Them jibbers and active butterflies and being totally fed up

I'm many things at once these past couple of days.
Both terrified and excited, happy and sad, confident and humbled and just all over the place really.

Yesterday I got to perform in the local theatre - Zaantheater in Zaandam - for a new initiative from a director whom I got to know last year. I owe this man many things, I'm so grateful for what he does for me! Words can't describe how awesome it is when people give you chances, especially in this business!
My song was really well received, people came to me afterwords to congratulate me which is something that I'm always weirded out by, what can you do and say other than 'Thank you!' with a creepy ass enormous smile on your face?
Anywho, I did appreciate it very much :)
I also got a little thing out of it, but as that is not set in stone I don't like to spill what it is already.

On that note, I almost uploaded this blog this morning. Just before I went to my audition for the musical tour of 'Spot'. A tour which will go through the USA and Canada. I cannot tell you how badly I wanted that spot (haha, pun definitely not intended) because I really really badly want to act and sing in English! Somehow it feels better than Dutch.
But as always up until now, I didn't get in. Luckily I didn't get all lovey dovey about it, that would've been a bit harsh to read right now.
It just sucks.

I will never give up on trying to get there, I refuse to give in, but it would be nice if I could get in a show for once. I'm performing, yes, but I want to be on stage for more than a night, more than a week! I'd like to spent my time there for an entire season for once!
And fuck it, I'm good enough to be up there. Decide for yourself -

People - Barbra Streisand

The Girl in 14G - Kristin Chenoweth

It's what I do, it's what I love, it's what I live for. It just sucks to be rejoiced and rejected - total mindfuck.

But! This does mean that I get to perform with an orchestra - the same as in the 14G song - January 2015! And I'm going to perform a very exciting song.. it's a Disney original and very new. Aw yeah, I'm singing 'Let it Go'. My inner musical diva is very pleased by this.

Done with ranting! My ice cream is gone, my sadness is out of the window and I will keep my head up high and just keep going on with what I've been doing thus far. Which is doing whatever the fuck I want.

Love,
Anouk

P.S. The day after - I just needed to reassure myself of the fact that I do think that I chose the right path I guess :P Sharing some of my singing was way overdue anyways.
Drama has passed - moving on!

Tis the season to drink latte. Pumpkin spiced.

Fall is here!
And apparently, because I'm white, 22 years old and a girl, I should drink pumpkin spiced lattes. Or PSL's. Well I'm more than ok with that, cheers. - Idea > DIY Pumpkin spice latte! Because recipes are literally all over the internet these days. I can't actually buy canned pumpkin puree or pumpkin spice in Holland, so I have to come up with something for that.. this should be fun - to be continued.

Fun fact, I was in the paper! Fucking awesome. I didn't even know they used my picture!
To clarify - I'll be performing 'The girl in 14g' tomorrow at the very first official theatrical afternoon in our local theatre. I'm the 'newcomer', the one not yet discovered. And I'm so incredibly happy to be chosen to participate!

It is indeed all about networking after all. I'll post some more about that tomorrow as I can't show you anything yet.

Also, a new audition is on it's way! Monday I'll be auditioning for something very exciting. I don't want to say to much about it out of fear that I'll jinx it. I remain a tad superstitious.

And another also, I've decided to go back to my roots and upload videos of myself singing Disney songs. yup, I'm going there. Because I will forever more be a Disney girl first and foremost! Maybe I can give it a personal twist, let's explore.

More coming tomorrow and next week! This was more of an announcements post - hoped you liked it anyways!

Love,
Anouk

Yum ♥

Such a good girl, I finished my drink. Yay me. 

Sharing saliva - the do's and dont's

I'm a fan of YouTube. My number of subscriptions is growing every week, one might call me addicted. 

Anyhow, I just watched a video of Carrie Hope Fletcher (Itswaypastmybedtime) about kissing and how the right kiss is worth the wait. She asked all the older (same age or up) hopefulls (her subscribers) to react. 

So I tried. I love to share my thoughts on everything. But as always, I couldn't just keep it short. So I decided to write a blog about it instead! 

Carrie, you probably won't read this, I am going to put the link in the comments anyways and if you do read this - Hi, you're fucking awesome. 

Here goes -

Kissing, or that perfect kiss. Is it worth the wait? I actually never had the perfect kiss. I never kissed someone and lost myself in the action of doing that. I never had the courage to go up to a guy I really fancied - or the kiss of the guy that I thought I fancied didn't have the outcome that I expected it to have. I did however had some fun experiences. They weren't the best, they weren't mind blowing, but they were very enjoyable at times.
 
