The After Christmas Life

There is always something so depressing about the week after Christmas. All of the excitement and expectation that comes with the holiday season is over, and you're left with a house that suddenly feels a little too cluttered. Or at least I am.

How was your Christmas? Mine was fantastic. I got great gifts, as always, but just being with my family and surrounded by the people I love was...priceless. Being with my family is such an invigorating experience. I love being near them, holding them, and loving them. I love laughing with them and listening to their voices as they talk about life, the pets, and everything in between. I love that we're close and that my fourteen year old brother will still give me a hug in front of his friends when I leave to head back to Bloomington. There is something about not showering, not getting dressed, and not doing anything on Christmas that is so appealing to me. We don't leave the house. We don't get dressed. We just enjoy being together.

I am so excited for next year--to be married and to be part of something that fantastic. It will be strange maybe not being at my mom's house on Christmas morning, but I know that we will always be together and we will always be family. No matter when we celebrate it will be special.

Wedding plans are going well. I actually BOUGHT MY WEDDING DRESS when I was home. I wasn't planning on doing it this early-i know i have months and months to wait still, but I found the perfect dress that made me feel like Princess Emily. It will be in toward the end of March. I can't wait. Unfortunately it will just be around until July or August when I start doing fittings, but still....one more thing done. We need to do food and flowers and we meet with the photographer guy tomorrow at 11. I like getting stuff done, but I don't want to get it done too fast, because then i'll just be twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the day to arrive!

Anyway, this is a short week at work and I'm glad. I'm getting a lot done because no one is here, but I also am still not real motivated to work real hard. Hopefully that will change, because January is a crazy month for me!

So, there's the update. I think I will download some more songs onto the brand new happy pink IPOD and then call it a day.

Oh yeah...maybe I should work some more, too!

Save the Date

We sent these out with my Christmas cards this year. Yay! How fun is that!?!?

Wedding Updates--Because I Know You're Dying to Know...

Tim and I just put the deposit down on our reception hall. You can check it out here if you want! It's beautiful, kind of rustic, and totally says "fall" to me. I'm very excited about having that one thing done. It's a little thing, but a HUGE thing at the same time. I don't understand why the Christian Church has such a problem with dancing, but they do. It's frustrating to me because I would love to have the reception here, but it's our wedding, we're only doing this once, and I want to dance with my new husband to sway, the first song we danced to right when we started dating. I want to do the father-daughter dance with my stepdad and have something for the people that have come all this way to our wedding to do while we're getting our pictures taken and all that fun stuff. (yes, maybe even the chicken dance)

So anyway, until I understand why exactly it is that the church doesn't allow dancing at wedding receptions, I will pay the money to get married at this beautiful place right here in Bloomington. (And if anyone knows the reason behind why that isn't allowed that actually makes sense Biblically, I'd be more that open to listening to it!)

So, the reception hall is booked. We have an appointment with a photographer on the 29th that has come highly recommended by more than one person. Flowers, dresses, and all that other stuff will just have to wait. We're meeting with the lady that does our food here at the church sometime next week and I've also emailed another lady here in town that is a member here and does some catering. So, that should be interesting.

Getting married isn't cheap. It's a good thing we're only doing this once and we have a year to figure it all out...or, more accurately, we have 311 days! Yay the knot having a countdown and checklists and everything else we need! I'm planning on sending out "save the date" cards with my Christmas cards--we just have to get a picture that we both like and get it printed.

Yay weddings. Yay being in love. Even Yay feeling a bit overwhelmed by the whole planning thing. Yay Tim. Yay Emily. Yay Us. :) :) :)

Snow Plows and Turn Lanes

Bloomington got the first real snow of the season December 8th...which was when I started writing this blog...


We got about eight inches of snow. That's about seven more than I would ever like to have at one time. A nice dusting is fine. Sure the picture above (Courtesy of the Herald Times) is pretty, but driving in it about made me sick last night. I gave up after awhile. But, luckily, I have an amazing husband-to-be who came to my rescue, like he has done in every winter we've been dating. We made it home and I proceeded to do nothing until we went and got my car this morning from the Kroger parking lot. Driving from Kroger to work I realized that every winter is the same--when they get the roads under control, they plow a large amount of snow into the turn lanes and just leave it there. This makes no sense to me at all. Let's make it even more dangerous by plowing all the snow we can find into the middle of the road. Good idea. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate greatly the work they do, I just don't understand it.

