One Feisty Blog

New Year, New Floor

2012-01-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

Evan and I moved into our house 6 years ago. Since then, we've only made minor improvements to our "builder's basic" home. We've changed out some window treatments, done some paint (still badly needs more), updated a few lighting fixtures, done slight landscaping and that's about it. Our house had pretty basic options when it was built in the late 90s - and those basic options just haven't held up very well. The carpet has become "crushed" in spots and stained/worn in all the high traffic areas. The linoleum in the kitchen, while not an offensive pattern or color, was worn, stained, knicked and showed every speck of dirt. I have hated that kitchen floor since the day we moved in. Mopping quickly became my most loathed household chore because after an hour of cleaning, the floor still looked dirty.

After some budgeting and cost calculations, I determined that now was the time to make some major improvements. So, we took the plunge; new tile floor here we come! As you will see in the pictures below, we have a small entry way from our front door that leads to our living room and then a small strip of carpet in front of our stairs that leads to the kitchen. This small, but heavily traveled carpeted area, was almost black with dirt. No matter how many times we got our carpet cleaned, this area was always the worst. So, we decided to tile the kitchen and extend that tile in front of the stairs to meet up with the front entry way.

Here is what the space looked like before:
Kitchen:

Area in front of stairs/entry way:

We are lucky enough to have a friend, Crystal, who has a boyfriend, Dennis, that is a professional tiler (tile layer?). They came over and looked at the space and gave me a really reasonable quote. All sounded good to me, so I was off to go find some tile. I went to Lowe's and only found 1 tile that I kind of liked. I brought a sample home to lay on the floor and I really didn't like it that much. That tile was $1.50/sq. ft.

I did some searching online for alternative tile stores and came across Floor & Decor in Arvada. Online, they had prices like .55/sq ft etc. so I thought I need to go check this out! I ran over there last weekend and, again, only really found 1 style that I liked. I got a sample of that and then grabbed another sample just so I could see a few options. Turns out, the one I liked was the same one most of my family liked and that made the decision pretty easy. The best part was that the price was $.89/sq ft! Oh, I should mention that this is ceramic tile that is 13x13.

Here is the tile I chose:

A little hard to tell from the picture, but it is a mostly gray tile with streaks of beige. Pretty neutral and it should go with the remaining carpet and the cabinets and counter top in the kitchen.

The area to be tiled measured about 203 square feet, so we needed about 225 sq ft to accommodate cutting, broken tiles and what not. With the help of my sister's big Yukon, we hauled the tile back to the house. Good god those boxes were heavy!! And I had 15 boxes! Luckily my brother-in-law helped me load them into the house otherwise I'm pretty sure my arms would have fallen off.

On Friday, Dennis came over to start the tear out and prime the floor. The plan was to tile over the existing linoleum to save the effort and labor cost of ripping it out and resurfacing the sub-floor. He started by ripping out the disgusting carpet. I was so happy to see that go!! Even the rough sub-floor underneath looked better than that gross piece of carpet.

Next, he ripped out the linoleum (plus stick-on vinyl tiles) in the entry way. Then, he went to rip out the tack strip in the area where the kitchen linoleum met with the former ugly carpet area and had a premonition. He noticed that the linoleum in the kitchen was only glued around the perimeter and not all the way through like it should have been. He pulled up a little strip and shook it and sure enough, the linoleum rippled all the way through the kitchen proving that it wasn't adhered all the way through. Therefore, the sub-floor underneath was smooth, unmarred and the perfect base to lay tile. So away with the linoleum!

After a few hours, he had the carpet ripped out, new plywood laid where the carpet was (to create one level surface), the linoleum ripped out and the floor primed so when he came back Saturday morning he could start laying out and setting the tile.

Ugh, see that big water spot in front of the dishwasher? Apparently some time before we bought the house there was a dishwasher explosion. :) The wood wasn't warped or rotted, just stained fortunately.

On Saturday, Dennis started laying out the tile and it was fun to see the floor start to take shape.

Dennis got most of the work done on Saturday - much to the dismay of his aching back and knees. That meant on Sunday all he had left to do was lay a few more pieces in our small pantry and then do the grout. We also had a carpet guy come to tuck the carpet where the tile meets up with the living room. It looks like it was always meant to be this way!

Finally, it was grout time. Probably the most stressful part of the whole project for me was picking a grout color! Ok, so not really, but I had never even thought of it before so I didn't know exactly how to choose the right one. I went with a light/medium gray and it ended up looking fantastic.

So, after about 18 hours of work, our new floor is done (well, I'm allowing extra time for the grout to set before I put all my stuff back in the kitchen). The new tile is BEAUTIFUL!! I love it! We even ended up with extra tile which means there was hardly any waste. Dennis did a fantastic job! He was thorough, meticulous, and just clearly knew what he was doing. Plus he gave us an awesome deal. If you ever need tile work (kitchen, showers, counter tops, etc.) please let me know and I'll send him your way. Simply amazing!

And here is the finished product:

Evan Made Me Read Comic Books

2011-10-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hello. Evan here. Linda’s life-partner/sensei. While she and I have several shared interests, the two of us each has a hobby the other one couldn’t care less about. She has football. I have comic books.

She has the National Football League. I have the Justice League. She has end zones. I have Phantom Zones (yes, that’s a thing). Etc.

This year, in order to attract new and lapsed readers, DC Comics decided to reboot all of their titles and start again with fifty-two new #1 issues. The theory is that non-readers have a hard time getting into comic books because they are intimidated by the high numbered issues and 70+ years of sometimes convoluted continuity. It’s pretty daunting to just jump right in to a comic that’s on issue number 900. So why not start fresh?

Are the books “new reader friendly”? I dunno. I’m not a new reader. That’s why I’ve enlisted Linda, life partner/student, to read nine of the new issues and give her take on them. Though she’s read a few comics in her time (Y: the Last Man and various Family Circuses), she doesn’t have the tolerance built up for men in capes like I do. Thus, as their target audience, I thought Linda would be a good barometer of success.

And maybe one day when the NFL decides to throw out 90 years of rules and start fresh with new teams and ~~costumes~~ uniforms, I’ll consider returning the favor.

On with the reviews:

Justice League #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art and cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

Cover: I like the cover because it’s colorful. Wow, that’s insightful. I should have said, “it’s nice.” J I’m pretty sure that Wonder Woman’s boobs would pop out of that outfit every time she moves.

Art: It was a bit busy. I didn’t know what to look at and there was like an explosion in every frame. I had to look at things a few times before I could accurately pair up the dialogue with the art. The sound effects were a little ridiculous.

Story: Ok, why does Green Lantern keep referring to himself in the third person? Linda is really annoyed by this. And there seems to be some sexual tension early on between Batman and Green Lantern. “You’re about to see exactly what’s on my mind—.” “Quiet.” ::KISS:: Or at least that’s what I thought the next panel was going to be. But alas...

I suppose the story was ok. It introduced characters, set up the story for more introductions of characters later and then left you hanging at the end so you would get the next book. Oh and then there’s that weird robot-y villain guy and inserted a Rubik’s cube into a wall or something. Ok. Overall, I don’t feel like enough happened to critique the story any further. Oh, and I totally accidentally read a few of the ads and thought, “what the hell does a Converse shoe have to do with anything?”

Lingering Questions: When do they all become BFFs?

Rating: Uhh...what’s the scale? Let’s say, 3 stars a 7 and a cherry.

Action Comics #1

Written by GRANT MORRISON; Art by RAGS MORALES and RICK BRYANT; Cover by RAGS MORALES

Cover: Ok, this cover is pretty good, but it raises a few questions.

1) Why are all the cars from the 80s?

2) Why does Superman own a Superman t-shirt?

3) Is it just me, or does his cape look super short?

4) Let me know if I’m super smart. On the cop cars chasing him, they have numbers on the roofs: 19 and 38. Now is 1938 the year of the first Superman (Action Comics)? If I AM smart, Evan loves me a little more right now.

Art: Red eye Superman is scary. Lex Luthor doesn’t look menacing enough. (oh wait, it’s the first issue, I shouldn’t know that he’s menacing, right?) In some frames, Superman looks like a teenager and like he’s 30 in others. Lois could be prettier.

Story: At the beginning, the whole “Find the real bad guys.” “Treat people right or expect a visit from me.” stuff seems a bit dated. Like too sweet and square or something. Didn’t sound right considering it takes place in the present or near future.

I would assume we have better things to do with our tanks than to shoot at 1 man.

Oh Clark Kent. I get that you think by putting on glasses that you won’t look like Superman, but I don’t understand channeling your inner Harry Potter.

Lingering Questions: Umm...see above.

Rating: Let’s see, I will go with a thumbs up and a slow clap.

Batwoman #1

Written by J.H. WILLIAMS III and W. HADEN BLACKMAN; Art and cover by J.H. WILLIAMS III

Cover: The cover art is pretty cool, I like it. However, I’m not sold on the color scheme. The design is cool, but I feel like the colors wash it out or something. I would have suggested a darker red or a dark blue in place of all that coral color.

Art: I like that the art uses the entire spread, instead of just the one page like the others I’ve read. I thought it would be hard to follow at first, but it wasn’t. It was kind of refreshing. But, uh...Batwoman is totally a drag queen. She’s waaaaay masculine.

Whoa! Side-boob!

Story: Oops, ok, for like 2 pages I thought I was reading CATwoman. Der.

Huh, “Plebe?” What kind of name is that?

Skeletor is in this too? Cool.

These girls sure do undress a lot.

Propositioned by Batman? Yes please!

The story was a bit all over the place. We got the weird crying urban legend lady thing, the Batwoman and Plebe (still stupid) thing, this medusa stuff and yadda yadda yadda. It lacked focus.

Lingering Questions: Who is uncle/dad Jake? --- Oh... “Colonel Jacob Kane”? Is that Uncle Jake? And crap, that name sounds familiar but I don’t know from where. Dang, I lose all the points I gained with the Action Comics 1938 cover don’t I?

Rating: Let’s see 867-5309.

Green Lantern #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art by DOUG MAHNKE and CHRISTIAN ALAMY; Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Cover: Very green. Straight forward. And I like that.

Art: If Papa Smurf had a love child with an Oompa Loompa, you would have the Guardians.

Ew. In one panel, Carol looks way too much like Megan Fox. Puke.

Story: I like that he’s broke. Equal opportunity super-heroism is a movement I can get behind.

Finally!! A story I actually follow from start to finish. Must have been all the normal, human stuff with Hal. I got it, I could relate, it made sense. And there were only 2 stories and they came together at the end. Brilliant!

Lingering Questions: None!

Rating: A+B-C/A-B+D*A

Batman #1

Written by SCOTT SNYDER; Art by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION; Cover by GREG CAPULLO

Cover: Hmm...don’t really like it. It’s too dark and monochromatic. I do appreciate the Riddler’s question mark hair cut, though.

Art: Little too dark for my taste. Damn, Joker is scary!

Uhhh...guy stabbed to the wall. Yeah, that’s gross. Pretty sure I see a knife stabbed in his junk.

Story: I really like the “Gotham Is” start. It immediately draws me in vs. using dialogue where I’m trying to figure out who is talking, who they are talking to, what do they mean by that etc. This I can just read and understand. And it’s a good way to introduce some villains.

Working with the Joker? Whaaaaaat? Oh, ha. One panel later...and Linda is a sucker.

Whoa whoa, who the heck is Damian Wayne? When did batman have a kid? I guess I shouldn’t ask since this is the first Batman comic I’ve ever read. Ok, so I’ll just go with it.

Holy monologue, Batman! If those text bubbles got any bigger I’d be reading a regular book.

Gotham of the Future = The same place with 4 extra skyscrapers. Bravo, Bruce Wayne. Bravo.

VICKI VALE!! Man how I’ve missed you!

Ooohh, good cliffhanger at the end.

I liked this story the most. It was by far the most engaging.

Rating: 3 gold stars

Wonder Woman #1

Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO; Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG

Cover: Loooove the cover!! There is something very old school and somewhat primal about it. Like a cave drawing or something. It’s neat. My favorite.

Art: Oh yeah, as if that sheet would stay strategically placed over Wonder Woman’s boobs. Riiiight.

There are a few panels where WW’s face is disproportionate to her head. It’s really tiny in comparison to her huge hair.

Story: Whoa whoa, back it up. Some weird purple guy with glowing teeth and eyes got 3 hot chicks to come home with him? Oh and yeah, he threw them off a building. Well what did you expect, he was purple with glowing teeth and eyes!

Oh shiznit! Cut off the horse’s head. And something is crawling out of it. WTF?!

Ok, now there is a blue guy. What planet and what time period is this?

Pregnant by Zeus? Huh, ok. I am so confused.

Oh good, that guy didn’t throw those ladies off the building. He just made them levitate...and see into the future...or something. Oy. Aaand then he burns them. Ok this just keeps getting weird.

Lingering Questions: Uh, yeah. Tons. Like WTF is going on?! I understood NONE of that. I liked the cover and then everything past that was a giant, confusing mess.

Rating: ctrl + z

Aquaman #1

Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Cover: Well, it’s weird. That’s kinda all I got.

Art: The scenes on land are nice. Very colorful. Man, just make something pretty and I like it. I’m like a child. The scenes in the ocean are too dark. Broken record, anyone?

Mera is hot.

Story: Why is Aquaman showing up everywhere? It’s weird, like he’s trying too hard. Is he trying to get his own reality show or something? And the trident thingy is a bit of a burden to carry around.

Meh. This one was boring and pretty simplistic. Nothing happened that made me care about Aquaman or why on earth he kept appearing everywhere. I guess the thing at the end is interesting, but it happened way too late. I had stopped caring.

Oh, and I don’t trust blonde men.

Lingering Questions: Is Mera related to Ariel? Because that’s a cross-over I could get behind!

Rating: Two poops on a stick.

All-Star Western #1

Written by JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI; Art and cover by MORITAT

Cover: Feel as though the title font doesn’t fit with the rest of the art. It’s too bright white or something. (can’t see in the picture above). The art itself is pretty good, but it makes me feel cold so I don’t like that. :)

Art: I like the muted colors and all the old-fashioned details. It’s like whenever I think back on the past, I just assume everything was in black and white, just because pictures and TV were that way. Silly I know. But it works.

Now this is going to sound mean, but have comic book illustrators ever seen real boobs? Because whenever they draw busty women in ridiculous get-ups, so much boob is hanging out without a nipple showing that I question their knowledge of female anatomy. And furthermore, don’t they know that if any woman wore those outfits, their boobs would come tumbling out the first time they inhaled? Yeah yeah, gratuitous cleavage for the predominantly male audience, but give me a break. At least try to make it look plausible.

Story: Gotham in the 1880s: cool! Although, it just goes to show that once a crap-hole, always a crap-hole.

I like using the psychoanalysis as a way of character introduction. It was interesting to read what Arkham was concluding while seeing Jonah Hex in action. I’m certain that most of what Arkham assumes is wrong and that you only get to see tiny bits and pieces of Hex as the book continues on and those assumptions change. Or perhaps they want you to think that he is wrong, but instead he’s dead on? Dunno, I know nothing of Jonah Hex.

Mayor Cobblepot? Really?

Pretty good. But I wanted slightly more resolution at the end. Not so much as to jeopardize the cliffhanger, but something more.

Rating: Hooray for a hole in the face.

Flash #1

Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL

Cover: I like the cover. It looks flashy. Ha, get it? Even though his head is covered, I get the feeling there is blonde hair under there, so I immediately don’t trust him.

Art: Yup, blonde hair!

Dr. Elias has a butt ugly tie.

I’m not sure the illustration succeeds in making Flash seem fast. I get what they are trying to do, but my brain is not trained to interpret it as him moving super fast. I have no idea how they would improve that though.

Really like the flash-back (ha!) art.

Story: Barry Allen was struck by lighting AND doused in chemicals? Good grief, that’s a bad day.

Flash has a ring too? I bet Green Lantern is so pissed about that. Also, I don’t trust guys that wear rings other than their wedding rings. I have trust issues, huh?

Not a lot here to comment on and I was kinda confused, see below.

Lingering Questions: Hmm...I guess I’m confused about the whole Manuel thing. I don’t get the transition from old friend to weird ninja guy. And then he comes back at the end, and then they are running and being chased. Ok. Still don’t get it.

Rating: ====Meh=. ß that’s a really fast “meh.”

Couponing: October, Week 1

2011-10-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like my week #1's are always the most expensive week of the month. Not exactly sure why that is, but this week is no exception. (And having already done my planning for next week, I fear that total might be just as steep.) I did get some good deals this week, but nothing spectacular. I think this was because the vast majority of my coupons expired 9/30 and I didn't replenish until after my shopping trip on Sunday (6 inserts!). Anyway, here we go...

Meal Plan:

Monday: Steak with brussel sprouts
Tuesday: Smoked sausages/hot dogs with baked beans
Wednesday: Shrimp pasta with an alfredo-pesto sauce
Thursday: Pork chops and pierogies

Freezer:
Hmm...I think all I got for the freezer was an extra box of pierogies. :-/ I'm kicking myself for not getting an extra package of sausages to freeze - when you see the price, you'll know why.

The Deals:

Breakfast on the Go: Original Price = $3.99
On sale: -$1.49
Manuf. Coupon: -$1
Total Price: $1.50, Total Savings: $2.49

Cheerios: Original Price = $4.79
On Sale: -$2.30
E-Coupon: -$1.00
Total Price: $1.49, Total Savings: $3.30

Pop, three 12 packs: Original Price = $18, $5.99 ea
On sale: Buy 2, get 1 free
Total Price: $12, Total Savings: $6

Oral B Dental Floss: Original Price = $2.99
Manuf. Coupon: -$2
Total Price: $.99, Total Savings: $2

Smoked Sausages: Original Price = $5.49
On sale: 75% off!
E-coupon: -$1
Total Price: .37!! Total Savings: $5.12

Pierogies: Original Price = $7.98 for 2
On sale for 2 for $5
Total Savings: $2.98

Other than that there was a lot of produce, items for lunches and breakfasts and olive oil that of course went on sale this week, grr!

Total Cost Before Coupons: $115.76
Total Amount of Coupons: $6.00
Loyalty Card Savings: $27.93
Total Savings: $33.93

TOTAL COST: $81.83
TOTAL SAVINGS: 30%

Couponing: September Round-Up

2011-09-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Here we are, at the end of September already! Good grief! Well, this week was my last shopping trip for September and it is freezer week again. I usually shop at Safeway, but earlier this month I got an amazing coupon book from Target that I couldn't ignore. The book included about 20 coupons that were all general in nature - $1 off a meat product, $1 off a fruit purchase, $1 off a frozen item, etc. These are so rare because typically coupons are brand specific. Since these were so general, I was able to match them with manufacturer coupons or buy the cheaper generic brands and save even more.

Meal Plan
Monday: Baked chicken with onion, garlic and tomatoes, served with mashed potatoes (this is the 1 fresh meal this week, however, I got enough to make a 2nd meal for the freezer)
Tuesday: Lasagna (frozen) with salad (fresh)
Wednesday: Chicken schnitzels (frozen) with frozen veggies
Thursday: Meatball sandwiches (meat: frozen, bread: fresh) with cole slaw (fresh)

Deals

Since Target doesn't have a loyalty card and they don't layout their receipts the same way Safeway does, I'm going to be more general with my savings descriptions.

Bagged Salad: $1 off, total cost = $1.50
Grape Tomatoes: $1 off, total cost = $1.99
Chicken Leg Quarters, about 6 pieces: $2 off, total cost = $2.99
Pasta: $.50 off, total cost = $.57
Barilla Pasta sauce: $1.00 off manuf. coupon, total cost =$1.44
Hoagies from the bakery: $1 off, total cost = $1.69
Cheerios: $1 off, total cost =$2.04 for the big box
Bananas: $1 off, total cost = $.57
DiGiorno Pizza: $1 off frozen item, $1 off manuf. coupon, total cost =$3.29

Then there was a bunch more produce, a few lean cuisines for lunches, pop, and a few other small things.

Total Cost Before Coupons: $74.12
Total amount of coupons: $16.90

Total Cost: $57.22

Total Savings: 23%

September Totals:

Week 1: $89.93
Week 2: $44.99
Week 3: $63.19
Week 4: $57.22
Incidentals: $14.51 (I had to make some cupcakes for a bake-sale, so this was an extra shopping trip)

GRAND TOTAL FOR SEPTEMBER: $269.84

TOTAL AMOUNT OF SAVINGS: $149.32

TOTAL SAVINGS PERCENTAGE: 35.6% with coupons

Hooray! October here I come!

Couponing: September, Week 3

2011-09-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

This weeks theme was buy more and pay less. A lot of the deals this week were based on buying 2 of a particular item to get maximum savings.

Meal Plan:
Monday: Dinner with a friend, so going out to eat
Tuesday: Salmon with artichokes
Wednesday: Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad and bread
Thursday: A twist on margarita pizza: Tomato, pesto and goat cheese, with salad

Freezer Meal: Instead of a meal or a meat this week, I decided to stock up on some frozen veggies because what good is all that meat if there is no side dish? :) And there was a good deal on frozen vegetables this week.

The Deals:

Pop Secret Popcorn, 2 boxes: Original Price = $5.98 for 2
On Sale: -.98
E-coupon: -$2.02
Manuf. coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $1.98 for two or .99 ea , Total Savings: $4

Prego Pasta Sauce, 2 jars: Original Price = $4.58 for 2
On Sale: -.80
E-coupon: -$1.20
Manuf. Coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $1.58 for two or .79 ea, Total Savings: $3

Open Nature Cereal: Original Price = $3.49
On Sale: -.70
Catalina coupon: -$1.50
Total Cost: $1.29, Total Savings: $2.20

Lean Cuisines: Original Price = $3.19 ea (we bought 3, but only had a coupon for 2)
E-coupon: -$1.24
Total Price: $1.95 ea or $3.90 for two, Total Savings: $1.24 or $2.48 for two

Green Giant Frozen Vegetables with Sauce: Original Price = $6.58 for 2
On Sale for BOGO
Manuf. Coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $2.29 for 2 or $1.14 ea, Total Savings: $4.29

Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner: Original Price = $7.98 for 2, $3.99 ea
On Sale for BOGO
E-coupon: -$2.00
Manuf. Coupon (clipped out of the Food Network Mag.): -$2.00
Total Cost: FREE!!!! TWO bottles for FREE!, Total Savings: $8

Raspberries: Original Price = $9.98 for 2
On Sale for BOGO
Total Cost: $4.99, Total Savings: $4.99

Total Cost Before Coupons: $100.40
Total Amount of Coupons: $14.95
Loyalty Card Savings: $22.26
Total Savings: $37.21

Total Cost: $63.19
Total Savings: 38%

Couponing: September, Week 2

2011-09-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

Ok here it is!

Meal Plan:
Monday: Breakfast for dinner - sausage, eggs and cinnamon rolls
Tuesday: Met Evan and his sister downtown to see a show, so we ate at a restaurant called Lou's Food Bar
Wednesday: Gouda and apple melts with fresh broccoli on the side
Thursday: Baked chicken with potato wedges and steamed mixed veggies

So, only 3 meals this week with no freezer meal.

The Deals:

Kellogs Cereal, 2 Boxes: Original Price = $7.98 for 2
On sale: -$1.40
Manuf. coupon: $1 off of 2
Total Cost: $5.58 for 2, Total Savings: $2.40

Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, 2 tubes: Original Price = $4.98 for 2
E-coupon: -$1
Manuf. coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $2.98 (or $1.49 ea), Total Savings: $2

ACT Mouthwash: Original Price = $4.99
On sale: -$1
Manuf. coupon: -$1
Total cost: $2.99, Total Savings: $2

Garnier Fructis Conditioner: Original Price = $3.49
On sale: -.50
E-coupon: -$2
Manuf. coupon: -$1
Total Cost: FREE!! Total savings: $3.49

Oscar Meyer Carving Board Ham: Original Price = $4.99
On sale: -$1.99
Manuf. coupon: -$1
Total Cost: $2, Total Savings: $2.99

Jimmy Dean Sausage: Original Price = $5.49
On sale: -$2.50
Manuf. coupon: -$1
Total cost: $1.99, Total Savings: $3.50

Total Cost Before Coupons: $69.39

Total amount of coupons: $10.52
Loyalty Card Savings: $13.88
Total Savings: $24.40

Total Cost: $44.99

Total Savings: 36%

Couponing: September, Week 1

2011-09-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, here we go again....Ground beef was on sale at Safeway for buy one get one free extreme value packs. So I got 8 lbs of ground beef, more details on that deal below. This will yield me 2 meals this week, 2 freezer meals and then some extra left over to freeze.