I think that there is no shame in a bad kiss. It's something we are very likely to want to explore as we grow up and as it is with many things, practice makes perfect. But there is more to the perfect kiss than the action itself. Actually it's not about the kiss at all, it's about the excitement of fancying someone and them wanting to be as close to you as you want to be to them. A perfect first kiss is very hard to come by, you will kiss in a way you think is nice. Maybe you like a lot of tongue, maybe you like there to be no tongue at all, you don't know what the other person favors so you'll just be two people locking lips trying to find a routine that works for the both of you. Now picture that without any feelings involved.. yeah.

If you really want a good kiss, go for the feeling not for the action. The action in itself is rather weird if you think about it, it's the butterflies in your stomach that make it exciting and worth the wait!

I'd be lying if I said I don't regret any of my kisses, I could've done without some of them. Nevertheless, the experiences were mostly fun and I learned a lot about myself in the process. Now I won't go around and tell anyone that they should kiss the first random person they meet - I always thought about myself first and tried to be as respectful to myself as possible. I had trouble with saying no sometimes because I didn't want the guy to feel weird or embarrassed, those are the times that I should've respected my instinct and said 'No'.
But the other kisses that were just 'eh' were ones that made me realize what I look for in a kiss. Were they good? Not necessarily. Does that mean that I should have waited for the right guy? Not necessarily.

What is kissing really, it's something we do to figure out whether we really like the other person or not.

So as long as you don't just kiss for the experience of kissing I think you're ok with a bad kiss or two. We shouldn't be to hard on ourselfs to wait for the perfect one, it puts a whole lot of pressure on a very small thing.
Remember to enjoy and keep your own well being in mind - who knows, it might be the guy (or girl) you least expect it from.

Love,
Anouk

Ahhh, l'amour ♥

Achievement unlocked - 10 mile race

Awww yeah, in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 25 seconds! Which is slower than last year, but I didn't want to race on any sort of clock this year - I wanted to enjoy the experience.
Which I did. The first kilometers were over before I knew it. The last were the tough bit.

It wasn't my best race ever, but that's ok. I had an evening out with my colleagues last night so I might not have gotten a good amount of sleep, I didn't prepare this one as good as any other and I was nauseous the entire route. Oh well, worse things can happen.
Some 24 year old guy died right after he finished, I can't begin to tell how shocked I was when I heard. If a not so perfect race is all that I had to deal with today than I am more than okay with that.

Goes to show how fragile life actually is.. it could be over like that. Seize the day never seemed more accurate.

I wanted to write something else as well in this blog - however, I forgot what that was. So I'll just share today through pixels.

I am loving the views btw! I've been seeing more countries pop up in my statistics and I'm a little overwhelmed by the fact that I do get daily visitors these days :D
Thank you so so much, I hope you like my writings!

Beautiful, beautiful Amsterdam, how I love the

Runners, runners everywhere!

Just before we started at 11.56 a.m!

And just after I finished at 1.30 p.m.

Sweaty as fuck, but happy as a child!

Love,
Anouk

Slower pace

Aaaaaaaaaand breathe out - pffffffff

That is how I feel these days. I'm feeling so much better! No more stressful thoughts on my body, my work, my life in general basically. Just me and my happy bubble of energy.

I like to enjoy life. One of the ways that I do that is by food - when I tell you why something tastes good you want to eat it as well. Which also makes me very good at selling the freshly baked products in the shop!
I like to enjoy it through music and writing. Sometimes just when I'm alone, other times with people around me to share why we love it.
I like to enjoy life with friends. My group of friends and my family are the most generous, kind and amazing people! I'm so lucky that these people are around me on a daily basis, they stood with me through all times - tough and happy ones - and I'd do anything for them as well.

I've been on an eyeopening journey these last few months and I'm finally accepting myself for who I am. With all my flaws, with my sweet tooth, my temper, my laziness.
And it has been working it's charms for me. The moment I started to release my 'control' on the situation - read convulsively holding on to what I wanted but never seemed to get - things cáme to me rather then me asking for them.

All I did was accepting myself and everything around me for what it was. Accepting that you have to live in the moment because you don't know what will happen next. Accepting that it is ok not to know everything - we are here to learn anyways.
And also accepting that I don't fit in with the fast paced crowd. I need to take my time, I need to enjoy and observe the world around me and the people in it.

We live in a society were we have to do so many things. We need to be grown up by the time we leave school, we need to know what we want and we have to know how to get it, preferably yesterday.

Well, no longer for me. Thank you, but no. I'll follow my own path. It might take me a while and it might be scary because I have to figure out everything myself, but as long as I stay true to who I am there shouldn't be a problem with that.


