mhm

times are far too complicated these days.

be bold. be daring. be confident. 

favorite little brother {reaux bear}

Isn't my little brother just the cutest? 

facebook rehab

I'm ridiculous.

On this day, August 2, 2012, I deactivated my facebook. It isn't forever, but it's definitely for a little while. I needed a break. I am too dependent on it and need a little bit of a challenge anyway. Facebook has become more than addiction, it's become a dictator in my world. It's almost as if I've become it's slave without even knowing it. 

I once heard that if you put a frog into boiling hot water, he'll jump out immediately. However, if you put him in before it's hot and then slowly heat it to a boil, he'll stay in and end up dying from the heat. I think that it isn't too far off to compare facebook (or anything that gets in the way with our lives) to this. At first I didn't waste vast amounts of time on it. I barely used it. Then it slowly slowly slowly became a huge problem. and that's where I'm at today.

 I realized it was getting in the way of real life since I checked it at least 20 times a day. (only exaggerating a little there, it's bad). That's just pitiful dear readers, I know. I have too many distractions in my life and need to make room for some silence anyway. I'm ready to make peace with the present moment and open myself to new experiences. Dramatic, for sure, but it really has become a problem. So I'm acknowledging this and taking the steps to cure this unnecessary reliance to technology. When I finally did the deed I felt such inner peace. like crazy peace. peace that beauty queens everywhere seek for the world. More than just logging out, I was completely unconnected. I felt free, I felt like a modern day henry david thoreau, and more than anything I felt like a champ.

call me crazy, but I just don't want to waste all that time anymore. 

So I bid you adieu Facebook, I'll be back eventually

but for now, dearest friends, you'll just have to call me, beep me if ya wanna reach me

-kp  

the day I tried out for american idol

My family and I started watching American Idol when my mom went on bed rest before having my sweet youngest sister, ella. (She was on bed rest for like 4 months...late in life child probs...). It was one of the only family activities we could do since mom was bedridden. That season of American Idol, season 7, was when I decided to add "trying out for american idol" to my bucket list. I've always been a lofty dreamer. I never thought it'd actually happen, but I put it on there anyway. I mean how cool would that be??

So of course when my friend Kelsie found out that idol was coming to New Orleans, she said she would make me try out. I complacently agreed but still thought it'd actually never happen. 

We found ourselves travelling to New Orleans about a month later. After getting the arm bands and tickets, all of a sudden it hit me... it was really happening. We kept having bursts of excitement just thinking about it.

the next night we got a hotel and went out to eat on bourbon street. It was (handsdown) the BEST food I've ever eaten. shrimp, grits, fried green tomatoes. pulling out allll the stops

As we were coming back into the hotel, a man on the elevator asked about my red armband. So I reluctantly  told him I was trying out for American Idol. I knew what was coming next...  he asked me to sing for him. Figuring it'd be good practice for the next day, I agreed. After singing the first verse and chorus to "don't know why" by norah jones, he asked for my name and gave me his card (he was a lutheran reverend) and excitedly left thinking he'd met the next american idol. He promised prayers coming my way and I was grateful for having run into him. I mean hey, we can never have too many prayers!

After being giddy with excitement after getting my first fan (besides kelsie, katelyn, amy, blair, and our families of course) we fell asleep. but not for long. we woke up at approximately 3:45 AM and got ready to go. After getting in line at the crack of dawn, we waited. and waited. and waited.

 I overheard one woman on the phone saying "there has to be at least a million people here"... but I'm pretty sure there was only somewhere barely north of a thousand. It's amazing what camera angles can do. Seeing the real life event and the TV version of the same event really opened my eyes to show biz. We were informed when to scream/cheer/dance, and people were kicked out the crowd if they weren't enthusiastic enough. The whole time I was thinking, if people don't wanna cheer for Ryan Seacrest, he just must not be that cool... why do we have to be told to get excited? (sidenote-- ryan seacrest really is a tiny man, but he seems pretty nice). It was sort of like finding out your childhood hero was just a fictional character. Sort of a letdown.

so close I could touch him... by the way that is a very short woman

The strange people there almost made up for this let down though. Dearest readers, I could tell you about all of the crazies I saw at such a place, but I'm afraid I don't have all the time in the world. Such a strange group of people there (I guess I'm included in that group...) But I must tell you of a few of the notable characters.
However before I begin to try describing these interesting people, I must first describe the typical person at the tryout. Almost every person there had traveled far to finally fulfill their destiny and hit the stardom they were certainly born for. You could have talked to pretty much anyone there and been convinced you'd met the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL! this was serious business, people. And if you had the opportunity to talk to their fans (mom? dad?), you'd most certainly know just how talented that person was.

