212º - The Extra Degree

Ok, so I was at a meeting this morning, and I came back to my office to find a book sitting on my desk. The book was entitled 212º the extra degree.

So I opened it up and the preface reads:

ONE DEGREE
"Applying one extra degree of temperature to water means the difference between something that is simply very hot and something that generates enough force to power a machine - a beautifully uncomplicated metaphor that ideally should feed our every endeavor - consistently pushing us to make the extra effort in every task, action and effort we undertake...."

I started reading all of the simple suggestions that help in general life...or even as specifically as if you were a Baseball Coach. It's amazing the little things you can do...the extra degree that you add...and how that truly can affect things. My favorite one so far (there is much more to read) is:

212 commitment
Put a smile in the path of complain...once daily.
Cease to complain.

I work in an environment where there is always just so much negativity and it is exhausting. I work with some people who tend to complain about EVERYTHING...but if I help set the standard and not complain at least once a day, that is 365 seeds of negativity that I eliminate :) Here's to hoping it works.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas!

This week, while I am off from the show for a few days, I decided to get my Christmas Lights and Decorations up. It's been fun especially being in the new house and wanting it to look all pretty and festive. So as I decorated outside, Bailey watched me from behind the glass door. I tried letting her stay outside with me but she kept chasing after anyone who walked by. She gets sooo excited when she sees people. :) 

           

I still want to add more to what I've done. It's funny, you think you are done and then once you see it you want to add more garland "here" or some lights "there"...it's  a work in progress. But considering that I didn't decorate an OUNCE last year at my old house, I wanted to be sure to get more in the spirit this year. I also want to go see and do more festive activities like going to see Holiday Concerts or Shows, Christmas Lights, Christmas Caroling/Parties, etc. Today I downloaded 3 Christmas Albums to add to my iTunes library. This is going to be the best Christmas ever!!

T

Thankful for my Family!

So i absolutely LOVE getting together with my family. There has not been one time when we get together and we don't laugh so hard that our abs hurt.

My Mom made the most delicious dinner ever complete with, Stuffing, Collared Greens, and of course the infamous Turkey. The first huge laugh of the evening came from this story:

We ALWAYS have either a Lemon Merenge Pie or at least a Lemon Cake for our major family holiday functions, usually all those gatherings in between as well. Well, my brother Chad and I discovered that there was NO LEMON PIE!! Now, I don't like pie, but he craves for that pie. My dad's excuse was that mom had gotten up too early to start the Turkey and it was in the oven all day so there was no time. I thought, "Well, at least there is a Lemon cake!" We got to joking about there not being any Lemon Pie and how Thanksgiving was ruined, and my niece Kaley revealed accidentally that the cake that was sitting downstairs was NOT a Lemon Cake. My mom immediately made the face at her like "NO!! Don't tell!" We FREAKED OUT!!!! NO LEMON CAKE!?!?!? WHAT!??!? And Mom tried to hide it...she thought she could hold it off until we went to go cut the cake. WTF!?! haha My dad was so shocked too...he had the most disgusted face ever and all the sudden he yells out "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU MAKE!?" haha Funniest thing ever.

Naomi was out at the store getting some last minute items, so Chad immediately called her and told her to get all the ingredients to make a Cake and Pie! She saved Thanksgiving because he and I almost left.

Anyway, we finalized all the dinner items and began to eat together downstairs. We started talking about the movie "Twilight" and how they all wanted to go see it (again!) Yeah, with the exception of my mother the girls of the family had all seen it at least 2 times already. I was strongly AGAINST going to see it after all I've heard of it's cheesiness. I tried getting them to go see the new 007 movie, but to no avail. So we didn't end up going to see a movie at all. Instead we ended up watching a bunch of movie trailers online haha then we played games.

This year we decided to draw names for Christmas presents. I think it will be fun and different, and EASIER on each of us. Especially with the tough times lately. We decided to not discuss who we drew and keep it a surprise. We'll create a master Christmas Wish list so people can find out what others want for Christmas.

Hope everyone had a tasty and fun Thanksgiving!!

-T

MTV Cribs: Rose Park Edition

Ok, so I realized that I've been living in my new house in Rose Park and have not even shared pics and details about it with you. So here you are. It's an awesome house in a cute neighborhood. I have an awesome roommate, Ashley, and Bailey is absolutely in love with the house AND Ashley. We have two sets of families that we are already good friends with that lived there before we moved in, so it's been nice knowing people in the neighborhood and having decent neighbors, unlike having Madge as a neighbor.

