes I do.  I wail and gnash my teeth also.  (What the hell is ‘gnash­ing’ any­way?) Ha! Seri­ously though, the mis­sions are a way to have fun and con­nect with your authen­tic self.  I come up with ideas from my own expe­ri­ences — stuff that has worked for me.  And I’m totally open to ideas!  Any­one can rec­om­mend a weekly mis­sion — they just have to email me at brandi@brandireynoldsphoto.com

Lance’s Com­men­tary: Sounds scary, the wail­ing and gnash­ing of teeth (why do I think it’s not, though!)!  Sorry Brandi, you just don’t seem too scary…

3.  Let’s say a cer­tain mis­sion doesn’t res­onate with me.  What do I do then?

No wor­ries, just don’t do it.  A joy rebel mis­sion should never feel like some­thing you need to check off your ‘to do’ list.  The whole point is to have fun.  You can always check back to see what’s up the next week or email me with a rec­om­men­da­tion on some­thing you’d like to try.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: I love this, it’s all so “what works for me”.  Brandi, I think this is one of the real draws — this idea that this is all up to me.  Or, if I’m so inclined, I can dig into the archives and do some­thing from pre­vi­ous weeks (like cre­ate your own super­hero — how did I miss that one?).  Or I can do noth­ing at all. It’s all good, and it all works…

4. How do I find out about the mis­sions each week?  And how do I go about com­plet­ing them (i.e. do you keep score?)?

I post them every Mon­day.  If you want to share about the expe­ri­ence on your blog or post a com­ment on mine, that’s great but never a require­ment.  We run a pretty lax ship over here at the joy rebel­lion. No people’s elbows given, I swear.

Lance’s Com­men­tary: This is a ship I’m excited to be on (I’m all for lax!).   Seri­ously, though, this really is an awe­some idea, and what’s so great — there is no com­mit­ment, no sign up form, no monthly fee.  It really is all about find­ing the ‘joy rebel’ within each of us, and let­ting that rebel out to play!  And no other rules…

THIS JUST OUT (May 4^th, 2009): Here’s this week’s mis­sion — all about laugh­ter.  Check it out — even just to see what it’s all about.

Brandi, it’s been great hav­ing you here today to explain more about this ‘joy rebel’ move­ment you have created!

For all our vis­i­tors, if you can’t tell — I really think this is one bril­liant and cre­ative idea!  And that it’s so non-committal on our part, that we can choose to par­tic­i­pate or not — that’s rebel­lion right there!  This is so easy, and so vol­un­tary.  Being a rebel doesn’t get any eas­ier than this!

When Brandi’s not dream­ing up new mis­sions — she has cam­era in hand let­ting her cre­ative genius shine through the lens of what she sees in her world.  Check out her pho­tog­ra­phy site, Brandi Reynolds — Joy Rebel Pho­tog­ra­phy.  Oh, and you can also find her hang­ing out on Twit­ter.  And liv­ing the life of what it means to be a true joy rebel…along with her hus­band and two dogs…

Joy rebel: the sub­lime art of being authen­ti­cally you.  (well said Brandi!)