Visual Trademark - A Blog By CJ Mills

I came across the song Healer on a Planetshakers album shortly after we made it home from Charleston.  I didn’t know the back story, or that it was going to be on Hillsong’s new album.  Check out the video below which goes into detail about how the song came to be:

There are a few names you see me “drop” here that I am sure are beginning to look familiar.  Brody, is one of them.  He has a series called LinkLoved where you you “celebrate those that are sending the most people to our blogs.”  Here are my top 5 this past month:

1) Ragamuffinsoul.com - I don’t know Carlos, he doesn’t know me, but as soon you you participate in Creative Chaos, you’re bound to get some hits.  I think my last post is what pushed him up to number 1 last minute.  Carlos has a very real heart about things and I enjoy watching him walk through life in a very honest and authentic way.

2) Brentinworship.com - Brent and his wife are two new friends of visualtrademark.com.  Brent has posted a few times about our situation with Asher and called many of his readers to pray.  The best part about Brent’s blog is his constant interaction with his readers.  You can almost guarantee a response from Brad after posting a comment - I love that about this blog and have tried to do the same here.  His blog is one of my few daily reads.

3) Brodyharper.com - Like Carlos, I don’t know Brody and he doesn’t know me, but I believe him to be the type of guy I could easily grab coffee with if ever in Nashville.  I still don’t know what Brody does for a living, exactly, but I know he works with some great musicians.  Like Brent’s blog, Brody’s is a must read and on my list of daily reads.

4) Crazydisciple.com - I got to know Scott around the same time I ran into Brent.  Scott is has an amazing gift of crafting words into incredible pictures.  His blog is sure to get interesting in the coming months as he looks to move to Paris and serve the people there.  Scott also holds a special place in our hearts because of his posts about Asher and our situation.  I’m hoping to run into Scott in the coming months, before he leaves for Paris, as I make business travel plans that happen to be in his neck of the woods.

5) Bradruggles.com - I’ve blogged about Brad plenty already - almost to the point where Andrea questions our relationship…haha.  Brad was my original top referrer and my first “link loved” friend.  His blog is another daily read of mine.  The one thing that sets Brad apart from the other great bloggers is his ability to make the simple seem interesting - as displayed here: over 50 comments on a post about Tampons!  I hope, in the very near future, our paths will cross.

This is my new signature block that I’m using for all visualtrademark.com e-mails.  I was able to develop the speech bubble below by using feedburner’s custom headline animator.  I used a custom background (the speech bubble) and then arranged the text inside of it.  As was the case here, I know this comes at a risk of showing how truly nerdy I am, but I thought this was just too cool to share and include as part of this week’s creative chaos.

CJ MILLS VisualTrademark.com
Visual:Trademark::Blog - Life Through My Eyes
cj@visualtrademark.com | aim/skype - visualtrademark | twitter - @cjmills

What do you think, completely nerdy or somewhat cool?

Last week, while playing outside, Jade would randomly drop to the ground, rest her head on her arms, cross her legs and start to sing random Disney songs.  I was able to quickly grab this photo and, since I’m addicted to Lightroom, edited it a bit in there.

I wish I could peer my daughter’s mind and listen to what goes through her head (well….only until she starts to like boys — then I don’t want to know!!).  What about you?  What do you think she is thinking in this picture? If you’ve never left a comment before, now is a perfect time to weigh in!

Thanks to Brody, I came across this site. NoiseTrade.com is a site where artists can give away music. The concept is simple - you can either pay for the music, or send 3 friends an e-mail telling them about the free music — then you receive your code to download the album. This was too good of a find to wait for a Friday, so I thought I would give it to you now!

In case you haven’t seen it already….

My mom used to tell me stories of how great of a big brother I was.  My little brother and sister were twins, so you could imagine the chaos that surrounded the Mills household when those two came home to be with their big brother. I often wondered what triggered my mind to care so deeply for them at such a young age.

Now, I get to see it through a parent’s eyes, much like my parents did with me and my siblings.  Jade loves being with Asher - maybe a little too much as we often have to make sure she doesn’t crush the little guy.  I don’t know the exact point in time it registered in her brain that she has a little brother whom (did I use that right, or is it who?) she is supposed to love unconditionally, but she figured it out early!

For the second night in a row, as I was walking out of her room after putting her to bed, she asks, in a very quite and cute voice, “Daddy, can you leave the door open?”  After asking her why, she stated, in a proud big sister voice, “So I can hear Asher when he cries.”

The first thing that popped into my head was a picture of Jadyn crawling into Asher’s crib in the middle of the night to comfort him while Andrea and I are fast asleep in our beds!  Then, after getting that nightmare out of my head, I started to wonder when the time would come that she realizes that little brothers can be annoying.  Would it be when she is having a slumber party with friends and he runs downstairs and blasts them all with a squirt gun (maybe supplied by his father)?  Maybe even sooner, when she realizes that Asher has been getting more attention than she has.  The fact of the matter is it will happen sometime.  We all have those times when we can’t stand our siblings (sorry Angie and Drew, but you know you feel the same way sometimes!).

Regardless of when those times do come, I want to hold on tightly to tonight as a reminder of how honest and pure kids can be about their feelings.  I love being a parent right now.

Do you get along with your siblings?

My niece and nephew are in town this weekend.  Every time I see my niece, Alexis, I’m amazed at how grown up she looks (quite frankly, it scares me a bit about my baby girl).  Lex was the first “kid” I really enjoyed being around.  I’m not a big fan of kids, other than my own, so it came as a surprise to me.  A few times during the year, back when we were a young married couple, Andrea and I would have Lex over for a slumber party.  One of those weekends, I convinced Lex to sing a song for her mom, which we recorded in GarageBand and put to CD.  I had a few rough tracks I had previously recorded, so I put one through our PA system (yea, we had a PA system…I got a sweet deal on it when I was in high school), gave her a microphone and recorded the whole thing on the computer.  I also captured this video and mixed the recorded audio in.  Enjoy today’s Lazy Sunday feature!

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*stats suck sunday*

Its Saturday and I’m really, REALLY, tired.  So I thought I would post a few photos that I took of Asher and edited in Adobe Lightroom.  I have not had the program long, but absolutely love it.  If you are any type of photographer, you have to check it out.

Which one is your favorite - 1, 2 or 3?