My Mom and I are driving to Las Vegas for the Mamma Mia audition ... woot! We just got in to our 3-star $27 Hotel and Casino.... ballah. I forgot my journal so this will cover it for today.
Something I'm trying to be better at is recognizing God's hand in my life. I've been stinkin' that up lately. For some reason (that honestly I'm not sure of) I've been really angry the last few days. I don't have a legitimate reason. My suspicion is that I'm car-lagged from driving so much to and from LA. But the hard part is that my mind keeps trying to blame my anger on something - my mom, an old ex, traffic - whatever's present. So I've been praying to understand what's really going on and also just to get over it - cuz being angry sucks. I haven't figured out what it is, I've gotten some inner-inklings and suspicions. But what I was really grateful for today was how pleasant I've been feeling on this drive with my Mom. I was worried that I would be sour and that we wouldn't enjoy it. Before we left we prayed in the car that we would have fun, that we'd be safe and that our relationship would improve. I know that God helped me/us out with that. And I'm grateful :). I also was thinking a little today about a blog I read recently. For each day the writer would choose someone in her life who had affected her profoundly and would write a paragraph about how. Using only the first name of the subject to secure their privacy she also sends them an email to let them know that she had highlighted their influence (my sister was recently featured...cuz she's an amazing person). Being inspired by that I'd like to send a shout out to two people who's word's were in my mind today, encouraging and inspiring me: Logan: "Be a grown up! Get up early" Jordan: "Don't worry, you have all the time in the world" Now that I think about it, in one sense they contradict each other. The first is to be applied to your short term view, the second a broad perspective. Goodnight world :)
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WHY: These blogs aren't touched or shortened BECAUSE I want them to be an unedited, unprepared look into what I'm thinking about, going through, and who I really am. Thanks for watching - please leave a comment so I can get to know you too!
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Talented friends LA: Nicholas Larsen - http://njlmusic.com Kelly Martin - https://www.facebook.com/pages/CKK-Finds-Designs/329059257134129 Scott Foster - http://therealscottfoster.com/music/ Taylor Olson - http://www.taysings.com Ari Herstand - http://aristake.com Janelle Monae- http://www.jmonae.com Sheryl Sandberg - http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html This blog playlist is raw and unedited because I want you to know me as I am.. and editing is annoying haha. Love you! The holidays have come and gone, it's been so nice to take a break and spend time with family and friends. I'm staying with my parents right now so my siblings from out of town, and all their kids were my roommates this Christmas :). Children are so wonderfully time- consuming. It really is so hard to get things done when they're around, mostly because I never get to see them so every moment I'm not with them feels like I'm missing out haha. New Years I spent with my sister :), we went to see Frozen. And then on New Years' Day I drove with 4 girlfriends to Las Vegas and we had the best three days ever! We made a music video http://youtu.be/ioZ8Xg37-SQ. We all met in Boston at school. We used to make music videos then as well - it's just a bit of silliness really :). My favorite thing about the trip though, were the late night long talks about our relationships with each other, and the men in our lives and also our relationships with God and discussions of our faith. I've been so blessed by such amazing friends and I love them so much. They gave me so much strength. And in the past I've actually struggled to feel like I have a solid group of girlfriends, and this trip really confirmed to me that I don't have to struggle with that anymore. I belong with these ladies. :) This isn't a very well put together post but... that's it :) 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. Performed with these guys tonight - awesome! They basically needed cute girls to hold a spinning drum... it was cool! I met some fun people and I got paid, it was fun! They were hired to perform at a Nuskin Convention at the Energy Solutions Arena. (lots of asians haha). I also got a copy of my latest voice over back,. It's kind of fun :)... I have a cool life
Last week I had surgery... on my face. Basically my upper jaw was too little and too far back for my teeth to fit together right, so they made it bigger and pulled it forward. It was quite invasive and I looked really silly for the entirety of last week. It was just funny though. I looked like a character from Wallace and Grommit which my family and myself found quite hilarious.
I went back to teaching today though, and I'm still a little bit swollen - the following were my favorite comments for the day
Teaching was awesome though, I had forgotten how much I love those girls. When I got home I responded to an email asking for 8 attractive girls to submit headshot and res, to get paid to basically stand around at a convention. A friend of mine is doing some choreo for the same convention so after submitting I shot her a text to see if it was her thing and that if so I was available. And in the next 30 minutes I had gotten the job. Turns out it wasn't her exact thing but she was with the casting director when I texted and she told him he should call me (thanks Bon!). So boom. Stand around for 6 hours - $450. AND I rescheduled all my students so I don't lose anything from it either. Then I went to the rehearsal for that, and then I went shopping for costume accessories, and now I'm home getting ready to go to sleep. Today rocked. And I have to say that this morning, I was really havin' a rough time, and I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to feel better and get past it. And I know I shouldn't base my happiness on career success, and I don't. But a little providence like that gig today, in any area of your life, is pretty awesome and I want to give Him credit for it. So Thanks God, you're seriously the best. Also... my face is less and less swollen everyday and I'm excited to not look like Chicken Run anymore. |
Singer, Songwriter, Actress, Dancer, Instrumentalist, Teacher ... and lover of all things quirky and inspiring. Archives
March 2016
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