Meal Plan
Monday: Sloppy joes with cucumber salad (cucumbers provided by my brother's garden!)
Tuesday: Cod with balsalmic vinegar reduction sauce with asparagus
Wednesday: Meatloaf with corn on the cob and potatoes
Thursday: Sausage of some sort with potatoes and cabbage

Freezer Meals
Chili - at least 2 large containers to freeze
Extra ground beef to freeze, at least 1 lb.
Second rope of Hilshire Farm Sausage

Now on to the deals...cue the music:

Soda: (yeah yeah, I know, we should cut back. shut up.) Five 12 packs. Original Price = $30
It was on sale for Buy 2 Get 3 free, so that's why we got 5. :)
Total Cost: $12, Total Savings = $18

Cheerios: Original Price = $3.79
On Sale: $2.50
E-coupon: -.50
Total Cost: $2.00, Total Savings: $1.79

Reynolds Wrap Foil, 75 ft.: Original Price = $5.19
On Sale: $3.49
E-coupon: -.50
Manuf. coupon: -.55
Doubled: -.45
Total Cost: $1.99, Total Savings: $3.20

Lean Cuisines: Original Price = $2.49 ea or 6 for $14.94
On sale for $1.99 ea if you bought 5
We purchased 6 because I had a coupon for -$1.25 off of 6
Total Cost: $10.69 or $1.78 ea. Total Savings: $4.25

Land O'Lakes Spreadable Butter, 8oz.: Original Price = $2.79
E-coupon: -$1.30
Manuf. coupon: -.35
Doubled: -.35
Total Cost: .79, Total Savings: $2.00

Colgate Toothpaste: Original Price = $2.99
On sale: .99
Manuf. coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.49
Total Cost: FREE!, Savings of $2.99

Hilshire Farm Rope Sausages: Original Price = 2 at 4.99 ea, or $9.98
On sale for BOGO
Manuf. Coupon: -.75
Doubled: -.25
Total Cost: $3.99 for 2, Total Savings: $5.99

93% Lean Ground Beef, roughly 8lbs: Original Price = $44.74
On sale for BOGO
Total Cost: $22.51, Savings of $22.23

Produce: Apples, lemon, onion, asparagus, corn, dill, mushrooms, dried cranberries
Original Price = $12.88
Catalina coupon = $3 off a $10 produce purchase
Total Cost: $9.88

Then I got a whole bunch of canned vegetables for the chili, milk, and kleenex and that's pretty much it.

Total Cost Before Coupons: $160.74
Total amount of coupons: $7.24
Loyalty Card Savings: $63.57
Total Savings: $70.81

Total Cost: $89.93

Total Savings: 45%

So yes, this week was a bit more expensive than what I would like. However, with taking advantage of my store's BOGO sales, I was able to get a ton of stuff for the freezer. So this week's $90 will make 4 meals this week and 4 meals for the freezer - so essentially 2 weeks worth of meals in one. I can live with that. :)

Grocery Spending: August Round-Up

2011-08-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

So, here we are at the end of August. Oy! This past Sunday was my 3rd week of couponing to help reduce our monthly grocery budget. Since it was the last week in the month, I had planned for this week to be the "freezer week." Meaning, mainly eating meals that I had froze earlier in the month, or using ingredients (mostly meats) that were previously froze. I did want to get one fresh meal this week, so this is our meal plan:

Monday: Shrimp rolls (think Lobster Rolls, but with shrimp) with chips - Fresh
Tuesday: Spaghetti with meat sauce (meat was frozen, sauce and noodles from pantry), garlic bread (bought, frozen) and salad (fresh)
Wednesday: Chicken enchiladas. Chicken is coming from the freezer, just had to buy some sauce, cheese and tortillas. This will yield one batch for dinner and another for a future freezer meal
Thursday: South of the Border Quiche (freezer) with salad (fresh).

For this week's shopping trip I had a whole stack of coupons ready to use, but it turned out that the generic brand prices beat my coupon prices so I think I only used 1 coupon this week. Since so many of the meals were already in the freezer, this was a very light week - as was the plan.

This week's deals:

Safeway Brand Mexican Cheese: Original Price = $2.99
E-coupon: -$1
Total Cost: $1.99, Savings of $1

Mama Bella Brand Frozen Garlic Bread (2 loaves): Original Price = $4.29
On sale for: $2.99
Manuf. coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $1.99, Savings of $2.30

Shrimp: Original Price = $5.06
On sale for: $3.22
Savings of $1.84

Told ya there was nothing exciting this week...

Total Cost Before Coupons: $54.41
Total amount of coupons and e-coupons: $2.00 (ha!)
Loyalty card savings: $13.70
Total Savings: $15.70

Total Cost: $38.71

Total Savings: 30%

AUGUST TOTALS:

Week 1 (hadn't started couponing yet) = $85.34
Week 2 (couponing begins!) = $64.21
Week 3 = $56.08
Incidental (Tide was on sale Friday only for $5, I had a $1 off coupon, so I made a special trip) = $4.00
Week 4 = $38.71

GRAND TOTAL FOR AUGUST: $248.34

Compared to July ($430.84): Reduced our grocery spending by $182.50!!
42% Reduction thanks to couponing and freezer meals!

Let's hope September brings some great deals and we can keep this up. And for fun, here is a picture of what it looks like when I plan for the week. Surrounded by grocery ads, my coupon stack, my grocery list, a cookbook and my computer to look up e-coupons. Takes about 2 hours to complete my list.

Week 2 of Couponing

2011-08-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so week 2 wasn't as good as the previous week, but still a good amount of savings nonetheless. One thing I forgot about last week was to give you my meal plans so you can see what we're eating compared to what it cost. So this bill was for the week that just past, and here is the meal plan:

Monday: Homemade (well, mostly) pepperoni and mushroom pizza
Tuesday: Steak (cheap ones!) with fried zucchini and oven fries
Wednesday: Hot dogs with tomato and cucumber salad
Thursday: Typically, I would make a 4th meal here, but we had a dress rehearsal and just had to pick something up on the way.

Freezer Meal: South of the Border Quiche with mainly left over ingredients from the previous week.

Note: I was given the largest zucchini known to man by a coworker that we ate some of on Tuesday and the rest is now transformed into 3 (!!) zucchini breads which are in the oven as I type this.

Ok, on to the deals!

Orbit Gum: One pack was on sale for .69 and another was 1.39 = 2.08
Manuf. Coupon: -.50 off of 2 packs
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $1.08, Savings of $1.00

Wishbone Dressing: Original Price = $3.39 each, $6.78 for 2
Sale: Buy one get one free
E-Coupon: -$2.00 when you buy 2
Manuf. Coupon: -.50
Doubled: -.50
Total Cost: $.39, or just .19 each! Savings of $6.39!

Pillsbury Pizza Refrigerated Pizza Crust: Original Price = $3.29
E-coupon: -$1.30
Manuf. Coupon: -.40
Doubled: -.40
Total Cost: $1.19, Savings of $2.10

Precious Brand String Cheese Sticks Pack of 16: Original Price = 5.99
E-coupons: -$3.00
Total Price: $2.99, Savings of $3.00

5lb Bag of Russet Potatoes: Original Price = $2.99
Safeway Mailer Coupon: .49 ea!
Total Cost: .49, Savings of $2.50!

Safeway Brand Wheat Bread: Original Price = $1.79
Coupon: -$1.00
Total Cost: .79, Savings of $1.00

Safeway Brand Hot Dog Buns: Original Price = 1.49
Coupon: -$1.00 (this was the same coupon as above for $1 off any safeway bread. 1 coupon that applied to multiple items)
Total Cost: .49, Savings of $1.00

Athenos Feta: Original Price = $4.49
E-coupon: -$1
Total Cost: $3.49, Savings of $1.00

I also had a coupon on some cereal this week, but it was nothing spectacular. Then I also had another $10 off Safeway mailer coupon which are always awesome. Then we got the usual stuff: milk, stuff for lunches, fruit, some toiletries, etc. Here's what it boiled down to:

Total Cost Before Coupons: $93.68
Total amount of coupons and e-coupons: $26.40
Loyalty Card Savings: $11.20
Total Savings: $37.60

TOTAL COST: $56.08
TOTAL SAVINGS: 42%

Not So Extreme Couponing

2011-08-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been examining our budgets and spending, and realized that we spend a butt-ton of money on groceries. For instance, in July, we spent $430 at the grocery store! We are only 2 people and I only cook 4 meals a week, what the heck is going on? Now, this does also include toiletries and household items, so it's not just food, but it still seems like a lot. I meal plan every week, almost always buy generic and rarely buy things that aren't on sale, but still can't seem to save enough money.

So I decided to try to make some changes. I checked out a few books at the library that included topics like: Freezer meals, $5 dollar dinner ideas, strategic grocery shopping and 600 ways to reduce your grocery budget. For the most part, all of the "tips" were either things I already did or were aware of, so nothing groundbreaking. However, it did motivate me to try harder. My plan for the next few months will be this:

Try to make one freezer meal a week or freeze an extra package of meat, etc. (by doing this, I am hoping that 1 week per month we can simply eat out of the freezer and only buy a few fresh things at the store)
Try harder to match coupons with weekly sales
Strive to use ingredients in more than one meal a week (if one meal uses cilantro, try to use that cilantro on at least one other meal to reduce waste and avoid buying more ingredients)
Seek out different stores (Walgreens and Target) for toiletries and such because they tend to be cheaper than at our grocery store.

So this past weekend was my first shot at my new plan. Some things to note: I had a BOGO coupon for some meat that my grocery store didn't carry (ANNOYING!), so I wasn't able to put something in the freezer this week. Other than that, I had $5 dinner recipe on my list and was manned with some special store coupons from a Safeway mailer. Here are the highlights from my grocery bill:

Honey Nut Cheerios (big box): Original Price: 4.79
-On sale for: 3.33.
-E-coupon my store loyalty card (will be referenced as "J4U" (just for you) from here forth) -.34
-Manufacturer coupon: -.75, "doubled" up to a dollar, so an additional -.25
Total Cost: $1.99, Savings of $2.80

Crunchy Nut Cereal: Original Price: 3.99
-Manu. coupon -.75, doubled for an additional -.25
Total Cost: 2.99 (ok, that wasn't that cool), Savings of $1.00

Soda: Coke was Buy 2, Get 2 free - and yes, we drink that much soda
Original Price for 4 = $24
Total Price: $12, Savings of $12

Freezer Sale: Buy $15 worth of frozen items and get $5 off
So we got 4 Lean Cuisines for lunches at $10
We got some 2 personal pizzas, again for lunches, $3
So, you're thinking, you didn't spend the $15. True, but we also bought ice cream (see below) that qualified us for the deal. So, we really got all this for only $8.

Breyers Ice Cream: Original Price = $5.99
On Sale for $2.99
E-coupon for $3 Off
Total Price: FREE! Woohoo!

Store Mailer Coupon: Every month or so, Safeway mails out these coupons that feature 1 item for 3 different meals. This month it was bacon, so there were coupons for breakfast items, BLT items and loaded baked potato items. Well, I'm only making the breakfast meal, but I can use some of the same ingredients of the other meals:

Safeway Eggs, 1 dozen: $1.24 with a -.75 coupon
Safeway Shredded Cheese: $.99 with a -1.50 coupon
Safeway Orange Juice: $1.50 with a -.50 coupon
Safeway Sour Cream, 16oz: $.88 with -.67 (??) coupon

Blueberries: BOGO
2 pints of blueberries, original price: $10
Total cost: $5, savings of $5

Catalina (printed at register) coupon from a previous shopping trip: $10 OFF

Then we got a bunch of other stuff, mostly produce, canned goods and some toiletries, but the above were the best savings. Here's the grand total:

Total Cost Before Coupons: $116.34
Total amount of Coupons and E-coupons: $24.76
Loyalty Card Savings: $27.37
Total Savings: $52.13

TOTAL COST: $64.21

TOTAL SAVINGS: 46%

Certainly not the crazy 96% savings you see on Extreme Couponing, but this is a personal best for me! Almost half off my grocery bill is pretty dang good! Assuming I can keep this up for a month, I can reduce my monthly grocery bill by $200 a month. Let's see if I can actually do it...stay posted!

CitySolve Urban Race Denver

2011-05-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, Evan, his sister, Megan and I participated in the CitySolve Denver Urban Race...along with about 700 other people! The Urban Race is kind of like a scavenger hunt/Amazing Race all around Denver. Teams of 2 to 3 people race around Denver solving clues in hopes of being one of the first teams to cross the finish line. You could only walk or use public transportation.

Our team name was the Flux Capacitors - it's from the Back to the Future movies if you don't have a clue what that is. We had t-shirts made with a picture of a flux capacitor with the words "Go Flux Yourself". In addition to the shirts, we each had on some accessories from different eras from the Back to the Future movies. I was 50s, Evan was from the "future" 2015 and Megan was from the 80s.

The day started off at about 11am at Stoney's Bar and Grill on 11th and Lincoln. This was where we had to check in...then wait for an hour...and then get our first clue of the day. At noon, they unfurled large pieces of paper with the first clue on it:

The answer was B, so we headed to 14th and Grant to get our set of 10 clues to solve and get the race started. Our strategy was to sit down and solve all the clues, map out our destinations and then take the most efficient route around the city. You're given 10 clues, most of which are mandatory, but there are others that are not and you are given on free skip. You may solve the clues and hit the destinations in any order. We quickly realized our team was extremely complementary. I would work out the puzzles to solve the clues, Evan would look things up online and Megan's vast knowledge of Denver's restaurants and bars made solving the clues super easy and fast. It took us about 30 minutes to solve the clues and off we went!

Here is the order that we solved the clues:

Clue 5: Who shot 'em? Start just outside of Boston, in the town of Brookline, MA. Follow this town's most prominent native to the city of his untimely end. Now, recall the name of a television patriarch from this city to find your checkpoint. You'll find this checkpoint in Uptown between streets with the surnames of the first U.S. President and the first American Idol winner.

>>Ok, so we didn't even search that Boston crap, I just read the title of the clue and thought, J.R. (from Dallas)? Then Megan quickly thought of the bar, J.R's, and sure enough it was between the streets of Washington and Clarkson. And ta da! Here was our first check point:

(Ok so the we meant to go to clue 2 next, but we couldn't find it right away so we went to clue 9 next)

Clue 9: You're so thematic...This California Street Cafe will reveal its name in the circled letters of the following clues:
     1. Temperature taker: ----(-)------ >>Ther(m)ometer
     2. Dispute that Pluto is this: ----(-)- >>Plan(e)t
     3. Introduced the Model T: ---(-)- ---- >>Hen(r)y Ford
     4. Name of this clothing company (it showed a logo): >>Qui(c)ksilver
     5. Phoenix Suns home court: (-)- --(-)--(-)- ------ >>(U)S Ai(r)wa(y)s Center

The circled numbers spelled: MERCURY. >>Mecury Cafe on California St.
There was a butt-ton of racers out front trying to get a photo, so we took one from the middle of the street:

We finally figured out clue 2, and after some backtracking (about 10-15 minutes worth, ouch) we found it.

Clue 2. Watch out for the hand grenades...This one has 2 parts. Part 1: What recreational game is being described below?
An outdoor game played between two people (or two teams of two people) using four of what a filly might wear for protection and two throwing targets (stakes) set in a sandbox area. The game is played by the players alternating turns tossing the four "protective objects" at stakes in the ground, which are traditionally placed 40 feet apart.

Part 2: When you figure it out, head to a lounge located within 1/4 mile of Lawson Park where you need to go inside and look for the Odell Staff and play a game of chance.

>>Ok, so while we knew pretty quickly that the game was horseshoes, we didn't know the lounge they were describing. Also, Lawson Park is a really dinky park and really shouldn't have been used as an identifier in my opinion. And that 1/4 mile distance was questionable. Finally, we did a search on "horseshoe lounge" and found the right place. The game of chance was Yahtzee. You had 5 chances to throw a yahtzee or a full house to get 5 minutes deducted from your score. Well, we sucked and didn't get either. So we just took our picture and off we went.

Clue 8: DETOUR: Purple Mountains or Majesty...choose one of these options below - you will NOT get extra for doing both)
Purple Mountains: Take 1 photo of three people wearing Rockies caps. CAPS ONLY! People in photo cannot be participating in CitySolve.
OR
Majesty: Take photo(s) of 2 different items with Will and Kate.

>>So as we were headed to another clue, I saw a picture on a newspaper dispenser (is that what they are called?) with an ad for Rockies on it. I re-read the clue and no where in it does it say that the people have to be REAL people. So we all scrunched in and here is what we got:

Clue 3: Watch your mouth! This one has 2 parts. Part 1: This four letter word isn't a swear word at all, but rather a place that Bono and Sinead O'Connor might go to grab a pint and talk about The Emerald Isle. Part 2: Once there you must find the Yelp Staff who will instruct you on what to do next. You'll find it within 3 blocks of Coors Field.

>>Megan almost immediately knew this one was Fado's right by Coors Field. When we got there, there was a clue having to do with something about finding a county in Ireland that share's it's name with something you put on a hamburger. I didn't even finish reading the clue before Evan and Megan ran inside. Megan went straight for the Ireland map on the wall in the bar and found a county called "Mayo" that was the answer. Personally, I'm not a weirdo (like my sister in law, Amy) who puts mayo on cheeseburgers, but whatever. :)

Clue 1: Take that Will Shortz...Solve the 7 clues below to find the checkpoint in LoDo. Hint: One of the clues is not part of the check point. Hint: Tow of the clues must be combined to form one word.

(So this was actually a crossword puzzle, that I won't draw out, but below are the clues)
-Conjunction used to connect words and phrases >> AND
-If a pinball player moves the cabinet too violently this happens >> TILT
-Where the Nuggets and Avalanche play >> PEPSI CENTER (this was the first hint, not part of the check point)
-A restaurant or other commercial establishment serving food >> EATERY
-Any short pleated skirt worn by men in the Scottish Highlands >> KILT
-Short for public house >> PUB
-First name of the actor who played the character "Al Bundy" >> ED

>>With the words "TILT" and "KILT" Megan immediately thought of the place on 16th st. called the Tilted Kilt. Here, we had to take a picture with a Denver Fireman. Yes, please!

>>While on our way to the Tilted Kilt, we were worried they wouldn't count our Rockies picture, so we found a 7-11 and took these two pictures with Will and Kate just in case. (Oh and I had to buy more water, it was HOT!)

After the Tilted Kilt, we took the 16th street shuttle all the way down to Civic Center Park to complete the checkpoints on the other side of town.

Clue 4: Anyone know of a good doula? From the synopsis below, figure out the hit movie which was released on Jesus's birthday in 2007:
A tale told over four seasons about a 16 year old high school junior in Minnesota who discovers she's pregnant after on event in a chair with her best friend. She finds one in the PennySaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies meet the pregnant teen, sign papers and year unfolds.
You'll find this salon on East 8th Ave.

>>I've seen this movie a bunch of times and knew from the first few words it was Juno. Juno Salon on 8th ave was pretty easy to find.

Clue 7: Hope you're not a dumb jock...Solve the equation below to find this checkpoint located on Logan St. This one's a 2 parter.

Part 1: The inaugural season of the rockies - the distance in feet from home plate to second base (rounding first base) + Jason Giambi's Rockies jersey number (divided by) the number associated in baseball with the SS position + number of days in a leap year = ???

Part 2: When you find the checkpoint go inside to find the iX MiXer staff for your next challenge.

>>Ok, this one kinda slowed us down, it was a lot to look up. I almost called my brother, who is a Rockies freak, because I knew he would know some of these things off the top of his head. Luckily, after some google searching we solved the equation: 1993 - 180 + 23 (divided by) 6 + 366 = 672

Located at 672 Logan Street is the restaurant, Govn'rs (sp?) Park. Here, we had to play that game where you try to bounce quarters into a shot glass for time off your final score. Again, we sucked and got none. But we did get a free sample of some weird beverage.

Clue 6: Mural, mural on the wall...find this awesome art piece between 9th and 7th avenues and the famed street in NYC that runs through Times Square and a street that shares the same name as a US President who fought in the Civil War. (they showed us a picture of the mural in question)

>>The NYC street was Broadway and the US President was Lincoln. So we went to the right area and kinda just followed some folks to find this mural on the side of Le Central.

Clue 10: We skipped! I still don't know how to get the right answer on this one, but turns out it was Wahoo's Fish Tacos. Meh, whatever...

Ok, at this point we were done and joyfully headed towards the finish line. It's important to note that by now, my legs and feet were so sore I wanted to cut them off. I was tired and hot and so ready to be done. Evan's poor feet had blisters, but Megan was still spry as ever. Pft. It was VERY tiring running/walking all around Denver! But it was a TON of fun and I really liked solving the clues and getting to see parts of Denver that were new to me. I would definitely do it again next year...assuming I do some physical conditioning before hand. And here is how we did...

Out of 310 (!!) teams, we placed.....57th!! With a time of 2 hours and 23 minutes! We didn't qualify for the national race in Vegas (only the top 25 teams did), but I think that's pretty damn good! Especially because it was our first time and we certainly didn't run that much. The first place team had a time of 53 minutes! Now, they could have gotten some bonus questions (There were 2 bonues - like find 3 people wearing tiaras, someone with a bucket of kentucky fried chicken and some other weird stuff that would give you time off your score, we didn't get any) and they could have gotten the challenges that we did not to reduce their time, but my gosh, they must have been running the entire time. Anyway, all in all it was a blast and look for the Flux Capacitors to dominate next year!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2011-04-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

So, I'll come right out and say it. "I'm not very neighborly." I don't really know why, but I'm just not. Perhaps it's because we're surrounded by folks who are a lot older than Evan and I or perhaps it's because they are all kinda weirdos. Let me break it down for ya.

Our Neighbor to the East: He used to be, or maybe still is, the president of the Neighborhood Watch. I don't think they've done anything organized in years, but he certainly still likes to be in everyone's business. I actually like this neighbor...when they aren't being nosy. They are friendly, they keep a nicely maintained yard and house, bring us sugary treats every Christmas and very rarely do anything annoying. When they are being nosy, however, it's a bit off-putting. When we first moved in, one of our fence posts in the back yard broke. Well, before we even had time to notice it, our neighbor (it wasn't on the side that bordered their yard) let himself in to our backyard and braced it. Then, once we got home and noticed this odd handy work in our backyard, he came over to explain what he did...by ringing the door bell, and walking in and through our house the moment we opened the door. Now, he did save us a lot of time, money and hard work because if the fence wasn't braced, more posts would have broke, but still....at least let us know before you take the liberty of trespassing on our property.

Our Neighbor to the West: These guys are odd birds. They moved in about a year or so after we first moved into our house. It's just a middle aged to older man and his wife. Oh and his big ass truck that is parked in front of their house everyday. These guys mainly keep to themselves...especially whenever we wave, or say hello, they never respond or even acknowledge us. The guy is out and about his yard and garage quite a bit, but I have only seen the woman maybe a total of 10 times in the 5 years that we've lived here. The only times I do, she is always shaking out the rugs.

In our neighborhood, the houses are very, very close together. There is probably less than 8 feet of separation between houses. So, needless to say, it's very easy to see in certain windows of our neighbors' house. We have 2 stories and this particular neighbor only has one. So from our upstairs bedroom we can look down into their kitchen window. Well, one evening I went to draw the shade in our bedroom and just happened to glance into our neighbors kitchen....where the guy was walking around buck naked! Yeah, that's a view that will never help my property value. Also because the houses are so close together, it feels like anything that's in this neighbors side yard is actually in my front yard. And this particular neighbor has a ton of crap just laying about and it drives me CRAZY!! It looks so junky and hey, it's actually a city code violation...so, yup, you guessed it. I reported him to the city so he'd have to clean up his shit. He did, a few weeks ago, but now new crap has taken it's place. I'd turn him in again, but they just put their house up for sale! Woohoo! Let's just hope some less junky...and less nude neighbors move in.

Our Neighbors Across the Street: The three houses across the street from us are more normal, but I see too much of them than I ever should. One neighbor is constantly working on his piece of junk car in his garage. No biggie, but he can't work on it unless his stereo is loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. The other 2 neighbors seem to be pretty good friends because they are constantly hanging out with each other...in their front yards.

