Happy New Year, New Newsletter

Our newest newsletter is heading out to emails inboxes everywhere (read it below)! If you don't get one, it might be that I have an old address for you, or I couldn't read your handwriting when you signed up, or a space alien is at fault. You can make it all better by going to our website and signing up in that little white box on the righthand side. It would be so nice. www.jeniandbilly.com

Here we go, 2015! Let's make it wonderful!

  

We are thrilled to announce that we will be touring far and wide again this year! 2014 was one our of our busiest years of touring since we put our toe in the traveling troubadour waters back in summer of 2008. Thank you to all of YOU for making our winding ways that much more joyous.

Our goal for this year is to bring happiness and kindness wherever we go. Life is short and sometimes plain fierce. Let's all create a world full of freedom, understanding, and compassion.

This year, we will be releasing at least one, and possibly a few, live CDs from our touring last year -- and rumor has it we'll be heading back into the studio with the Big Picnic Band in the fall!

Next week, we begin our touring year in sunny Florida -- and none too soon given the arctic temperatures here in Nashville.  In March, we'll head up to windy Chicago, Detroit (for the first time), and Bloomington (IN). In late April, we'll be flying over to Britain for all of May, June, and part of July! Seventy-three days of toast and tea with our friends across the pond. In August, we'll visit our home states of Virginia and Maryland as well as making an annual stop in NJ. We'll finish out our touring for the year in California via Arkansas and Texas.

That's the plan so far! I have most of the concerts for the first half of the year up on the website and I'll be adding more as the year rolls on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!

If you are on Facebook, let's be friends, if you are inclined. Facebook controls who sees posts from our Jeni & Billy page, but you control how many posts you see from me, Jeni Hankins. So, your best bet for getting day to day news from us is to befriend me. OR, if you aren't keen on Facebook, you can visit my blog. Nearly every one of my Facebook posts ends up there.

If you are looking at our calendar and feeling dismayed that we don't seem to be coming your way, how about hosting a house, church, synagogue, garden, barn, or community center concert? Some areas are hard for acts to crack and sometimes it works better to buck the system and make your own event! Lots of our friends have done it and most of them had never done anything like that before! And it turned out a lot better than a noisy cafe or rowdy brew pub. Just write to us.

Well, I had better sign off since the pre-tour checklist list still has a lot of unchecked boxes!

Billy and I wish you all lightness, kindness, and understanding in the year to come. We wish you laughter and love. And we wish you peace.

Many smiles, see you soon,

Jeni & Billy too

  

Flo dreams

Just sitting here hand coloring and stamping a bunch of "Flo Dreams" cards. Flo the dog-bird-fish was inspired by real life wonderdog, Flo, who takes her human friend, Jill, all over Britain. Celebrating dreams for all!

In Solidarity

What can you say in the face of violence? You can keep walking, one foot in front of the other, and making, one stroke of the pen, one sweep of the brush, and then another. Never give in, keep going. Keep making. Tell what you see. Challenge what you doubt. Keep making. Ask questions. Keep Making. In solidarity.

Haircut Nirvana, just down the street at the Chop Shop!

Celebrating haircut happiness! Back to my short locks, courtesy of hair magician and style guru, Sara Plambeck, at the Chop Shop! Soooooooooo thrilled! Now, if it weren't so cold here, I could take off this wool hat I am wearing in the house! Good thing we are headed to Florida next week :) Red face courtesy of wind chill and Dutch heritage!

From the Commodore 64 to Paper and Pencil

Ok, to be fair, I did also get an up-to-the-minute piece of modern technology for Christmas. Billy got me a Pencil by 53, so that I could make something on Paper. It may seem like we've had pencils and paper for a long time, but, lo and behold, you can buy digital paper and a pencil to match that let you make art on the go without carrying around a mobile craft unit :) And the "marker" in the paper never goes dry like those pesky dry markers that plagued my childhood. Remember those markers where the only working ones were brown or black. Hmmm, let's draw a bear, so much for rainbows! 

Anyhow, this is the first thing I made with their collaborative Mix community. Good grief folks, there's a lot of worlds out there, aren't there!?

I won't be giving up real paper, pencils, watercolors, or markers, but it's fun to be able to draw on the iPad and see what all of these new Paper and Pencil parameters inspire.

I remember these "HELLO my name is" tags from many coffee hours at the First Presbyterian Church in Brookline. They take me back to learning Bible stories in the eighties -- the knitted tie worn by our Sunday school teacher, Mark, and the wooden clogs and jeans wrap skirt worn by his wife, Mary Lou. And then there was our Commodore 64 computer where we played games using the space bar . . . 

Back to the future with my "new" eMate 300!

What did you get for Christmas or Hanukkah this year? In true "back to the future" fashion Dad & Mom got me a 1997 Apple eMate 300 for Christmas this year! It's the perfect distraction free typewriter-like computer. It can't do email and it's never heard of Google, Twitter, or Facebook. It's battery life is WAY longer than any tablet or laptop, so I can write thousands and thousands of words in the desert without having to go down to the diner on I-10 and ruin my health with French fries in order to use their internet :) And, possibly best of all, my vegan inspiration, Alicia Silverstone, used one when she played Batgirl. So late nineties cutting edge -- I am thrilled to pieces! Time to go back to rehearsal, booking, publicity, correspondence, and travel planning tomorrow, but, for the rest of today, I am going back to the future!

A Guest Appearance in my family's newspaper!

I was really chuffed when my Dad told me he was printing one of my tour reports in The Seven Lakes Times -- the North Carolina newspaper published by my parents! It's the report about bagels, menorahs, bible songs, and the desert -- Advent & Hanukkah.

The last time I appeared as a guest columnist in the Times was back in 1995 when I provided an emergency zucchini nut muffin recipe to fill up space for the publisher at that time. She'd found an empty space just as the paper was going to press. Little did I know at the time that my parents would become the publishers of the Times a few years later.

I'm excited that the wonderful community of Oseh Shalom makes a cameo in the article! Sending love to you all.

I think my sentiment will hold up until the season of expectant waiting begins again: "The greatest lesson I learned from The First Presbyterian Church of Brookline, from the Friendly Chapel, and Oseh Shalom are the enduring gifts of love and kindness, and the call to celebrate the goodness of others."

Wishing all of you, our dear friends, love, kindness, and understanding in the coming year! We can't wait to see you along the trail.