Last week I went to LA.  It was a roller coaster trip.  I was on the fence about going in the first place, but with some frequent flyer miles, and a little push from my suffering audition ego I hopped on a plane.  The first day of auditions was a little rough.  Utah Shakespeare festival was tuff, I sang a song that was a little too challenging for my current phase in my healing process.  It was just hard to form the words around all the hardware currently in my mouth.  Also, the next time I do a Shakespeare audition I'd like to be more prepared with more shakespeare.  My monologue was old, not very exciting to me, and short.  My other audition that day they cut me off early, which pissed me off but I got over it.  

That night I drove to Griffiths Observatory to do an LA site-seeing-ish-thing, and I did some thinking about the possible move.  I pondered and prayed and felt pretty good about it.  It was beautiful up there to be sure.  I was thinking about people, reputations, status, and places... and the outstanding thought of the moment was: 

 PEOPLE ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN PLACES OR THINGS.  PLACES AND THINGS DON'T MATTER AT ALL.  

You'll imagine this was a useful thought when I walked back to my rental car and cursed out loud seeing that the passenger window had been smashed in and my bag - with my laptop, external hard drive, and my journal - was gone.  
After reporting the incident and filling out a lot of paper work I cried on the phone to my patient Mama as I drove the car back.  I hate that I cry, but it really helps.  Other than that one time I've been in pretty good spirits about it.  Except when I went to purchase a new laptop - I had a hard time being excited because I missed the original.  It felt really backward walking out of the apple store with a new purchase and a grimace. 

The next day was better.  I almost didn't go to the auditions I'd planned on, toting the excuse that the night previous had been so traumatic.  But the amazing friend I was staying with gave me this great piece of advice that I'll never forget: 

"I think you should go, just based on the principle of doing hard things" 


And that's the reason she's my friend.  I'm hoping to live with her when I move.  She's amazing.
The next day my auditions went really well.  In my Disney Dance audition, I got cut for typing, but I was nailing triples, which is a first for me in an audition setting.  It's also the first time I've ever sported a bare-midriff in an audition.  Which I felt good about considering it was for The Little Mermaid and three years ago I never would have felt that confident about my body.  

It was an exciting trip- despite my stuff getting stolen.  I came home feeling oblivious to some of the things I've been struggling with here.  I was just excited for the future and the possibility of moving forward.  Now I just need to save money.. and a lot of it.  So if you're reading this, you could do me a huge favor by listening to my music on Spotify, buying it on Itunes... or you could just give me money - wink* wink*. 

Next up... Youtube videos, a Christmas party, and recording an album this winter... God willing. 

What a cool day,
I slept in, hallelu… then had a lunch date with someone I met at a halloween party which went awesome.  Then I rushed to finish some sketches and get them printed for postcards to add to my merch table for my show tonight. They're potential ideas for T-shirts…? Maybe? What do you think? 

And my personal favorite :)… 

…. and the printing came together so fast and worked out so well.  I dropped by guitar center to pick up some speaker covers I ordered last week. Then taught a lesson :).  Packed up all the gear and headed to the show. 

My parents, cousin, girlfriends, family friends, (my date from earlier :)), and a big group of my boarding school students - a decent little crowd all showed for the performance.  So good.  The set went well, I felt comfortable and fairly pleased with my in between banter. I try not to think about it too much.  I haven't really looked at how much merch I sold but I walked away with over $20, which is the most I've made so far - yay! 

And THEN… I ran over to Rose Wagner to catch my birthday present! My parents bought me tickets to the Tierney Sutton Band- so amazing! Sure, I spent the money I'd just made on a CD and parking… but it was WORTH IT.  I picked up her Joni Mitchell Cover album and listened to it in the car on the way home.  

I've seen a lot of gratitude posts lately, and after a day like today that's been full of people I love, and things I love I can't help but think about how good I have it.  Two years ago I was living in New York City, working at a restaurant I hated.  I hardly had time to go to auditions,  I didn't have time to write music or think about where I wanted to go with anything in my career and my personal life was virtually nonexistent.  And then, on Thanksgiving Day, I was working the day shift at the restaurant.  I didn't have any plans for the evening, no friends, no food, all I wanted to do was go home, take a nap and watch a movie, by myself… on thanksgiving! My coworker was coming in to relieve me at 5. By 5:30 he wasn't there, and my manager let me know he'd called to say he'd be late.  He didn't get in until 7:00 and was hanging on the bar because he was still hung over from his birthday the night before… and my managers were laughing about it.  I was irate (and never mind that this isolated incident gave manager the impression that I wasn't very positive…??).  

I promised myself that day that if I had to quit the day before Thanksgiving, I would never work that Holiday, in that place ever again.  A year later I was having Thanksgiving with my Family, a holiday I hadn't spent with them in 5 years, finishing up my first Christmas album, and slowly building my teaching studio while dating and spending time with friends.  And two years later, it's only been up, and it'll only go up from here.  I asked God to help me make that decision come to fruition in those moments… and now I'm so much better off.  I'm grateful for my agency, that I can choose to get God's help :).  

Today started with teaching, then some temple time :), then a doctor's appointment (still a little swollen from my surgery).  

Then after working on some choreography for my dance classes, I headed up to Sugarhouse to do some touchup recording on a new commercial campaign I got a couple days ago.  In my last post I have my Irish-accent commercials (for which I received a check in the mail TODAY - gracias).  The same engineer who ran those spots asked me to audition for another client - no accent this time.  And they liked my voice so I got the gig, but they wanted some tweaks and changes and stuff.  The commercial should be erring Monday - so if you're driving around Utah and you hear a commercial for Velocity Auto Sales, that's probably my voice!  I say probably because they have a couple other voice actors working on it as well.  But I'm pretty sure mine is the one erring Monday. 

After that I ran out to teach.  My dance for my younger is going to be hilarious if they can get it down.  

I stayed for Hip-Hip/Funk class as a student as well. I'm glad it was really fun.