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Note: This photo really has nothing to do with the post, other than a homage to random good fortune. But I like pictures so I wanted one on it.

I am having the oddest day today.

I spent the morning writing up some new articles for my CMT Examiner site when I got off work. Then I went to one of their phone trainings, then things got really weird.

I’m getting emails from Chuck Ragan’s rep asking me to write something up for No Depression for him. Grammy nominee Linda Chorney is messaging me on Facebook to say hello. I respond to emails from a publicist at CMT to set up interviews with Paige Duke and some of their other reality show casts. My editor at Yahoo!Movies sends me the nicest message about setting up a special beat for me because he so loves what I’m writing for them. I’m querying Miranda Lambert’s, and Trace Adkins and The Band Perry’s and Keith Urban’s reps for photos and maybe interviews if I can dare hope — I’m doing that because instead of spending most of my time trying to find the right people, my contact person at Examiner just basically handed me the keys to the country kingdom in the form of the CORRECT contacts for every major country artist on the planet.

After spending five years struggling just to get the right contacts in rock and roll to finally get somewhere, that last one alone is enough to make a grown woman cry.

It’s been a very surreal day, indeed.

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I got to sit down and chat via phone with one my favorite contestants from Season 1 of “The Voice” and the interview is posted now here.

Casey was somehow passed over on the initial auditions, which was definitely a mistake. Her rendition of Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” earned a her a chance to move on, going all the way to the semi-finals. One of the highlights was her battle duet singing “Leather and Lace” — there was no denying the comparisons to Stevie Nicks, herself.

Casey Weston epitomizes the girl next door, and with her country-influenced musical roots — and her affinity for writing her own songs — one could start making comparisons to that other country-girl-next-door sensation. You know…what’s-her-name? But Weston’s rise to fame is going a bit slower, despite a huge boost as one of the eight semi-finalists on the inaugural season of “The Voice.”

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I was thinking I was having trouble getting motivated to write during the Yahoo holiday because I’m spoiled by almost instant approval and pay, plus some extra hours I picked up at the day job…but I’m realizing as I sit down tonight working on my interview with The Voice finalist Beverley McClellan, who I interviewed only a couple of days before my phone interview with Grammy nominee Linda Chorney, that talking to two such extraordinary women artists who have carved their own path for so long (aged 42 and 51 respectively) and gone through the adversity of sticking it out as artists without compromising themselves…has completely blown a fuse. Serious overload. In a good way, but…overload. But I’ve flipped the breaker switch and getting back on track now, albeit a bit slowly.

It’s also got me thinking a lot about the importance of the “Hail Mary,” as both sort of did their own versions of them, with last ditch efforts that paid off. I think there is definitely a story in there beyond an interview with one or the other, but about being women who have sacrificed any kind of conventional life to live as an artist, and not giving in to that pressure we all get – but especially women – to settle down and raise a family and give up our “silly dreams.” The key phrase in that sentence being “give up.”

Luckily, for those of us of a certain age, my independent poll conducted that week of exactly three women over 40 shows that 3 out of 3 of those women really don’t give a shit what other people think. The one good thing about getting old.

And speaking of extraordinary women artists of a certain age: