Barely Keeping Up

100 Pounds

2011-11-17T13:49:00.002-05:00

Last night I squatted 100 pounds. I didn't just squat 100lbs once, I squated a total of 25 squats at 100 pounds each! Insert amazonian woman yell here. Eat your heart out Xena! Casey and I are still keeping up with the Strong Lifts program. I am really enjoying it and I have to admit that I feel completely funky if I don't work out on a day that I'm supposed to. There were, in fact, a couple of days over the past couple of weeks that we were distracted with family obligations and a nasty cold that had both Casey and myself out for a couple of days each in which we didn't work out and I just felt kind of out of kilter because we didn't work out. Well, with the exception of one Sunday afternoon.

That particular Sunday afternoon I went upstairs to take a nap at 1:30 in the afternoon and I slept all the way through until 6:30am the next morning. I'm still hacking up a lung, but I'm working out despite the phlegm.

I am hitting my current limit for bench press and overhead lift. Last night I had an extremely difficult time bench pressing. It's normally my favorite of the excersizes because I started out so forcefully with it and until this week, I've had a few problems but nothing like I did last night. I only managed 1 full rep of 5 at the current weight (sorry, don't have my journal here so I can't tell ya what I did) and then I only managed 1-3 per rep afterwards.

In other news, we're prepping for thanksgiving and I have to say that I'm fairly excited. This is the first time in a while I've gotten to see my Dad on Thanksgiving. I'm also going to visit with my step-siblings and their kids. This will be the first time that they're going to meet baby Megan. I'm not looking forward to the whole driving 7 hours in the dark thing, but oh well. We'll survive. The question remains whether or not Megan will. I have a feeling we'll stop half way to eat and get her out of the car, etc. She's never been in the car for that long before, so it will be an adventure.

I remember doing this with Jack and Lily both and don't recall it being so incredibly horrible, but the Kreechy is a whole different beast, so yeah.

Well, I'm off. Enough procrastinating. I must get laundry put away before I head off to the new Twilight movie tonight.

Three Days of Strong Lifts

2011-10-25T08:36:00.002-04:00

I'm playing catch up on my journal entries. Crazy busy week last week with lots of running around and my dad came up to visit.

Wednesday 10/19
Squats @ 50lbs. Completed.
Bench Press @ 55 1/2lbs. Completed.
Rows @ 55 1/2lbs. Completed.

Friday 10/21
Squats @ 52 1/2lbs. Completed.
Overhead Press@ 47 1/2lbs. Completed 4 reps of 5. Stuff is getting really tough!

Monday 10/24
Squats @ 57 1/2lbs. Completed.
Bench Press @ 60lbs. Completed 3 reps of 5, one rep of 4, one rep of 3.
Rows @ 60lbs. Completed

My squats are getting a lot easier. It seems like adding the weight to squat it makes it easier to get through them. That doesn't mean that I still don't think they're invented by the devil, but it is definitely getting easier to do. My legs burn in different spots than they did originally and yesterday was the first time that I didn't have jello-leg post workout. I hurt for a bit, but after a couple of hours I was okay. I'm feeling really good and I'm starting to get muscles.

Casey and I are having a lot fun with the stronglifts program. We are both feeling good and despite eating like pigs I haven't gained any weight. Casey has upped his caloric intake so he has actually gained some weight. He wants to gain, though. Me, I want to totally tone. And I'm starting to see a difference. Huzzah!

Now is the part where I go do some laundry. Ugh. I hate laundry. It never ends.

Wait five minutes...

2011-10-19T13:51:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the old adage of "It's Indiana- don't like the weather wait five minutes it'll change!" thing is NOT working today. It is by far the nastiest day I've seen in a while. Oh, for those of you who were expecting a workout update? Sorry! This is the gratuitous I'm procrastinating on folding laundry post. Technically so was the last post of the workout update but yeah. Let's talk about the weather, shall we? It's a nasty 50 degrees, it's been raining all day and I had to drag the kids' winter coats out because it's so nasty outside.

When I went outside to get Jackson off the bus I was not only expecting to get blown away but I have to admit that I was also expecting it to start snowing! No, it wasn't that cold, but it certainly was that nasty.

My dad is coming up this weekend. Luckily, the weather is supposed to improve by then. I certainly hope so seeing as how we've got tickets to a hayride, corn maze, etc. I'd be out some money if it was nasty outside.

In other news something must be done about my hair. It's ridiculous right now.

Saturday 10/15 and Monday 10/17 Stronglifts Progress

2011-10-19T13:19:00.004-04:00

Hello all! Had a busy couple of days (dentist, kids, etc.) so I didn't get a chance to blog about my stronglifts progress. Here's what I've been up to:

We actually lifted on Saturday as opposed to Friday due to a networking event I attended. (Networking is a must in the independent film field.) Here's my progress:

Saturday: We started off with squats. Squats are a part of every work out. Since they are so hard for me we kept it at only the 45 pound bar. I completed the 5 sets of 5 (5 x 5). I bench pressed 50lbs at 5x5. It definitely was harder this time around, but I managed to do it without too much trouble. I'm really enjoying increasing my weight on that one. Barbell rows were 50lbs 5x5.

Monday I increased my squats to 47.5lbs (thanks to some fractional plates from ironwoody.com) and succeeded at 5x5. We will be upping the squats to 50lbs the next working (which should be today). Overhead press I completed the 45lbs 5x5 so we will be upping that to 47 1/2 pounds at the next workout. I am still having some trouble with that one on the last set of 5 but I can definitely see progress being made. Finally dead lift I did at 97.5lbs. On Friday we will be upping it up to 100 lbs!!

I have to admit that I feel a bit intimidated by deadlifting 100 pounds but am excited at the same time. It's nice to see progress in an upward fashion. I can't wait until I start seeing noticeable results in my body. I am looking forward to bikini season next year!! Huzzah!

Squats are still the bane of my existence but I'm starting to be able to squat lower and my legs don't hurt like they used to. I think I really need to push myself there and am going to try and go lower. Casey offered to stick a bucket under my butt so I know I've gone far enough once my butt hits the bucket. I told him that was liable to make me want to just sit down. We laughed.

The biggest thing, though, is that we're having so much fun! I can't wait to work out and on the days that we don't, I'm actually a little disappointed.

I have also noticed that I've been eating a lot more than I normally do. I have been trying to stick with salads and fruits instead of junk food and I've been doing a good job of it. I will admit though, that I loves me some tortillas with salsa. I suppose there are worse things that I could eat, though. At least I'm not tackling a bag of oreos or anything like that.

Next update soon!

Stong Lifts Day 2

2011-10-13T12:30:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the second workout. I am happy to report that I am no where near as sore as I was two days ago. One of the things you have to remember about the Strong Lifts program is to do your work outs every other day and to make sure you REST in between your workouts. One thing I would recommend from the first workout to the next is to stretch! I did some lunges today and some squats without the bar and I definitely think it helped with the pain in my thighs.

So, yesterday's record:

Squats at 45lbs. Found them to be really difficult due to the pain in my legs, but powered through them. I didn't get as low as I should have, but at least I was trying and that's the most important thing to me.

Overhead lifts at 45lbs. You start at your chest and raise the bar over your head. I did three reps a 5 times each and then one rep of 4. I was okay the first rep, the second rep it got harder and the third I had to stop midway for a second and then I finished with some difficulty. The fourth rep was extremely difficult. On the fourth lift out of the five I made it half way up and I had to have Casey spot me the rest of the way up. He grabbed the bar from me at the top because my arms felt like they were going to buckle.

Deadlifts. 1 rep of 5 starting at 95lbs. And I thought squats were evil! HAHAHAHAHA! That's funny. At first I didn't think I would be able to do it. But I actually managed to do it. I will increase the weights by 5lbs the next time around. Casey did order some fractional weights for me, though, so we may only increase by 2.5 lbs. We'll see.

I feel really really good today. I feel full of energy and I'm really enjoying working out with Casey. Today is another rest day and then we go at it again on Friday. We may push back until Saturday because I have a networking function to attend on Friday evening. So, we'll just have to wait and see. One other thing I've noticed is that I've been a lot more hungry the past couple of days, too. I think that is my body burning fat and such. Huzzah metabolism! For lunch today I devoured a steak. Protein is apparently my friend.

And stuff. I'll keep everyone posted on my progress!

"In the pipe - 5 x 5."

2011-10-11T09:59:00.002-04:00

I am sore. I am ridiculously sore. I knew I was out of shape, but I didn't realize that I was THIS out of shape. So, here I am 33 years old and finally getting off my ever-expanding ass and starting new.

I am starting the Strong Lifts 5 x 5 program with my husband Casey. I'm going to chronicle our workouts and thoughts here. So, before I go any further, I'm going to do something that I really DON'T want to do. I'm going to tell you how much I weigh. Yeah. Not looking forward to that, but shame is a very powerful weapon in my arsenal and well, yeah... I'm thinking me posting what I weigh and everything will give me some sort of accountability.

Current weight: 175lbs.
Height: 5' 1.5"

Casey and I took pictures of ourselves last night, but I'm not quite ready to post that. I'm incredibly embarrased of what my body has become. Casey keeps reminding me that I had a baby 5 months ago and that I've been pretty much exhausted since Megan was born but still. It's nice that we're working out together. I actually had a lot of fun and he's great at encouraging me.

Monday's workout:

Squats- evil evil evil!! We started with the 45lb weight bar. I had a lot of trouble with these. I kept feeling like my legs were locking up as I went down. There were times when I couldn't go down all the way. I did, after a lot of struggling, manage to do my 5 reps of 5 though. Yeah me! We will not be adding any weight the next workout because I had so much trouble with them.

Bench Press- I actually enjoyed these and did them rather easily. I think this is because I'm constantly picking up Megan or Jack. We will be upping the weight to 50lbs on Friday (you rotate days).

Barbell Rows- We started these at 65lbs but I could not pick it up. This was a VERY hard excersize for me. We took off the weight and I managed to do these with some struggling at the 45lbs. I plan to increase the weights to 50lbs on Friday.

After the workout my entire body felt like jello. Especially my legs. My legs still feel like jello when I walk up and down the stairs. I am actually looking forward to doing more tomorrow, though. This workout definitely works your entire body and that's a really good thing for me.

I'll keep you updated on how we progress!

Updates

2011-10-11T08:43:00.002-04:00

When we last left our heroine she was expecting her third child. Little did we know that she would be in labor for an entire week before we got to meet the baby girl. Yes, that's right, ONE WEEK OF LABOR. It was up and down and not fun at all. My midwife called it "prodromal labor" which is essentially labor but it's not really going anywhere. We went to and from the doctor's office countless times and it was on Wednesday I was finally given some Ambien so I could sleep. Sleeping good and I wasn't doing it.

Ambien is an amusing little drug (and seriously, it's tiny) that led to amusing and interesting dreams and ramblings. Apparently, I thought the ceiling fan in our room was a Cylon Base Star and there were penguins outside the door wanting carrot cake and there were really bad men that were selling ugly green prom dresses. Oh, and I got mad at Casey because I thought he went roller skating without me. LOL! How funny is that!

Long story short, I went into full on labor and Megan was born on April 30th. She is now 5 months old and we call her Mega Monkey. She's all sorts of fun and very personable. Oh, and she's cute too. Then again, I'm biased.

Lily started 6th grade and Jackson started preschool. So, Megan and I get some mommy and me time on Monday through Thursdays until noon. The year is progressing far too quickly for my liking!

Jackson had his first trip to the ER. No stiches but they did glue a gash together that he got on his forehead.

Lily has joined science club, is rather social and is turning into a gamer chick.

Casey is still working his butt off at the day job as well as writing furiously on far too many projects. I have started a talent company of sorts even though I only have one client at this point. I'm working my butt off to get her work. She works I get paid. I like this gig. AND it's something I can do from home! Woot!

I also started a new workout program with Casey that I'm going to talk about in the next post. Three kids later I'm feeling rather unhappy with my body. So, it's time to do something about it. I'm going to use my blog to chronicle my progress.

That's all for now!

The Home Stretch

2011-04-20T22:56:00.002-04:00

I'm so horrible about blogging. Insanely horrible. I have to admit that I tend to frequent facebook more than my blog. I guess I equate my blog to a journal of sorts. I keep a journal outside of my blog and it seems to me that when things are going right, I tend to journal/blog less then when I'm feeling blue or whatnot. I should change that, though. There are too many good things worth writing about.

Both Lily and Jackson are very excited about the impending arrival of their new baby sister. Lily keeps asking where Megan is sitting and how much longer and how big she is. Jackson is always giving my belly kisses and says "I love baby Megan." Just the other day the two of them helped Casey put together the bassinet. It was fun to watch them.

Lily is doing fairly well in school. She just recently did a project about "being in movies." She only has about a month of school left and she's really excited about summer break. We have a few things planned already (horseback riding lessons, camping with both sets of grandparents, etc.). Jackson had his first experience at preschool last week. We're trying to get him with preschool in the fall. He is really excited about school. I took him to go see the school (which is conveniently where Lily goes to elementary school as well) and he had just the best time! It was so exciting to see him excited!

Not much else to report. We'll try and post baby pics as soon as Megan joins the fray. Until then... we're really boring people.

BRRRRRR!!!!

2010-12-07T07:18:00.002-05:00

I woke up yesterday to -1 windchill and snow falling. I am still in the "snow is pretty!" phase of winter, so I didn't mind it so much. It's the -1 windchill that I just don't like. This morning was a repeat of yesterday, except it's not quite as cold.

I discovered the worst part of country driving in the winter: drifts. I am a very cautious driver when it comes to snow, driving what Casey calls less than Grandma speeds. It took me 20 minutes to get from our house for the main highway that I take to pick up Lily from school. Luckily, I gave myself an hour to get to her school because I didn't know how long it would take me. Once I got on the main roads, though, I made it to her school in 15 minutes and I had 20 minutes to kill before I had to pick her up. I ended up hanging out in the parking lot, reading.

The biggest news that we have is that last Thursday we had our ultrasound. Turns out our hunch was correct! We are indeed expecting a little girl! Megan Gray Stone will be joining us around abouts April 25th. Casey has been joking that he isn't going to get "fixed" after Megan is born so that way he can at least attempt to balance the scales in the house so we have an equal amount of testosterone to estrogen. I had to laugh at that one. I think I'm going to have to ambush him. Haha!

That's about all I've got to report. I'm going to curl up with the boy for a while. Then, potato soup today!

Tis almost the season?

2010-11-08T21:47:00.002-05:00

As I type these first few words I have already sneezed 6 times. The weather is completely wonky here in northern Indiana. It's just like they say "Wait five minutes and it'll change." Over the weekend we had our first snow. It got down to 28 degrees on Friday night. It snowed a little bit on Thursday, but Friday was the day that it really came down. Well, I say really but we only got about an inch, inch and a half. It stuck for just over 24 hours, though, so that made it the first significant snow fall.

Naturally, Jackson wanted to go out and play in the snow. But, without snow boots, I'm not going send him in wet snow. That's just not smart. I didn't let Lily go out either for the same reason. My dad was up visiting when we got the snow. Too bad he didn't stay until today, though, because today it got up to 68 degrees (at least, this is according to my dashboard). Tomorrow it's supposed to be just as warm, if not a little more. I'm going to enjoy it while I can because it's supposed to be rainy and cold (mid 40s) by this weekend.

Belly baby is doing well. This is the second day I haven't taken a nap . I find I sleep better at night when I don't nap, even though I could totally use one and sometimes drag during the day. I've taken to sleeping a pillow between my knees. I'm starting not to be comfortable. Apparently, the baby is now the size of an avocado and my bladder is starting to become more of a trampoline than a bladder. I signed Jackson and myself to go to a mommy and me super siblings class at the hospital. The class is in January, so there's plenty of time, but the class fills up fast, so I wanted to make sure I got him in.

I took Lily to the class when I was preggo with Jackson and I think she learned a lot. Although, when it came right down to it, she recently confessed to me that she thought Jack was going to be a lot cooler when he was born. Much to her disappointment he was little more than a "blob." At least she's honest?

So, that's where we are right now. It snowed. It melted. Kids are good. Belly baby is an avocado and Lily thought Jack was gonna be cool. That's all I got.

I'd like to take a moment between puking...

2010-10-18T10:22:00.004-04:00

We are at 12 weeks with bambino number three. On the good days, we call said fetus "Megan" or "Liam" (we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet, but which ever it is it will either be a Megan or a Liam) and on bad days, we call it "Steve." For that particular reference, I refer you to the song "We like sportz" by Lonely Island. Go listen and then laugh at how insane we are, but I must say that if you had been anywhere near as pukey as I have been, you too would be calling the parasite currently being hosted in my uterus Steve. End of discussion.

In the past few weeks we've also been busy doing that whole movie thing. We've been working on our friend Tara Eary's project, "A Vegan Mess." I'm still not 100% in love with the name, but we don't have much better of a name, so yeah. Day one was awful. We're talking horrible, terrible complete waste of a day. We managed to salvage the office location footage, but the apartment footage was so absolutely horrible that we scrapped it and re-shot it on our last day.

Day two, which was a Sunday, was a much better day but it was our busiest day. We had our "protest" scene, for which only 6 extras showed up. This would mean we had to do a very very fast rewrite of the scene and ended up saving our extras for later scenes that were filmed at the YMCA in Elkhart.

Day two went smoothly and we were all exhausted by the end of it. But when things go smoothly, you find yourself energized by that fact. I don't think I've ever seen us get the hell off a set quite that fast, though. We were all ready to go home by the end of day 2.

Day three, the following saturday, was hilarious. This was our big "shark bites" scene, complete with Tara's hubby Geoff in a shark costume. The best part was when we invaded an OPEN Mexican Grocery Store. Despite having to work around customers (apparently the meat counter is BIG business on weekends), we had a blast and even garnered a few new fans. Although, I think the owner was ready for us to be out of there. The footage looks amazing, though, and we're all really proud.

