America's Got Talent

I am heading off to Portland Oregon tomorrow morning.  I wonder if I am going to sleep at all tonight!  It has been interesting so far.  One minute I am totally excited and the next minute I am nervous.  However, I have found that in the past when I am freaking out about the unknown events that are before me, they turn out to be great experiences or not nearly as bad as I was making them out to be!

It was cool yesterday because I was feeling pretty nervous and I knew I needed to practice my song a bunch of times so I got my guitar out and started practicing and I ended up not only playing my song a bunch of times but, I also ended up playing a lot of different songs for a while. By the time I finished my own little concert to myself my nerves had calmed and had been replaced with confidence!  I can honestly say that I feel like I have a chance! Duh, I wouldn't be flying clear to Oregon if I didn't think I had any chance, but it was a real, powerful feeling like I really do have something to offer the world and I hope they can see that in my playing.  The confidence felt great!

So, many of you are probably wondering what I am doing, how it works, and what song I am playing.  I am going to try out for the TV series America's Got Talent.  They take any talent there is out there from crazy stunts or animal tricks to comedy routines, singers and musicians. The first audition is done in the different cities they have picked (I think Oregon was the closest to me anyway, but it was also the last city they were going to.)  You have 90 seconds to show them your talent and you do it in front of a couple people and a video camera.  The producers then go through all the acts and pick the ones they want to call back.

I just found this out today...they won't be calling anyone back until April.  (I was worried about call backs because I can't exactly hang in Oregon till I hear from someone.)  So that put my heart at ease a little.  If I get called back then I have to wear the same outfit I wore to try out and I go in front of the real judges that are on the actual show.  This is where they have 3 giant X's above your head and they can cut you short with their very loud buzzing X button if they don't like you.  But you don't have to stop until you have been buzzed 3 times.  All I know is that if they buzz me, I am going to jump through the roof!  Not because I am upset, but because it will scare the crap out of me!  Those that know me very well can tell you that I am a very jumpy person.

From there if I don't get buzzed and they let me through I will go to Vegas and that is where they will do the rest of the "sifting through talent."  The first 4 episodes (I think) you watch as they narrow everyone down and make all their cuts.  From there I honestly haven't watched the show enough to know exactly how they continue after that.  I watched the last two episodes of season 4 last night and there were 10 people on the finale.  My guess is that they get to a top 10 eventually and then America votes and they tally up all the votes over the weeks and at the end they go through by order of votes until they name the winner of America's Got Talent.

If you are interested in watching some or all of season 4 you can go to www.usagotalent.com.

The number 1 important thing you have to remember is that if I get on the show you have to have giant America's Got Talent parties and everyone has to vote like crazy for me!  :)

Well, I still need to pack and get ready for this crazy awesome adventure that I am about to embark on! :)

Thanks for all your support!  It really doesn't go unnoticed!

Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck!!!

Trimming and Glazing

I wrote this entry a lot earlier in the day today, but I was waiting to post it until I could put my picture on so you could see what the glaze on my pots looked like before they were fired.  


Anyway, I wrote all this boring stuff about how things were going with my music and what I was doing to move forward, yadda yadda yadda...well, as it turns out I have some news that is a little more exciting.  I think that I am going to fly to Portland this Sunday and try out for America's Got Talent on Monday.  CRAZY!!  One second I am freaking out inside and the next I am excited to do it!  It will definitely be a spontaneous adventure, thats for sure!! I'll keep you posted on what is happening with all of that.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!


On to the other stuff I blogged about earlier today...

As for pottery! It is slowly coming to an end! :( I asked my teacher if she would care if I just kept taking her beginning class, and she said she would have no problem with that! So I think I might take the class again in April. I just love it and I think I might have a little bit of a nack for it. I feel like I have caught on pretty fast!

Yesterday we trimmed the creations we made last week and glazed the stuff we made the first couple of weeks. I am not sure that trimming is my specialty...I think I do better with throwing. I do have a pretty steady hand which helps me with throwing and trimming, but I just can't ever decide how I want to trim my pots. Do I want to create an edge on the bottom? Do I want to put lines around the outside? Anyway...I think I just need more practice. I think I am going to take her class in April.

