2008 in review

Seeing how the New Year is HOURS away I figured I would get 1 more blog in!

These were my resolutions for 2008. I havehighlighted the ones in red I did NOT accomplish.
I highlighted the yellow ones I actually DID.


-Sell more cars than last year (providing I still work for Murdock)
I sold less cars this year but actually made more money so we will count this on!

-Do more camping. snowboarding, skiing, outdoor activities than last year
Did more than last year! Wahoo!

-Go to Disneyland
I HAVE NOT BEEN IN OVER 10 YEARS!!!

-Get paid for acting
Although I personally did not receive any of the money it did go towards the group I was performing for so gosh dern it I am counting it!

-Attend BYU games (football and basketball)
*BUZZ* Didn’t go to a single game!

-Send birthday cards to each family member
*DOUBLE BUZZ* Slacked on this one.

-Read minimum of 1 new book a month
Although I DID read quite a bit I don’t think I read even 10 books.

-Get a pet
Danny got a pet puppy and I help take care of him. Oh, and I have two dwarf hamsters!

-Visit my brother Dean in Texas
Never got around to this.

-Help my sister out each month financially
I gave her some money at Christmas but that’s about it.

-Go to the Nickelcade more
Oh, I wish I had done this!

-Consistent exercise
I for sure exercised but was NOT consistent.

-Contribute the maximum amount allowed in my Roth IRA ($4000)
I did put money into retirement but that was my 401k. I neglected my Fidelity Roth

-Go fishin'
So glad I did this! Got my boat out on the water half a dozen times!

-Decide what I am doing with school
I am back full time at SLCC and will have my associates about half way through the year!

-Temple attendance once a month
This is a major one I slacked on! I need a Temple buddy!

So, as you can see I only accomplished 31% of my set goals and did a little bit of the others.
I am DETERMINED to have a better year end result next year!

One of my favorite music artists Jamie Cullum talks about New Years nicely! Happy New Years everybody! I hope you get kissed!

Clutter clean-up comes to a SCREEEECHING HALT!

I have been living in this amazing town home in Centerville since May of '08 and I have absolutely loved it! It's been my favorite place to live yet! Because I was the one who found the place I had first choice of the bedrooms. I am on the ground level with in the master bedroom with my own walk in bathroom/closet. I have painted nearly every room in the lower level of the house.
The only thing that has been bothering me as of late is how cluttered my room is. I am a pack rat. Always have been. It is very hard for me to throw things away. I have stacks of unmarked cd's, unlabeled cassette and video tapes, old birthday cards, some clothes I have had since '97, and much more.
Well, I decided to start somewhere! I started going through all my boxes and have thrown away a good majority of crap. What I have mainly done is condensed my stuff. What I had in 7 boxes I now have in 7 bins. My cd's I started going through and labeling. I must have had 300 cd's that had no label. So I started uploading old music, pictures, and programs that I had forgot about. This took me about three evenings to get through. I came across one cd that said Freddy's files and so I opened it up and came across a bunch of pictures I had deleted off of my old computer of an old girlfriend. You may remember me getting pretty serious with a girl who lived in Sweden. We dated for little over a year and I really thought she was the one. A good majority of our relationship was through email and msn chat. During this time I had saved every online conversation, music exchanged, and picture sent. this is a girl who has since moved and been married for over a year now. I have been over her and accepted everything with it not working out but when I started reading some of the conversations we had and I browsed through some pictures all the emotions came right back. I was really in love with girl and we were so close. My heart dropped and my head began to ache. Of course the organizing of my things stopped and I just sat there in a stupor for who knows how long.

This isn't a woe is me post. Not in the slightest. In fact, I thing this is more a GO IS ME post! To summarize what I did after my moping and whining about an ex, I got rid of the cd (without uploading the files) and threw out a bunch more crap. It's like I have done an inner cleansing of my life now that my room is a lot less cluttered. It's true I have yet to throw away my shirts from '97 but I am one step closer to! I even put new satin sheets on my bed! They are red. They make me feel like Hue Hefner. They go great with my brand new down pillows my mother gave me for Christmas!

Best Christmas Ever!