So, on that note I share with you my mantra:
- Have the courage to be yourself, believe in your strength and be persistent in carrying out what you believe to be true -

Hope you liked it, here is something to brake the seriousness of it all



Love,
Anouk

Logging a 10 mile in a week

I will! My second time around actually.

I've been training regularly again - at least 2 times a week - and although today wasn't the best run I've ever had, I had that one on friday, I do feel very confident about those 10 miles!
I'm going to run from Amsterdam to Zaandam, competing in the Dam tot Dam run! Not really competing as I'm just running for myself, but the stats will be up on internet and I do like to be better than some... ever competitive.

Here are finally some photo's of me pre- and post running and what I like to eat and drink after I finished running.

I'm not an early runner, mostly around 10.30 - 11.00 a.m. I tried, I really did, to get up early and start my day fresh and everything.. fact is, I am in no way a morning person and I need my coffee. But I do go for my planned runs, so I've got that going for me which is nice. 

Smelling those shoes! They stunk! Yeah..

How I claim to feel after running - how I actually feel.

Banananananannananananana ♥ Banana ice cream!

Slice a banana in chunks, put it in the freezer until frozen (apx. 60 minutes) put it in the blender
with an optional splash of whole milk and some vanilla extract.
Blend!
Finish it off with some coconut blossom nectar, cacao nibbs and frozen raspberries. Enjoy!

From my friday run - banana-coconut water smoothie with blue berries. 

So that's it for my first running post! It's a day of firsts apparently. Next time I'll prepare it a little better so I can actually give some info on how I train and what I try to do to maintain a healthy body!

Thanks for reading, hope you liked it!

Love,
Anouk

Material girl

I am currently drooling over the clothes on freepeople.com. This afternoon I was drooling over a woolen vest and one of those birdlike/feather bodywarmers.

I thought it might be time for my first ever lookbook!

Now bare with me, I'm no fashionista, just a lover of beautiful things. And being particularly fond of the bohemian look I thought I'd make this lookbook in dedication to freepeople! Because their clothes are just.. wow. I'm in love, material love!

Here we go - my fall/winter inspiration from freepeople!

First off - some essentials. ♥ the coat, but spot the coffee!

Talking about chilly weather essentials!

I Love love LOVE dresses - these are just perfect!

Nice and long, simple and beautiful

Poncho's ♥! Especially the knitted one - got to find me one of those

Love me some color :)

These would look perfect under my high rise skinny's or under my long skirt!

Lovely accessories

This outfit is just perfect!

All the clothes are from the new arrivals at freepeople.com - note that I'm just very enthusiastic about their clothes and just wanted to share what I drool over :) This post was in no way sponsored by freepeople - if only it were!

Hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know if you did.

Love,
Anouk

Never ending story.

No, not the one with the big, flying dog and the boy with his book in the attick. The one with my crush.

My dear god, it's like my life has him on hold! Whenever I think I'm done with thinking about him, swooning over him or whatever the hell you do when you have a crush on someone - Facebook stalking anyone? - he comes back into my life in the stupidest of ways. For example, by liking my freaking Facebook status.

I feel like a sad excuse for a woman.

And I already felt like that for many other reasons - another time, another blogpost - so this does not help. I am back to staring at the green dot next to his name.

Inner dialogue: "Online!! He is online!! Now let me see if I can get him to talk to me by staring intensely at his name - and GO!"

Did it ever work? No. Will it ever work? Probably not. But I have this insane side to me which looks at everything from the sunny side up. Freaking unicorn babies and pink fluffy clouds surrounded by rainbows sunny side up. My sarcastic side never approves. I feel like a mentally retarded Llama every now and then, but I guess that is just what hormones do to you - they make you loose your sanity.

And again I stop writing early on because I have to go to work in the morning.. I should get better at planning these writing sessions with myself. It's just that I enjoy writing in the evening and I really need my sleep because my days are 11 hours long.. from 8 a.m. in the morning till 7 p.m. I will again be standing on my feet, greeting customers and telling them all about how organic foods are the best thing for your body. And organic cleaning supplies best for nature. And your body. And everything really.

Love,
Anouk

P.S. something I've been wanting for a long time now is a 'stage name'. A name that is not my own, as Anouk is a well known name in the Dutch entertainment industry - there are already so many of us there.. I finally found one that is kind of sticking with me. Noa Lane. I might be using that from now on.

Alternative ending to blogpost:

Love,
Noa

I found this gem om 9gag - accurate

'When you spot your secret crush'

Festival!

♥ them.

I haven't been to many this year, but the ones I've visited were lovely! The people, the music, the food - although it isn't as healthy as I'd like :) - it's all about having a good time and people around you are there for the exact same reason.
As a picture says more than a thousand words, here is my festival experience 2014 - enjoy!