Glazing is very cool! You dip your pot or whatever into this liquid stuff and it dries almost immediately after pulling it out! It is crazy! It looks kind of chalky after it dries. I Glazed a couple of my first pots (my first crooked creations...) so that I could see how they would work out and how the glaze reacts to the firing process. When you dip the pots they are not the same color as what they will be after they have been fired. So my first two cylinders are an experiment! Next week I will glaze the rest of my stuff.

Maybe I am too easily entertained...

I had a great weekend in Logan! Friday night I stayed at my old roommate, Britt's, house in Corrine, a town near Tremonton UT. I was there Friday night and most of Saturday just hanging out and catching up on old times and new times. It is always good to just sit and chat with old friends. I was also very entertained with their pets. They have these two cats that they randomly found and rescued from the fields around their house. I am usually not a cat person, but these were very fun cats to mess around with! Caleb graciously handed me a laser pointer soon after my arrival and I spent most of my time teasing them. I couldn't get the video to post on my blog, but it worked on facebook, so go check it out!

Saturday evening there was a dance called Harlem Nights in Hyrum that is held every February. Mindy and I try to go every year, and she seems to always get roped into performing. Her and her partner got 2nd place! So that was cool. A lot of our old dance friends were there so it was good to get some fun dancing in with them. For those of you who don't know this about me, I have been into Big Band Swing Dancing off and on for about 6 years. I used to go all the time, but now I am very random about it. That is how I met my old roommate Britt and my current roommate Mindy.

Sunday morning I drove to my parents house and went to church with my Dad. He has been home alone for a few days because my mom has been out of town. So I thought I would keep him company. I know, I know...such a good daughter! It was good to chill at home with family for a while.

Last of all, once I finally made it all the way back home, Mindy and I watched the final 3 couples do their ice dancing routines. I really like watching the Olympics! I have to say, I want USA to win and everything, but I am overall, just so amazed at the time and efforts all of the athletes put into what they do that I am always just happy for whoever wins in any category! I definitely cheer and get more excited when it is USA but I don't ever feel sad when it is not. :) Anyone who has devoted so much time and effort, and has worked as hard as these Olympic athletes do, is completely amazing and impressive to me!

Recording

I recorded some demo tracks last night.  I was a little worried because my week went by really fast and I didn't get nearly as much practicing in as I would have liked!  Good news!  Things went very well!  I had already laid down 2 tracks previously.  So all in all we got 6 songs done.  4 that we recorded last night and 2 that we fixed up from a previous session.

When recording it is good to have your songs as ready as you can, otherwise you make a lot of unneccesary mistakes, and therefore you spend more time and money fixing things that wouldn't have been a problem had you been prepared.  So there is a little tip for any of you that may go record songs of your own!  :)

So, the plan was to lay down some demo tracks.  In the beginning I was only going to record songs off of Stranger.  The reason being that my initial plan was to be able to say that I had toured Stranger by the end of the year.  Well, I am changing plans!  I have about 7 new songs that I like playing too much not to play them at gigs.  So I've decided that I am not considering myself as touring...we can save that for the next album! ;)  For now, I am just going to do what I can to play anywhere and get people to start checking me out, listening to my music and passing it along to their friends. 

SO SHOW ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS MY MUSIC!  TRY TO GET THEM HOOKED, SO THEY WILL SHOW THEIR FRIENDS!  :)

How was that for a plug! 

Anyway, one of the problems I was having with playing new songs is that I didn't have a way for people to listen to them.  PROBLEM SOLVED-thanks to my website guy Jason White!!  If you have checked my website lately then you will notice that not only is my blog on it now, BUT also a spot where you can listen to my "Unreleased Tracks." (In other words new songs and works in progress)  I will put all the new songs that I have recorded there.  As I work on them I will try and post what I've done so far so you can see the process of recording unfold before your ears ;)!  We will see how this goes!

Just a heads up before I go!  I am playing in Ogden March 5th and I have a radio interview on March 23rd!  I will keep you posted on place, dates and times. 

Have a spactacular Friday!!

Pottery Success!

I just had to jump on right now and let you know that my pottery class tonight was a huge success!  My bowls turned out great and I made another curvy pot!  I really feel like I kind of have a knack for this!  I am sad because today was the last day that we got to make stuff.  The next two weeks we are going to be learning how to glaze and fire and all that good stuff!