After that, we re-filmed all of the apartment stuff not in the apartment, but in our house. I'm still finding feathers, but actually covering Tara in feathers and fake blood? That was soooo worth it. It was almost as fun as making fake bird poo and watching it get dumped on her on our last day of shooting. I'm really glad we got footage of Casey laughing his ass off because I don't think I've heard him laugh that hard in a while.

We are now into week two of post production and I also was just told that "5cm Peter" is in the Wet Your Pants! Comedy Film Festival in Indianapolis next month. I'm wondering if I can talk Casey into taking a vacation just the two of us for that weekend. I gotta find out about whether or not they're gonna give us discounted or free tickets, though. We shall see.

Other than that, it's been a lot of couch surfing and napping. I'm starting to get some energy back but it's in spurts. I'd love to not puke any more, but I'm not holding my breath. Luckily, if things get too bad, I can just take some phenegrin and take a nap. Love the phenegrin.

That's where we are. Yep, I'm dull .

9 Weeks and Counting...

2010-09-20T09:43:00.003-04:00

The news: Pregnant. Yep, again. This makes number 3. We think it's a girl and we like the name Megan. If it's a boy, I personally like Liam.

We found out a couple of weeks ago. I had been feeling like crap and we had joked about the fact that I was pregnant but I waited a couple of weeks before I actually took the test. We found out, I had a couple of great days and then I proceeded to puke my guts out for about a week. I finally called my ob/gyn for advice on day 4 of not holding anything down. I was absolutely miserable! The last time I was this sick while pregnant was with Lily. With Jackson I can count the number of times I threw up on one hand. Couple that with a gut feeling in the girlie direction and that's why we think it's a girl.

In other news, preparing for the bambino, which is not due until April, we have purchased a minivan. I never really saw myself as a minivan person, despite actually wanting one. It's quite a cushy ride. That, and I have to admit that the power sliding doors are hella sexy.

So yeah, that's what's going on here. It's going to be an interesting few months. Jackson turns 3 this week. He's such an awesome little person, and Lily.... She is heading full on into "my parents are incredibly embarassing" territory. And naturally, we love to harass her.

The kids are good, the manthing is good, the dog needs some flea stuffs but other than that is fine as is the cat. The house is good. Everything is just good. Knock on invisible cheese fries. Oooh... cheese fries. That sounds tasty. Hmmmm....

We interrupt your regularly scheduled day with a blog post.

2010-08-18T12:30:00.002-04:00

Day two of school and I'm feeling more awake than I was yesterday. The funny thing is, I think I accomplished slightly more yesterday than I have today. I say that and yet I've done a ton of stuff today already and am just now sitting down for some lunch and am taking a moment to blog.

Jackson threw a tantrum yesterday and today when the bus came for Lily. It doesn't help that he woke up shortly before the bus came and he wakes up on the grumpy side, too. He very much wanted to ride on the school bus with Lily and go to school. Lily, I think, is enjoying getting away from Jack and playing with kids her own age.

She definitely had a good first day. She came home and ran up to the door wanting to tell me all about her day. She thinks her teacher is fabulous, she said the coach was funny and there are no cute boys in her class. She also made a friend, but she can't remember her name. That was funny. I was also informed that there is another Lily in her class, but it's spelled Lillie.

Jackson kept asking me all day yesterday (and has asked several times today) "Where's Lily?" I tell him where she is and he instantly says "I want to go to school!" He's rather excited because today we're going to go pick Lily up and he thinks he's going to go to school to learn.

In other Jackson news, little man has 3 nursery songs in his repertoire and is learning one more. He sings Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and London Bridge. He is learning the alphabet song (a two year old that sorta knows his alphabet?! That's awesome!) and he sings along with countless songs on my Ipod and on Gabba Gabba. Little man also has just discovered Thomas the Train and he's very much into cars- both the pixar Cars movie and matchbox cars. He is talking up a storm and loves to bug his sister whenever possible.

Not much else to report. The house is fairly clean, in about ten minutes I'll need to fold more laundry and put it away and the family is doing wonderful. I hope everyone else is enjoying the beginning of the school year as much as I am!

Have I really been gone THAT long?

2010-08-09T14:28:00.003-04:00

So, I log onto the blog this afternoon (it's been what I consider a yucky morning/afternoon) and my last post was in March. MARCH! It's August for crying out loud! Not only that, but it's almost the middle of august! Lily starts back to school next Tuesday and I'm about to be left alone with a very rambunctious 2 1/2 year old boy who just discovered that jumping off the top of the cat pole to the couch is a fun albeit unsafe activity.

I keep looking at the calendar and I can't believe that it was March when I last wrote. Since then we have moved to the country, I raced with my dad in the Mini Cooper at the Nashville Super Speedway, attended a film festival where I met Lloyd Kaufman (the president of Troma films) and premiered Big Hat Cowboy Productions short film, Small Change, met a ton of new people, had an awesome summer in which Lily learned how to ride a horse proper and there was massive amounts of swimming.

It's really quite lovely out here. I like everything. I even like the bats that fly around. I don't like the bugs or spiders, but it hasn't been a horrible year for mosquitos and the bats take care of a lot of those little bug thingeys.

We just started pre-production for a new movie. We shoot this one at the beginning of October. I'm looking forward to it because it was written and is being directed by my good friend Tara. So far it has been really been working with her. We've been talking about it for a year but it's taken a good project to actually get me motivated. Casey has also been writing a lot lately. It's fun to watch him write and hear his stories. I remember when we first started dating all those many years ago and he would tell me all of these incredible stories that he wanted to write and then he started writing. And now I'm getting new stories and it's so wonderful! I love hearing new stories. The best part is now that I get to help with the creation of these stories and eventually I get to help these stories come to life.

There are so many things going on. I can't wait to share this adventure with you!

Tappa-tappa-tappa

2010-03-14T22:43:00.002-04:00

My husband has been spending most of his evenings writing. I spend most of my evenings asleep. Our schedules are practically running opposite these days. But that's okay, because it means he's writing again and whenever the boy is feeling creative that means he's in a happy place. The writing has been on and off for the past year and a half, ever since we decided to jump feet first into the whole film thing.

While my job on the film thing is currently at a low stage (not much going on as far as pre-production goes) he has been writing up a storm, filling his corkboard with all sorts of wonderful notes. Then he takes them down, rearranges them and puts them back up. I find notebooks all over the place and have to put them up high so Jackson won't get to them. Sometimes it can get a little harrowing rescuing notebooks just before they get spilled on and/or colored on. We're going to have to get that boy his own notebook so he won't mess with Casey's.

Lily is doing pretty well in school. Honor roll and such is expected yet again during this quarter. I spoke with her teacher on Friday and she said "Lily just GETS math. She excels at math and it really makes sense to her. I teach a new concept and while it may take a day or two to get it, once she gets it she really gets it." On the other hand though, Lily isn't doing so well with the new task or writing essays and papers. Her handwriting is beautiful, it's just what goes into the paper that is forced. She's the complete opposite of me in that respect. I never had trouble writing at all. My problem was with math. While I'm better with numbers and am more studied in algebra, etc. now that I'm older (and actually understand that yes, I use it on a somewhat daily basis), when I was in school math was the bane of my existence and it just didn't make any sense to me. It actually took Casey kind of coaching me to actually be able to figure things in my head and not reach for a calculator.

As far as Miss Lily's social life is concerned, she informed me the other day that Dakota is now her boyfriend and that she thinks she's old enough to kiss boys because her friend Madi kissed her boyfriend. I pointed out that Madi kissed a 6th grader and that was just totally not cool and that if Madi didn't want her parents knowing that she kissed this 6th grader, did she think that was right? Lily thought about it and then asked me "So, if I want to kiss a boy I have to tell you first?" I gave her a resounding YES!!! SOOOOOOO not ready for my little girl to have a boyfriend. The thought of it makes me want to ask my dad if I can have his Winchester.

Jackson is talking up a storm. Sometimes he doesn't say the most appropriate things (one of his current favorite phrases is "shut up bitches!" - he heard it on The F Word, not from me, thank you very much Gordon Ramsay) but most of the time he is coming up with stories and telling me what he wants to do and articulating rather well for a 2 year old. He definitely has his likes and dislikes down. Like: cookies and riding the train with Abi. (Abi = abuelita. AKA My mom.) Dislikes: Apparently broccoli which he calls a "big tree." He also likes to pretend he's a cat, a dog or a dinosaur and he is currently drawing a "T-Rex" on a piece of paper.

We've been playing outside a lot since the weather has been nice and warm and he can just about reach the peddles on his Diego tricycle.

I really quite love my family! They're the source of my smile.

Me? I've been putting together a proposal for a possible film gig and playing manager to Casey's extra-curricular activities. Between filming, CPR class for work, and helping his dad out we haven't had much free time together. Hopefully this weekend, though, we may get some time. Woot. We shall see... The next few weeks will be particularly busy, though, so yeah.

That's all from our neck of the woods. Tomorrow: stirring up shit with South Bend schools. How fun!

Take that, you evil 5 year old!

2010-01-18T17:52:00.003-05:00

It's MLK Jr. Day. The big kid is home from school and the little kid is driving her ape shit. So, I decided to take them both to play with a friends' kids at the local Mickey D's. Not a bad plan. While the kids played, I conversed with my friend Michelle and enjoyed sitting back until a little bully pushed my happy-go-lucky, just wanting to run up the slide like the big kids, off the slide.

What?! A BIG KID (probably 5 or 6 years old) bullying my baby?! I don't think so! I left Michelle mid-sentence, stomping over to the sour faced little brat and pulled him away from the slide and in front of all the parents there I said, in an incredibly loud and booming mom voice that I normally only pull out when Jack is trying to kill himself, "You DO NOT push a two year old! He's TWO! You do not behave that way! What the hell is the matter with you?!" Yep, I asked a 5 year old kid (that I suspect had less of a vocabulary than Jack and had probably pissed his pants at this point) what "the hell" was his problem.

What was even worse? The mom that was in charge of this little brat didn't even step up to the plate. I proceeded to help Jack up the slide, the same way the bigger kids were going, and the little brat sulked off to the other end of the play place. He didn't even go crying to his mommy! I suspect that no one has ever talked to him like that simply by his reaction. It looked like a combination of complete and utter brattiness (the kind that says "You can't tell me what to do!") and oh-woe-is-me-I-just-got-yelled-at.

I don't understand parents today, I really don't. If I see my kid hitting someone (which I've seen Jackson hit kids on occasion at the playground), I promptly become mortified by his behavior and make him say he's sorry and I apologize not only to the kid, but the kids mother. This mother at the play place today didn't even bat an eyelash when I yelled at her kid. Not only that, but she didn't bother to stop the situation, despite the fact that she saw her kid pushing Jack. Too many times I've seen parents just say "Now, buddy, that's not nice! Don't do that!" And there are no consequences. Jack, had he been the aggressor, would have been put in a time out (he's too young for anything else) or we would have left immediately. There would be no wishy-washy stuff there. Jack starts being a butthead, I pack up the kids and we go home.

I just don't understand this crap where parents are letting kids run all over them! You're the parent! Your kids should have a healthy amount of not only respect, but fear for you. Lily even knows that when I pull out a certain tone of voice that she better do what I'm saying and if there is even any amount of attitude or complaining there will be severe consequences.

There is a reason my kids say please and thank you and do as I say. It's because I taught them to. Now, if Jack would get a little bit bigger, I can start him on chores...

Oh, and if any one is wondering, I have no qualms about yelling at other peoples kids in public. I have done this frequently. Just ask me about the time I took Lily to Chuck E. Cheese.

Experimentation

2010-01-13T11:37:00.002-05:00

I didn't make any resolutions this year. I find that I lack the follow through in that department. BUT I have decided that I'm going to try new things all around. I'm certainly far from my comfort zone on this one, too. Today I am making homemade pulled pork for dinner. It's supposed to take 8 hours in the crock pot (4 if I put it on high, which is probably what I'm going to end up doing). While I'm becoming a pro as far as the crock pot is concerned, I've never made anything more than crock pot stroganoff or crock pop chicken and dumplings and the occasional beef stew (those are my top 3 recipes that I'm really good at as far as crock pot cooking is concerned). Normally, when I work with pork, it's making pork chops and then I buy them pre-cut, ready to be seasoned and thrown onto the frying pan.

Pulled pork... that's a whole different beast. First, you find yourself 3 pounds of pork shoulder. Make sure it's boneless. Then comes the trimming of the pork shoulder. That was an interesting thing to do... not to mention kind of slimy. I took off all but a little bit of fat, because fat adds to the flavor when you're cooking it. (This is according to Miss Abigail, an excellent chef that makes her own barbeque sauce and has a southern cooking restaurant right up the street from my house.) Then, into the crock pot it goes and you poor the sauce all over it and let it sit. If you want the sauce, you'll have to go look up the recipe yourself. I got mine off Allrecipes.com. Go, enjoy.

Also on the menu: homemade cole slaw, corn bread and I can't decide between baked beans and butter beans. Oh, and mac and cheese for the kids. Although, Lily likes butter beans. Heck, I like butter beans. They're tasty.

Yep, I'm being all sorts of domestic today! I'm also going to try and squeeze in a work out if I have time. It looks like I'm going to have to pick up the girls from school today since my neighbor isn't feeling well. She took Lily to school yesterday when my car was stuck in a snow bank so I figured why not? I owe her.

Note: pulled pork is smelling wonderful now that it's cooking. I'll keep you posted on whether or not it's yummy or not.

Well, that was colorful!

2010-01-04T12:25:00.003-05:00

Today started off around 2:30 in the morning when I yelled down the stairs at hubby to get his butt to bed. There were sounds of warfare going on. It was the pokey-kind with swords, and the occasional swish of magic. No machine guns this time. There haven't been machine guns in a while, though. It's been all about the swords lately. I suppose 2:30 is better than the 4:30 that it has been the past few days, though.

At 4:15, Jackson started whimpering. I got up and did the whole good mommy thing of picking him up for a minute and then setting him back down and re-tucking him in. He went back to sleep. At 4:30 he started whimpering again. This time he started whimpering/chanting "di-per change!" It was horribly pathetic. So horribly pathetic that both Casey and I got out of bed. Casey headed downstairs for a diaper and wipes and I took on the task of removing the footy pajamas and diaper. And that was when I sent Casey back downstairs for the desitin and a warm washcloth. Jackson had diaper rash from hell. It was so bad, that he was screaming. We let baby air dry for a bit and then I put him back in his pull ups and had him crash in bed with us.

Twenty minutes later the alarm goes off. I get up, proceed to cuss at the downstairs and clean it up, muttering horrible things about how anything I find out of place from here on out is getting pitched out the window with the trash. This would be the perfect example of an empty threat.

Half an hour after that, neighbor kids show up. Calm ensues until 6:40 at which time I go upstairs and yell at Casey to get his ass out of bed, end of discussion. This was hilarious. Lily gets up and heads downstairs. She's in a good mood! Huzzah!

Kids have breakfast, everything is going smoothly, I get Jackson up and dressed, head outside to clear a path to the car (we got something like 2 inches overnight in addition to the crap we already had on the ground) and clear off the car. Takes 15 minutes, just the exact amount of time that I needed before we had to leave for school.

... And then one of the neighbor girls proceeds to puke on the floor. She had fruit loops for breakfast.

And then she does it again.

I start calling the grandma. Grandma not answering cell. "Hey girls, what's your dad's cell phone number?" "We don't know." Okay... call grandma's work place. Got the grandma. Grandma says take pukey mcpuke in the car while you drop the kids off and I'll find something. Um, no. Not taking pukey in the car. Don't want fruit loops on the floorboard of my clean car, thank you very much. I make arrangements for Lily to go to school with a friend, call the girls' uncle and says "I'm bringing her to you." And then, call the girls' school saying one is sick and the other is gonna be late.

On top of it all, the kitchen sink won't drain which lead me to some plumbing adventures leaving me smelling like draino. Um, yeah... I think I need that nap now? I'll do productive stuff after that nap. Yessss....

Goodnight moon!

Whaddaya mean it's supposed to snow like 2 inches every single day this week?

2010-01-03T17:53:00.002-05:00

I ventured forth today. I didn't really want to, but the dog needed food that was not the cat and the husband (despite the fact that he's supposed to quit tomorrow) desperately wanted a pack of smokes. I say desperately because he actually agreed to do the dirty work of clearing the 5-6 inches of snow off my car, defrosting and scraping the ice off the windshield of the car and starting the car so it would be all warm and toasty when I finally got out of my pajamas and into my Emus and jeans (and the other three layers that were on as well).

So, off to the store I went. The main roads weren't horrible but they weren't good either. There is a definite coating of slush on the street that leads me to the closest Walmart but I am happy to report that I didn't slide until I got to the parking lot and that was only because I had to break hard because a stupid idiot in a Ford SUV (Bronco?) decided to cut rather rapidly through the parking lot and came close to fishtailing into my newly repaired car. Insert me laying on the horn here and shouting massive amounts of cuss words at the rolled up windows. I'm hoping I at least looked rather impressively pissed off. I was wearing Casey's mad bomber hat, after all. That's always an intimidating hat. Haha!

Tomorrow Lily goes back to school and Casey goes back to work. This means Jack and I will be on our own for the first time in a couple of weeks. I must call Mariah and find out if I have to pick the kids up tomorrow from school or if we go back to our Monday through Thursday she brings Lily home and then I pick the kids up on Friday. I'm hoping that's the case and I only have to take the kids to school because that means I get to come home and Jack and I get to have a tickle fight on the bed and then have a lovely nap until about noon. Sorry, honey, nothing's going to get done around the house tomorrow. Look at it this way: At least I'm being honest?

I lie. I will get something done tomorrow. My husband is in desperate need of clean socks, so at least a load of whites will get done. Haha.

