Happy Easter!!

Yea! Jesus!!! I hope everyone has had a great Easter and just, thank you God! Unfortunately, I was unable to go home because I had work today but it was still a good day none the less. I also saw a good friend who spend a fantastic trip in France and Germany and a bunch of other places in Europe. We went this fantastic little restaurants in the area called Magdalena's Creepier (http://www.magdalenascreperie.com/). I loved it and got an awesome crepe with Brie and Prosciutto… right up my alley. We talked about my wonderful little project and she loved it! She might start going to the gym with me which is supper exciting because she is actually in the Army training to be a helicopter pilot so she is pretty tough nails and would be a good workout partner.

In other exciting news, this Tuesday is the Chorus Line Audition! I am super nervous and I wish I was more prepared but I think it will all be alright but… my first thing on my What do list is not going so well and I think I need to be focusing on that more. So if I don’t get into Chorus Line… I’ll cry for a little bit and then find another audition for play soon. But I really want to be in a musical. Like super bad like I might let preparing for this consume my life for the next day or so. Like I should have been doing like 2 weeks ago. But my failing to get this all together is only information it’s alright.

In other super exciting news, well… I was asking to preach about something for my campus ministry in the public speaking area of our school! And while I’m ready the crap my pants, I’m excited and hopeful that something I will say will make a difference. Just hoping no one thinks I’m crazy for doing this. So just be praying for me to say the right words and deliver them with love for the people at my school and pray for me to find the time to do this well with serious consideration and prayerful thought and contemplation. Also, pray that I won’t crap on myself while doing that’s a really good idea too.

Final thing this week, I was able to reach my distance goal for my workout which made me really proud and grateful. I have found since I have been waking up earlier, it has been easier to wake a decent time. That makes me really happy because last quarter I had a super hard time trying to get up at a decent time so all is working out. But this coming week I have to get 4 to 5 miles and holy moly, that one is going to suck but all will be good. I think a little thought lately when I feel overwhelmed that with a faith in God and how He is for me, I can walk on water. And so much is happening this week that I feel like I need to rely on God right now to get through the craziness of this week.

Mile Chart

	Mon.	Tues.	Wednes.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Week 1			11:10/1		9:30/1	32/3.02
Week 2	19:52/2	Swim	24:05/2	Dance	35/2.15	9:45/1
Week 3	35/2.93	Dance	25/2.15	Dance	18/1.25	Restart
Week 3	35/3.02	Bike	32/3.1	Dance	35/3.2	9:40/1
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6

 

So please just be praying for me right now! Love you guys

 

Breanna

Revelations and Realizations

You know when there comes a point in your life when you’re just on a roll. You come to more and more realizations and one leads to  another and another. Well that was definitely this week for me. I realized that, well this maybe sounds like a really obvious thing, but I need to be someone who absolutely crazy about me. If he isn’t, then I shouldn’t waste my time and energy on someone who doesn’t think I am great.  Time is so precious and I waste it so much on things that will never do anything to me. Energy is best spent when the more you put in, the more you receive. The things I, and I think a lot of us, put  energy in never return the energy we put in. And I do this with guys and I’m done with doing that. I deserve to be with someone who really cares about me; who is crazy about me!!! And yes, this should be obvious but sometimes the simplest things and most obvious things are the hardest accept.

I think this is because we in our culture love to us our heads and intellectualize our lives and emotions. When something is simple and obvious, we think that it can’t be true because while it does require us using our hearts it doesn’t require us to use our heads as much as we think is needed to right. Sometimes our hearts know more than our heads.

Something I realized as I have been reading the Word is that, well I suck at praying, particularly this quarter of college. I have found a lot of the time when I pray, I am just trying to prove how biblical I am. I remember this week when I was thinking about that, I just heard this little thought in my head: “I know how biblical you are.” I was struck by how clear in my head it was and how authoritative it was. I’m not saying I heard God’s voice. But I know that thought came from Him. So this week I have been trying to pray with more of an open and honest heart and really talking to the Lord like He wants to hear my real thoughts and troubles of the days and really praising Him for the small things in the day. Then it really helped to come to campus ministry on Friday to have them talk about how to have a better pray life. Just God confirming that I need to focus more of my energy into my pray life. 