Too cool for school. The first odd bird we encountered was a super cool guy. he was wearing sunglasses at 5 am. The sun wasn't out yet, but it'd be far too mainstream to not wear his sunglasses right? hmmmm. Him and his male companion were playing guitar and sitting indian style in the middle of the crowd. If you had looked at them, you would have thought they were jamming loudly, but you couldn't even hear them at all. Maybe singing loudly was far too mainstream as well. who knows.
Sargent Loudmouth. The next source of entertainment (or frustration) came from an obnoxious man dressed in an army uniform. Contrary to what you see on tv, the crowd outside of american idol is actually  very quiet (besides the low hum of people practicing their songs). But this guy was nothing but quiet, he yelled and put in his two sense for everything. Definitely memorable. especially at such an early hour.
Voodoo Woman. As we were walking into the New Orleans arena (finally!!) I heard a daaaa da da daaa da da daaa coming from what sounded like a tribal drum. Sure enough, right in the middle of the crowd was a woman dressed in strange clothes wearing a big headdress. She was surrounded by her band of drummers and had a huge snake (not the friendly kind..) and was dancing with the snake. This might have been one of the strangest things I've seen in a while. However, I definitely didn't want to let on to that for fear of being put under some sort of voodoo spell.
Don't Forget the lyrics. This one poor guy completely forgot the words to his song. He was completely awkward and shy, and I can just see someone telling him he was a good singer for the sole purpose of humiliating him. However, he believed it, and he was there trying out his luck on idol. The judges sent him through for the cruel purpose of making fun of him. this just hurt my heart.
Shake your booty gurl. This girl was not afraid to shake what her momma gave her. She proudly danced her little heart out and shook what she owned basically in the faces of the judges. Of course she made it through as well
Tiger man. This man's whole face was a tiger. he even had pointed ears and whiskers and such. 'nuff said.
The next destiny's child. I encountered this particular group of girls right before I was called up to sing. The only reason I noticed them was because they let me go ahead of them, just so they could be together in line. It was interesting though because they had all just met each other that morning, but they were now all bff's. They all sang songs with lots of emotion and lots of ooooOOOoooOOOohhhh yeaaaaahhhhh's while the other three swayed in the background. When they all four got denied, they huddled together for support and stood strong as they saw their dreams fade away. At least they had each other, right?

me and the twins awaiting tryouts

When it was finally my turn to get called up to the judges, I tried my hardest to make eye contact and work some charm on them. I had been listening to the other singers all morning, I couldn't hold a candle to many of them so I knew I had to bank on my personality. After singing, they told me "Not this year, but keep singing cause you have a unique voice. You just need to practice singing in front of people" Which makes sense... since i've actually never really done that. (unless you count family jam sessions?)
I walked away smiling. I did so partly because I had a peaceful feeling of accomplishment (I had just crossed off a major item off my bucket list!!) but also because the camera man was filming me and I wanted to be shown on TV as the "Well many dreams were made today here at American Idol, but many weren't so lucky que dramatic music" part of the show. my fifteen seconds of fame!!! or less... hey it's better than none.
But anyway, I was smiling not only because I had just done a pretty courageous thing that I've wanted to do for a while, but I also had a ton of fun.
At the beginning of the day Ryan Seacret told us, "there are no losers in idol". I believe this is true not only for idol but for life. While there were certainly a large number of weirdos (including myself) in that crowd, everyone has something to bring to the table. As my friend says all the time, "There's something beautiful about every single person." Cheesy, but definitely true. And I have to say a whole arena filled with courageous people taking a chance on their dreams is not only entertaining (as seen above), but it's actually pretty beautiful.
I'm so thankful my friends pushed me to try out. hey I might have met THE NEXT {dramatic pause}AMERICAN IDOL
fingers crossed

being content in not knowing

funny how we all have a plan for our lives, even as young children

So much of life is an unknown. Right now in my life I feel like the fact that there are unknowns is much more concrete than anything that is actually known. (if that even makes sense) This is invigorating but at times can also come as a struggle. Where am I going with my life? What is God's will for me? 