They are predicting snow every day for the next 5 days. I'm not happy about this. I know that this is what winter is supposed to be like up here, but honestly? I think I prefer cold to snow. Snow is just annoying and slows everything down. At least with cold you can be like "Run run run! It's cold! Let's go!" Get your stuff done and then come back inside and hibernate. Snow requires shoveling and getting it in your boots and thus changing of the socks and possibly pants depending on how high your boots are and well yeah... I have decided that I'm not a snow person. Snow used to be this wonderfully magic thing that meant I got to go out and play and maybe, if I was lucky enough, miss school. But now it is just this total annoyance. Ah, to have the wonderment of a child. Jackson looked at my car before Casey cleaned it off and proclaimed it to be a snowman. It was hella cute.

I will now proceed to go make manwich for dinner and bug my husband for more TV time (he's playing XBox).

Quiet Christmas

2009-12-28T11:40:00.002-05:00

We had a lovely, quiet, very low key Christmas this year. Christmas Eve dinner was canceled because the extended family wasn't feeling well, but we decided to visit anyway. I'm kind of glad that we didn't stay too long with the myriad of coughs and sneezing that was going on. Jackson started with a runny nose yesterday and Casey's not feeling to great. I also think that Lily may have picked up a bug at her other grandma's house. I have been lucky enough to escape what has now been dubbed "the Plague part 2" for now. I'm crossing my fingers that it stays that way.

Sometime this week my dad is coming up to haul some crap out of the 24th street house. Today he was going to visit his old friend of his that he's known since they were knee high and in britches and then I think he's planning on coming up tomorrow. Sometime this week I'd like very much to get Casey out of the house to watch Avatar. I don't really see it in the cards unless my mom can watch the kids, but I'd like to try. Maybe on New Years day? Hmmmm....

Not much else is going on. It was a very quiet week and I see this week being exactly the same. Quietest holiday I've ever spent, that's for sure. With all the snow on the ground, I find myself yearning for those vacations to Panama my mom and I used to take. Someday we'll get back there... ;-) Looks like it's going to be somewhere in the 90s there today. Winter, I'm definitely tired of you already... All this snow just makes me want to curl up into a ball and not move. Luckily, I have plenty of reading material.

Merry belated Christmas, everyone! And an early Happy New Year!

Frosty!

2009-12-10T05:55:00.003-05:00

This morning when I woke up at 5:15am, I expected to see a bit more snow than I did. The accumulation was about the same as last night, but the temperature had definitely dropped far below what it was yesterday. I was hoping that winter would do what summer did and quietly sneak up on us, give us a couple of brutally cold days and then be done with it. Unfortunately, I have this sinking feeling that it's going to be the opposite. Winter didn't come in quietly, it came in and smacked us in the face with a windchill of -10.

I find myself suddenly VERY glad that I bought new fleece lined gloves last week along with one of those mad bomber style hats. I also wonder if Casey will be working today. He normally doesn't work outside when the windchill is this bad. Unless he has indoor work, I hope he stays home.

Did I mention it's freakin' cold outside?

This morning I have to go to court for "Immediate possession" of the S. 24th street house. And then, depending on whether or not I want to freeze my ass off, I have to run over to the S. 24th street house and take some pictures of the mess that the people left there. Casey was over there yesterday and he said that it wasn't very clean at all. I'm really not looking forward to going over there at all, but it must be done. I have to be prepped for the next court date in which I get to go say "Give me money!" Likeliness that I'll get any money out of these people is slim to none, but yeah... We'll see.

For now I'm off. I must find clothes for today, take a shower and get dressed. Then, must get the kidlets up and ready to go. Fun fun fun! How I loathe going out in the cold. I really need to move to Texas or some place equally toasty.

Bloggidy

2009-12-08T16:07:00.002-05:00

I am blogging from the mac book. I don't know what I did or how I did it but the secondary monitor is working again. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that I unplugged everything and then reconnected it, but something happened and the secondary monitor is working. This means that I can now sit at my desk once again and play on my own computer as opposed to using the Mac Pro, which frankly, was spoiling me.

Now, if only I could find my library card, I'd be set...

Her Grinchiness

2009-12-07T14:18:00.002-05:00

I think I'm done with the day. It's been nothing more than a bad day and I'm ready to be done with it. I woke up this morning in a good mood. Got up, was mildly coherant, exchanged pleasantries with the husband, had some coffee and then went to kick Lily out of bed. She was in a horrible mood and didn't want to get up. I told her that being tired was not a good enough reason to miss school. I'm thinking I should have gone with Lily's instinct: STAY IN BED!

Lily was an absolute bear and proceeded to throw a temper tantrum. I then grounded her and informed her she'd be going to bed at 7PM. Yep, that made her really happy! (That was sarcasm, by the way.) After that, she finally got up and got into a better mood. I eventually dropped her off and that was when I saw that I had a voicemail. It was the tenants at the 24th street house informing me that they were moving out and that they would like to know where their washer and dryer were. I proceeded to go over there and they informed me that the neighbor had seen me over there with a clipboard for like an hour on Saturday and they were basically accusing me (5 foot nothing me) of stealing their washer and dryer. I politely informed them that I had not been to the house since I drove by on Tuesday after they were served eviction papers to see if they were in the process of moving out and secondly- Why the hell would I even do something so completely ludicrous? Why would I want their p.o.s. washer/dryer? I've got my own, thanks. Stupid people.

I look forward to getting the keys back from them tomorrow and then I look forward to going to court on Thursday regarding late fees, rent, etc. I am not going to play nice with people any more. I highly doubt they're going to find anything cheaper in South Bend.

After stopping at the 24th street house I headed to Walmart. It was on the way home from walmart (while driving 10 miles an hour) that I slid while turning onto another street and struck another car. The cop said it wasn't anyone's fault, it was road conditions. It's the first accident I've ever had in the 16 years that I've been driving. Knock on wood, there. I'm grateful that no one was hurt. I did do $2500 worth of damage to my car, though. I wonder how much damage was done to the other lady's car. She was rather nice and didn't yell or anything. That made me feel much better. The cop was super nice, too. He told me for 16 years of driving and this being my first accident, I was doing pretty good and he wished his own kids had that record.

I ran and got two estimates under the instruction of my insurance agent. Tomorrow I submit the police report and then I'm going to attempt to get things going by tomorrow afternoon so I can have my car back as soon as possible. It's still going to take a week to get it done, but yeah... I'm happy with that.

I just wish this hadn't happened this close to Christmas. I hope tomorrow will be better.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

2009-12-04T13:53:00.002-05:00

Usually sometime in December I get bitten by the snow bug and begin a whiny chorus of "Why isn't it snowing yet?" Usually a day or so after I do this the sky opens up and it dumps on us. I won't be doing that this year. In fact, I really don't feel the need to. Why? Because it is 27 degrees outside and it snowed, sideways today! Big fluffy flakes! Thankfully, none of these big fluffy flakes are sticking to the ground but it snowed and I am now feeling all warm and fuzzy and full of the holiday spirit! And I'm seriously contemplating putting a pair of Uggs on my Christmas list.

The Monday following Thanksgiving (which was absolutely slothful and wonderful and full of family warm fuzzies that I can't even begin to express how fabulous of a time I had) I took to the task that was loading my Christmas playlist into the IPhone. The week before, however, I was yelling at the neighbor kids, telling them that they would be banned from my house if they sang anything resembling a christmas song in my house prior to Thanksgiving (they tried... and they failed! Why? Because I made them sit on the porch! Cold is punishment enough says I!). Now, I'm running around singing all the inappropriate lyrics to Jingle Bells (batman smells!), Deck the Halls (with gasoline) and Rudolph (LIKE A LIGHTBULB!!). i also find myself wishing that Tom Waits would release a Christmas album. How awesome would that be? His gravely voice singing Frosty the Snowman! Yes!!! David Bowie could provide accompaniment!

Now, I must go pick up the kids and annoy them with Bob and Doug Mackenzie and prepare for our shoot tomorrow. I swore I wouldn't shoot in the cold, but apparently that's not stopping Casey. I bought myself one of those mad bomber hats and gloves today just for the occasion. Woot.

"Absolutely nothing to report!" She says with a grin.

2009-11-16T17:32:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away and I have yet to finalize plans. Everything seems to be in a rather jumble these days as we try and finish things up both family and business-wise. But, as life has a habit of doing, I find that the mountain is growing at an exponential rate. This isn't a bad thing though, nope. Definitely NOT a bad thing. I find I have climbed to the top of that mountain and seeing the vast expanse of mountain terrain in front of me (Oh look! There's a yeti! It kinda looks like Casey!) I have decided that I'm in the perfect spot to start mining for gold.

So, here's me with my pick ax, slowly wittling away. The good news is this wittling is GREAT for not only upper body strength but having a clean house tends to bring up my mood. Note: it also helps to get a decent enough sleep so you're not wanting to kill everyone. And make sure you get that sleep on Sunday so you wake up all fresh on Monday because your mood on Monday can definitely effect the rest of the week.

Now, I simply have one thing to say: I have NOTHING to report! This is a good thing. Why? Because no news is good news. Yesssss.... We start on week two of waiting for some kind of news from sxsw and so far nothing. Not a peep. Zilch, nada, and all that stuff in as many other languages you can think of. This means that we're still in the running for the festival! Huzzah! Maybe, just maybe, we'll actually get into a world class festival (or more hopefully) and people will be all like "Wow, you're husband is really talented!" Then, Casey can get out of construction and the world will be a happy place without Casey having to pour the concrete that their buildings are built on! Yes!

So now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to cook some dinner for the family, whittle a little more away on that mountain and then tomorrow will be amazing yet again. Why? Because I'm in a good mood and that's what counts.

That'll do, Pig...

2009-10-19T11:53:00.003-04:00

Just when I thought we were out of the woods, Lily has succumbed to the flu. She's been fighting like a trooper since Wednesday evening and this weekend she was well enough to get out of the house with Mark and go see Where the Wild Things Are. She came home yesterday, went to the neighbors to see their new puppies and 15 minutes later came home and proceeded to throw up about a gallon of phlegm.

Massive yuckiness. Poor kid.

This morning the doctor informed me not to bring her in unless her temperature goes above 102 (she's sitting at not quite 100 degrees right now), she's got shortness of breath or she gets worse. If she gets worse, then they'll do a chest x-ray to see what's up (pneumonia or bronchitis). We have to wait until tomorrow, though.

I've kept myself busy today doing massive amounts of laundry, dishes and cleaning out the kitchen cabinets. I've decided that all that can food that we haven't touched in eons is going to be donated to the food bank. There's a lot of cans of tropical fruit in light syrup that's going to find a good home on someone's table this winter. Not to mention frijoles negros, chilis, and a few other things.

Casey went back to work today. I expect him to come home completely tuckered out. He woke up early this morning, took a shower, made his lunch and was out the door. I was amazed at his level of productivity. Especially since I was more concerned with finding the all important cup of cappuchino. Never did find it, either. I had to settle for chai. No biggie. I can continue on my low caffeine kick. The headaches are starting to subside, too.

So yeah, that's what's up in our neck of the woods. How about you guys?

Can I have one weekend where I'm not feeling like poo or busy? Please?

2009-10-14T06:17:00.002-04:00

Back to feeling like poo. Well, actually I should say that I'm on my way back from feeling like utter and complete poo. Seriously, stick me in one of those scented poo bags, tie me up and throw me out with yesterdays trash. I am under the firm impression what I have been through since last Wednesday was indeed this H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak they keep talking about on the news. Hey news people! You're a week late and about $20 shy on the NyQuil. Oh, and while you're at it: bring back the original taste of Robitussin! This new crap that you're calling Robitussin DM is down right...fruity! Give me the medicine taste back, please. It was far more paletable and superior to this crap that you're calling medicine.

So yeah, Swine Flu. I think I had it. It's pretty safe to say that I had it. It has been going around Lily's school the past couple of weeks and I finally succumbed to it. I think she may have had a mild version of it a couple of weeks ago and promptly passed it to me. Want a blow by blow account? Well, you're going to get one anyway so you can be on the look out for symptoms and such.

It started last Wednesday (a week ago). I woke up with a severe sore throat and post nasal drip that would probably drown a horse. It was constant drainage. I felt quite nauseuos all day and didn't eat much. That evening I did the whole girls night thing because I was feeling better, taking the Robitussin and everything. I only drank sprite and had some chips, though, not my usual burger fare that I normally get on wednesdays. Came home, went straight to sleep. Slept REALLY hard. It was fabulous. I woke up feeling a little achy, but not bad. I figured I'd take it slow because we were planning a trip to Chicago on Saturday.

Friday I woke up and I felt pretty good. Still had a sore throat, but it was subsiding. I had an annoying cough (which I still have and have started taking measures preventing it from settling in my lungs in that annoying bronchitis kind of way that it does), but it wasn't horrible. I even went so far as to call my cousins and tell them that we would be up the next day. I was REALLY looking forward to seeing my cousins and my aunt and uncle who had flown in from Panama. Unfortunately, Saturday I took a turn for the worse.

I woke up Saturday morning not wanting to move one inch. When I did move that said inch, I was incredibly achy, dizzy, and not to mention there was a lovely fever of 101 that I got to deal with. I decided to take a shower and see if that made me feel better, but it didn't. I ended up puking three times and that was when I decided it was time to call in reinforcements. I called Brooke and said "Help!" She graciously headed over to our house and Lily, luckily, was heading to Chicago with my mom (thankfully, she hasn't dealt with anything this bad), so I didn't have to deal with her. Just Jack. Brooke showed up and not only wrangled Jack but did some dishes and folded laundry. Oh my god, I love Brooke! I totally want to keep her!

Casey came home about an hour after Brooke arrived and they both took turns feeling my forehead while I was completely in and out of it for a good long time. Around 2:30 (I think it was 2:30), I decided to head back upstairs and I slept until about 10PM. I was up long enough to take some more drugs, ask Casey to fix the humidifier up for me and then I was off to dream land again.

Sunday was a bit more coherant, but not much. And then Monday- Casey fell to the bug. We're both starting to pull out of it now, which is definitely a good thing, but let me tell you... That truck that you thought hit you? It was driven by a virus that looked oddly like a swine. Both of us are still incredibly tired and beat. I think if I could get this out of my chest I'd be okay, but until I do I won't be 100%. The last thing I want is a repeat of some winters where I have an annoying cough all winter. Yep, definitely could do without that.

Now, if you'll excuse me it's time for me to take my meds and move my butt for the day. Kids are over and I've got to make sure they eat breakfast.

Are we done yet? Nope! Not even close!

2009-10-02T07:54:00.002-04:00

I went to get Lily up for school an hour ago and the entire left side of her face is swollen and red. Kidlet had a rash yesterday that worried me and I was planning on scheduling an appointment with her doctor today but it wasn't horrible, so I figured to school with her. That was until I woke her up this morning. Her left eye is currently swollen shut. This kid has had an absolute banner week! She was sick with the flu on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and now this! Ack! Not good!

I gave her a benadryl last night before bed in hopes that would make it go away, but it didn't work. And I just gave her another one, hoping that it calms it down but we'll have to wait and see. Darn you pediatrician! Pick up the phone!

I have already called her school and spoke with her teacher and the nurse. Both of them agree: keep her home! I'll pick up whatever worksheets they do in class this morning and we'll go from there. Not so fun stuffs.

On top of Lily being sick, I think that Jackson is coming down with something as well. He was incredibly grumpy last night and slept from about 7:30PM until well... he's not awake yet and it's 8AM. We'll see if he's okay today as well. No fever or anything this morning so far when I checked on him, so yeah... we'll see what happens.

And to think, we were going to try and do a date night this weekend! Yeah, I don't think so. Oh well, kids come first. Now, if I could only get into the pediatrician like now.

Let's check the inbox... Again!

2009-09-28T13:26:00.002-04:00

Today I find myself repeatedly checking my inbox (among other social networking sites). I've been somewhat productive in between inbox checking, which is a good thing, but I can't help but finding myself heading toward the office every chance I get. What makes today more special than most? Because I reconnected with my best friend from ages 7 to 18. It was only during college that I lost touch.

Marisa was my very best friend. I don't quite remember how we met, whether it was YMCA day camp or if it was ballet class, but I do remember we were pretty much inseperable. She was a year younger than me, but that didn't matter. We would go on all sorts of adventures, together. It was with her that I had my first beer, my first cigarette and my first road trip (albeit it was only 45 minutes long and it was to the mall in Evansville) without my parents. In 5th grade disaster struck and my parents divorced. My mom and I moved north to Naperville and Marisa was left behind. My mom was nice enough to remind me of what Marisa's mom had said just shortly after we moved: "She won't even look at the house! She turns her head and can't stand to even see where Jessie lived!" Best friends torn apart... at least until Spring Break. And then, once again we were unseperable. There's a picture I have that was taken on the last day of that spring break. Both Marisa and I looked incredibly depressed. It was horribly long wait until summer vacation.

That summer was the beginning of many many summers to come in which we were constantly over at each others' house or at the country club pool. We would head over to the pool (which was within walking distance of Marisa's house) and swim until about 11:30am, then we'd go to the clubhouse for lunch and to watch The Price is Right. After that, back to more swimming, one of our parents would pick us up and we'd head over to one of our houses and play Nintendo until we crashed for the night. Occasionally, we'd pitch a tent in the living room and stay up late watching Dirty Dancing, trying to pause the tape in just the right spot so we could see Patrick Swayze's "thingey." Yep, we were teenage girls having fun.

Eventually we got cars. I got mine first and thus was designated chauffer. We started hanging out at houses not just our own. Then Marisa got her car and we'd meet up wherever. And then... we slowly drifted apart. It happens.

But now, we're reconnecting. We're sharing all of the stuff that we used to share and telling each other stories about what's been going on in our lives and all that wonderful stuff that you do when you reconnect with a friend.

I can't wait until I get another email in my inbox...