That is all I really wanted to say tonight, so here are the pictures I took.  They are kind of in a weird position because I had already covered them and put them away on the shelf when I remembered that I wanted to take a picture of them.  So I uncovered them and just got the best shot I could.  But you get the gist!  :)

Valentines Speculation

Good news!  I had a great Valentines weekend!  
Don't let your imagination get carried away with you...it had nothing to do with boys giving me flowers or chocolates or taking me out on a date. :) ha ha. In fact it really wasn't that exciting, just nice and chill.  


Mindy and I stayed home, watched movies and ate Thai Pizza.  This pizza is sooooo good!  It has this peanut sauce on it (as the pizza sauce) WOW! and all other kinds of good stuff like chicken, red peppers, little green onions, feta cheese, etc... Anyway, here is a picture... you can drool over it.  :)  It was delicious!!  

We rented All About Steve with Sandra Bullock.  I probably wouldn't ever buy it, but I thought it was funny. She does a great job acting like a really intelligent, nerdy girl with no social skills.  Anyway, that was our awesome Valentine evening! On to my next Valentine topic...

I have a speculation about Valentines Day...  

I wonder if there are more fights on Valentines Day than the average normal day.  I was just thinking about it because it seems like certain things are expected and when a person is expecting certain things and they don't get some or ALL of them, then that leaves a little, or a lot (depending on the situation) of room for disappointment!  Then you have guys who tried so hard to make their girlfriend or wife happy and when they don't hit all the expectations then they get in trouble.  I am not saying this happens in all cases, but wouldn't be surprised to find out that a lot of Valentine evenings end in tears and frustration.

Sadly, I have to admit, that I speak from experience, because I know that I have been guilty in the past of having expectations...ok I'll say it...that were too much.  I am here to tell you that they are very dangerous, and as a girl it can be hard not to let them just creep their way into your head!  And you know what else is scary...and probably stems from watching too many chick flicks...but, I think that girls can have expectations that are unfathomable to a guy.  How in the world is he going to meet expectations that aren't even possible for him to imagine!  (Maybe the guys would have a chance if they watched more chick flicks!  ha ha ha, just a little joke!)  Poor guys.  Poor girls too though...being a girl can be really ridiculous sometimes!  Anyway, I was just thinking about all this stuff and I thought I would let everyone in on my Valentine speculation. :)   

I do have to tell you that I am working on these things within myself.  I don't think it is wrong to have expectations, but I think it is important to keep an open mind and learn to be happy with what you have and especially what you receive!  I am reading this book right now called Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins.  (Yes it is a self help book, and you know what?  I love it!) I am learning that we really do have control over our emotions!  I can take charge and change the way I feel, the way I react and the way I handle my emotions and situations in my life! 

I had an ah ha moment today too.  I realized that sometimes it takes a lot of work to be happy because you have to focus on changing your state of mind, or the way you are thinking, or your focus, or ask yourself questions that make you think of other things (other than whatever is making you feel sad or depressed.) There are a lot of ways to do it, and it is possible to bring yourself out of any downer if you make the decision to do it!  Then there are those awesome times when being happy is a piece of cake, because life is going easy on you for a minute.  

I will probably talk more about this book as I keep reading it because I really do feel like it is having such a positive effect on my life!  So I will leave it at that!

I really do, honestly, hope that all of you had great Valentines Days and that nobody got in any fights!  :)  Hee hee!

Brontosaurus!

You guys will never believe what happened at work today!  I was sitting at my desk working sooo hard and all the sudden this Brontosaurus came walking down the road!!!  I couldn't believe it!  Some guy had tamed it and was using it to help with some of the construction going on across the street from us!  As you can see, I got a picture and everything!!!  And you thought dinosaurs didn't exist!!! Ha ha ha! Well you were wrong!!

Pottery & Excessive Water Consumption

Last night Mindy and I went to our awesome pottery class where we took the cute little pots (yes, the very ones in the picture you see) and learned to trim them.  I think my pots had dried a little too much and so it was a little tricky, and I was inhaling clay dust...which, by the way, is not good for you.  We learned how to do some final shaping, create a bottom for our pots, create little grooves around the outside of the pot - if we so desired - and do some final smoothing and what not.  Two of my pots turned out pretty good if you ask me, and one was quite lopsided...what do you expect from a beginner!  I was quite proud of my trimming accomplishments! :) 


Aren't they cuuuute!!


