"She knew that cold is not so cold if you are not afraid of it."

It's winter.

Last night, Rexburg experienced a little over a foot of snowfall, for the second time this year. And between it being February and having a slight cold, it's all I can do to resist hibernating. I'm either part-plant or part-bear, based on my responses to the weather.

Since I can't reasonably hibernate, I'm reading. I have the time to read this winter, unlike winters of the past. Two Februaries ago, I did a blog entry about "winter reads," and I think I'm going to call these books "February Books" from now on. I've been reading a lot of them lately.

I don't want to explore "brave new worlds" of literature in the winter. I'm finding I don't have the summer courage to make new literary friends. In February, one wants old familiar friends.

So far, I've reread Anne of the Island, Little Women, The Fault in Our Stars, A Wrinkle in Time, and most of the Little House on the Prairie series. I haven't read the latter in at least fifteen years, and
it's been fun to revisit. And boy, does that series help you deal with winter. It sort of romanticizes winter. And that's nice when you can't hibernate.

May - September: A reunion

PLAYMILL CAST 2013

Max Benson

John Bidwell

Joseph Bidwell

Lesley Bidwell

Trudy Bidwell

Jacob Chapman

Liz Chapman

Jerry Costner 

Justin Dabell 

Joseph Galati 

Misha Jenkins 

Mason Lucero

Eliza Merrill 

Maggie Merrill 

Scott Michelsen

Tanner Morton 

Sydney Wise 

Camilla Martinez 

David Martinez 

Justin Maxfield 

Nicole Maxfield

Taylor Regen 

Jacob Squire

Stacey Starke 

Hannah Thompson 

Amanda Van Orden 

David Walker 

Anya Wilson 

Boyd Wolz 

So Jacob and I have talked about auditioning before. (And apparently, we met and spoke at callbacks for the Playmill in 2009, which I have no memory of.) But this year we went for it.

And we're in.

WE'RE IN!!!

And I gotta tell the story of getting cast, because it's kind of amazing.

We auditioned on Saturday, and got called back, and felt we did really well. We were told we would find out if we were cast by a phone call sometime in the next two weeks. I spent all day Sunday and Monday alternating between despair, ecstatic hope, and complete terror. My prayers during the last week or so have been something along the lines of "Please bless us that we will be cast at Playm--*sigh* Please help us to accept thy will."

By Monday night, I was a wreck. I had a tech rehearsal for The Tempest, and Jacob was at home doing homework. My siblings-in-law Dave and Camilla were also in The Tempest, and had also been called back for the Playmill. Watching them at rehearsal, I began to convince myself that they had been cast. My instincts are often right on this kind of thing, and since Jacob and I hadn't gotten a phone call, I began to lose hope that we were cast. We had heard rumors earlier in the day that the Merrills were making phone calls, and since we hadn't received one...well...

So I got more and more depressed throughout rehearsal, to the point where others were asking me what was wrong, and finally sent Jacob a text message:

"I'm at the point of anxious despair when it comes to Playmill. I've convinced myself that everyone we love was cast and we weren't."

And then I went onstage to do a scene, trying to concentrate on Shakespeare and not my cell phone.

Meanwhile, Jacob was at home, taking a break from his homework. He decided to trim his hair and take a shower. While in the shower, he started daydreaming about the Playmill. He imagined that when he got out of the shower, he would find that he had missed a call from Roger Merrill, offering us a position at the Playmill. He got swept up and carried away by the vision, until he finally reminded himself to chill out and not get his hope up too high.

When he got out of the shower, he heard his cell phone. It was making the noise that signifies a missed call.

He ran to the phone, and checked it. An unknown number. But he had a voicemail. So he dialed it.

"Please enter your password, then press pound....you have one new message...first unheard message...Hi, this is Roger Merrill, just wanted to talk to you about the Playmill..."

Jacob called him back right away, and when Roger offered us positions at the Playmill, he accepted. Then he hung up and laughed out loud for five minutes, occasionally jumping around the room in excitement. After his celebrations were complete, he noticed he had a new text message. It was from me, explaining my despair over Playmill. He began composing a reply.

Switch back to my perspective. I got off stage, and picked up my cell phone to see that I had a new text message. Oh good, I thought, Jacob is offering me some words of comfort. I checked the message and found this:

"I literally just got off the phone with Roger. We're in."

