Tomorrow's the Day!

Well friends, my junior recital is tomorrow. You know what that means??

I don't either...

I think it means that I've accomplished a lot, and I'm one step closer to my goal/degree/dreams. Yeah, let's go with that.

I'm really excited about it, though! I'm pretty sure a lot of people will be there. I'm not even really nervous at this point. Just mostly anxious to get it over with. The only thing that makes me nervous is... I hope I don't burp on stage! Lol!! Yesterday during my dress rehearsal, I took a swig of water before running through a song for the 2nd time as a brush up, and in a beautiful part, I had to excuse myself because, well... I guess I swallowed a little bit of air with my water. bahaha!

As disgusting as it would be to burp during a performance, I also think it might be hilarious. No, wait. Probably just gross. Now, if I were to sneeze, that would be something different! That would be funny! And it is likely as well, considering I've been sneezing like it's my job for the last 2 days! I've been doubling my doses of allergy meds, but nothing seems to help. Ah, such is life...

I've not posted a blog post in a long while. I've been SO busy these last few weeks! My paycheck on Friday is tiny compared to what it normally is, because I've had to sub out of so much work :-(

BUT!

The semester is soooo close to being done! I literally have 1 meeting tomorrow morning, 1 test at 11:15am, then my recital at 5pm then I'm DONE-ZO! (This doesn't count the project that I have due next Tuesday, because I can do that on my own time. We don't have actual class anymore.)

This semester has been an interesting one. Sometimes I can't remember anything that I've done this semester; then other times, I look back and have some GREAT memories!

Anywho.  Tomorrow's the day!  I'm really excited to see my friends and family that come to support me at my recital.  I have such a great support system.   I think a lot of that spurs from having been raised in a great, loving, Christian family, and by being an active member of my church home (both the one I grew up in and the one I attend currently).  I really appreciate everyone who is in my life, even if I don't get to see them or talk to them that often.  I guess that's just what happens when you move away.  But oh well!  I wouldn't change a thing! 

I love my life! :-)

I'll post updates, pictures, maybe some links to videos tomorrow probably after the recital is all said and done.

Good night, bloggies!

It's a beautiful mornin'...

Wasn't today's weather glorious?? I'm SO looking forward to spring. I usually wouldn't mind skipping right over spring and heading into summer, since summer is my ABSOLUTE favorite season ever. But it's been so cold and miserable and gloomy that I'm ready for sunshine and blooming flowers! A rebirth of the world! :-)

This morning I performed a small concert for the Alumni chapter of the music fraternity that I'm in (Mu Phi Epsilon) since I was their scholarship winner. It was such a delightful time! I performed six songs for a group of about 6 little old white-haired women who were dressed to the nines, of course. Afterward, we all shared a pitch-in luncheon which was DELICIOUS and then we sat around and chatted. (With the IU basketball game on in the background, which I thought was hilarious.)

I hope that when I'm an old woman I have a great social life like that. Were I can get together with old friend, or a committee, or an organization and have brief meetings with lots of small talk, eating delicious homemade food, and sipping on champagne punch! What a life!

I'm going to need to get some pearl jewelry, though. The chapter's president (and our chapter's sponsor) had the biggest, most elegant pearl necklace on that I've ever seen. She basically was a queen. Pearls are the definition of classy, In my book.

Who wants to buy me some? ;-)

He brought me flowers!

My boyfriend brought me flowers for the first time yesterday! I love that man! :-) It was so thoughtful, so unexpected, and so perfect! Sunflowers are the happiest flowers on the planet. They're my favorite! I put them in a vase on the kitchen table (I moved the artificial sunflowers over by the sink lol).

I'm a happy girl!

It's like rhinos...

A few Sundays ago, I was listening to the sermon at church, and I was particularly struck by a few things the pastor mentioned. Here's my 2 cents:

Although a rhino is quite an intimidating animal, did you know that they have extremely poor eyesight? Rhinos can see less than 100 feet in front of them. So, if I were in the wilderness, and stumbled across a heard of rhinos, as long as I was further than 100 feet away from them, I'd be OK, right? Um. Wait. Maybe I forgot something. They have GIANT horns on their faces. Rhinos, while nearly blind have a very keen sense of hearing. If I was standing 100 feet away, though they could not see me, chances are the rhinos could hear me breathing. And if they felt threatened, they'd probably have no hesitation charging at whatever that thing was that they just heard.

You see, the horn on their faces gives the rhinos courage to not be afraid of what they can't see in front of them. It was put in exactly the right place - to protect them!

