Amidst the blizzard...

I got the chance to go out snowmobiling...something I have not done in YEARS!!

It was awesome!! The wind whipping your face while going 55 miles an hour across the frozen lake... The trees all covered in snow...Crisp and new

MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Here's to reconnecting with old friends, new experiences, and celebrating the holidays with the ones you love!!!

So I look back at the last few months...

The end of the year is fast approaching. Such a huge rollercoaster. So as I sit here in my folk's living room in North Dakota, waiting for the next round of blizzard to pelt down on us...I look out the window and find myself getting all nostalgic...

So many Christmases have passed...but this Christmas seems different in some ways...

I am in a different place in my life. I was asked by my step-mom, a few weeks ago, what I wanted for Christmas this year...the more I thought about it...the more I felt the tears rise in my eyes as I thought, "Ya know? I feel something that my heart has not felt in so long. It is a feeling of CONTENTMENT. Something new to this very fast paced, rat-race life I have lead."

I have a brand new job that I love. I have co-workers who are so supportive and loving and always willing to provide a helping hand or just to be a sounding board. I have students, who sometimes drive me crazy, but have warmed my heart as well. I found that my semester test reviews went very well especially when I saw that OPRAH AH HA moment click for them and they "Got it"!! I say Bravissimo to that!!

The end of the semester was crazy!!! There was my directorial debut at NLRHS with Greater Tuna. We then had Thanksgiving break, and focused forward towards a HUGE Speech Tournament, followed by Beauty and The Beast auditions and then into semester tests. So sadly, Christmas cards just went out yesterday. I naively thought this past summer, "Gee, I am going to have a teacher's schedule. I am going to have all this time to rest and relax." See how funny that sounds to me now?? And as I look forward to next summer, I see my vacation time slowly slipping away, which is good...because I am still so excited at this new avenue and adventures in my life...that I think I can handle a few weeks of r-n-r rather than 2 months.

I have gotten the chance to become closer to my neice and nephew, Anna and Blaine. Claudia was saying that Blaine wanted to take his 5$ and buy his family gifts from the dollar store. He listed me on his list of five folks...I was pretty honored by that...I just don't think that that would have been the case six months ago. To get the chance to watch my favorite Christmas movies, Polar Express, with a little one in each nook...love it! And a holiday party with the Arkansas family before I left for Fargo was really really fun. Great food, great laughter, playin a fun board game, watching Blaine and Anna open their presents, getting some great pictures, hugs from Dad and Mom, being able to calm Anna and hold her with her head on my shoulder til she calmed from melt-down crying, but most of all just being together...priceless.

I have the chance to travel for the holidays. Now some may think that this is boring and treacherous. YES the roads were treacherous, but the quiet time on the road, listening to Christmas Holiday music and left to my thoughts was a wonderful reconnecting time. Something I absolutely needed and was granted at the perfect time.

To arrive in Fargo safely to hugs and holiday goodness....awesome!!! I got the chance to decorate Mom's large Christmas tree for my gift to her and Steve. (pictured above) Was so much fun!! It is so nice to be on the couch, smell the good food baking, watching HGTV, and relaxing. It just feels so good to be home. I feel my tense shoulders just relaxing away and I feel calm. The dog snores downstairs and I feel lucky to be here. I hope the rest of the family can make it out. Will be good to reconnect with them and Sydney, Gage, and Chloe.

I do have a special someone in my life as well and all roads lead to Rogers, Arkansas when we can. It is exciting to not only have a new career, but also someone I can share my life experiences with. He lives 2 ½ hours away and to be honest, long distance is working for us right now. He is looking towards school and finishing a degree. With all the time requirements being part of a speech/ drama department in my life and his life in flux up there, this relationship works for the both of us, which is so exciting. It is like nothing either of us have ever experienced. Fireworks. Butterflies. Meeting the family, who have grown to adore him. His name is Justin…and I am a giddy school girl.

I look forward to 2010 with great excitement, with children's eyes. I caught a moment withBlaine Garrett the other night. He never knew I was watching him...it was a terrific moment that spoke volumes to me. I have placed my beautiful porcelain and gold Nativity set on Pam's black grand piano. It is trimmed with poinsettias and greenery. Well, I peeked around the corner and here were these two little blue eyes and a chin setting on the piano taking in all the visions of Jesus' birth. There was such wonder...such sparkle...such excitement...and thats I how I look to 2010.

I feel such blessings.

I feel such wonder.

I feel contentment.

GOD BLESS US EVERYONE!

Much love-

Brandon

OMG!!!!