The folks on that side of the street don't really have backyards because they slope down into a ditch or something, so I get that their only outdoor space is in front. The issue I have with both families is that they let their dogs (2-3 of them) and their VERY young children roam free and wild. Dogs chase each other or things across the busy street all the time and it's a miracle they haven't been run over yet. They are never on leashes, nor are they every picked up after. The children roam from yard to yard with the nearest parent a yard or 2 away. One of these kids can barely walk, but manages to run down the street. The kids also play baseball, golf, soccer, or just anything with a ball all the time in the front yard. Just like the dogs, the balls go into the busy street, often with a small child following after. We always hold our breath whenever they are all out there. Ugh. But hey, one of these neighbors is moving as well! Let's hope some more responsible people move in.

Or maybe you're looking for a new home! Well there are 2 right be me so come move on in. But buyer beware, I will be judging you from my front window.

My Quick Oscar Picks

2011-02-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Oscars are this weekend and once again I think I'm smart enough to guess the winners. :) Here is who I'm rooting for:

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale, The Fighter ("It's a fine life, carrying the banner..." :) )

Actress in a Supporting Role: Melissa Leo, The Fighter (The girl from True Grit is my second choice)

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman, Black Swan (She's come a long way since giving birth in a Wal-Mart)

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Film: The Social Network (Like!)

The Wonderment of "Uncle Evan"

2011-01-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

My lovely husband's birthday is tomorrow and in honor of that festive event, I've decided to dedicate this blog post to him. Now, if you've ever met Evan, you probably have a pretty good idea of just how cool he is. If you haven't had that pleasure, let me fill you in quickly. Evan is a truly kind, intelligent, handsome, creative, talented, fun, witty and humorous man. He also has a far superior vocabulary, so he probably could have described himself much better. Anyway...what some of you aren't aware of is the all powerful and magical UNCLE Evan.

We currently have 2 nephews (ages 6 and 9 months) and 1 niece (almost 3). We also have a few other kids in our lives that we love and consider pseudo nephews and nieces. However, I should note, that just about any young kid, related or not, that is introduced to Evan immediately understands the Uncle Evan Effect (UEE). Kids are quickly drawn into the UEE as soon as they enter in a 10 foot radius of Uncle Evan. They come to him with toys, with legos to build, video games to play, to hear his stories and sometimes they just come to him in order to soak up his awesomeness. :) Perhaps it is the kid in Evan that allows him so easily to play with kids of all ages for hours at a time. He will conjure up various scenarios of make-believe, find interesting ways to play with toys that the kids would usually call boring and he will entertain the child for hours. Naturally, all this playtime enables children to fall in love with Uncle Evan right away. They will ignore everyone else in the room, other kids and yes, sometimes, even candy can't capture their attention.

Sometimes the UEE makes Evan the babysitter at family functions. While after a few hours Uncle Evan needs a break, he doesn't rest long before he's entertaining the kids again. I think that the UEE is wonderful and Evan certainly deserves all the love and adoration from these kids, but I can't help but be a little jealous. Here are some things that make me wish the UEE was able to be bottled and sold for consumption:

-On Sunday evenings, Evan goes to his family's house for dinner and I (along with my siblings, nephews and niece) go to my dad's for dinner. Not a Sunday goes by when I'm not asked multiple times by both my niece and nephew, "Where is Uncle Evan?" And then when I tell them he's with his family, they reply, "Well, why?" And often the follow up is "Will he come over next time?" or "When will I see him again?". Forget that I'm awesome and want to play with them just as much, I just simply can't compete with the UEE.

-On a recent shopping trip with my sister, niece and of course, Uncle Evan, my niece was only concerned with Uncle Evan's attention. Us girls were shopping for shoes when Evan went off to look at video games. The second my niece noticed that he was gone, she was searching the aisles for him and constantly asking "Where is Evan?" Even though I answered her question a few times, she would not be satisfied until she actually saw him. When we finally left the shoe store and went to meet up with Evan, she took my hand and was walking with a mission in order to find Evan again! Thank goodness he wasn't far. :)

We are all so very lucky to have Evan in our lives and the kids are even luckier. They have a great uncle who absolutely loves them and can't get enough of them. If you are ever able to see the magic between Evan and the kids you will truly understand the wonderment of the Uncle Evan Effect.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Evan!

And So the Dust Settles

2010-12-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

We've been back in our house for about 2.5 weeks now. Getting re-settled was a lot easier this time because we simply knew where everything went. Unpacking was a breeze. Our guest room is now the only thing left to be finished. It's still a little cluttered with boxes and pictures yet to be hung. Hanged? Whatever. Our tenant left our house in pretty good condition which was such a relief. While our relatively short experience of being landlords was pretty easy, it isn't something I would recommend. It's a lot of stress and we even had a great tenant. Anyway, I'm just glad that part is over.

While the boxes were a breeze, it seems as though getting our house in working order again has proven quite difficult. Here are some annoying things we've encountered/currently encountering...

-For a while we thought we were blowing a fuse by plugging in an old halogen lamp. Every time we turned it on in our bedroom, the lights in the downstairs hall, guest room and bathroom would go out. It was very odd. Eventually we figured out by resetting one of the outlets in the garage (?) was the trick and now all the lights are playing well with others.

-We couldn't get our cable hooked up right away because our tenant hadn't transferred service. Comcast is stupid and won't turn off a service in order to turn on another service. Our tenant was having the same issue at her new place so we were last in line. We finally got it installed yesterday. However, the dummy hooking it up didn't realize that the other 2 cords in the cable box were for cable in multiple rooms. So he hooked up the family room, took the 3-way splitter from the box and left the other cords dangling! So now we have to go out and buy another splitter to fix the problem. GRR!

-Since we couldn't get cable installed right away, we had to with Qwest for phone and internet (we were going to bundle it all with Comcast, but they were stupid) because we couldn't go for weeks without internet with both of us on the job hunt. Well, that got hooked up, but of course in addition to the regular fees there is $75 worth of hook up costs! REALLY?! All they did is flip a freaking switch somewhere. Unbelievable!

-We have officially confused the post office. Here's the run down: A year ago we had our mail forwarded to CA. That fwding was supposed to expire 10/31/2010. When we moved back to CO, but weren't in our house yet, we had our mail sent from CA to my dad's house. Then when we had our house back, we fwded once again back to our original house. Well in the past 2.5 weeks we've received hardly any mail. The only stuff we receive is mail fwded from my dad's and CA, but nothing coming directly except stuff for "resident." Mail being sent directly to our home address is, we believe, being sent in a giant loop from our house, to CA, to my Dad's and hopefully back to us even though the original fwd is expired. We know something is definitely wrong because we haven't received our new ids, netflix dvds, or any of the tons of change of address notifications from banks, credit cards, bills, etc. We've put in 2 calls to the post office, but it's no where near resolved. A trip to the post office is in our future where we will no doubt get the run around again.

-Today fedex only delivered one of 2 identical christmas packages we ordered. The packages have 2 different tracking numbers, both of which come up as delivered, but we only got one. I called Fedex right away (having just missed the driver), but still don't have the package. I have a suspicion the driver took it thinking it was an accidental duplicate. ARG!

-And then there's all of our outdoor solar lights need new batteries, a toilet is running and needs a new flapper, our mailbox is halfway falling off it's pole and I can't wait to see what brakes next. Oy.

Oh, plus not having jobs really, really sucks. Who'da thought moving all the heavy boxes and furniture across several states and then from my dad's garage to the house would be the easiest part?! Phew!

The Journey Home

2010-10-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm home! Hooray! While I'm sad to leave the beautiful California weather behind, I am so happy and relieved to be home. Gosh life is easier here...well except for the whole unemployment thing, but let's not dwell on that right now. :) Here's how it all went down...

My dad and my sister arrived in Burbank on Wednesday, October 20th to help with the move. I had all sorts of fun stuff planned, but most of it got thrown out the window due to last minute packing, cleaning and general exhaustion. Oh and the weather in CA that week was kinda crummy. We did a few things in Burbank, but mostly packed boxes and staged all our crap so it was easy for the movers to load up. The original plan was for the movers to arrive on Friday and we'd take off Saturday morning. Well, we decided that if we were able to leave Friday afternoon then we should take advantage of it.

So, the movers arrived around noon on Friday and were immediately impressed that all our stuff was packed and ready to go. Apparently, they encounter quite a few people that are still packing stuff while the movers are working. That makes no sense to me, I like to have everything prepared. Anyway, they said that they would be done in about 2-3 hours instead of the 4-6 they had planned! Ha, good thing because we were planning all along that it would only take 2 hours so we could get going. They got everything loaded and were on their way. All the while we were trying to clean so the apartment was spotless by the time they were done loading. We touched everything up one last time, dropped our keys off at the leasing office and were on the road home by 330pm Friday afternoon. (Side note: We decided we didn't want to wait for the apartment people to come to do the final walk through so we just left. I fully anticipate them keeping every penny of our security deposit for one lame reason or another whether we were there or not, so we just left. This will probably bite me in the ass later which might result in a big ranting blog post about it. Fun!)

So 330pm on Friday in LA means rush hour traffic on basically every highway in every direction. Well, ALL DAY on Fridays means rush hour traffic in LA. We were anticipating some delays and while we got stopped here and there along the way, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We maybe lost an hour total sitting in traffic. Our goal was to make it to Mesquite, NV by that night - 5 hours from LA. We rolled into Mesquite at about 930pm. Driving through the desert at night kinda sucks and I wouldn't recommend it. It is super dark! Anyway, we arrive at the hotel, grab some burger king and settle in for the night.

Saturday morning we were up early hoping to be on the road by 7am. This was the long leg of the journey, about 11 hours, plus we lose an hour due to the change in time zones. Well after packing up, checking out and gassing up we were on our way at about 745am. Rain was forecasted all along the way through to Denver and as we drove through parts of Utah we were rained on some, but experienced lots of splash back. Not fun when you are following another car all the way home. Evan and I drove our cars out of LA on Friday and for the first 2 rainy hours of Saturday. Then we switched and my dad and sister got nothing but blue skies and sunshine while they drove the next 6 hours or so. Cheaters.

We stop in Grand Junction for lunch at about 2pm and switch drivers. Here come the mountains! More rain...a lot of it this time. Then a break in clouds as we approached Eagle county. Then we start getting some gray clouds...wet roads...and at the top of Vail Pass...SNOW! UGH! I hate, no loathe, driving in snow with every fiber of my being. And what better way for the state to welcome us back then to have us drive through it on our way in. Really, it wasn't that bad. Just a little bit on the road, but the mountains were completely covered with the white stuff. So I was the loser going about 40 mph (partly because my Taurus and large hills/mountains don't get along that well) with Evan following behind. Luckily as we got to Frisco things cleared up and there was no more snow the rest of the way. However, by the time we got past Idaho Springs the sun had set and it was now pitch black. Blech. Curving roads, down sloping grades and lots of people's bright lights blinding you at every curve made driving the last hour and a half really crappy.

Then the bright lights of Denver appeared on the horizon and we were almost there! Home was not far and I couldn't wait! We pulled into my dad's house at 730pm Saturday evening. YAY!! We unloaded the cars, dropped my dad off and headed to my sisters where we would be staying for the week. We eat pizza, relax and play with our super excited 2 year old niece and enjoy being home!

Flash forward to this past Thursday when the movers arrive with all our stuff. Since we still have a tenant renting our house till the middle of the month, my dad generously allowed us to store all of our stuff in his garage. Moment of truth...our stuff made it! Kinda. All of our stuff is here, but I'm concerned about some of our stuff, mainly every box marked fragile. It seems as though the crew that loaded our stuff in CA either didn't give a crap about our boxes or had no idea what the word "fragile" meant, because our boxes are kinda beat to hell. A lot of them are bulging, gashed, ripped and even a few are partially crushed. In fact, I witnessed every box marked fragile come out of the truck with at least one super heavy box on top of it. One box of all glassware from our china cabinet was one of the boxes where the top was totally crushed. I haven't opened any yet to check the damage because 1) I don't want to have to repack the boxes for when we move back into our house and 2) I'm kinda scared of what I'll find and don't really feel like being pissed off at the moment.

So here we are! I am soooooo happy to be back. Now I'm just waiting till I get a job and we move into our house to breathe that final sigh of relief. Oh, I'd also say that I'm totally stoked to watch the Broncos on tv again, but after that game with Oakland I'm not sure I want to watch anymore games. Ouch.

September 11th - Where was I?

2010-09-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow is September 11th. 9 years ago that day forever changed for every American. We all have our stories of where we were that fateful day, and mine is nothing special, but here it is.

I was a senior in high school and the day started off like any normal day. Woke up early to make my 7:20am psychology class. Typically on my short drive to school I would listen to a CD, preferably one I could sing along obnoxiously to. On this day, however, I had the radio on for some weird reason. As I pulled into my spot a newscast came over the airways stating that a plane had hit a building. I didn't think too much of it - I figured some tiny little airplane had clipped a building somewhere, no big deal. I turned my car off and headed into class.

I was typically early, so I sat down and started doing some homework, when my psychology teacher rushed in with her hand over her mouth and said, "I just saw the most terrifying thing." She then flipped on the tv and there on the news was the World Trade Center. Smoking. With a gaping hole in the building. And then they replayed footage of the second airplane hitting the second tower and my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. I don't even remember hearing anything the newscasters were saying, I was just staring at the tv.

Needless to say, we didn't have a regular class that morning. We stayed glued to the tv the entire hour. Sometime during that class we all witnessed the 1st tower crumble to ground. My immediate thought was oh, of course they had gotten everyone out of the building by now. Certainly everyone had evacuated and was far, far away. I had no idea. In fact, it took a little while for it to sink in that I just witnessed hundreds of people die as that tower collapsed.

Eventually the bell rang signaling it was time for 2nd hour. I had gym. I was astonished when our gym teachers made us dress and go outside to play softball. Perhaps they were trying to keep our minds off the tragedy, but it didn't work as no one was interested in playing. We were outside though and we all froze each time a plane flew over. Not all the planes were grounded at that point so we didn't know who exactly were flying those planes that flew over our heads towards downtown Denver. We could only fear the worst. Finally, class was over and I rushed to 3rd hour Chamber Choir, knowing full well my choir teacher would have the tv on.

Another hour of watching the chilling details of the day unfold. The Pentagon, the plane in Pennsylvania, the other tower collapsing, New Yorkers covered in soot and debris running for help. It was during this class that the newscasters started speculating what this all meant. Were we going to war? Why yes, yes we were. And my brother had just joined the Navy the previous year. I kept telling myself that the Navy was probably the best place for him to be as Afghanistan was landlocked. He told me years later that the first bombs to hit Afghanistan were from jets stationed on his air craft carrier. And that shortly after the first plane hit the World Trade Center their aircraft carrier was immediately set on a different course. He was far more involved in the war effort than I thought.

4th hour, another choir class, 7th Harmony. There were only 7 of us so of course we decided to continue watching the news. We kept holding our breath just waiting for another plane to hit something or a bomb to go off or something horrible to happen. It was terrifying.

The rest of the day continued much the same. More tv watching. Calling my mom and telling her to come home from work downtown because who knew what city was next. Calling my dad and sharing how shocked and scared we were. Calling my sister who was all alone in Seattle. It was an awful day, one I will never, ever forget. The details are so finely engraved in my memory as I'm sure they are in everyone's mind.

And each year as I catch some of the coverage of those horrific events 9 years ago, I stop, and stare at the tv still shocked, saddened and stunned that this happened. There is pain in my heart every time I see coverage or hear someone else's story. I also distinctly remember watching anniversary coverage on 9/11 about 3 years ago while I was watching my 2 year old nephew. He was playing when all of sudden I was frozen watching that plane hit the tower. Something I have seen hundreds of times now, but I still have to catch my breath. I stood there, frozen with tears in my eyes. My nephew must have been aware in my change in mood because he ran over to me with his hands in the air asking to be picked up. It will be years before he understands what happened on September 11th, but in that moment, at 2 years old, he comforted me and made me smile.

All I can do now is remember, pray for those who lost their lives/loved ones/coworkers/friends and hope that something like this will never happen again and we can all live in a peaceful world.

Linda Picks the Emmy Winners

2010-08-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Well here they are, my Emmy picks for this year. Watch on Sunday to see how I did.

Comedy Series
Modern Family!

I still don’t honestly know how Glee won this last year. Modern Family is WAY better than Glee on so, so many levels. I’ve watched the first half of the season of Glee and while I like the music (sometimes) everything else around it is crap. Modern Family is quality comedy through and through and they better walk away with the Emmy this year.

Drama Series
Mad Men

Ok this one is tough. We’ve been mad about Mad Men for a while now and I still rather like it, but recently we’ve started watching Dexter on netflix and I kinda love it. It’s pretty smart and suspenseful. However, since I haven’t watched all of this season yet to make a fair judgment, I’m giving the Emmy to Mad Men.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy:
Alec Baldwin – 30 Rock

This one I’m not sure about. Usually I can gush over Alec or Steve Carrell, but they didn’t stand out to me last season and I haven’t seen the other nominees in work. So, I’ll just go with Alec. Will Schuester from Glee will probably get it, but that’s stupid.

Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy
Amy Poehler – Parks and Recreation
I can’t believe I’m not picking my girlfriend, Tina Fey. I love her! But I gotta hand it to Amy Poehler this year. I wasn’t much of a Parks and Rec fan when it first started, but now she has me rolling!

Outstanding Lead Actor Drama
Michael C Hall - Dexter
What can I say, I’m riding the Dexter train now. Besides I have had enough with Don Draper (John Hamm) and his man-whoreness on Mad Men. J

Outstanding Lead Actress Drama
Dunno...Julliane Marguiles – The Good Wife

I have no feelings about this category at all, so let’s go with Julliane, ok? Ok.

Supporting Actor Comedy
Ty Burnell – Modern Family

He is HILARIOUS!! Seriously one of the funniest characters and actors on tv.

Supporting Actor Drama
Terry O’Quinn! - LOST
If you don’t know what a Locke Face is, then you obviously didn’t watch the last season of LOST. He was awesome!

Supporting Actress Comedy
Jane Lynch? - Glee

Darn, another one without a passionate opinion. I think Jane Lynch’s character on Glee is kinda one-dimensional for her, but I love her from the Christopher Guest movies, so why not.

Supporting Actress Drama
Christina Hendricks – Mad Men

I’m giving this to Christina Hendricks because again, I don’t have a clear opinion in this category and I’m all about supporting this beautiful, busty babe. Gotta love Joan!

How California is Trying to Kill Us

2010-08-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I've started to believe that the state of CA is really trying to kill us. From dreadful lines at the DMV to hours spent in traffic and smog that chokes the entire city, LA just doesn't get high marks in terms of health. In addition to all that crap, we've discovered that our bodies are certainly taking tolls in other ways.

First, my skin is trying to escape from my body - particularly on my face. I've never really had an acne problem. I would get a pimple here and there on occasion, but never experienced anything near a "break out." Until the month we moved to CA. Ever since November, my skin has been waging war on my face, in particular, on my chin. I have had constant break outs in the 10 months we've been and have tried everything to stop them. I have tried rose hip oil, vitamin E cream, scrubbed and washed my face till it was raw and now I'm using Pro-active. Some would say it's stress related, but anyone who knows me knows that I've been stressed all my life and haven't been more stressed here. It's also not my diet since that has remained pretty constant as well. Could be hormonal, but I think I'll just blame California.

Next, sudden allergies! Again, I have never had allergies. I'm not allergic to pets, or foods or even the change in seasons. This all changed about 2 months ago when I suppose summer started in LA. It's pretty summery all the time here, but I guess something decided to bloom that made me completely congested. The second I opened a window, I would notice that I couldn't breathe anymore. I had to live with nasal spray by my bedside and in my purse just so I could breathe. My allergies have since subsided a bit, but I still notice on occasion that I can't breathe through my nose or that I'm coughing for no reason.

Finally, our stomachs are more than upset, they are mad as hell. Evan and I have both experienced pretty severe stomach issues since we've moved. We both were poisoned, we believe by cereal, a few months ago. Body aches and several trips to the bathroom were the norm for about a week. Most recently, Evan was violently ill from another bout of food poisoning from a company lunch. I have never seen him so sick. And now, I was awoken last night with awful, painful indigestion of some sort. I'm almost doubled over, but I'm still at work. In the 10 years that we have been together, we've maybe gotten ill like this a total of 5 times between the 2 of us. And now in the last 10 months, we've gotten sick at least 4 times (combined). Something is definitely going on with the food supply in this state.

So far we've survived, but what the heck?! Clearly our bodies are having a harder time adjusting than we are. Let's just hope that this is the worst of it.

Les Auditions

2010-07-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

Evan told me that I should do a blog with quick descriptions of the different types of auditions I've been on. I responded with, "Well I haven't been on enough to fill a whole blog post." To which Evan responded, "Pft." So that's how this blog post was born!

The No-Dialogue Pantomime Audition:
One of the very first auditions I went on here in Cali was for a student film at some college in Oxnard. The script for the film was actually really interesting which is saying something for a student film. There was no dialogue in the short film, just music while you watched a bitter housewife make a poisonous cake for her cheating husband. So, at the audition, since there was no lines to read, we had to pantomime all the stages of baking a cake and general house-wifery. So I mixed batter, put the cake in the oven, folded clothes, cleaned house and smoked a cigarette (at the request of the director). She had a few props to use, but essentially I was just miming everything. I did it twice and that was it.

The TLC Audition:
What I consider my first "real" LA audition was for a TLC show called "Born on a Bad Day." For this particular audition I was given the scenario before hand and was expected to improv a scene based off of that. This was pretty easy, I'm pretty good at natural improv when given a complete scenario...obviously. Anyway, I sign in, wait to be called, give my headshot and resume, slate and begin my little scene. Easy peasy and a lot of fun. However, the casting office kinda smelled like cat pee.

The Wait a Monologue? Really? Audition
I auditioned for a pilot where they requested a comedic monologue. I dunno why exactly, but I find this odd. Usually projects have sides or scenarios to act out, but to have someone do a completely unrelated monologue was just weird - they also didn't film it which I find a bit unprofessional as well. I presume they didn't have their act together enough to produce sides and didn't know enough about the project to give a scenario to improv to. Anyhoo, I have an old stand-by monologue that I do that's pretty funny. Anyway, off I went and did my thing and then we discussed improv - they asked if I do it and I said yup and they said great. O...k...

The Inappropriate Improv Audition
I auditioned for a webseries about bad dates. The audition was improved because that was the premise of the webseries. So there was "bad date Ben" and I was the unsuspecting blind date. There were 2 girls that went before I did and I could hear the scenario and their reactions through the door. Well, let's just say that bad date Ben liked younger women....or shall I say girls...and that was the premise of the bad date. Anyway, I heard both of the girls take the easy route and react as a normal person would, so I decided that if my scenario was the same as theirs that I should do something different just to not fall into the same traps they did. I got the same scene and I probably came across as too aggressive and bitchy for the situation and it wasn't really that funny (because of course pedophilia is always a huge laugh fest), but hey at least I was different.

The Official Commercial Audition
I recently auditioned for a DirecTV commercial and it was my my favorite thus far. Except for the fact that it was in Santa Monica which is a bitch to get to from Burbank, the actual audition was fun. It was a doubles improv. We were paired up - a guy and girl - and given a situation to improv. We were a couple moving in with each other and wanted to get our DirecTV hooked up right away. My guy was fun to work off of and I think we did a great job. I was invited to this audition by the casting director so that made it feel a little more comfortable. There were a gajillion people there, but I didn't have to wait long and the whole thing went really smoothly.

So that's about it I guess. I'm pretty sure I forgot a few, but these were biggest and most memorable ones anyway. So if you ever wondered what the heck I've been doing with my time this is it...well a small, small fraction of my time anyway. :)

It's the 4th of July! Well, close enough.

2010-07-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

I LOVE the 4th of July. It ranks right up there with Christmas and Halloween for me. Warm weather, BBQs, family, and fireworks! Growing up, it was always so hard to wait for it to get dark to start blowing things up. My brother and sister and I would be outside with the sparklers at 6 o'clock swearing it was gonna get dark any second. Before kids started blowing off their hands and ruining it for the rest of us, we'd light of our bag of fireworks in front of the house. Neighbors would come out and watch and light their own as well. A whole street full of roman candles was always quite a sight.

It has been a standing tradition for me to go see the fireworks with my dad. In fact, I think I still have the blanket in my trunk that would only be used once a year for watching fireworks. My dad and I (and eventually Evan) always watched the Northglenn fireworks show. It was close by and we had a system nailed down. We would park in the RTD parking lot on the other side of the highway and then walk over to EB Rains Park, blanket in hand. We would wind our way through the crowd and always find a good spot by the lake with a pretty close view of the fireworks.

