Whether you stumbled upon me or purposely found yourself here doesn't matter you are welcome either way. What you are likely to run into while your here is unknown but I assure you life is what happens here and this is just a taste of what my life brings. Now I'm sure you would like to know who I am and why you would want to read about my crazy, complicated and not always happy life so here goes.
Here is a list of things I am, now this is a long list but I did state I have a crazy life.
I am an actress, model, firefighter, EMT-B, volunteer, baker, friend, daughter, sister, wife and mother. I don't always have enough time to juggle these things but it's what I love so I struggle to make time everyday and sometimes fail at it. No one is perfect and I am far from it so don't beat yourself up when you fall just get back up and try again. I have been knocked down plenty and just when I thought I couldn't go on something and/or someone comes along with an outreached hand and we make it through together.
I started modeling in 2006 because I had nothing better to do... No big secret there lol. I love to be infront of the camera so it's naturally a second home to me. I have worked with quite a few different photographers who all have a different eye and thought on how things should come together. It's amazing to see the world through someone elses eyes and that's exactly what modeling does. You look at a picture and if the model and photographer are talented you should be able to see exactly what they were trying to tell you through an otherwise flat and lifeless image. I moved into acting when a director saw my work and had to have me in his movie, there was no looking back from there.
I was cast in my first movie in 2009 (Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre by MMJ Video), I played the dumb big busted blond that runs up the stairs in the horror movie. Well it was more along the lines of the big brunette that walks up to the zombie and asks questions before getting eaten... Classy huh. However before I filmed this movie I took a role as an extra in another feature film called Premise of Duality by New Wave Productions which makes AH-Mazing movie btw. This role was very very small, we are talking the fly on the horses butt no one could get rid of small lol but I was hooked. The director was amazing and has become a good friend of mine and I work with him whenever I can. After filming these two movies in 2009 life got in the way and I didn't film again for 2 years. Just this past year (2011) I worked on three films, Remembering by Condemned Productions where I got my first leading role as Jane and worked beside the amazing Kim Hong; Workplace Schemes by Red Parrot was my second lead role as Sarah where I got to play on the green screen which was weird and crazy fun; Right to Remain Silent by New Wave Productions was a pretty intense film where I played Desta. This film was very unique like all of Brians films not only did I get screen time with the lead actor and lead actress but I got a chance to work with union members. I learned a lot on this film, how to show more emotion, project my voice, slow my speech down to be understood easier and lets not forget how NOT to play spades. Desta didn't know how to play spades and it's still an ongoing joke that I didn't fake the scene because I still can't play spades.
Since finishing these films I haven't had a lot of time to invest in other projects and it has been absolutely killing me. I have had plenty of opportunities but something always comes up work, gas money, doctors appointment or some event I already promised I would attend. I see all my acting friends auditioning and getting roles while I dutifully go to work but that's life. I just got cast as Christy in a new two part film so good things come to those who wait. Not only do I have two new movies but I get to work with a director and actors I've never worked with which is always exciting.
Moving on to firefighting and EMS :)
Most people are surprised when they hear about this side of my life. Who really sees a girl like me with long hair who likes to wear heels and dresses who acts/models running into burning building and wearing clothes caked in dirt and blood. Truth is I can't NOT help people, helping people helps me and that's what keeps me going back day after day. I joined my first fire department in 2008 as a firefighter recruit. I went through Fire 1 and found out I was completely unprepared for a life as a firefighter. I struggled through the whole class and flunked out two weeks before graduation which hurt like hell. I was in a fire house full of guys who still felt a girl didn't belong and here I was telling them they were wrong because I'm just as good as they are... Then I failed and they were right. I struggled with this for a long time but I have since then told myself I will take the class again and pass because I will be better prepared for what they have to throw at me. After fire class I moved onto EMT-B which suits me better. I went through EMT class twice before passing it, the first time I failed was because my "partner" was nervous and missed a bunch of steps. I used to blame her but in reality I should have helped her more so we could have both passed. My second time through they no longer tested you in pairs so I made it through pretty easily. I love the feeling I get helping someone, their problems may not seem emergent to you but to them they need something only you can give them even if that's an ear that listens. I've saved lives and lost lives in this job that I volunteer for but I wouldn't change it for the world. The worst call I've ever had was the only person I've ever lost but I did EVERYTHING I could to save them. After working on them for an hour and a half I made my way back to my station in a daze covered in blood. I had to shower and wash my clothes up to and including my belt and shoes before I could restaff my unit. That call still haunts me to this day but I know that family knows I did my best and they don't blame me for not saving them. It's times like these that you realize how precious life is and that you should live it for you and do those things you don't think you have time for.
This brings us into cooking... I know I know horrid segway but what do you want from me???
