2015 Recap

♫ All this time I was finding myself ♪

And I didn't know I was lost

I think I'll always remember 2015 as the year I found myself. Like the lyrics above from the song I found this year, and fell in love with, I didn't know I was lost. I don't think I was ever truly lost, but this year was really the start of something amazing. It was also a really troubling year in a lot of ways too. Overall it was an amazing year of learning, and I can't wait until 2016. I think it's going to be a year of really moving forward.

Onward to pictures I found on Facebook because otherwise there'd be none! Woo! Also, there are a few of my instagram photos. But mostly I stole them from others 'cause I don't really do much photography. Not yet anyway. Once I finish saving up for a proper camera that will be a different story. Also, I'm putting this in no particular order because that would be chaos. To me at least.



Ah yes, that time Lilly stole Tommy. The first time we totally staged it, but this time I was out front dancing while she snuck into my room and stole him. Good times. I hope your museum is going well Lilly?



BROADWAY TIME! This was a year of many broadway shows and it was MAGICAL.



Meeting ANDY, YEEEAAHHH!! Ahhh that was amazing, I was totally starstruck and couldn't really speak. Also, I'm not good with people, so that probably had something to do with it.. Let's add that to my new year's resolutions. XD



Meeting ERIK AHHHHHHH



AND GALINDA ERMAGERD



Not entirely sure what's going on here. But I look like Mary just offended my great ancestors or something. XD This was at one of the many parties we had. Not sure which one.



Volunteering at History Flight with the Pleticha's. Man, I've known Elie since... forever pretty much. Not totally sure I remember a time when we didn't know them. XD



Basically Tiana and I in a nutshell. As you can see we get along so well.

This was sometime within the first month or two of when I first arrived at the stable. Back when I couldn't really control Luna. I wonder if I could now...



At the tulip fields. That felt like forever ago... which I suppose it was.



Maybe it's just me, but I can totally see how I didn't entirely know what I was doing here. XD Good gosh I need to bend my elbows a little more. And lean back a little more. And engage my core. Hehe, I've learned a bit since then.

Awwww, back when Scooby was at the stable. I never rode him, but I heard he was pretty naughty. I think he bucked a person or two off before he left. He looks all adorable here, but trust me his only stayed still for like .5 seconds before he pulled back. Though that's typical of horses. They don't pose.



May the Fourth (be with you). Good times, good times.




Now THAT was a memorable day. Had my first time impromptu galloping session. XD This was after the fact of course. Quite the crazy ride, and yet I didn't fall off. Not sure how. Thank goodness Rachelle was there. If she hadn't I probably would have fallen off on purpose just to get off Gigi. XD



Oh yeah, that time we visited Stonehenge while it was like A MILLION degrees out! Okay really it's a remake, obviously. It was really cool. I would have wanted to stay there all day if it wasn't so painfully hot outside. And if we weren't on our way home from Oregon. There's always that.



Throwback to that time as Tiana's graduation where we stole Lilly's phone. This is the only picture we took that I look halfway decent in. XD And of course Bethany looks like a beauty queen, as always.

And finally a little collage of some of my Instagram photos, which is about the only way I post pictures on the internet. And I managed to get locked out of my account. Yay me. There's my first time having butterbeer, and when I got my first chocolate frog (I got the card for Voldemort). That time I mysterious got my Hogwarts acceptance letter, which I finally got Evangeline to confess to. I know you read my blog, and so I say THANK YOU EV! And finally a stack of Romanov books. Both ones I own, and library books. I have more on the way from Amazon. >:)

So now that we've gone through an epic collage of my year, it's time to get down to it.

For starters, this year was really huge for me, because after five years, a spark was rekindled into a flame (that's such a poetic way to put it XD). In other words, I got to start being around horses again.

I am still absolutely giddy every time I go to the stables, even though it's been nine months since I first started. Cleaning stalls is still one of the funnest things I do. Dropping hay is ridiculously fun, and working with never before ridden horses is so fun. Riding gets more amazing each time I swing into the saddle. With all this, I ask myself, if I hadn't had to wait would I feel this way?

After I stopped riding at my last barn, due to financial issues, I could only wonder when I could ride again. At first it was really hard, and I was hard on myself. My way of coping started as me resigning myself to the fact that I would never be able to ride in my teens. Not until I was an adult, and could pay for it myself. But eventually God did what he's always done to help me. I got distracted. There was a long time that I forgot about horses. That they were my passion.

