The Dream Maze Music Video that Didn't Happen

Life is about taking chances, making mistakes, and learning a little something along the way.  This experience was one for the lesson books.  We were planning on releasing a Music Video along with the song Dream Maze online, but we bit off more then we could chew.

The original plan was to have, intermingled with shots of me singing, animation sequences.  We filmed the video last March, with the help of our friend Josh and his equipment.  Then during the Summer Steven started on the art, but with him being in school and senior project responsibilities, doing animation sequences was asking a bit much.  The sequences started out grand, until they got simpler and simpler, and then at the last minute we decided to scrap the project for a lyric video, because we wanted to release something that was clean and refined. 

Here's a sampling of the style we were going to use in the video.  I think she's absolutely gorgeous.  She  needs to be used in another project; She's worth saving.

Right now it's only Steven and I, and in the future we're going to be realistic in regards to what we can accomplish, and learn from what we did here.  It's not a huge loss by any means.  And we have many projects, video projects, that we're going to get into when Steven graduates in April.  We're both counting down the days.

Always,
Sarah

365 Day Photo challenge: Days 14 - 18

(Day 14 of the 365 day photo challenge) 

My brother was having a party, and of course, with most parties in our family, games are always involved, though I was super hooked on the Hunger Games at this time, having started the second book.  Reading was pretty much all I did.

(Day 15 of the 365 day photo challenge) 

I had just finished doing a 5k training workout, when I looked up and was reminded of something.  Back when I attended UVU, before transferring to BYU, I had the most fabulous Geology 101 teacher who said the most amusing thing.  If Lindon put an "L" over their city, the Wasatch Mountains would spell UGLY, thanks to U of U placing a "U" above their school, Pleasant Grove placing a "G," and BYU placing a "Y."  Unfortunately Lindon has yet to put an "L" up, so Wasatch still reads "UGY."

(Day 16 of the 365 day photo challenge) 

I spent all day in the Studio.  I love these lights; they give off the most wonderful glow, in a fun modern way.  They're probably the hippest thing in our work room.

(Day 17 of the 365 day photo challenge) 

The debate!  Which one are we on?  Anyway, I've watched most of them, and I was hoping that a question about SOPA or PIPA would be asked, and it was.  This debate took place just after several website, including Google and Wikipedia, took a stand against these bills, pushing to maintain internet freedom.  Google blacked out their name, whereas Wikipedia went all out and took down their site for a day.

(Day 18 of the 365 day photo challenge) 

My sister-in-law just became a Self Reliance consultant, and this was her first party.  It's a freeze dried food storage system.  Most items are good for up to 25 years unopened, and one year after opening.  This was the first time I ever tried the food, and it was super good, and I've had it a few times since.  What's amazing is how easy it is to use in everyday cooking.  The yogurt bites are addicting.  

Have an awesome day!

Sarah

Sundance

Early last week I went up to Sundance Ski Resort with my Mom and Brother Steven.  Here are some of the pictures I took while there.

The Sundance Film Festival started yesterday, with movies showing at Sundance, Park City, and Salt Lake City.

My brother Steven and I.

Always,

Sarah

A funny picture and Music's pathway

 

I took this picture on day 5 of my photo challenge, but got so caught up with the birds and their music, I choose one of those pictures instead.  But on the way to Church last Sunday this "Lost" paper was taken down.  Anyway, I found it super hilarious and wanted to share it.

A couple nights ago, right before drifting to sleep, I lay there listening to David Wilcox's "Live Songs and Stories."  I love his music; he's an expert lyricist and guitarist.  I've never been to one of his concerts, though I hope I'll get the chance one day, so this album is the closest I can get at this time.  Anyway, on one of the tracks he was speaking, and what he said hit home with me, and Dream Maze, the song I just put online, and the fears and hopes I have for it.  What David said comforted me:

“Maybe music doesn't stand a chance. I mean, I can make sound. I have vocal chords. I have strings. I can make sound. Who needs sound? We need music, and music is much bigger then that. Music is Timing with a capital “T.” Music is hearing a song that sounds like your song, 'cause it's just what you've been dreaming of, or thinking of, or praying for. Suddenly it's speaking right to you. Sure, there's all these other people here, but they're just superfluous. It's your song. It was meant just for you. And it hits home, and it's real, 'cause it's coming from someplace much bigger.

“But in that place you look around, and you think, 'Oh Man, there's no chance for this to happen. There's so many distractions.' There's always distractions. All you can do is send it out. I think Sting's analogy of songs is a great one, saying it's like a message in a bottle. You take all your best hopes and dreams, and send it out in a bottle. Toss it in the ocean. Who ever gets it, and when they get it, well, it has more to do with the ocean then it has to do with you. That's good, the ocean can be trusted. The timing is right.” ~ David Wilcox.