Northglenn always, always, always shoots off their fireworks late. For some reason they insist on waiting until Westminster and Thornton (who's shows you can see from afar) finish their shows before starting their own - even though they were always scheduled for 9pm. Anyway, we'd watch the fireworks gleefully anticipating the grand finale and when it was all over we'd say how great it was and how they started late, but finished strong and walk back to the car.

Needless to say, this year I won't be able to participate in this tradition. So I went looking for fireworks shows around the valley. Burbank is having a show at their Starlight Bowl where a concert will be taking place before hand. And in typical California fashion, it costs money to see the concert and to park, of course. In fact, nearly all the fireworks shows charge admission! Combine that with the nightmare of finding parking and fighting huge crowds, the 4th of July has lost its luster here in CA. We might try to find a place to park and watch the fireworks from a distance, but because it's so hard to find free parking, we don't know how successful we will be. I'm a little sad at the situation and wish I could be in CO right now, but luckily next weekend we are headed down to Sea World for our anniversary and they have a nightly fireworks show.

I hope you all have a fun and safe Independence Day! Hooray for the USA!

Dad On Arrival

2010-06-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

I know the economy is bad, but I think it's time to start paying our greeting card writers a little better in order to motivate them to put out better work. I was recently in the market for Father's Day and birthday cards and was extremely disappointed with the quality of greeting cards available to me. I'm not the type that buys the sentimental, sappy cards decorated with pastel flowers telling the recipient what a special and beautiful soul they have - those cards are already in their own special "crap" category. Conversely, I go for the funny, simple and sometimes offensive cards that accurately represent the recipient or the situation.

So as I was saying, Evan and I were looking for Father's Day cards and a birthday card for my brother-in-law. First, we checked out our grocery store while we were doing our weekly shopping. The selection was small and hugely un-funny. We picked up several cards hoping to be impressed, but we were nearly offended at the lack of wit and originality. Assuming it was just the small selection at the grocery store that was the problem, off to Hallmark we went.

Hallmark has a pretty large section dedicated to Father's Day so our hopes were high. After glancing through the section I wasn't even inspired to pick up a card to read it. I knew by looking at the 1/4 of the card cover that sticks out above the row under it that these cards were going to be craptacular as well. In addition to being boring, most of the cards usually fall into 3 different Father's Day themes: 1) Tools 2) Golf and 3) Butt cracks. Sometimes one of these themes will yield a slightly witty card, but not this year.

There is also a new fad in greeting cards called "cards with sound." Or as I like to call it, "Writers ran out of funny card ideas years ago so they are relying on music to do the trick." Well, I'm sorry, I just don't think my dad would be that impressed with a card that sings "Shake Your Booty." But the cards I like the most are the ones that allow you to record your own message. They are admitting that they can't sell any cards worth a damn, so they are just telling you to do it yourself and charging you a pretty penny to do so. Brilliant!

Needless to say, we walked out of Hallmark empty handed. Luckily, there is a cool little shop in Burbank that sells the Selfish Kitty line of greeting cards. I love these cards, but after several birthdays and other events, I'm running out of options with this somewhat small card line. This line of cards has great greetings such as:

Happy Birthday, you bastard! (inside -->) Seriously, though. You really are a bastard.
Happy Birthday. I'll see you in hell. (inside -->) You heard me.
Congrats on the new baby! (inside -->) And remember, teaching him cuss words is only fun for a little while.

And the list goes on. Now this is the humor I love! However, I think after Father's Day and many birthdays, I have exhausted most of my options and will have to turn to the mainstream greeting card lines. Writers need to start getting funny again or I am going to be forced to make my own cards. And I'm simply not that good at drawing butt cracks.

Out and About in SoCal

2010-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

As a recent transplant to Southern California, I get asked a lot about what kind of things have I seen and where have I been. People want to ensure that I get the full California experience, so they are always suggesting places to go and things to see. Many of you may be curious just what we've done while we've lived here and others may not give a crap. Well here is a blog about it anyway, so deal with it.

Universal Studios: I kinda like Universal Studios, but it is absolutely not worth the $75 to get in. Plus you have to pay like $15 for parking. Anyhoo, I go for the studio tour mainly, but some of the rides are fun. You're usually done with the park within about 2 hours, but hey it's really close to where we live.

Hollywood - Walk of Fame, Chinese Theatre, Freaks: Yes, you have to go at least once and that's about all you need for the rest of your life. It's cool to see, but it is crowded with tourists and filled with all sorts of crazies! People dressed up as comic book characters, cartoon characters, hollywood icons and some people just dressed up like weirdos. You can smell the desperation mixed in with car exhaust, sunscreen and BO.

Hollywood Bus Tour: The one we went on was pretty lame. I don't even remember one cool thing that we saw. The highlight of the tour was the El Pollo Loco where Brad Pitt once worked as a chicken. Seriously. The tour was crappy, but hey at least someone else was driving.

Griffith Park: I like Griffith Park. It's free and has the best views of the city. However, a gazillion people are there everyday so you have to park 2 miles down the mountain and hike up to the observatory. You do have a pretty good view of the Hollywood sign, though.

Sony Studios Tour: Ok, so we took this tour on a trip to LA several years ago, but I think it's worth a mention. I LOVED this tour! I don't remember the price, but I think it was pretty reasonable. Not many people know about this tour, so we only had like 6 of us in the tour group. This is a walking tour around Sony Studios. Because our group was small, our tour guide snuck us in to several working sound stages and other places not typically seen on the tour. It was awesome.

Warner Brothers Studio Tour: This one was kinda pricey, but I think we got a pretty good value for our money. Also, it's right by our house so we had to go. This is a mix between a tram and walking tour and you see a lot of stuff including just about all of their back lots. We even got to get out and explore some of the houses on the back lot and that was really cool.

Beverly Hills/Rodeo Drive: Meh. It's fancy and I guess that's cool, but clearly I can't afford anything there, so it's not that fun. Oh and there aren't any public bathrooms!! UGH! There is a Crumbs Cupcake shop, so that may be worth the trip.

The Jay Leno Show/Tonight Show: We've been several times cause it's really easy to get free tickets. However, you do have to wait in line for at least 2 hours and if you get there late you may not be seated. Anyway, it's neat to see and if you're lucky to go on a night with a really cool star, then it's definitely worth it. I do think Conan is WAY better still...

Santa Monica Pier and Beach: Parking sucks. It smells like fish. There's not much do on the actual pier. The beach is nice. And I guess that's about it.

Malibu: We ate at a nice restaurant right on the water and that was fun, but it was really windy at the beach so that didn't make it very enjoyable.

The Getty Center: Another free thing to do in LA. Well, the museum is free, but parking is like $10 or something. Pretty cool museum, if you're into museums, and a stunning building and location. I'm not much into museums, but it's cool to see that stuff at least once.

The Groundlings: This was great!! Tickets are pretty cheap and the show is hilarious. We even had a guest star in our show - Groundlings alum Mindy Sterling (Frau Farbissina in Austin Powers movies). She was hilarious! Anyway don't miss this one!

Several Theatres: The Falcon, The Colony, Glendale Centre Theatre, A Noise Within, Luna Playhouse...all pretty good shows!

Disneyland: Ok, so I really, really like Disneyland (and Disney world for that matter) and this trip didn't disappoint. If you are gonna go, especially from the Valley, go early on Sunday mornings. We shot on down there within 30 minutes on a route that takes at least 2 hours any other day of the week. Nearly $100 each for Disneyland and California Adventure, but I think it's worth it. We filled our day riding rides and only had one ride where we waited more than 20 minutes. It was great!

The Grilled Cheese Truck: Some people may scoff at this as an attraction or LA hot spot, but it is...for us anyway! This gourmet food truck travels around to a new destination everyday and serves up the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever! Mmmmmm....I had a brie with smoked turkey, pears and honey and it was fabulous! You can follow them on twitter to see where they are grilling on a particular day, so if ever they are in your neighborhood, be sure to go!!

And...I guess that's it so far. We still have a lot to see and do, like:

Mulholland Drive
San Diego
Knotts Berry Farm
Medieval Times
Paramount Studios Tour
LA Zoo
Six Flags
La Brea Tarpits
And about 6 billion other things...

Mish Mash: a Quick Recap of April Events

2010-05-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

So I really didn't post much in April and hey look, now it's already May 7th. April was kind of a weird month for me. A lot happened and very little happened. Very little happened in the way of auditioning and finding employment - at least for the first part of the month. A lot happened in way of life changes and traveling though. Here's a recap:

April 1-April 7: Did absolutely nothing but search for jobs and auditions all day, everyday.

April 8-April 12: Trip home to Denver!! Evan's family VERY generously flew us out to celebrate Evan's sister's birthday. We were only there for 4 days and we used every second we were there to visit family and catch up. It was extremely busy, but awesome and definitely much needed. I was so sad to have to come back to CA and so didn't want to leave.

April 15: My dear friend Brittney came out to Burbank to visit a school and we got to have lunch. I LOVED being able to spend that time with her, although it was rather brief. It was really great to have a friend out here!

April 16: My grandma passed away - 1 day after her 88th birthday after a long battle with Alzheimer's. This prompted an immediate trip home to CO the next day.

April 17-April 21: Flew home in order to drive out to Kansas (6.5 hours) the very next day. It was lovely to see family again even though it wasn't under very pleasant circumstances. There was a rosary, funeral and burial service for my grandma which were all full of tears and great memories. My grandma was a truly classy and refined woman who had devout faith and endless love and support for her family. Unfortunately, my grandma was stripped away from us several years ago by trauma-induced Alzheimer's. As awful as this may sound, I had been slowly saying good-bye to her over the past few years which made her actual funeral a fraction easier to handle. She is now at rest beside my grandpa and I know those two are whooping it up in heaven - eating ice cream cones, my grandma's awesome fried chicken and still trying to solve those pesky Wheel of Fortune puzzles. :) We drove back home to CO on Wednesday.

April 22-23: Still in Colorado because my brother and his wife were expecting their 2nd baby!! Funny the way life works out. I wasn't going to be able to be present for his birth, but because I was already there for the funeral, I could now see my brand new nephew. Landon Riley was born on April 23rd via c-section and was small, but healthy. He was born with a full head of hair just like his brother and even seems to have the exact same calm temperament. I think they may have had twins 5 years apart. :) I only got to see Landon for a few minutes before leaving to catch my flight back to CA. Can't wait to see him again when we visit in June.

April 24-27: Not...a lot....going....on.

April 28: Finally, FINALLY my first real audition!!!!!!! Nearly 6 months in and I had an audition for a TLC show called "Born on a Bad Day." It's a reality/re inaction show about real women who gave birth in crazy situations. I was called in to audition because I kinda looked like the real person in the scenario they were recreating. I was given a scene that I had to improv dialogue to. It was pretty fun and easy and of course made me crave for more auditions. Nothing came of this audition, but I was happy to be given the opportunity to try.

And now here we are, already in May. Oy, how time flies. Still looking for a job that doesn't make me miserable and still trying to get more auditions. It's a never ending cycle. Oh and it's starting to get pretty hot here. We're trying to be strong and not turn on our AC yet, but it's just a short matter of time before we give in to refrigerated air.

On a different note entirely, many of you know that an old friend of mine is in critical condition in Colorado. He suffered a brain aneurysm and has been in a medically induced coma for a few days. I plan to dedicate another blog post to my fun and quirky memories of him once he fully recovers and is able to re-live those memories with me. Keep fighting, Jason! I know you are gonna pull through and become stronger than ever!!

An Evan Adventure: Random Movie Reviews!

2010-04-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

Boredom is a dangerous thing. So when Linda ~~abandoned me~~ went out of town this past week, I needed something to fill my time. Luckily, I just discovered that I can stream Netflix movies directly into my TV. Hooray! So I found a bunch of movies that I hadn’t seen ever, movies I hadn’t seen in a while, and/or movies Linda would have very little interest in seeing. I watched 20 movies in 7 days, and because you care, here are my mini-reviews of each:

Zombieland (2009)- Starring Woody Harrelson as himself and the poor man’s Michael Cera/Shia LeBuef. The scene at Bill Murray’s house in the second act is worth the admission.

Kick-Ass (2010)- Went to the theatre for this one. I worry that I’m becoming desensitized to hyper-violence. When the little girl chops a man’s head off, I wondered to myself “how does her wig stay on?”

Roxanne (1987)- I don’t know if anyone else caught this, but they totally ripped off the play Cyrano de Bergerac. Edmond Rostand should sue them for royalties.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)- I don’t know why I watched this (all the way through no less). It’s bad when you think to yourself, “You know what would make this movie better? Michael Jordan.” He actually makes a cameo, and you know what? Didn’t help.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)- Re-watching this made me feel bad for the Ducks that got cut from the team between sequels. All for the sake of bringing in Kenan Thompson. Also, it dawned on me that the guy playing the lovable old man, Hans, is played by the same actor who played the villain in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. No way? Way.

The Producers (2005)- They should turn this into a staged musical. Yep. That would be a much better format for this.

3 Ninjas (1992)- This used to be a favorite of mine when I was nine. Re-watching in 2010, however, did not go so well. This movie was touted to be a mix of Home Alone and Ninja Turtles. The difference is that Macaulay Culkin and the Turtles weren’t complete idiots and could actually be effective. Three men with guns assault your babysitter and intend to kidnap you. What do you do? Call the police? No. Use your ninja training to actually hurt them? No. The 3 Ninjas decide to simply annoy them! How? By throwing CDs at them, by making them slip on jelly beans and oil, by throwing pepper in their eyes, and by feeding them ex lax. And at no point do they even think about taking the kidnapper’s guns. I’ve never yelled so much at fictional characters in my life.

3 Ninjas: Kick Back (1994)- Yeah, I know. But there were so many unanswered questions from the first film. Shameful confession: if 3 Ninjas: Knuckle Up was on Netflix’s Watch Instantly, I probably would’ve watched that too. But I would’ve drawn the line at watching 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. Probably.

Pineapple Express (2008)- Wow, Seth Rogen really likes playing that one character, doesn’t he?

Innerspace (1987)- Martin Short as a semi-serious leading man is strange. Very strange. At least he found a way to incorporate his patented Ed Grimley dance.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)- So is Pee-Wee Herman a tall child? Or a very eccentric adult? I’m hoping for the latter, otherwise he has some very negligent parents. The whole thing made me sad for the Pee-Wee Herman/Ernest P. Worrell cross-over movie that will never be.

The Chronic(what)cles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)- Eddie Izzard’s voice in a small warrior mouse is slightly off-putting.

Drop Dead Fred (1991)- Most imaginary friends are harmless. Drop Dead Fred is not. He tracks poop on carpets, puts Lizzie’s dad in jail, sinks a boat, chops off hair in the night, etc. So either Lizzie is completely sociopathic and uses this imaginary being as a scapegoat for her own bad behavior or Fred is some sort of actual demon that is able to manipulate her into doing his bidding. Either way, she needs much more help than a love interest with an earring can provide.

House Bunny (2008)- I’m pretty certain Collin Hanks will always look like a 15 year old boy.

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (2008)- The mean corporation wants to shut the hair salon down so they can build a giant mall. I would think that all they’d have to do is mention to the city that Zohan is charging women to have sex with him. It might’ve saved them the trouble of hiring Dave Mathews as a henchman.

Labyrinth (1986)- This movie is full of neat and innovative ideas that stand the test of time. David Bowie in tight tights is not one of them.

The Wizard (1989)- Famous for the debut of Super Mario 3 to the general public. This movie made me want to go out and buy a Nintendo Power Glove, though I resisted the urge. Bonus: at the end of the movie there is an appearance of a young Tobey Maguire with a horrible 1989 haircut.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)- I’ve realized that it’s not Kirsten Dunst’s fault that she’s a bad actress. I think she’s naturally that way and there isn’t anything she can do about it.

Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2008)- I really liked it, but think I’ll like it better when they call it Scott Pilgrim.

Being John Malkovich (1999)- Catherine Keener is a fine actress who has never played a character that I’ve sympathized with or even cared about what happens to. Is it her? Or is it me?

Congratulations to the actors that coincidentally appeared in more than one movie on my schizophrenic list: Steve Martin (Roxanne and Looney Tunes), Emma Stone (Zombieland and House Bunny), Kat Dennings (House Bunny and Nick & Nora) and Kevin Corrigan (Pineapple Express and Nick & Nora). Special mention to Cabazon Dinosaurs for being a major set piece in both Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and The Wizard.

Respectfully submitted,
Evan Gray Marquez

The Scam That is The Entertainment Business

2010-03-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, maybe the word "scam" is a bit harsh, but I still think it's fitting. There is no other profession that requires potential applicants to spend so much money just to be considered for a job. If you had to spend $25 a month just to send in a resume for a company, you would think, "WTF this is a huge scam!" If you were required to get your business cards and resumes reprinted, professional touched up and completely redone every few months just to stay current in the workplace, there would be a huge revolt or legislation passed to end this oppressing practice. Well let me just tell you how scammy the entertainment world can be...at least from a newbie prospective.

Headshots:
I have had my headshots taken 4 times over the course of 10 years. And 2 of those times within the past year. An actor simply MUST have headshots in order to be taken seriously at all. And in LA, they better be the best damn picture of yourself that can ever be taken. Headshot sessions can range from $100-400+ just for the photo session. Then, out of that you may only get access to 1 or 2 of your final pictures. I was uber lucky this past time and stumbled upon a sweet deal with an awesome photographer. Luckily, the shots turned out amazing!
This past time I paid: $100 for the headshots + $100 for a makeup artist = $200
I should expect to get my headshots redone every year, if not sooner.

Headshot Printing:
Oy, printing is so damn expensive. There are lots of places to get your headshot 8x10 printed and they range wildly in prices. Oh, and for those that don't know, for every audition you go to, you always need to bring at least 1 printed headshot and resume. Some places, like shutterfly, will charge $4 per 8x10, plus shipping. Then there are places like Reproductions that charge $60 for 50 headshots (of the same picture) plus a $18 set up free. I've kinda bunked the system and said screw 8x10s, I'll just print out letter size headshots cause I can get those for real cheap. However, that is clearly not industry standard and you can end up looking like an idiot when yours is the only one in the pile of headshots that is bigger than everyone elses. But I'm all about CHEAP! So I get mine printed at VistaPrint.com and then spray glue my resume on the back whenever I go to an audition.
25 headshots: $15 plus shipping.(I always have a Vistaprint coupon)

ActorsAccess:
ActorsAccess is a version of Breakdown Services available to actors. Breakdown Services is where agents and managers receive breakdowns of all the different things that are casting so they can submit their clients. ActorsAccess is a fee based membership that actors (those who don't have agents or those who just like to take matters into their own hands) sign up in order to submit themselves for various projects. ActorsAccess is one of the few reputable places that does this, so don't be fooled by MANY of the other websites that claim to offer this service, most of them are scams. Note: Not all projects are open to ActorsAccess members. In fact, the vast majority of breakdowns, including most major ones, are only available to agents. Anyway, there are 2 ways to go about this. You can pay a yearly membership fee or pay $2.00 for ever role you submit to.
I pay the yearly membership fee: $68/year

Photos and Video on ActorsAccess
This is where they really get you. AA allows you to have 2 photos in your profile for free. If you want to add an additional photo, it's $10 per picture! I haven't done this, I only use the 2 free ones. The video part is truly frustrating. First, if you already have a demo reel of your work, you can upload it to AA for $50 for the first minute. If your demo is longer than 1 minute, plan on spending $22 per additional minute!! Now, say down the road you add a clip to your demo reel and want to replace the video on AA, well not so fast it's $22/minute to replace your reel. UGH! This is something that's in the works for me and I will eventually have to pay these outrageous fees. Why is a demo reel important you ask? Well, for one it sells you a lot better than just a still photograph. And second, a HUGE second, is that those actors with a reel in their profile, automatically go to the top of the list of people submitting. So, casting directors will see the people with reels first even if they submitted days after you. And with potentially thousands of people submitting for the same role, it certainly pays to be at the top of the list.
Future costs: $50 for a demo reel, $22 for an additional minute = $72

LACasting:
Exact same service as ActorsAccess with a slightly different set-up. This too has a version that is only available to agents and this is where my commercial agent submits me for things. However, just like AA, it has a service available for actors to self-submit to projects. Since my agent is only for commercials, I need to self submit for TV and film. I recently joined this service because I wanted to make sure I was submitting to everything I could. This membership is monthly, plus fees for pictures and video.
Monthly membership: $9.95/month
Photographs: You get 1 free one. Then if you need to change that picture or add more, they start charging you. $25 for the first additional picture and then $15 per picture after that. = $40
Video: If you want to add your reel, they charge you $5/month. I haven't done this yet.

Backstage West Subscription:
Backstage is a magazine that has lots of entertainment stuff in it, but we primarily use it for auditions. It's mostly for theatre (and much, much bigger in NYC) but there are also some indie and student film auditions here. While they do have a way to submit through their website, often times there is an email address where you send your headshot and resume for an audition. Evan finds a lot of his theatre auditions here.
Monthly online only subscription: $17/mo

Classes:
Of course classes are all different and can vary in quality. In LA, there is absolutely no shortage of people willing to take your money to teach you something. You really have to do your research to make sure you're taking a good class and that it's worth your money. Because I hate to drive, I narrowed my class search to only ones in Burbank. Luckily, I picked 2 that are awesome and very different from each other. Still kinda pricey though.
Eastin Studios: Awesome class tought by a real hollywood veteran. In fact, if you saw Up in the Air, Steve Eastin was the guy who got fired by Anna Kendrick over the computer. He also has an IMDB page that's about 5 pages long. He's awesome and his class is unlike anything I've ever experienced.
I pay: $195 for 4 classes. Classes are once a week. (I've taken a few weeks off from this class because I started another and I am waiting before I spend another two hundred bucks. But I do intend on going back)
Weist Barron Hill: I take a commercial acting class here and I really like it. It teaches everything from the very basics to nailing the audition. I love that I learn things that I just wouldn't think matter that actually affect casting decisions.
I pay: $225 for 10 classes. Classes are once a week.

Other things I could pay for, but I refuse...at least I refuse right now:
-Casting Director Showcases: this is where you go and perform in front of casting directors and sometimes agents in order to be seen. Who knows if the people attending this things are legit, but they are everywhere and they charge actors anywhere from $100-300 to attend!
-Dues Paying Memberships at Theatres: There seem to be a lot of theatre's around that have memberships. This means there is this pool of actors that are considered for each show because they PAY to be a part of the membership. This is insane to me. If it guaranteed me a role, then maybe I'd pay a tiny amount, but just to be considered? You've got to be kidding me.
-Then of course are all the super scammy agents and managers that require you to take their classes, use their photographers and so on (to get a kick-back of course) and then take much more than the usual 10% agents take from the work you book. And yes, I have been approached by these people. Thankfully, I've done my research and know to stay far away.

Then there are the other miscellaneous things like gas, parking, postage (mailing headshots to agents, casting directors, etc) and whatever else that will certainly add up. Speaking of add up, let's get a total, shall we? So since I've been in LA here is what I've spent:

GRAND TOTAL: $848.00! (not including future costs to add my reel)

And let's remember that I've only been here 6 months. There are people that have been at it for decades! So where has all this blown cash gotten me...absolutely NO WHERE!! I have not had 1 real audition since I've been out here. In fact, I've only auditioned for 2 things: a student film and some random indie where I was the only one who showed up. And the sad part is, that this is how it's done. Until you have any real credits, no agent will look at you. And you can't get any real credits without doing all the things I've been doing. Well unless you are the son or daughter of a celebrity or just insanely lucky. Sigh...and when you think that it costs crazy amounts of money just to live in CA and there are thousands, upon thousands of gorgeous and talented people competing against you, it's really easy to get depressed and bitter quick. I'm not down and out quite yet, but putting all the costs and (lack of) rewards down really puts things in perspective. Ugh. Someday when I book a national commercial that pays $2,000 for a day's work, then I'm sure my tune will change. :)

An Evan Adventure: The California DMV...bum Bum THUD.

2010-03-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Evan. Linda's husband and lifecoach. I thought I'd take over Linda's blog for a moment and recount my day(s) at the DMV for your reading pleasure. It's funny in the last line of Linda's DMV blog, she mentions "horror stories." This is one of them. Here's my DMV (in Glendale) experience:

• I scheduled my DMV appointment for 2:20pm on Monday.

• I arrive at the DMV at 2:10pm. I drive around for a literal 20 minutes trying to find a parking spot.