I gasped and ran in circles for about 4 seconds, then dashed out into the lobby to call Jacob back. He confirmed that it was true, and I danced for about five more minutes, and then went back into rehearsal, attempting to contain my glee.

When I got home that night, the two of us hugged each other and laughed and danced and talked. We told each other our experiences, then kneeled in prayer to thank our Heavenly Father for this incredible blessing.

Neither of us could really accept that it was real until we saw the cast list. Also note the presence of family and good friends, like Dave and Camilla, Nicole and Justin Maxfield, Jerry Costner, Scott Michelson, the Bidwells, the Merrills, Dave Walker, and Stacey Starke.

We're both thrilled. THRILLED THRILLED THRILLED. We also both have a few fears...Jacob's worried about his voice holding up, and I'm worried about trying to repeat the past instead of letting things be what they are, and we're both worried about maintaining a strong marriage under the stress of summer stock theatre. But we feel armed against whatever may be...we've got love, friendship, patience, service, a love of theatre, and a whole lotta excitement. =)

See you in West Yellowstone this summer!

The Goat Cure

The comedic potential of goats is almost never-ending. So here are a few videos of goats, just in case you're having a bad day or something. Any one of these will cure whatever ails you.

Beatboxing Goat.



(second 12 is my favorite)

Goat does worst goat impression ever.

A goat that's been raised by chickens makes this noise. 

This baby goat is just happy to be alive.



(Much to the chagrin of her baby goat friends.)

Fainting goats.





This baby goat is learning how to jump, and it's adorable.

All roads lead to...

Out of curiosity a few weeks ago, I checked what searches brought people to my blog. This is what I discovered:

A pretty accurate snapshot of what goes on around here, no? I like to think so. Although I haven't talked nearly enough about monkeys with long hair...

Feed your mind

It occurred to me the other day that I think being a documentary host would be one of my dream jobs. (The others involving acting, teaching, and writing.) Think about it...I'd get to sort of act (at least follow a script), travel, learn, and then share that knowledge. What more could I ask for?! But as I'm not sure how to go about becoming a documentary host, I'll settle for watching documentaries until the opportunity arises.

Alien Cities Underground
The earth's core is hollow, and home to alien races! I have a soft spot in my heart for these conspiracy-esque documentaries. There is some pretty cool stuff in here, like the discovery of an underground city that could house 20,000 people in Turkey. Also, if you're Mormon, this is a really cool documentary--Ecuadorian Indians are guardians of a cave of treasures that parallel artifacts from ancient Egypt and other Middle Eastern cultures. How could they have possibly gotten them?! This documentary postulates aliens, but I've got another theory. =) If you're not Mormon, read this book and you'll see how cool this is.

Lost Science of the Bible
I actually watched this one hoping it would be the same one I watched years ago with a similar subject, but it wasn't. Fairly entertaining, though. They made an ark of the covenant replica levitate. They talked about how water can be used to initiate a chemical reaction that creates fire (think Elijah). God is the greatest scientist.

The Antikythera Machine
Ancient civilizations are awesome. The modern concept of ancient peoples is that they were developmentally behind us, but they were still the same species, and to say they weren't capable of incredible engineering and technological feats is a bit of an insult. Take the ancient Greeks, for example. Or the Romans. They invented cuckoo clocks. Did you know that? Also, this documentary talks about the Ancient Library of Alexandria a lot, and I actually get teary-eyed thinking about how much knowledge was lost in its destruction. War is stupid! Libraries are awesome! We'd probably know how to build Egyptian pyramids today if Caesar hadn't gotten all battle-happy and burned everything.

The Real Bonnie and Clyde
I actually watched this one a while ago, but forgot to recommend it here. The classic Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway film is pretty fantastic, but the truth is even stranger than fiction in this case. Clyde Barrow is an especially tragic figure, and this documentary both moved and fascinated me. It was because of the Barrow Gang that the US Government created ways to coordinate federal searches of criminals--before Bonnie and Clyde, catching criminals was a haphazard county-to-county affair.

Nefertiti Resurrected
This is a two-part documentary focusing on the famous queen/possibly pharaoh Nefertiti. I'm kind of obsessed with her husband Akhenaten, and Egypt's history during their reign. This documentary covers a lot of it, although I tend to give Akhenaten more of the benefit of the doubt. There's all kinds of awesome stuff in this documentary, including appearances by the delightful Zahi Hawass and semi-silly reenactments. The focus is on three mummies found in KV-35...is one of them Nefertiti herself?! You'll have to watch this to find out.

