Seasons

I want to spend Winters in a cabin by a lazy, frozen river surrounded by hearty pine trees & mountains. Snow sports during the day & big family dinners at night w/ story-telling & laughter by the fire. I want to bake & share & get a pink nosed kiss in the gently falling snow.

I want to spend springtime in the city dashing from 1 location to the next in rain boots checking out architecture, museums & art galleries. I want to hike deep, green forests in the misty mornings & focus on new beginnings. I want wildflowers & to wear bright, fresh colors.

Summers spent on the water. Morning yoga alone on a beach or watching sunrises & drinking coffee w/your ❤️. Watermelon & BBQ. Flip flops, tan lines & wet hair in the sun. Bonfires & guitar sing-alongs. Farmer's markets & ice cream. Water fights & kisses w/ sunburned lips.

Fall holds my ❤️. Hoodies & tall boots. Pumpkins & fog & pops of color against grey. Crisp air & spiced everything. Scary mazes, haunted houses, costumes & hot cider. Caramelizing the air w/roasted corn & candy apples but tinged by hay & smoke. Cozy blankets & a book by the fire.

THIS is how I want to approach/experience life in each season.

Fickle Feels

Written in the summer of 2011, when my mother in law passed away.

Life, in so many ways, is fickle. Tightly Bound by emotions. Emotions hang delicately by strands of reason. It doesn't always make sense. It rarely aims to please. It can bring you the deepest Joy you've ever imagined and it can Pierce you to the core with fiery knives of self-doubt, hatred and uncertainty. Life is fragile, yet it can be well cultivated- trained even. Life can be given and life can be taken. Life can be stolen, shared, destroyed, wasted and grown. Life cannot be fair, cannot be just if that who possesses it is not fair or just. To watch one live is a gift; but to live yourself fully is to share the greatest given gift with those who do likewise.

Lonely

I'm supremely social, but in a very limited way.
I love to observe and feed off the energy of happy, healthy, and exuberant people. I love making people laugh, and sharing in their joys. Unfortunately, it's not something I can simply shut off. There is no master switch. That means, I also feed off the energy of those who are sullen, sad, unhealthy, and lack the luster of life. Don't get me wrong, I fight the good fight, but it wears on me and a lot of the time I eventually internalize it... I lose. Today, I worked promo. What is promo, you ask? Promo (promotional modeling) is a job where you stand on your feet all day, with an excited gleam in your eyes and a plastered smile on your face. It's a position that requires you to be polished, polite and excited toward people who look at you like your an idiot, ask stupid questions (sometimes on purpose), sleazily and unapologetic-ally hit on you (and gross you out), smell bad, steal from you (yes, it's happened), and waste your time, while you try to get their information for the company that is sponsoring you. There is always the occasional cool person that makes the time go by just a little quicker, but the majority of the people you come across, treat you like a robot and often cut you off mid-sentence, or simply ignore you entirely. This is how I spent my day today. I left my booth once for a bathroom break, and in the lull of the crowd, crammed a yogurt and a granola bar down my throat for sustenance. I had a coffee for breakfast. By quitting time I had consumed MAYBE 800 calories and burned at least twice that amount. My feet and lower back were throbbing painfully and my stomach was cramping from the lining rubbing against itself. Once I got to my car, my left quad started to spasm. I was done. I called my husband who's 3000+ miles away for school and he was too busy to chit chat. I ate crappy food and drank 3 day old wine while attempting to do homework. And even though I know it's nothing personal, I can't help but feel like it's an intentional jab that I am alone, eating shitty food, drinking old wine, grouchy, tired, stressed out, cold, and reading a math textbook (please, rip my eyes out now and scratch out my brain piece by piece). My dog wouldn't even snuggle. What the hell? Is this my life? I know there are FAR worse things, I do. But for whatever reason, the combination of all of this got me to feeling very sorry for myself. I'm dramatic so I also get mad at those closest to me for not wanting to make me feel better. Those people I love the most that aren't reading my mind and emotions and subtle hints that I crave their reassurance. That all I really need is someone to tell me I can do this- even when they know I can. They know that I know I can. Reminders aren't always derogatory, and they can't really know, can they? It's not like I could come out and say it. Admit defeat? I already feel weak that I need anyone. I'm supposed to be independent. I'm supposed to be self-sufficient. I'm SUPPOSED to make this look easy, I work 4 jobs for goodness sake! I don't have time to need anyone anyway. Something has got to give. Right now, my school work and emotional wellness is taking a direct hit. I'm not okay with either but I feel more in control of my school work so I'll focus on that and continue to feel sorry for myself in the hopes that my negativity will eventually spark recognition in my husband and he'll do something wonderfully romantic to make me feel loved. Great. Now I'm pissy that he doesn't send me flowers for no reason anymore. Ugh, I'm not even hormonal! I should really be mad at myself for internalizing everything from my day and projecting it on him, but that would mean that I have control over the remedy. That I can fix this and I simply don't have enough energy for all of that. Instead, I think I will finish this glass of crappy old wine, brush my teeth, wash my face, cake on extra thick moisturizer and hope that when I wake up tomorrow, I'll be of a fresh mind. Monday, please be kind.