•Meanwhile, I have never seen worse driving then I do when I visit the DMV. People are cutting other people off, going the wrong way down one-way isles, not signaling, road rage, etc. I think the DMV should have a camera on the parking lot and automatically fail anyone who is being an idiot. There would be a lot of fails.

• I finally find a spot, on the street, about 3 blocks away from the office.

•I finally get in the appointment holder line at about 2:40pm. I'm given a license form to fill out and get my ticket; A029.

• While, I'm waiting, I overhear that the computers are down so there will be a slight hold up. This is a reoccurring theme with the Glendale DMV.

•I try to figure out the order in which they are calling numbers. The numbers are labeled A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and J (no I, for some reason). G's got called at a higher frequency than any other number. There was a good 30 minutes between them calling A028 and my number, A029.

•I make note that no one around me is speaking English.

•After an hour or so (at 3:40pm), my number is called.

•I tell the lady I need to get California plates and get a California license.

•Time for the eye exam. I cover my left eye. I read the sign perfectly. I cover my right eye and briefly can't figure out why I'm having trouble seeing the sign. Is my left eye that much worse than my right, even with glasses on? No, you idiot. You still have your left eye closed. Ah. That's better. I am stupid.

•The lady informs me that the written driver's exam will stop testing at 4pm. So I have less than 20 minutes to get in line to take my picture and get in another line to take the test. Super.

•Also, since I am registering my car, she tells me I need to have it inspected by one of their people. Only they stop the inspections at 4:30pm. So assuming I get into the driver's test before 4pm, I have to take the test and then go walk 3 blocks to retrieve my car and bring it back to the building all within a half hour.

•I get in line to get my photo taken. The line, to my surprise, moves fairly quick.

•They tell me to take my glasses off for the photo. I've always found this odd since I am legally required to drive with my glasses on. Plus, it's my signature look.

•I get in line for the test. By this point it's minutes away from closing, but I make it in it! A few of the poor saps behind me, do not.

•The test facilitator (with a clear disdain for humanity) gives me the two-sided test and marks the back with a green line. Maybe he explained what that line was, but if he did, his accent (combined with his vocal apathy) prevented me from understanding.

•Like Linda I had studied using their (deceitful) practice test on their website. And after Linda told me about her test, I knew their was a good chance I wouldn't pass.

•The first side was easy. I thought to myself, maybe I'll pass after all! Then I got to the back side (with the green line through it). The questions were so vague and ambiguous that I didn't know what to choose. For example, one question talked about a scenario with a man and a white cane. It took me at least 5 minutes to figure out that he's a blind man! I thought he might be a stylish and sighted pedestrian who carries a white cane. No where does it say the word "blind" in the question. Is that not P.C?

•I finish, not feeling great about the ordeal, and get in line to hand in my test. I look at the clock. It's 4:25pm. I know I'm going to have to comeback tomorrow and start my registration process all over again. Joy.

•While in line, I notice other people have green lines through their tests. I also notice that those people didn't fill out the answers on that side. Does that mean I didn't need to do that side? Cuz that would be great. That side sucked.

•I get to the front and he starts grading. I miss 1 one the first side and he throws the test away. Huh. Maybe I didn't need to do the back side after all! Cuz, again, that side sucked.

•He looks at his computer, furrows his eyebrows, and pulls my test out of the trash. He flips it over to side two. Curses. I can't look. I can hear him making marks. He turns the test over, and puts an illegible number (letter?) on my test and throws it away again. I assume I passed, since he didn't tell me to come back tomorrow. It would've helped if the man actually cared enough to speak to me.

(As a side note, obviously the DMV doesn't care about you knowing the answers to these tests, otherwise he would told me which ones I missed.)

• The guy prints out my temporary license and sends me on my way (not with words though, as he still wasn't speaking to me).

• It's now 4:45pm. I head out the door deading that I have to return to the DMV the next day. This time, without an appointment.

• It's Tuesday. I get to the DMV 9am and go straight to the area where they do the VIN # inspections. The inspection goes quick. Apparently I should have done this the first thing yesterday. Would've been nice to know.

• Not bothering with the parking lot, I head 3 blocks away to my "usual" spot.

• I get in line with the non-appointment people at 9:30am.

• I get my number, B068, at 9:50am. I look at the screen to see the numbers and see that B017 had just been called. This can't be good.

•Uh-oh. Computers went down again. Big surprise, Glendale!

•I wait an hour and a half before a lady (who just arrived) sits down next to me and we start chatting. She tells me her number is J015. They just called J014. We figure out that the J's must be for people with a handicap and are called at a higher frequency for some reason. Within a half hour, they call her number and she is helped. Handicap people have all the luck!

•There's a lady doing a Holy Bible Crossword puzzle.

•At 12:50pm, 3 hours after I got my number, they call me up. I hand them my stuff.

•The guy has an issue because some of the things on my form are crossed out and corrected. I explain that the lady yesterday told me to intial it, and it would be okay. He said "I'm not her." Okaaay. It's going to be one those.

•He checks with is manager, and she says my chicken strach is fine. He processes the paperwork. I pay him a large sum of money, he hands my plates and I am on my way out.

Success?

I'd like to address a few points of the last paragraph of Linda's DMV blog:

-No, Linda, registering your car isn't just paperwork. It's a suckfest.

-Sometimes you have to go in without an appointment. When you do, it's a suckfest.

-No body likes spending time at the DMV . It's a suckfest, after all.

-It took you an hour? Hooray for you? Pfft. I'm not being your life coach any more.

Respectfully submitted,

Evan Gray Marquez

The California DMV...bum Bum BUM!

2010-03-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

Some of you may recall a few months ago that Evan and I tried to go to the DMV 3 times. Each time we went, over a course of 2 weeks, the computers were down. Then, Evan had an appointment to go a 4th time, but that morning my car died and he had to come rescue me from the side of the road and he couldn't make his DMV appt. So, needless to say, the DMV was kinda on our bad side. Well, finally I had my 4th DMV appointment this past Tuesday. Maybe I should back up. Appointment you say? Yup, here in jolly California, you can get appointments to the DMV. Because there are so many damn people here, they figured out that people didn't have a day to waste at the DMV and they set up the appointment system. I give it a thumbs up! And here's my DMV (in Van Nuys) experience.

• I scheduled my DMV appointment for 8am (the time they open) on Tuesday

• I arrive at the DMV at 745am to discover a line wrapped around the building.

• Because the DMV wasn't open yet, I just figured this was the line to get in the door.

• I had suspicions that this line wasn't for appointment holders, but I wasn't about to lose my place in line to find out.

• So I wait...around 805am the line starts moving...slowly.

• At 815am I make it to the door where an employee is handing out numbers.

• I tell said employee that I have an appointment. He says, "What are you waiting in line for? Just go through those other doors."

• I think there should be a sign that explains not to wait in line if you have an appt, but nonetheless I merrily step out of line, pass all the suckers still waiting outside and head in.

• Lo and behold, there is a little sign inside that says "Appointments Only" right next to one that says "No Appointments" (with the line wrapped around the building). So I bounce right up to the Appointment counter because no one else is there.

• I explain that I'm there to transfer my out of state license. He hands me a form to fill out and attaches a number to my form.

• I turn around to discover that every chair and every bit of counter space to fill out forms is taken…or completely over crowded. Luckily I had my handy dandy planner and used it to fill out the form while kinda standing in the way of everyone else.

• I get as far as filling out my address and my number is called. Sweet! Off to the desk I go. I tell the lady I’m not done filling things out so she says just fill it out here and I’ll wait. Ok cool.

• So I fill out the form and I was writing so fast that I can’t guarantee that I didn’t accidentally check Republican in the voter registration box and I hand it in.

• She asks for my passport and CO license, I take an eye exam, pay $31 and I was sent to get my picture taken.

• I was shocked to discover that no one else was in line at the camera so I stepped right up, said cheese and that was done.

• Then, it was time to take the written test and this is where it gets difficult.

• It is now 830am. The DMV website has 5 practice tests to help you prepare for the written exam. Well, they didn’t do a damn bit of good. The test was HARD and I’ve been driving for a decade now!

• As a new CA driver, I could only miss 6 out of 30 questions and still pass. You really have to read the test carefully because the multiple choice answers are all worded to sound correct. The test takes me a good 40 minutes to complete and double check.

• So now I’m waiting in line to have the test graded. There are 2 people in front of me. 1st guy: Misses so many on the first side of the test that the guy doesn’t even grade the rest – FAIL. The girl right in front of me: Misses 8 questions – FAIL. Now it’s my turn and I’m nervous. If you fail the written test you have to come back the next day to take it again. I only miss 3!! I don’t know how that happened, but I guess I’m a lucky guesser!!

• The guy prints out my temporary license, punches a hole in my CO one and off I go! I step out of the DMV which is CRAWLING with people and still has a line wrapped around the building at 915am.

SUCCESS! Now of course I still have to go back one more time to register my car, but that’s just paperwork. What I can’t understand is why hundreds of people don’t try to get appointments! It’s not hard, just go to the website, select a date and time and that’s it. Maybe people just really like spending time at the DMV out here. I’m still kind of amazed that it only took me an hour considering all the horror stories I’ve heard. Hooray for me!

Oscar Quick Picks

2010-03-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

So I kinda waited till the last minute on this one, but it's tradition, so here are my Oscar quick picks. And since time is of the essence and I gots things to do, no explanations, just the winners.

Best Picture: Avatar

Best Director: James Cameron

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock (ok personally, I'm routing for Merryl, but I think Sandra might win due to the america's sweetheart effect)

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges

Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz

Best Animated Picture: Up (Evan thinks this might not win because it is also up for Best Picture which might split the votes. Since it's up for the other category, people might think another animated movie should win this category)

I thinking I might score 100% this year, so we'll find out tonight.

Su-Burbank-ia

2010-02-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

I now live in Burbank, CA. And yes, there will be people reading that who will say, "WHAT?! You moved to California??? When did that happen?!" Well, catch up people! And for the rest of you loyal followers, I will now regale you with all sorts of wondrous details about my new form of suburbia.

• Burbank is by far the best town to live in California. So suck it, Beverly Hills!

• We have a Target here! That was actually a requirement before we moved to a new city.

• We live next to grocery store called VONS. It is the same thing as a Safeway, but for some reason they only had room for 4 letters on their sign and why they picked V-O-N and S is beyond me.

• There is also not 1, not 2, but 3 AMC movie theatres in Burbank. Movies are $12 here, unless you go before noon and it’s only $6.

• We have a cute little main street called Magnolia Boulevard. Lots of interesting stores and restaurants. Also for anyone who saw the movie “Valentine’s Day”, Ashton Kutcher’s flower shop was an empty store on Magnolia Blvd. If you look closely out the window and across the street you will the restaurant, Pinocchio’s. We haven’t eaten there yet, but we intend to.

• We have this restaurant called Porto’s. Well, it’s more of a bakery that also sells sandwiches and what not. People go ape shit for this place! It is ALWAYS packed. I don’t really get it, I don’t think it’s that great. However, I haven’t had any of their bakery stuff yet which I suspect is the key to their magic.

• We have an airport in Burbank! It’s small and quiet and I happen to be a fan of it. So if you ever come and visit us, fly into Burbank. LAX (and driving to stupid LAX) sucks.

• I get my eyebrows waxed at a place called Wax Poetic. My lady’s name is Michelle.

• We also have this super sweet candy store called Rocket Fizz. It has every candy you could ever want as well as a vast variety of strange and unusual sodas.

• Burbank does NOT have a Chili’s or an Applebee’s. This annoys me.

• There are, however, quite an abundance of Taco Bells.

• There are a lot of crazy squirrels that live around our apartment building. We think they are planning some kind of a coup.

• And now that we live in Burbank, we are told it got at least 2% awesomer.

Well I guess that’s all for now. Oh, did I mention that it doesn’t snow here and it’s been around 60-70 degrees every day this “winter?” Mwahahahaha!

Celebrity Watch

2010-02-15T21:03:00.000-08:00

So now that we live in the entertainment capital of the world, we have had the pleasure of seeing celebrities in their natural habitat. Below is a list of those we've seen...and yes, we are taking some liberty with the word "celebrity."

Efren Ramirez - Best known as Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. He actually works at an antique store here in Burbank.

Smitty (Martin Smith) - Best known as Jay Leno's Drummer. Saw him at a Hooter's

Rico Rodriguez - Best known as Manny from the tv show Modern Family. He was shopping with his family at the Burbank Town Center.

Chef Gordon Ramsay - From the tv show Hells Kitchen. He was walking into a Pinkberry as we were walking out.

Peter Facinelli - Best known as Carlisle Cullen from Twilight. He was standing in an alcove talking on his phone at the Glendale Americana.

James Marsden - Best know from a lot of things, but to me as Cyclops from X-men or Corny Collins from Hairspray. He was shopping in our local grocery store.

Len Lesser - Best known as Uncle Leo from Seinfeld. He, too, was shopping at our local grocery store.

Jay Leno - Best known as ruining Conan's career. He was driving down the street in Burbank in some really, really old car.

James Hong - Best known (to Evan) as Tia Carrere's dad in Wayne's World 2. He was a patron at Evan's play.

Kathy Baker - Best known (to me) as Jennifer Garner's mom in 13 Going on 30. She sat right in front of us at last night's production of Noises Off.

Decision Making 101

2010-02-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

So I’m pretty sure I suck at decision making. I don’t know why, but I just do. I try really hard to not suck at it, but in the end I seem to make the wrong choice. This is nevermore apparent as in the grocery store or at Target. No matter what, I always end up choosing the line with the person returning 12 items, writing a personal check or filling out the form for a store credit card. This happens if I pick the shortest line or the longest line. I seem to always manage to pick the line that is going to take me the longest.

With big decisions, I take my time and reason it all the way through. I try to balance my gut feelings with common sense and rationale. I compute things, make lists and conjure up different scenarios and consequences. And just when I think I have it all figured out and make the decision, I am suddenly overcome with the feeling that I screwed up. Evan is constantly telling me how my brain and my heart never seem to play nice with each other and I have to agree. There is constant conflict between the two and I’m never quite sure who wins.

Case in point: I recently accepted and started a full-time position. Let me provide a little background…I was laid off from my job in CO in October and had severance through the end of the year. Score! So during that time I was looking for jobs in CA everyday. Because I wanted to try the acting thing, I was really focusing on part-time design or marketing work. Well, part-time jobs proved to be few and far between (except in retail and restaurants, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet), so I started applying for everything. In mid-January, I received a job offer…scratch that, I received TWO job offers…on the same day…within hours of each other.

Now, the first job I was offered was awesome. It was doing marketing for a local cupcake shop. It was nearby (like 2 minutes away), a casual work environment and, hello, they make cupcakes!! The job was also part-time…well, part time in terms of hours, but it would still swallow up most of the week (9-330pm M-F). The only drawback…it paid like crap. Like a buck or two more an hour than I made as an intern about 7 years ago. Ugh, I wasn’t happy with the pay to say the least, especially living in CA where everything is so damn expensive. But since nothing else was coming along after applying to something like 100 or so different jobs, and I thought I would kinda like it, I accepted the position.

Flash forward to about 1 hour and 45 minutes after I accepted the cupcake job. I receive a call from a job I interviewed for back in December. They called and offered me a full time marketing and communications job for about what I was making at my job in CO – and nearly twice the amount of the cupcake job plus more hours and benefits. So, thinking solely of the money and the fact that I like to eat, I withdrew my acceptance of the cupcake job and here I sit at my 40 hour a week job that’s 30+ minutes away, only has casual dress on Fridays and, needless to say, they don’t make cupcakes.

Aaaannd…here I am, again, certain that I made the wrong decision. My heart wanted the cupcake job, but my brain and my wallet made me accept the other. UGH! Why do I always do this?! So, now I’m somewhat miserable. This week alone I drove by 2 major filming operations on the street in Burbank on my way to work. I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in driving far away from the true thing I want to do with my life to go to work. Not like I wouldn’t have drove by them if I was going to the cupcake job, but at least I could have drowned my sorrows in some butter cream. [Insert stuff here about current job that I'm not supposed to talk about on the internet because Evan doesn't want me to get fired] And it’s nobody’s fault by my own. One day I’ll get it right…I hope. But for now there are only a handful of major decisions that I know were right…

• Deciding it was time to wear a bra after my sister told me I needed one

• Quitting soccer after 10 years to focus on drama and choir in high school

• Deciding to live in the dorms my first year in college and meeting my best friend, Marisa

• Marrying Evan

• Choosing Disney World for our honeymoon – seriously, THE BEST vacation ever!

• Witnessing my niece being born. (Technically this decision was made for me, but hey, I didn’t go screaming out of the room when they ripped my her from my sister’s abdomen)

Hopefully, one day I can add moving to California to this list, but right now that’s still up in the air… Dang this was a long post. I should add a picture of something…

Rain + LA Drivers = Craziness

2010-02-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

yup....another post about CA drivers.

One of the reasons why we moved to LA was because I wanted warm weather. I grew up in CO and always HATED the snow and cold. Also, the thought of driving in the snow would make me so nervous and stressed that I would become physically ill. Even after 10 years of driving in snow, I never got used to it. However, if you go slow, don't freak out and just hope and pray there isn't another car when you go sliding around a corner, you do ok. Maybe all this driving in snow has made Coloradans better drivers because when summer rolls around and it's raining, it doesn't seem to affect drivers at all. However, out here in the big LA, it never snows so when it rains, hold on to your hats because things are gonna get crazy!

As soon as the first drop of rain falls from the sky, people start flipping their cars and running over pedestrians. Maybe this hysteria is fueled by the media as a rain storm prompts several "STORM WATCH 2010!!" Let's just say that I've never seen so many people freak the frack out over rain! CA drivers suck on dry roads, so it's no surprise that a little rain screws people up. Here are a few examples I've seen on the news...all caused by rain.

-A car flipped upside down on an off ramp. And no else was involved in the accident. Now that takes talent.
-A 5 car pileup on the freeway.
-And last night, someone in hollywood ran over a pedestrian and then crashed into a light post. The pedestrian had to have her leg amputated. And quoted from the news, "speed, alcohol and drugs were not involved." It was just the rain.

I would hate to see what would happen if it actually snowed here. It would be like an apocalypse and the end of Los Angeles as we know it.

California: (Almost) 3 Months In

2010-01-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

February 5th will mark the 3 month anniversary of moving to California. It has been the longest 3 months of my life. In the past 3 months we have moved away from all of our family and friends, I struggled to find a job, I have failed to get any auditions, have yet to sign up for an acting class because they are damn expensive, and I spent thousands of dollars to get to this point. It's frustrating to know that everything you've hoped and dreamt of is right there in front of you, so close you could reach out and touch it. Except whenever you reach out, your hand slams into wall with a large sign saying "Wrong Way. Do Not Enter!"

So, after a few bruised fingers, that practical side of my brain starts to completely take over. Consequently, I have now accepted a full-time job which pretty much makes it impossible for me to try to act, but hey, it pays the bills. And to be honest, it's nice to have something more to do during the day than just sitting and watching tv. Also, now that I'm making good money again, I can sign up for an acting class. But I just stuggle with the fact that I could do this type of job in Colorado, so why the hell am I in California?! Why be here away from everyone we love and everything we've ever known when I'm not even pursuing what I came here to pursue.

I just have to believe that everything happens for a reason and it all will work out the way it's supposed to. I knew it was gonna be hard and I knew that I was going to struggle. I just wish there was some sort of clear sign that I was at least on the right track. Oh and I'm impatient, so that sign better hurry the hell up. Ugh.

Golden Globes Predictions

2010-01-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Golden Globes are tomorrow and since I'm opinionated, I figured I would once again pick my winners. There are a few movies I haven't seen yet, but I still think I can pick some winners. So here we go:

Best Motion Picture Drama
My Pick: Avatar
I actually wasn't that impressed by Avatar, but I predit it to win a lot of awards like Lord of the Rings and Titanic did. Also, the other movies in the category didn't stand out to me in any way, so that's why I went with Avatar.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
My Pick: uh...not quite sure
I didn't see the majority of these performances. Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side was good, but nothing special. Gabourey Sidibe was also good in Precious, but I'm not quite sure she should walk away with the award either. Also, it's hard not to pick Helen Mirren, because like Merryl Streep, she can do no wrong, but I didn't see the movie so I have no idea.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
My Pick: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Alright, so I haven't seen this movie either, but like last year when I predicted that Sean Penn would win for Milk before I saw it, I just have a feeling about this one. The previews look pretty good. Also, the other guys in the category aren't wowing me. Colin Firth would also be a good choice and the only one that would disappoint me is Clooney. There really was nothing special about Up in the Air.

Best Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: (500) Days of Summer
I loved this movie! I thought it was so cute and it really made me a Joseph Gordon Levitt fan! Also, I'm a sucker for group dance numbers.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
I know, I know, I've professed my love for Meryl Streep many times before, but let's just face it, she's a-MAH-zing! I think her portrayl of Julia Child was extremely charming and scores above the other performances in the category.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: Joseph Gordon Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
This was a hard category to choose from as I thought that Daniel Day Lewis and Matt Damon were also pretty good. I just liked JGL (that's what I call him now) and thought he was adorable.

Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
My Pick: Mo'nique, Precious!!!!!!!!!!
OMG, I LOOOOOOOOVED her performance in Precious and if she doesn't win, it will be a huge upset. She was freaking phenomenal!! If you remember how much I was rooting for Slumdog Millionaire last year, Mo'nique is my "slum dog" of this year. She was fabulous! And even though the Oscar nominations aren't even out yet, she's my pick for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as well. BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR!

Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
My Pick: Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Simply because I just happen to really like Stanley Tucci.

Best Television Series - Drama
My Pick: Mad Men
Seriously, Evan and I did a Mad Men photo shoot for fun last year, so it's clear we LOVE this show. I also like the period costumes and hairstyles. :)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama
My Pick: Meh...no opinion here really.

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama
My Pick: Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Mmmmmm me loves me some Don Draper! Eventhough he is the biggest man-whore I know.

Best Television Series - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: Modern Family!!!!!!
I feel passionate about this one as well. Modern Family is seriously the funniest show on television. I love Love LOVE this show!

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
I've said it once and I'll say it again, if I could marry Tina Fey, I totally would.

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Comedy Or Musical
My Pick: Alec Baldwin or Steve Carrell
Just cause I like both the shows they are in. So I guess this category is also kind of a non-opinion one.

Alrighty, I guess that's enough. I didn't predict all the categories, but just the ones I had the most opinions on. Last year I predicted pretty well, so tune into the Golden Globes tomorrow night to see how I did. :)

Honkers

2010-01-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

California is known for horrendous traffic and bad drivers. Well, I'm pleased to report that those are indeed factual descriptions. The traffic certainly does suck during rush hour (which is really rush 4 hours), but if you are driving on the highways at off peak times, traffic really isn't so bad. And we've learned that if you are always expecting a traffic jam, you will be pleasantly surprised most of the time when you merge onto the highway.

People who have lived in CA for years and years insist that it is everyone else that are the bad drivers and that if you can't handle it, then don't drive. Well, sorry folks, bad drivers are bad drivers no matter how long they've lived in the state. Traffic laws are pretty much the same throughout the country, it's just LA drivers decide they don't need to obey them. Side note: It is also true that the California police have far more important issues than to moderate traffic or poor driving behaviors. In fact, in the 2.5 months that we've lived here, I have never seen a car pulled over for speeding, blowing a stop sign, etc. And I guess it's a good thing because police activity always slows traffic and when it's slow to begin with, it just becomes unnecessary.

Anyway, back to the asshole drivers...I am still astonished at how people drive here. They change lanes without signaling and without allowing adequate space or time for them to actually fit in the lane. Furthermore, they don't even bother to look to see if it is safe to change lanes, they just go. People always drive waaaaaaay too fast for traffic and then get pissed when they have to slam on their brakes. And these are just a few of the examples. You would think that with the majority of the vehicles here being BMW's and Mercedes', they would take a little more care with their car.

And finally, people honk like it's their job. Now, I think there is a time and place for honking: when someone isn't paying attention and sitting at a green light - that gets a short gentle honk. Then of course there is the time when someone else's carelessness (see above) puts you and your car in danger - that gets a prolonged angry honk. However, LA people feel the need to honk at every little thing they see. They never give other drivers the benefit of the doubt, nor do they have the patience to share the road with others. Instead, they honk, honk and HONK until they feel they have solved the problem with their horn. It's ridiculous! I've only been honked at once because I was (as above) sitting at a green light not paying attention, but we witness over zealous honking several times a day. They honk at every little thing that may be inconveniencing them in any way...or not, they still honk if it doesn't affect them at all.