One thing I have realized in particular is that I need to pray to God more about this blog/project. I think this list partly became a way of saying to myself that I am not enough for a guy right now. But that is not what I want. I want to find God’s will for me in this time of singleness. I want to use it to move closer to him. If this is what I desire, I need to believe that God gave me this time with a purpose. That He has something amazing planned for me in this time. So obviously, a bit of change in my project, but only in attitude.

So for my workout… Ha ha.Well… So for my plan for my mile, I am on week 3 and for week I have to run 3 to 4 miles. However, a lot of things happened this week where I couldn’t get to the gym in time or I didn’t a good enough breakfast so I didn’t have enough energy. So I was never able to get over 3 miles. So I will be repeating week 3.

Mile Chart

	Mon.	Tues.	Wednes.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Week 1			11:10/1		9:30/1	32/3.02
Week 2	19:52/2	Swim	24:05/2	Dance	35/2.15	9:45/1
Week 3	35/2.93	Dance	25/2.15	Dance	18/1.25	Restart
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6

            

Because it’s been hard for me to get to the gym on time, the strength has been suffering as well. I have been going to the gym around 7:30am, normally but the last few days because of the crap happening in the morning it’s been closer to 8am. However I think that will have to change to getting there at 7am anyway. I’ll see if I can make it work for 7:30 for this week but some where along the lines, I’ll have to move it to earlier because I mean week 6 is 6 to 7 miles. I am hoping by that my normal mile time will reduce significantly by then but if I could get that done in any hour, that would be perfect. That being said, I would have to get there by 7am. 

That’s I think all we have this week.

Love and Prayers,

 

Breanna

“OH MY G0D, OH MY G0D YOU GUYS!!!”

Question: what musical does the title come from? Keep your answer to yourself right now. Don’t say it out loud.

So for our school, we have one musical in the fall always directed by the musical theatre teacher. People have been waiting for the announcement of the musical with a lot of excitement. Well…

What was your answer to my beginning question??

Yes! It is correct! The musical for next fall is Legally Blonde!!! I can’t wait! I haven’t been able to get the songs out of my head and it’s seriously all I have thought about the last 4 days. So well I will be in that musical if it’s the last thing I do in life.

Anyway, there is another audition at the end of the month for Chorus Line. I went to my acting teacher and asked him what monologue he thinks I should do with a choose between two. And my song is coming along. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this musical. I definitely should have started earlier on my monologue. My song is doing all right. The audition is the 22nd of this month so I still have time but this time is valuable and precise so I am trying to work diligently on the monologue and song. I am hoping if I do well on this musical then my acting teacher will see it and will hopeful think more seriously about giving me a bigger part in Legally Blonde. 

So something I have been expressing with my friends is how annoyed I get when people brag about their singing skills or dancing skills at this age in life. Because truthfully, if you are amazing dancer and have been in dance since you were 5-guess what? You have rich, probably white, parents. If there is anything I know it is that white rich parents put their kids in ballet. But truly, just don’t brag at this age for much because you compare the children of supportive parents and non-supportive parents and you will find the children with the supportive parents get more done in life at an earlier age. If you got an opinion on this, please comment.

So for one of my classes we will be working on the alignment of the body and better core strength so I’m super excited. But I realized that I need to start working more on my plank, not forgetting that is one of my targets, a 5 minute plank. I did 1:30 the other day and that made me happy.

Well anyway, this is my mile chart. My mile on Saturday was slightly slower than last week but it also didn’t make me want to die which I think is an accomplishment.

=Mile Chart

	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.
Week 1			11:10/1	Bike	9:30/1	32/3.02	Zoo!
Week 2	19:54/2	Swim	24:05/2	Dance	35/2.15	9:45/1
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6

Well, anyway this blog post is late so… not much I can write.

