Am I Just Kidding Myself?

Spring break has officially started for us. We aren't going on any grand trips (I envy those of you who are!) or doing anything remotely exciting. But I hope to use these next 9 days to my advantage. I have a list of things I'd like to accomplish. First, I have homework that needs completed. Homework on spring break? Have I ever done homework during spring break before? Not likely. But as painfully boring and ridiculous as it might be to have homework during spring break it HAS to be done. For my drawing class I must have my self-portrait completed by next Monday. I must type a paper for my acting class and rehearse my lines for Brighton Beach Memoirs. And I have a dreaded assignment in Statistics. Shoot me now. Hopefully I can get those all done early in the week so I have time to work on some personal projects. One of those projects is that I hope to finish crocheting a white carrier to hold my temple clothes in. I would also like to get a few pages of my scrapbook finished. I have a plethora of magazines I need to read. See, Mike and I had a bunch of flyer miles that were going to expire so we just traded them in for a bazillion magazine subscriptions. So I will be going through issues of Redbook, Body + Soul, Blender, Time, Newsweek, Babytalk, and Rolling Stone while Mike will be reading Forbes and several other investment type magazines. We wouldn't want them to go to waste ya know. I would also like to organize all the music on our computer and burn a bunch of cds. I also hope to do some major spring cleaning. I want to rearrange the furniture and deep clean the closets, cupboards and drawers to get rid of any unused items. I would also like to watch a few movies and go longboarding, workout, and play at the park with Vessel. Oh, and clean out the cars (especially the trunks,) catch up on the laundry, and maybe scrub the bathtub (ugh.) There's plenty that needs to be done. But I have a feeling that, even though I don't have to go to school or crossing this week, I won't be close to getting all the stuff done that I need/want to do. That's life when you have kids. :)

I Need to Express My Individuality

There have been many a day that I would come home to find this:

Crayon and colored pencil scribbles all over the door

Several pieces of paper lying around the floor with pen ink drawings on them

And self made tattoos on Vessel's arms and legs.

Mike just defends our boy by saying (in the voice we use for Vessel) "I Need to Express My Individuality!" Then I just laugh.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today would have been my mother's 45th birthday. Two years ago we had driven up to Idaho to celebrate with her and my sister. It was so nice to visit with them. I said we should give mom her birthday presents right away. The last gift I gave her was a bib that read "I Love My Grandma." That's how I broke the news to her that I was pregnant. She was so happy and excited that she started crying. She wanted to be a grandma more than anything. I'll always remember that day. I didn't think that 3 months later she would be gone. I found the bib among the things in her room after she died and now it sits in my cedar chest. I still miss her terribly. I wish I could just pick up the phone and call her and tell her about life and tell her about her grandson. I wish I could have one more conversation with her. I wish I could wish her a happy birthday. It's like a heartache that never goes away. Most days it's mild. Other days like today, I feel very downhearted. I don't believe a day goes by that I don't think of her at least once. She is so missed. But today, on her birthday, I have tried really hard to remember the many good things about her life. And I think I even smiled.

Our Letters

A few weeks ago Mike and I bought some binders and sheet protectors and finally organized all of our letters to each other! We even put them in chronological order by date and with my letter first, then his response and then my response and so forth. It was really fun to read our past love letters to each other and it will be cool for our kids to read someday too! Er...maybe..... if they can handle the mushy gushy-ness of it all. The one thing I really regret though, is not printing off all the emails we sent to each other during the beginning of our courtship. I kept them in a folder and then one day my email account got too big and it just deleted everything I had saved! Sad times...but at least we've got all these, not to mention tapes, cards, pictures and all kinds of other memorabilia that will forever rest in the Mike and Jamie files.

