J.E. Burgoyne

Introduction Halloween Time! It started at our house somewhere mid-August when the kids started asking about -Christmas and I explained how much closer Halloween was. I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween. I don’t like how eager everyone is to load my kids up with sugar. And let’s face it: I’m not a horror fan. I used to LOVE the spooks and chills that come with zombies, ghosts, and witches. Not so much anymore. But I do love the parties. And the costumes! Of course, planning the costumes for each person in my family…can be challenging. Sometime in the middle of September, I sat my family down and asked them what they wanted their costumes to be. Because seriously, the costumes come up in August and sell out really fast. By  October it’s like “Okay kid, do you want Deadpool or do we want to go as the color green this year?” Actually, I would never let them be Deadpool. My two-year-old wanted to be anything my four-year-old wanted to be and they ...

I am an unashamed day dreamer. It has been an integral part of how I define myself since I was really little. I mean, I remember being three or four and having one of my parents call me a "day dreamer" and it kinda stuck. Sometime in high school I realized that I could visualize things before I went to bed and some of them would happen the next day... that's when it got cool. Once, I just wanted a candy bar during one of my classes. I spent that class dwelling on the taste candy and chocolate. Not any specific candy bar, but something sweet. Sometime that day, someone randomly had a candy bar for me. I was flabbergasted and quite humbled that I had received something I wanted so badly. When I was a sophomore, I went to a graduation and cracked open a program-obviously to see how much longer I had to sit there. But the program had the names of all the graduates. After a while of studying the interesting names and thinking about the people I knew...

I don't know about you, but when I set out to make steps to follow a dream, one of my biggest fears if failure. I am afraid that I'll put my heart and soul into a project only to mess it up. Fail. In my Senior year of high school, I auditioned for the fall play. (It was the non-musical production of the drama department.) I had high hopes of making it into the play because I had made the play in my Junior year and I if anything, I had learned and gotten better. So, I was sure to make it my Senior year, right? Wrong. I went from a main role in the fall play one year to no role at all the next. Heart-wrenching experience. All sorts of questions about my talents and abilities haunted my mind. I had failed. I did audition for the Musical the next spring, but I had been too scared of trying out for a lead role. I tried out for ensemble-and made it. Looking back, I wish I would have at least tried for a lead. Because by auditioning for the ensemble only, I h...