Chasing Butterflies

It's around Thanksgiving and I figured I should post again, but as I tried to think of a topic to write about, all I could think of was how hard and stressful life can be. I thought of all the hard decisions I've had to make and how I've hurt and how others have hurt in the past while. I knew I didn't want to write about any of that so I almost gave up and decided to pass on writing a blog. Then I made myself think about how it is Thanksgiving. It is a time to be grateful and realize all the blessings I have in my life. I have friends who love and support me. They are always there for me and willing to talk. My roommate is especially wonderful to me. She is always there and ready to help with any little thing I need help with. I have friends back home in Utah that love me and miss me as much as I love and miss them. They are there to help me through hard times. I have a family that also loves and supports me. The minute they hear of anything going wrong in my life t...

I first want to start out with saying that this school year has been amazing. I have learned so much and I cannot wait to learn more for the rest of my time here. Flowers for Algernon  has been amazing. It has touched my life and I am sure it is touching many other people's lives. Being able to interact with mentally disabled people and to get to know them at NOWCAP has been one of the best experiences of my entire life. They have taught me more about life than anyone I have ever met. They are so happy, energetic, honest and full of love. They have made me realize that life IS good. There are always reasons to be happy. This entire experience has affected me so much. I plan on continuing going to NOWCAP and interacting with these people as often as I can. They have a light inside them that they share with everyone they encounter. It truly is amazing. Ok! On to what the title of this blog post is about... Well, this Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting. (if you aren't LDS...

Ooookkkayyy... I haven't posted in a long, long, long time! This semester has been hecka crazy and hecka insane and hecka stressful and hecka amazing. Ya... it's been an interesting first half of my semester... I kind of just want to skip ahead to when I had the opportunity to audition for my dream role, Lilly, in "The Secret Garden." :) This auditioning experience was probably the best I have ever had in my entire life. The entire day was just full of good auditions and conversations. The initial audition was awesome. Then we auditioned for Dance Company, which compared to last year, I did pretty good! I am by no means a dancer, but I have improved since I first started and it has been fun to see the improvement. Then we were all called back for "Connections" and those callbacks went pretty great. At the end of those I received some sheet music for "How Could I Ever Know?" I just about died from happiness because I then knew I was being called b...

So a lot of stuff has happened this week. School started, auditions, callbacks, cast lists, talked to different people, etc. But my favorite thing about this week would have to be...church today. It's really rare for me to get that burning in my heart. The very, very real feeling of the Spirit. Well today, I had it for a good, long 3 hours. It started with sacrament and went all the way through the last hour of church, which was Relief Society. The speakers in the first hour were fantastic today. In fact, they were amazing and I learned TONS, but the best part was before any of them spake. There was the actual sacrament. The moment the sacrament prayers were said, my heart burned, my eyes started tearing up and I thought about what the sacrament and the Atonement really means to me and I had to fight dang hard to not let those tears fall. For this first time, in a very, very long time, I felt completely clean as I took the sacrament. I felt clean and I realized that I had final...

What a fun word 'why' is. NOT! Well...actually it can be quite the fun word. But if you are trying to ask that question and can't seem to find an answer anywhere? Than 'why' sucks. Last week I posted about how blessed I was/am and I meant every single stinkin' word. Well..the very next day, my life decided it wanted to go crazy. My car, that I have spent over $3,000 dollars on trying to get it to be a reliable car, decided it didn't want to start. I had to get it towed from my boyfriends' house back home! To top that off, the tow man was creepy and kept hitting on me and referred to me as 'that' to the neighbor guy that was checking out my car for me. EW! Well neighbor guy noticed a loose cable connected to my battery and he tightened it and voila! My car started! I was so insanely happy! He said I might want to spend a bit of money on this thing that would make my battery vibrate less so the cable doesn't loosen up again. It was about 10 b...

Ok... I know I have had quite a few of these kinds of posts...but I think it's good to sit there and remember all the ways we are blessed! And the song 'Blessed' by Martina McBride has been stuck in my head for awhile so I figured it would be a good way to start out my blog :) 'I get kissed by the sun Each morning Put my feet on a hardwood floor I get to hear my children laughing Down the hall through the Bedroom door Sometimes I sit on my Front porch swing Just soaking up the day I think to myself, I think to myself This world is a beautiful place I have been blessed And I feel like I’ve found my way I thank God for all I’ve been givenAt the end of every day I have been blessed With so much more than I deserve To be here with the ones That love me To love them so much it hurts I have been blessed Across a crowded room, I know you know what I’m thinking By the way I look at you And when we’re lying in the quiet and No words have to be said ...