My point is this: God is our horn.

Ok. Now let's back up.

Psalm 119:105 tells us, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (NIV). God's word lights our paths.

When I think about what that actually means, "a light for my path," I think pretty literally about it. On a path in the dark, you will carry a flashlight, or a lantern or even a cellphone. How far ahead can you see? Not very. Not far at all. The flashlight (lantern, cellphone, whatever) provides just enough light for us to see what is around us currently. Just enough light to get by. Just enough light to feel safe where we are. Yet, one thing is always uncertain on a path. You don't know what's ahead.

Flashlights are better than lanterns and cellphones, for sure, because they can project farther, but unless you have a million watt candle power flashlight, you still don't have an exact clear picture of what the path leads to beyond a certain point.

Such is life, right? As we travel life's little path, we can only see what's in our bubble. What's in our present. What's within our lantern's glow. And that's ok! Why? It's like rhinos... They have that horn that makes them so unafraid that they will run towards what ever they feel like running towards! We have God's word! (Sometimes a horn would be nice, too, but alas...) God gives us his word to protect us and to guide us and to give us the confidence to keep walking down the path we're on, even though we have NO idea what's in front of us!

And do you know what my favorite part about this is? It's OK to not know what's in front of you. It's OK to not know "what I'm supposed to do with my life" or "what God's plan is for my life." God places us on his green earth and says, "OK, my child! Now go! Live your life! And trust me, you'll be ok."

Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart'" (NIV).

God knows our future, yeah, because He's God. He knows everything. The tricky part is knowing what to do in order to get to that future. Let me tell you a secret... I'm pretty sure there is no way to ever find that out exactly. One of the benefits (curses to some, but I tend to be a positive thinker) of being human is that we CAN'T see the future! We get to live without a template! With out a stop sign, or boundaries! We get to live without having to worry for one moment that what we do in this world won't be what God wants for us. (within reason... I never think killing someone is what God wants... things like that should be fairly obvious.) We have God's word that will protect us like that rhino horn! If we simply follow God's word, I'm convinced that therein lies the "plan" for our lives.

Matthew 6:25-34 gives a big schpeel (OK. Spell-check just told me that aparently "schpeel is not a word." Thanks, Mom, for teaching me to use "Gammy words" that are not in the English language...), I guess, rather, those verses lay out clearly that we are not to worry about things. Ever. Verse 34 sums it up, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Indeed it does. Isn't it nicer thinking about only having to deal with the little bubble of light we're living in? It certainly makes things seem a lot easier.

But then how do I know what to do with my life? To me, this seems obvious. But some people really struggle with this. Here's what I think it boils down to: Opportunity. I'm so convinced that God does His BEST work by giving people opportunities. Some opportunities are smaller than others, but nevertheless, there they are! Smacking us right upside the face! God's saying, "Hello! Look! Take this way down the fork in the road, because I've spun things to happen so that you will have this opportunity to LIVE!" But sometimes, for whatever reason (fear, doubt, laziness, a veil over our eyes shielding us from clear vision...) we miss these opportunities. You know what? That's OK! God's so cool. He gives us more! And more and more and more! God never stops giving us opportunities! I think it's up to us to be looking for them. To keep our eyes open to SEE these opportunities for what they are.

Remember that God is our heavenly Father. A Father so wants to be proud of his children. When we do things that are good and pleasing to him (whether or not we know that "that's what we're supposed to do with our lives") God smiles! It almost makes me cry thinking about how God looks down on all of His children and probably beams from east to west at how proud he is of us.

God will never think, "You know, actually I gave you those hands so that you could be a dentist. I really didn't plan for you to be a carpenter, and in fact, I'm a little bit disappointed." Never! God gave you hands to use to bring glory to Him and to make him proud! So you decided to be a carpenter? That's great! You're building things, and you're providing for others. And God is so proud of that, and probably placing awesome opportunities for you right where you are. Even if you're not in a dentist office pulling teeth!

I believe that our life goal should be to seize the opportunities that will make God smile!

There's really not much more to it than that.

It's a New Year!

It's been ages since my last blog post. In fact, I haven't posted anything since last year! (ba dum ching!) But it's the start of a new year, and the close of an old one, and it's time for me to collect my thoughts, evaluate my life, and, well, write about it.

Resolutions?