Makin' Music

2009-09-23T09:31:00.003-04:00

For the past couple of days I've been playing around on Garage Band on the Mac. It's been a fun little experiment. Back in high school I played around with .wav files and making tunes with loops and stuff but never really threw myself into it. The past couple of days, though, I just kind of fell into it. It's like a musical muse came up and smacked me upside the head. And now... here I am. Making music.

I did an Indian/bhangra style blurb for 5cm Peter and I also did a very island-esque Doctor Who inspired tune for the opening credits of 5cm Peter. Along with that, I'm working on a techno-"bollyFrad" song (long story, not worth explaining) for fun and I also did a short house style tune just to kind of mess around with. I've definitely been having fun. Everyone seems impressed so far. Brooke told me last night that I'm definitely going to need a bigger setup if I keep the level of creativity up. I'm really enjoying hanging out in the office with the hubby, too. He's creating and I'm creating and it's really quite cool. Unfortunately it has also led me to keep some very late nights and that leads to a bit of grumpiness in the morning.

Today we have dubbed it Septembergiving. Translation: we had a hankering for turkey and so, I bought a small one and it is currently in the oven cooking away. Whoo hoo! Turkey! Derek is coming over at 6PM with a pie and as soon as Brooke is coherant (she's upstairs sleeping...more on that in a minute) she'll probably help me plan out whatelse other than mashed potatoes, etc. we're making. Brooke... Oh yeah, Brookie!!

Brooke, our very near and dear friend, spent last night and will probably spend tonight with us as well. This morning she got lasik eye surgery and I'm playing nurse maid to her. I get to wake her up every two hours or so and put eye drops in her eyes. Fun stuffs. I've got to decide what to make for lunch so I can take it up to her and then put another set of eye drops in (she's got 3 different ones she has to use). Fun stuffs.

So yeah... that's what is up here. Working working working. But at least we're having fun, too. Insert smilies here. I'm off to baste a turkey!

And now your weekend update...

2009-09-14T08:10:00.002-04:00

I spent most of the weekend in bed. I caught the neighbor kids' cold from hell and enjoyed spending most of my time asleep. Asleep means I didn't have to think about other things that were going on, so I think that was a good thing. Hubby would probably agree, although Sunday I had a bit of nutso going on.

Monday is shaping up quite nicely. Didn't have to watch the kids this morning. It was more of a "Get in the car, it's time to go." Morning. (They didn't show up till 7:30 which is okay in my book.) Lily was in a brilliantly good mood as was Jackson and now, the little man is eating some scrambled eggs and watching Spongebob while I'm updating. All is well and I'm liking it.

This week is 80% spoken for. Tomorrow I've got a trip to mom's Death Condo (she purchased a spot in a mausoleum for her ashes when she finally kicks the bucket- which by my estimate shouldn't be for another billion years or so. Yes, I have that much faith in her.) because she's having second thoughts about it "being so high." I teased her and told her, well... it's closer to god? She gave me her usual "Ay, Jessica!" exasperated phrase. I shot back with a good natured "You're gonna spend eternity in a death condo!" I think my mom actually rolled her eyes at me. There was massive amounts of giggling on both our ends.

Wednesday is Women's Night Out. I think that it's going to be pre-empted with a talk with Lily. It's that time of her life when she needs THE talk. Thursday is traditionally our library day. Friday is... huh... don't remember. Saturday is apple festival. WHOO HOO! APPLE FESTIVAL! This means we get to see my lovely and talented Sister in law and her family.

Yeah. So, another busy week. Woot. I like busy weeks. They make me feel accomplished. Oh yeah, sometime this week I need to sneak in some birthday planning for Jackson and Papa Stone as they both have birthday's coming up iminently.

About 24 hours to go...

2009-09-04T06:32:00.002-04:00

In 24 hours Casey and I will be dragging our asses out of bed for yet another fun filled filming session. This time, we're planning on hitting 3 locations between 9AM and 5PM for a short film called 5cm Peter. Yes, it's as raunchy as it sounds. No, it's definitely NOT a porno.

The short was written by a talented writer by the name of David Boyer. David won the local screenwriters competition held by Mid America Filmmakers (from here on out known as nemesis). Tara and I offered to help him make his film way back in January before he even won the competition and we FINALLY got it off the ground and tomorrow: FILMING!

As much as filming days really kinda piss me off, I also think they're the best days in the world. We're running around and watching something that we made come to fruition. It's awesome! And this time my dad AND stepmom will be around for it. AWESOME!!

Speaking of my dad... Today is his birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!! Oh yeah, it's also the full moon so that means it will be extra crazy around here. Woot!

Anyone who wants to come and film with us tomorrow, drop me a line!

Cracked- A Venting Session.

2009-08-23T00:39:00.004-04:00

Wednesday was NOT a good day. Well, most of it was, but around 2:30 it started going down hill quickly. Luckily, I have a very handy husband and one of the biggest problems is now workable, so I'm happy. No, correction: I'M FREAKIN' ECSTATIC!!! The picture to the right is similar to what happened to my MacBook, but there is a lot more dead spots and it looks like a rock hit it from the inside.... Storytime!!

Wednesday afternoon I'm working on some things before I have to pick up Lily from school. The stuff I'm working on is dealing mainly with a lot of forms and emails dealing with Trademark Requests. This is a task that I'm finding somewhat easy, me being a people person, but it takes a long time and there are long phone conversations and lots of notes that I took on the matter. All of these notes are on my desktop of the MacBook. Well, I leave the computer on, sitting on the table as always (I like working at the dining room table because I can keep an eye on Jackson while he plays and I get a nice breeze from the windows, and it's not a stuffy office.) and I head out the door with Jack to pick up Lily. Yada yada yada, we come home, I help Lily with homework and then I sit back down at the computer and I find that the screen looks like it has been cracked on the inside. It takes a second. I'm like WTF? I turn the computer on and off and the "crack" is still there. Massive spaces of dead pixels.... The panic begins to set in. I completely freaked out simply because I'm realizing the volume of things that I have on the MacBook. Four years worth of pictures from family events and productions, business forms, all of my business contacts, emails with those precious trademark request forms signed...

And then, my lawyer calls. Court date for custody crap moved up. No, didn't want it moved up, wanted it moved back! Apparently when I tell lawyer that I've got stuff going on until September 6th, that is to be completely ignored. Lawyer proceeds to tell me that he needs more fundage. Um, didn't I just pay you back in July? I inform him in a not so polite voice that I am sick and tired of this bullshit (yes, I used bullshit) and that I wanted lawyers fees from that certain someone who keeps dragging me back to court and that fine, I'll be there on the court date I just won't be there at 8:30AM because I, unlike that certain person, have a kid that I have to drop off at school and another kid I have to take to a babysitter and probably will not get their until about 9AM. Lawyer says that is okay and that Judge will understand.

This is the part where I mention that I do not have any faith in the legal system what so ever. I'm really hoping Casey is wrong on his outcome prediction... I really do. I'm having a hard time staying optimistic, though.

After all of that, I sat down and cried for 2 hours. I've been moping around since then, kind of lost. Today I've been more annoyed than moping and Casey told me that I really had to snap out of it. I'm really trying. We went to Best Buy and bought a mini dvi cable so we could pipe the display to an extra monitor that we have. It's kind of annoying, craning my neck, but you know what? I can use my computer now and that, to me, is worth it's weight in gold. I'm glad that I have an incredibly handy husband. And I know, eventually, we'll get me a new laptop. It won't be for a while and honestly, I can make do with this set up for a while. It works and that's what matters to me.

SO now, I've been formulating a plan of attack and trying to get my groove back. I organized my desk and my filing cabinet today so I have a place to work in the office. I'm in the process of printing up the very important emails and I'm ready to get back to work. I'm not so panicked or depressed anymore. And maybe, just maybe, Casey will get his chance to relax now that I'm starting to calm down about the situation. Now, if I can get through Tuesday and everything goes well...

If stuff doesn't go well, well... we'll have to wait and see. Think happy thoughts, Jess! Happy thoughts.

School Nap

2009-08-20T12:50:00.001-04:00

Day three of school. Neighbor kids didn't have to come until 7:30, was still up at 5:15. Today, amidst the laundry, I found myself wish a serious case of the dropsies so Jackson and I went upstairs and took a nap. During School Naps are the best naps because it's just me and Jack all cuddled up. Huzzah for the school nap!

Two days down, a whole bunch to go.

2009-08-19T21:52:00.002-04:00

Lily has had two days of school. It's been busy busy around here so I haven't been able to blog until now. Sure, I've had time to sit down and update facebook, but have I blogged? Negative. So, here we go.

The first day of school was yesterday. It wasn't a run around, chaotic mess that I thought it was. Everything went really smoothly. Lily enjoyed herself and she said her teacher, Mrs. Bean was really nice. I'm doing the carpooling thing this year and I picked up Lily and two of her friends to bring them home. Maddy, one of the girls, is also in Lily's class. Maddy said "Mrs. Bean yells at you when you won't stop talking. She's mean." Lily instantly piped up and said "Nuh-uh! She's nice!" I had to laugh about that one. Maddy always has been a bit of a talker.

Fourth grade had homework the first day of school. They got a spelling list of 20 words and they had to write them in cursive 5 times each. While I can understand practicing writing I can't stand homework that is so incredibly monotonous. That, and giving a child homework on the first day of school? That's just mean! We did the homework, no complaining. I told Lily that fourth grade is harder than all of the other grades in primary (they go K to 4 in primary, 5-8 in middle and 9 to 12 in high school) and that they have to set examples to the other students. I will refrain bashing the teacher for dull homework for now. It's not as bad as what they sent home last year, which was writing numbers 1 to 1000 in small little boxes. Yeah, I told Lily she simply was not doing that.

Can you tell I'm not a fan of stupid homework? If it's relevant, I'm all for homework. If it's ridiculous (like writing 20 words 5 times each- why not have the kids write a story using spelling words?) then I'll yell at teachers and I won't make Lily do it. Yep, I'm one of those crazy parents who doesn't like their kid doing insipid busy work.

This morning was somewhat more... dramatic. I got up at 5:15 to prep for the neighbor dropping off their two grandkids. They recently got guardianship of the two girls (both in 2nd grade) and asked if I would be willing to take them to school (I'm being paid.) and I said okay. The only thing is they have to drop the girls off at 5:30 because grandma works as a nurse at 1st shift (starting at 6AM) and grandpa works at GM (also starting at 6). Well, I let the girls in and noticed a bee had flown in with them. I went to get the fly swatter to kill it, and as I was doing that, the neighbor said "Do you know you have a swarm of bees out there?" And just as she said that, the sneaky bee stung one of the girls. Insert lots of little girl screaming and crying.

I turned off the porch light and the neighbor ran next door to get some benadryl. I grabbed the wasp and bee spray while she did her nurse thing and killed about 20 bees hovering around my door. I started looking around for where they were coming from (they were VERY aggressive) and I noticed a loud bee hum. I looked up at the street light by my car and there was a large swarm of probably about 40-50 bees flying around the light. I have never seen anything like it! The girls were freaking out about bees for the rest of the morning, even watching over their shoulders as they left the car.

After dropping off the kids at school, it was home for me to check email and then it was off to work my make up magic on our friend, Ben, who was having his headshots done today. The photographer was amazing and Ben looked amazing. We were occupied from around 8:30 until almost noon, though, so that didn't leave a whole lot of time for lunch and accomplishing stuff before we had to go get Lily and the other girls. No homework today, so that was nice. Lily and I hung out at home, talked about her day and then she went off to play with the neighbor kids and I played with Jack and gave him some much needed run around time. Then, it was working on some producing stuffs and then off to my usual Wednesday girls night at the Cellar Door. Twas nice.

Yes, it's been a busy day. Tomorrow we have a read through here and I have a ton of laundry to finish, not to mention everything else that needs to get done that was highly neglected today. I gotta say, it's nice to be able to start getting back to a routine. I like summer, but I like routine more. I schedule better with routine simply because I know what's going on when and where.

Oh, I do have an interesting lunch date tomorrow.... I'll have to let you know how that goes.

Back to School

2009-08-17T09:08:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, Lily goes back to school. With South Bend no longer doing half days, we've got our first full complete day of school. It's going to be weird. No more kids running in and out of the house during the early afternoon. No more Lily running home, dragging a couple of kids with her being all like "Mom? Can you make us a sandwich?" I can make you a sandwich, but if your friends are hungry they go home to eat.

AND... it's pouring down rain. It's supposed to rain for the next 4 days. Yep, lovely back to school weather! Huzzah! Did I mention it's something like... 75 and muggy? Ugh the muggy.

My mom is heading back from her trip to Panama today. I must be at O'Hare at 3PM to pick her up. I'm actually looking forward to hearing all of the wonderful family gossip and of course: the pressies!! We ALWAYS get Panamanian Pressies! Whoo hoo! I am personally hoping for a bottle of the family rum (our family owns a rum distillery in Panama) and some cookies. Anything more than that is total bonus!

Well, I'm off. I have a laundry list of laundry and other wonderful things that I want to do before I have to sally forth to O'Hare.

Lazy Day

2009-07-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

I'm not quite firing on all cylinders today, so I've decided it's a lazy day. That's perfectly okay for me because we've been going going going and there's no sign of stopping any time soon. So, while Jackson plays piano and Lily plays computer, I sit here and update.

My mom is currently in Panama. She's enjoying herself and being spoiled, at least according to my aunt. This is good. I hope she comes back and is in a good mood and all that fun stuff. This year, I feel, will be hectic for everyone. Casey and I currently have an 18 month plan as far as certain things film related we want to accomplish and that doesn't include all of the plans for home I want to accomplish.

Today, though, is all about enjoying the moment. I'm going to take Jack and Lily to the park in a bit for a picnic and that should be quite fun. I need some fun time with the kids.

Blog Neglect

2009-07-18T11:00:00.002-04:00

I've been horribly neglectful of my blog for a good long while. I've attempted to post stuff, but then nothing comes out when I sit down at the keyboard to type. I'm thinking it's a case of I have too much stuff going on and my brain is going in a million and one directions at once.

I suppose let's start from the film festival back in May. I met some cool people, I got frustrated with a lot of people I know and I left Mid America Filmmakers. I was tired of them not wanting to match my drive for putting out a good project and I was tired of not being taken seriously as an officer, let alone listened to so I ended up quitting. It's still a sore spot for me because every so often I'll hear inklings or recieve an email about crap going on. I'm trying to adopt a "I don't give a crap" attitude, but I hate seeing people fail. The truth of the matter, though, is they only have themselves to blame. Casey and I blazed on ahead and have since completed 2 projects since I left in May, which is honestly more than most members would accomplish in 2 years. I am, however, happy to see some of the members following my lead, though. It seems that I started something there and Casey and I have been in touch with a handful of people from MAF and we're working on several projects together.

Our latest project is actually the winner of the Mid America Filmmakers Screenplay competition. David Boyer, a very talented writer, came up with a script entitled "5 cm Peter" which is quite funny (and lewd) and I agreed back when I was VP, to help him get it done. So, my little rag-tag team and I are plowing ahead with his project (despite wanting to continuously beat our collective heads against the wall). We film on September 5th. I can honestly say I'll be happy to be done with it.

Lily just completed a project as well. The film bug is in full swing in our family. Lily, however, was acting. I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome. I didn't think this was ever going to get done, simply because it was one tragedy after another when it came to her film. Literally. The director's father passed away and then, two weeks later his mother passed away. It was like the film gods didn't want this thing done! But just last week, Lily wrapped filming, two months and a piece after we began.

Family news. Yesterday, I took my mom to the airport. She is off to Panama for one month. I miss her terribly. It's very odd for me not to talk with her at least every other day. We have a decent relationship, despite getting on each others' nerves on a constant basis. I hope she enjoys her trip and I can't wait to pick her up at the airport, just to get the latest gossip from home. She was so funny when she called last night! I answer the phone and she said "Jessica! I'm HOME!!!!" and proceeded to laugh like she was 12 or something. It was good to hear her in a good mood because she had left feeling a little frazzled and wondering if she was going to make it. This was the first time she had traveled by herself since she was in college (which was a loooooooooong time ago), so she was a bit nervous.

Casey just finally got the go ahead to work overtime this week. It's been very...stressful around here. Well, not so stressful, but we have been worrying a bit. His company, while they have had work, we didn't know how long that work was going to last. I've been trying to do my best to find him alternative work in the film/tv field but that would also mean a significant hit to our income if he did switch. It's almost like we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I want him out of construction as much as he does, and yet if we were to jump we would lose free gas and a company truck, which is a significant boon in the current jobs favor. Casey is quite overwhelmed with lots of film projects and has very little free time, which I'm afraid I monopolize with family stuff. We're still trying to find a balance for everything and we haven't quite gotten there yet.

Lily finished all of her summer programs on Thursday. We skipped friday due to our trip to the airport. She is now free to enjoy her summer (well, what remains of it) and this afternoon we're going to start guitar lessons. A certain someone finally came through with that guitar he had been promising for years. Lily is thrilled beyond belief, so that's what counts. She is growing like a weed and is turning into quite the young lady. She is hedging tween territory. It frightens me a bit.

Jackson is also growing like crazy. He's getting more and more adventurous and he's been testing his boundaries. We are heading straight toward the terrible 2's at full speed. The other day he discovered the fun that is running through a sprinkler. I still have issues getting Lily to run through a sprinkler (even though she knows it's fun) and there was Jack... He walked straight up to it and was instantly amused. There was a massive temper tantrum when I took him back inside to take a bath (he was caked in mud). He's talking more and more and says please and thank you and this morning I even heard him copy me saying "You're welcome!" He's becoming a bit of a parrot and while we sometimes have to have him repeat what he says, his vocabulary is expanding and getting more and more understandable by the day. Sometimes it's like he picks up new words by the hour. He's truly an amazing little dude.

I think that covers it all. I'm sure I'll come up with a billion other things to write about as soon as I click publish, but I really want to clean up the kitchen before Casey gets home and it's about lunch time, too.