Goodbye friends

2nd Year Anniversary

Today was the 2nd year anniversary of my relationship with Jesus and so much happened that I felt the need to share it all. Well, I went to the gym and nothing really interesting happened but I ran a good mile I guess. But on my walk home I was thinking about what I should do today and something popper in my head: make some food for some homeless and go around and pray for them. I went with my good guy friend as my bodyguard as advised by my roommate.

Truly, it was one of the best things I ever done. A lot of really special people I met. I wish though I was able to listen more to there stories. I don’t know why I didn’t. I think when I do this again, which I most definitely will, I will ask them more questions and bring more food and maybe some money. One man I met, man he had it bad. He was sitting all alone and was hunched over. We couldn’t tell if he was homeless or not for sure. So in my head, I had to weight the reward against the risk. If he wasn’t homeless, I would probably offend him. If he was, he probably needed some help and needed it bad. So obviously, I took the chance. When he lifted his head, I could see his eyes were very red and swollen. He wouldn’t talk very much, only a few words at a time. I feel like he probably had a lot of drug problems. But when I was praying, he kept telling me to praise the Lord for everything and so I did. I thanked God for the grass and the blue sky and the park we were at and I just continued. I think about him and I still hurt and want to cry. I was truly so happy I went.

When I do something like this, I also feel though that I am fighting taking this credit for me. I want to feel like a good person but I am not a good person. I am saved and a child of the Great God who changes my heart to more like His. I think this idea is so beautiful. To think, that we can be transformed to do these amazing things and for some who is close to the Lord, that person can willingly admit it is not them doing this, but the Lord. To do such great things but to be so humble. Amazing.

Well, on the ride back to our campus, I was talking to my friend. He mentioned half handedly that the University of Washington created a musical theatre degree! I was shocked and I thought to myself immediately “I’m going there.” You see, we go to a university in Washington. Right now I am studying Theatre-Acting and probably dance and I take voice lessons on the side to all prepare myself for a musical theatre degree. And in Washington, prior to this new development, there was only one state school that had musical theatre and it’s in the middle nowhere. I could have gone there but I would have gone crazy. But now UW!!!! But the application process is done because I would totally be there fall if I could. So I am trying to figure out what to do, going crazy because this is exactly what I need! And I always said I would love to go to UW if they had what I needed and now they do! I just really don’t know what to do. Kind of going crazy right now. But I am just giving it to the Lord at this point because I need sleep and it would be far off in the future.

But anyways, that was my day.

Britney Spear+Jesus-y song= The best thing ever!!!!

 

Before I Date…Week 1

Hey girl hey! And ‘ello Gents!

This is has been the first week of my wonderful and slightly over self-important mission to become a better person while single. I would like to apologize for the overly important and serious tone of last week’s post with an even more exaggerated serious and self-important to display a sense of sarcasm and irony.

But let me tell you: This week has been fabulous!! So much soreness from workout which is great. I planted my flowers and fruit and vegetables. I have watched three classic movies: Vertigo, Roman Holiday and Rebel Without A Cause. What I learned was, Alfred Hitchcock is officially my favorite director. Every single one of his movies I go in a panic when something scary happens. Like, my whole body builds up this tension because the tension is so subtle but doesn’t stop so when it finally happens I explode… Wow, that sounds sexual. I didn’t do that on purpose…

For Roman Holiday, well it was sort of ruined for me because I saw online that the main man was originally written for Cary Grant and I love me some Cary Grant so I kept comparing the actual actor who played the part in the movie and Cary Grant. And Cary Grant always wins.

Another lesson I learned, James Dean just gets it. I saw him in East of Eden and he just knows how a confused, lost and lonely teenager feels. He’s just too talented. So sad to have lost him so soon.

Anyway, my list has been finalized and specified, though I imagine I still might make so changes later on to my list.

The list includes:

1.) Be in a play

2.) Read the Bible Up To Joshua

I had decided to specify this one by telling my readers every week what I had gained from reading the Bible and what insight I have found. But I doubt if it will be considered insight really, just my notes.

