It's A Wonderful Life

My life, let me tell ya.
I feel like I've put some parts of me on the back burner and some parts have exploded into every part of my life. Like writing (and this blog) has not been on my mind. I haven't had the urge to write anything in about 6 months. That's weird for me. But then music, which has always been a big part of my life, was diminished during college to make room for English and Humanities. I think I also felt self-conscious being a musician at the (in?)famous BYU music program. EVERYONE was musical. But now that I'm back in Oregon, I find myself doing music every day, again, and it consumes me. When I used to think about things to write about, now I think about what song I am working on, or what my student needs in order to keep their fingers curved.
Funny how life works, huh?

These are the reasons why I haven't blogged in an embarrassingly long time. I'm forcing myself to catch you up on the important things today. Hello, writing. It feels good to be back.

First of all, one musical thing in particular that consumed my time and practice hours was the Lake Oswego LDS Stake Musical that went from September to November. We performed "It's A Wonderful Life," musical edition. I was one of the piano players for the rehearsals and performances. It was a blast! [I tried to give photo credit where it's due. I hope I didn't mix anyone up!]

That's me by the harp in our tiny, squished orch pit. It was a party every day, which usually involved cookies.

c/o Brittany Bigelow

Cecily and I

c/o Cathrine Martell

The musicians. All of us crammed into this little tiny space.

c/o Cathrine

c/o Cathrine

The leads, "Mary" and "George" (The Thompsons-they are awesome)

c/o Cathrine

Then we had the cast party closing night, of course.

c/o McKenna Fox

c/o Brooke Jeppson

But the crazy party came when Scott Thompson put on some jams and we had a dance party after the cast party. A post party dance party, if you will. (photos c/o Brooke)

shreddin

And since we are musicians, we sang at the top of our lungs.

But the important part of this musical was the fact that a few different photographers captured the many concentration faces of Michelle. This face just happens to be at it's finest when I'm playing piano.

"The Lip Bite" aka "Turtle Turtle"

(photo c/o Brooke Jeppson)

"The Scowl" aka "I Hate Life" (I really do love playing piano. It just sometimes looks like I don't)

(photo c/o either Brooke or Cathrine Martell)

"Numb" aka "What I Do When I Realize Someone is Taking a Picture of Me Playing and I Have a Scowl So Look Natural"

(photo c/o McKenna Fox)

It's cool, guys. I'm a professional.