Dental work, illness, cleaning, packing = Vacation?

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!!

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?

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!

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!

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

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

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!