3.) Read the Lord of the Ring

4.) Start learning to play the piano

5.) Finish reading Jane Austen Anthology

6.) Get in better shape

The main change I made was to this one. I needed some way to track my progress and to set an actual goal. So instead of tracking things like weight or inches or BMI, I decided to try to improve actual specific areas of fitness. So I decide to set a goal for mile, push ups, planks, squats and leg lifts. For the mile, I would LOVE to have a 7 minute mile! I feel like seven is realistic enough but enough of a challenge. I remember doing the mile in high school and by that time, I was at a 9 minute mile I think and the people who were at 7 were so fit and I wanted to be like those people. For the plank, well, maybe a bit extreme, but a 5 minute one would be fabulous. For push ups, I would like 40 pushes IN A ROW! It’s so different doing it non stop, all the way down. I remember last year when I was really doubting myself in musical theatre and I said I would try to do 40 push ups and if I could push myself to do 40 pushes in a row, non stop then I would know that I would be able to push myself all the way to do musical theatre. But I failed at, like 38 I think. But I collapsed when I couldn’t take it anymore. While that reconfirmed my belief that I would fail trying before I gave up on musical theatre, it gave me something to work for.  For leg lifts, I decided to 50 in a row and these are the ones where stick your legs together and raise them up at the same time and for me, these things are so hard! I haven’t decided exactly I will do for the buns. I will probably do so many standard squats except I suck at squats. I will probably work on these at home until I don’t feel stupid doing them and then do them at the gym.

So for my desire to become in better shape, I have used Pinterest endlessly. I will probably add a link to my Pinterest so y’all can see what I am pinning and working on. While on there I found a plan from Military.com, so you know it’s serious, for how to shave off two minutes off your mile. I decided to use that as my template for quickening my mile. Here is the link: http://www.military.com/military-fitness/running/improve-your-pft-mile-time . It has a great specific plan and it has information for every level of running which is awesome.

I’ll keep a time chart on here, so you guys can keep my accountable. I started this on Wednesday so the first Monday and Tuesday I’m not recording.Just so you all know I’m not cheating. The numbers the recorded as a ratio, with the first number being the time it took and the second number is the number of miles I ran.

Mile Chart

	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.
Week 1			11:10/1	Bike	9:30/1	32/3.02	Zoo!
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6

So as you can see there was a huge jump from Wednesday to Friday because on Friday I worked like you wouldn’t believe.

For everything else, I just kind of do intervals of push up and plank and leg lifts. For the push ups and leg lifts I do about a set of ten, rest a minute and then do another set. Don’t know if I’ll chart that too but that would probably be a good idea.

So I am addicted to good songs to work out to and everything Britney Spears is working. Seriously “Stronger” is my jam. But if anyone has any great work out songs, write them on the comments.

7.) Start learning to play the guitar

8.) Community service

I think for this one I will set a number of hours I want to do in a year. I think the magic number will be 200 hours of community service. I came to that number by supposing that I do community service twice a month and if I do it for eight hours each time then I times that by 12 months, the number comes to 192 so I just rounded up. I might split up the time with a portion of that going to the church I started attending this winter which is an awesome church. One of my friends from last year went there and man, if you ever did see such a woman of God! This lady seriously is such an inspiration to me.

9.) Belly Button Piercing

And given certain circumstances…

10.) Tattoo

I think that I will count this as part of my list if I am past the age of 21. I would like to get a tattoo by that time almost as a gift to myself, like my nose piercing was for my 20th.

