2007 started in the worst way ever - with a mental breakdown in the wee hours of the new year. We had played a gig for a bunch of completely wasted youths on a makeshift stage in a storage plaza. Drunk people were racing a golf cart around while we were playing, others were making out or having intoxicated conversations. The air reeked of cigarettes and spilled bottles of liquor. We accepted the gig in hopes to sell some CDs and get a little bit of cash. The whole scenario was a nightmare in my book and to spend new year's eve in that fashion triggered a massive mental breakdown. Dan and I spent the first night of the year in separate places as a result and both pondered if this should be the year for us to split up.

Eventually we reconciled and I regained my composure. At the end of January the bus sold and we were ecstatic. Touring in a school bus in 2006 was a terrible mistake. The bus was far too big for us and way too expensive to maintenance. We had poured far more money into it than we were going to sell it for, but we were able to redeem a larger percentage than we had feared.

February brought the Ocala rainbow gathering, a source of great joy for us. We took several trips to the forest to help supply rainbows with drinking water and other necessities. The actual gathering was a welcome break from living in isolation at Dan's parents house in the middle of redneck land. We enjoyed the rainbow company and felt very much at home. We made new friends and cherished each moment in the forest. Unfortunately February's joy was overshadowed by a dreadful diagnosis of Dan's dad's health. He had had a heart attack a few years back and the check-up showed his heart in critical condition. A second surgery would be extremely risky and we spent the second half of the month waiting for a consultation with a doctors while family members were already planning the event of his death.

The check-up visit in March dispersed the worries of February. The first test was apparently faulty. The condition of his heart was bad to be sure, but not considering that he had already undergone quadruple bypass surgery. The testers of February must not have read his medical sheet. With a sigh of relief we turned to face the next crisis. Our cat's chronic interstetial cystitis was getting worse. For the past few years Arwen had been suffering from chronic recurring bladder inflamations. Multiple visits to vets and far too many $ later there was still no relief for her problem which we were told was genetic and incurable. At this point she was peeing blood every week and obviously in constant pain. I couldn't stand looking at her misery anymore, spent nearly every day crying and we finally had to have the talk we'd been avoiding - would we have to put her down?

In a desperate last attempt to save our kitty from her miserable existence without having to take the desperate step of ending her life we drove for an hour to visit a naturopathic vet. The experience that followed is hard to convey in words. The vet was convinced our cat's suffering was psycho-somatic and she set out to discover Arwen's emotional issues. I'll spare you the details of the three hour ordeal in which we were bedazzled by strange essential oil scents, swinging pendulums, and the question of wether Arwen's mother's emotional distress over her collar could possibly be linked to Arwen's memory thereof triggered by the necklace we had put on her and this whole issue being the real reason for the cat's bladder problem.... Right...

A few hundred dollars poorer and utterly confused we drove home with a few herbs and a pack of all natural raw cat food - a powder made from raw chicken and vegetables that we were supposed to re-hydrate into a stew for Arwen. We did as we were told, in dumbfounded desperation we even took off Arwen's necklace. Nothing happened at all, not that we had expected the removal of the necklace to produce a miracle. Finally we gave the raw food a try. A week later tears of joy were streaming down our faces as we realized that Arwen was happy again and seemed to be painfree.

April came and still no sign of any illness in our kitty. We were able to book a show and seminar at a Donald Miller conference in Ohio and that meant we had to leave Florida soon. With only half of our pre-tour To Do list completed and our bank account thoroughly depleted we set out on tour again. The very first day we broke down. The second day we also broke down. On the third day we broke down again. Broken down in Ohio we played the conference and taught the seminar which was very fun but not quite as amazing as we had imagined. Since we were so busy trying to get the van to run again we never got any booking done.

May started out with us broken down again in Indiana at Dan's sister's house. We had planned a nice day in Chicago for my birthday but were stuck in Fort Wayne without friend instead. We made the best of it, had a fun time playing Minigolf. A week after breaking down in Indiana we headed out towards Minneapolis - and broke down again the first day on the road again, driving through an intersection on a red light because our brakes stopped working. At least we survived, were evangelized that night, and started growing sick of road life again already. In Minneapolis we broke down again, both with the van and emotionally. Once again our marriage became a question mark as we pondered leaving everything and going separate ways.

I grew physically ill with sorrow, as I thought this was too heavy a weight to be bearing my back went out. I pondered how sick I was of this life and started throwing up. The image of limping through life popped in my head and dropped something on my foot and off we were on crutches to get xrays. The wonderful community in Minneapolis helped us pull through one of our darkest time. Their sympathy penetrated even the pit of despair we had plunged ourselves into. One friend even took us out to a Raw Food Restaurant since we had started thinking about a diet change. We had both gained weight and health problems and were looking for a way to break our unhealthy and depressing life patterns. Eventually the van started again and we enjoyed a glimpse of light as we got to play with guitar legend Phil Keaggy.