Happy Birthday Lily!!

2009-06-29T14:54:00.003-04:00

Lily is 10 today and I'm completely amazed. TEN! My baby is TEN!!! When did this happen? She has gone from this silly, fun loving little monkey who was afraid of pretty much everything to a somewhat adventurous, Harry Potter spell casting, Edward Cullen loving ten year old.

The posters of My Little Pony and Harry Potter have been taken down and in their place is Hannah Montana, Will Turner and Joe Jonas. She thinks David Bowie is "hot" and bugs me constantly to watch Twilight. I found scribblings on a sheet of paper that read "Lily Cullen" on it. She even had her first kiss this past year (yeah, not going to relive that particular part of history)!

My little girl is growing up. She's discovering her own style of music, how she does her hair, how she wants her room decorated, etc. It frightens me but it also excites me because I love seeing her grow up. It's nice to know that on her birthday, though, the first thing she still does in the morning is come to our room, jump in bed with me and cuddle. I don't see that happening too much longer, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

Sleepy Saturday

2009-05-30T16:13:00.002-04:00

The boys are sleeping, Lily is out with her grandma and Mark and I... well, I am trying to channel my inner broccoli or some other vegetable that just sits there not doing much of anything. Although, I do have Brooke's bike in my current possession (we're filming it on Monday) and well... it may need to be ridden at some point before that. When Casey gets up I may head off for a ride by the river. That sounds like fun to me. I may have to spend this years birthday money on a bicycle and a baby seat for Jack so we can go on rides this summer.

We finished up shooting "Small Change" on Wednesday. Casey is working on inserting the footage, color grading it and synching the sound. It should be completely done next week some time. I'll be happy when I sent it off to Telluride, although that will start a whole new waiting game. Sigh. It's like this never ending cycle of waiting on my end. Waiting for it to start, waiting for the shoot to finish, waiting for the film to get cut together and all other post work to get done and now we add an element: waiting to hear from the festivals. I'm not the most patient person in the world, either, so this has been a learning experience on more than one level.

In other news, Lily's report card came today. Honor Roll again. I knew this was going to be the case anyway because her teacher told me about it before school was over. I'm proud of her. She's been working hard this year and she's reading above grade level, which rocks.

Not much else going on. Summer has started, we're busy and Sunny will be heading our way very soon. We've had a lot of fun evenings lately and our social life is actually quite healthy these days. Tomorrow we're going to go celebrate Brooke getting her masters degree and heading to Costa Rica over the summer.

A little bit of a giggle.

2009-05-21T07:22:00.003-04:00

This morning I woke up with the song "Swing" by Ani Difranco stuck in my head. After listening to Swing, along with a plethera of other Ani tunes (I was frosting cupcakes at 6:30 this morning, what were you up to?), I logged onto the RBR records website and found this little gem. Now, I get to have my birthday during the Daily Show's dubbed Ani Difranco Month! Whoo hoo! Oh, and don't worry Jon, we'll forgive you for the mispronunciation of Ani's name (it's pronounced Ah-nee nah Annie).

Enjoy the clip!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist at White House Poetry Jams

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

Tis the Season...

2009-05-19T13:36:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I woke up and felt the start of it. It didn't really hit me until after I mowed the lawn and the neighbor across the street mowed their lawn and then... WHAM! Insert exploding sinus' here. Yep, tis allergy season again. BEHOLD! The Bukake Tree!

Okay, so it's not a bukake tree (I dare anyone who actually reads my blog to go google that or something.), it's a Bradford Pear. I love Bradford Pear trees. They're pretty. My dad planted one when I was about 5 years. Until I was about 10, he'd take my picture next to it every year. Yes, it's taller than me, but then again there are very few things in this world that aren't taller than me (I iz short). Unfortunately for me, as soon as they start blooming I start sneezing and getting all fabulously congested and while I have a brief reprieve as soon as the leaves start coming in, it's not long enough especially since there are all sorts of cottonwood trees in our neighborhood.

I'm seriously considering getting one of those histimine blocker nasal shield thingeys. I wonder how they work?

ANYWHO... yeah and stuff.

Let's see, what else can I update you on. Not much actually. It's the same old thing these days. I have groceries that I have to get out of the car and other than that, yeah... pretty dull. Still making movies, harassing people, causing trouble, etc. No complaints.

Where I'll be till Saturday

2009-05-01T16:23:00.001-04:00

Come see us!!

And now our feature presentation...

2009-05-01T08:53:00.002-04:00

This weekend is the River Bend Film Festival. I am the filmmaker liaison for the festival. This means I get to hang out with all the incoming filmmakers (which about a dozen are coming in) and help them find their hotel, places to eat, etc. Woot. It's ridiculous. Yesterday I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to prep for the thing and then today the only reason I can blog is because I'm currently dying my hair... Red... I felt I needed a change and change is good so I'm going back to my old staple of red.

Oh, and I bought a funky hat, too. I swear, it was sitting there just calling my name, asking me very politely to wear it. So, that's what I'm going to do.

I got my hair cut this week. It is now in a chin length bob. I am happy. I no longer look like I'm sporting some form of a shaggy mullet. Huzzah for my haircut!

Big Hat Cowboy Productions has BIG BIG BIG news, but I won't spill that until things are signed and it's a done deal. Lots of interesting things are coming our way, though, and Casey quoted me yesterday and said "Sometimes you just gotta jump." Or, in this case, take a zip line... Ah! I'm being cryptic!

So yeah... we're hella busy but we're having fun and that's what counts, right?

Return of the Plague

2009-04-15T10:47:00.002-04:00

I was sick during Lily's spring break last week. Jackson got sick toward the end of the week and has an ear infection (we're on day 3 of antibiotics) and now Casey's getting sick. Yep, we're a real fun bunch to be around right now.

At least Jack and I are decently recovered. I'm still scratching my head on how Lily missed this round of the plague...

::cough cough::

2009-04-06T15:46:00.002-04:00

Well, for those who say I talk to much, rest assured I'm not doing too much talking the past couple of days. Why? Well, I don't have much of a voice for starters.

The weekend started off wonderfully. Dad, Lily, Jack and I went to the Field Museum in Chicago. They had a really fun exhibit about Pirates and we got to see real pirate treasure. It made me start contemplating all sorts of dastardly piratical deeds of my own but alas, I don't have the equipment or the know-how to actually break into what I'm guessing is a very well protected museum. Dad had a fun time, too. When he left on Sunday morning he commented on how Chicago wasn't as far of a drive as he thought (it was only 1 1/2 hours away) and how we should go to another museum next time. I think I'll second that motion because I really enjoyed myself and having a fun dad-day. ;-)

When we got home, I felt kinda funky and stuffed up, so I took some decongestant and that's when things started getting really weird. Casey was filming a scene for our upcoming "Hitman Hardknocks" and I had to take Jackson upstairs. Dad headed upstairs as well because his leg was bugging him so we both decided to take naps. I slept until around 9:30 and woke up to find Dad still asleep. So, I got some water and headed back to bed. The next morning I woke up with Jackson, headed downstairs to take my temp and found out that I was indeed running a fever. I was actually surprised that it was as high as it was, though. Turns out I was running at 101.9!!

Dad went out and got me plenty of meds and tried to get me to eat something, but I just wasn't in the mood. I spent most of the day on the couch and Dad watched after Jackson. He took Lily out for a little while and when they came home they had eatten Arby's for dinner but were both in the mood for Pizza, so Dad headed back out for pizza. I managed to eat one slice before crashing for the evening.

Sunday we normally go out for breakfast, but yeah... not having that this time around. My stomach was less than cooperative. Dad went home and I went back to bed. I spent the whole of sunday in bed curled up under the covers. I got up sometime around 9PM to find a thin layer of snow coating everything outside. Whee fun! Spring break and it's snowing! I would scratch my head on that one, but yeah... it's northern Indiana. It makes total sense.

Today I have been mostly sticking to the couch. I managed to take a shower, thinking I would feel better afterwards, but I was wrong. If anything, I feel more stuffed up. I have sent Lily on a quest to help me find the Vick's Vapor Rub in hopes that I'll be able to breathe out of my nose again and I'm trying to look on the bright side of things - like I can keep food down now. I don't have much of an appetite, but I did manage to eat some cheerios. Huzzah for Cheerios!

I must go now. Time for my every four hours dose of Robetussin. I think it's the only thing keeping me mildly sane at the moment. Ugh... This sucks.

Insert Car-hitting-Ben Sound Here

2009-03-30T10:09:00.002-04:00

Saturday was spent in movie mode. The morning was sucked up by Hitman Hardknocks and laughing our asses off at our actors engaged in a sissy fight, yelling whenever a car would be coming and watching our actors destroy a mattress.

Let me tell you, nothing screams comedy like two grown men smacking each other in the most sissy way you can imagine. There were several times when Tara and I had to walk away because we were laughing so hard. It was nice to have Ben and Jim doing comedy for once. Tomorrow we're going to try and sneak in the scene with Melissa Chapman before it rains.

After we finished up (only 2 hours of shooting! Woot!) I managed to sneak in a nap before Lily and I headed out the door at 7:30 to finish up her shoot on "In the Dark of the Night." I was thinking it was only going to be a couple of hours, but we ended up being there until midnight when I finally said "Look, Lily's tired and so am I. We're going home." I was begged for 10 more minutes and they managed to finish up. At this particular point I'm not sure if we'll have to go back or not. It doesn't look like it, but you never know. That particular shoot was plagued with problems. It started pouring buckets of rain on us shortly after we started shooting and then there was the crazy man who thought the "goth" was going to rob his house. Um, no sir, the goth kid is not going to rob your house. And our director, who is driving a bling-bling Cadillac Escalade SUV, has no use for any of the redneck-y trash you have strewn on your lawn.

Oh, and then there was the cop. This was a Michigan State Police Officer who followed us back from our location to the state line (it was a 10 minute drive, by the way, the cop following us all the way, just pulling us over juuuuuuussssssstttttt before the border) and then pulled us over to inform us that he got a call from a guy who saw people with a video camera, taping some goth kid on his rode and was wondering if we were filming. Yep, the MSP were bored. Nice guy, though. He lectured the director for not having his permits. (Yes, because you absolutely NEED permits to shoot a no-budget horror flick.) Lesson I learned: Don't shoot in Michigan. They're uber-picky.

Sunday was nice. Casey spent the day compositing two shots together to make it look like Ben was getting hit by Jim's car. So far so good, actually. Much laughing was had. The best part of Sunday, though, was the fact that we got to be lazy slugs for the first Sunday in a very long time. Ah, I remember what it used to be like to be a slug! How nice to return to it, if even for a day. But then, it started snowing and I was all like "What the hell?!" So, naturally, I decided to go grocery shopping. Despite it snowing sideways for a while, it was pretty nice to get out of the house.

Today's goal is laundry catch-up, stop by Meijers and pick up some toilet paper, and then just chillaxin'. Next week is spring break, so I'm hoping that will bring some sort of silly adventure. We'll see.

I must now go. I want to sneak in some lunch before Jack wakes up from his nap.

Wearing the Producer Jacket

2009-03-27T15:42:00.002-04:00

It seems like these days everything revolves around BHCP (BigHatCowboy Productions for those of you who haven't figured that out already). Last weekend we got Small Change in the can and with a few minor pick up shots that I'm not going to schedule until we have a rough cut together, I get to put that on the back burner. The work doesn't stop, though.

Tomorrow we're shooting "Hitman Hardknocks." This will be our entry for the filmaka competition. There's $500 cash prize on the line along with another $1000 that will go toward our next production. I think Hitman will be good and funny and I've managed to throw that particular production together in about 4 days. Not much I had to do, just get people together.

We may have to purchase a new computer for editting purposes, though. Our current machine, a re-built something that Casey put together the best he could (which has served it's purposes well) can barely handle the editting that needs to be done. So, we're looking at potential fixes. The best solution that will last us the longest amount of time seems to be a Mac Pro tower. Unfortunately, it comes at $2500. Luckily, we don't need a monitor or anything else. It's still $2500 that I'd prefer not to spend. If I want to get Small Change off to Telluride in a timely manner, it needs to be done. Anyone want to invest in our fledgling company? Buy us a computer?

On the family front things are going well. Jackson is running everywhere and has discovered chilil cheese corn chips (the little weirdo). He is starting to exert his independence and if things don't go his way he likes to throw tantrums. His favorite thing to do at bedtime is now to tuck himself in. He even whispers "tuck tuck tuck" while we tuck the covers around him. So far no more escape attempts have been made, but the only time he's ever in his play pen now is when he needs a nap and has gotten grumpy. He loves to play with Lily and chases her all over the house. It's cute to watch them together. They get along really well. The most interesting news about Jack is that he may have an agent. I met Brian's agent yesterday and everyone has been saying "Oh, Jack's so cute!" So I figured why not try and pimp him out and get him some baby-modeling. Brian's agent agreed and she's going to give me a call next week sometime.

Lily is also exerting more and more independence and has posted "Do not enter, I am busy." on her door. Ah, the first bits of the whole tween attitude. Lily just recently finished some ADR (Voice Over) work for a friend of ours, Brian McLaughlin and she is currently filming a project called "Into the Dark of Night" written and directed by a fellow MAF member, Steven Barnett (who was killed 4 times on Babylon 5 and served as their technical advisor as well during a few seasons). Lily plays the character or Samantha. She doesn't have many lines, but is integral to the story. She's having a blast doing all of this film stuff. She has announced that she wants to make movies like her dad and mom. Yup, I have an incredibly talented family and I'm proud of all of them.

Casey is working his ass off these days. Between film and then Majority, I really think he needs a vacation. I'm looking forward to when he doesn't have to do construction anymore.

I think that's about it from our end. It's been busy, but it's been fun. Now, if Casey and I could get a second to breath and have some fun and maybe some alone time, that would be fabulous.

Cranky.

2009-03-25T22:44:00.003-04:00

I am cranky. I took a nap this afternoon because I was starting to get snippy at Lily when she came home from school. I tried to make Jackson take it with me. While he did finally crash with me, he didn't do so for very long and I was even more grumpy when I woke up with massive quantities of baby drool on my sleeve. I am hoping to go back to bed very soon (it's nearly 11). I also have to wonder if I may be coming down with something because I am quite achy all over. In fact, at this point the only thing that doesn't hurt is my head.

I will now give Jackson the cheese he is requesting, drink a glass of milk and then off to bed with me.

The good news, though, is that all of the footage from our Sunday shoot has been imported as has the sound and well... Simon and Ben sound like NPR announcers. It's FABULOUS.

Here's a taste of our upcoming flick. It's just a picture, but yeah... Pictured below are Ben Miner (on the Left) and Simon "Pete" Frederick (right) as Garrison and Mr. Buckley in our new film, "Small Change."

Under the Big Hat

2009-03-05T13:00:00.004-05:00

Ah, return of the blogging Jess! What? Do you mean I actually have time to stop and smell the roses? Not really, but I've been feeling neglectful and I have a few stories to tell so I figured why not?

I'll start with family stuff. Jackson has adopted "Cheese." Cheese is his stuffed dog. He picked it out when I took my friend Brooke shopping post divorce finalization. He had to have the dog. Wouldn't put it down.

So, I bought it. It was $5 well spent. Almost immediately he started hugging it calling it "Cheese." I have no idea why it'

s name is Cheese, but that is it's name... so Cheese joins t

he throngs of stuffed animals that have taken up residence in our house.

In the past week since we got it, Cheese has not been put down with the exception of the day and a half it was over at abuelita's house in which Jack moped around the house asking "Cheese?" Cheese was quickly returned and off he happily went.

The other thing that Jackson has discovered is that he can get out of his playpen. I have a little houdini on my hands. The first time he did it, I didn't even hear him. He managed to collapse one of the sides and climb out (which he's also climbing on EVERYTHING now). He got an empty two liter bottle, came up behind me and whacked me on the back and started laughing hysterically. Naturally, I chased him around the house, much amused, and finally tickled him. The kid amazes me on a daily basis. He also has learned the word "juice." Now, whenever he's thirsty, he throws his sippy cup (the kid may have a future in the major leagues) and yells "JUICE!" He does, however, say "tanku" his version of thank you, when you hand him back the full sippy cup. Cute cute cute.

Lily is doing well. This has been ISTEP week. I spoke with her teacher on Monday before the test and we both had a bitch session about how ISTEP is completely useless and tells you nothing and that now a days most kids fail ISTEP because a) the test is completely subjective and b) they purposefully try and trick kids with wording. One of the questions the teacher gave me as an example ended with the words "Justify your answer." WHY WHY W

HY would they put that on a THIRD GRADE TEST?!??!?!!??!! Yes, ISTEP is stupid. Everyone agrees it's a waste of time. Make it go away, please.

Casey is still working. He's pulling double duty between Majority and our Production Company. I'm hoping that one of these days we can make some money with the production company thing and get his ass out of construction. We're working on it, that's for sure.

Film stuff... this could be long.

Right now I'm working on three main projects. Well, two main projects and the th

ird is just to kind of flex my producing muscles. The last one it turning out to be... interesting. I'm still not 100% I want to do it but I'm going to just because I think if anything it's good practice for my newbie producing skills (which, from what I've heard are uncomperable to anyone else's in the area... David O. Selznik kiss my ass thank you very much - Casey says I'm Selznick on PMS when I'm on top of my producing game and I take that as a compliment). I also just finished up the Mid America Filmmakers Winter Screening last Friday which was pretty cool. I got the head count last night at it was 73 people! Rock on!

Project one would be our film, Small Change, which we have slated to shoot on March 22nd. Last night we did the whole wonderful Pre-Visualization thing and that went really well.

Casey story boarded out all of his shots ala Rodriguez and while he was doing that -

using myself and Tara Eary (our lovely Assistant Director) as the mock-actors in the scene, I amused Tara with various clips from willitblend.com (an amusing site, go check it out and then buy me that blender). Small Change info is up on our website, so go there. In case you haven't been there, it's www.bighatcowboy.com. Thank you, come again. The pic is actually Casey doing setting up the wide shot.