So, I've talked about tunnel singing before, but I am now going to do it again. :) This last weekend I went tunnel singing with my boyfriend. It was a lot of fun. I really and honestly love going just to hear those hymns sung so loud. Even if there are only like 20 people there, the tunnel echoes and it sounds like an entire congregation. I love it! And this time the tunnel was stuffed full of people! The first 30 minutes were just fun. We sang songs I liked, I played with the Alto part and did way better than I usually do, and I got to listen to my boyfriend sing (I love his voice, don't tell him that I don't want him to get cocky about it :D). After missionary minute, which was really cool, we sang one of my favorite hymns that I have only sung once before at tunnel singing. 'A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.' The last time we sang this song at tunnel singing (the last time I had been there for this song anyway) was when a very, very close friend of mine came for...

I think I am going to start with the other stuff...even though I mention San Diego first in the title ;) I honestly think writing a lot of my goals and aspirations down in this blog has helped me a lot, especially spiritually. Throughout the time I have had this blog I have felt the growth in myself and it has made me want to do even better. I now read my scriptures on a daily basis, say my morning prayers regularly and I am almost there with my night ones (I'm usually exhausted and collapse into bed, gotta pray, then collapse :P). I received one of the best compliments from my dad a few weeks ago, which is why this part of the blog is being written at all! About a week or two ago my parents, grandmother and older sister came to see the shows I was in. Afterwards they all commented on how much I have grown and progressed as an actress. Later that night as my dad was driving me to where I needed to be, he told me he was so proud of me. He mentioned that he could see my growth as a...

Summer stock is coming to a close! It's rather bittersweet. What I AM NOT going to miss: A house full of 6 girls. don't get me wrong, I love each and every single one of them, but the same six girls over one summer where we are constantly together =TENSION! Thankfully I'm not terribly involved as far as I know, but even the middleman is excited to be out! Having 3+ girls on their periods at the same time was enough to drive everyone nuts! Power tools. We just didn't get along very well. I can now work a screw driver...kind of :P And a chop saw! Also kind of :)  All-nighters. These are actually in the gray area...but I'm excited to be able to sleep on a some-what normal schedule again! Sharing a bed. I love her dearly, but having my own bed and not having to worry about someone else in it is going to be bliss! Not being able to see my boyfriend, family and other friends as much as I wanted to. I only got to see my boyfriend and family about every 2 weeks and I...

So I knew this summer that I would grow, a lot. But I didn't expect to grow in the ways I have. Summer Stock has been an amazing experience so far. One of the main ways I think I have grown as a person is that I am becoming for open to emotion. I hate being the emotional wreck, or the one who cries or anything like that. I hate revealing that kind of emotion. I honestly think it might be because I am scared of that kind of emotion. I don't want to feel the depth of those emotions. But if I don't feel the depth of them, then I don't think I will ever be able to feel the depth of my happiness and joy that I could be capable of. This summer I am cast as the part of M'Lynn in Steel Magnolias. Her part can be very taxing emotionally, especially the end scene. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but pretty much my character and I break down in tears and sob and sob and sob. This character is very good at hiding her emotions and inner thoughts. She is call...

Something I have discovered over the past year is that distance really does make the heart grow fonder. Not in all cases, but in a lot. There are certain members of my family that I generally just don't get along with very well. We fight, argue, get annoyed with each other, push each other's buttons on purpose and are just downright awful too each other. We know we love each other, we just don't always like each other. Well, since being away at college I have become closer to almost every member of my family. Especially one of my younger sisters. She now comes to me for singing, boy and homework help. She will tell me about what's going on in her life because she wants me to be proud of her. And I am. I miss her and I love her and I am so happy that by coming away to college I was able to grow closer to her. I know my mom was always worried that once we were all grown up my sister and I wouldn't keep in touch, but we do. She texts me every night saying that she lo...

Update on Jasmine's life: I am doing the Summer Stock Theatre Company up at my Community College and we have been here for one week and I love it! It's crazy and stressful and insane and busy but I love it. My life is filled with all sorts of aspects of theatre. I am Assistant Stage Manager for the kids' show and I am M'Lynn in Steel Magnolias. We are going to have auditions pretty soon or Nunsense. If I don't get a part in that one then I will be Stage Manager. In the kids' show I am also the Assistant Music Director. I am loving life. There are always going to be stressful moments and times when I think I am going to die from being so busy, especially since I am also taking an online Government class that has tons of homework. We are doing 16 weeks worth of stuff in 8 weeks. I have been so blessed. It's hard to see it sometimes, but I really have been. I have an amazing family that I love so much. I have friends surrounding me here and at home and rand...

