"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass . . . it's about learning how to dance in the rain." - Anonymous
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
almost the end...
- "OMGsh!!!!!"
- "I'm leaving for good....."(blank stare)
- "I can't believe I have this much junk."
- "It's my last Sunday __________"
- "That's why they invented Facebook."
- "Why didn't I take more advantage of free student tickets to events at Emens and free music and movies from the library?"
- "Ok, I need a pics of ppl, Carter's hotdog stand, the gum tree, Frog Baby, duck pond, big love tree, the shower in my bedroom..."
- "How am I going to eat all my food before I leave?" Without getting fat?
- "I should probably have more junk than this to throw away." SHOULD being the key word here.
- "No Lee Anne, as much as I will miss you terribly, I can't fail my classes to postpone graduation."
- "No, I don't know why no one asked me to play more in sacrament meeting." But it's kinda late now.
- "Is this my last time to see you?" (hug with tears in eyes...again)
- "Can I have your recipe for that?"
- "I hope my cap and gown doesn't make me look fat." Between this and my fridge it might be hard to look otherwise. Just saying.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Snow....
And then I got my car.
And then I discovered the joys of driving in the snow. I learned how to break, how to put on the gas, how to cruise over an ice patch, and learned the hard way to never let the windsheild get too hot becuase the snow will melt then freeze into ice, and the concept of ice scrapers and anti-freeze.....fun stuff let me tell you! As much as I enjoyed the chores of owning a car that lives outside in the snow, I still was fascinated by the snow. I remember valentines day of 07...there was a huge snowstorm and Ball State closed for 3 days...that never happens. But it was fun to be stuck inside watching the snow get higher and higher...we got about 2 feet on top of the 8 inches we already had. But winter of 08.....I think that is when I really decided that I didn't like snow that much (again see "weather blurb" post). Everything was so disgusting all the time. And I've been able to overlook all the sparkly prettiness to see the true facts about snow:
1) it's cold
2) it melts in your socks
3) it's cold
4) it gets into your house
5) it's cold
6) it makes the city one slushy mud pie
7) Nothing slows down traffic more
8) okay, it's really cold!!!!
That about sums it up. I'm all for snow....just not as much as I used to....unless I am flying down a mountain on flat things you strap to your feet or can sit in, I'm all for just watching the snow from inside my warm house....yeah....
Monday, December 1, 2008


This is actually a cake. no kidding, and awsome.
What can I say. I'm a sucker for colors. And candles. I love candles.
Oh this cake was just too awsome not to post.

A Yoda cake, you should never be without. Eat cake, you must.

And finally...
...the best birthday cake ever. This pony I believe is called Toola-Roola (I admit, i'm obsessed).
Friday, November 28, 2008
Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater" (Read "fairytale roadtrip" post below first)
I started listening to Glenn Beck about 2 years ago. He is a conservative, an LDS member, a recovering alcoholic (because once you are an alcoholic you are always an alcoholic, and he refers to it often) and, I have come to believe, deeply inspired. My sister Kim and my mom instroduced me to him, because they liked talk radio. I had never listened to it. Anyway, I was not sure at first...talk radio, how boring, I thought. However, the more I listened to him, the more I came to respect this man. I am a very suspicious person. I don't just hang onto people's words and believe them. However, what he was saying made sense to me. The things he said about the constitution, the economy, our rights, political aspects, made sense to me. Much like the gospel of our church makes sense to me. I actually believed him and wanted to believe him. I started doing some of my own research. I found that the things Glenn was saying was not unreasonable. When this election came up, he was one of the only people telling us to stand up for what we believe in, to band together as a country, and to not tear each other down, no matter what party you belonged to or what issues we stand for. He cares so deeply about the constitution. He was not for Barak Obama, or John McCain for that matter. It was something I agreed with him on, and not just because he said so. I have done my own research and compared it to what I believe. But when Barak Obama got elected, Glenn gave him his full support, giving him the benefit of the doubt. There are so many McCain supporters that literally HATE Obama. But Glenn pointed out that Obama hasen't really done anything as president yet. Yes, he was a lousy leftist senator in most conservatives' viewsite, which is true. But he did win fair and square, and we should "give him our full support, as much has we are able, without sacrificing our values." We disagree with the policies, not necessarily with the man...not yet anyway. Reading everything he has done in the past, it is hard for me to do this, but I feel it is right. I have been blessed with knowing what is generally right and wrong. I am not bragging...it is a fact that I have used in practice my whole life. I just know.