Project two is the new South Bend Film Festival, which is now named "The River Bend Film Festival." Yeah... I'm not happy but I'm not going to go into it. Let's put it this way. Things need to be a lot shinier and a lot prettier before any advertising can get done and I'm wearing my stilletos to the meeting this afternoon so I can kick some ass. Yo. I'm involved because Mid America Filmmakers is the main sponsor and I'm the Vice President of Mid America Filmmakers, so yeah. OH, I've also been elected "Filmmaker Liason" which means I get to schmooze and cater to the filmmakers that are coming in and give them packets and gift baskets. I'm actually looking forward to this because I am a very social creature and well, it gives me an excuse to dress up and look pretty. Yes. I like to look pretty.

Project three is a "horror" script. I use that term loosely because there's nothing really scary about it. This one I don't have much to say about because, well, it's in it's infancy and I'm just producing this for fun, so yeah. It's practice.

That's about it on our end of things. I hope you've enjoyed my gigantorpost. It has taken me roughly half an hour to write (and I was baking cookies during that time, too).

Life with a toddler.

2009-02-23T15:20:00.002-05:00

Today has been.... challenging. Luckily, Jack thinks that throwing wet clothes into the dryer is the best game ever invented. Now, if only the rest of my day was as productive...

Heigh ho, heigh ho, back to work we go...

2009-02-23T08:19:00.002-05:00

Things have been going V E R Y S L O W L Y here at casa Stone. Casey and I were both horribly ill for about a week and a half and even after we got over the initial whateveritwas we are still feeling rather tired and drained... But, we're back to work and plugging away. It's amazing how much your house can completely implode when you're sick for so long. The last week, when we sort of got our appetite back, we were surviving on mostly fast food (which Lily absolutely loved and Jack got to experience the wondermousness of ketchup - more on that in a minute) because neither of us felt up to cooking. We spent most of the week thinking "We're horrible parents! Our parents would have done so much better!" We quickly realized that there were days when our parents felt like poo too and just let us fend for ourselves or called in back ups.

On Friday we finally felt well enough to get out of the house and do some shopping, so we headed to Sam's for diapers and a few other things, and then hit Meijers, Walmart and Aldis. Afterwards, we still felt like being out and about, so we went meandering and got hungry. The four of us ended up at Burger King where Jackson discovered not only the play area but ketchup as well. He went completely through the play area with Lily once and made it up the climbing part (he's become a total monkey in the past few days) by himself, but then he decided that he had enough and came back down for some french fries. Little man then discovered the joys of ketchup. He had never tried it before so I dunked a fry for him and at first he was like "What's this?" and was making a bit of a yuck face. But then, he decided he liked it and wanted more ketchup. He then proceeded to suck the ketchup off the fry and attempt to dunk it again (he had some dexterity problems there, but he managed to make a mess). Finally he decided screw the fries and he picked up the little cup that held the ketchup and essentially drank it. Casey and I, being amused by the whole situation, let him get away with it, despite having a ton of ketchup on his coat, face and hands. It was a fun evening.

On Saturday we decided to get chinese food and little man discovered that he likes green peppers. He was running around chewing them! Weirdo! Casey doesn't like green peppers and I certainly don't like green peppers. This is one thing that both Lily and Jack like - they both like spicy things. Go figure. Jackson, however, he eats everything so it will be interesting to see what his tastes are when he gets older. Lily is all about the veggies. She loves 'em.

Yesterday we spent the day starting to clean up the house (it's a rather large job) and organize the office. With various things coming down the pipelines, I wanted to be as organized as possible so I can essentially just go go go. We'll see how it goes, though. I forsee impending disaster, but it sure as hell is going to be a fun trip! And who knows, we might even make some money at it!

That's all from our end. How have you all been?

Anniversary Conversation between a husband and wife.

2009-02-18T17:35:00.003-05:00

Jess is sitting on the couch in her jammies. Occasionally she reaches up and attempts to equalize the pressure in her ears, but it doesn't work. Casey walks in, not at all googlie eyed and says "I love you, wife!"

Jess says "What?"

"I love you!"

"What?"

"I LOVE YOU!!"

"Thanks, I'm hungry!"

And this is how we spent our anniversary. My ears plugged up beyond belief, pretty achy throughout the day (all though now my appetite is returning, so I'm definitely hungry) and well... I expected something grander for our fifth anniversary. Hmmmm... Maybe next weekend when we're fully recovered, we can celebrate properly. Otherwise, it was just another day spent under just another comforter, with just another tissue.

I will now continue with my day... Maybe watch some more Battlestar Galactica and go to bed early. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Rest time!

2009-02-12T18:38:00.002-05:00

Seed project: Complete! (With added bonus of "potato" as to stump the teacher as per mom-in-law's wonderful suggestion... I totally love messing with teachers... mwahahahaha)

DVDs: burning. As in we are making them at this particular time. Must drop 'em off to Brian tomorrow.

Call from Simon: Iminent.

Glidetrak: Here. Amazingly. Apparently, it shipped from Paisley, UK, just a couple of days ago. Way to go FedEx!

Anniversary weekend: Canceled. The hubby is not feeling good, I'm in need of a good rest and the kids... well, they're just all over the place. Rock on kids, you're fun. At least I get to make Tara look pretty.

Q

2009-02-11T14:26:00.001-05:00

I am not a happy camper. I have caught the kids' cold. I am now miserable, Jackson is fine but chasing after him is not a good thing.

Thankfully, I have the fabulous giant "Q" on my side (aka NyQuil, DayQuil) and am happily medicated. My ear still hurts though... I think I may have an ear infection...

I....need....a really long nap.

Oy! What's that green stuff over there?

2009-02-10T07:42:00.002-05:00

I wake up at 7:15 (45 minutes after I should have waken up), completely exhausted. I really don't blame myself one bit for hitting snooze after snooze. Jackson kept me up most of the night, and around 4:45 I found myself pleading with him to please go to sleep, peacefully... No more upsettedness, (yes, I created a new word), no more whining, and lots more sleep. Low and behold he took pity on me. Either that, or the sandman who was floating outside the window, looking in and snickering, finally took pity on us. I say it was the sandman. Never underestimate the power of a chick completely flustered.

In any case, I stumbled down the stairs, glad that Casey hadn't done his usual "I'm going to turn all the lights in the house on" dance, walked into the kitchen and started making myself a cup of chai. I had to come around rather quickly because I had to make sure Lily got up and dressed (thank god today is a half day... I just have to stay awake to noon). While Lily was having breakfast, we discussed her seed project. I took Kathy, my wonderful mother in law's advice, to "Stump the teacher" and cut a few spuds off a potato. Today we'll get the rest of our seeds and have lots of fun with a glue gun.

After the seed discussion, I checked the weather and then I rechecked the weather. The temp is a lovely 50 degrees outside! WTF? Really? I glanced out the window and aside from one large mountain of snow across the street I'm seeing green stuff on the ground. Green? That can't possibly be right? HAHAHA! Take that Punxatawny Phil! I got your global warming right here, bitch! And you know what? I'm going to ENJOY it! Hell, I may even fly a kite today! Mwahahahaha!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go start my car and wake up the Jackosaurus and take Lily to school.

Lemurs, and Kangaroos and Tigers! Oh my!

2009-02-06T07:11:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I was an evil mommy. Well, I was a good mommy, but in the eyes of the school board (if they were to find out) I was an evil mommy. Brooke, a fabulous friend of mine, had told me about a week ago that this mall in Elkhart, was going to have Baby Tigers to play. What? Playing with a baby tiger?! The whole thing sound too good to be true! Naturally, I plotted to take Lily... without telling her.

On Wednesday, I informed her that Thursday morning I'd be picking her up early from school because we had to go to the Doctor and get our flu shot. She really did not like the sound of that. Instantly, there was a whole bout of "I don't want to get a flu shot!" "Do I really need one?" "I've already been sick!" and a few other choice phrases that kinda pissed me off, but I just sucked it up and despite the pre-teen attitude showing through, continued with

my plan.

I picked her up on Thursday morning around 10:30 and off we went, Lily grumbling on the way. We clicked onto the bypass and I couldn't hold it in any more. I told her that we were not going to the doctor to get shots, we were going to play with baby tigers. Lily was instantly awestruck. Baby tigers?! What?! How come we get to play with baby tigers? And the kicker: Mickie and Thomas were coming with us. Instant happy kid! I haven't seen her this excited since we went to the circus over Thanksgiving break!

When we got there, the tigers were a bit too rambunctious, so we opted for the baby

wolves instead. We also got to feed a lemur a piece of banana and pet a baby kangaroo. The lemur decided to jump into the kangaroo's sleeping pouch, which annoyed the kangaroo and antics began. I've never seen a grumpier kangaroo. In fact, I didn't know kangaroos were capable of getting grumpy. The tigers were twice Jackson's size. They were still baby, but they were large... and everyone decided that yeah, that's not the smartest thing, especially with them being so playful at the time.

The baby wolves were sweet and friendly and so incredibly soft. Jackson kept running around yelling "Dog! Dog!" It was very cute. I think he had a lot of fun too! Lily was showing both Thomas and Jack how to pet the wolves and while Jack was doing very well petting them, Thomas got a little scared and opted to leave the cage and go back to his mom who was standing by outside. He preferred hanging out with the lemur rather than the wolves.

It was definitely a fun day. We ended at Steak and Shake with all the kids wanting macaroni. It was the worst service ever and then Lily slipped and hit her head (she's got a giant bruise on her forehead, and I'm thinking about taking her to the doctor today because it looks so bad). She cried for about 10 minutes and lately she hasn't been crying too awful much when she hurts herself, so I knew it was bad. Poor kid. After that, we went and picked up Jason, Mickie's husband, and headed home. Mickie watched the kids for a few hours while I went to a meeting for the newly formed River Bend Film Festival committee. (More on that soon.)

Things seem to be snowballing in the social commitment portion of my life. I've become very busy lately. I'm enjoying it, though. It gives me something to look forward to. Although, I have no idea what I'm going to do when I'm done with it. Who knows. That being said, I really need to get moving.... I've got a long day ahead of me...

Location! Location! Location!

2009-02-01T21:14:00.004-05:00

I can relax now. Our location is now set for our next production, the rewrites that were needed are done, the cast has the new rewrites (and are quite enthusiastic about them), the equipment list is coming along and being checked off at a decent rate (borrowed and begged, none stolen). We set up our filming date and it's going to be a doozy. We film on February 15th, and our crew call time is 5AM. The cast call time is 6AM. We shoot until 4PM.

Yep, we're crazy, but we get to film here:

This is the Midway Tavern. It's been around since 1924 and it's the most interesting place that I've been in a while. They've had some pretty awesome people play there and it used to be one of Al Capone's favorite places. How's that for atmosphere?

While you were sleeping...

2009-01-20T12:48:00.001-05:00

To my children Lily and Jack:

While you were sleeping, Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream came true... You live in an amazing time little ones. Enjoy it.

I wish my ass was being globally warmed...

2009-01-16T10:30:00.002-05:00

It is 10:30 A.M. The current temperature is -15 F, the current windchill is -31.

If you'll excuse me I will now go and hide under a couple of blankets with the kerosene heater working very near by because even with the thermostat set at 70, it still feels freakin' FREEZING! The cold just creeps in like the Vashta Narada on Doctor Who until you feel like there's nothing left but some rattling bones and all you can say is "Hey, who turned out the lights?"

Now, if you'll excuse me it's Battlestar Galactica day and I should be refreshing last season so I can be re-caught-up for tonights new episode... Only 10 episodes left and then my friday nights will return to being dull and sucky. If you haven't started watching BSG, I highly recommend you start at season one and then work you way up. It's fabulous!

Because I'm not stupid...

2009-01-15T07:10:00.002-05:00

It is my opinion that SBCSC is run by idiots. I turned on the television this morning to check on school closings. Everyone in the area with the exception of SBCSC is CLOSED. The windchill this morning was -11 when I woke up and the temperatures have been steadily dropping (3 degrees down since I woke up an hour ago and this is not taking into consideration that the wind has been picking up, probably making the windchill worse).

Thanks but no thanks, South Bend! I'm keeping Lily home today and I'll probably keep her home tomorrow, too. (Tomorrow windchills are supposed to be around -30!) Oh, and just because you don't want to cancel school you will not argue with me when I tell you it's going to be an excused absence. You will allow Lily to make up whatever work she missed and you won't give me any slack about it. It's not my fault that you don't give a shit if the kids that go to your schools have parents that are just as ridiculous as you are. Seriously, why would they want to send your kid out in this weather? Ugh. I'm annoyed. I'm going to take Jackson back upstairs and cuddle.

May-jah!!

2009-01-07T08:40:00.003-05:00

Big news on the home front! Last night I was elected Vice President of Mid America Filmmakers (MAF). I'm incredibly excited by this and have lots of ideas. Other than that, my mom's prediction of me getting very little sleep last night came true. She said "I hope you'll be able to sleep tonight!" I laughed at the time, but little did I know that Jackson would be a tad more excited than me. Little man stayed awake, playing and jumping in his crib until around 4AM. Yep, I'm definitely tired. I think I shall go take a nap before I run off to meet my mom this morning.

It doesn't feel like winter...

2009-01-05T13:39:00.003-05:00

Okay, so physically, it is cold enough outside to feel like winter... It just doesn't look like it. The sun is shining and I swear I heard a bird a little bit ago. To top it off, I just finished taking down the Christmas Tree and that just kind of puts the nail on the coffin that was the holidays. Yesterday Casey kept saying "Don't take the tree down, that means Christmas is over." Personally, I'm thinking it was just an excuse not to help taking down the tree.

That's okay, though, because I have found that I can do it a lot faster than with kids and hubby in the house. I say kids but Jackson is home with me but he can be confined to the playpen. (Although, little dude is trying to escape... he stacks his drum on top of his bear and then tries to get his leg over the top. So far, no success. He's not quite tall enough.)

Well, I'm off. Must go start the car so I can go get Lily in 15 minutes.

That annoying grinding noise is back...

2009-01-05T07:02:00.002-05:00

Today is back to the grindstone. Lily goes back to school and that means everyone else is back on schedule to. It's been a nice vacation... I think I could use an extra day (Jackson was fighting me going to sleep last night and he woke up a few times last night making me VERY TIRED this morning), but that's just me. I told Casey this morning as he was bouncing out the door that I wouldn't mind if he stayed home and we curled up in bed with me.

Oh well, to quote the sage like wisdom of the prophet Jaggar: "You can't always get what you want."

On the schedule today: some form of excersize this morning, then shower then taking down the Christmas Tree and the cleaning that involves. There will also be laundry done and then Jackson who has turned into this weird, crusted thing (he had a banana before he went to bed last night and well, that was just messy... I managed to clean up his hands and face but the rest of him is just...crusted) is in severe need of a bath. The boy manages to make a mess out of himself when eating finger foods. Something I never faced with Lily... Hmmm....

So yes, that's the plan. We'll see if the plan succeeds. I must go get Lily up now. Have a good day, all!

She stumbles slowly to the computer, wearing the FSM pendant her sister-in-law got her...

2008-12-30T15:38:00.002-05:00

Christmas is over. Done. Finito. Adios, bye bye. Tomorrow ends 2008 and frankly, I think I'm soooooo over 2008. It was so 2008 ya know? I'm being silly. I know. Hee hee.

It's been busy 'round here. Well, I say busy, but we've been a bunch of slackers. Casey's back to work as of yesterday, Lily is over at her abuelita's house, Jackson is napping and I've got a load of dishes in the dishwasher and a load of laundry in both the washer and the dryer. Wait, I'm not slacking... Although, I still have yet to discover what that weird smell in my kitchen is. I've looked all over for it and it's just not allowing itself to be found. I think I may boil some cinnamon or something because I can't figure it out! My brain hurts from thinking too much about it.

We are currently hosting Matt and Ben in from Seattle. I am glad my sweet baboo and his sweet baboo are crashing with us. It's nice to see them and it's nice to hang out and play Rock Band with 'em. We got up this morning and played an hour before they had to jump in the shower and head off to meet Matt's family. This leaves me with doing nothing much but cleaning and hanging out with Jack. It has been a relatively quiet day. I'm enjoying it. First one I've had in a while.

Things are about to ramp up with our new production and come next tuesday I will more than likely be named Vice President of MAF, or Mid America Filmmakers. Woot. I'm looking forward to that challenge. I also have Tara Eary, a local filmmaker who's most recent flick got shown at DragonCon (and won a prize, but I don't remember what it was) approaching me to produce her latest endeavor. I haven't told her anything yet especially seeing as how I want an outline of her proposal and everything. At this point, I'm looking at each experience as a learning one and enjoying the fact that I have somewhat of a social life. Social life does Jess good. Makes me wear makeup and care about going out of the house in clothes other than pajamas. Woot for the social life!

Other than that, my IPod is still dead and I have reverted to old technology for my everyday musical needs (the speakers for the surround sound are better than the computer speakers, so I've been burning a lot of discs). I'm hoping Matt and Ben get home soon cuz well, I'm hungry and want to go eat. I may just end up eating more turkey, though... Yep, I'm official done with the turkey. It's just like... yuck now. I'm sure come Christmas next year I'll be all over the turkey again, though. Huzzah turkey!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas! I'll try and post some pics when I actually get around to downloading them off the canon.

Things I will NEVER EVER do again two days before Christmas...

2008-12-24T00:19:00.002-05:00

1) I will NEVER EVER travel to the mall 2 days before Christmas.

2) I will NEVER EVER travel to the mall to go to Build-a-Bear 2 days before Christmas.

3) I will NEVER EVER travel in the snow to the mall to go to Build-a-Bear 2 days before Christmas.

Oh, and you can make this list for the day before Christmas too. One more thing... I will never allow my husband to put off Christmas Shopping this late ever again, either. This is just RIDICULOUS!