June was a busy month for us, we drove from Minneapolis to Tennessee to attend Bonnaroo festival, rushed over to Illinois to play 5 shows and several other engagements at Cornerstone and collapsed from exhaustion afterwards. Our AC broke in the middle of humid Illinois and our van broke down again amidst the polluted town of Peoria and endless fields of genetically manipulated corn. Once we were able to drive again we made our way to the Michigan Upper Peninsula to try and find some rest and book the rest of our tour.

The first week of July on our way to the UP we noticed that the door of our trailer would not shut. Upon further investigation we saw that the wall was literally falling off the trailer. It was barely hanging on to the ceiling, flapping back and forth as we tapped it. The floor of the trailer had rotted out, the front was bent, and to add to our dilemma, the axle turned out to be bent and irreparable. Our tires were wearing out at an alarming rate and there was nothing anyone could do to save our trailer. With nowhere to go we patched everything up the best we could in hopes of finishing our tour in one piece.

The Michigan UP provides us with some much needed rest. We were too physically and emotionally exhausted to get any booking done and found ourselves having to leave after just a few wonderful days without having made any progress. A few gigs in Michigan turned out unbelievable disappointing, at one gig only one friend showed up and we ended up not playing due to the lack of an audience. Other gigs were well attended but we walked out without a single CD sale and not even one penny. The little morale we still had was giving way to a nihilistic attitude.

August came with an exciting opportunity to visit Oregon for a week. A myspace friend asked us to play for her wedding and offered to fly us out, lend us her car, and pay us for our services. We were elated and seeing old friends again made us cry for joy. Our time was far too short and leaving Portland only deepened the pain of loneliness and lack of emotional and intellectual support we had been suffering on the road. Back on the east coast Dan developed Whooping Cough.

The first half of September Dan spent in bed at the Camden House. Except for a few trips to The Simple Way in Philadelphia we spent our days canceling shows and waiting for Dan's Whooping Cough to pass. Good friends in Camden provided herbal teas and moral support and Dan recovered in the minimum time typical for Whooping Cough - three painful weeks. Weakened but resolute to start playing again we set out to a gig in Gettysburg - only to break down half way there. The tow truck came 6 hours later and at 3am we finally found ourselves at a community we had met a few weeks earlier.

Almost the entire month of October our van was in the shop. We were camped at a farm house in Lancaster county. The community extended their incredible hospitality to us for two whole months. However much we appreciated their generosity, we found that some our differences were isolating and made being in community very difficult if not impossible. We retreated to our trailer and brooded in our tiny living quarters as the days became colder. Our heater had stopped working and we experimented with leaving the oven on all night, reasoning that if we died of carbon monoxide poisoning, all the better.

Middle of October a ray of hope broke into our darkness when Dan went to the Renaissance Faire. We were hired the same week and paid to play the last three weeks of the faire. Afterwards we were offered a 3-year contract! Paid gigs for 12 weeks every year seemed like an unbelievably good deal to us. We negotiated a price and signed the contract. We both had grown so tired of touring that we agreed to call it quits. This faire business now offered an opportunity to make a living through music without the total agony of touring. Besides, we liked Lancaster county, especially the Amish farmers markets full for dirt cheap produce.

November in Pennsylvania grew cold. We were not prepared for winter, had brought no winter clothes. The oven was on constantly and the cold drizzle outside turned our trailer into a prison cell. The van was apparently dead, the engine smoking, so we had finally decided on buying a very beat-up truck which turned out to have terrible problems as well. Then the van resurrected and after much negotiation and mental distress we were able to trade in the truck as partial payment for the van. We left Pennsylvania nearly broke in hopes of getting to Florida as soon as possible.

Not 2 hours down the road we broke down again and I had had it. I guess I am very passive aggressive, for I have never really yelled at Dan in 8 years of being together. That night I did, I cussed him out at the top of my lungs, screamed until my ears hurt and kicked everything in sight across the trailer. I punched the bed, choking myself on my tears and then stormed out of the van. Everything within me wanted to step out in front of a truck to make an end to this misery. Somehow I refrained and lived on. After more mechanical issues and heartbreak we made it to Florida the week of thanksgiving. We did not feel like giving thanks though and spent the day meeting our family obligations without much enthusiasm.

In December everything began to change. It had been obvious for a long time that something had to give, life had to change or I was no longer willing to participate in it. We came to Florida to change our lives. We choose this place to start to over, to restore all that had been broken, to mend, to heal. December was to be the beginning of the rest of our lives.