Anyway, I walked into the bookstore very excited. I was finally going to get a chance to shake the hand of this inspired influential man. I anxioiusly stood in line. I quickly moved up to the front. And when I got there, I shook his hand. I told him that I started listening to his show 2 years ago, and how it has been an eye-opener and inspiration to me. I also prayed that the Lord would bless him and his family. He told me thankyou. And although it was over in less than twenty seconds, he listened intently to me and thanked me fervently. Something else also happened when I shook his hand. While I respected this man, as soon as I shook his hand I immediately felt a deep love for him. And I knew in my gut, and in my heart, that he is truly being inspired by the spirit in his latest project of the Christmas Sweater. He made a speech a few minutes later, which I have attached below. It is several minutes long, but there in the room I felt the spirit as he talked. Now wether all he is saying in regards toward the end of his speech is true, I don't know. We all interpret in different ways and have different opinions. But as far as the Christmas Sweater project goes, he is trully being inspired by the Lord.
I encourage anyone reading my blog to read his book. Additionally, his radio show airs weekdays from 8-11am eastern time. You don't have to agree, but he is on the right track in any case. It was so exciting to meet him today.
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the fairytale roadtrip
Just to warn you, this post will be long. I haven't written in a while and there is much to be told. I am proud to say that I can thank/blame all that has happened on Stephanie Meyer. I'll tell you why. My wonderful weekend became possible because Summit Entertainment moved the Twilight movie from December 6th to November 21st. I had always planned on seeing this with my BFF since we are both Twihards, and we actually live driving distance from each other. She is married with a year and a half old boy (who is soooo cute!!) and they live in Peoria, IL. Well, after I made plans to visit her, I received an opportunity to go to Northern Illinois University to spend the day on campus, have a lesson with the professor of harp there, Faye Seeman, and go to the NIU philharmonic orchestra concert. I couldn't pass that up, and they wanted me to come up on the 24th, Monday. So now I could spend the weekend with Steph, then drive up to Dekalb IL on Monday. Sweet!! Well I was also invited to spend Thanksgiving in Lafayette with some family friends of mine...who I actually knew from Dallas. Jeff Bell was my swim coach in highschool and club and his wife Nikki coached for the club team also. Their 11-year-old daughter I knew since she was a baby. They decided to move to Indiana after I came to school here. So that has worked out really well. So now I had my perfect vacation lined up...all i needed to do was get myself exused from one class and work, which I did. (You would)
So I left Friday afternoon and made the 5 hour drive to Peoria in 4 hours...woot!! We went and saw the Twilight movie...which i must confess was a slight let-down...some of the acting was not as good as it could have been and there were some pretty bad one-liners...other than that I think summit did a pretty good job for having no special effects. I'm serious, they didn't even dub in some real animal snarling, they just did normal human hissing at each other. But agian, other than that it was pretty good. There were a lot of Jacob fans in the audience (which was mostly 14-year-old girls screaming and swooning every time a new male character entered), and they cheered...excuse me, screamed...every time they saw Jacob. So given the audience we were with, I'm sure we laughed in a lot more places than we were supposed to. I want to go back though and watch it again, seriously this time though.
So that was good. On Saturday we went and got Krispy Kreme, and I mailed some applications for schools in the mail: UW in Seattle and UT in Austin. It is going to end up being a choice between these two and NIU. After that we went back to the house and pretty much either played with Dallin or watched football, or did both at the same time. It was fun...I got to put myself in Stephanie's shoes just what it is like having a little kid around all the time...and it makes me really excited to have kids of my own some day. He even let me hold him, something he apparently never lets anyone but mom and dad do. We watched BYU get killed by Utah, which was kinda not fun (5 turnovers in the second half i think...someone can correct me. i'm still new to the sport). But other than that is was awsome. On Sunday I went to church with them and helped keep Dallin occupied...which was a challenge but kinda fun too...although I felt more like an aunt becuase I could just play with him but when he started getting fussy I let mom or dad take over...hehe i can't wait to be a real aunt :) I also saw my friend Amy Boling (now Amy Rose) at the Peoria ward. I didn't even know she was living there! We saw each other from across the room in relief society, and started laughing. It was awsome. I miss the Boling family.
Well on Monday we said our goodbyes and I headed up 2 hours north to Dekalb, IL where Northern Illinois University is. At first my spirits started to droop...the closer I got, the more out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-farm-and-corn-fields it looked. Where was this town? Is it just some university out litterally in the middle of nowhere?? Well, I finally got there, and the change
Ok, as a musician, I have a pretty high standard of what a good orchesra should sound like. And I don't play in a great orchestra, I've come to realize. I always thought Ball State was ok, but after hearing the NIU philharmonic I have come to the conclusion that Ball State is nothing in comparison. The students there actually want to play music, and actually like it. There were several ppl who were smiling as they were playing. Wow, you never get that at BSSO, except goofy me when we actually play something that is good. They were rehearsing Scheherezade...so good! With a great harp part as well!
