How To: get natural curls!

You know how, sometimes, you wake up in the morning....(feelin' like P-Diddy–SHUT UP!!)

Ahem, you wake up and you pass a mirror. Suddenly you stop, turn around, and take a longer look in the mirror.

                                                         "Hmm. I look good!"

It's that magical moment when you have successfully combined:

-pre-sleep routine

AND

-actual sleep (and all its glorious drooling-face-in-pillow hours)

Sometimes you try so hard! Brush teeth. Put hair up. Take off makeup. Lie down carefully on your side so that your face can rest, smiling, on your soft pillow.

But TADA! 

6 to 8 hours later you're waking up gasping because your face was buried in your pillow, your breath STILL smells bad, and when you check yourself in the mirror, your eyes look like stretched saran wrap and your hair either looks like a dead animal or the location/reason for said-animal.

But hey, this post isn't about negativity! This isn't to relay the futile attempts in life to feel better about one's self! This post is like: hey-yo-its-all-good-you-can-even-look-good-first-thing-in-the-morning-and-i'm-not-sure-HOW-that-happens-but-it-does-BAM!

So here's the best I can do for a How To Wake Up Looking As Good As Possible:

Pre-Sleep Routine:

-no matter what, brush your teeth. Its just gross otherwise. 

-hair certainly depends on the person since there are lots of different hair-types out there...but if you're like me (straight, long, brown, uninteresting), wash it beforehand, and then immediately put it in a french braid.

-now here's a risk i encourage you to take: try not taking off ALL your makeup. Here's what I mean. Wash your face, and get the worst of the mascara from under your eyes, but don't go scrubbing your eyes too much. Just get most of it off.

AND

Actual Sleep:

-Just.....just sleep. If possible. Don't even TRY to avoid pillow face, or drool face, or pillow-drool-face.

And Voila! You'll either wake up looking like a princess from a disney movie

....or nothing will have changed.

BUT. 

           If all else fails.....at least your can take your hair down and enjoy relaxed curls for the day!

 (Okay, but, lets not get ahead of ourselves. NO ONE is capable of being as great as Bernadette Peters!)

Let the madness begin...

Well then....it's been over a year since I've blogged. I guess it became unimportant to me, and I'm glad I took a break from it, because whatever I would have written would not have been true probably....but I would like to begin again! Life really is adventurous no matter how I choose to perceive it...so I guess I should just see life the way it is.

So, newness: I've moved into an apartment! I have two of the loveliest roommates you will every know and for that I am so grateful. This apartment promises to be beautiful, craftsy, and rather thrifty. (Pictures to follow soon!)

Classes have begun again and this year is going to be a whopper for me.....17 credits, APO President (WHAT WAS I THINKING??), House Manager for the first show of the season, and on top of all that I've finally become the thing I longed for and now I'm seeing the full weight of it: an upperclassmen!!!

.....oh and I have a really great boyfriend :)

Ahem. This summer was a bit of a springboard for me and my creative endeavors. I've written several new songs, painted several watercolors, and crocheed a pouf, and am working on a blanket! There's nothing like creative juices to keep life beautiful, (again, pictures WILL follow!)

So anyway, it's labor day weekend, and that really means a chance for me to prove that I am responsible and get all my homework done early....so that I can focus on our first APO fundraiser this friday; the Fairy Tale Dance........where I will be dressing as Bellatrix. Done and done. 

I am determined to be hardworking, responsible, and above-all ON TOP OF THINGS. I will NOT get behind. Yes, its going to be an excellent year.....and hopefully one of these days I'll have a bed, because right now I'm on an air-mattress.

Welcome to the CFA (Collective Flipping-out Association)

For anyone out there reading this who does not reside in the great city of Jackson, I thought i'd give you a peep into my life there!

This is where I spend most of my waking hours...and a few sleeping ones as well....no joke...no exaggeration.

This is The Canadian, also known as "The Dietrich" who is insane enough to design some flippin' awesome sets!

This is my friend Murphy. He runs a fashion line in his free time. Don't mess. Stay tuned for a play I plan to write in his honor.

Anna, Kristi, and Elle make up the three tattooed priests in our production of Murder in the Cathedral. They are gorgeous, and fantastic at lying still while I apply sticky black ink crosses to their backs!

Lex "not Luther" Quarterman. Tres-ing out. Too soon Lex, too soon. 

He was our Thomas Becket for "Murder". He got murdered...which is why he had to Tres-out.

These four fine females made up our Creepilicious Chorus! Marie, Tessa, Whitney, and Amy are some of the best women in this here world! 

Grace and Mysie were freaked everyone out with a rope. Ashley Elizabeth freaked everyone out with a large stick/pole. Marla freaked people with her freaky blanket. Lot of freaking out going on all-up-in-tha'! In their free time, when they AREN'T lying in a pile on stage speaking/whispering creepily, these are some of the most beautiful, excellent women I know, and i have been proud to know them!

Okay...forgive me if i tear a bit at this picture....these are My Knights. I claim them as such because...sniff, sniff...I was their squire....well, unofficially. This picture does not reveal the absolute awesome-ness of their characters because on stage: THEY WEAR STILTS! YEAH! GO AHEAD! BE IN AWE!! 

Erin, Becki, Scott, and Danielle: thank you for not falling on stage and giving me any heart attacks!