BBC's How to Grow a Planet Series

I have separate blurbs for each part of this series listed below, but just as a whole, this documentary is INCREDIBLE. All the HD glory of Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth," but with the added element of a story spanning billions of years. From the very first bacteria all the way to our own species of humanity, our planet's story is a pretty incredible one. There were times when this series actually made me weep at the beauty of the earth. (Note: This documentary sort of skips over the exact details of how evolution works, saying things like "Flowers developed seeds." For the exceptionally curious, I'd recommend brushing up on natural selection and sexual selection to get those details.)

How to Grow a Planet: Life From Light
This is an awesome overview of the beginnings of life on earth. Did you know that millenia ago, the oceans were purple? How incredible would that have been to see? This documentary has some stunning footage, and goes from the very first photosynthesizing bacteria to dinosaurs in the evolution of life on earth.

How to Grow a Planet: The Power of Flowers
Maybe we take them for granted, but life as we know it would be COMPLETELY different if it weren't for flowers. Did you know that there are some flowers who only release their pollen to honeybees, and ONLY when the honeybees beat their wings at a frequency of middle C? Did you know that some flowering trees in rain forests release 5 tons of water vapor into the air PER DAY?

How to Grow a Planet: The Challenger
Have you ever really thought about how much grass is on our planet? It's so humble, it seems like it would have been one of the first plants on earth, but scientists believe grasses came AFTER trees and flowers. This documentary is also fun because it gets into human history. Part of the reason our ancestors might have become bipedal is because they had to stand to see over the tall grasses. CRAZY. Grass has played a major role in human history--who knew?

On being a college freshman English teacher

But...how exactly DOES one teach people how to write? 

photo via

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth

It's official!

And it's exciting!

I've got a published book of poetry. You can purchase it online here.

I'm also working on getting available for Amazon Kindle and a few other channels.

Thanks for supporting your friendly neighborhood blogger/poet! I'm so thrilled to share these poems with you.


Sneak peak:
Here's one poem from the collection. Enjoy!

Poem About Birds

There is a bird outside
that has no idea what time it is.
One in the morning and
I’m brushing my teeth to an ornithological serenade.

I wonder if birds develop
mental illnesses.
Bipolar barn owls.
Manic-depressive mockingbirds.
Autistic African Silverbills.
I’m brushing my teeth at one in the morning,
and there’s this bird
in the farthest corner of the backyard
singing itself into a frenzy.

Not a lullaby.
Not some haunting nightingale,
a loon calling lonely on a moonlit lake.
I’m talking Mickey Mouse club
Bozo the clown sing-along
1950’s cornflakes commercial.
One in the morning,
I’m brushing my teeth with tears in my eyes
and there’s a bird out there
who doesn’t give a damn.
Who’s just singing hallelujah to the good Lord
who made him.

Lissa said
there are things
that hurt so much that
it feels
like you don’t even have a heart.
An empty cage in your chest,
a vacuum in your ribs.
Anything that sang flown away.

One in the morning
and some bird doesn’t give a damn
that the sun set six hours ago.
Darkness already swallowed up everything,
started in the corners at 7:00 p.m.
and slowly ate its way to the open empty spaces.
At one in the morning
everything is desert places
Silence that sludges through your veins
like mud,
making empty places emptier.

And somewhere
invisible in a corner
there’s this bird
who doesn’t give a damn.
To hell with empty cages
and the darkness that will remain
for another five hours at least.
This insomniatic out-of-touch damn crazy bird
is just singing hallelujah
to the good Lord who made him.

Provident Living 101: How to Survive a Zombie Attack During Your English Class at BYU-I

Today, my English students' first essay was due, so to celebrate, we spent half of class just having fun. And by "having fun," I mean coming up with a plan of what to do if zombies attacked the Smith building while we were in class.

To specify, these are Romero zombies--slow and lumbering, destroyed by inflicting damage to the brain, infecting others through bite. In our hypothetical situation, roughly 300 of them are surrounding the Smith building, but they haven't breached it quite yet.

And let me tell you, if ever there's a zombie apocalypse in Rexburg, I'm sticking with my English students. They had some good ideas. Case in point:

The Honey Trap
Send the girls out, "Warm Bodies" style, to distract/seduce/cure the zombies. Either they'll entrap them for the men to kill, or they'll cure them with their virtuous smiles.