This is the Outside of the house!

Here is Bailey posing outside the new house...her right side is apparently the better side.

I'm in love with the nice open Kitchen...and the recessed lighting hehe. 

Kitchen view - Part 2 (Behind where I'm standing is the Living Room. I didn't get a picture for some reason, but I will...trust me it's nice)

Here is my nice Bathroom...I found that super cool shower curtain at...WAL MART! Crazy huh?

 

My Room with a nice big Walk in Closet. I went from having like 3' closet space, to pretty much a second bedroom haha.

76 Trombones!

Oh wow, gee golly, it has apparently been too log since my last post. I apologize to you all for the suspense on what has been happening in my life. It's been a busy few months for me.

As you were aware from my last post, I played Dracula in Lagoon's Live Entertainment this year. It was a fun month. I was definitely so happy and excited to not have to wash make up off of my face and out of my hair each night.

At the conclusion of Frightmares, I jumped right into rehearsals for "The Music Man" that is now playing at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City. I'm the Music Director and Conducting the orchestra for the show. It's fun times. We had our opening night last Friday, the 21st. It was a good opening weekend. Please come see it and tell others to as well. It's a cute family show. We play Thursday - Sunday (except Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had our 2nd Annual Thanksigiving at Sunset yesterday. SOO fun! (Seth and Aaron's house is on Sunset). It was fun to hang out with all our very dear friends and eat really yummy food and drink 40 bottles of wine...seriously! It was fun to go around the table, read the quote that was under each of our plates, and say what we are thankful for. I was thankful that God has given me yet another year to live and be with the people I love so much.

Until we meet again...

T

A Conspiracy Theory on Rush Hour!

I've come to the conclusion that rush hour is a nightmare and a total conspiracy! Seriously, when you think about it....where does Rush Hour start?! It's probably someone's job twice a day to go out and and put some congestion on the free way, and then when they play it on the news, it's totally entertaining seeing people parked on the freeway stuck in the heat on their motorcycles....DUMB!

Well, today I was stuck in Rush Hour on my way to complete my 5th year of lame, boring, and useless orientation at Lagoon. That's right, it's time for another exciting performing season at Lagoon for this years' Frightmares season. I am returning as Dracula...excuse me "BLACKula!" Should be pretty fun and my cast is amazing. But then there are days like today when you have to sit through and hour and a half of Orientation on Sexual Harassment and Work Safety. The videos are completely outdated and from...what the 60's? And of course the acting is cheesy! In one sexual harassment scene, Bobby is wiping down the picnic tables and his supervisor sally comes up and says, "Hey! You should wipe me down next!" LAME! haha I keep hoping that every year when I return it will be a new and exciting video...nope...same old boring video.

But be sure to come see my show, especially if you are Lagoon this fall. I'm in the MONSTER CLASSICS show and it's a good one.

Pei Wei vs. PF Changs

So my assistant and I have pretty much a daily tradition of going somewhere to eat for lunch. We are deathly afraid of the food in the hotel cafeteria (a.k.a. the Salt Cellar) so we find ourselves becoming poor by eating out. Today I was pretty set on grabbing a good old fashioned hot dog at the corner hot dog stand. I love it seriously...it's so yummy and costs like $3 for a couple hot dogs, chips and a soda. PERFECT! Well, of course Jessica had to come up with a better plan of going to Pei Wei for lunch.

The plan was, she was going to go cut our co-worker Scott's hair during lunch at his place and then bring Pei Wei back to the office for us. I couldn't wait. I tried to think of a way to justify still going over to the corner stand and having a couple of hot dogs before she got back, but then I'd just be a pig.

It seemed like she was gone FOREVER!!! Oh wait...she was. My stomach was gurgling. What's even worse was when she finally got back, I was stuck on the phone with a client for 30 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could smell the food from my own office and I was dying. In my head I was thinking. "What is the easiest way of ending this conversation so I can go eat...." I hung up the phone and went into the conference room to eat...I noticed they had brought back literally like 40 fortune cookies and left me 2 soy sauce packets...real nice!

Jessica seems to think that Pei Wei is better than PF Changs. I can't help but completely disagree!! Pei Wei is great, but there is soemthing so tastefully special about PF Changs. Maybe it's the fact that I eat there EVERY year on my birthday. DUH...it's just soooooo good. Jessica doesn't know what she is talking about....Hmmm....what do you think?