Love of Music Causes Longevity in Performing

From Paula = ... this was my band last year and we were playing at Sunset Inn at Crooked Lake. My drummer and I have been friends for 40 years and we sing harmonies together on this song of the Allman Brothers -- "Midnight Rider".
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From Paula = Thanks Robert, I really enjoy reading your emails and you are very smart about a lot of things ... keep it up. I know ... learned the hard way just like me. We'll put this together soon. I would love to acquire a really good full band to hang in there with me and do all my music and travel and make good money at it.
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I will always say it's not the money involved but the love of the music I perform and that is the truth. But business is business and the music industry is just that too.
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Time, practices by the thousands, investment in good equipment, and knowing how to run it. Memorizing songs by the hundreds, and travel time and gas,etc. and setting up and unloading and tearing down and loading it all back up is all worth the money it takes to perform. I truly believe that. Most audiences only see the show, not all the other work involved.
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From Paula = I am playing music in Church this morning, started that up myself and now we have a choir with 4 men and 4 women and I play piano and guitar for both of them and we are doing 5 harmonies. It's pretty neat. This tiny Methodist Church is out in Amish Country and the hills. We just kind of took over and started our own thing. We have improvised too, doing songs like "Stand By Me"....
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From Paula = Robert, you would not believe this musical day. First, I played piano and guitar and sang in Church out in Amash Country this morning, then Whitney brought two friends from California here to play guitar all after noon with me and the twins showed up too, they are coming back to play as soon as my son pulls in from Florida and that is the 3rd shift of musicians for the day.