So after she showed us how to trim, she then started showing us how to make a bowl.  Well, by the time I finished trimming to my satisfaction there was only about a half hour left for me to attempt a bowl. On top of that, by the time I got to it I couldn't remember the steps to making a bowl anyway!


So I grabbed the clay and threw it down and started to try and center it on to the wheel and I think that because I was feeling rushed and wanted my bowl to work out so badly that I just couldn't get my clay to center!  It was waaay off, and when it gets way off it kind of pushes you around. The only analogy I can think of for you(though its quite extreme) would be like trying to steady a small jack hammer or something.  So I ended up with clay and water spinning everywhere and had a giant pile of wet sloppy mud in front of me!  I'll admit, I was a little sad, but had enjoyed trimming and working on my other projects so much that it really wasn't that big of a deal. Good news though...the teacher said that we could do whatever we wanted next week!  I think I would have been more sad if I didn't get another chance at making a bowl!  So that made me very happy!  So look forward to my blog next week about my successfully developed bowl making skills! :) Along with some pictures to prove my natural talent! (If I remember to take pictures! :-/ )


Thats all for you about my pottery class...


You are probably wondering what I meant, in my title, by excessive water consumption.  Well...here is story number two for the day! My co-worker Amie and I decided, today, that we were going to try to start drinking the right amount of water each day.  It all kind of started with somewhat of a water guzzling challenge around 9:00 where we both drank our mostly full water bottles in 2 minutes! (2 minutes is not a lot of time to drink about 20 ounces...just so you are aware.)


After this little challenge we looked up how much water a person should have in a day and found that women should have somewhere around 2 to 2.2 liters of water and men should have 3!  Well, on our water bottles it said 1pt 7.7oz.  2 liters is around 64 oz or something (I think).  For some strange reason, neither of us paid any attention to the 1pt part of the label and we were both convinced that our bottles were 7.7 oz!  Therefore we had it in our heads that we would have to drink 8 water bottles a day in order to get our required, daily water consumption!!


The plan was to drink 1 bottle every 2 hours...and mind you, we kept accidentally procrastinating and so we would guzzle our water down the last 10 minutes of our 2 hour goal.  I think we both went to the bathroom once every hour today!


Finally with the help of another co-worker it was pointed out to us that our water bottles were actually 23oz, NOT 7.7 and that we only had to drink about 3 of those a day to get our daily amount.  At that point we were both suffering from 'water up to your eyeballs' syndrome and side aches!  Ha ha! I thought it seemed extreme!  I just kept thinking to myself..."if this is how much water a person is supposed to drink a day, then there is a very small percentage in the world of fully hydrated people!  :)


Now drinking the correct amount of water seems like no problem at all!

Planning

Sorry blog, I neglected you for a few days!  My sister Tricia came down and hung out with me all day on Saturday.  We had a really great time!  We went to eat, hung out at my house and talked and went to go see Sherlock Holmes, the second time for both of us.  (We tried to see The Avatar or When in Rome, but they were both almost sold out, and I am not a happy front row sitter!)  Remember when you were little and you thought the front row was the most awesome place to sit?!  I do...Anyway...I actually really liked Sherlock Holmes the second time around!  It was cool to know what to look for. And instead of guessing what was going to happen I found myself paying closer attention to other details that I would never have pick out the first time around.

Enough about that...part of our time was spent talking about what we need to do, places I can play and what not.  So we made a list and we are working on getting a hold of some places to see what I have to do to play. 

I was thinking that I would like to open shows and things like that, but Tricia was thinking more along the lines of Colleges and city/county fairs, you know...summerfest, peach days, rasberry days, Farmington Days...stuff like that.  Honestly, I don't care where I play, I just want to play for people!  I really do have a passion for performing!  But all of the foot work and promoting sure slows me down. And in all honesty it discourages me.  But I am going to keep trudging forward with this if it is one tiny step at a time!