Anyway, people are stupid. And people in LA are more stupid when they get behind the wheel.

Skype to My Lou

2009-12-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

We were recently introduced to skype. I had heard of it before, but never used it. As a going away present, we received a webcam in order to skype with our families on a regular basis. I have to say, I really kinda love it. Other than a few glitches with our camera, skyping is truly delightful! I often skype with my sister and my almost 2-year old niece. It's really fun! I think I see them more now through skype than I did when we were at home. I also occasionally skype with my sister-in-law and my nephew although my nephew has a hard time standing still within the frame. So a lot of the conversation is yelling at him to move back in front of the camera. :) Evan also skypes with his whole family every Sunday - it's convenient because they are all together in one place. It's really almost like we are at home and that's so awesome!

One of my biggest worries was that I would miss so much of my niece and nephew growing up, but now with skype, it's like I'm not missing anything. Thank goodness, because they really light up my life and I'm so thankful that modern technology makes it so easy for me to connect with them. If you have skype, look me up so I can add you to my contacts and we too can chat like I'm not several states away!!

CoooOOOoookies!

2009-12-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, I am not a good cookie baker. My cookies always end up burnt, misshapen, and not too great tasting. Usually, I can follow a recipe and it turns out pretty good, but cookies and me just don't mix. However, I always feel like baking this time of year and since I have nothing else to do, we decided to bake some cookies this afternoon. We chose two recipes: Chocolate Chip and Thumbprint Cookies. I was just gonna do the thumbprint cookies, but Evan wanted some chocolate chip. I am convinced that the one recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I have is flawed because each time I've tried to make it, the cookies were melted, flat, burnt pieces of crap. So Evan was put in charge of finding a new recipe.

After 2 trips to the grocery store - I forgot baking soda the first time - we were ready to bake. I started with the thumbprint cookies because the dough needed to chill for an hour. My mom makes these thumbprint cookies every year, so I decided I needed to try them myself.

While the thumprint dough was chilling we whipped up the chocolate chip cookies. Evan was in charge while I supervised. And being, well being Evan, he decided that he wanted to add some marshmallows to the chocolate chip dough. I convinced him to only put marshmallows in the last few because I thought the marshmallows would just melt and mess up the cookies. Well, his recipe was successful! Not only did all the cookies turn out (minus a few with burnt bottoms) the ones with the marshmallows were pretty tasty!

Next up, I baked the thmubprint cookies and Evan filled them with apricot and boysenberry jam. Usually, these cookies are made with nuts, but since Evan is allergic, I only made 6 with nuts for me. Toss in some "Colbert Christmas Special" and "A Muppet Family Christmas" playing on DVD in the background and it was quite the merry time. And now, we have 2 plates full of cookies that the 2 of us have to eat!! I could be nice and fix some plates for our neighbors, but that would require actually talking to them, and doesn't sound like something I'd do. :)

The Jay Leno Show

2009-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

So living in California, more specifically, in Burbank, definitely has its perks. One of those perks is that we basically live next door to all the major tv and movie studios. This allows us to go see tapings of shows like The Jay Leno Show. Tickets are free, you just need to reserve in advance and show up on time.

The time to show up was 2:45 and we left our apartment at 2pm - NBC is less than a mile from our house. Well, NBC sits on the intersection of Alameda and Olive which is a stupid, crooked, little intersection. Olive runs diagonally through Alameda so it's a little confusing. Anyway, we found where we were supposed to line up and there was already a TON of people there. Basically, if you wanna be one of the folks who go up and shake hands with Jay at the beginning of the show, you better be there waaaay early. Anyway, now that we knew where we were going, we had to find parking. I am still astonished at the complete lack of parking in LA. You would think that a city that is so reliant on auto transportation would have places to park. UGH! Anyway, we parked in a parking garage under an adjacent building (that cost $12.50, by the way!). And then we had to walk all the way around NBC studios to get to the line-up area.

We got to the place to line up around 2:35. Now, on the tickets it says that seating is "first come, first served and that a ticket doesn't necessarily mean you will get a seat." There were already 2 sections of the line that went in to the holding area next to the studio so we were a little worried that we wouldn't get in. But finally, we made it to the holding area - where we waited...and waited...and waited. The show doesn't start taping until 4pm and we were seated at about 3:50. We were seated in the far stage right corner (near where the musical guests perform). Not the best seats in the world, but hey, they were free. The guests for the show were Morgan Freeman (AWESOME!), Maxwell (who?), a segment of "Jaywalking" and then comedian Daniel Thune (Hilarious!) at the end.

It was hard to actually watch Jay and not watch the tv monitors right above our heads. Most of the time Jay was blocked by camera equipment or the guy sitting right next to me that was leaning over way too far. What was interesting is that while the show was on commercial or there was something playing on the monitors, like the Jaywalking pre-taped stuff, Jay would just kinda wander around, chat with crew and then quickly go over his next cue cards 10 seconds before the cameras came back to him.

I had no idea who the musical guest was, and I guess his song was ok, but I was mesmerized by his suave moves - that boy could dance. And then it was done and we were all ushered out. It was fun, and it's nice to have a free (except the parking) thing to do in California. I'd really like to go to the Ellen show someday, but she seems to be a pretty hot ticket and books up fast. Anyway, there you have it, our Jay Leno experience.

Thanksgiving = Christmas Decorations

2009-11-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

So we just celebrated Thanksgiving which means that it's now acceptable to put up Christmas decorations. It's not yet December, but Xmas here we come! We brought just about all of our xmas decorations from Colorado, so today I took the opportunity to decorate. I got the tree up and all it needs is our ornaments. Evan had rehearsal this afternoon, so I'm waiting till he gets home so we can do it together. Other than the tree, we have a few xmas knick knacks here and there and that's about it. I also have this really sweet Christmas Village, but I don't have a good place to put in the apartment. I have some options, but none of them are really convenient for minature buildings and fake snow.

We are going home to CO for Christmas and I couldn't be more excited! You realize just how homesick you are when you have booked a flight home and comfort, family and friends are only weeks away. Because of Evan's show, we can't stay in CO very long, but I plan to enjoy every minute of it. There are so many things that I love about Christmastime and we are fortunate that we don't have to miss them even though we moved away. Here are just a few of the things that bring me so much joy during the holidays:

I love my mom's house at Christmas. She goes all out and makes sure every room is decorated some way. I used to always help put up the decorations and had to learn where each decoration lived and how everything was supposed to be stragetically plugged in. I didn't get to help this year, but I can't wait to enjoy the decorations. The house is really magical this time of year.
Stocking stuffers at the Marquez house. My siblings and I stopped getting stockings when I was about 10. Kinda sad. Luckily, I married into a family that will never stop doing stocking stuffers. I have my own stocking at the Marquez house and I LOVE opening them first thing on Christmas morning. It's full of all sorts of small, fun trinkets and it's always an adventure to see what's in the stocking.
Watching all the little kids open stuff at my mom's house on Christmas Eve. What I particularly love is that because they are kids, they pretty much get their way, so when they want to open presents the second they walk through the door, they get the fun started right away. They have so much fun and it's great to watch.
As much as it might be frustrating, I love how my dad tries to put off gift opening to the very last second. We always need to cook, eat, clean the kitchen, do the dishes and sit around for what seems like forever before we can start the gift exchange. It used to drive us crazy when we were little, but now we expect it and I think it's kind of funny.
Lastly, I LOVE getting gifts from Evan. Not just cause it's neat to get presents, but because Evan's gifts are always thoughtful, unique and just so "Evan." It reminds me just how great he is, as if I could ever forget. He pays attention to everything and applies it when giving gifts. If I mentioned something in passing 5 months ago that I thought was neat, it will show up under the tree at Christmas. And there is usually something surprising and funny - Something that makes me giggle and something that no one else would ever think of getting me.

So I can't wait to get home and get to experience all these things again this year. 26 days until Christmas...but only 24 until our trip home and I can't wait!!

Skittles.

2009-11-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

I had plans to go to the gym in our apartment complex this evening. Instead, we went to the store and bought candy. Yup, nothing says health like skittles and snickers. Perhaps I'll still go later, but I'm pretty dang good at finding excuses not to work out.

Let's see, so what else is going on? Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow and Evan's sister is coming to visit! I have a big ol' meal planned that will, no doubt, yield mountains of left overs. I'm looking forward to cooking all day, especially since one of the first things I'm making is pumpkin cupcakes with a cheesecake filling. I really hope they turn out because otherwise there isn't another option for dessert except for eating frosting out of a can.

What else...oh I've been applying to jobs like mad. It's really becoming quite annoying. I have applied to so many jobs that I'm PERFECTLY qualified for - like they couldn't have written it more for me unless they put my name on the job posting. So I submit my stuff and hear nothing. Not even a stinking interview. I don't understand. I get that the economy is shit and there are like a billion people searching for jobs. But why wouldn't a company want to interview those who are most qualified? Ugh, oh well. Something will come along. And it's not like I'm desperate for money quite yet. Severance will be here for several more weeks, and when that ends, then I really panic.

Still no auditions or agent yet either. I know I've only been here a few weeks, but I hope and pray everyday that something will happen. It's also super difficult to answer questions from loving friends and family about what's going on here when nothing is going on. It's really hard to believe that I made the right decision to move when all I do is sit at home all day. I believe in my abilities, I just need a little outside help to kick things into gear. I've researched, researched and researched and know exactly what I'm doing...and other than shelling out hundreds of dollars for acting classes, I'm doing a lot of things right. And yes, I know that acting classes are important, and I may very well take a whole slew of them, but right now I can't justify the expense - especially when I know that I don't learn well in those situations. I learn the best on my own when I can watch, absorb, experiment on my own and then apply. Or just by doing it! Ugh, anyway, enough venting for now. Time to work on some monologues.

I need a hobby.

2009-11-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

Ugh...the days are certainly starting to drag on. Evan works from home full-time, but I'm still on severance searching for a job. Since he needs to be on the computer all day and with the dismal offerings that daytime tv provides, there really isn't much to do. I've been trying to read, but that gets boring. I should clean more often, but it's hard to find the motivation to do so. Today I chose and worked on 2 monologues for drill, but even that only took an hour or 2.

I try to apply to at least 1 job every day, but after days of this you realize just how few jobs are posted during the week. I have had one interview in the week we've been here, but I was outrageously over qualified for it and therefore haven't heard anything back on it. I've also been self-submitting myself to acting jobs, but that hasn't yielded any auditions yet. I have also sent my stuff off to agents, so now I just wait to see if, by chance, someone calls me.

So everyday I sleep in, eat breakfast, watch the today show, get ready for the day, eat lunch with Evan and then honestly do nothing until it's time to cook dinner. It is really a pathetic existence. And the hard part is the longer this goes on, the less motivation I have to actually do anything. What's extra sad is that it was BEAUTIFUL outside today, but I couldn't think of anything to do or anywhere to go to enjoy the weather. Sigh...something needs to happen soon or I just might go insane!!

Home Sweet Apartment

2009-11-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Going from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment was quite the transition. We packed up a TON of stuff to store in my mom's basement and still moved quite a bit of junk. Well, here we are 1 week and 1 day as residents of California and I think we are finally all unpacked. We still have some shelves to hang up, but I think we're all settled. It doesn't quite feel like home to me yet. I'm stuck in some middle ground between home and a hotel. All of our stuff is here, but it still doesn't feel quite like ours.

There are a few features of our apartment that we prefer over what we had in our house. First, we have a bathroom that is adjoined to our bedroom. In our house we had to go out into the hall. Second, the living room is very large and open. There is a really nice flow from the kitchen to the eating area to the living room. There is also a long wall that fits our furniture nicely. Third, it's kinda nice to not have to worry about a lawn. Don't get me wrong, I love outdoor spaces and flowers and what not, but it's one less thing to have to worry about and spend money on.

Then of course there are few things that aren't quite as nice. The first major one is that our washer/dryer is in a closet...in the living room!! Yep, right there in the middle of the room is a damn closet that screwed up my whole furniture plan. Next, the dishwasher is not only kinda small, but is the loudest damn thing I have ever heard. We can't even hear each other talk while that thing is on. And since it's smaller, we have to do more loads, ugh. And lastly, the shower head was meant for really short people. We both have to kinda of bend down or squat just to wash our hair. It's a little ridiculous.

Ok, enough of the descriptions, here are the pictures I promised:

Here are some closets we have in the hallway:

One wall of the office:

Another wall of office that was apparently the magnet for ALL of our stuff:

Our bedroom as seen from the far corner:

Our bedroom from the door:

The second 1/2 bathroom:

Hallway from living room to bedrooms:

Living Room:

The dining area/front door as seen from the living room:

The kitchen:

The Kitchen take 2:

First Post From the Great State of California

2009-11-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

So, first let me say, pictures to come, so hold your horses. :) Here are some things to know about CA...

The apartment is great. There is lots of room and one extra bedroom that is currently designated as the storage closet. Basically, if there was a box we didn't quite know what to do with went in that room. Apparently, we had a ton of boxes that we weren't quite sure what to do with...oy. Also, just about ALL of the electric, phone and cable outlets (outlet, singular, in the phone and cable instances) are in the most inconvenient places. We have cables going every which way just to be hooked up - it's ridiculous.

Ah yes...the parking spaces. Only 1 designated parking "space" came with a 2 bedroom apartment. Luckily, there was another "space" that we could rent not too far away. Ok, so these "spaces" are under the building and all have poles separating each space. Our 2 spaces are also right next to walls. These "spaces" are just barely large enough to fit a standard sedan. We have to pull in, back out, turn, and pull in again just to get in each space.

We are right next to a grocery store so that's really convenient. We even walked over to get our groceries. The grocery store is VONS which is just a fancy California word for Safeway. They have all the safeway products and my safeway card even works there.

Everyone, except for the drivers who think that lanes are arbitrary, is strangely nice here. Very talkative and friendly folk everywhere, so that's nice.

Half of our channels are spanish. Seriously. Also, everything is on an hour later and it's really hard to stay up late to watch our good shows. Then, everything on in morning is infomercials - like on 15 channels. Any product you could ever want to buy is being hocked on nearly every channel in LA on Saturday mornings.

2 Days and Counting

2009-11-02T07:19:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are, 2 days away from the big move. The moving company came on Saturday and hauled all of our stuff away. Movers are definitely the way to go! 2 guys moved all of our stuff in about 3 hours and we didn't have to do anything but sit there and watch them. It was amazing to see how fast they carted all of our extremely heavy boxes away in a flash. So now I sit on the floor typing in a big empty house. There are a few things here and there that still need to be packed up and put in our cars, but really the move has begun. We leave Wednesday and will get into CA on Thursday. Then, hopefully, our stuff will arrive on Friday.

Ugh, I've been such a mess lately. I'm stressed, worried, sad, and stressed again. I should be excited, but I don't think I will be until we are there. Right now, I feel as though I'm just going through the motions of moving, but my head really isn't in the game yet. Tomorrow we will make the rounds of saying good-bye to family, and I really don't want to. I hate saying good-bye. Especially when there are 2 little kids that we will miss so much. It's really hard to grasp the fact that we will miss portions of them growing up. That will be the hardest part. I'm trying to think positively about the whole thing, but it's kinda difficult. Luckily, we can keep up with everyone through the internet so we will never feel far away. Oy, so long, Colorado!

Oops, forgot I had a blog.

2009-10-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

So it's been about a month since my last post. It's weird, I've had a ton of free time, but still wasn't able to write anything. So here it is, my re-cap post.

October 1st: Last day of work! Woohoo! A little sad, but mostly woohoo.
October 2nd: Emma's wedding! What a beautiful wedding! And it was really nice to see some old high school friends again.
October 7th-9th: Trip to California to find an apartment. And guess what? We found one!
October 10th: Helped my dad move out of the apartment he had lived in for 16 years into a house literally 2 streets away from our house.
October 11th: Went to the Bronco's game with my sister-in-law, Megan. FINALLY broke my streak of attending Broncos games where the weather has be shitty and the broncos lost. It's been 3 years and we finally beat the Patriots during this game. Yes!
October 17th: Went to a work event of Evan's at the Old Spaghetti Factory - my favorite restaurant! YUM! Then went to a housewarming party at Kim and Ben's new place.
October 18th: Helped paint my brother's new house. Oy, I hate painting.
October 20th: Ate lunch with a former co-worker and discovered that nothing at work has changed.at.all.

And here we are at October 23rd. Coming up we have dinner with friends, moving my brother into his new house, a big family dinner, LOTS of packing and then.....bum bum BUM...MOVING TO CALIFORNIA!! Holy cow! I can't believe I only have 1 more full week in CO and then it's off to follow that big fat dream. I'm ready to get there already. Enough of this planning and stressing over details, I just want to be there. And soon enough I will and I know it will be a great adventure.

Last Days of Work

2009-09-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

As I approach my final day of work, I can't help but wonder what's next and reflect on what has past. 2 days from now, I will be unemployed - let go from a company of which I have 5 years of service. I started here when I was an intern and now my career here has run its course. I have a little countdown ticker on my computer that has been counting down the days for the past year or so. I never thought that it would make it to the end, but here it is only displaying 2 days left.

I can remember my first day as an intern in the credit department. This was my first big corporate job and I was excited to learn that I had a cubicle! My own wonderful cubicle! I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and since I was still in college, my first day was only 4 hours long. I'm pretty sure all I did was learn how to log in to my computer and then sit and look through the office supply catalog that day. The next day was a full day and I was so excited to start training and meet new people.

There were about 6 other interns and admins who were all pretty tight with each other. It was lunch time and although I had brought food, I was secretly hoping that they would ask me to go to lunch with them. I waited and waited and I was starving, but finally as they were about to walk out the door, I was asked to join them. Yes! I was included! I interned for almost 2 years all the way through college. The group changed over the years, but there are still a few girls who I consider very good friends to this day. We all try to get together for lunch every now and again even though our schedules never seem to all work out. In fact, I'm having lunch with one of those intern girls on my last day of work...the same girl who asked me to go to lunch on one of my first days with the company.

I can also remember my first day with the catalog department. I was going to be working with a girl who I had worked with previously in the credit department. Having a little familiarity made my transition to this new team so easy. Also, I was going to be learning all new fun and creative stuff. It was awesome. It was the first time that I could say that I really loved my job. Unfortunately, the climate changed a bit a year or so later and the work I was doing was kind of killed. So I had to transition into more of a catalog role vs. flyers and smaller promotional pieces. I am so thankful for all that I have learned in this position. I am also so grateful to have made new relationships with coworkers. I have never seen and doubt I will ever see another group of people work as hard as the catalog team. Great people with lots of great abilities.

My job also provided me with lots of awesome perks. I only had an 8 mile commute to work, I had great benefits and it seemed that every time I turned around, I was getting a raise or a promotion. Sometimes the work kicked my ass and I hated working all those long hours, but I got through it and I am better for it. I know what I can accomplish and now I'm poised to go even further in my next career. And, like I've said in previous posts, I am so overwhelmingly thankful to have been given the opportunity to pursue my real dream. Layoffs can often be absolutely life shattering to some, but for me it was, is and will be incredibly freeing and a sign that I needed to take my life in a new direction.

My cube is all packed up except for a small Cranium desk calendar and a few office product odds and ends. Soon I will take my box of stuff and walk out the doors at 1 Environmental Way for the last time and take the first steps into my new life.

Wow, that was deep, wasn't it? Yeah, I'm pretty cool like that. :)

Dental work, illness, cleaning, packing = Vacation?

2009-09-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

I took 3 days off this past week. Originally, the plan was to use those 3 days meticulously cleaning the house and packing up lots of stuff and generally being very productive. Well, I quickly learned that while I could clean some things, most things (like kitchen and bathrooms) would have to be touched up before we had a showing anyway, so no need to go crazy now. Then I realized that we had packed up the majority of the stuff we were going to store and at this point it's better to have stuff out and organized than stuffed into multiple boxes. So, needless to say, there wasn't a lot of packing and cleaning that I could do.

Since my benefits expire on my last day of work (Oct. 1st), I have about $1600 to use up before that date. I have a few teeth that need crowns, so I figure I might as well get that work done before I lose that money. So, what do I do? I schedule a crown appointment on one of my days off in addition to a regular cleaning on a different day. (I only got one crown because I'm not crazy.) Dental work is never fun, but for some reason I thought it would be a great thing to do in my time off. Oh yeah, BTW, that dang crown cost me about $500! GRR! Why on earth is dental work so damn expensive?! I submitted a form to get reimbursed out of that $1600, but I am extremely pessimistic about actually getting any money from the insurance company.

And then, the pièce de resistance, I get a cold. The day before my time off. So all three days (plus the weekend), I am coughing and blowing my nose like crazy. Not the worst cold I've had, admittedly, but still not very pleasant. So even if I had some cleaning and packing to do, I didn't have the energy to get any of it done. Oy.

However, some highlights of my week were:
-My sister and niece visiting me one morning
-Having a few lunches with my husband
-Moving a ton of boxes to storage
-Watching my nephew overnight
-watching the Broncos kick but against Cleveland!

Mission Gnocchi: Success!!

2009-09-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

My sister and I have this thing where we get together and cook dinner every few weeks. The rule is the meals have to be something we've never made before and we switch back and forth between houses each time. So far, we've been pretty successful with only a few minor misses. Well, when my sister told me she wanted to try to make gnocchi (basically italian potato dumplings), I was very intimidated. However, she had a recipe and the confidence that the 2 of us could figure it out. So this past Labor Day, we decided to try it out. Usually our cooking nights are pretty casual and it's only the 4.5 of us, but this time we decided to invite the whole family = even more intimidated. Since we were all off for the holiday, we got started early. We arrived at my sister's house at 3pm and started cooking. Here was our process:

1. Got huge pot of water boiling
2. Made apple crisp dessert waiting for water to boil
3. Started to boil 9 whole, unpeeled potatoes
4. While potatoes were cooking, we made a pesto sauce (delish!)
5. Also whipped together and baked a carrot cake
6. Cleaned up and cooked some fresh green beans
7. After about 50 minutes, the potatoes were done, so they were drained and cooled.
8. We peeled the potatoes and mashed them with flour, eggs, parmesan cheese and nutmeg
9. Kneaded it until we had a dough
10. Then 3 of us took out portions of the dough, made long ropes, then cut 1 inch pieces and rolled them along the tines of a fork for texture of the gnocchi. (this process took awhile since we had tripled the recipe!)
11. Then in small batches we boiled the gnocchi until they floated.
12. Then we fried the batches in some butter.
13. Repeated several times until all the gnocchi was done.
14. Then we made a gorgonzola cream sauce (YUMMMMM!)
15. I assembled a salad of baby spinach, mixed greens, bacon, pears, gorgonzola crumbles and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
16. We also baked up some store bought garlic bread.
17. We tossed part of the gnocchi with the pesto, part of it with the cheese sauce and left a few plain.
18. Then, FINALLY at a little after 6pm (yes, 3 hours later!) we ate!!

AND IT WAS FRIGGIN' DELICIOUS!!!!!!! Whew!

Oh hey, September. What's Up?

2009-08-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

How is it that tomorrow is the first day of September?! Wasn't I just complaining about winter and now summer is already over? Boo. Well, the great thing about September is it will be a nice transition month for me. It will be my last month here at work and I'll really start mentally preparing to move. I feel like I'm ready to make the big leap and I have just one more month to get through until I start living out my dreams. It's kind of exciting! Things are falling into place with the planning process and I know it will all work out.

Oh...and September also means the start of Football Season!!!!! WOOHOO! Although my beloved Broncos are, um, struggling a bit in the pre-season, I still can't wait for football season to start. Yes, I know, when they screw up every game, I'll be screaming at the tv, but I really do love my Broncos. And I can always use the excuse, "It's a rebuilding year," when they go 0-15. :).

Other than that, I guess my month will be filled with lots of cleaning and packing. It's insane how much junk we collect. You never think you have that much until you have to start packing it - and holy crap! How can 2 people who've only lived in their house 3.5 years have all this? It's crazy! And it's especially hard trying to figure out what is moving, what is going into storage and what is being given away. Going from a 3 bed house to a small 1 bed apartment is going to be quite a shock. And I'm sure that will spawn lots of blog posts. Anyway, that's all for now!

Look Out!! Looooong post ahead!

2009-08-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is, the blog I've been waiting to post. The post that was the original intention of this entire blog. Deep breath....we're moving to California. Weird, just typing those words stresses me out even more than I already am. I've known I was moving for the past year or so and I have wanted to move there pretty much my entire life. But now it's real. It's happening. We're going. I've kind of tip-toed around this fact in other blog posts, but now I'm typing the actual words and it's scary.