JUST when you thought things couldn't get trippier, here comes the Messenger....in a tu-tu....and striped tights....and heels....and yellow jacket.....and hair that sticks sideways from her head....and a DVD player: with her face on it! 

Kirsten is NOT to be messed with. She'll deal with you big-time....just, through the DVD player is all....

Stephanie, on the left was my wonderful Co- ASM (assisstant stage manager!), and Deanna, on the right was our STUNNINGLY BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL Stage Manager! Without her, NONE and i mean NONE of the above brilliance could have taken place! 

Well, hope you enjoyed the peep into my life as an insane theatre major at Belhaven University....if you want to study theatre, call me. THIS is the place to be. 

Tres-Out....

The Ridiculous One!

There goes a year! I'm pretty sure God may be shaking his head at me right now and going, "WHAT am i gonna do with this silly person?"

This year started out so hard. It got harder. It got worse. Then somewhere along the way, I opened my eyes and realized I had wonderful, beautiful, such real friends...and I have been living a new environment that is so rich with its own unique culture...and I am learning from some of the most brilliant and perceptive professors out there...and above all else, I am exactly where God wants me to be. That is the most exciting part!

I didn't realize the full extent of my love for my new home, until now, when I have left for the summer. Suddenly, those hard times at the beginning of the year, are so worth it, with what I have now. Friends in too many places to count. Family that just won't give up on me no matter how stupid I act!
And homes. I have a home in Kandern. A home in Seattle. A Home in Jackson. And Heaven is just waiting for the day when I can set up camp there!

What more could I possibly ask for? My life is full, rich, has meaning and purpose!
The big things are taken care of in my life. There will continue to be issues that come up, and snags in plans, and unsureness about how to continue in life.....and yet it will all be taken care of in the right timing.

And now, for the little things! A Job. :)

If you think of it, pray that just the right job will make itself clear to me!

My love to all who read this,

Ginny- the ridiculous one!

Cute little blue-eyed gal!

This spring break I got the chance to visit some dear friends that I had not seen in a long time.

I wish I could say that I learned something over break. Where I stand right now, all that seems to keep coming up, is how incapable I am. How utterly unskilled I am with life. It's tempting to fall into that and let it consume me.

Or if nothing else, I could become angry. Perpetually mad at someone or something.

But that is no way to live life. It ISN'T living. It's pathetic. And there is so much beauty in life to be enjoyed, when viewed from the right frame of mind.

It would be so easy for me to give up with a lot of things right now. It stinks not being able to see these beautiful things in life, and not being able to appreciate them as well. 

I definitely miss being a child. 

Last few days...

I thank God that I am no longer as enslaved to my image as I have been in the past.

I mean come on! You would have to have good self-esteem to post THAT online!

Besides, sometimes you have to focus on the beauty of those around you, to discover your own beauty.

I love these girls. So much. And somehow they all manage to look stunning even when caught unawares by my camera!

These poor purple fingers belong to my dear friend who put up with recording with me for a whole day! Steph, thank you for sacrificing your fingertips so that I could finish this album before break!

Stephanie and "Miriam" who were both instrumental (pun very much intended!) in bringing about the final pieces to my album "Into The TeaCupboard".

These are our "we-will-succeed!" faces.

It took a large part of the day....

But finally....WE GOT THE LAST SONG RECORDED!!!!

That darn C#m7 was the bane of our existence in that moment of our lives....

I was soooooooo pleased when it was finally done!

I am so happy with my album. It's rough. It's not perfect. But it is me. I really tried to be vulnerable in a couple of the songs....and in the end I am happy to say that many of the songs are full of hope and joy!

Des Amies...

Friends are funny things. Sometimes you choose them, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you see them coming....but more often than not, you look up one day and realize that you have four or five people in your life who somehow became people that you love more than yourself.

Friends are funny things....everyone has to learn to say goodbye...

Most of my life has been spent learning how to say goodbye. For a while it was an internal lesson. Attending a school full of misfits like myself gave an opportunity to actually listen to others speaking on the dreaded "transition" process.

I will never forget the night that marked the end of something extremely beautiful and right in my life...all of my closest friends in one room...in the Great Hall of the Art Factory...snuggling on a broken couch...listening to a crappy CD by some no-name high schooler :)......rubbing sleep out of our eyes from being awake for the past twenty four hours....there was so much beauty in one room.
and the tears.....those tears.....sharp breaths, gasping for air because we were using all of it to say "I love you" over and over again. And then suddenly, one by one, leaving....leaving....left...gone....

Well, my loved ones, you know who you are, I want to say that there is something else very important that we have all had to learn to say this year...I'm pretty sure most of you got it way before me!

everyone has to learn to say goodbye....and eventually to say hello.
I wish it had not taken me so long to figure out, but now that I have, I am overjoyed!

It has happened all over again....I woke up day, looked around my life, and found four or five friends who I love more than myself. What greater happiness is there in life than to love someone else more than one's self? I dare you to answer that question otherwise.

Yes friends are funny things....God is even funnier....He keeps bringing more friends for me to cock my head at and grin!


Well, to all of my friends out there, please stay tuned for more information regarding an album I am making that is all-original music, and most of which is dedicated to all you who I said goodbye to so long ago on that drizzly early morning in a drafty old Factory!