Sex and the City 2

This is the just released poster of Carrie and if you look closely at her sunglasses, it looks as though she is somewhere outside of NYC on a beach somewhere??? Storyline hint??? Who knows...

Can you tell I am an addict???

But you can be assured this man will be in those theatre seats opening weekend after a cosmo and looking through some pages of VOGUE magazine!!

I can hardly WAIT!!!

One of my most favorite holiday movies...
The Polar Express!!!
And to experience it all over again, at Christmas time, with my 7 year old nephew and 3 year old neice curled up in the crook of my arm??? PRICELESS!!!
I am filled with the spirit of Christmas...
It is a wonderful feeling!!

A North Dakota Tribute...

My friend, Shari, found this amazing article in Esquire Magazine about travelling the state of North Dakota...

Anyone who has traveled this stretch of interstate will understand...

"Because how often do we sit for five hours, chewing beef jerky, watching the sun set? In silence? In dreams? It never happens anymore, except in Canadian hospital emergency rooms, but even then, there's something to watch other than the sunflowers turning west. Without having to make so much as a single lane change, I'd entered the closest thing to a runner's high that a fat man can feel. I had rolled clean into bliss, my mind as open as the fields around me. Squinting into orange, I thought about those things that we never let ourselves think about — those things that we actively defend ourselves against thinking about by having so much other stuff to look at and listen to.
On that godforsaken highway, I had revelations. I witnessed miracles. I saw every mistake I had made. I made peace with my regrets. And then I looked forward, ahead to the first few folds in the earth, to the canyons and the Continental Divide. I saw the rest of what I wanted out there. I saw the battles I still wanted to wage, the people I still wanted to meet and meet again, the trophies I still wanted to hang on my walls. I saw nearly every place I wanted to go between now and the end, and by the time I saw that big blue sign in my headlights, WELCOME TO MONTANA, I saw, too, that I wanted North Dakota to last forever."


Thank you, Chris Jones, for writing such an amazing article honoring a state I hold so near and dear.

Thank you, Shari, my dear friend, for reminding me of my heritage and my roots and for bringing a longing back to a time I had forgotten...when life was out in the deep Badland hills, singing, dancing, and having a good time underneath the starry skies, hiking out into the buttes at night, climbing to the top and laying on the scoria laden ground...so close that you could almost reach out and touch the shooting stars...believing that at any moment...you could feel the hand of God...

Please read more at: http://www.esquire.com/features/empty-highway-1209?click=main_sr#ixzz0Ygve5OOY

A moment of Thanks...

So, I find it hard to blog as much as my cohorts.
I hope that it is alright with my readers...
But I want substance rather than lots of crap on here...
So we wait...til the "AH HA" moment arrives and then I type...

So I have just made it through a lengthy weekend of rest and relaxation...
A weekend of Thanks...
A weekend of family...
A weekend of closeness, laughter, fun, and connecting.

I am thankful for so many things in my life this year.
I took a few moments, over the weekend, to look back and am in awe at where I am today...in comparison to where I was a year ago. The only thing I can compare it to is a complete rollercoaster ride. And I am humbled. And I am blessed. I am a man who has taken a new journey and feel so much better for it.

Scared to death?? Absolutely!
Tired and beaten down? You bet.

But this is an avenue that I also feel such accomplishment, such great responsibility to the young minds I have in my grasp, a responsibilty to teach these young people about the power of theatre, the power of the spoken word to a student who may or may not have experienced anything like it. To hold up a mirror to the face of American student and show them what they can accomplish IF they put their minds to it.

Are the minds of today's young people different than when I was in school? ABSOLUTELY! There are times when I get so frustrated with my students...at their laziness, their inability to perform a function that I consider not so difficult, placing hurdles in their way that I know they can handle and they stumble...it is in those frustrating moments that I have to remind myself that the thought process of today's youth is a much different mind set than when I was in school. I would never allow myself to lacksidasically forget this or that...or just not do the assignment...that was NEVER an option. I got the job done. This is not the case with today's youth.

I have heard many of the teachers around me regretfully admit that they have found themselves "dumbing" or "watering" down their requirements or expectations. In my own assessments, I had considered this. But my mentor has encouraged me to not succumb to this... and I agree...I refuse to not stretch the minds of today's youth...lowering my expectations to formulate a program that cowtows to the lower level learners, leaving the higher level learners to serve as co-instructors. I just will not do it...
So...with that said...my step-mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year...and as I looked back...and contemplated what I have accomplished, where I have come and where I want to go in 2010, I told her, "You know? For the first time in my life, I feel absolute CONTENTMENT. I could not ask for more."
Well maybe...World peace...and Matthew McConaughey...