Still Bringin' It....Slightly

Wow, we've already made it to "recovery" week. Don't let the name fool you... it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. This week is full of core synergistics, kenpo, and yoga. Oh, dreaded yoga....I can't begin to tell you how much I dislike doing yoga. So when I found out that we would be doing it multiple times this week rather than ONCE, I was a bit disappointed. The second time we played the video I fell asleep while doing one of the stretches and slept until the video was over. Granted, it was about 11 pm so I was already sleepy anyway. But falling asleep during a work-out? Come on! Some of the stretches in yoga can be very relaxing, but for the most part I find it very boring. I'm more of a cardio girl. I love doing upbeat exercises that get my heart rate up like aerobics, step, or dancing. But somehow I'll find a way to make it through the (what seems like a million) downward dog positions.
Last night instead of doing yoga I broke out my old Tae-Bo tape just for fun. After doing P90X for 3 weeks, this Tae-Bo business was like a piece of cake. I mean, 25 minutes versus an hour+ is a dramatic difference. Plus, the Tae-Bo moves just felt a little too easy for me. It's nothing now.
So far I haven't seen an enormous difference, although I can definitely FEEL a change in my body. Yes, I am getting toned under that layer of fat. :) I feel stronger and more energetic. So that's good. I think if I was sticking to my diet better I'd see more physical results. Okay, let's be honest here. I love food and I hate depriving myself, especially when it comes to sweets. I truly have been eating better, but there have been a few days of overindulgence. Two weeks ago...chocolate fountain at the baby shower ring a bell? But seriously, how can I NOT have a little dip when there's a chocolate fountain in front of me? Then there was the IHOP incident where all of Mike's family got together before Danny's MTC drop-off. You're not going to find anything healthy on that menu, am I right? And in a moment of weakness I ate a flauta Bajio salad. Ah.... it was good though! I've been keeping a food journal and it has been helpful. It's kind of a pain to write everything down but in the end I get to see just what I'm putting into my body. Before this diet I was kind of oblivious to what I consumed. And I was also totally unaware of how much the little things could add up. A tablespoon of butter on toast, a few tablespoons of salad dressing, a handful of chocolate chips, a few tablespoons of oil in my stir-fry.... those little things add up fast. Mike and I have been eating SO much better though. More vegetables, fish instead of red meat, more soy, whole grain breads, skim milk, fat-free cheeses, egg whites without yolks, less sugar, and drinking more water. I feel better than I have in a long time and that's what I've got to remember every time I feel like eating a Krispy Kreme or a handful of M&Ms. As the saying on Sheldon and Michelle's fridge used to read: "More control, lose the roll." I better keep that in mind!

Theater

Top Girls

Last Friday night Mike and I went to see Top Girls at Studio 115 on campus. I was a little skeptical at first because I didn’t know if I would enjoy it. Mike was also wary about going to a “feminist” play. But in the end we both looked at each other and said, “That was good!”

The play is about a career driven woman named Marlene who works for an employment agency called Top Girls. The play starts out with a dream like sequence where Marlene is having dinner with five historical “top girls” who are supposedly there to congratulate her on her promotion in the company. Throughout the dream the five women get progressively more drunk and emotional as they each discuss their pasts and the different experiences they have had. Although the women have accomplished much during their lifetimes and hold famous status for one reason or another, it is soon revealed that each of them has also suffered in various ways.

After the dream sequence ends the play jumps into the present day, which is actually the early 1980’s. Marlene is at a desk interviewing women for work in the highly competitive job field full of men. After this scene, the story of Angie begins as she and her friend Kit hide from Angie’s mother Joyce. We learn that Angie hates her mother and fantasizes about killing her. She is a troubled teenager who has dropped out of school and does not have any friends her own age. She looks up to her Aunt Marlene and wants to be around her as much as she can. Later in the story it is discovered that Marlene is actually Angie’s mother and her sister Joyce has been taking care of Angie all these years as her own daughter. Marlene and her sister Joyce are at odds with each other during the play and eventually have an argument which allows them to get things off their minds that they had been bottling up. The play continues and we start to realize that, although Marlene might be a successful business woman, she had to give up her daughter and cut ties with many of her other family members just to achieve it.

The tone of the play seemed a bit dark and the attitude was one of struggling to find happiness, or just to survive in the world. I think the intention of the play was to make the audience question the abilities of working women. Can they be aggressive, cutthroat, successful career women and also have a family life with loving, nurturing, and kind attributes? I also think the intention was to show that sometimes getting what you want in life requires that you sacrifice something else that may also be very important.

I was impressed with the acting abilities of the cast because they made the show very realistic and I found myself caught up in the story line and sitting on the edge of my seat. Since the play was set in London, the cast was required to take on British/English accents. I thought that was interesting, and maybe even a little hard to do, especially being unfamiliar with talking that way or using words not necessarily a part of everyday American vocabulary. I was also amazed at the way they could focus on their lines with as much overlapping dialogue that there was. But the one thing that really impressed me is the way the cast didn’t let little mistakes affect the rest of their performance. If someone made a slip-up, they moved on with their lines as if it did not happen. For instance, there was one instance where Angie and Kit were supposed to spit on their hands and then shake each other’s hands to make a pact. I don’t think they were really supposed to spit, but Angie actually did. This could have made Kit start laughing or get distracted or grossed out, but she went with it and made it seem like it was supposed to happen. She merely wiped the drop of saliva that landed on Angie’s chin and stayed in character. Also, at one point Marlene seemed to have had a tickle in her throat and it appeared as though she was going to have a coughing fit. Luckily during the scene there was actual water on the table she could drink as though it was part of the play and napkin on the table she could use to wipe her dripping nose. It seemed like it could have been rehearsed, but it wasn’t. The last thing that amazed me is that the characters didn’t get out of their “zone” even when the fire alarm went off. The play had just begun and then all of a sudden a loud, abrasive alarm and flashing lights went off. Everyone in the building (cast and crew included) was ushered outside into the cold night where we had to wait for nearly 40 minutes until the alarm could get turned off. This could have been a huge irritation or distraction for the cast, but when the play eventually started again, they continued strong and didn’t let the instance affect them at all. I felt like the characters really “lived their parts” and maintained a certain degree of “spiritual concentration.”