Hello friends that read my blog!  I hope you are all doing well!  I have great news!  As you probably saw on facebook or twitter or my website, I wrote a new song!  I always get very excited about new songs.  Well I finished it up yesterday and now I am just working on making it sound solid.  I am putting a little guitar solo-ish part in it and I am going to have to really get it down and get comfortable playing it before I show it off to anyone.  Still don't know what I will call it, and I am not ready to tell the world what it is about yet.  So, I apologize for leaving you in suspense.

So this is random...but...I am really bugged because I don't have spell check on my blog anymore!  I don't know what happened!  I think I downloaded the new version and it just doesn't have spell check on it now. So sorry if you see spelling errors! Grrr!!

Well, I don't have any fun plans for the weekend yet...I am sure Mindy (my roommate) and I will figure something out.  We usually end up reverting to dancing (West Coast, or Lindy)  Maybe we will go se When in Rome or something.  I have been wanting to see that.  I do need to get some press kit type stuff together sometime this weekend to start sending to different Venues.  I have a friend working on my bio right now.  One little step at a time right...? :)

Good things happen during hard times

Yesterday was a little rough for me.  I have just had a lot of things on my plate to deal with and I think they all combined together yesterday and attacked! Fact of life...everyone has hard times. However, I have good news! Even when you have hard days, good things CAN still happen in the midst of your trials!

So here are the good things!  My car is finally all fixed and so happy to be back with me!  I missed driving it soooo much!  So I was very excited about that.  My mom brought it back to me after I got off work so I got to go to dinner with her which was very good.  Moms always know the right things to say, at least my mom seems to!

Then I went home, picked up my roommate and we headed off to our first pottery class!  I AM IN LOVE WITH THROWING POTTERY!  I made 3 successful cylinders!!  It was great!  I love messing around with the clay and spinning it threw my hands and shaping it!  It is so cool! 2 hours might not be enough time each week!  It went by really fast!  I did get a sore on my hand from the grainy clay, but it was totally worth it!  I just hope it doesn't still hurt by next Tuesday!  Our teacher is going to show us how to make plates and bowls and pots!  It is going to be so great!

I learned another Muse song on my guitar.  It is hard to play Muse songs acoustic because you just can't seem to get the full effect!  They are just way too amazing.  But I think this one will be a good one once I have it down!  The song I decided to learn is called Falling Down off the Showbiz album.  It is slow and takes a lot of air, so I am going to have to work on it for a bit before I will be covering it at a show.  Ha!  Mabye I will have it down by the time I get another gig!  Just keep hanging in there with me!

I get my car back!

I would just like to announce that I am getting my car back today!!!  I think that everything is finally fixed!!  And I am starting my wheel throwing pottery class today.  So there you go!  Two good things happening! And that is really all I have for you! 

I am trying to find places to perform, but it is a slow process, so bear with me! :)  Let's keep our fingers crossed that by April or May I am starting to play pretty steady.

Skiing, Guitars and Pottery!

Sadly, I have neglected the world of skiing for a very long time.  My excuses? 1. too expensive, 2. I didn't have people to go with like I used to, and 3. it had been so long I actually thought I didn't really mind not going anymore! Sad, I know!! Don't worry! Those feelings were taken care of this weekend!

I went to Solitude with my friend Scott on Saturday and it was so much fun!  I forgot how much I enjoy being up on the mountain!  It was beautiful!  Blue skies, no wind!  It was a little crunchy/icy in some places, but we still just messed around and had a good time.  Scott is a really great skiier, so he was totally taking it easy and I was doing  my best to keep up to his easy!  :)  Ha!  It was really fun to go with someone who knows their way around.  Scott took me on some really cool runs through the trees and gave me some good pointers about my turns and stuff.  I felt very accomplished by the end of the trip! :)  So now all I want to do is go again!! 

On our way back from skiing we stopped at a great little guitar shop called, Acoustic Music, and I fell in love with a few Taylors.  Now I am asking myself..."am I a Taylor kind of girl?"  I almost feel like I am cheating on my Martin or something.  But they sounded really great!  And played great too!  I guess we shall see what happens...you might see me bustin it out on a Taylor one of these days!

One last thing for this blog entry today.  MY POTTERY CLASS STARTS TOMORROW!!  I am super excited!!  It is the class where you use a wheel!  My roommate Mindy is taking it with me.  I am going to make all kinds of fancy stuff!  It will be great!! :)  I'll make sure to tell you all about it!