I haven't made any "resolutions" for the past few years. Mostly because I tend to not follow through with them. There aren't many things in my life that I can resolve to do and completely follow through with. Frankly, my life is just too... hmm... transitional? right now. I don't think transitional is the right word, but it's all I can come up with. What I mean to say is, I can't resolve to eat healthy every day, because sometimes things come up and in order to be nice, or for convenience sake, I have to eat what I'm given or eat junk. I can't resolve to exercise every day, because sometimes there really isn't an extra minute in my day to do even one crunch.

The resolutions I can make are things like resolving to treat my body in a way that is helpful and not harmful. This means acknowledging that some foods are unhealthy and should be eaten rarely. This means I cannot gorge myself even on healthy foods. This means that my body needs plenty of water to perform basic functions. This means that my body must be exercised and used to keep it strengthened. Etcetera.

I can also resolve to strengthen my relationship with God. I'll be honest and say that this last year, I've let God go a bit. I haven't been faithful to pray daily, even weekly, sometimes. I've definitely been living my life as if I'm in charge and that's all that matters. One year ago, I was in the best place I could be in my Christian "walk," and now, I'm trudging along. Still keeping pace, but not with the enthusiasm as before. I need to get that back.

As far as anything else? I just don't know. I have trouble committing to purchasing a pair of jeans. OF COURSE I have trouble committing to a years worth of "goals."

Get Thin in 2010

My girlfriends and I have decided to make the "theme" for this year Get Thin in 2010. (Also, it's Get Some Men in 2010, but I already have one, thanks.) I'm pretty pumped about this. I've let myself go. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of looking at my body in the mirror and not being happy with what I see. Not feeling pretty.

I've never been thin. I take that back. I was drop dead gorgeous when I was in preschool. lol. But seriously, I've never been thin. I was not raised in a thin household. I wasn't raised being taught that exercise is important and eating right is important. I never was dedicated to a sport. I've grown up in an overweight household who eats what they want whenever they want to, and doesn't exercise because they either just don't feel like it, don't want to, or are too tired. That's no good. I enjoy exercise. I just make too many excuses to get myself out of doing it. I want to change that.

I want to be the person that catches eyes. I want to be healthy and feel really good about myself. I always think about the future, specifically when I'm a mom, and I always picture myself as the beautiful, fit mom that fixes amazing food, has a gorgeous yard, and always looks good even when she rolls out of bed. That stuff doesn't just happen over night. I need to make serious, committed changes in my life to get headed in that direction.

In Other News

I just have some other stuff that I want to write about. Because, why not?

So, about a month ago, my roommate informed me that she didn't want to renew our lease because she wanted to get her own place so she could "get a dog." Oy. I have stress in my life now because I have to find a new apartment. I'm OK with living by myself, and actually, I prefer it. I lived by myself this summer, and it was amazing. I could do what I wanted, cook what I wanted, watch what I wanted on TV, come and go and not worry about what I would come home to. Perfect. I'm really excited about getting a new place come August. Trouble is, I need a cheap place. And furniture. Womp womp. That's enough of that whining.

On to love. I just love that Jason Palmer Thompson, fella. He's pretty cool. Honestly, I'm so happy with our relationship. It's really going in a great direction, and that makes me so excited! We've been together almost 7 months now. I'm really looking forward to this year with him. He's got a lot of things that I know he wants to accomplish this year, and I really hope he has the motivation to get it all done. I hope I can be supportive of him through all of it. Because some of it is pretty tricky stuff.

'Tis All.

That's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll blog more this year, too, but I'm not going to resolve to it. ;-)

Grandaddy's Okra

One of my most favorite things I will always remember about my Grandaddy (he's still alive, don't worry), aside from him playing basketball with us in the garage and flipping over the picnic table with Adam and Patrick while shooting a BB gun, is his garden. When I was very little, at their old house, he let me help him plant corn seeds. I remember them being pink and bumpy. No idea if that's really what they look like, but that's the image I still see in my head. I remember the creepy scarecrow made of an old plaid shirt with pie-pan hands that probably scared the grandkids more than it scared away any crows. He alway grew tomatoes, usually cucumbers, sometimes watermelon and cantaloupe, corn, green peppers... You name it, he's probably grown it. He's also got a cherry tree, and my favorite, the blackberry bushes! There's nothing better than picking a sweet, juicy blackberry straight off the bush and popping it into your mouth without even washing it! Just make sure there are no worms... that's gross.

But what is even more special than the blackberries is Grandaddy's okra.

Now, not everyone is an okra fan. It takes a special kind of person to fully appreciate its uniqueness: its hairy outside, its funny shape, its squishy seeds, its sliminess... But to those of us in this world who are blessed with a love of okra, just the smell of it will melt our hearts. It's the smell of comfort to me. The smell of Fall, and the smell of family.