The stage that the cast performed on was very simple. Studio 115 is a small room fit for a small audience. The props mostly consisted of black boxes and flat, black boards used for tabletops. The lighting was very simple as well. The most extreme use of light was when a spotlight was needed and another time when there was some flashing that resembled lighting. The sound of the play was great and I enjoyed the music they used, which was 1980’s song renditions to fit each character and scene. The costumes were also fairly basic but I highly enjoyed how each character from the dinner scene changed their clothes in front of the audience and became a new character. To me this kind of signified that the characters were parallel in some way. It was interesting that they essentially used the same attire from the first scene to create an entirely different costume for the following scenes. The production elements were not extravagant in any way compared to other plays that I have seen. But I honestly didn’t think it mattered much as long as the acting was well done, which, in this case it was.

Overall I think the play was well done and Mike and I were both happy we went to see it. Watching the performers made me want to become a better actress for the scenes we are working on in my acting class. I also felt inspired to go watch more plays! I think there is something to be said about live theater that just does not compare to watching a movie. If a play can capture my complete attention and draw me into the story and impact me in a way that makes me think about myself and my life with a different perspective, then it has accomplished something. And I feel like this particular play did just that.

I Think I'm on Mars, Baby

Wonderful March

I love March. March is birthday month in my family. Me, my dad, grandpa, my cousin, and my mom all have March birthdays so I think it just reminds me of happy times with my family. Maybe it's the fact that winter seems to be melting away. The thought of March just brings happy feelings and I've got spring fever so much I can hardly stand it. I broke out the longboard the other day and went cruising down Wilson Avenue, one of my favorite streets to board on. Mike was nice enough to follow me and take me back up the hill so I could have another run. I'm pretty sad that we weren't able to make it up the canyons and go snowboarding this winter, but being able to longboard is the 2nd best thing so I won't complain too much. Just being able to get out and smell the clean air and feel the wind go past me took my mind off of school, which has been been making me want to rip my hair out. I am so burned out and I can't wait to graduate. I get pretty bad anxiety just thinking about my statistics class. I am actually making this post to procrastinate studying for my test this week. ah.... I guess I better stop daydreaming and blogging and get cracking on my homework. *sigh*

Cute Boy

Mike got a cute video of Vessel eating with a fork. He's been able to do it for awhile, but I rarely let him use a fork because most of the stuff I feed him doesn't require one. But he certainly likes it. He was stabbing food like a pro for about 10 minutes until I finally told Mike he better grab the camera. So here he is eating some coleslaw we made for our "diet."

P90X Coleslaw

I'm a big fan of coleslaw so I was excited and curious to taste this recipe since it is uniquely different than a traditional coleslaw recipe. We modified it a little bit which is shown in parentheses. I actually liked the way this slaw turned out. The only problem for me is that it seemed too onion-y, so I would use less red onion, but that's just me.


Ingredients:

3 cups green cabbage, shredded

1 cup red cabbage, shredded

1 cup jicama, julienned (Jicama can be found in most grocery stores near the potatoes and onions. That's exactly what it tastes like to me too: a mix of potato, onion, and apple. It gives this salad more crunch.)

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

2 Red Delicious apples, finely diced (We used Cameo apples, which Mike and I agree are superior to all the other apples.)

1/2 cup fat-free mayonnaise (We used regular mayo here. I don't much like the after-taste of fat-free foods. And you know, if they take out the fat they've got to replace it with something else anyway. So, if I'm going to eat something like mayo, or ice cream, or a cookie, I'd rather eat the real deal in a smaller portion than a lot of the fake stuff. But again, that's just me. This recipe is designed for people trying to lose weight, so you make the call.)

1/3 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fructose (We just used regular sugar.)

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 1/2 teaspoons caraway seed

1/4 teaspoon salt

pinch white pepper


1. Combine the vegetables and apples in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and mix well to make dressing.
3. Pour the dressing over the slaw and toss until evenly coated. Cover tightly and chill before serving.

Serves 12