It's For Men?!

So today was kind of an interesting day.  Mostly good, but it had its fun and interesting parts to it.  I had a short work day which was super exciting because it was incredibly stressful and disorganized, mostly due to the fact that our regular day crew manager just left to go on a cruise (lucky!) and we had some other random manager there who didn't seem to totally know what she was doing.  On a Friday, that can be kind of disastrous, and since she made some rather unwise cuts to our crew much earlier than she should have for a Friday the rest of us were kind of screwed once it got busy.  Plus people were ordering some really weird salads today.  Needless to say, I really wanted to smack some of those people for ordering their ridiculous salads.

But I lived (yay!) and had a get together with a friend to look forward to.  Since she lives in Santa Fe we don't see each other a lot, so I was ridiculously excited to hang out with her, because she's so much fun to be around.  We met at Starbucks and got some coffee and ended up spending three hours just chatting which was a lot of fun.  We oohed and aahed over Les Mis and The Hobbit, debated the singing abilities of Gerard Butler in Phantom of the Opera, discussed life and school, talked about books, careers, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Doctor Who, more Les Mis and The Hobbit and generally just had a fantastic time as our conversation jumped all over the place.  I always love how she sometimes says the most unexpected things that make me think, wow, was not expecting that!  She never fails to make me laugh.

Going On An Adventure!!

So I don't get to hang out with friends too terribly often, 1) because our schedules are usually completely different and 2) because most of them live out in the mountains so its not always real easy to do anything.  But I did make some new friends during my time as part of the cast of A Christmas Carol and as it turns out, some of them are as nerdy as I am. =)

Look To The Future

A couple of weeks ago, a girl I work with mentioned that she had a job interview with a company in Albuquerque.  The job sounded fantastic and she encouraged a lot of us to try applying as well.  The job sounded great and exactly what I've been kind of looking for so when I went home that night I decided to apply.  Now don't get me wrong.  I honestly love my job (I work at Dion's, btw) and the people I work with and everything.  But its not exactly a career job, the schedule changes every week so I don't have a consisted paycheck, and I'm not making a ton of money.  Since I'm planning on moving to L.A. sometime soon, I figured I needed a better paying, more full-time job.

So I went ahead and applied and, man, was it a hard application!!  Typing test, oral test, computer proficiency test, it was intense!  But I got it done and submitted it and got a notice that I would be informed in 72 hours if they wanted an interview.  Well, after 72 hours I hadn't gotten a call, so I figured, oh well, at least I gave it a try.

A Year In Review: 2012

1)  At the beginning of the year I decided to get a couple of mice:  Matthias, Martin, and Methuselah.  Not knowing much about mice, its been a bit of an adventure, but not one I regret taking.

2)  For my 21st birthday my parents and I went to the zoo for the first time in probably close to a year and had an amazing time.

3)  For my mom's birthday we went to the botanical gardens which were gorgeous and completely in bloom.

4)  On May 20th my family watched the solar eclipse which was pretty interesting.

5)  Got to see the 4th of July firework show at the Balloon Fiesta Park.

6 & 7)  My family went up to Silverton.  This and the next picture shows some of the gorgeous scenery we saw.

8)  During part of the summer I got to work as a sales representative with some really neat people.

9)  My family joined the ranks of the crazy people who take all of their animals with them on vacation.  We took our cats with us on our second trip up to Silverton.

10)  Our crazy family photo.  This is what we're really like. =)

11 & 12)  We also visited Vallecito and saw so many deer in the couple days we were there including a doe and her twin fawns which were adorable!

13)  My mom and I did a photoshoot with a mushroom.

14)  I had the opportunity to go on a fall retreat with two of my best friends.  I was so blessed to get to spend time with them.

15)  Just before the cold hit, the rosebush I planted in the spring started to bloom.

16)  Enjoying those last few warm days hanging out in the garden.

17)  Again, for the first time in many years my family and I went to the Balloon Fiesta.

18)  The Hobbit premiere was amazingly epic!

19)  I had an amazing time as a member of the cast of A Christmas Carol and made a lot of new friends.

20)  River of Lights with my parents after not having gone for several years.