2016 The Year of Change

It's not even February yet and my head is already spinning from everything that has happened this year. It's still January! Gary is settled in down in Georgia and plugging away at his studies, although I'm pretty sure he's bored out of his mind. That being said, I am on my own again. I got back to work the first work week in January and started the year off by playing catch up on 2 weeks worth of missed work from our drive to GA, training my replacement (you know, 8 months before I actually leave), end of the year tasks, beginning of the year tasks, beginning of the month tasks, and end of the month tasks... all while trying to keep up on my current work which was streaming in each time I pressed refresh on my email. After a week and a half, my boss decided she didn't want to pay two people to essentially do the same job and that training was no longer necessary. This meant that I was cut out of getting paid for 3 weeks of hourly pay. No worries, I still have a job, I'm just working from home sooner than I thought. Bad idea. First day from home and I panicked. I can't do this! I needed structure and I felt like nothing I did mattered. I was basically full-time on-call and THAT was not okay. I moved to being paid per-transaction so this was going to work out to being less than minimum wage at the rate in which I was working. In my panic, I got myself a 4th job (with the assistance of an amazing friend- you know who you are). Yep. 4. Because I'm crazy. Of course as soon as I accepted this job, I ended up getting requests from my agent for acting and then booked the next weekend with promo work. What am I doing with my life? I will say the new job, although not even close to glamorous, fulfilled my deep need for structure and is perfect in the sense that once I clock out- I can completely forget about everything work-related. It is kind of sad that I actually WANT someone to hold me accountable to when I show up and what I do while I'm there, but it's the truth. The following weekend, I'm exhausted and feeling ridiculously (and rightfully) overwhelmed with my schedule, and underwhelmed with my life, and I receive 2 emails from my college professors for the upcoming quarter. Guess what? Classes started in 2 days! Where did my January go? I called Gary to see what his opinion on my insanity was and basically just word vomited all over him. The next morning I called my boss of 3 years and told her I couldn't do it. There was just too much adjustment involved with too little pay for the amount of work- and I now had a job that had a guaranteed paycheck. She completely understood (she'd witnessed my insanity first-hand). I'm still transitioning out of that job (it's not a rip-the-Bandaid type situation), working the new (warehouse) job 3 days a week, in school full time, and helping wherever I can on the kitchen remodel. Tuesday and today, I got up at 4:30 to run with Rylee, we did 5 miles each day. It was dumping rain today so I gave her a shower, showered myself, snuggled, hung the blinds in the front windows (sorry creepers!), primered every wall in the kitchen, ordered a pizza and stalled on the phone to Gary before writing my first paper for English 102. *fingers crossed that I did what I was supposed to.