She’s No Broken

Such an innocent little girl

But you don’t know her,

You don’t know her

You don’t know what’s she seen

You don’t know the mess she cleans

You don’t what she thinks at night

When everyone’s lost their sight

Of her, mixed in the drunken blur

You don’t know what she needs

A love story is good and done

She’s done with trying to run

Now she wants someone to need her

Such a good wife she’ll make

She’ll do the dirty twice a day

Tell her she’s beautiful

You can have your way

She’s not broken if she’s not healing

She’s working on it

She’s working on it

She’s got someone her side

Don’t you know,

She don’t need no home

She’s got him

He’s gonna love her till the end of eternity

If you don’t love her she won’t bleed

She don’t need to work for what he gave her

A long time, She knows her home

But maybe if you took her to yours

Your life could be blessed

And that’s nothing less than the truth

She’s not broken if she’s not healing

She’s working on it

She’s working on it

She’s got someone her side

Don’t you know,

She don’t need no home

She’s got him

She goes crazy sometimes

Little good girls who gets out of line

But just for a few seconds,

She’s loving life,

Getting drunk on Saturday night

Sneaking away with him holding her tight

Cause the sin feels so good just for a minute

Loves the blade and the bleeding

Till the very next morning,  Covers up the scarring

She’s not broken if she’s not healing

She’s working on it

She’s working on it

She’s got someone her side

Don’t you know,

She don’t need no home

She’s got him

Things I Need to do Before I Allow Myself to Get in a Relationship

All my life, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I wanted to be with someone. You can make a lot of different arguments as to why I felt the way I did. You could say I watched too many Disney movies. You could say my poor relationship with my father left me feeling rejected by men, therefore I felt the need to find love in a boy. You could say that I was disappointed every time Homecoming/Prom season came around and I was left going stag.  My desire to be with someone was probably a combination of all these things and I try to confront these everyday and try to heal my rejected 16 year old loner girl scars as a 20 year old now.

I think  probably one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to be someone was because I have fallen for a few boys (not men) in my life. Even though the number I think is fairly small, they have caused me quite a bit of turmoil because when I fall for a boy, I fall hard. There is no in between for me. Either I would never date you or let’s be honest, I’m planning our wedding. So you can imagine my heart break nearly every time when the boy I like decides to date a  friend. You know, like a best friend or girl in your bible study or that really sweet girl in your choir class who is extremely talented. You know, that sucks. Well recently I had to experience watching a boy I had the hugest crush on for a year and a half now start dating another girl.  I wish I could have disapproved of the relationship, but they were great together. And how lucky I was to have this all happen on the same week of Valentines Day. Needless to say, I was lonely. I was tired of feeling insecure and tired of beating myself up because the only guys I ever liked, I had convinced myself I wasn’t good enough for.

So I decided to take some action. If I was so convinced who I was wasn’t good enough for who I wanted to be with I needed to change me. And not in the way of appearance and façade. But how did I spend my time? Was I doing the things I really wanted to do? Was I doing what would make me a better person? Make me the person I wanted to be? So with this realization I made a list of all the things I wanted to do, what would the ‘better’ me and called it my “Things I Need to do Before I Allow Myself to Get in a Relationship” And I prayed to God that He would help me stick to this and achieve this. And in the mean time, He wouldn’t give me the man of my dreams and to have him only vanish before the list is done. (The best part about this is that, if God did plan on placing a man in my life that and decides to save him for another time, then God is answering my prayers!! If He didn’t then, it will appear that He is answering my prayers and all the glory will go to Him when actually nothing has changed at all! Win win if you ask me! I think the second option is the more likely part though.)

This list has been around for a few weeks now but I struggling with how to follow through on this in an active way. Then this though struck me: what if I were to blog about it? Because to be honest, even though I have had this blog for a few years I never really did anything worth while with it. Now, the plan is every Sunday I will tell all my readers (really need to keep track of how many people actually look at this because I’m pretty sure that I have like maybe two people reading it.)

So here’s the “Things I Need to do Before I Allow Myself to Get in a Relationship”

1.) Be in a play- I will be declaring a Theatre Major with an Acting Concentration and while that is a hard path in life to follow, I sort of go after half-heartedly. This is not the person I want to be. I want to be the person who auditions for every play. I want to be someone who chases after their dreams and who won’t let a single opportunity pass her by!!!! I will be auditioning for Chorus Line at the end of the month of April which is super exciting and I have started working on my audition song and I will start attending tap classes. I will also this week be working on my monologue. To be honest, this one is probably my top priority.

2.) Read the Bible up to Joshua- So I have been a Christian for two years in 8 days. And I really know very little about the Old Testament, not something I’m ashamed of, but not proud of it either. So my goal is to understand Jesus better by looking at the context of the time and what the original disciples would have known from the world around them. This is part of a greater desire to known Christ better but this is the one measureable way that I could think of achieving this. 