::: if you don't feel like reading my life story, skip down to the 3rd paragraph from the bottom :::

So, let's start at the beginning, shall we? I have always known or felt that I wanted to be an actress. I didn't much do anything about this urge until high school drama club. The 4 years in high school were awesome and I honestly LOVED high school because I got to do what I loved with lots of really neat people. This is when I promised myself that someday, far in the future, I would move to CA and give it a whirl. Just try. Well, high school ended and off to college I went - to major in business. See, I have this fiercely practical side of me that is constantly fighting with my creative side. Well, in college I thought I had to let that practical side win. I knew I could get a job if I majored in business so that's what I did. I secretly wanted to major in theatre, but knew that I would struggle to make money in that field. I even told myself after I graduated high school that I was done with theatre and acting. It was fun while it lasted, but it was time to grow up. That idea lasted, oh, 2 months maybe. Because in August I was auditioning for my first community theatre show.

I continued my schooling in business (pretty much hating most of my classes. In fact, I hated college so much that I graduated in just 3 years so I could be done with it sooner). However, on the side, I was still doing several shows with a local community theater and eventually joined the board. I loved being on stage and also rather enjoyed the business aspect of running a theatre. Life was good. I graduated college and needed to get a stable job. And so I did. My first, non-internship job was at a small company where I only lasted 3 months because I was so miserable. I gained about 15 pounds and cried every night at the thought of going back there the next day. Luckily, during those 3 months I was cast in another show and had some form of escape.

I eventually got a great job back at the company I interned for. It was wonderful and somewhat creative. It is the job I still have today, although it has changed dramatically over the past three years. I was working in the catalog department for Corporate Express. For the first year or so I was assigned to smaller flyers, not catalogs. Still extremely deadline driven, but the catalog side had it a lot worse. I continued to do a show here and there, but we just bought a house so there were other responsibilities now. Fast forward to about a 2 years ago - I was newly assigned to catalogs. Ugh, I knew it was gonna be bad, but I really had no idea. Because we were so driven by deadlines, we were sometimes at the office until 9pm, 10pm and on a few occasions till midnight. Keep in mind, I come into work at 7am so the days were loooong. Also, the majority of the time we didn't know we were working late until 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave. Needless to say, it was impossible to do any theatre because rehearsals were always in the evenings and if you couldn't make a rehearsal due to work, you clearly can't be in a show. I was miserable, kept having break downs, stressed beyond belief and desperately wanted out.

Eventually, I started applying for other jobs within the company. Jobs I didn't even want or care about. I just wanted a job where I could come in, work my 8 hours and leave. I wanted a job that allowed me to do what I really loved - act. My bosses weren't too happy with this because while I was still miserable I was producing more pages than anyone on the team. So, they eventually worked out a schedule of only 1 late night a week and if I had rehearsal, I got to leave. It was unfair to the rest of the team, but it allowed me to act, so I didn't care. Eventually, Corporate Express got bought out by Staples and work all but ended so doing theatre stopped being in conflict.

Side track--- wow, I didn't realize until just now just how correlated my misery in life is with the fact that something was keeping me from acting. Very interesting. Anyway...back to the story...

Backing up just a tad. Since I knew I had wanted to move to LA, Evan and I decided to take a road trip out there to get a feel for certain areas and look at some apartments. In April 2008 we made a trip out there. It was one of the worst trips that I've been on. I was so incredibly stressed out at the idea of living in LA that I didn't want to leave the hotel room. I cried daily, we couldn't get in to see any apartments, the areas we thought we could afford were far from appealing and I just hated being there. It wasn't until we turned ourselves into tourists and went to Universal Studios that I calmed down. At that point I wasn't ready to move. We didn't have enough savings, I hadn't done enough research, I didn't want to quit my job and be broke - I just flat out didn't want to move. So, we didn't. We decided to save up for another year and try again later.

Then comes September 2008. Staples had bought Corporate Express back in July, but in September we learned our fate. We were retained until October 1, 2009. This means that we got to keep our jobs and "assist with the transition" until October at which time we would receive a bonus for staying plus severance. This was the sign I needed! The decision was made for me - I didn't have to quit my job to move, they were quitting for me and they were paying me to leave!! It was awesome! I had one year to get my life in order and mentally prepare myself for the move. And now here we are - I have 1 month and 26 days till I'm done with work and then off to California we go!

::: start reading below if you skipped all the middle :::

Ok, now that you're caught up. Here are my thoughts on the whole move....I'm terrified. I have never lived farther than 5 minutes from my family. I have always lived in a nice, quiet, safe suburb where one can afford to live comfortably. All my friends are here, I know where everything is...and oh yeah, we own a house here. I'm trading all that in to go live in one of the most congested, polluted, dangerous and expensive places in the country for some sliver of a chance that I'll be successful. I'm so completely stressed with having to figure out how to rent our house out, to hire a moving company, handle the logistics of moving, finding a place to live out there, what I'm gonna do for money, etc that my head is gonna burst. I feel like I'm jumping into a shark pit with both feet in order to chase a dream that might live at the bottom of the ocean.

I try to remind myself that I will forever regret not going and not trying. That I will never get what I dreamt of if I don't try. That it's only a few states away and with the internet, friends and family are never far. But with all that - I'm still scared. I'm going to do it, but I'm scared. Having a big dream is one thing, actually following that dream is quite another. Because what do I have left after I follow it and it leads to a dead end? I have no idea and that's what frightens me the most - that after I hit the end of the road, I won't have anything else to look forward to or to work towards.

I know that I'm not smart enough, strong enough and sure as hell not a good enough actor, but there isn't a better time than now. So I'm going to try. And if I fail, at least I can say that I tried.

The end! Good job for making it all the way through!! Here's a brownie! No, here are 3 brownies!

That's All Folks!

2009-07-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

This coming Friday, July 31st is my last day as Publicity Advisor for Coal Creek Community Theater. If you remember a post several months ago titled "A Volunteer's Lament," you knew my recent frustrations with the job. Well, shortly after publishing that post, I sent in my letter of resignation. It was extremely freeing to write it and submit to the board that July 31st would be my final day. Along with it I included a list of tasks that would need to be taken care of...and because I'm sucker, I offered another option. I offered that, if they needed me, I would still do design work for them for a fee of $100 per month. Design was the part of the job that I rather liked, but it is still VERY time consuming. Although I would permanently shed all the other parts of my job (press releases, email blasts, programs etc) there would be the possibility that I would still be tied to the theater. The $100 was intended to deter them from retaining services, but instead, I fear they will just pay me. I made it clear at my final meeting that I would "rather not" do the design work, but still left it open.

At the last board meeting, I supplied every remaining board member with a 14-page Publicity Training Document. I spent several weeks compiling every task that I did with detailed instructions. Shortly after I resigned, I sent an email to the entire CCCT email list (over 400 people) that CCCT needed a publicity advisor. I briefly outlined the duties and sent it off. Well, I got absolutely NO responses! Absolutely no one wanted this job...they are smart people. I thought that someone, somewhere, might be interested. But nope, that position would remain vacant and the rest of the board would have to pick up the slack - hence the 14-page manual. Anyway, so far, it doesn't look like they will retain my design services, but then again, we aren't in the middle of a show. Once the next show starts up (which I already created the poster for...see above: sucker) I think they will come knocking. It's ok I guess since I'm the one that presented them that option, but deep down, I just want to move on.

I'm VERY grateful for the experience and the knowledge that this role has provided me. I have so much experience under my belt at a young age that I know I can be successful in the future. I loved that I got to help grow the theatre and I hope that the success continues without me. So long CCCT! Break many legs!

Sleepy, Filmy and Dopey

2009-07-20T06:34:00.001-07:00

I am writing this blog in a little bit of a haze because I'm so tired. I'm usually tired in the morning on weekdays as I get to the office by 7am because I like leaving at 4pm. You'd think that after3 years of working this schedule, I would get used it, but nope. Every morning when that alarm goes off, I moan and complain and drag myself out of bed. Today, I'm a little more tired than usual because I had a busy weekend that also included getting up early.

On Saturday, I started work on a short, independent film. It was a 2 day shoot and on Saturday I had to be down in Highlands Ranch for an 8:30am call. So off I went for a half-day of shooting some background stuff and sitting around for a long time. See, in film, you film for about 20% of the time and the other 80% is waiting around to do something. I had a book, but unfortunately finished it too early and was left with nothing to do the majority of the time. And it's rather exhausting sitting around doing nothing anxiously waiting for your name to be called.

On Sunday, we had to wake up early to work on the yard. We have this lovely garden in the back that is unfortunately completely overgrown with grass, weeds and other random greenery. It's nearly impossible to keep under control. I had a 1:30pm call on Sunday, so all this yard work had to be done in the morning. So we were outside ripping up weeds by 830am. Then it was the usual Sunday grocery shopping, lunch and then off to the set. Luckily, Sunday's shoot was 10 minutes from my house so I didn't have far to go. I got to set at 130 and got into make-up. And then, of course, sat around doing absolutely nothing until close to 3pm. I did my short scene and was headed back home by 3:20. Oh, did I mention it was 96 degrees on Sunday? Yeah, and there was no air conditioning where we were shooting and no AC at home. So I sat around and sweat (sweated? what's the past tense of sweat? Whatever) until I went to my dad's for dinner. Oy, it was a long day!

And lastly, to address the final word in my title. I'm dopey. Nearly all the time.

Love Day

2009-07-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, 07/07/09, was my husband and mine's (that's not right, how do you say that? OUR I guess) 2 year anniversary! Yes, we were married on the ever popular 07/07/07, but unlike the droves of people that chose that date because it was "lucky," we actually had a real reason. We don't need luck or a date that my husband would never forget, we chose it because that exact date was our 7 year anniversary of being together. That's right - EXACTLY 7 years on 07/07/07. How cool are we?!

At the time, I didn't realize just how popular that date would be. We got engaged in June of 2006 and I immediately started planning. Much to my surprise, when I started calling venues for that date, they told me they had been booked for 07/07/07 since January 2006 or earlier!! I know wedding venues often book quickly, but still it was extremely frustrating that every venue was booked - and some even double booked. We finally found a place for our 250 guest wedding and it was smooth sailing from there...ok so not really. The folks at our venue were AWFUL communicators and couldn't successfully coordinate an event if their lives depended on it. So, I became a babysitter for the venue workers for about a year to make sure they had everything correct. And still some things were wrong the day of the wedding, but they were easily fixed. Anyway, 07/07/07 came and went and it was the most glorious day. I got to marry the best man in the world and share that great experience with lots of friends and family! I'm one lucky girl! I love you, hubby!

Getting Laid...Off

2009-06-25T06:09:00.001-07:00

In 3 months and 6 days, I will be living the blissful life of an unemployed citizen. In September 2008, we were told that our positions with the company would no longer be needed after October 1, 2009. During the time in between we would need to help transition our duties over to the new company. Oh, perhaps I should back up. Last summer, a competitor took over our company. They are a much larger operation with headquarters out of state. Ok, so back to the story...so, from September 2008 until now we have been helping merge the 2 catalog departments. And by merge, of course, I mean just letting the other company do everything and realizing that everything we had worked to build here meant absolutely nothing. That might sound like I am a little bitter over the situation, but the reality is that getting laid off is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me - work or money wise.

I was jumping for joy (on the inside) when they told me that I no longer needed work here after Oct. 1st. The deal is that they continue paying my salary up until Oct 1st, give me a retention bonus for staying that long and then pay me severance for several weeks after I'm done. They are quite literally paying me to leave! And who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I was so happy at the idea that I wanted to kiss that gift horse right on the mouth. Ew..ok...anyway...

Oh and did I mention that the past 9 months have been some of the easiest months ever? We have no work of our own anymore, so the other company has to give us stuff to do and well, they are less than attentive. We maybe get one, small project a week that is supposed to keep a team of 8 busy for 5 days. That project usually takes 1 person 3 hours to complete. Needless to say, we have A LOT of downtime on our hands. We've tried to fill it responsibly by holding professional development training sessions, playing around with different software, cleaning up data that no one will ever use and for some, attending a myriad of job search training classes. However, after months of this activity, it has grown stale and now we have become experts at filling 8 hours a day with mindless crap. It's wonderful. I go to work and get so much done for other aspects of my life - like theatre work and fun design stuff. I've also become the master at several online games...but I digress.

The underlying reason why I am so happy to be jobless in the future isn't the money for doing nothing (although that sure is nice!), it is the freedom and the sign that I needed to tell me it was time to move on. Time to do what I really want to do and follow the dreams that I've always wanted to follow. Being the uber practical person that I am, I have always struggled to find a balance between what I want most in life and being able to pay the bills. The thought of just quitting a job and running off to do something crazy was nearly impossible for me to fathom. Well, now that choice has been made for me and my life has never been so clearly laid out. You see, I am taking this opportunity to actually live the life I dreamt as a child. I would be lying if I was saying that I'm not completely and totally terrified at the idea, but the time has come and I'm ready to take that next step. I only hope that I don't fail miserably, but if I do, at least I can say that I tried to follow my dreams.

So, I Went to France

2009-06-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

We were in Paris for the last week or so. We saw all the important sites plus some really beautiful country villages. It was a great vacation and I'm glad I got to experience it, especially with my lovely husband. It was hella expensive, but it's a place that people should go to at least once in their life. I have to admit though, I didn't fall in love with Paris. All the great tourist sites (Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Champs Elysees) were so packed with tourists, they were almost not enjoyable. We could barely move at all (except for the sudden shoves by hoards of people trying to push through) at Versailles and it made me resent the tour instead of enjoying the beautiful palace.

The local Parisians hardly smiled and seemed as though they didn't much enjoy life. Eating seemed to always be a hassle whether it was getting a table, getting waiting on, getting correct food, getting the bill or simply eating food that wasn't quite what I was expecting for Paris. I spoke ok French, but found that although I could speak and read it, I couldn't understand it for crap. They would talk so fast, that I simply couldn't keep up. There was 1 waiter that we had that only spoke to us in short simple French and I understood every word - god bless him.

What I did love about Paris was that every building, everywhere you went was carefully and meticulously crafted. Beautiful architecture surrounds you everywhere you go. And since we went in May, the gardens were in full bloom. I adore flowers and it was wondrous to always be around gorgeous flowers. I also loved the countryside. The villages are far more charming than Paris. Not only do they have a much slower pace, but they are quaint and far more beautiful. I also really enjoyed going to the French Open. I had never been to a tennis match before and to attend one of the Grand Slam tournaments was awesome. Although I was freezing the entire time, I think I found a new love for tennis!

What I have always known about me, was confirmed on this trip: I'm not a good traveler. I do just fine for a few days, but then it starts to wear on me. I lose interest in doing things and would much rather just hang out in the hotel room all day until we go home. I also find that instead of relaxing and enjoying myself, I get even more stressed. Stressed about money, stressed about transportation, stressed that I'm going to do something wrong and offend someone or get lost, stressed that I have to be responsible for planning things, stressed about returning to a mountain of work...ugh, just stressed in general! And it's especially worse when I travel to large cities. I long for suburbia - and yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but I really do. If I could vacation in a Target or a Chili's I'd probably be just fine. I do know that the next vacation we take will be to an all inclusive resort that picks us up from the airport, feeds us and just lets us lay on a beach all day. A vacation of mindless nothing-ness - sounds good to me.

Festival Update

2009-05-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well...we didn't win and I'm actually very glad. It was enough of a headache planning a trip to Utah, and I did not want to do that again for Tacoma.

If you read the below post, you will see that the organization of this festival was a piece of crap. Once we got there...well nothing had changed, still shitty. Other than the hotel being a rather nice place to stay, the festival was a joke. Some of our paperwork was lost - of course they got our check, but some of the paperwork that was with it was missing. The adjudicators provided nothing meaningful and made such comments as "well, I wasn't bored." Awesome. I am glad we were able to perform, but sad that our little not-for-profit theatre had to spend so much money to attend this poorly organized event. The awards "ceremony" at the Applebees didn't start till after 11pm and, again, was poorly planned. They didn't notify the restaraunt that awards were being given out and that everyone should be in the same area. So when we showed up, it was chaos. Then, they handed out the 2 awards and it was done. Fortunately, the right people won 1st and 2nd place. The 1st place show was from Littleton, CO and they were amazing! It would have been nice if the organizers recognized people for acting, set design, costumes etc, like other regional festivals had done, but clearly making a few more awards was beyond them. Lots of folks worked their butts off, not to mention took time off of work and spent lots of time and money getting to the festival, and they couldn't even print out a certificate that said Good Job! We plan to send a letter to AACT explaining to them was a disappointment the festival was. They obviously can't do anything now except for maybe take more care when planning the festival next time. Which would be good enough for me.

Idiots who think they can plan things.

2009-05-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

As you know, I will be going to a regional theatre festival on Thursday. This is a big deal to our little community theater and I'm sure it's a big deal to the others attending as well. However, it seems as though they found the most incompetent person to actually plan the festival. So, what should be an honored event to attend, is a thrown together piece of crap. Let's see, where to start...

First, the regional festival dates weren't officially set until end of March - only about 8 weeks until the festival will take place. (other regional festivals have been completely planned for months) It's not cheap to travel to a different state with 7 people, costumes and a set. We won the state festival in June 2008, but because we didn't know IF there was going to be a regional at all, we couldn't fundraise during that time. And there wasn't adequate time between when we were told the dates of the festival and the actual event to plan anything successful. Luckily, we received some donations, but they won't even cover half of the expenses.

Second, information about the festival itself was impossible to find out. I had to send several emails to the nitwit organizer asking questions that should have been easily answered - where will the festival be taking place, who is participating, when will there be a schedule, where should we stay, what are the technical specifications of the theatre...and so on. More often than not, the organizer wouldn't respond at all. I had to send several follow up emails just to get a response to 1 of my questions. One of the most important things was obtaining official registration forms for the event. We got these a mere 3 weeks before the trip.

Next, I had to bring up issues with the organizer that she most certainly should have been aware of before the planning process begun. AACT has very specific rules for the festivals, but it seems that the idiot organizing the event didn't bother reading them. I had to bring up the fact that we needed to send in copies of the script and permission from the playwright to produce the play. She responded essentially saying, oh yeah, you should send those to me at X address. HELLO! This is something that you need to make sure you have well in advance! GRR!

There's a whole laundry list of grievances I have with the organization of this festival. It is costing the theater a significant sum of money to attend this haphazardly organized festival. Oh and did I mention that the awards ceremony is at 11pm at the Applebee's? Ugh.

Chi-Town

2009-04-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we visited my best girl friend in Chicago. She moved there about a year ago, so it was time to go see her new digs. It was a short trip, just Friday-Sunday, but we had a great time. We walked (A LOT!) around the city, took a boat tour, walked around Michigan Ave, went to Navy Pier, ate at a bunch of great restaurants and saw the comedy show at The Second City. The weather was also quite pleasant. When we arrived it is around 80 degrees, which was a bit warm in the cab, but otherwise wasn't bad. Then the other 2 days it was cloudy and rained off and on. The overcast skies made it nice and cool to walk around the city. And we seemed to get pretty lucky with the rain; we would just happen to go into a store or a restaurant right before it poured.

I really enjoyed Chicago. I thought it was great mix of Denver and New York. It's definitely large and busy, but seemed a lot cleaner, less crowded and safer than NYC (at least in the area we were in). Also it's not overflowing with crappy souvenir shops and other tourist traps like NYC. Chicago certainly had it's fair share of tourists, but it was nice that the city didn't seem to pimp itself out to them. But clearly, the best part was spending 3 days with Marisa. We always have such a great time together and it was nice to devote some actual time together. I was glad we were both able to take some time off and have some fun in Chicago!

Regionals Here We Come!

2009-04-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today, I sent off the registration forms and a check for the registration fees for the American Association of Community Theater's Region VII Competition. I will be acting in "The Organist's Daughter" for Coal Creek Community Theater. We won 1st place at the Colorado Community Theater Coalition Festival last June, so now we compete against theatres in Utah and Wyoming for a chance to perform at the National Competition in Tacoma in June. The Regional Competition is in Orem, UT May 8th and 9th. This is the first time CCCT has had the privilege to attend a Regional Festival and we are pretty stoked!

8 of us will caravan it out to Utah to stay at the prestigious La Quinta Inn and perform at the world class Mountain View High School Auditorium. I tease. These are pretty standard locations for theatre festivals. But, it's hard to get people excited about a trip to the middle of Utah. So to get you jazzed, here's some info about Orem and about Utah:

Census 2000 Information
Population: 84,324
Households: 24,166
Population 18 & over: 54,492
Average Age: 23.9
Average Family Size: 3.93
Percent Male: 49.7
Percent Female: 50.3
Percent Married: 69.0
Square Miles: 18.241
Average Temperature: 89 Summer, 45 Winter

The City of Orem was organized in 1919 and named after Walter C. Orem, President of the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad.
BTW, folks that live in Utah are called Utahns. Interesting.
Utah has a higher percentage of residents (30.8%) under the age of 18 than any other state
Utah is the beehive state.

WOW that was exciting! Ok, so the location may be lackluster, but hopefully the festival itself will be a lot cooler. We will compete against The Cheyenne Little Theater (WY), Painted Past Productions (WY), Mainstreet Players (CO, the 2nd place winner at state) and the winner of the Utah state festival which is yet to be determined. We will each present up to 60 minutes of a play or one-act that will be judged by adjudicators looking for the "most fully realized production." A winner will then be chosen to advance to the National Competition.

As with many theater festivals, the entries are top-notch and because all the folks at regionals have already placed at the state level, I expect competition to be steep! Our show is a sweet little love story. It's far from deep and doesn't really deal with any pressing or serious issues. It's cute and heart-warming. Sometimes (as was the case for state) the judges love this type of thing and other times it is considered fluff. Who knows what the judges will think this time, but no matter what we will do our best and put on a good show. Personally, I don't believe we will advance any further. The other groups attending the festival have competed at this level before and we are certainly the underdog. You can expect a full run-down of the competition once we return, so be sure to check back!

I don't understand...

2009-04-13T08:11:00.001-07:00

...how parents do it. This past Saturday I babysat my nephew, Marcus, for about 6 hours. Luckily for the first hour or so, my husband was there to help entertain him while I cooked dinner. Marcus is 4 years old and a bit of a handful. He tires quickly of activities and has to move on to something totally different within 5 minutes. We have a lot of toys at our house, but of course he really doesn't want to play with those. He'd rather get into things that are breakable or not for kids like the computer and video games. And you have to keep a constant eye on him or he is into the candy (it was Easter so candy was abundant), going upstairs for something or just off doing something mischievous. So, in order to keep him busy here is what we did:

We colored
We ate dinner
We played board games
We read comic books
We went to the park
We walked around the neighborhood
We played catch
We played make-believe outside for about an hour
And finally, because I was so exhausted, I gave in and let him play video games

Marcus is obsessed with playing mario cart and for a 4 year old, he's pretty dang good. I know there are better things for a 4 year old to do than to play video games, but it keeps him busy and content for a good while and all I have to do is sit on the couch and watch him. I couldn't really get anything else done besides just watching him play or playing with him. And this is where I can't, for the life of me, understand how parents do it 24/7. Even with 2 people it was difficult to get anything else done while he was there. How do they clean, cook, work on things, or even take a shower and get ready?! It is seriously beyond me. He doesn't take naps anymore nor does he go to bed early - he is always going, going, going. And of course, he's really difficult to ignore, so that's not an option. I just don't get how parents do it. I'm in awe that Marcus' parents haven't fallen over and died from exhaustion, because after just 6 hours I was ready to collapse.

Eating Habits

2009-04-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, here it is, another rant blog. There are several eating habits that I just absolutely cannot stand, so here goes:

Slurping: AAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!!! I can't stand slurping. Unless you are in the middle of some dental procedure where your tongue is numb and you have no teeth, there is never an excuse for slurping. It's really damn annoying especially because if you slurp, you are just being lazy. Yes, it is possible to eat soup and drink beverages without slurping. Trust me, I do it all the time. I know people that slurp everything! Like things I didn't even think you could slurp like mashed potatoes.
Chewing with your mouth open: What, are you 3 years old? No? Then close your damn mouth when you are eating. I don't want to listen to your chomping and squishing nor do I want to look at your food when you eat. This also goes for gum chewers. Seriously, shut it and keep your chewing to yourself.
Loud Crunching: This can sometimes be combined with chewing with your mouth open to create a truly frustrating experience for me. This usually happens at work. For some reason, the people around me only bring crunchy food to snack on all day. I can hear it over typing, people on the phone, copy machines and what ever else is going on in the department. It's like their crunching is magnified just to annoy me.
Heavy breathers: Ok, I understand that if you are sick and can barely breathe at all it can force you to breath heavier when you eat. But this is for those who just breathe heavily when there is nothing blocking their airway besides the food they are shoveling into their mouths. This habit actually makes me nauseous. I don't know why, but when you breathe heavy while eating, I want to puke. So, breathe like a normal person and spare us all the nausea.