After the rehearsal, I met up with a nice lady from the music office who took me on the 10 cent tour of the music facilities. I say this now. It is not as nice as Ball State, not by a long shot. The Hall is not as accoustically good either (it'd be tough though to find a better hall at a school than Sursa Hall). However, as we were walking, and talking, I found I could easily imagine myself there...which was crazy! I kept telling myself, you don't want to go here. It's in the midwest, in the middle of nowhere, where it is cold (the ponds were all frozen over already) and has mediocre music facilities (compared to ball state anyway). Even when I met up with Ms. Seeman and she let me into her office to practice before our lesson, I was trying to shove the sense of ease I felt there (except in her office where the heat blew too hard so it was 80 degrees...and that's not an exageration folks). However, everything changed when I started my lesson with Ms. Seeman. She was so friendly, I didn't feel intimidated by her at all, only a professional kinship. She knows Mrs. Richter very well and also studied with Lucile Lawrence. Her teaching style is a little different from Mrs. Richters however. She is all about knowing the music really well, and teaching how to play it well. She is, I think, a little more technical in her teaching than Mrs. Richter, but musicality is not something I have had problems with. Consistency and accuracy in notes is my main problem. We worked on the opera excerpt Liebestode (sp?) by Wagner and Scintillation by Salzedo. In both she showed me tricks that helped me play passages in both perfect every time, and made me really think about the music and get deep into the middle of it. Afterwards, she told me that if I was the only grad student harpist applying then I would be guaranteed a full tuition waiver, and possibly an assistantship as well. Wow!! I'd get my own harp room and office too. She also told me about a "create your own program" option as well, where instead of just getting my MM in music performance, I could get an MM in orchestra, with emphasis in chamber studies, for example. Which coincidentally is what I want to do. That way, I could take classes that focus around my degree, and possibly not have to take random required classes that I would never use again.
After the lesson we went to dinner with another one of her students (who is playing in the philharmonic for the concert) and her family at a sandwhich shoppe called the Potbelly. Now, if you have been there, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't been there, its AWSOME!! When I first came to Ball state, it was the first time I had Jimmy John's. And I promptly quit Subway. Potbelly is better than Jimmy Johns. Their bread is amazing. Did I say that already? Anyway, so good. After dinner, we went to hear Sara (her student) play in the concert. They played a piece by Brahms, Scheherezade, and a horn concerto by Mozart. And the horn player even did it without music (wind and brass players usually always play with music). He was really good. Before the concert, I got to the meet the Meastro. I was suprised in rehearsal to find out it was a woman...there are so few good women conductors so I was instantly hesitant....until I met her. She is so nice, and actually pays attention to the harps!! She knows the music she is conducting and everyone I talked to loves her and respects her so much as a conductor. Wow.
I spent the night with the Coordinator for Graduate Studies in the music school and his wife. They had grown daughters and apparently offer thier house to many ppl. They were so nice, and thier house was beautiful. The director once again informed me that, if I would apply and commit to come, he would do everything to make sure it could happen...even if it involved giving me an assistantship. Wow. I was constantly in the position where ppl were telling me how much they wanted me there, how the harp studio needed to be built up (this is Ms. Seemans first year there) and how much music they had on the shelves waiting for a harpist to play (chamber and
orchesta). There is so much outside work to do too. And Ms. Seeman said she would teach me how to arrange my own music for various small ensembles. Wow. Ok, so that was my NIU experience, which was pretty cool. And Mrs. Seeman laughed at me all night becuase I actually had brought my fish Oscar on the road with me (at some point in the night I had to get him out of my car before he froze, so we took him up to her sauna of an office). She thought it was hilarious...so did I for that matter.
Friday, November 14, 2008
if time never flew before it sure will now.
5!!!!!!!
we can't all be morning ppl.

Thanks for listening to my rant
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Headline: School teacher browbeats student over being a McCain supporter
The saddest part about this?? It was a Finnish documentary of Americans and the then-coming election. This was not shown in the U.S. Why do we not show our own abuse in our own country??!! What is our country coming to? Why do we not stand up for what we believe in?? If you care, please share this video and message with as many ppl as you can. We need to stand up for our schools, and we need to keep each other informed and to not let people like this get away with such horrifying discrimination and verbal abuse....especially to our children!! I am no longer going to keep my mouth shut. I'm going to stand up for what I believe in. How about you? We need to pray that our new President will be blessed with the insight to run our country with as much wisdom as he is able/willing to recieve.
Watch the video here.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