I wouldn't bet your bottom dollar on solid answers to those questions dear readers, simply because they don't exist yet. That's the thing about unknowns. It's the split moment before the pitcher releases that baseball and you can feel the potential at its peak. It's that time when there are more possibilities than you can count. Literally anything can happen. But if you get excited and swing at just any ball that comes your way, you risk ruining that very potential, wasting it. On the other hand, if you wait out too long, you'll just miss out on every single possibility given to you. So now, will we settle for what is convenient? for what is right now? or will we hold out, endure a little suffering on the front end and break into that untapped potential of our unknowns? I think it's ultimately about trusting God's timing, and not our own. This, dear readers, is why I am content with the unknowns for now at least. Maybe God doesn't want us to know right now, I guess that's what faith is. that's pretty hard. really hard.

God probably looks down on me (and all of humanity) and just shakes his head and thinks goodness, why does it take them so long to figure these things out? don't they know I've got it under control!? 

we are such a foolish species. and to think of all the people that said this exact same thing countless times before me. 

sometimes, it amazes me to think about just how small we actually are.

that's exactly why we've just got to let go and trust the man with the plan

bear with these thoughts for a moment

Today was stressful. I've been working on the website for the company and nothing seemed to go right. Then we got bunches of mail to sort through, the scanner wouldn't work, and the paper kept jamming in the copier. These all seem so small, but combined it just made for one of those days (plus it didn't help that I had a headache). The day continued with regular monotony as I got home and prepared dinner. Later that night Ella came screaming/crying holding her hands out towards me. I cradled her in my arms and tried to comfort her. After she calmed down a bit I asked, "Ella what's bothering you?" In between muffled sobs she finally said "Mommy won't let me play with the ipad"... wait what? This four year old child, my own sister, was violently crying about not being able to play around with an ipad? This just disappoints me and goes further to support the theory of humanity's addiction to technology. It made me contemplate the idea of being content. Ella lacked contentment because she was denied the ipad. While this is common for a four year old to get upset about being denied a toy, it made me think. What does it take to find peace with what we are, what we have, even what we are doing at the present moment? I just don't understand. Where do we find contentment? Why do we feel the need to text while we drive rather than simply be content with driving? Why do we feel the need to be constantly stimulated? Why must there always be action? why can't we find peace with sitting in silence and taking in the present situation just as it is? 

This brings me back to this previous post, and makes me wonder if we will ever simply be content with our lives without all the bells, whistles, thrills, and frills. (bear with me a bit longer dear readers, these thoughts make me go on rants)

Even at lunch today, I experienced something of this sort. I felt ravenous before lunch. I scarfed down my red beans and rice and sausage as soon as I got it. I finished and still felt hungry. I kept eating. But if I had stopped and been content with the serving of red beans and rice, I would have noticed that I actually was not hungry anymore. Maybe this hunger goes deeper, dearest readers. Maybe this hunger is actually an inner calling for us to reach out and find who we were meant to be by alternatively being content with who we are in the moment. 

And I'm afraid I only know one way to satisfy this hunger, this lack of contentment. Scratch that, I'm excited not afraid. Because life is so much more, and when you notice that, there's no way you couldn't be content.

i mean how do we (myself included) not find contentment with this grand adventure we call life??

so dear friends, 

lets challenge each other to satisfy that hunger

and quench the thirst.

flowers and such

We are so lucky for the beauty all around us now. And just think, heaven is so much more beautiful!! I can't even grasp it. Have a wonderful day my friends.

thoughts on social networking and missing out on life

ironically, the first thing I read this morning

Social networking is so senseless. We spend so much time perfecting our image online to make sure we appear exactly how we want others to see us. I've always been a slave to the internet. I can't break this habit and even though I know it leaves me wanting more, feeling hopeless and useless, and makes me constantly compare myself to others, I can't seem to shake it. I wish I had the power to delete my facebook, twitter, blog, pinterest, or instagram. but I can't. It's got a strong hold on me, and I realize this might be holding me back. Isn't it crazy how something that was supposed to push us forward into the age of technology is actually pushing us back. I've felt as though the amount of real moments and meaningful relationships are far less but seem to be far more only because we can tweak exactly how we want to appear. All of this focus on our own image leaves us selfish. Selfishness leaves us empty. When we are empty, we have no love to share with others. This poison is threatening to kill us. It's time to put the phone down, log off of the internet, and tune into our lives. Because death is a little more serious than a crashing computer, and you can't recover your life as you'd recover lost files. I just wish I could tell this to myself.