Okra's a tricky crop. It's really hard to see when you go to pick it, and unlike other vegetables, bigger isn't better. The best time to pick okra is when it's only about an inch and a half long. Any longer than that, and it gets hard. It can grow pretty big! 6 inches certainly LOOKS like a successful piece of okra, but try to cut it, and it basically feels like trying to cut wood.

Of all the ways to prepare okra, I prefer fried and stewed. I'll be honest and say I've never tried it pickled, but I'm not against it. I've just never had the opportunity to try pickled okra. Frying okra can usually be a pain, because you want the batter to stick to it, but you don't want it to be too dry, and you also don't want to burn it. For some DELISH fried okra, I suggest Grandy's. It doesn't get much better than that.

Stewing okra, however, has become an art form for me that I LOVE to perfect. It's a Grandaddy recipe, and it's very approximate. But if you've done it once, you can do it a thousand times. Here it is.

Grandaddy's Okra:

Ingredients:
5ish large tomatoes (chunked)
2 small, or one large onion
About 2 cups chopped okra (1 inch pieces)
A handful of corn (frozen is fine, and preferable)
Oil
Salt
Pepper
Sugar

Directions:
Chop onion and saute in oil. When tender, add chopped okra and chunked tomatoes. Cook on medium/high and bring to a simmer. Add about a tablespoon of salt, some pepper (as much as you like), and a pinch of sugar to taste. When the tomatoes are cooked down and the consistency is "stewy," add a handful of frozen corn. Cook for a few more minues on medium heat until it is a consistency you would like to eat. (Grandaddy likes his okra slimier than I do, so I don't cook mine down as much as he does.) Reduce heat and add flour to thicken, usually about 2 tablespoons. EAT!

It's basically the most delicious thing you will ever put in your mouth. And it's so healthy for you! I really hope people can appreciate this recipe as much as I do.

Enjoy!

Your Opinion Counts

A few days ago in my Music Theory class, we (and by "we" I mean, pretty much everyone BUT me) got into what turned out to be approximately a 30 minute debate. It started off with a topic about something having to do with "Who does a composer write music for: himself or an audience?" or something like that, and spiraled into a huge, ridiculous rabbit-trail event spanning from "How is music accessible?" to "What is the definition of 'accessible music'?" to "Musical aesthetics" to "How do you define the 'aesthetics' of music?", etc. etc. etc... You see my point.

What fascinated me, and made me step back and just observe this whole situation from an outsider's point of view rather than being in the conversation, was how riled up and frustrated and loud people got about a subject matter that didn't actually directly pertain to ANYONE in the room. None of us are composers. We are all either music education or music performance majors. No one is a composition major. But nonetheless, those who participated, voiced their opinions, shouted, got offended, and talked themselves in circles as if the topic was something that was of life-altering, end-of-the-world, facing-death importance...

I just don't understand that. I will never understand why people feel it's so important to get their opinions out and feel SO strongly about some things. ESPECIALLY topics like this that, really in all honesty, are just not that important.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't take a side, doesn't form an opinion, and just sits back and listens to what EVERYONE has to say in order to hear all sides of the matter. It has almost become a form of entertainment for me to just sit back and listen to people argue to their wit's end about things that really don't make one bit of difference. Maybe I'm just ignorant, or maybe I'm just ill-informed, but to me, it is unimportant to get upset and quasi-passionate about things that don't "change the world."

I think about the people in the world who argue and debate for their livings, and I just feel so bad for them. How stressful must their lives be! Getting worked up like that certainly cannot be good for your heart, and I bet, in all honesty, that it ends up taking days or even years off of one's life. Those who are easily angered just make me sad. It only takes one little tiny thing to set them off, and then they have a bad attitude for the rest of the day.

I prefer to live in my own little bubble of contentment. I don't let minuscule things bother me or get under my skin, because at the end of the day, they don't really matter to my life. My life, though it's obviously imperfect, is at least less stressful than the lives of those people who let things get under their skin. I'm really good at just taking things as they are presented to me and dealing with them, rather than putting up a wall and a fight. I don't usually form opinions, because actually, who do they count for? No one but yourself. People who form opinions do just that. They form opinions. Everyone's is different, and it is highly unlikely that debating for a half an hour about obscure topics such as "The aesthetic of music" is going to change anyone's opinion.

So, yeah. Your opinion counts. Kind of. Mostly just to you. Good luck with that.