Twas the night before Christmas at my sister Cc's house,
all the creatures were still stirring, especially the little mouse.
We wore our pj's, fuzzy slippers, and ate Greg's delicious dinner,
I think I over ate....so much for getting thinner.
We put the kids to bed and the puppies out so they could pee,
and cleared some spots for presents under the tree.
Then we ate beef stick and crackers and cheese ball,
while we finished wrapping presents from Santa, both little and small.
"Why do we always wrap until 3am the night before?" asked my bro-in-law Greg,
my sisters Georgia let out a sigh as she rested her swollen hands on her leg.
Cc then burst out "It will all be worth it in the morning when the kids eyes are bright,
of course I will be too tired to play with them cause I rarely sleep much at night." We built a dollhouse, made bean bags, and topped them with bows,
I told everyone this was fun to do while outside it snows.
The morning came quick and we got little rest,
We figured we'd put the Christmas spirit to test.
The kiddies tore into their presents with furious greed,
shredding through bows, bags, and boxes at such great speed!
They got helicopters, sweatshirts, doll houses, and toy bugs,
Georgia gave me hot chocolate and to go with it two mugs.

Yes, Christmas morning came and went quick,
we then became lazy and turned on a flick.
"Gotta get ready to go to Bompy's" someone shouted "for Big Mont will be there."
"Oh yeah!" said Garrett and then spiked up his hair.
We cruised down to Bompy's and had lots of amazing food,
with family around we all got into the Christmas mood.
We laughed, joked,
and talked to relatives on the phone,
we talked about our bumpers and tooting and Bompy gave out a groan.

The hour soon came where those who came had to go,
"Thanks for coming" said Bompy "drive safe in the snow."
Before everyone left Big Mont sang an old song,
about an old rooster, it wasn't very long.
Dominique wrote the words and we all sang the chorus,
he prepared it for the freak show and planned to sing it for us.

It was the Best Christmas ever at least till next year,
so everyone have a fantastic New Year!

Funny puppy and a cheeseball

My roommate Danny James surprised us one day by bringing home a dog. The night before he and I both talked about wanting one and then the next day I came home to Toby the beagle. He is a cute little pup of 10 months with a wet nose and a rambunctious attitude. I am not too ecstatic about having a dog at the moment because I worry whether or not he will be taken care of properly. For now he is being cared for solely by Danny but that is cause Danny is currently unemployed and looking but as soon as he is employed again the doggy will be all alone most of the day and that just saddens me. He already is alone most of the day and he does still occasionally go potty in the house even though I know Danny hides it from me. *sigh*
The OTHER reason I am not too thrilled about having him is cause we have him there without our landlords consent! Because my name is on the lease and no one else is I am responsible. At the beginning of the year I am going to look into it and find out what the fee is for having a doggy. I can't just keep it from my landlord. Bad bad bad.
Anyway, the dog is cute. I play with him for hours (when I have the hours to spare) and he loved me. He does a really funny deer in the headlights head turn when he hears funny sounds. As he sat in the hall I played my harmonica and he turned his head almost completely around!

Cause today is the 23rd of December and I will not be here tomorrow for Murdock Chevrolet's Christmas Eve lunch (I am taking tomorrow off and half day Friday for Christmas) I bought a cheese ball and Beef Stick and I have it on my desk. Sarah Allen and I were talking about the yumminess of Christmas and I just had to splurge a bit on some festive snacks! So delicious!
I will be leaving work a little early today cause it is time I do my tradition last minute Christmas shopping!! READY?!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! BUY! BUY!BUY! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!

Three Christmas parties, two lovely ladies, and one home-made Christmas sweater!

I love the Christmas Season! Now that my shows are over and done with I can get to the Holiday! I must say that this is turning out to be one of the best Christmas' ever! I am so very thankful for the wonderful family and friends I have been blessed with. I would be lost without these special people in my life! Thank you!

On Friday the 19th I went to a friend pot-luck dinner at Sonia and Shelby Maughan's house. The food was fantastic and the company was amazing! Some of these people I had not seen for nearly a year! We told stories and updated each other on our lives with work and school and married life and had delicious yummy hot chocolate!
My roommate Danny James and I decided to add spice to the party and dress alike with similar scarfs and festive sweaters. We Zoolandered it up afterward. I love Christmas time where you can wear festive clothing and bundle up with warm scarfs.




