Spactastic Shenanigans

I acknowledge my absence from this blog and I apologize. Lots of dancing has been happening. Holy cow, lots of dancing. The first day, and even the first week I guess, every little mistake in a show seemed like a huge thing. Now it's just getting through each show that matters - I am exhausted. But so so happy. :) I just wanted to document a few of the little memories...

The night before SPAC started (yes folks, we are kicking it back to April!) Trenton and Thomas (pictured above) met with the unfortunate news that they were supposed to wear khaki pants the next day for our first day of tour. And neither of them had khaki pants. Dismayed and disgruntled we (with the addition of Sean who DID have khaki pants, and indeed had strong opinions about the flatness of the front of said pants versus pleats) set off for the magical and infrequently (by me) visited land of Walmart. Pants were purchased. But while the boys were in dressing rooms I requested that the not in dressing room boys put on some hats. This is the result when they all put on the hats together. Thomas is incredibly fabulous and rocking a Carmen Sandiego vibe in this photo, Sean is grumpy, and Trenton...that sweet thing looks a mite dysfunctional.

On the same trip I decided I needed to buy a towel because I didn't have one and there was much talk of hot tubbing. In the selection there was this Batman thing, and because I love Batman they insisted I try it on. However, it was attached to the cardboard thing, so Thomas held it up while I wrapped it around me.

A completely different day, we were at a school that had two water spiggots on the water fountain. Katie and I thought it would be beautiful to take a picture together. You can't really see us well but that's us drinking some waters in the water fountain, simultaneously. Yay!!

Unfortunately, all my other pictures aren't on the computer yet, so another post will have to follow up soon with other pictures. However, luckily, facebook has a few photos that I will share here just so I actually remember to write about some of these things. :)

For example, there was the time that before a show all the girls decided to get inside our costume bags. This says something about the amount of costume-age we carry around everyday, because things get full. This was pretty hyper, and reminds me of another day when we all took a picture with our heads sticking out from under the curtains. So many beautiful times. Sometimes I think we act a lot less mature than the elementary kids whose schools we're visiting...

Facebook is now choosing to be a nargle so I'm not going to post anymore right now, but I will update again this weekend! 

Banana Bread

Monday night my dear roommate Katie realized that she had a bit of a problem. It was called, uh oh! Brown bananas! Incidentally, I myself was undergoing that very same exact struggle.

A problem was determined, a solution was reached: It were time to make some serious banana bread up in there.

I mean it. We tripled the recipe. There were a lot of brown bananas hanging around our kitchen. Lurking about, threatening to turn all the way black and mushy and utterly disgust us all. Alas and alack.

Even though the bananas at hand were being foiled, the eggs we used were very happy to assist us in our war against rotting fruit and our quest for delicious bread products. 

 Here are the corpses and mashed up bodies of our villainous foes. Quite a beautiful picture, I know.

And finally, if you did not believe for some silly reason that we were actually making a lot of banana  bread..Newsflash. We were making. A lot. Of banana bread. We had a banana bread cake, a normal banana bread loaf, two cute lil loaves, and 12 banana bread muffins. Our apartment smelled like banana heaven.

An additional thought on the banana bread is thus: Why are there no black squiggles when you mash the bananas and make the batter (see above. No black squiggles.) but when you pull the bread out of the oven there are little squiggle fibers throughout? 

I decided to do a little research to answer this question. Here's what I found.

1. Some nasty minded person decided to say they are little worms that infest the bread. You, madam, are on dangerous ground. (Sean, if you're reading this then go ahead and read that in Prince Henry's voice, because oh how the Ever After quotes delight me.) Don't be alarmed friends and family they aren't worms.

2. Apparently you don't get those fibers if you puree the bananas. So they're definitely from the bananas. But I knew that. Why don't they come when you puree them but do when you mash them? Still unsure.

3. Finally, an explanation of sorts that sounds scientific enough that I, at this time, am perfectly willing to accept it unless one of you would like to challenge. Answer: The alkaline environment of a batter with baking soda (which yes, the banana bread had. A tablespoon of it.) results in discoloration of the pulp fibers.

Pulp fibers, people. If that's not a pretty phrase, well then I just don't know.

Side note: Monday, the banana bread adventure day was also Cinco de Mayo!!