Tomorrow: I make a turkey and bake cookies. Yes, everything is better with massive amounts of cookies.

We now rejoin our regularly scheduled game of Rock Band 2 (where I have created a new band named "I heart David Tennant").

Baby, it's F*&%ing FREEZING outside!

2008-12-22T08:53:00.002-05:00

This morning when I logged onto weather.com, I discovered that it is no better than it was yesterday. It is currently ZERO degrees outside with a windchill that brings the temperature down to a balmy -21 (the balmy part was sarcasm, by the way).

It's cold and yucky and there's another winter storm on the way on Tuesday. They just showed a picture of the St. Joe River not to far north from us and it is filled with large chunks of ice and they've closed the bypass because it is "a solid chunk of ice." There was even a snow plow that flipped over! A SNOW PLOW! This is what you call ridiculous. It's like Mother Nature decided "Well, I've given you a break on the whole winter thing in the past couple of years, so I think I'll make up for it now." Not fun. Even my wind chimes have a thick coating of ice on them and are all frozen to the center part that creates the noise when the tubes hit them.

Today we will stay inside and bake cookies and just try and stay warm. There are some fun Christmas movies on, so we'll probably watch some tv, too. I think I'll start re-watching Battlestar Galactica, too, in order to prep myself for the impending season 4.5. (Season 4.0 is on my wishlist at Amazon if anyone is still looking for ideas...)

To everyone else out there: PLEASE STAY WARM TODAY!!

Ice Ice Baby

2008-12-19T22:57:00.002-05:00

This morning I woke up slightly before Casey's alarm clock went off (around 5AM). I kept hearing this tap-tap-tap on the window. In my groggy state, I didn't put together that it was the ice storm that the weather men had been saying was heading our way (and was originally supposed to hit yesterday afternoon... they kinda screwed up there). Casey woke up to and peaked out the window, grumbled and then turned the electric blanket on.

Around 6AM, as I was trying desperately to kick the manthing out of bed, even going so far as to lay on his side of the bed and say "I am not letting you get back into this bed. You need to get your clothes on and dig out your truck." I peaked outside and saw a very thin layer of snow covering my car and it was being covered with the ice that was falling from the sky. I decided that a day like today would best be served mostly in bed. Since Lily didn't have school today (and even if she did, it would have been canceled as were 90% of the schools in the area), I went and woke her up, asking if she wanted to come cuddle with me and that's how we spent the morning until Jackson woke up.

It was grand. I didn't have to go anywhere, I got to hang out with the kids and there was absolutely no reason what so ever to go and carve my car out from under the what looks to be about an inch of ice. Yep, and I think we'll do the same thing tomorrow. Although, I think that there will probably be cookie making going on tomorrow. And I have to start the turkey marinading. Yep yep yep.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and download some more Christmas music. Because you can never have too much Christmas Music.

Woe is me.

2008-12-15T09:08:00.002-05:00

My Ipod is dead. I tried plugging it into both computers and it's just not registering. It has been acting kinda funky for a while now, but now it is just dead... It is a sad sad day, especially since I use it every single day. Woe is me.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

2008-12-15T08:01:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful and productive weekend at the Stone house. We finally got our Christmas tree up and got to see how Jackson would react to it. He takes every chance he can to go and "OOOOOH!!!" at it. We have to watch him carefully, though, because he likes to try and redecorate the tree. Sometimes he'll take the ornaments off and put them back on in another place on the tree and sometimes he'll just take off with them. His favorite are the large icicle looking things.

Midway getting the tree decorated, we discovered that two of our light strings were completely shot, so we decided to go get some more. Casey and I also decided that we would make a pit stop in downtown South Bend, see Santa Claus and have a cup of hot chocolate at the South Bend Chocolate Company. Jackson did surprisingly well with Santa, and sat on his lap for ye olde photo op. Lily was in the little hut before Casey and I even got up to it, already telling Santa what she wanted which, in case you're curious, Lily informed Santa that she wants a trampoline, a video camera, some Hannah Montana dolls and Joe Jonas for Christmas. Not a Joe Jonas doll, she wants the Joe Jonas. Let the boy craziness begin! Every time we saw something with the Jonas Brothers on it, she would do this over exaggerated swoon. Casey and I didn't know whether or not to be worried or laugh. In any case, it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon.

This week looks like it's going to be a busy one. My dad is heading up today, I have shopping with my mom tomorrow and I have a few more Christmas things to get this week because Lily only has a few days of school left (Friday is her first day of "winter" break.) I'm looking forward to having a nice and relaxing holiday and I can't wait to see how Jackson does opening presents.

Ow-Choo!

2008-12-07T17:31:00.002-05:00

This weekend I have been fending off what I can only hope will be a less than horrible cold. It started out on Friday with a tickle in my throat. Saturday I woke up and it felt like my throat was on fire. After several of those tasty halls fruit breezer thingeys (I think that's what they are. They taste like the strawberry creme saver candies that I think hershey's makes.) and gargling way too much salt water (I think I gargled and spit out the Red Sea, seriously.) I finally decided to crack and get some tylenol sore throat.

My throat felt much better... Until I started sneezing. Then, all bets were off. Instead of ah-choo! It was OW-Choo! It's like the sneeze originated in my throat instead of in my chest. And to top it all off, each sneeze made my head spin! I decided to sit on the couch or lay in bed a good portion of the day until my mom called me to come and pick up Lily. We got Lily, we picked up a couple of movies and home we went. Oh, did I mention the fact that it snowed like 3 inches while we were doing this driving?

Sunday I have spent on the couch, with Jackson and Lily entertaining us. Jackson crashed for a nap around 3:00 and I dozed off on the couch a bit between flipping between The Lake House and Tin Man. All in all it's been a pretty uneventful weekend. I can't wait for this sore throat to go completely away. We're also waiting for the pizza we ordered to show up. Pizza on a cold, snowy day is nice. No cooking is nice, too, even though I had planned to make Christmas goodies today. So much for that plan. I would rather do it when I'm in a better mood and feeling better, though.

Hopefully sometime this week we'll put up the Christmas tree and I'll post photos.

Over the river and through the wood's to Daddy's house we go!

2008-11-26T10:55:00.003-05:00

Quite literally. My dad lives in the boonies and we will be crossing the Ohio River while we're at it! Whoo hoo! I will be taking my new Rebel XT so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and overwhelm each and everyone of you with them!

Tomorrow is thanksgiving and tonight we drive south (note to self: pack football) to warmer weather (50's it said on weather.com) and much fun and relaxation will be had. Friday we go to the Circus and Saturday we drive back. Sure, it sounds hectic, but I promise you that there will be slothfulness in there somewhere. I'm actually looking forward to heading down. I'm downright excited. There is an anxiousness that is just overwhelming at this point and I'm checking and double checking (at this point I actually think I'm octo-checking) making sure we have everything. I haven't traveled with Jackson more than an hour away yet, so this certainly will be interesting. Hmmm..... How will he handle the car ride?

My brain is running in about five billion directions all at once. I very much want to stop and smell the roses or at least grab a bite to eat but there is hair to dye, Jack to feed, dog food to pack (we're taking the dog this time around), yada yada yada.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my head itches. I must scratch and feed Jack.

How I Spent My Summer: The Trailer

2008-11-24T15:21:00.003-05:00

Our fearless director, Tim Richardson, finally released a trailer for Harvey Putter. Now you guys can see what I worked on all summer. I swear, it was much more fun that it looks...

Look what we woke up to this morning!

2008-11-21T10:10:00.002-05:00

Last night when we came home from Lily's school program it was cold, windy and the sky was spitting little bits of snow. No big deal. We went to bed, curled up under our electric blanket, all warm and toasty, thinking it was going to be a repeat of a couple of days ago, which was a dusting, no more than two inches and an easy clean. You could almost say it was practice snow!

Well, we woke up to about 6 inches of snow and it was still snowing when I took Lily to school. I went out at 7:30 to clear the walkway to the car and to clear off the steps and sidewalk. By the time I had cleaned off my car, the sidewalk and steps were already covered again. Sigh. Tis the season? On the way, I saw one of the neighborhood kids, Caleb, waiting for the bus. I pulled over and told him to come on in and I would take him. He gladly agreed. There's no telling how long the little dude was out there.

We have a lake effect snow advisery for the rest of the day and so far, it's still snowing. We'll see when it lets up. I'm not holding y breath. I do know that I have to head to Lily's school in half an hour to have lunch with her and my mom and John. It's grandparents day.

Speaking of Grandparents... I really should call my father-in-law and see if he's feeling okay. I'll do that when I get home.

First Snow of the Season

2008-11-16T19:46:00.004-05:00

It is currently snowing very lightly outside. This is our official first snow of the season. We had flurries a few weeks ago, but nothing stuck to the ground. This is sticking to the ground and it looks like between now and Tuesday we're supposed to get somewhere between one and six inches.

Personally, I'm hoping for the one inch total, but knowing my luck and knowing the fact that it's going to be all lake effect snow... Yeah, I'm placing my bet on the whole "being dumped on" theory of snowfall. Mickie gave Jackson a snow suit. I may go looking for some baby snow boots tomorrow when I take Lily to school and then introduce him to the snow if there's enough of it on the ground.

We are currently re-editting our second short film. We weren't happy with the cuts that we had to do for the filmaka competition, so we decided to say screw the competition, recut the footage to where it actually looks good and told a decent story and the wha-la! Swagger! Casey is thinking about shooting some more footage and turning it into a 20 minute short rather than the 6 minute short that it currently is, but I'm trying to find out when he's going to have time between work and then also Thanksgiving.

This year, for Thanksgiving, we have decided to head to Kentucky. While my dad and stepmom have made several trips up here since Jack's birth, we have yet to head down there. My step-siblings and nieces and nephews are all very curious about Jackson and Morgan, Luke, Peyton and Paige all want to see Lily again, too. Lily wants to see them too. She's especially excited to head down because on Friday, the 28th, we're going to see the Hadi Shrine Circus at Roberts Stadium in Evansville. This is also exciting for me because going to the Circus the day after Thanksgiving used to be a family tradition for me, my dad and my grandpa. We did it until I was 9 or so and my parents divorced. Renewing this tradition, even if it won't be every year, will definitely be fun. This will also be Jack's first trip to the circus, so I'll be curious about how he react to the clowns and acrobats and animals.

Speaking of Jackson, he's all over the place these days. He is constantly following Lily around (he completely adores her!) and they are truly great friends. She's always trying to teach him new things and he is always trying to copy her. It's fun to watch. Jackson has also discovered the art of mimicking every sound possible. His favorite: when I sound like the count from Sesame Street. He is constantly running around going "Ah ha ha ha!" Silly boy that one.

I haven't updated about Lily in a while. Lily made honor roll at school! I'm incredibly proud of her! She recently had her first run in with a bully, though. I was incredibly disappointed with this girl because I thought she had been one of Lily's friends. She had been over several times and then last week we found out that the girl had smacked Lily. After I found out, I talked to the teacher. The teacher, who is awesome, said that yes it had happened and the girl had been punished. I went over to the girls' house over the weekend to speak with the mother and the mother couldn't have been more of a ('scuse my french) bitch. She had been asleep when I went over there the first time and then I suppose the little girl had warned her that I would be back.

The girl aggrevated me the most simply because she was saying that she didn't do it, despite Lily telling us and her teacher about it and her teacher actually seeing it happen. Lily also informed me that the girl had taken some things the last time she had been at our house and I confronted the girl about it and she accused another girl that lived down the block. I said, fine let's go talk to the other girl and her mother. The girl instantly changed her story. I told her, in front of her elder siblings that what she had done not only made her a liar, but now I would think of her as a thief as well. If her own mother wouldn't let her have it, then I sure as hell did.

If you don't parent your own kids and if your kids do bad things to my kids, you bet your ass I'm going to discipline your kids.

In any case, it's over and done and now it's snowing. The Holiday Season rapidly approaches and now, I'm going to watch Jeff Dunham on the tv and tickle both kids until they can't stand it anymore.

Our New President

2008-11-05T08:34:00.001-05:00

It was amazing how this country united and I'm amazed that Indiana was a lovely shade of blue this morning when I woke up. Congratulations President Obama! You did it! Now, keep true to your word and lead us into a better tomorrow...

Would someone please tell me why I have the song "Age of Aquarius" in my head?

Rock the Vote and the Baby.

2008-11-04T17:43:00.003-05:00

It's election day! I hope all of you registered voters got out and voted. Today is one of the days that I really love this country. It's the only day that I feel like my voice counts for something. It's awesome. I also got a free donut and free coffee, so my day was made. Happy sugared and caffinated civic minded Jess!

Today was somewhat okay. My day started at 4:30AM. I woke up to Jack not very happy. I pulled him in bed with Casey and I, and we stayed there until the alarm went off. He hadn't been feeling good last night, and both Casey and I noticed he definitely wasn't himself. At 8:00AM I took Lily to school and went off to vote. I BaROCKed the vote, and as I was stinkiness arose from Jack... He had pooed. So, I finished voting and since we were only a couple of blocks from home we went home for the diaper change. And it was nasty.

I proceeded to change slimey, runny, making my son's butt redder than a tomato poo no less than 4 times in the next hour. Oh, and we went through 4 pairs of pants today, too. Yech.

Now, I am eagerly watching the election results. Hoping hoping hoping that Barack Obama wins. My eyes are starting to drift off, but I'm fighting it... we'll see how much longer I stay up though.

Tomorrow will be a new day and we will be living in a new country. History is being made...

Lullaby

2008-10-27T12:34:00.002-04:00

Normally as Halloween approaches, I like to do a little something like post Rocky Horror Picture Show stuffs, or last year I waxed zombie. Sunny suggested I wax vampire, especially with the impending release of Twilight (oh! The horror! Ugh! Bangs head repeatedly into wall cuz Jess thinks Twilight is crap!). Well, this year I'm going to do something a little different. This year, we're putting up a video that Casey and I entered into the AMC Greatest Fear contest.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you "Lullaby." Now, after you watch it please go vote for it at amctv.com.

What's up?

2008-10-23T20:54:00.003-04:00

Today we had our first parent teacher conferences of the year and I got Lily's report card. She's been working hard and it showed! She made the honor roll! I'm so proud! As a treat she got to pick out dinner and she chose chinese food. Tomorrow is another half day and afterwards we're going to bake cupcakes.

Jackson is walking more and more. Sometimes I think that he grows by the minute. He eats and eats and eats but it's almost like he's a bottomless pit. A skinny, active, bottomless pit. I fear for our grocery budget in the future!

Nothing much else up. We're planning for Halloween and we've been watching silly and/or scary movies. This weekend we're planning on entering the AMC contest with a short film. I'll post the link when we upload.

I think that's all. We've been very dull lately. I'm off... hungry.... I bought peanuts today.

Somewhat like the Walking Dead...

2008-10-14T06:59:00.002-04:00

Color me miserable, because that's what I am. Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, but chalked it up to the fact that there was a drastic shift in the weather so I was thinking allergies.

Sunday, I woke up and I was functioning. My voice was a little off, but I didn't feel too horrible. I went and hung out with my dad, did the pumpkin patch thing with the kids, had some fun. As the day progressed I started feeling worse and worse. I didn't sleep well on Monday.

Monday I woke up and I could barely function. I was incredibly tired, I could barely breathe, there was a definite post nasal drip thing going on that was not fun. I spent most of the day hanging out on the couch with Jack, who was also off. I got a lot of cuddle time in with him yesterday. When I picked Lily up from school (she had been sniffing all day, too) she wanted to come home and lay down. So, she did her homework and then traded school clothes for p.j.s and chicken noodle soup. I went to bed somewhat early. I was looking forward to the new Christian Slater show on NBC, but failed to make it to that. I don't even remember what happened on Heroes. I'll have to catch up with them online.

This morning (Tuesday), I seem to be feeling worse if that's possible. The only reason I'm up is because I have to go get some milk for Jackson, who is now out. Baby needs food. I think I may stockup on some jar food, too. I also may grab a couple of cans of soup while I'm out... Miserable... just plain miserable.

I would like to replace my head now, please.

Guilty Pleasures

2008-10-08T12:47:00.003-04:00

After some prodding from my hubby, I finally coughed up the $12.99 (plus tax) and purchased myself some shoes I've been eyeing for quite a while. He told me I could buy them a while ago but I just kind of put it off and put it off.

But then, we ordered them along with a book for Casey and here we are. Me in my nice tall shoes, doing the "I have tall shoes and I'm cute!" dance! Whoo hoo!

It's been a while since I indulged in my guilty pleasures. Hee hee.

In case you're curious, they're made by Volatile.

Le sigh...

2008-10-06T15:06:00.003-04:00

So, I've been impossibly boring lately. Sunny, our in-house actress from Reno that stayed with us for a week and a half has gone away and our schedule has normalized. Well, I say normalized, but Casey has been driving me insane with movie talk, camera talk, script talk, lighting talk. Apparently because I'm the producer I am forced to know all the boring details. Me, I'm like "Dude, I wouldn't have turned on the television if I didn't want to watch it." (Yes, he always attacks me when I'm watching some mindless drivel on the boob tube... how appropriate because I've been watching reruns of 90210 as of late.)

The only not boring thing is the fact that our very own Captain Jackson took his first real steps yesterday. He walked from the door to his high chair, which was about a 4 foot walk. Huzzah! Wait, no, OH CRAP! MOBILE BABY! We plan on putting a gate in the kitchen so we can keep him out of there if something needs to be done. Our "bachelor" Jackson enjoys long walks from the door to the couch, throwing things, banging on pots and pans and trying to mess with the knobs on the stove. His favorite colors are whatever food he can get stuck in his hair and splttt! Hee hee.

Lily is doing well. Parent Teacher conferences are coming up. I'm somewhat nervous, but not really. We're going to do the whole Hannah Montana costume sometime soon. She has to complete some work first, though, so yeah.