On the 20th of December, a Saturday night, it was the Traditional Lee and Garrison Family Freak Show! My Aunt Sandra organized it this year and we did it on a Saturday night. Not all the family could be there. Many were missed. :( We made due with the FrEaKs we had though.This year we had it at my mothers home. It was great to see all the little kiddies and extended fam!
My date this year was a dear friend of mine Samantha. She is pretty much the most adorable thing you will ever meet! She even got up and sang!
She was a great sport for coming along and participating even! She was warned before she came how freaky-weird we get. Randy of course got up and did his usual Winter Wonderland and Funny Farm. I got to be the tambourine this year! Yay!

I really wanted to put together a GOOD talent this year but of course I slacked off and DIDN'T! DOH! So day of the party I text CC and convinced her to do a Riverdance with me! We threw it together in like 1 minute but I think it was one of the highlights and got some of the best laughs! Oh, and we roped Bradford into doing it too. I vow to have a better talent next year!






On Sunday the 21st it was time for our "Special Needs Party", named after the "Ding, fries are done guy" that is famous on youtube. Some of these friends are from back in Jr. High and High School and I met many new faces. This years theme was awful Christmas Sweaters! I put mine together from odds and ends I found from DI, Joannes Fabric and my mothers home. I used a Yellow Sweater and used glitter glue to design a Christmas tree and I hot glued holly berries, Christmas presents, candy canes, and my personal favorite, a huge snowman corsage! There was some pretty stiff competition and some crazy sweaters but I took the door prize of $59 dollars!Wahoo! It was great fun! It's great to catch up with old friends. Oh, and mistletoe was passed around a lot if ya know what I mean! ;) ;) Jot some more kisses down for Fred this year! Woot woot!I think one of the best parts about the party was Kita, Melinda's kitty. The kitty was FORCED to participate in the sweater competition and she was NOT happy about that.





How funny is this picture?



We did the all tradition white elephant gifts and I came home with a singing bass. One word: AWESOME!
The night would not be complete without Fred being caught on camera between two beautiful ladies. Oh, how how I love Christmas! Merry Christmas to me!
Once again I want to tell everyone in my life how much I love them and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and an even Happier New Year!

A snowy Saturday at work, a re-arranged bedroom, Christmas break, school,and a closing night.

I guess I didn't ramble enough in my last blog so I feel the need to continue in today's blog. You could say it's cause I don't want to work today or that I think the car dealership I work for today will get little to no business because of the snow storm that is supposed to cover the state. Whatever the reason, I am glad to blog again. I get a sense of satisfaction by putting the crap that goes on in my head in writing for the world to read.

SO, I have not been very happy with my room layout. Whenever I am going through some crap with girls I am dating or I am feeling the need for a bit of change I re-arrange! Ha! That rhymed! I put up some old pictures, threw my books up on an old bookshelf that my roommate Michael Dubois gave me, and moved my computer and bed to their new spots. I even put up some new earth tone curtains that I think go very nicely in my room. My room is STILL in shambles with laundry on the floor and half empty boxes with their clutter strewn about my room, but other than that I am happy with the change!I even have Christmas decorations! Well, one little one.....it's a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!

Let's see, the Christmas break is here! I finished my first semester back in school in over 5 years. It was pretty easy actually. I remember something my mother has always said to me: "Just do the assignments and turn them in on time and you will automatically get a B". I did just that and guess what? I got B's! B's are fine by me. This next semester I am going to be taking on a bigger load. All I really have left is English and Math *shudder*. I took the pre-test that determines which class you are in and I pretty much screwed myself in Math. I have not taken a math class since High School. I am back in pre-algebra.......I am doing everything I can to brush up on my math so that I can take the 1010 instead. I can re-take the test up to 3 times so I am on the quest for a math tutor. Anyone want to offer? I have until the beginning of the year to take it again.

Tonight I close Plaid Tidings in Midvale. I have been playing the part of Frankie (who I am type cast for I believe). It has been a fun show to do. I don't think the writing is near as good as the first show but it has been fun to work under Suzanne Walker again and all my friends. Here is a picture of us that was featured in the paper. (in order) Wade Walker plays Jinx, Bruce Craven as Smudge, Steve Duke as Sparky, and Freddy Lee as Frankie.
I think this show will be the last one I do for a few months. I ALWAYS say that. Hahaha. We'll see what I get sucked into next!