Connection in an Isolating Age

Sometimes I listen to RENT and wonder if Larson had any idea how prophetic that statement would be. Whatever isolation was being felt a decade ago is multiplied by a thousand these days, I think. With cell phones, PDA's, internet, email...it's hard to really connect. I talked to my stepmom last night for about an hour. I don't think I've talked to her on the phone in almost a year. It was good, yet strange. This blog is not about that, though...this blog is about RENT.

I went to see RENT a week ago. Images from the movie still replay in my mind. I see Angel dying and I hear the soul-tormented voice of Collins singing the reprise to "I'll Cover You." I see the roses on the casket at the funeral. I hear Joanne and Maureen fighting through their own fears in "Take Me or Leave Me." I see the searching heart of Mimi and the broken rocker righteousness of Roger. I see his family and friends losing and finding each other through Mark's eyes.

I was alternately excited and worried about this movie. Excited because it became one of my favorite musicals in high school--long before I had even seen it on the stage. My RENT experiences have always been some of my favorite memories with Liz, no matter how cold or rainy it was while sitting outside hoping to get front row tickets. I was worried because there is something about RENT that I don't think can be brought to life away from the stage. It is a stage musical--every performance I have seen has been affected by the way the audience reacts to what they're seeing. You don't get that interaction in a movie theater.

However, I was not disappointed. After getting the sung dialogue out of my head, I found myself loving my favorite story of my favorite characters in a whole new way. It was worth leaving work a little early to go see. It would be worth it to do it again today. It was magical--for those two hours, I was caught up in a story that is set in time, but completely timeless. My least favorite song in the musical became one of my favorite movie memories. I don't think it's fair to compare the two--they are separate, authentic, moving tellings of the same story.

If you love musicals, see it.
If you've ever loved another person, see it.
If you've ever been touched by humanity, see it.
If you've ever felt isolated, see it.

To The Stage!

don't be surprised if the titles of my blog entries have something to do with RENT for quite awhile. It may just be the way it is for awhile.



So, the audition last night...since I know you're all dying to know...

I made two very big realizations.

1. I am a theater snob.
2. I miss the stage a lot more than I thought I did.

The first realization was and is humorous to me. Let me see if I can even begin to explain. First of all, be aware that I was auditioning for the local community/civic theater. I had NO idea what to explain. Auditions were from 6-9. My friend Eric and I arrived around 6:40 (the notice didn't say you'd have to be there the whole time or anything). We got there and there were probably 6 or 7 young girls in a corner trying to speak one line. There were three groups of girls, all getting older and doing this. I found the director and she said those were the parts for the dancing fairies...which, let's face it, I'm no dancing fairy. Two of those fairies, I later find out, are the main good fairy and the main bad fairy. The girl they're looking at for the main girl fairy is all of 8 and can't read very well... I'm thinking this is strange, to say the least. The other girl was probably 16 and could handle it, although I always pictured the fairies in sleeping beauty as being older than the other people, but whatever...maybe that's just the disney version that I've seen too many times.

So anyway, this is all happening in front of us. like an hour later, they're done with the dancing girls, I've filled out my audition form, and think we're almost ready to go. Not so much. She basically just grabs people out of the audience and makes them read a part, not knowing even who they are. Long story short, I read a part for about 2 minutes. We end and she doesn't know who I am (she being the director). So yeah, it was an adventure. I'm not going to be upset in the slightest if I don't hear back from her...and I wouldn't be overly shocked if I did.

And yes, it was this audition that made me realize I'm a theater snob. I didn't want to, but the whole time I was there I kept thinking "If I was in charge...If I was doing this...This is the way it should be..." that sort of stuff. I was very blessed in high school to have a theater company that could have been professional. Sure, we were all high school actors, but it was run with a degree of professionalism and responsibility that was impressive. This thing last night was almost frightening in the amount of disorganization and confusion and lack of motivation on all parts. I know it's stressful to direct a show. I've done it. But the biggest part of that is at least showing up ready to do it and PAYING ATTENTION to the people that are auditioning!

Realization 2:

Even in the midst of all that chaos I realized that I miss the stage so much. Just getting a real script in my hand and looking through it made my heart beat a little faster. Knowing that I could be onstage again made me happy and excited in a certain way that I haven't felt in a long time. I learned so much about myself while I was on stage. I want to be back there again so deeply. I don't know if I can find the words to explain how I feel when I'm on stage and under the white hot lights. It's like a different part of me comes alive when I perform; a part of me that has been lying dormant too long.