The ROTC Plan
Create weapons and fight our way through to a car, then drive to the National Guard Armory, where one student, who's in the army, can get us outfitted with vehicles, weaponry, etc. Then we battle.

The Brain Freeze
There are several ways we can use the cold of Rexburg to our advantage. One is to wait for nightfall, when the subzero temperatures will slow the zombies down even further, making them easier to target and kill. The other is to spread water around the building, wait for it to freeze, and wait for all the zombies to slip and dash their own brains out.

The Trojan Horse
Find and destroy one weak zombie (maybe two), then dismember it and cover ourselves in its entrails to mask our own smell. Practice our zombie walks and groans. Make our way to safety, lumbering among the zombies as if we're one of them.

The Trojan Teacher
A variation of the Trojan Horse plan is to use ME and my acting skills. One of the students suggested that my experience in theatre could be used to our advantage. I dress up like a zombie, go outside and tell the other zombies that I already ate everyone in the building and to just move on. I keep up the charade while the students escape, then they come back to rescue me.

Another Great Day at BYU-Idaho
Fight our way through the zombies, get to our cars, and drive to President Clark's house, where we can eat their food storage and safely wait behind bullet-proof glass for the zombie plague to be over.

Degree in Engineering
If we can get to the Austin Building, we've got it made. That's where all the engineering stuff is, including chemicals, which can be mixed to either create a cure or a weapon. We can also gain access to explosives, and if we can lure all the zombies into one building, we can blow them up.

Do You Hear the People Sing
We create a barricade with desks, chairs, and anything else we can find. We sing show tunes as we fight off the zombies using blunt weapons and broken fluorescent light bulbs. We use desks and cupboard doors as riot shields if we need to push through the zombies at any point.

The Running in Place Plan
Find a way to get to the Hart building. Then move all the treadmills to the entrances and exits, set on high speeds. If any zombies try to get in, they'll step onto the treadmills and fall, dashing their own brains out.

The Crusher
We use cables, clothing, ropes, wires and anything else we can find to connect several desks and tables together. Then we lower the contraption over the stairwell, using it as a zombie-crusher as they try to get up the stairs.

Death by Pop Music
Everyone gets out their iPods, computers, etc. We simultaneously play "Friday" by Rebecca Black out the windows, and the zombies either combust or commit Hari-Kiri.


Seriously. I think I'm going to put together a pamphlet or something. 

Current Kicks

Hey everyone.

I took a bit of a blogging break, mostly because I just have another documentary post waiting to be published, and I felt like I had to write something else, but then I just kept watching documentaries.

Anyway. I still have those documentaries to recommend, but I gotta finish watching one of them, so in the meantime, here are some other things I've been enjoying lately.

1. ORANGE TIC TACS

Seriously. These things are straight up candy. I know the label says "mints," but I'm popping these babies like they're...well, candy.











2. HOUSE MD

Jacob and I now own all eight seasons on DVD, and we've been devouring them. We're almost done with Season 8 -- don't give anything away in the comments, or I'll freak.















3. THIS VIDEO OF SOLDIERS DOING THE MIAMI DOLPHIN CHEERLEADER VERSION OF "CALL ME MAYBE"



I love this for two reasons. One, it's just plain hilarious. Two, seeing men do some of these moves really sheds light on how ridiculous some of those moves are. Third, damn, them military boys is HOT. Right? (Ok, that's three reasons. And the third almost invalidates the second, if you think about it long enough.)

4. PINTEREST
I resisted for so long. But IT'S SO AWESOME! At least, most of it is. I'm still turned off by endless nail tutorials and "Pin now, read later" notes, but it's okay because Pinterest is such an awesome resource for creativity and food and decorating and inspiration.

5. CLASSICAL MUSIC
Sometimes the mood just hits, you know? I'm especially digging Debussy and cello stuff by Bach.


What are you digging, lately?

Brain food

Hello everyone!

Need something to watch while you fold laundry/organize your filing cabinet/cross-stitch your favorite saying? Here are some enlightening and entertaining documentary recommendations for your viewing pleasure!

Note: I haven't done a documentary update in a while, so I hope I don't accidentally mix them up in my reviews somehow. I might also be forgetting some key thoughts, but whatever. Just watch.