Then after this he sang "Show the Way," which has got to be one of the most brilliant songs ever written.

But the Ocean can be trusted, and trust it I will.

Always, 

Sarah

Dream Maze Lyrics

Dream Maze

There’s no way out

Walls continue on forever, all around

There’s no doorway

Don’t know where to go

Aimlessly, moving along

I am trapped in silence

Not a voice to lead me to my home

There’s no one to fallow

Which direction?

No instructions.

Walking through this world all alone

Do I dream?

Is this real or just imagined? I can’t tell.

Ghostly shadows

Dancing through the night

Whispering, sights unseen.

Slowing slipping under

Giving in to all this Fantasy

Where this leads, I wonder

Going Foreword

I’ll go upward

Searching this Dream Maze on my own

Can I fly above this tapestry?

  This dream maze?

  I'll go high so I can truly see

  The walls that bind me

so I can finally be free

Be free

Now I see

All the walls that still surround me has no end

Painted faces

Pointing endlessly

Tempting me, I will not go

Storm clouds quickly gather

Circling winds cut through the white washed leaves

Masking all perception

Want to crumble

Cannot stumble

Open a doorway to the light.

Can I fly above this tapestry

  This dream maze

  I'll go high and I can truly see

  The walls that bound me, 

and now I'll  finally be free

Be free

Dream Maze is on Youtube!

I'm so thrilled to show you guys the song my brother Steven and I have been working months on!  And I'm thrilled to announce the Talea website is up and going again.  My brother is amazing!

Also, sometime yesterday Dream Maze got uploaded to iTunes.  It's really cool being on that store.  I'm so glad cdBaby, who we're distributing our music through, makes it easy for independent artist to get music on the web.  They provide a great service.  Another awesome service cdbaby provides is adding a music store to facebook pages.  It looks really snazzy.  you can check out our link here: www.facebook.com/pages/Cerulean-Jade/288513324513244

I hope you guys enjoy the song!  We're working on more originals that I hope will be out in the next few months, and a couple of cover songs for fun.

Always,
Sarah

Starting a 5K Running program

(Day 9 of the 365 day photo challenge)

I took this photo at the gym I go to this morning after a long Holiday brake.  It's a bike rack, though I have yet to use it, because who wants to bike home after a spinning class?  Maybe this Summer when I'm in better shape I'll be up to the challenge.

So one of my goals is to run in a 5k.  It seems daunting, and a little crazy, because even when I was a kid doing track and field I could never run a mile without stopping once.  And here I'm going to try for a full 3.3 miles without stopping, and all in a couple months!  There's quite a few programs online and in magazines that say, even if you're just starting out, you only need two months to prepare.  It seems a bit unrealistic, but Sparkpeople.com has a 5k your way rookie training program, and it seems plausible.

The first week all you have to do is walk four minutes then run a minute, repeat three times.  Next week the plan is to walk three minutes, run two, repeat four times, and so on for a full eight weeks. There's a couple races I'm looking at, one in three months, the other in four, and with this plan I should be running a full thirty minutes in no time, no stopping for breaths.

To help with my training I put together a playlist for my ipod, because it's a little hard keeping track of time and intervals, remembering if you're on the 2nd or 3rd repeat.  This way there's no thinking involved, just running and walking!  but when I put the playlist together I realized how there really isn't that many one minute songs.  

So this morning I was rocking it to Inside Outs "Never Tell a Lie," which is quiet silly, the "Finland/Fisch Schlapping Dance" from Monty Python's Spamalot, another out right silly song, and "Dance of the Bellossom" from Pokemon 2000 the movie: I actually wanted to just skip this song, but completed the interval regardless.  At least "Come On Get Happy" from the Partridge Family was only a minute.  It's a nice song to sprint to.  

So one workout down, many to go.  Mastering the 5k is this years goal, and thankfully Utah has so many races each month I can participate in.  Maybe next year I'll tackle a 10k, and get in fantastic shape in the process.

Good luck on all your goals!

Sarah

365 Day Photo challenge: Days 4-8

 (Day 4 of the 365 day photo challenge 01-06-2012)

This photo was taken at Jordan Commons, a movie theater, and anyone who knows me knows how much I love all things Japanese, skip the sushi, especially if it's cute.  The top Japanese line reads "rirakkuma" which means "relaxing bear."  And the bit under that translates to "gently relaxing everyday."  (Steven translated; I'm still learning).       