Life has this weird way of just being absolutely crazy. Things always seem to happen all at once. Whether it's homework, meetings, big decisions, etc., it all seems to happen at once and you just see explosions and fireworks and no end to the craziness. Well these past two and half weeks of being home again were like that. I had to do yard work, look for a car, test drive cars, drive siblings places, hang out with the people I wanted to see before I came back up to Wyoming, pack my stuff for the summer, and in different boxes pack up my fall stuff and I was just getting so stressed that I couldn't see an end to it. But now that I am at the end of that craziness and about to start a completely new one that is going to last for 2-2.5 months... I miss it. There are obviously things I could have done without, but it all ended up being a good experience that I learned more about myself, those around me and my issues with big decisions. On Friday night, I bought a car. I was to...

This post may end up being kind of short, despite not having posted in a few weeks... Lately I have been thinking about some of the basic things I need to do on a daily basis. Not like brushing teeth, hair, shower or any of that, but reading my scriptures, praying morning and night, trying to serve others, having charity, patience, hope, faith, being an example at all times, and having a kind heart, always forgive others and on and on. All of those things are so basic, and yet I need to work on every single one of those. It is stuff that should be habit by now. I should have been doing it for the past 18 years, but for some reason, some of those seem to be the hardest things for me to do. Daily personal scripture study and daily personal prayer are huge examples of that.  I also think that because they are the hardest things for me to remember to do, they are probably the most important. They are what the Lord needs me to do so I can have a better relationship with Him and with ...

I finally have a performance I can be proud of! I have worked and worked and worked all year up here at Western Wyoming to have a performance that I can say I was proud of. To anyone that knows me...that doesn't happen very often! I am a perfectionist, especially with my voice and if the tiniest thing goes wrong with it, I consider it a bad performance. Or if I focus too much on my voice and don't truly let myself be vulnerable to act. These past few weeks I have been work-shopping different pieces with the head of the department, Jamie. It has been one of the most frustrating, grueling, eye-opening, crazy, exhilarating experiences of my life. But it has paid off. We had our Singing for the Actor 2 finals on Friday. This piece really meant a lot to me and I had already work-shopped it with Jamie and at the end of the workshop he said that it was the best performance of mine he had ever seen, and if I could do it that strongly at the final then it would be perfect for what I h...

Sorry, it's been a few weeks since I've posted! Life has been hectic! There is always something going on, homework, memorizing, rehearsals, being sick, meetings to be at, more rehearsals, dance stuff, LOTS of homework, etc., etc. Which leads right into my topic!! My MOMMY!!!! This just happened to work out with the whole Mother's Day thing being just 1-2 days away :) My mom is the best mom in the universe. She is always there for her children, she always tries to help us with whatever is wrong and she makes sure to let us know we can go to her for anything. She is our(my sisters' and my) best friend. We laugh with her, cry with her, whine to her, celebrate with her, everything! These last few weeks have been tough. With all that stuff going on I felt like I was going to explode! And everything was due around the same time which TOTALLY screwed up my way of writing a "to do" list and doing it. I usually write down everything I need to do and when it's d...

I am going to be extraordinarily original and write about Easter since that's what happened this last weekend. Easter is a time for fresh beginnings, birth, new ideas and thoughts, etc. etc. Easter is a time to remember how blessed we really are and to remember the Savior's Atonement for us. This Easter I decided that I wanted to really focus on Resurrection (duh) and a new outlook on life in general really. Life always has its ups and downs. It's just a big fun roller coaster...all the time. But we can't focus too much on the downs. I know way too many people that do and sometimes I just want to shake them and tell them to look for something good in their life, or something that they have been blessed with, because it's there, even if they don't want to see it. I know sometimes I am actually a perpetrator of not recognizing all these amazing things around me and it's something I want to fix! I get so wrapped up in what has gone wrong. For example, my ...

I would just like to point out to the world that I have the absolute best friends known to mankind! :D I think I am actually going to use names in this one, makes my life a little bit easier! And this isn't going in any particular order, I'm just writing about people I can think of while I am this exhausted (pulled an all-nighter, 2nd one this week :P) Alright, I just first wanted to point out Bri Bedore. She has been my suitemate this past year and will be my roommate next year in a 2 person apartment. She is AMAZING! She has helped me so much and has been such an influence in my life. And she is hilarious! We have become so close we have started using a few of each other's mannerisms and can imitate each other almost perfectly. She is one of the most talented people I have ever met and I know that someday she will make it big and she will be able to continue doing what she loves to do! She is such a strong person and very independent, but is also sweet and gentle and ...