How Does Your Memory Work? 
I think we all know by now how much I love the human brain, and this documentary was a good fix for my brain-junkie cravings. You don't realize how extraordinary your ability to remember things is until it's taken away from you, or until you meet someone who can't remember things. From the challenges of short-term memory loss to the possibility of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" becoming a reality, this documentary covers a whole range of awesome.

Battle of the Brains
So, the IQ test has been controversial for a long time. This documentary seeks to test different kinds of intelligence--mathematical, creative, emotional, etc.--by bringing together six extraordinary minds. A musical prodigy, a quantum physicist, an artist, a dramatist, an RAF fighter pilot, a chess grandmaster and a Wall Street trader all complete various tasks from a standard vocab test to a painting to solving puzzles. It seems intelligence comes in all shapes and sizes. =)

Why Do We Talk? 
So so so so so so awesome! Linguistics is so fascinating. Did you know that in experiments with making up languages, people will naturally begin to create linguistic rules? This documentary also talks about "the forbidden experiment"...raising a child from birth with no verbal or written communication, to see what happens. Will they develop language? How much of language is inherent? Of course, the ethical implications of this experiment are what make it "forbidden," so the way around it is studying feral children--children who were raised in the wild by animals. Which really happens. Very very rarely, and most reports are hoaxes, but it does happen, and it scares me so much I start to cry just thinking about it. This documentary contains a few seconds of video footage of a girl named Oxana Malaya, who was raised by dogs in the Ukraine until the age of 8. And it gave me nightmares for about two weeks. But the documentary is fascinating.

BBC: Modern Spies, Part 1 and Part 2
So awesome. And I walked around for a few days fairly certain that everyone around me was a spy. This documentary focuses on MI6 and British spying, although it does get in to American spy stuff. I partly watched it because I wasn't sure how they were going to do this documentary without endangering civilian safety, but I learned a lot of general info...just nothing specific enough to make me an insider. =) They talked about how real spying is different from the movies, about the risk of "entrapment," about whether or not spies ever have a "license to kill." Oh, and about the Russian spy Anna Chapman! She was arrested in 2010, along with NINE OTHER AGENTS who were part of a Russian sleeper cell in New Jersey, which had been working on gathering intelligence for like, TEN YEARS. (Is it getting "cold" in here?) So, the next time someone tells you you're being paranoid about something, tell them about this. Because the truth is stranger than fiction.

BBC: Nature's Weirdest Events, Part 1 and Part 2
This is more on the daytime-TV boring-ish side, but there was some crazy stuff, and I was entertained. And mouse plagues are the grossest, most terrifying things ever.

Tales From the Hive
BEES ARE AWESOME. I love them. They're so industrious and brave and smart. And they dance! And they do little trumpet-y noises while they dance. It's called a "wiggle dance." Did you know that? If you didn't, you should. This documentary has some INCREDIBLE footage. I mean, you could just mute the documentary, put on some Beethoven and just watch. But, don't mute it, because there's some amazing stuff here to learn about.

What Are Animals Thinking? 
Okay, the host of this documentary is kind of annoying. But that aside, this is a super-awesome documentary about animal behavior, and by extension, what it means to be human. For instance, do dogs really know what we're thinking? Is empathy a strictly human trait? The natural world is pretty incredible. And homing pigeons are awesome.

Porcelain in my bones

Remember how last winter was super-mild? I think this winter is taking revenge on the fact that it didn't get to happen last year. When I woke up this morning for church, it was -15 degrees.

Did you hear me?

NEGATIVE FIFTEEN DEGREES!

That's instant-nose-hair-freezing, can't-start-your-car-at-all, makes-you-look-up-flights-to-Bermuda cold. And okay, okay, I know there are other places in the world--the United States even--that are colder. But the thing is that cold isn't really relative to me. Like, I'm not thinking, "Gee, this is chilly, but I was colder that one time in Nebraska." No. I'm just cold. Right here, and right now. So if you'll excuse me, I need to get another quilt from my closet. And call the grocery store to order food for the winter, because there's no way in hell I'm leaving this house.*

Also, I got this screenshot from weather.com, and I like how they're trying to join in on the social media world, with the little "Love!" and "Ugh!" buttons. Maybe if I press "Ugh!" enough times, they'll change the weather for me.

* Except for teaching tomorrow. And rehearsal.