Taking the long way around

Whether it's making you feel like dancing, stirring up old memories, or evoking an emotion, music has always seemed to have a profound effect on my life. If you've read one of these blog posts, then you probably already know that my music tastes are wide and varied.

More than 15 years ago, my father used to try to influence me and my sister with his eclectic music tastes. One day he'd have us listening to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers or Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, and the next day he'd be playing Devo or Oingo Boingo. If you just asked yourself 'Who?!,' then that's exactly my point.

Some people don't care what the lyrics say in a song and only care about whether a song has a good beat. Other people don't care about the beat as long as the lyrics are interesting. I'm in the latter camp.

I profess that my music collection doesn't have much country music in it (though Taylor Swift is making me change my mind about that).  Regardless, these days, I've got a couple of country songs stuck in my head. One of them is The Long Way Around by The Dixie Chicks.  If you haven't heard it yet, you can watch it below.

I can't say I'm a die-hard Dixie Chicks fan, but I do have several of their other songs. Anyway...the lyrics in The Long Way Around kind of tell a story about the paths we choose in life and where people end up.

It's funny that I just listened to that song today, and then later, I was going through some old paperwork looking for something, and I ran across an expired passport from my high school days. I'm embarrassed to admit that that passport only had 2 measly stamps in it and even those are from 2 of the most cliche European cities -- Paris and London.  Fortunately, I'm on my 3rd passport renewal.  So after seeing that pathetic attempt at world travel, I went looking for the other 2 passports.

I got my first passport renewal a couple of years before I met my husband, and with it, I only travelled to 2 more destinations, both of which were also in Europe.

I got my second passport renewal a couple of years ago. I'm happy to report that I'm now up to 35 stamps and have stopped in over 20 countries on 3 continents.  Saying that my husband and I like to travel is probably a little bit of an understatement.

Anyway...I'm kind of taking the long way around to my point of this blog post.  When I was growing up, I never imagined that I would lead such an interesting and exciting life filled with so much travel.  I guess what I'm saying is...I like taking the long way around.