Happy Cinco de Mayo from Trenton and me and our yummy yummy tacos. These little loves are $1.25 my friends, and they are t to the a to the s-t-e-y. Yummiest little tacos for sure. So don't be afraid of taco shops that you enter and your immediate reaction is "man, this be sketch" because they might just have the most delicious tacos you ever put in your mouth. Just saying.

Beautiful for Being Broken

So on Facebook, one of my friends had posted this picture and it really got me thinking about some things and so I wanted to write a quick blog post, mostly just to record the feelings I was having more than anything else.

Because, to be honest, this is basically my journal. It just keeps me from whining as much as I would in a private journal, which I would really prefer my posterity reading. I have no problem with my great grandchildren knowing how weird I was, but some of the drama that inevitably goes into journals just doesn't need to be recorded, because awkward.

That aside, I think this idea that you can take something broken and show it was broken while adding to its beauty is amazing. It's a very optimistic approach to life. I was talking to Trenton last night and I suddenly got all emotional because we were talking about how sometimes I just care too much about trying to make other people happy and to show them I care about them. Why I got emotional was because I suddenly realized part of why I am that way. It's because I know what it felt like to have no friends. I know how it feels when someone says they hate you which is why I can't stand when other people say it, even if it's clear they're just being sarcastic or are joking.

All this happened a long time ago, and I am perfectly happy now. I know I have an incredibly supportive family, wonderful friends, and a fiance who is completely wonderful to me (and who I am marrying in 29 days!!) While some of the people involved in the problems I had before are now wonderful friends, who I dearly love, I guess last night I had a realization of how much that experience affected me. And while I wouldn't wish that on myself ever again, I truly think it made me better.

I am not going to say it made me "more beautiful" but it made me kinder. It made me care a lot more about the people around me, and I think that's definitely a benefit. I guess that's what is so comforting about the eternal perspective. Trials here and now stink. Times can be so hard and I know I've had moments where I have honestly felt like I just could not take what was happening, that there wasn't a way that my body could hold so much hurt.

However, through time and the love of others those broken pieces of us can be put back together, and that love sticks to us and helps us become stronger, better people.

Teamwork and the Weekend

It has been a few days now since I have last posted - I apologize for the delay. Turns out that after dancing several shows a day (and let's be real - the traveling, setting up, changing costumes approximately a thousand times and so forth) is truly exhausting. And then we get home and people want to be social. Ain't no party like a folk dance party. Cause we are real loud and weird, and you can take that to the bank. There isn't anything they could do with that at the bank and they'd probably find it real irrelevant, but you do you.

But in all the craziness of the past week, I just am so grateful for the opportunity I have to dance and perform, and also spend so much time with my friends. I wish I could shout out to everyone who I appreciate and who has been so great the past few days but I really can't, there's just too many. But Taylor drove for me, and Rylan made me laugh by commentating by 2048 game, and Jessa helped me with my Scottish costume, and Trenton made me a sandwich and let me lean on him while I slept. Reilly did my hair for me and Julianna braided my hair even in the van yesterday.

Something wonderful is how much we pull together as a team. In all the craziness, we help each other. Mary Beth packed up by bag for me today when I needed to rush elsewhere (that's all the detail you need). She had her own bag to pack, but she still wanted to help me. The selflessness that I've seen as a result of spending so much time together has been incredible. Even though I'm sure we get on each others nerves - and yeah, people are really confused about my frequent mentions of possums - everyone is helping everyone else.

We aren't only a team, but we are amazing friends, and as I've felt so much gratitude for all the ways people have helped me and have gone to the effort to help others we feel more and more like a kind of family, which is neat.

But this is getting all mushy and sentimental and I don't want anyone to think I'm being cliche or purposefully sugarcoating things.

So I'll stop saying how much I love everybody, for at least a minute.

We've made it to the weekend and I am ecstatic. It's only been four days - see day 4 picture below - but we've had ten shows and it feels like it's been more than a week.

This is basically the most flattering picture of me there is. This was my attempt at "fierceness" which is just pretty hysterical because it isn't working. Gotta love it. Also, Heidy makes this photo (she's the one sitting on the ground and photobombing us). 

It is now 5 on Friday night and I am waiting for Trenton to get home from work to start the fun weekend plans. I have no actual concrete plans yet, but I'm excited. With all the folk dancers around and all the wedding plans it's pretty sure to be an adventure.