What Dreams Are Made Of

"hangry"

It's one of those made-up words that just fits. Those moments when you get so hungry it instills irrational anger from deep within... A hunger that causes intense cravings and situations where a Snickers bar could keep you from strangling someone. A fine line to be walked. Luckily for those around me, I have learned to master this hangriness. First line of defense: Eat at least every 3.5-4 hours. Any more than 4 hours and you might as well hand cuff me to the dinner table and tape my mouth shut until food arrives. Second line of defense: Drink a ton of water. Seriously, have your water bottle as handy (if not handier) than your cell phone. Wake up, drink water. Before meals, drink water. Feeling slightly froggy, drink water. I'm telling you- minus my recent caffeine withdrawal headaches, MOST of the time I can cure dizziness or headaches by closing my eyes for 5 minutes and hydrating. I am one of the lucky few now days that doesn't suffer from migraines and thank God for that. Moving on... Third line of defense and last resort: Recognize your hunger and impending hangriness and tell/warn the people you are currently sharing your time with. My husband has quickly learned when I say something along the lines of 'Babe, if I don't get something to eat soon, I'm going to get grumpy.' that he needs to feed me ASAP. He has also caught on that asking me what I am hungry for, is not only viewed as a cruel and torturous question but will also launch my hunger-induced anger if I'm close enough to the edge. Lol, I'm making myself sound like a monster but really, I am not myself when I'm hungry and it hasn't always been like this. Just these last 2 years or so. Maybe I have some underlying medical condition or something. Maybe it is something that happens at infant-hood and reoccurs when you've stopped growing. It could possibly be due to the amount of energy I expel daily. When I exercise harder and more frequently, I definitely need more nourishment. In any case, this last month I haven't been on top of my game. Starting right now....I AM BACK!

Finally Home

In more ways than one, I am finally home. Home in the literal sense as I am FINALLY back in the beautifully green state of Washington so close to my family. As well as home in the...well... the other sense. Home is where the heart is, right? So, I am home. I am with my husband (my heart), my loving baby boy (aka Jake... my heart), my family and dear friends (hearts as well), and within the reach of actively pursuing my dreams. Oh my, did I forget to mention the reason for the picture I posted? I am also home. As in, my new house :). Okay, so it's roughly 20 years old, but it is new to me and I am a new home-owner. The reality of the last part is still hard to grasp. God has blessed me so richly. I keep losing count of the many ways He has blessed me, though, I will always continue to try and keep up. I am officially hired on as a dental assistant on base here so I will soon have an income to justify filling our new home and disappearing on weekends to go to auditions.
Speaking of auditions, I should share with you my plans for accomplishing my dreams. Or, shall I say, put forth my darndest of efforts toward tackling the acting world full on. We're at 4th and goal people and I'm about to bring it home. -See what I did there with the wording... home? I can be so clever sometimes. ;)
Anyway, my plans:
1. (Numbering them makes them more official I think.) Kick my butt in the health and fitness department. Basically just get back into my old routine so I can maintain the same healthy physique and therefor be more consistent for auditions and resume purposes. As well as more enticing for agents. Healthy is #1 priority. I don't necessarily want to model, but I will not turn down the opportunity because it could be an awesome gateway to acting. However, because I am so short, fit modeling and print are pretty much my only options in that department.
2. Once that post-workout glow has returned full-stream. (I would say 2 or so weeks.) Schedule a photo shoot to boost the resume.
3. Create a rock-awesome resume to get noticed in a good way by agents and talent directors!
4. Go to open calls for talent agencies. I am going to start with the one I have wanted to join for a really long time. It is a friend of the family's business but I don't think it would be smart to put their name on here, just in case.
5. Once I've gotten accepted to an agency, I will accept every opportunity they give me-assuming its appropriate for me. If they are looking for an amazonian-type woman, I don't think I qualify for that, so I don't think I'll show up for that one lol.

So that's that. It is all here typed out and staring at me. This is the scary part. This is where I have to give everything and just pray that I have everything to give. That I am enough. *shudder*. This is where I have to combat the fear of success. The daunting "what ifs" and the internal  heckler that so loves to put me down. Doesn't she know  how badly I want this? Doesn't she know the talent that I was born with? Doesn't she know she is wrong and mean? She does. I guarantee it. But she is me and that means this leap of faith is just that. A leap. A scary, hesitant, wanting, insecure, unsafe and unrealistic at best jump toward a dream no one has told me I am capable of. No one except the giver of the dreams I possess in my heart. The dream that hasn't changed no matter how unrecognisably I have. It should be interesting. It might be hard. It WILL be worth it. I just know it.

*Gulp*
Here goes everything.