Week 7, or "On a more personal note," or "Why don't you blog about it, Liz?"*

To start, here is an amazing picture of Eliza. It captures the spirit of my goals and life lessons from the last week. Plus, it's an AWESOME picture.

To get a little more personal than usual, this has been a week of learning to love more. I've spent a lot of time here at the Playmill being scared...scared of saying or doing the wrong thing, scared of making friends, scared of not making friends, scared of not being needed, scared of being needed too much. Just scared. But I finally got tired of being ruled by my fears, so I decided to re-teach myself a few lessons about courage. I was making myself (and probably the people close to me) miserable, so I decided to let go of my need for things to be a certain way. I decided to reach out to other people, to be content in my circumstances, and to trust that everything is going the way it's supposed to. And as soon as I did, my life was filled with love. I suddenly became closer friends with people in the cast that I had never really connected to before, and I found myself filled with even deeper love for the friends I had made earlier in the summer. There are still rough days (or rough moments), but I feel much more at peace about whatever happens, or will happen.

This has also been a week of learning to live more fully. Sometimes I get too "tired" to go out and do things...and then I hear about them later and wish I had gone. There is a time to rest and stay home, but often, that time isn't any better spent at home than with people I love. Sometimes I stay home because of the fear mentioned above, and I don't want to live that way anymore. So here's to living more fully.

On a less personal note, here are some of the other highlights of this week:

Opening Fiddler on the Roof! It was the longest opening night in Playmill history, each show running roughly 2 and a half hours, so we've since cut it down a bit. It's a powerful show, and now that it's shorter, it's really awesome.

Mason pretending to get his mission call and telling everyone about it. Eliza believed him, and when she found out he was lying, she was real mad. Getting dressed in the girl's dressing room that afternoon, we could hear her yelling and Mason laughing downstairs for about five minutes.

When a handful of the cast rehearsed a hip hop dance in "Fiddler on the Roof" costumes. It was awesome watching all these people dressed like poor Jews from 1905 breaking it down.

Dave Walker's scientific explanation of "pee shivers."
Us: "What causes pee shivers?"
Dave: "Peeing."
Us: "Yeah, but why?"
Dave: "Because you're peeing, and then you're done."

The little kid who, after the wedding destruction scene in "Fiddler", let out a sad "oh no!"

Mason ACTUALLY getting his mission call! (Brazil.) We've got 2 future missionaries in our cast...Taylor got her call to South Carolina.

Eliza accidentally giving someone a half-eaten jar of Nutella as a gift, instead of the new one she had purchased.

Horseback riding on Sunday, with Tanner, husband Jacob, Laura and her friend Megan. I love horseback riding so very much. (I'm going again this Sunday.) My favorite parts of that trip, aside from just being out there, were Tanner saying "Yip Yip!" to get his horse to go, and the relationship Jacob developed with his horse Watermelon ("My life is in your hands, Watermelon. I love you, Watermelon.")

Bonfire at Hebgen Lake on Monday night. (There was one on Sunday night that I didn't go to, but people enjoyed it so much, we decided to do it again.) The night involved almost getting lost while trying to find the same bit of shore from the night previous, a game of "Truth or Dare," Joe performing "poetry," Misha making cookies over the fire with a muffin tin, and the occasional scare from jumping spiders.


Aaaaaand to conclude, here is a picture I've had for a while, but just haven't posted yet. It's super-blurry, but it's one of my favorites from the summer. This is from one of those late-night dance parties we occasionally have. This cast has got the moves.

* "Why don't you blog about it, Liz?" is something Sydney said to me this week. I made some comment about something I really liked, and she said, "Why don't you blog about it, Liz?" We both paused for a moment, and then she said, "I didn't mean that snarky. It came out snarky, but I didn't mean it that way." Sydney seems to have a habit of saying things that sound snarky even when she doesn't mean them that way. Which is fun.