So I forgot. Almost five years of forgetting. Then one day, I just wanted to ride so badly. God said it was time, and all of a sudden I couldn't get it out of my head. I tried one stable, but it didn't work out. Then I found All Starr. In a matter of one week of contacting Rachelle, I was out at the stable working and it hasn't stopped. So I think back to my question, would I still feel so excited, like I described above, if I didn't wait? Honestly I don't know. But if I had the choice to start riding again, right after I stopped six years ago, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Sure, I'd be a better rider. I'd probably be jumping, my dream since I learned what horses were. But I wouldn't be who I am today and I like this person I've become. So yeah, I'd choose to wait.

Another thing about this year, Misophonia. I discovered I had it a little over a year ago. At the time, that was a huge relief. Not gonna lie, I thought I was going insane. Before we found out, it was... driving me crazy. And that's the understatement of the century. Since we've discovered it, there's been a lot of growing. It's a hard condition to live with, both if you have it, or if a family member has it. Considering my sister has it, and I also have it, I get the brunt of both sides. Ug.

Misophonia is... how can I put this lightly. A nightmare. Yeah, that's a fairly good description of it. It's gotten better. Well, not really. My symptoms have worsened these past few months. But the relating to it in my family has gotten better. So that's how it's gotten better (and sugar might be the cause of why it's gotten worse. I've been having a lot lately, so I'm going off again. For good this time). I've had a lot of breakdown lately. I really hate them. There are two options. Either rage, which sucks, or I turn the rage into sorrow. I never naturally cry at a trigger, but I can make myself, and honestly that's almost the better option. I mean it's still really horrible, but it's so much easier to pray when you're sad then when you're ready to punch someone.

Yesterday I had a particularly bad breakdown. I'm okay now, but at the time I was seriously freaking out. I decided to cry instead of rage, and I just sorta sat at my desk for a long time and just cried. Until I finally asked for help, which eventually made it better.

So yeah, that's the dose of severe reality as to what my life is like. On a more happy note there is this song that makes me super happy that I related to Misophonia. It's called Stand by You by Rachel Platten. Whenever I listen to it I just think about my family and my friends surrounding me to help me with it. The lyrics really strike me too, one particular part being "Even if we're breaking down, we can find a way to break through." And I dunno. It just reminds me so much of my Miso, and is kind of like a warm reminder that I'm not alone. I forget that sometimes.

This year was also quite amazing, because 841 Films was started. Sometime in January. Since then we've grown really close to great friends. It's been an amazing journey making films together, and getting to know one another better. And now in our next super top secret film, I'll be one of the two main roles. I'm super scared, but also excited, but mostly scared. XD

Ah yes, and this year I made my first composition! My first four actually, though I've only posted three. I've yet to record the fourth, and possible add instruments. That's been a lot of fun, and I know I have a long way to go, but I hope one day I can be half as good as Brunuh Ville, or Adrian von Ziegler. They're two of the biggest reasons that I started composing. So my hats off to them.

Finally I want to end this post with my new year's resolution. I'm actually going to make one, and hopefully follow through with it. So here it is:

To start exercising regularly

To stop eating all processed sugar, and dairy

To (attempt to) grow a full garden

To complete a full album of music

To finish editing She-Wolf so I can get critiques from friends and family

To pray for help for my Misophonia everyday

Wish me luck! And lemme know what your resolution is. :) Happy new year everybody!

The Force Woke Up

I SAW THE FORCE AWAKENS OMG IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

I just... I can't even. Because spoilers are the worst, and this movie has A LOT of them, I will write nothing more.

Mostly I wanted to make a quick post to say that I saw it. And just. Oh gosh. Jee. Yeah. I'll just say it was incredible. It truly was.

It was my first premier (well, technically not, but first like huge real movie premier). It was great. I've always been in a near empty theater, and the audience laughed and cheered and it was great. We were in that theater for like, five hours. It was... arg, just incredible. That'll all I will say, just incredible.

Also, you need to watch it. Like, go to your local theater and watch it. You will not be disappointed.

Also, Tiana, CALLED IT. I SOOO CALLED IT. (And I'm not talking about how I "predicted" that Threepio would come back a ripped war hero. You know what I'm talking about. And too my other followers, no I did not literally think that. We started making crazy "predictions" and that was one of mine).