A friend of mine did this and I thought it was so neat with the pictures so I decided to copy her. =)  Hope everyone had a fantastic 2012 and here's to 2013!!  Cheers!

I Dreamed A Dream

When people are fighting to reach their dreams, I think there comes a time for everyone when they hit a patch where it just seems impossible.  There is just no way that they can succeed and they are filled with doubt.  And there are also times when the dream just starts to fade.  Its there, but the bright, vivid colors that used to make it up, that made it so obvious have dimmed.

I hit that patch recently with my acting career.  It wasn't a really bad patch or anything, but the dream had started to dim.  So basically what I needed was something to jolt the life back into it, to re-inspire me to throw myself at it again.  And the way I got that jolt, was rather surprising to me.

More Than Fiction

So today I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping and decided to run by Bible's Plus to see if they might have anything promising.  Since they severely downsized several years ago, I really don't shop their much because they just don't typically have what I want.  But since I was driving by I figured it wouldn't hurt to look.  I started checking out the books, starting with Christian Living and slowly working my way towards Fiction.  It didn't take very long because the other sections were quite small, so I headed over to Fiction to finish up, hoping to find something.  As I started looking, I paused.  Almost every single book had a picture of woman on it or a couple.  Fiction is the largest section of books there so that was a lot of books that looked very similar.  As I started going through the books I came across a theme.  Nearly every book there was a romance.

A Sheltered Life

Being homeschooled and all there are a lot of times where people ask how on earth I'm able to be social with other people, because, you know, homeschoolers are so sheltered and all.  There have also been people who talk about how much it must have sucked and tell me all the things I missed out on by not being public school.  For the most part, I just smile and nod and say that I really enjoyed being homeschooled.  Most of them just shake their heads like I'm crazy.

The Beauty of Music

I love music.  I think I've mentioned before how my mood can be affected depending on what I'm listening to which generally means that I listen to fairly happy music.  Some of my favorite music though comes from soundtracks.  I think over half my music library is solely made up movie soundtracks and probably half to three-quarters of those are strictly instrumental.  I love vocal music and how uplifting the lyrics can be and those are the songs that really affect my mood depending on whether the lyrics are happy or sad.  But my favorite music is strictly instrumental because 1) no matter what song it is it makes me happy and 2) it inspires and uplifts me like no other kind of music.  I have a few friends who have known me long enough to know that when I'm listening to music and my eyes are closed, I'm listening to one of my soundtracks.  Because those songs don't just inspire and uplift, they also make my imagination run wild.

This Thing Called Love

I started writing this several months ago and never finished it.  I just rediscovered it and decided I would finish it finally. =)  So here it is.

The other day, I was trawling through Facebook just seeing if anything interesting was going on, when I saw a status update from a girl I used to go to college with a couple years ago.  I just stopped and stared at it for a few seconds.  I was completely in shock.  Her words were the same words I had thought to myself hundreds of times over the last few years.  In a way, I was amazed that someone else felt the exact same way that I did.  Honestly, it really isn't all that surprising, but since it was something I'd never talked to anyone about before, it did seem surprising to me.  It was also comforting to know that I wasn't the only person to feel like this:  "Most days I'm content with being alone, but sometimes when I watch a movie or read a book that has a love story in it, or when I see lovers holding hands and kissing, I realize that even though I'm content with being alone, I don't want to be lonely. I think what I'm trying to say is that I want to experience this thing called, Love ♥."

Innocent Till Proven Guilty?

Growing up, whenever fights broke out between kids you would always have everyone blaming someone else.  "He started it, it wasn't me!  It's her fault!  I didn't do anything!"  Yeah, you get the idea.  And then, of course, the kids who weren't involved in the fight would start picking sides.  At that point the teacher would typically tell everyone to be quiet and that everyone was innocent till proven guilty.  That usually calmed everyone down and from there the hunt for the culprit began.

These days, there's no such thing as innocent till proven guilty, other than in court maybe.  For example, so and so is a suspect in a murder trial, there's no hard evidence against him, nothing.  Yet, despite that, he's ripped apart by people who believe that he is a murderer as they call him names, threaten him, etc.