Today's Country Tidbits

Carrie Underwood will be at the Peoples Choice awards on January 6th in Los Angeles. She's nominated for favorite female artist and favorite country artist.

In more Carrie news, she's looking back on this decade and sees her own personal growth. In 2005, when her debut single, "Jesus Take the Wheel" went number one, she didn't understand what a big deal that was. She just figured that songs go up the charts, hit number one and then fall. In the years since, she's had 11 number ones and now fully understands how much work goes into getting a song to the top spot. Now she cherishes each of her hits as the true team efforts that they are, and is hoping that "Temporary Home" will be her 12th number one.

Ever wonder where hit songs come from? Songwriters Steve McEwan and John Reid talked to The Boot about the process of writing Keith Urban's hit, "Only You Can Love Me This Way." They had just met each other, were having a "getting to know you" chat, and John was showing Steve photos of a lady he'd just met and was bowled over by. Steve got his guitar and played the simple guitar riff that is so prominent in the song, and John started singing, just letting the words come to him. According to them both, they wrote it in about 15 minutes, and when they went back to polish the lyrics, they decided not to - they liked the simplicity of it. They played it all the way through, with a cassette tape rolling, and that's what Keith heard. He snapped up the song right away, ensuring those two songwriters a very nice paycheck for their 15 or 20 minutes of work.

Jimmy Wayne is packed up and nearly ready to start his walk to promote awareness of homeless teens - kids who age out of the foster care system and have no place to go. He will take off on his walk from Nashville to Phoenix, Arizona at 10am central from Monroe Harding, the Nashville facility for foster children. He'll be tweeting about his experiences along the way, so if you're on twitter and not already following Jimmy Wayne, become a follower now.

Ok, how cool would it be to be Kellie Pickler in this situation: she was eating at a Cheesecake Factory yesterday, and the lady at the next table had one of Kellie's songs as a ringtone!

Justin Moore went deer hunting yesterday and went home empty-handed. He was pestered by about a bazillion squirrels while sitting in the blind, so will be squirrel hunting today. He's promising squirrel dumplings...think I'll pass, thank you!