My Seventeenth Birthday

I had a really great birthday, and I can't believe I'm seventeen years old now. Somehow when crossing from sixteen to seventeen I feel different in a way. Kind of like seventeen is when you really start to enter adulthood, even though I'm not legally an adult until I'm eighteen. In a year I'm going to have to be responsible for a lot more things. More like, responsible for buying consumables for myself (not including food though). So now I want to start putting part of each paycheck into budgets so it doesn't come as a complete shock to my system when I have to pay for things.

For my birthday I got a piano, so I didn't do anything overly special. I'm glad that's what I did, because I couldn't really think of what I wanted to do for my birthday, and honestly I've been wanting a new keyboard since forever. I still love it, and playing piano is the best thing. As for presents, they were amazing this year! Daniel got me the Lego Hobbit game for Wii U. I know, I haven't even seen the movies, but I don't care because the hub on this game is amazing. And honestly most anything Middle Earth is kinda magical. Sereina got me a Slytherin shirt, and the rest of my gift from her still hasn't arrived in the mail. Lastly, Tiana's present to me was to make Elsa's coronation gown from Frozen for me! I seriously couldn't believe it. I love that dress. Unfortunately it doesn't include the cloak (which is understandable because that's a lot of fabric), but if I supply the money she'll make it for me. So I'll have to save up for that. And possibly a wig, though the best one would also be expensive. At least I'll be covered for next Halloween if I do!

Now this isn't the end of my birthday though. True, I did hang out at home and play games in celebration. But then a surprise came at the front door. My mom found it when she let the cat out. It was a letter, addressed to me. It was, of all things, my acceptance letter to Hogwarts! I'm seriously not kidding it was just on the porch, addressed to me, and had all the instructions and things. There was even a wax seal on the envelope. I have no idea who sent it. All of my friends haven't shown any sign of being the ones who sent it, so I'm at a loss as to where it came from. That kind of makes it more magical though, like it really came from Hogwarts. That's really special to me.

On a not so great note, I feel like my Misophonia is going through a rough point lately. I keep getting worked up and the sounds keep repeating in my head at random times which is the most infuriating thing in the world. It seems to happen the most as I try to sleep, which does nothing to help me fall asleep. It's the ultimate "stay away forever" tactic. So hopefully that'll mellow out. Though something kinda completely bizarre happened with it. I heard a trigger noise, but I guess I was relaxed enough because my reaction to it was probably more to that of someone with a type two Misophonia, and I'm around type seven. That's so weird, because whenever I imagine being cured, I can't. These sounds are so prominent and irritating that I honestly cannot imagine being able to hear them, and not going crazy. So I guess that goes to show that there's hope, though it'll be a long time until I'm cured. I mean I'm not even going through any kind of treatment. The only thing I know to do, is to stay relaxed. Which I think horseback riding has helped, because being relaxed is very important, and I must do that while doing dozens of other things at the same time.

I think my horseback riding has helped a lot of things. We had to replace the lights in our garage, and when I went on the ladder I wasn't even remotely scared of the height. I'm really weird about heights, sometimes I'm okay, other times I'm not. Usually on a ladder I get really buggy, and slightly dizzy. But my head was touching the top of the garage and I was totally chill. I suppose racing around on 15hh - 16hh horses has kinda helped with that.

Also, my last ride was amazing. Oh my gosh, just oh my gosh, it was the greatest. I got to ride Ellie, since it was windy and Zoey can be weird about the wind. It was my first time on her, and it was incredible. She is like Lacey, except even better trained! Her trot is huge, just like Lacey, and because of that I couldn't really stop her. Ellie doesn't like you to pull on her face, and I never do. So I have to stop her by sitting deep and slowing the movement of my hips. That is really hard to do when you're flying out of the saddle. Luckily I'm still pretty good at one rein stops, hehe. But it was great, her trotting is so fast too. I also cantered, though unintentionally. Ellie's a lot like Gigi, so when I said trot she heard canter. It was one of my best canters considering though, and it didn't get crazy and go into galloping. I really hope I work with Ellie more, because I think she can teach me a lot. Aaand looking way into the future, she is a hunter jumper (as well as dressage horse, trained in carting, and so many other things) and jumping it what I want to pursue. But like I said, it'll be a while before I'm jumping. Gotta work on cantering and two point first.