Christmas!

Christmas is coming. It's pretty much the best time of the year, so I'm gonna give you the top ten traditions of the Stay household....

10. Christmas Music. It's pretty much on all the time from the day after thanksgiving until Christmas Day. Never before, never after. But once the season hits, we listen to it at dinner, in the car, pretty much all the time. We love Christmas Music, and you always have to start off with Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas album.

9. Christmas Presents. We Stay children, although we fight and pick on each other non-stop, give each other presents. We rotate names cuz we don't want to buy everyone in the family a present.

8. Wooden Santa and elf. They live in our front yard until they blow down, or until my mom's birthday when we finally replace them with the clown.

7. Unfinished tree skirt. It matches the little balls, and angel for our tree. Mom never finished it and its been like that since before I was born so I figure its tradition to use the unfinished tree skirt.

6. One present on Christmas Eve. Everyone gets to open one present on Christmas Eve. Usually it is the present from the person who has your name.

5. Movie. We watch a movie every Christmas Eve. Usually its a Christmas one, but sometimes its not.

4. Eating. We go out to eat every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we have a pop tart for breakfast that we get in our stocking, and then for dinner we have Ham and fruit jello and yummy potatoes.

3. Best buy run. After Christmas my dad always goes on a Best Buy run. Its fun, we get to exchange gifts or get more stuff.

2. Reading. We always read the Christmas Story from the Bible, and then Twas the Night Before Christmas. Then I go off on my own and listen to our tape of Polar Express. After which I (yeah just me, and yes I still do this) leave cookies out for Santa.

1. Christmas Morning. They set a time when I'm allowed to go around and wake everyone up cuz otherwise I'll wake up at 630. Then I have to wake everyone up, and once everyone is up I can wake up mom and dad. Then everyone can go downstairs and open all the presents. Its pretty exciting. And ppl get annoyed with me, but it wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't wake up rediculously early and get everyone else up now would it?

That is what we do every Christmas no matter what.

How To: Have a healthy voice, or get it back

I have noticed a growing trend among singers and other people for that matter. They don't know how to take care of their voice. For singers your voice is your instrument. If you were a pianist you wouldn't pound on it with a hammer so why should you try to sing with a voice coated in mucus which would be essentially the same thing. Also not many voice teachers think it necessary to teach their students how to take care of their voices either, so more and more people never learn how. So here my friends are the essentials to getting back your voice and then keeping it.

1. DRINK WATER!!! Everyone should drink at least 8 oz a day and singers should drink at least a gallon. This one is the hardest for me cuz I hate going to the bathroom, but it is the most important thing to do.

2. Use a Vaporizer. It is a steamer that lets you moisturize your nasal passages and vocal cords. There is a picture of it at the top. I have only been able to find them at Walgreens, so if you don't have a Walgreens or you are poor you can boil a pot of water and put your face over it with a towel. However, if you do that you have to be a lot more careful that you don't burn yourself. you should do this at least once a day if you are sick for 15 min, or at least before a performance or audition.

3. Use a Netti Pot. This little thing looks like a very small teapot with an extra long spout. It is kinda gross but essentially you pour salt water up your nose and into your sinuses and it comes out your other nostril. You should do it every day at least once a day, but at the very least when you have allergies, a cold, or anything else that makes you snotty, or if you are especially dry. If you don't get one that comes with packets, you can use a 1/4 tsp of salt. Make sure you mix it really well before you pour it up your nose or it stings like the dickens.

4. DO NOT COUGH!!!!! Coughing irritates your vocal chords and causes them to basically bang against each other like hitting your piano with a hammer. If you feel the need to cough breath in sharply and drink water instead. Take a throat drop. Do something. Just don't cough. I have a friend that coughed so much he tore his vocal chords and started bleeding. gross. Don't cough!

5. Drink Throat Coat. Its an herbal tea that gives your throat relief. Add honey to make it sweeter if you don't like tea.

6. Sleep at least 8 hrs a night. If you have an early morning audition or performance wake up 3 hrs before it to give your voice a chance to wake up before you tart singing. and by wake up i mean start talking too otherwise it does no good.

7. Do not talk after 930 at night. Do not talk at all if you don't have a voice. Do not let yourself talk in a lower grumbly register that everyone gets when they are sick.

These things should help you keep your voice healthy or get it back.

Day off

Today the matinée was canceled so i had a whole day to myself. I woke up really late and decided to go on a bike ride. I rode to Smith's and got some California Rolls and Powdered donuts to eat during my day of fun. I rode to Flat Creek where you can go swimming and i started to eat my California Rolls when a swarm of mud wasps decided that they liked California Rolls too! It was so scary they just started swarming my food and my shoes were right next to them. They were crawling on everything. At first I thought they were bees but then I remembered in Oklahoma where they talk about mud wasps and i decided thats what they were because i've seen them in the mud a lot. Anyway so they were swarming my food, and I was really scared because wasps and bees are the only thing that I am scared of, and I finally got my food away. I tried to eat it like three times but they kept finding me so finally I went home and ate it there. After lunch I went back to Flat Creek on my bike and just read and slept. It was really nice. The breeze was blowing over the river, there was a dog that was playing fetch with its master in the water, and butterflies would come and land on my blanket and hang out there with me. It was such a wonderful day, and I love my bike.

Crazy stuff and Biking

Theatre people are crazy. The girls have all decided to have a secret sister lingere party on sat. Kinda excited and scared to see what my person gets for me. Its interesting because none of us have boyfriends so we're just doing it for fun.

Other crazy news our Don Lockwood got fired so we have been doing a lot of understudy rehersal that has been poorly planned so it is wasting a lot of time that could be used on other things.

I love riding my bike. It is really the coolest thing ever. You can go a lot of places that you can't go in a car and a lot of places that at least I can't go walking because of my knee. I feel like I own the world when I'm riding my little yellow bike with flowers and my wicker basket. I ride it home at night after the shows and I take a road called Snow King. It follows the base of this mountain and it is beautiful. There is one section that heads downhill to my house and it is next to Karn's Meadow where the foxes live, so there are no houses and no lights. I can go so fast down that hill and its cool from the meadow and Flat Creek that runs through it and under the road. That is the best time of the day because I get to be alone and just pedal my heart out and nothing else matters except pedaling and the breeze running past my face and the sprinklers spraying me as I ride past. Everything else feels insignificant when I look up at the beautiful Wyoming sky with Orion staring down at me. There are also a lot of beautiful trails throughout town. My favorite is one by the post office that runs from there to rafter J and Smiths. It is so beautiful. It runs along flat creek and follows it. There is one part that you can go out and swim in and just have fun. I love it. It is my little sacred grove.

Why?

For some reason my little sister Crystal has decided to convince me to enter the world of blogs so here I go...

I am currently working for the Pink Garter Theatre as an actress. Jackson Hole is such a weird place. Its a really tourist town where you are either a crazy hippie, a cowboy, or a rich person who pretends that they are a cowboy. I also work at Stone's Mercantile right below the theatre where I have started collecting moccasins and trying to get my friends and family to wear them. I bought Crystal a pair for her birthday which is in December but I'm not gonna wait to give them to her because she knows I bought them already. I now own two pairs. Some really cool boots that have feather tassels and a pair that kinda look like penny loafers. They are soooooooo comfortable and I've decided that they are in because I said so.