I plan on blogging more about my current situation with dating but it may take a bit of time to gather my thought.....just like the time I said I needed to gather my thoughts on the Prop 8 controversy back in Nov. :) Until then I feel the need to share this youtube video I found quite amusing.

Take a deep breath........now GO!

Okay so I have kept myself UBER busy (yes I used the word uber) and prefer life to be that way.

So that all of you can feel a part of my life I will do a summation of events I have participated in over the few past months!

Starting from..................hmmmm lets see....The summer! Please bare with me whilst I word vomit in this blog. I am going to try and do this in one continuous sentence!

GO!

Okay so I got asked to audition for The Sound of Music by my dear friend Karen and I had always wanted to play the part of Rolf and that is what I got cast for and I made a bunch of good friends in the show and I also got to play opposite of Maren Abercrombie who I absolutely love by the way and she played Liesl......but I am not even sure if that is how you spell that name but anyway during the show I also got to know Ann Marshall and her and I started dating but then she dropped a bomb on me and told me that she was going away to Houston to finish up school in a few weeks but that's another story so I won't say much about that but I may address it later if I don't run out of breath from telling this story about my summer and the delightful friends I met and got to know but anyway I was talking about The Sound of Music it was a fun show and right after that I went into rehearsals for Pirated at Rodgers Memorial written and directed by Jim Christian who is a man I would work with again in a HEARTBEAT!!! Oops...I just completed a sentence....sorta.....Anywho......no breath no breath........I grew a really creepy mustache for the show and I felt like a pedophile by having one. Oh well. I made many more friends and developed a crush on a cute girl in the cast (her name will not be revealed because I still am back and forth with her currently AND I am not too sure how things will end....I am fairly confident that they will end though....hmmm)While I was doing Pirated I also enrolled myself back into school at SLCC taking two online classes and one on campus. I finally had decided to get my butt back into gear and get my degree so I just have it. It's true I have put it off longer than I should but I have enjoyed life in the meantime. :D Once Pirated ended I started my next project which was Takito (see blog below). After that I thought I would have some time off but then I got asked to be in Little Shop (also refer to previous blog) and I made some incredible friends from that! A shout of go to Melinda Patterson and Alisha Williams! I was then called by a lady named Donna Johnson (friends with Karen who directed Sound of Music) and I was asked to play Fairfaxx and Leonard in an in concert version of Gilbert and Sullivans Yoeman to the Guard. We would rehearse twice a week for two weeks and then perform. I had also received an email from Suzanne Walker (a previous director of mine) about doing Plaid Tidings in Midvale. AND one of my favorite people of all time, and youtube riusing star Deena Marie asked me to help film Twilight High School Musical! Eek! With the holiday season upon us and me ALREADY working 40+ hours a week at Murdock Chevrolet and trying to stay on top of school I stressfully and willingly accepted it all. I was so ecstatic to be taking on so much that I felt I could do almost anything!!! That is right about the time when I blogged about wanting to go to Broadway to try it out for a time being. :) Now, here comes the twist. The girl from Pirated then started pursuing me a bit more and I started spending my weekends and weeknights with her. Everything I had taken on started taking the backseat to her. I didn't finish assignments, I didn't focus on lines, I didn't have music prepared, I text her all day instead of working, I stayed up way too late, and I was falling for her. Well, I got my head out of my butt and started re-focusing. This has all been within the last two weeks. To make a long story even longer, Little Shop turned out great, Yoeman turned out great as well, I opened Plaid Tidings (sick, but that's okay), and I passed all my finals with B's and better! Oh oh oh and I started filming another movie called Rambow. Good times. Things are still in the air with this girl I am sorta seeing so that is the only part of my life that I don't feel I have control over.

Whew. There. I feel good. I am ready to do it all over again! I am going to sign up for more classes at SLCC and keep my options open for upcoming auditions for movies and plays.

What do you think? Any comments on my hectic crazy life?

Here is a quick clip of the movie Rambow I am in.