Well, off I go. The kids need my attention as always. That, and something smells icky... like it's burning. And I don't know about y'all, but I'm not cooking anything.

Happy Birthday Jackson!

2008-09-21T11:20:00.003-04:00

Our little man is 1 year old today! Has it really been a year already? Amazing!!

Little man had a HUGE birthday party yesterday. The family from Chicago came, Harvey Putter family came, my dad and stepmom were here (albeit stepmom hid in the RV all day as not to cause any problems)... I think about everyone I knew was here. Very few exceptions to people MIA.

Jack cleaned up quite nicely. The smash cake was brilliant (I'll post pictures later as I have to transfer them from HP to Mac) and the pizza was a hit.

Today is clean up and possibly a trip to the apple festival. Depends on how lazy we're feeling. I'd like to go but it won't kill me if we don't go.

We're definitely tired, though. So is little man. Lily, I think, is the only one that is still having a blast. Ah, to have that kind of energy.

Life definitely changed with Jack... he's made everything a lot more interesting.

What were you doing last year at this time?

2008-09-14T11:11:00.002-04:00

I know what I was doing... Jack was officially 5 days late.

Around the Bend...

2008-09-14T11:03:00.002-04:00

The leaves are falling, it's rained buckets (and is currently still raining quite a bit as I type this) in the past few days and Notre Dame defeated Michigan yesterday. Fall is officially here as the temperatures are slowly falling and Master Jackson turns one in 7 days.

Time certainly flies...

Busy week ahead. Sunny, Matt, and Ben are coming for a visit. Sunny will be staying with us (hurrah!!! I heart Sunny!). My dad is also coming for Jack's party so that will be entertaining to say the least. I hope it's not filled with bad drama. That would not be a good thing. There are three birthdays between Wednesday and Sunday. Happy birthday to Dennis, Kevin and of course Jackson.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I must go into panic mode and start deep cleaning my house. Why? Because I'm insane and I leave everything to the last minute.

So, how is it that he looks like a linebacker??

2008-09-10T17:58:00.002-04:00

Little man had one year check up today. He lucked out and didn't have to have shots (a couple of weeks too early for shots, we're waiting until his 15 month check up in December) so I have a decently happy baby today. The stats are as follows:

Weight: 23 lbs 2 oz. (I think this was written down wrong... I think he weighs more than that. I think 33 lbs 2 oz is more accurate.) This puts him in the 60th percentile.

Height: 31 inches, putting him in the 89th percentile.

His head is 18 1/2" around, which is the 73rd percentile.

So, our little man is tall, skinny and has a big head. Just like his dad. Hee hee.

He is very healthy, though, and doc says more table food less baby food and to start weening him off bottles and onto sippy cups.

Not much else to report other than that.

S'Up

2008-09-09T13:21:00.000-04:00

I've been rather absent from the blogosphere lately. It's been a combination of laziness and busy-ness. This week we're going for the busy bit.

Yesterday, Lily was scheduled for a trip to the dentist to get a filling which ended up being a cap on the tooth (cavity was bigger than they thought) and we set up an appointment for two weeks from now to pull out a baby-molar that is about ready to fall out but for some reason isn't budging. She was brave and did really well, though, and left the dentist office somewhat excited about the stainless steel cap (she called it her "bling tooth") and sporting a Hannah Montana sticker. Fun stuff.

Today we did Jackson's first birthday pictures. They're unfortunately not going to be in until September 23, but I'll have e-copies before then. I decided to put Jackson in a Notre Dame jersey because he was in a Notre Dame jersey the first time we ever had his picture taken so naturally I had to repeat for his first birthday. Such a cutie pie. He was all standing with football stuff and looking very much like a line backer... Stinker!

Tomorrow the little man gets lots of shots. Not fun. He's been kinda grumpy the past couple of days due to a molar coming in (a MOLAR!!?!??!??!!!). So, I'm expecting a very grumpy little dude tomorrow and then the rest of the week will be spent cleaning and rearranging for next week. Whee fun yeah! (I'm not complaining, I'm explaining... how very busy I'm about to be and already am.)

Pictures forth coming!!

First clash of the year...

2008-08-20T19:09:00.002-04:00

Lily brought home homework this afternoon that consisted of her having to write numbers 1 to 1000. Would someone please explain to us what the point is? My step sister, who teaches 3rd grade said that the assignment was ridiculous. Hmmmm..... Casey is writing an inflammatory letter as I type. Joy.

Sci Fi Meme

2008-08-16T22:44:00.003-04:00

Carrie tagged me, so here goes. If you get tagged, you copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you've read the book, italicize the ones you've watched. Then, tag five people to perpetuate the meme.

1. Jurassic Park

2. War of the Worlds

3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park

4. I, Robot

5. Contact

6. Congo

7. Cocoon

8. The Stepford Wives

9. The Time Machine

10. Starship Troopers

11. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

12. K-Pax

13. 2010

14. The Running Man

15. Sphere

16. The Mothman Prophecies

17. Dreamcatcher

18. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)

19. Dune

20. The Island of Dr. Moreau

21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

22. The Iron Giant (The Iron Man)

23. Battlefield Earth

24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman

25. Fire in the Sky

26. Altered States

27. Timeline

28. The Postman

29. Freejack

30. Solaris

31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man

32. The Thing

33. The Thirteenth Floor

34. Lifeforce

35. Deadly Friend

36. The Puppet Masters

37. 1984

38. A Scanner Darkly

39. Creator

40. Monkey Shines

41. Solo (Weapon)

42. The Handmaid's Tale

43. Communion

44. Carnosaur

45. From Beyond

46. Nightflyers

47. Watchers

48. Body Snatcher

I tag Brooke, Meredith, Robyn, Mellissa and Katie.

All Done...

2008-08-11T17:41:00.003-04:00

In about ten minutes I'm going to be leaving for the back to school night at Lily's school and then tomorrow is the first day of 3rd grade. THIRD GRADE!! When did Lily get to the third grade! It seems just like yesterday she was off to preschool and I was a blubbering mess. We'll do our traditional breakfast tomorrow morning (this year, I'm thinking something special since she's so obsessed with waffles) and then, 8AM... off to school and back to the school year routine.

It seems like summer has just flown by. Where did it go?

In other news, I'm thinking of taking Belly Dancing classes...

Moldymort and Ludicrous sitting in a tree...

2008-08-01T09:57:00.003-04:00

To quote my stepmother: "Goodnight, it's hot!!" Yep, and I get to go apply makeup that will undoubtedly sweat off if this heat continues. I am, at this point, doing everything just shy of a rain dance for it to cool down. I actually have only been outside for less than an hour so far today and in that short time I swear I felt all but a couple of droplets of water evaporate from my body.

Okay, so I exaggerate, there was no evaporating of water from my person, but I do feel the need to increase my water intake after being outside for about 45 minutes. Huzzah for air conditioning! Huzzah to the person that invented air conditioning! Huzzah for swimming pools! Huzzah that my neighbor has a swimming pool! Huzzah they said I could go swimming in it if I wanted to! Lovely people, really. ;-)

This evening I get to take my dad and stepmom to the set with me. I'm excited to show them what I've been doing over the past few months. I was showing Libby (stepmom) the pictures I took from the set last night and I think she was surprised. I don't think any of my parental units believe this is an actual movie. And honestly? Sometimes it doesn't feel like that to me, either. Maybe that's because I'm having too much fun working on it. The thing is, we're coming to the end of the shoot and while I'm still excited to be going to set every weekend, it's almost like I don't want to go because I know that today is the penultimate day of shooting. Tomorrow, the last. And that saddens me.

Tim sent out emails about tearing down the set on Sunday. That really made me sad.

I must go hunt down my fly swatter.... one has entered the house and now it must die.

Mega Magi Mooli Con!

2008-07-28T09:11:00.002-04:00

On July 26 we filmed the Mega Magi Mooli Con. For those who need a recap, the past couple of months I've been working on Harvey Putter and the Ridiculous Premise. Its a fun little film done by Richardson Productions and it has also given Casey the kick in the ass he needed to start working on his own film. That's another story entirely, though.

I had such an amazing time on Saturday! When I got to the set and saw the convention, it looked AMAZING! It was like a real convention had come and set up! There were various booths, there was a ton of people, there were even Belly Dancers!! The coolest part? I got to wear Brooke's blue wig and be an extra. Look for me in Harvey Putter with the blue wig. Hee Hee.

Filming wraps up at the end of this week. The gang is off to Terminus, which is a Harry Potter Convention in Chicago, next Wednesday. I have to admit that I will miss a lot of the people that I have gotten to know... Especially Sunny. Sunny plays "Hernia Grunger," who is essentially the Hermione character. Sunny is going back to Reno on the 15th and we won't see her for a while. We have had so much fun! It really sucks, though, because I've only gotten to hang out with her in the past few weeks. She's such a great person! The good news is, though, that she'll be back. We're planning on taking her to Truman's before she leaves.

Tonight is the last production meeting. I'm taking Joe some Fun Dip. He is, after all, the Fun Dip Wizard. I'm also taking Michael some sugar free Red Bull. Freak doesn't do sugar, but that's okay... we love him anyway. Tim... I feel like I should take him something. I'm not sure what I should get him. I'll come up with something interesting, though. Just a little something to say thanks and don't forget about me. Like they possibly could... haha.

I just gotta say....

2008-07-26T23:08:00.002-04:00

...I look fabulous with blue hair!

It's a wig, people... That, and my hair isn't that long yet.

Lily likes to Sing This Song...

2008-07-15T09:13:00.002-04:00

"'Cuz there ain't no party like my nana's tea party..."

I got Flight of the Conchords from my very awesome friends, Jed and Brooke. We proceeded to plow through the first (and currently only) season and the promptly searched for whatever conchords stuff we could find. Lily likes them too and I caught her singing this in the backseat yesterday on the way to the dentist... I am under the impression it's cute.

This isn't going very well, is it?

2008-07-08T09:25:00.005-04:00

Day two of summer school and it seems that summer school is not the problem. Lily thuroughly enjoyed summer school. In fact, she came home proclaming it "awesome" and the bus that she rode on to get to school "rocks!" I, on the other hand, am growing increasingly frustrated with South Bend's buses.

Yesterday, I expected the buses to be late. First day, not a big deal. I did not, however, expect the bus to be 20 minutes late! This meant that we were sitting outside from 7:30 until the bus finally showed up at 8:00! And then, when the bus got there, it wasn't the correct bus! I asked the bus driver who was this rat faced, sour looking woman, what had happened. She, in a voice appropriate of a rat faced, sour looking woman answered in the most snide way possible that the other bus didn't start so they sent this one out instead. Understandable, no big deal. I could have done without a healthy dose of attitude that early in the morning, though. I just shrugged it off and went about my day.

Today, I was expecting a 10 minute delay just because, but we we were still out at the bus stop at 7:30. 7:40 passes by, the 7:50, Talk of the Nation is over it's 8:00. Still no bus. Wait five more minutes, still no bus. I know the bus wasn't early because the little boy that lives two blocks down (his mom also waits with him at their stop), is still standing there with his mom and they are there at least 5 minutes before we are. There are also a handful of other kids on the other stop, two blocks south. So, we walk home and get in the car. I drive Lily to school and when I pull up, there is the famed bus number 86, right in front of the school, along with all of the other buses that drove to that particular school. Instantly I'm like WTF?!

I go up to the nearest figure with a name badge and inform them I need to talk to the principal and the transportation director. The man, a very friendly and smiling man, ushers me into the office and introduces me to a smiling principal. At least everyone was friendly, because I was ready to rip into some people not just for Lily's sake, but for the half dozen other kids still sitting out on various curbs in my neighborhood. While I'm there, the phone starts ringing like crazy. I'm guessing that was the other parents of the kids who "missed" the bus.

I explain to the principal what happened and instantly she grew concerned, especially when she found out there were still kids out there. The transportation director was there and she had me explain what happened to him as well. He was perplexed. The bus apparently had gotten to the school at exactly 8AM so the driver wasn't early or late. He tried calling the driver and the driver didn't answer. So, he called the main hub and got some information. Hopefully, we'll find out soon what happened. The thing that irritates me the most that not once did anyone apologize. What about kids who's parents are working and they're standing out there waiting for the bus and can't get back into their house?

I thought that sending Lily on the bus would save on some gas, but now I'm beginning to wonder if each day is going to be as much of a hassle. I'm thinking I'll just walk her to school while it's still warm and then when it gets cold, I'll drive her or I'll set up a car pool or something. So that's that.

UPDATE: I got a call from the director of transportation around 9:00 finally apologizing. I still don't know what happened, but I was more wanting the apology anyway. I informed him that I would be walking Lily to school from now on and also picking her up. I also called the school and told them that I would be picking Lily up this afternoon.

UPDATE #2: Lily was put on the bus. Her teacher was extremely apologetic, especially since she called me back to confirm that I was indeed picking her up. This really sucks since I WALKED to the school (and it started raining just as I was starting my walk back...the big, thick raindrops kind of rain, too!). The school called and had the bus come back and then Lily and I walked home.

Transportation today has been an absolute disaster.

Now, what was I doing again?

2008-07-07T09:27:00.002-04:00

I woke up at 6:45 this morning. I haven't done that in a while. I actually woke up before that, but I hit the snooze until 6:45 and then realized it was 6:45 and bolted out of bed in sheer panic. I had to get out the door by 7:30 this morning, so yeah... No worries, though.

The reason for my panic is that Lily started summer school today. Her last day of school was back in May so we've had a nice cushy few weeks of vacation that consisted of nothing but staying up way too late and waking up way to late. Even Jackson protested this morning when I got him out of his crib and dressed him. All three of us were groaning like zombies in search of human flesh. It wasn't pretty.

But, we made it. Out the door by 7:30 and to the bus stop by 7:35. Now, I'm a complete noob when it comes to the bus. I, myself, have been on a school bus a handful of times throughout my life. Two of those times, a kid through up and I remember it trickling to the rear of the bus under our feet. I consider myself lucky that more kids did not through up. This, however, was the first time I'd put Lily on a bus for anything and I have to admit that I was a bit nervous. Lily and I had been chanting the number of the bus that was supposed to pick her up and bring her home off and on since yesterday. We walked the route a couple of times so she'd know exactly where it was. The good news is, the bus stop is right in front of one of her friends' house, so in case I'm late, she can wait there (like I'd be late!) We had a talk about stranger danger, what to do if someone tries to come near her, all that paranoid stuff that parents talk to their kids about (with good reason, too).

The bus was supposed to show up at 7:40. The bus did not show up until 7:56. And then, the bus that did show up was NOT the same bus that they said it was going to be in the little communique that I recieved last week. This wasn't bus 86! This was bus 810! We didn't practice 810! Why am I putting my kid on a bus again? Oh yeah... high gas prices, this is a way to save gas. Lily looked at me rather nervously as she got on the bus and I gave her my best "It's okay, honey. You'll be fine." Mommy look in return. If Portage wasn't such a busy and horrible street, I'd walk her to school and back.

In any case, as she left, I yelled "REMEMBER YOUR BUS NUMBER!" and off they drove. I can't wait until she comes home. I find myself asking a million questions. I also find myself somewhat lost. I'm used to reading a book with Lily first thing in the morning and then hanging out and watching cartoons with her.

Jackson is having a nap (he was out by the time we walked home), so he's not much for company and I find myself having a case of the dropsies. I'd take a nap, but I'm afraid that I won't wake up in time to get her from the bus stop. So, in search of caffinated beverages I go (we have plenty) and off I go to do housework. It's an odd day... I think I'm definitely going to have to get used to this.

It doesn't feel like July...

2008-07-01T20:44:00.002-04:00

Northern Indiana isn't know for it's predictable weather. In fact, there's a saying that "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." They're not kidding, either. If it's pouring rain, just wait five minutes and it'll go away. Now, it didn't quite go that way last night.

When Casey and I went to bed, it was cool outside, maybe 65 degrees. I got up a few times last night and each time it got successively COLDER. By the morning, we had pulled the fan out of the window and Jack, Casey and I were all curled up together under the comforter, trying to keep each other warm. Casey looked up the temperature from last night this morning and the low turned out to be 48 degrees!! FOURTY-EIGHT DEGREES ON JULY 1!!! That is completely crazy! Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 88 degrees and we're only expecting a low of 65. Another cool but not cold night.

Jackson is wanting my attention, so I must go. The little man is getting bigger and bigger daily and he is now a holy terror in his walker. One of these days I'll remember to video tape him and post it on youtube. Until then, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Lily and Kiran Shah

2008-06-29T23:53:00.005-04:00

For Lily's 9th birthday, Kiran Shah (from films like The Chronicals of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and a bunch of other movies) sang happy birthday to her. Well, actually, a bunch of people sang happy birthday to her. He just happened to be one of them. Below is a picture of Lily and Kiran and so you kind of have an idea of who I'm talking about, a picture of Kiran in full make up and costume from Narnia. Note: Kiran is incredibly nice!! Thank you so much Kiran for taking this picture with Lily!! She was totally thrilled!!

Happy Birthday Lily!

2008-06-29T16:42:00.002-04:00

Today, my eldest monkey is 9 years old. Nine years old!! Where has the time gone? It seemed just like yesterday she was learning to crawl, talk and walk and now I'm starting to get a little bit of pre-teen attitude. She's still an exceptionally good kid, though, but now I'm starting to worry about her getting boy crazy, etc. I say that and yet the first thing she put into the purse we got her for her birthday was fairy toys. I think I still have a few years to worry. Insert smiley face here.

In a couple of hours we'll be going to the cast and crew barbeque where Lily's final birthday surprise waits: The Quaffle Kids and Kiran Shah singing happy birthday to her. I think she'll probably be more excited by Joe (aka Rod Cheesely) singing happy birthday to her than anything... she was "stalking" him around the set yesterday. Pictures will definitely be posted later.

I'm off for now. I want to attempt to sneak in a nap before we go.