Ok that rant was a little harsh... but let me explain to you dearest readers why I've attacked this subject with such fire at this particular moment (ironically on a social networking site..). First off, last night before going to sleep I felt so sad. I felt like I fell in a deep pit and that no one liked me. I felt discontent. empty. selfish. not good enough. Gentle tears lulled me to sleep. 

I fell into a deep sleep and had a strange, strange dream. You see, I dreamed that I had fungus growing from my legs, and every time I would break them off, they'd grow back. I read up and studied so I could try to diagnose and cure myself, and when that had no luck, I finally decided to go to the doctor. The doctors of my dream were perplexed by my situation. They told me that these everlasting fungi were either an indication that I had cancer or they were protecting me from getting cancer.  Either killing me or saving me, but they could not tell. I woke up feeling so strange and perplexed. I immediately told my mom, among others about the dream and thought about it all day today. Could this represent a negative energy in my life? a bad habit? Something that I think is good and wonderful in my life but is actually killing me slowly? now that's something to think about, which I did... all day today at work.

ella and I with our magical hats

Then I came home from work and mom and I decided to go shopping with Ella. She wanted to buy absolutely everything in the store. So mom assigned me to distract her from the fluffly pink tiarras and pretty dolls in the toy aisle. We soon made marshall's our jungle, finding magic potions and slaying dragons all while making sure to not wake the chair lions and pillow sharks present in the store. It was absolutely so much fun, and ella enjoyed it so much she forgot about the toys she had thought she couldn't live without only minutes before. People in the store looked at us with wonder at why we were pretending inanimate objects were fully functioning and life-like, but it was even more fun to make them wonder at our own wonder.

Now that got me thinking. I didn't have my phone with me for that moment. If I had had access to the internet, to facebook, instagram, texting, anything... how much would I have missed? how much of life have I already missed? 

this saddens me dear readers, and is the reason why I frown at my addiction. 

thoughts of a young adventurer

I saw this flower in my neighborhood. crazyyyy! looks like something straight out of a child's imagination

I remember lying in bed as a child just letting my thoughts wander like an American hitchhiking through Europe. I so vividly remember just lying there in bed, my sister fast asleep in the bed next to me, and feeling terrible  for "lying" to my mother about being asleep (I confessed to  her later... I was deathly afraid of authority and followed rules to a tee as a child. I can just imagine my mother laughing at her 5 year old confessing such a thing) 

I would think about all sorts of things. I would think about all the impossibly improbable "what-if's". On many occasions, I convinced myself that there were alien men sneaking outside my window with secret guns that could tell if people were in a house with their special breath detecting devices. I would hold my breath until the aliens were surely gone after their guns failed to detect my existence. 

I would also imagine myself locked in a cage of angels whenever I was scared of kidnappers, monsters, or whatever creatures my imagination would brew up (that all coincidentally lived under my bed). 

Most of all, I remember one thought that has continued to perplex me throughout my life. As a young child, I would sit and wonder about this one thought for hours. Now let me enlighten you to this thought dear readers. So here it is, my unadulterated innocent contemplations as a young child...

So in life, we all have options... soooo many options. For instance, if you don't like playing baseball, you can play basketball. If you don't like wearing the color blue, you can wear pink. If you don't like peas, you can eat carrots. But then it occurred to me, that in this world all we can do is live and then die. There is no other option. You must do it in that order too. There is no other option besides this life and then once we are done living, to expire with death. This thought perplexed me because we can't even imagine doing something besides live and then die (and then hopefully go on to heaven) simply because no other option exists. I used to think about this as I was lying in bed and wonder how no one else could be concerned with this concept. From what I could see, everyone had accepted this fact and never was even concerned with the smallness of our existence. We were nothing. How could we place such importance on such a transitional existence. But then again, how could we not, when we have no other option?

So now you see dear readers why I had to lie to my mother about being asleep. I had way too much thinking to do.

a quote & a smile

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all" -Helen Keller