I absolutely LOVE to cook... Well bake really. I love to tweak recipes and come up with my own creations or just bake your average chocolate cupcake. I bet you'r wondering why I said chocolate cupcake and not chocolate cake well you see I have a love affair with cupcakes ::squee:: I can and will make anything in cupcake or as I like to refer to them as single serving size. I usually bake well enough that my friends and family actually buy my goods, enter Abrams Baked Creations (also known as AB Creations). However I can't always make good stuff... I was given a cupcake challange a few weeks ago and it was a pretty big failure to be honest. I was to create a cupcake out of three things, chocolate, orange (zest to be specific) and the color blue. The cupcake itself was like two unicorns having a party in your mouth and my kitchen smelled good enough to eat. Ok my cupcake on paper, a blood orange Cadbury egg stuffed chocolate cupcake topped with blue blood orange flavored frosting. To me this sounded to die for but somehow the dying happened from the paper to the physical form. The cupcake turned out amazingly moist and exactly like I planned minus the Cadbury eggs because I couldn't find any. So the failure you ask... Duh duh duh... The frosting in all its ugly blue crappy glory. Because I had to incorporate blue in this some how and decided not to go with my secondary plan of fudge frosting with blue chocolate disks ontop I had to make a frosting I could dye. I made an orange flavored frosting to go with the cake and used butter as a base. Turns out acid and cream aren't the best of friends, who knew! The frosting tasted ok but looked horrid and all that butter didn't make your tummy happy so cupcake will make a repeat performance but that frosting with stay dead we all hope. One of my most popular is my mini cheesecakes and my mini upside down pineapple cakes mmmm totally making cheesecake this week. Baking calms me down, when I've had had a bad day I bake my stress away. Hmmm that sounded kinda cheesy huh. I like to decorate my baked goods as well but that's where it gets a little weird. I bake to reduce stress but the act of piping flowers and what not stresses me out more because it has to be perfect and my need to be perfect stresses me out... Yep self sabotage.
Now to end this list and this long intro blog we will touch on my family and friends.
I have a very interesting collection of friends, some more like family then others. I don't have a huge amount of friends but it's not about quantity as much as it is about quality. I am a very crazy, loud, obnoxious and hard to handle person so you either love me or you hate me simple as that. If you love me then you have a pretty good chance of sticking around in my life because I have no time or patients for negativity. You are almost always guaranteed a lot of laughing when you'r with me because I'm usually the life of the party, I usually do the stupid stuff no one else will do.
As for my family life it's another complicated thing. I have two wonderfully beautiful kids, a 7 to girl and a 3 yo boy. My daughter is a few days away from the end or her first grade school year and is a great student. She asked me a few months ago if she could be an actress when she grew up and naturally I told her she could be whatever she wanted. We talked about it and shes decided to start acting now and she got cast into her first role shortly after. She plays the lead in Daisy a horror movie naturally so that required a long discussion about what she can and can not say/do in real life that she may or may not be able to do in a film and how anything that happens on set is fake. The last thing I need is a 7 yo little girl that thinks someone really hates her when its only a character but she's smart and of course I already know that mommy!!! Lol
My son starts preschool this coming school year which is exciting. He is already super smart; he can count, read a clock, tell you his colors, do some addition problems and many other things. I'm pretty sure he will wiz through preschool and continue to amaze people. We work very hard to educate our children and it shows.
Ah my husband, complication again. I have been with my husband for 9 years and happily married for 8. We have had our fair share of issues just like anyone else but we work through them. Falling in love is the easy part it's staying in love that's the hard part. We have had many arguments some worst then others but at the end of the day we still love eachother. I still get butterflies when he kisses me and can't stand to be away from him 9 years later. Everything that happens in our lives tests us and strengthens us which is how we can still be in love with eachother after so many things threaten to tear us apart. I will let you in on one of our ongoing battles and I'm sure I will write about it again. My husband is terminally ill, he has progressive multiple sclerosis also known as MS. I wrote something when I was raising money for the MS Walk in Culpeper Va 2012 and it may help if you read it.
Why I Walk
I met my amazing husband 9 years ago and sadly there has always been something "off" about him. He didn't notice anything but I did. Even times I brought it to his attention he rarely saw the small things. Seven years later and loads of whining (on my part of course) we started what has become our never ending cycle, we set an appointment with a neurologist. A few tests and days later we had a diagnosis... Parkinsons disease. After accepting this and trying to ignore the giant elephant in the room that doesn't seem to leave things took a turn for the worst. My husbands symptoms changed and intensified sending us into the emergency room where the doctor threw two simple letters out of his mouth that sent our world crashing down as if it had not been destroyed by the Parkinsons and lit up bright neon lights within that elephant no one liked. With no feeling at all he said my husbands symptoms sounded like MS but not to worry about it just follow up with our doctor and just like that he was gone. It's extremely terrifying to have someone who is supposed to fix you tell you that they can't really help you then find out a year and three MRIs later they were wrong but there's still nothing they can do. Since then our lives have been filled with many different medications that don't help and wont cure anything.
This is why I walk. So maybe one day I can look at my husband and see the love in his eyes for me that he's bound to forget, or maybe he can WALK our daughter down the isle on her wedding day. If this isn't possible in our lifetime it's just as important for some other little girl to have her daddy involved in her most important day of her life and husbands and wives don't have to remind their spouses that they have been in love for years.
My husband has been on chemo for a while in hopes that we could slow down his symptoms. The chemo is a low dose that he's able to do at home once a week which leaves him sick for more then 24 hours and very soar and tired. He decieded to stop chemo treatment about 3 weeks ago, he hasn't noticed a difference.
I think I'm going to bring this very long entry to an end. I wanted to get key points in my life out so we are somewhat on the same page here and I'm pretty sure I've accomplished that. If you'r still with me after all that I hope you learn something from me even if it's just a better appreciation for life.
Until next time,
>^-^<