   

It costs $2 to play, and Steven actually had a go with it, though he ultimately failed.  We spent a good few minutes debating if it was even possible to win one, which we decided it wasn't.  All the stuffed bears were squished together in just the right way to make it impossible to retrieve any, and we weren't going to spend $10 to see if one can be dislodged, only to spend another $2 to then "try" and get it.  I'm probably being too fair in assuming it would only take $12.  It's impossible to play any game of this sort and remain relaxed in the process, unless you're a ninja, which I'm not.

  (Day 5 of the 365 day photo challenge 01-07-2012)

 I was out on a morning stroll when I took this.  It had snowed the night before, and the ground was dusted in the most wonderful way.  Plus, regardless of the snow, it was warm enough that I didn't need a jacket and could get away with a hoodie.  As I came to the park the most startling, loud, musical sound greeted me.  It seemed like there were hundreds of robin birds, flying about, chattering up a storm.

     (Day 6 of the 365 day photo challenge 01-08-2012)

This is a reprint edition of the 1830's Book of Mormon.  It was sold back in 2007, and just like the first, this edition was limited to only 5000, and was printed, pressed, and bound exactly the same way.  I got this when I graduated from BYU that same year from the bookstore as a momento.  Several times I tried reading through this copy, once getting lost in Alma only to start again, and then switching to a recent edition.  Several months ago I sat down determined to read this edition cover to cover.  Last Sunday I finally finished it.

I highly recommend any Later Day Saint to read an 1830's edition, where it's read without verses and columns.  It's a wonderful experience.  On top of the book rests a small bundle of Lavender I picked at the end of Summer and hung to dry.

(Day 7 of the 365 day photo challenge 01-09-2012)

Another tree photo!  No, this wasn't intentional.  My Mom found this book all about Vinegar at Barnes and Nobles the other day, and she decided that having Apple Cider Vinegar everyday would be greatly beneficial.  So after a bought of studying with myself poring over internet health pages, we hopped in the car to go to the Health store.  But before that I noticed how absolutely exquisite the moon looked and had to capture it.   

(Day 8 of the 365 day photo challenge 01-10-2012)

 

Yes, this was taken this morning, and yes, the Christmas Tree is still up.  I think one of the hardest things about Christmas ending is taking down the tree.  The lights are soothing.  But there is a point when it gets pathetic, so today the tree finally comes down!  And in less then 11 months it goes up again, just before the schedualed end of the World, because we all believe the Mayans.  (Though I personally believe they just got tired of writing out their calender, and realized 2012 was a great place to stop.  Try writing to a trillion; you'd have to be super engaged at the task to not get bored.)

Always,

Sarah

Launching Dream Maze and Cerulean Jade

 

 (Day 2 of the 365 day photo challenge)

My brother Steven and I are launching a new musical duo called Cerulean Jade.  For the last several months we've been working on our new song, Dream Maze, to go online.  It's been quite a process.  Many ups and downs and learning curves, trying to figure out what works and trying not to bite off more then we can chew, which we have from time to time.  

Yesterday we took our song on the road to hear how the final master sounds in my Dad's car.  It was an important test, because when we tried to master my two Christmas songs back in 2010, the arrangement completely disappeared on his system, and we could not figure out how to fix the problem.  But this time the master worked!  And the arrangement was easy to hear.

(Day 3 of the 365 day photo challenge)

Today was the next step:  Getting it entered on CD Baby.  The song is still being proccesed on their site, and it's going to take a few more days, likely the middle of next week or so, for the song to appear on iTunes.  It's a huge step, because we've decided to mass distribute the song, and we have no idea how people are going to like it.  We're being true to ourselves musically, and as an artist that's very important.  Hoping for the best!  And I can't wait to get started on the next song.  It's fun and upbeat, and I get to sing with sass.

Always,

Sarah

101 goals in 1001 days, and the 1st day of my 365 Day Photo Challenge

(Day 1 of the 365 day challenge)

Day 1 in my 365 Day Photo challenge. This year I didn't create a list of New year Resolutions, instead, a few months ago, I put together a list of 101 goals I plan to accomplish in the next 1001 days. As of today I have 887 days left with 10 goals completed, but since first starting the list I kept rearranging and changing goals. Today I decided to sit down and finalize the 101 goals, knowing that from here on out there would be no more changing a goal to some new obsession or some silly new task.

I went to www.dayzeroproject.com and started browsing other peoples goals to get ideas, and found out about the 365 day photo challenge, where, for the next year, I'll take a picture everyday of whatever fits my fancy. It sounds really fun, and it will be awesome sitting down a year from now and go through all the shots, reminiscing.

The picture at the top is of my most favorite craft store which is closing next week, a few months after Borders, my most favorite book store, closed. Seems like an awful, sad trend. I picked up a bunch of scrapbook paper. It's really quite depressing walking through the store, seeing how its grown so empty.

Here is the final 101 goals I'm working on! I have till the middle of June 2014 to finish them all. I underlined the goals I've finished.