3.) Read Lord of the Rings- My father introduced me to LOTR when I was a young kid and I have always loved it. I always said I wanted to read the series (the trilogy, specifically) and I’m tired of saying I’m going to do things and never do them. I will probably be done with it by the next post since I’m 50 pages from the end of Two Towers. But I remember when I started reading it over the summer and thinking it would be such a huge thing to accomplish this, just as Frodo felt when he was first given the ring, knowing what he had to do with it. Seeing yourself accomplish things like that makes of more motivated, I think.

4.) Start learning to play piano- If you know me, then you know the type of acting I want to do is for musical theatre, so a better understanding of music is crucial. While this may suck because I am already paying for voice lessons, I know how important this is and I know financially I will be fine. I don’t want to live out of fear of losing money. Fear is a pointless emotions when it keeps you from moving forward. Fear is no longer in my vocabulary.

5.) Finish reading Jane Austen Anthology- Two Christmas’s ago, my grandmother got me a beautiful Anthology of Jane Austen. I read Sense and Sensibility and really loved it so I asked for Jane Austen books. A part of me feels that reading Pride and Prejudice is an important thing for a young woman to do. I want to be the kind of woman who reads those classics that have made a huge impact on literature. And I think it’s also important to use the gifts our grandmothers get us.

6.) Get in better shape – I have become very involved with the Dance department here at college and I have been seriously thinking (I should be praying too, but I haven’t found the time to remember to do so.) about being a double major of Dance and Acting. I feel that for musical theatre this would be great! Also, I went to middle school and high school in an extremely affluent society and in case you haven’t interacted a lot with white rich people, white rich people put their kids in ballet at five years old. So when I went to middle/high school I would always feel so much desire and jealousy to be as a good as dancers as those girls but feeling like I would start too late to get any where. However, I have learned so much about dancers who started late in life and how successful they have become. So this new sidebar to the original dream is really becoming real in my head. But I need to be in better shape. This desire to be fit is really about something more than looking good. I have prepared a lot. I have made my pinterest board. I have been trying to stock my apartment with more vegetables. I have even gotten some… well… diet pills. Dr. Oz says they are completely safe. I am taking green coffee extract and garcinia cambogia pills together and I think the are working. Also, using a lot of cocunut oil in my diet. I am going to go to my doctor or someone on campus for fitness help to ask what is the best way to measure improvements in health and fitness.

7.) Start playing the guitar- I got a guitar when I was 16, thinking I would be the next Joan Jett. Didn’t really stick to it like I would so now I have a guitar I don’t really use. Changing this now.

Dude…. this is such a long post. I’ll pick up the speed.

8.) Regular community service- It’s really important to me at this point in my life to give back more. I felt like in high school I was much more involved in community service  and I really miss that.

9.) Belly Button Piercing – I secretly/not so secretly want to Britney Spears still to this day and Britney without the piercing is like a ice sundae without cherry, it’s not as sexy.

10.) Tattoo- This is not officially on the list. It will be added maybe, but it’s a very strong maybe. I have wanted one for while and I feel that I have the perfect concept. It’s my own twist on a Bible verse (you know, no big deal, just rewriting the Bible).When learning about Joseph in Genesis for the first time in Winter Camp, one of the verses that sucks out to me was when Joseph’s said “Here comes the dreamer.” I felt like the way his brothers looked at him was how so many people look at me. So I thought that would be a great idea for a tattoo. I though hmm…. where would you put that? Then I thought the back of the neck. But the back of the neck saying “here comes”? Then I thought what if I changed it to “There goes the dreamer.” That way when people see me walk away, they see the tattoo saying that I am moving forward constantly and see me as my dreams propel me to my future.It’s God and my dreams in one! Don’t get much better <3

This list I think I will have finalized next week and I will talk about my progress in this list in my next blog post on Sunday.  And I hope you guys walk with me in this mission to become the people we want to be by being proactive and not waiting for life to happen, but making life happen.

If you guys have any thoughts about thing I could do for my list or any insight, then please right down in comments

Love,

Breanna