I think that most people that have these annoying habits don't think they have them. And even if you told them to knock it off, it really wouldn't do any good because it's been ingrained over their lifetime. But seriously, the next time you eat, stop and listen to yourself and if any of the above occur, please know that you are annoying the hell out of me. Thanks.

Woohoo! New Furniture!

2009-03-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

When Ev and I first moved into our house, nearly everything in it was either a hand-me-down, a garage sale find or came out of a box from Target. Our first major furniture purchase was our bed and then it was another year and a half until our next purchase: an entertainment center. We've bought small things along the way like end tables, a bookcase and some shelves, but still the majority of our furnishings were not originally ours.

Our living room furniture was no exception. My sister gave me her large purple sleeper sofa, over sized chair and ottoman about 4.5 years ago. At that time, I was still in college and living at home, so I rented a storage unit to keep it safe until I had my own place. It was a lovely, hip set and for the price of nothing, I couldn't just let it go. Of course after a year or so of renting a storage unit I probably could have bought new furniture for that money, but oh well. So when we bought our house, in came the large purple furniture pieces. They are quite comfy but after 3 years of our use and another 3 years with my sister before that, their shine had worn off. The cushions were all out of shape and there were a few stains and general wear and tear. (BTW: I am selling the set if you are interested: http://denver.craigslist.org/fuo/1096559726.html)

So, this weekend, we finally purchased a new living room set! It was just delivered today is sitting in my living room as I type this and I can't wait to go home and see it. They are smaller (and MUCH lighter than that dang sleeper sofa), light blue and cute! Although they need some breaking in as they are bit stiff, they are OURS!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2009-03-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today is my dad's 66th birthday. There are a lot of people that have told me I'm a lot like my dad. Although I look a lot like my mom, I think about 60% of my personality comes from my dad. My dad is a perfectionist - down to the core. Whether he is making dinner by perfectly following a recipe or changing oil in 3 cars in one day or ironing creases into his jeans, he never does anything half-assed. His work is precise and accurate every time. It's actually quite exhausting sometimes to see him work. When I'm ready to say "that's good enough" he continues on for 20 more minutes until it is right. Oh, and he can fix anything. I love that. Any problem and the solution is only a phone call away. My dad also knows everything about just about everything. I know everyone thinks their dad is pretty dang knowledgeable, but I'm pretty sure my dad is close to a genius. And if he doesn't know something, he'll read about it until he knows more than the guy who wrote the book. I don't even know how that's possible, but it seems to be how it is. He's also a genuinely good man, who loves his family and always makes sure everyone is taken care of.

I may be the only person to say this about their parents, but I'm glad my parents got divorced. It allowed me to see who my dad really was and I think my parents are much better people apart. When they were married, my dad assumed the typical patriarchal role to provide for the family and to be the disciplinarian. But after they divorced, I got to see my dad for the person he was and not the guy he thought he had to be for the family. I also honestly think I "get" my dad. He's kind of a hard guy to read and seems difficult to please, but it has never been a problem for me. I think that's because we think in kind of the same way and I don't expect him to be someone he's not. It just works between us.

Anyway, I'm glad my dad is my dad. I couldn't imagine having a better one. So, Happy Birthday, Dad!

Holy Tooth Ache, Batman!

2009-03-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

I would like to start with the fact that tooth aches can kiss my arse!

Anyway, on Monday night I went to bed with a slight ache on the lower right side of my mouth. I have a tooth, second from the back, that was crowned about 3 years ago. The ache was bugging me, but I really didn't think much of it. I tried to ignore it and went to bed. Through out the night I was awoken by the tooth ache and just tried to focus on other things and go back to bed. Well, by 4:30 am I had enough and went to go take a shower and take some advil. I got out of the shower and started getting ready and that's when the pain became unbearable. Like, crying, shaking and writhing on the floor unbearable. Well after about 10 minutes of this agony, the pain killers finally kicked in. They didn't completely take the pain away, but they dulled it enough to where I could call in sick for work and climb back into bed.

I had my normal dentist cleaning scheduled for the next day, so when I went back to bed I thought maybe I could tough it out until my appointment. I woke up at about 9am with a little pain, but not bad enough that I couldn't eat some cereal. I finished my bowl and the agony set in again. I rushed to the bathroom to take more advil but knew it would be 15 minutes before it took affect. So again, the writhing in pain thing. Not fun. I called up the dentist and described my excruciating ordeal and they said the earliest they could get me in was 10:30am the next day. Lovely. So then through out the day I had to continue to take 2 advil every 2 hours just to keep the pain at bay. And there were times within that 2 hour window that the pain would briefly resurface and send me into hysterics. And if I didn't down another advil in time, I would be in complete agony until the new pain killers kicked in.

Finally at 9pm I was ready for bed and I took 3 advil in hopes that I'd maybe get 3 hours of sleep before waking up to the feeling of someone stabbing 100 needles directly into the nerve of my tooth. So, from 4:30am to 9:00pm, I had ingested 16 advils and had essentially been in pain all day long. I did pretty well last night and slept from 9:30 until about 2:30am. Got up immediately and downed another 2 advil. The pain was really bad this time because it had been too long since my last dose and so I didn't get back to sleep until almost 4:00am. Then, I was up again around 6:00am, took another 2 advil, but was still in tears and near hysterics from the pain. After about 20 minutes of thrashing in bed from the agony, I feel back to sleep until about 9:15. And then, you guessed it, took another 3 advil, took a shower and got ready for my dentist appointment. This time it seemed as though the advil had no effect whatsoever and I was in tears and shaking on the way to the dentist. I told them to screw the cleaning and get right to work fixing my tooth.

They took an x-ray and sure enough there was an abscess on one of the roots of my crowned tooth. Then they told me they were short staffed and weren't quite sure whether they could work on me today. I almost lost it. Luckily, they worked it out and the next thing I knew they were numbing me. SWEET BLISS!!! I didn't care that I couldn't feel half of my face, for the first time in about 30 hours I didn't feel like ripping all my teeth out. It was heaven. At this point they could have done whatever they wanted to my teeth and I would have conceded without a second thought.

The dentist got to work quickly on the root canal. He drilled a hole through the crown and then cleaned out the roots of my tooth. I didn't feel a thing and it was heavenly. Within an hour he was done. I was prescribed an antibiotic and some vicadin just in case I experience some pain from the procedure. Although I have to go back next week to finish up and to get the permanent filing in my crown, I am so happy. It is now 5:15pm and I haven't had any pain or any advil. There's a little soreness from where they poked me, but it is really nothing at all. I never thought I could be so happy about a root canal. The root canal was easy, it was the 2 days leading up to it that was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life!

Scrubbing in the Shower

2009-03-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, I don't clean my shower as often as I probably should. Instead, I wait until the drain is sufficiently clogged enough that the water won't drain. Then it's time to clear it out and scrub down the whole shower while I'm at it. So last night was the lucky night when I had to time to clean the darn thing.

First, I start with the drain. This is actually kind of fun despite being stomach-turning. The fun part is thrusting the plunger against the drain clean-out hole thingy. (I'm sure it has a real name, but I don't know what that is). So I'm whacking the heck out of it until big hair balls pop up through the drain. Hey, I told you it was stomach-turning. And then it is my duty to grab the hair balls before they fall back down the drain. It's a miracle that I'm not bald, because there was certainly enough of my hair in that drain to make one hell of a wig.

Now that the drain is clear, it's on to the rest of the tub. Can someone please explain to me how a shower can have build up that is white, pink and peach in several different spots? Seriously, how does that happen? Luckily, no matter the color of the gunk, it cleans off easily - well except for the soap scum. The fact that soap - a material that is supposed to clean things - leaves scum behind really gets my goat. And no matter what I do, it always returns. After scrubbing for an hour or so, I'm finally done. And if I don't pass out from the fumes or become paralyzed from the horrible positions one has to contort their body in to actually clean the shower, I will live to clean it in a month or two. Hooray.

P.S. Yes, that's me as a singing janitor.

Birthday Cards

2009-03-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday during lunch I look a trip to one of my very favorite stores: Target. I had a gift card to spend and needed to pick up a few odds and ends. Included in that were 2 birthday cards for 2 girlfriends of mine. Now, picking the perfect birthday card is an art form. I have to read through dozens till I find the perfect joke, the right illustrations and overall feel. Apparently, I was in a certain mood yesterday as both of the cards I picked out had sex jokes. Very tame and not at all crude sex jokes, mind you. Typical girl friend type stuff. In fact, both cards had 2 ladies on the front. Anyway, I had the 2 cards in my hand as I was walking around the store and realized that maybe I should be a bit more discreet about my cards since one of them did have the word "SEX" in bold, capital letters on the front. So, I positioned them under another item, out of sight. I laid them on the check out counter in the same fashion, but didn't really think much about it as I was sure the clerk had much better things to do than care about my birthday cards. But of course, I pick the one checker that feels the need to read each and every word on my cards before scanning them. I felt a bit violated. Those are MY cards, if you feel the need to read greeting cards, take your break in the card section and don't nose through my stuff! At this point a few other people were behind me in line so they could hear the checker proclaim, "Those are nasty" before putting them in my bag. I was angry. They were not nasty, nor were they any of his business in the first place. So I snapped back sternly, "No, they're funny" and threw him a dirty look. I was judged. Judged at a Target. For buying birthday cards. Stupid clerk.

A Volunteer's Lament

2009-02-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

I have been a volunteer Publicity Advisor for Coal Creek Community Theater for a little over 4 years now. When I started, I was thrilled to be able to channel my energy into something that would help promote theatre - one of my biggest passions. I jumped in with both feet and I'm proud to say that, over the past 4 years, I've built a pretty stable marketing program for the theatre. I submit all the press releases, send email blasts to the membership, write and design the quarterly newsletter, help obtain stories in the newspapers and theatre critics, design the posters, postcards, business cards, design and layout the programs, the season brochure, manage all the printing, assist with updating the website, send out mass mailings to the membership and area businesses, manage business sponsors, help with grant applications and essentially if anything is ever printed or sent to more than 5 people, I have touched it in some way. And keep in mind that I have to perform these tasks numerous times a month all year long. Again, this is a complete volunteer position and I do this work after working 40 hours a week at my real job. There are parts about it that I really love and the work I have done for the theatre helped me land my current career, for which I am very thankful. But, after 4 years of this work, I have quite the bitch list and I feel I need to get it all out before I explode.

I'm tired of hearing that publicity is the answer to all questions and the reason behind all failure.
I resent the fact that my job is far more time consuming and difficult than the vast majority of the other board positions. I also resent the fact that other board members only show up for meetings and feel that they are actually contributing to the group in a big way.
It stresses me out to no-end that I feel like I can never give this job over to someone new. No one would want to take it over and I care about it too much to just throw it in the garbage.
I can't control what a newspaper decides to print or what a website decides to post to their calendar. All I can do is submit the information (which I always do!), so please stop asking me why something is or isn't in the paper.
It drives me crazy when people pester me about if or when a press release will be sent. Of course it will be sent. I always send it. I will copy you on it when I do send it. I only have a thousand other tasks to do this week, so leave me alone!
I hate getting a thousands comments/edits on artwork I've created for a poster or post card. It's really hard coming up with original designs (especially with such limited time and resources) so the theatre doesn't have to pay for copyrighted material. Unless I completely miss the point with the poster or unless you can provide me with a clear concept and artwork ready to use, I am only asking you to edit content. I think my designs are pretty dang good so leave the imagery to me.
It's really frustrating to have to go to 5 different people to just get the information I need to complete one project. And the fact that 4 out of 5 of those people never respond to email makes my job that much more (needlessly) difficult.
DEADLINES: a word that means absolutely nothing to the vast majority of people. I need time to do a layout or design, time is needed for proof reading and the printer needs time to complete the project. This means that deadlines must be followed in order to get things done in time, but of course I get things late and I have to work well into the night to make up the time. This really sucks.

Am I a little burnt out? yeah. Ok, a lot burnt out? yeah. So you say, you're just a volunteer, you can quit at any time. Well, it's more to me than that. I take responsibility for my work and would hate to see the theatre suffer if I just stopped doing my job. The work is, at times, very enriching and rewarding, but I fear the time is steadily approaching where my laments outweigh the rewards. And at that point, I'm not helping the theatre at all. So, if anyone wants to become the new Publicity Advisor for CCCT, training begins on Monday. :)

Oscars! And not the grouchy kind...

2009-02-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

And now it's time for Linda's Oscar Picks! ::cue the theme music:: I have now seen all 5 of the Best Picture nominees, so here we go!

Actor in a Leading Role:
Sean Penn, Milk
--Mickey Rourke might win it, but I think Penn deserves it

Actor in a Supporting Role:
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Again, duh.

Actress in a Leading Role:
Merryl Streep, Doubt
--Kate Winslet may take home the statue finally, but having seen both performances I don't think Winslet can even hold a candle to Streep

Actress in a Supporting Role: (AKA the Toss Up Category)
Uh...Viola Davis, Doubt
--I feel like none of the gals nominated for this category particularly stand out in any way so your guess is as good as mine

Best Picture:
Slumdog Millionaire
--Without a doubt the best movie this year

Animated Feature Film:
Wall-E
Anything associated with the name Eva has to be good

Best Director:
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Fabulouso!

TA DA! See ya on Monday with the results!

Sick and Tired

2009-02-18T09:00:00.001-08:00

If you've been following along with my blog posts, you know that I am in a play. A play that opens THIS Friday! So, this past weekend was spent building the set and now we are into dress rehearsals. Costumes, props, lights, sound...oh and actors too, now come together to actually produce a show. This week is commonly referred to as "Hell Week." And for good reason. Rehearsals usually run long into the night because it's difficult to pull all the different aspects of the show together. And then, of course, there are the endless questions by the actors that are just now arising when there is little-to-no time (or resources!) to address them.

I've been fortunate enough to have a few days off this week to catch up on sleep and relax after those long rehearsals. However, Monday (one of my "relaxation" days) was spent waking up relatively early and grocery shopping, shopping for props, creating props and then rehearsing. And then on Tuesday, I wake up to chest congestion, a cough and one hell of a headache. That's right, I'm sick. Perfect timing. So, bring on the overdose of Zicam to help keep this cold at bay for at least opening weekend. And now, I am back at work today and pretty darn tired, not to mention ill, but since I am only working today and tomorrow, I thought I better come in.

It seems like this always happens - getting sick before a show. It seems that the stress and lack of sleep always catch up to me right before we open. You'd think my body would understand that this is what we do and adapt. But no, instead it crumbles under the pressure and will eventually drown in a sea of mucus. Ugh.

Kids, Children, and Babies... oh my!

2009-02-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

I do not have any kids of my own, nor do I particularly want any anytime soon. However, I have a very big love for children and am blessed to have a nephew and a niece. I also have a few other kids that aren't related by blood that I think of as nephews and nieces as well. But I will focus this blog on the 2 kids that belong to my brother and sister.

First, there is Marcus, the son of my brother. He just turned 4 years old and the kid cracks me up every time I see him. In fact, my husband and I quote him nearly every day. Marcus is a little ball of energy. He could run and play games for hours. Literally. The kid never stops and I'm pretty sure he inherited his hyperactivity from his dad. He is also a talker. Even before he could actually speak words, he would jibber-jabber on for hours. And now, you can't get him to stop asking questions, or telling you exactly what he is doing at every moment of the day. But, my favorite thing about Marcus is his genuine good nature and desire to do the "right" thing and not get into trouble. A trait I'm sure he did not inherit from his dad. :) Marcus is always the kid telling other kids not to do bad things to prevent them from getting in trouble. He's also a bit of a tattle-tale, but hey, at least he knows the difference between right and wrong. He also has such a big heart and really, truly loves all of his friends and family.

Next, there is Eva, the daughter of my sister. Eva will turn 1 year old on Thursday and I can't believe how time has flown. She is my little red-headed beam of light. She's inquisitive, beautiful and one heck of a clapper. She is also a little sassy, but she's a read-head, so what do you expect? :) Unlike with Marcus, I have been able to be around Eva all of her life (Marcus spent his first 2 years in Washington state) and it's been a delight to see her grow. I expect her take her first steps any day now and then she will be in to absolutely everything. Eva has an infectious smile that can always brighten my day. And one of the funniest things she does is laugh at conversations. For example, the whole family was eating together during Sunday dinner. We all get to chatting and inevitably something makes us all laugh. Well, Eva sees this and starts laughing - kinda like what people do when they just walk up to a conversation they weren't involved in and try to interject themselves. It's such a fake little laugh too, it is SO stinking funny!

These kids really light up my life and I am so grateful for them!

I guess I'm also grateful for my sister and sister-in-law for actually popping these kids out so I can enjoy them! ;-) Thanks!

Rehearsal

2009-02-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

I am now a few weeks into rehearsals for my upcoming show, The Last Night of Ballyhoo. In fact, we only have 10 more rehearsals until we open! EEK! Most of us are off book and we are starting to really get a feel for the show. Characters are coming along nicely and we, as a cast, really gel, I think. We rehearse Monday-Thursday from 7-10pm and typically run the whole show every night. Each night as we approach the final scenes and inch closer to the 10 o'clock mark, we all start to get a little loopy. We start flubbing lines, interjecting random thoughts into scenes, behaving badly and just all around acting like idiots. This is actually my favorite part of rehearsal. The funniest things come out of people's mouths and of course, by 10pm we are all a little slap-happy so everything is hilarious. Also, I think these cooky experiences every night help us bond as a cast. Inside jokes are formed and these are the moments we will really remember in the future.

One of the best things about theater is that you get to spend so much time with so many wonderful people that share the same passions and interests that you do. Everyone works really hard to build their character over time, and you get to witness these transformations along the way -- all while doing something you love. You learn to depend on one another and to learn from everyone's experience and expertise. And then to top it off, you get to go out there and perform to hoards of applauding fans (well, at least your cheering parents). Although it's full of hard work, long hours, and many struggles, there are few things as rewarding as performing in the theatre.

Boobs. That's right. Boobs.

2009-01-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

Well, it was only a matter of time until I did a post about boobs. After all, they've been such a large part of my life since I was 10 years old. Yup, 10. I have no idea why God thought a 10 year old needed or wanted boobs. Especially one that was already a foot taller than her classmates and really didn't need anything else to make her stick out and was a competitive soccer player, which meant lots of running. But, there I was in 4th grade receiving training from a bra. Little did I know then, these sacks of fat (attractive huh?) would keep growing until I was about 20. Now, I know some women would kill for larger breasts and some pay thousands of dollars for them and I should be grateful for what I have. Well, screw that, I like to complain. So here are my thoughts on my boobs:

My Rack is a Pain in the Back. I have had constant back pain since I was about 16 years old. I can't sit in the same position for more than 10 minutes because no matter how I sit, my back starts to ache. Sleeping is a tossing and turning event because my back just can't seem to get comfortable.
What a Slouch! My boobs weigh me down, therefore giving horrible posture. I am certain that I will one day develop a hump on my back because I slouch forward so much. It's so unattractive, but my back is just not strong enough to sit up straight all day long.
Buttons: Boobs' natural enemy. Button up shirts and I don't get along. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part if the shirt fits me perfect in the shoulders, arms and torso, but has buttons, you can bet that those buttons are holding on for dear life across my bust.
Sag Bags. I honestly don't know what it will take (short of plastic surgery) to get some lift! I have been fitted by some of the best lingerie stores in town and whipped out close to $100 for a single bra that was supposed to perk me up. But still my "fun bags" weigh the dang bra down. Sometimes I feel like I should carry a portable table with me just so they have something to rest on besides my belly button.
Running: A Contact Sport. Unless my boobs are duct taped to my chest, running is pretty much out of the question for fear that I might suffer a concussion.
Over The Shoulder Boulder Holders. Finding bras that fit is a constant battle. The majority of stores don't carry anything close to my size. So, I have to go to speciality shops or high-end retail stores. Even then, they only have a few styles to choose from and mostly they aren't very flattering. Often, they have to go in the back to find a bra my size. And then I usually don't like the cut or I'm not willing to pay $150 for it that day. Oh, and don't even get me started on strapless bras.
Top Heavy. I have recently lost some weight - of course, I lost it everywhere but my boobs. So now, I look even more disproportionate. My legs and stomach have thinned out but yet I still have these 2 huge masses atop my chest. It's not hot, it's odd and I feel like no matter how much weight I lose my boobs will always make me look (and feel!) much larger than I am.

So what should I do about all this? Nothing, duh. I just like to complain.

Boredom

2009-01-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

Boredom and me are good friends. We meet up with each other for several hours a day every workday. There are days where I absolutely love Boredom and others where Boredom is actually rather, well, boring. Work is slowing down significantly and I only have 1 real project that I work on and that will be ending in the next few weeks. So, instead of actually trying to find work related things to do with my time, Boredom and I like to surf the internet, check my email accounts about 30 times an hour, read message boards and work on publicity projects for CCCT. And after weeks of this, I feel like I have exhausted all means of entertainment. You'd think with the World Wide Web I'd have endless hours of mindless fun. But really, after an hour, you just don't care anymore. I keep checking my email in hopes that someone will write me something interesting and I can take 20 minutes to write a response or that someone will send me a task that I can complete at work. But most days, those things don't happen. So instead, I write a blog post about boredom. And here I am, done and bored again. Luckily it's lunch time, so I'm off to Noodles. (see below)

Noodles

2009-01-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

I am the first to admit that I have a serious addiction to Noodles & Co. restaurants. There is one close to where I work and I eat there at least once a week. I limit myself to once so the folks who work there hopefully won't think I'm a total loser. I do make exceptions. If I go with a group a friends, then I'm allowed to go twice a week. Because of my addiction, the people at Noodles know me by name and know my preferences except when I mix it up and add chicken to my dish (on especially hungry days).

Over the years, I have transitioned from the Penne Rosa to the Pasta Fresca. I wanted a slightly healthier option and soon fell in love with the new dish. Now, I'm finding myself bored with the Pasta Fresca and often not finishing it. So, today I decided to try something new - once again going with a dish that had less fat and less calories. I was pretty hungry, so I didn't want to dive right in to a complete dish if I didn't like it. So I tried another first, a trio. For those of you who don't know, a trio is a portion of pasta, a salad (or soup) and a protein. I tried, for the first time today, the Japanese Pan Noodles. I'm usually not a big fan of Asian flavors, but I enjoy some so I thought I'd try it. Well, I wasn't too impressed. It tasted alright, just not exactly what I was looking for. However, I said the same thing when I switched from the Penne Rosa to the Pasta Fresca, so you never know - maybe I'll come around and be addicted to this now. Or I should just get 2 big rice crispy treats for lunch and be done with it. :)

Oops! It's been a week...

2009-01-19T14:36:00.000-08:00

...and I haven't blogged. I guess that could be that nothing really noteworthy has happened in the past 7 days.

Let's see...last Thursday I had to watch my baby niece, Eva because she was sick and and wasn't allowed to go to daycare. Now, I think this is a crappy policy. While I understand that a daycare doesn't want kids to come in and infect other kids, they need to understand that they are in business because parents have no other place to take their children while they are at work. Parents sure as hell wouldn't pay up to $2000 a month if they did! I think they need to set up a special room and caretaker for the sick kids. (Why anyone would want to be that caretaker I have no idea!) I especially think they need to set something up because more often than not, kids get sick AT daycare. When half the kids in the place are ill, you can pretty much guess where they contracted the illness. It's not fair to the parents if their kid gets sick at daycare and then can't go back because they are sick.

Also, it's not like parents get a discount if their kid isn't there a day. Most day cares charge by the week or month, and missing a day here and there doesn't save you any money - only if you miss an entire week. So, in order to care for Eva - my mom, Eva's dad and myself had to take off work to watch her over 2 days (time was split between me and my mom the first day and dad took off the next). That's vacation hours that we won't get back or didn't have in the first place and therefore money lost, projects at work that had to wait until the next day, deadlines that were missed and then possibly jeopardizing future time off due to the sudden nature of taking time off for this situation. All the while the folks at the daycare center had 1 less kid to watch and got paid the same amount of money. Grr!