1 Read the standard works in one year
2 Do a ropes course
3 Don't eat fast food for a month.
4 Achieve a 2nd High Achievement Institute certificate
5 Download a RiffTrax track (I downloaded Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was hoping the track would improve the sad, catastrophic mess of a movie. It did, slightly. It's still a sad, catastrophic mess of a movie. Let's pretend it never happened.)
6 Cook something from one of my cooking magazines
7 Attend a cooking class
8 Learn how to crochet
9 Attend an exercise class everyday for a week
10 Once a month for a year send a postcard to myself about something fun I did
11 Sell something on Etsy
12 Visit the Timpanogos Cave
13 Visit the Kennecott Copper mine
14 Earn a Ham Radio license
15 Get a passport
16 Run in a 5k
17 Attend my first yoga class
18 Get out of debt
19 Do a Maze
20 Write my personal history
21 Put together a family history book with stories
22 Have one or less treat a day for three months
23 Make a scrapbook
24 Don't weigh myself for 1 month
25 Scan and organize old family photos
26 Digitize VHS family videos
27 Interview my grandparents and type out transcript
28 Complete a 365 day photo challenge
29 Get an original music video online
30 Do a Japanese version of an original song
31 Have an original Star Wars marathon
32 Attend a dance class
33 Visit another country
34 Visit Mesa Verde
35 Get a graphic novel started online
36 Get through all 60 lessons on Spanishdict.com
37 Finish the beginning/Intermediate Living Language Japanese series
38 Finish the beginning/Intermediate Living Language French series
39 Go down the Provo River (My brother and I checked out the Halloween Provo River Cruise back in October. It was fun, cheesy, and a whole lot colder then the wonderful, warm, strange weather we've had these last couple days.)
40 Go to a midnight premier showing of a movie
41 Make a music playlist for exercising 
42 Learn Iris Folding
43 Go to the Quarry (indoor rock climbing)
44 Visit a hot spring
45 Buy flowers for myself for no reason
46 Have a board game night (The new credit card version of Monopoly is so much more fun, and faster then the original. 'Nuff said.)
47 Meditate daily for 30 days
48 Go to a local Farmers Market
49 Learn to play the guitar
50 Learn to draw
51 Get and stay organized for a month
52 Read 100 books
53 Learn to play 50 Hymns
54 Learn to play 10 final fantasy piano pieces
55 Make a wire art necklace
56 Paint a piece of art
57 Keep a food diary for three months
58 Learn 500 Japanese kanji
59 See the tulips at Thanksgiving Point
60 Complete a cross-stitch project
61 Don't log into facebook for a whole week! (It was hard, but I did it!!)
62 Ride the Heber Valley Railroad
63 Write in my journal everyday for 3 months
64 Take a hymn that isn’t copyrighted and do a choral arrangement
65 Watch the sunrise on New Year’s Day (I did this a couple days ago, having heard that it's a Japanese tradition. There is something wonderfully symbolic in it.)
66 Learn to compose 8-bit music
67 Learn to edit videos
68 Read 200 short stories
69 Learn all the Japanese kana
70 Buy a new swimsuit
71 Eat at 10 new restaurants
72 Read on the beach (I did this a couple months ago on the Ventura beach. Amazing.)
73 Go to the Opera
74 Go to a local theater production
75 Build a snowman family
76 Get down to my goal weight
77 Clean out my email inbox
78 Learn the Star Constellations
79 Attend a Comedy Sportz performance
80 Read Petite Nicholas in French and understand it
81 Visit a new State
82 Publish an ebook
83 Compose a complete musical fireside
84 Receive postcards from 20 different countries through Postcrossing
85 Visit Yellowstone
86 Learn to bake 5 different types of cookies
87 Memorize a favorite poem
88 Attend a cultural festival
89 Enter a writing contest
90 During the Spring/Summer ride a skii lift and go on a hike
91 Listen to 20 Academy Award winning or nominated soundtracks
92 Finish a nanowrimo novel (I did it! Ha!)
93 Go out dancing
94 Make a wish at 11:11 a.m. on November 11, 2011 (How often are we going to live through a date like this? Never again. I wanted to pause and relish the moment . . . and make a secret wish in the process. It's got to be luckier then wishing on a star, right?)
95 Make something I see on Pinterest
96 Read a Japanese manga back-to-front and understand it
97 Make a visual goal collage
98 Play a new board game (See #46. Okay, technically it's a new version of a classic . . . so I'm kind of stretching this one . . . I'll rethink it. I can always use an excuse to buy more games.)
99 Watch every Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis episode
100 Create a stop-motion short
101 Write a letter to myself to open at the end of the 1001 days

Always,
Sarah