#1 Geheime Liefde - Utrecht

 #2 Bevrijdingsfestival - Haarlem

 #2 With my lovely friend

#3 Lief Festival - Utrecht

 #3 Main stage

 #3 My gorgeous company  ♥

 #3 Other half of my gorgeous company!

 #3 Fresh waffles with Nutella and strawberries.. 

#3 Being creative ♥ and my rings of course

You just wait and see.

Joan Rivers. Never liked her. I know we're supposed to be all good and lovely about the dead, but the woman was mean.

I'm watching her documentary as I'm writing this post and I still think that she was mostly mean, not funny - or mostly funny be it very mean at many points. But that was who she was and she stayed true to herself, I can admire that.

As someone who wants to be on stage herself I thought watching a documentary like hers was mandatory - and I was right. To hear an artist of 75 - at that time - say that showbusiness is a business of rejection and that you get rejected throughout your career is somewhat reassuring to me. That means that I'm on the right path.
I've been getting rejected over and over and people around me have sometimes been handed opportunities. It's a hard thing to witness and sometimes even harder to not be to hard on yourself. (grammar mind fuck!) I am always genuinely happy for friends who get jobs in the business because I know how tough it can be and how being in that particular part of the world can make even the most confidant person an insecure little puppy at times, but it's not you. You can't change anything about it. It just wasn't your time and place.

That is not a fun thing to realize, but it's something I had to learn.

Some celebrity stories make it seem like that once you've hit the stage in a good production opportunities will come knocking on your door while you push against it from the inside because the admiration is just to overwhelming.
Well that might be the Friday night special where they put a lovely filter over the truth because, with some exceptions, that just ain't true. It's called a job for a reason.

To all the struggling entertainers out there, we truly must never give up our dreams. There is a stage for everyone and an audience that will like the way your brain works. Whether you're a writer, musician, youtuber, painter, dancer, actor, filmmaker, comedian or any type of entertainer that I failed to mention, if you really have the talent you can't allow yourself to give in to that rejection. It takes a strong human being to believe in yourself after everyone has told you 'no'. They are simply wrong and the first person to agree with you is the one you have to allow yourself to believe. They saw your talent, they spotted your drive - they give you a reason and hopefully enough courage to search for the next 'yes!'.

All those 'no's' in between should be considered white noise. Very annoying and distracting, but it can be turned off if you switch to a different channel.

Yeah, I'm such a philosopher at times. Comparing stupid people to televisions.

So, point here being - Fuck you naysayers, I will succeed.

Love,
Anouk

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The Sims are coming.. again..

As a true simmer - I've playing the damn game since 1999 - I can't be anything but absolutely psyched about the very near release date of the Sims 4. Also, as a true simmer, I got the preload. which basically means that the game is ON my laptop, I just can't play it yet.

And that is one mean trick EA! I. Can't. WAIT! Sooooo excited :D

On that note, this friday I will not be doing anything but playing Sims and ok, I'll take out a few hours to help my sister and brother in law to move to their new house. Where they are going to raise their baby. Who is currently in progress, happily growing in my sisters belly. I might be more excited for that. Just a bit.

Is it the 4th already?

Slacker.

By that I mean me.

I haven't had so many ideas for my blog lately! Or let me put that differently, I had ideas.. just didn't do anything with them. I have some lists lying around, some would call them 'to-do lists', I call them 'write-down-the-things-you-should-do-and-then-lose-the-list lists'. Now, I've never been a star in completing my goals, but as I am getting gradually better at it, I start noticing where it all went wrong before.

First off, I tend to forget things I actually don't want to do way faster then the things I do want to do. Gee, I wonder why that is. For the sharp reader, the sentence above implies that I forget basically everything. And I do. Luckily there's an app for that now. And when I don't forget to put my to do activity in my Any do app, my phone will happily remind me that I need to perform some kind of activity. That silly loyal Samsung of mine, such a trooper.

Second, I still procrastinate. Procrastination is a sucker to beat. Because it sort a feels good to know that you have stuff to do, but as you have 'got tha powah' over your life, you can do whatever the hell you want. And when you want to watch a movie (or television show - ok ok, the entire series in a week) rather then doing that thing you said you would do, well then you have to watch that movie first! Who knows what you might miss if you don't! And that thing you said to do can wait, Jon snow can't. After all, he knows nothing.

Third, cut the crap. Start writing.
1. My first feature film
2. Miniature holiday
3. That damn writing challenge! Part deux.
4. My second one woman show
5. Something food related
6. My 10 mile race

Six ideas. Let's start writing!

I'm off to snore land, night night.

Love,
Anouk