I Told You

I said I was gonna be hard to find and I meant it. I've been up to quite a bit.

• Working on plays again has been great. Even when it's tough, long hours or cranky casts or whatever, it's been great. I'm happy. I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I'm learning a LOT. I have a lot of energy. I feel good about my days and when I'm doing something else and it's sucking, I have rehearsal to look forward to. You should come see the shows, next weekend June 4th-7th, at the Looking Glass Theatre.
• From connections I've made at this gig, I have one, potentially two more gigs lined up for the rest of the summer. I'm a little worried I've got too much on my plate, but I think it'll be OK. I'm happy to be making so many connections and impressing people enough that they want to work with me again. I'm also starting to see ways for me to do more, to educate myself more, and to write and direct plays eventually.
• The wedding arrangements are not as set in stone as I would like. We have come as far as choosing a place we like, but we have yet to arrive at a contract agreeable to all parties. It's frustrating. We may have to compromise our plans, which makes me sad, because I feel like a lesser person when I can't have the thing I want because of money. But I remind myself we are getting married and it's going to be great, no matter what. 
• Had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. Had a lot of time off from work and only a little rehearsal. Got to see friends, family, and Kris. Ate a little too much, but whaddya gonna do?
• My dieting kick has...changed. On the one hand, I am still TRYING to do the best I can with WW. On the other hand, being out of the house all day long and sometimes the food options I plan for myself falling through has made this whole process more costly and sometimes not as successful. I didn't weigh myself last week, 'cause I'm afraid I gained. I haven't been able to get to the gym very much and the fact that that bothers me actually makes me pretty glad, at least. My body has changed to the point where it wants exercise. I'm thinking I might have to alter my plans and just go on maintenance for a little while (i.e. try not to gain any, instead of trying to lose more) because my life just might be a little too full for weight loss right now. I have lost 10 or 12 pounds. I want to lose a little more, but that may not be possible right now and I'm pretty happy with what I've done so far.

That's all for now. I will post more, when there's more to know about anything.

If You Need Me In The Next Month...

...you may find it very difficult to find me. I have joined the ranks of my friends with ultra-busy schedules from school or a band or what-have-you. As of now, I have my rehearsal schedule for both shows I'm working on and now know exactly what I'll be doing every day of my life for the next 30 or so, and also throughout parts of June as well. I'm going to be at rehearsal a lot. I'm not going to see Kris much. I'm not going to see the inside of the gym much either, so I hope I can get a lot of walking in. Amazingly, I will have time to visit the two finalists we're still considering as wedding venues and by the time this whole deal is over, I will not only have been an AD/SM for two one act plays, but also set a date and signed a contract with a reception venue (because I'm awesome).

It's gonna be a whirlwind. The internet, as usual, is the best place to catch me. I will also be free, possibly single, and definitely in need of drinks most weekend nights. 

I had a momentary freakout yesterday, thinking that I had once again taken too much onto my plate, but as it turns out, know that I know when everything is, I think it's gonna be OK. And I know it's gonna be fun.

Work, Wedding, and Weight

Hi! So I'm back. Part of the reason I haven't updated in a bit was a 2 1/2 day tv/phone/internet drought  due to a service problem, which was truly tragic. I found ways around most stuff (baseball on the radio, streaming shows I missed online when we got service back, and using my iPhone as a lifeline for email/facebook/twitter), but man does life hurt without the internet. But anyway, another reason for the blog drought was that I was waiting for some things to be official before I wrote about them. Let's start with the biggest

• I'M WORKING IN THEATRE AGAIN! A-friggin-men, eh? I was getting sick of sitting home feeling sorry for myself while Kris was out having a full, exciting life, so I decided to find and pursue some opportunities and I couldn't be happier with the one that I went with. I will be working (unpaid) as an Assistant Director/Stage Manager (hereafter, AD/SM) at the Spring Writer Director Forum at the Looking Glass Theatre. I am BEYOND thrilled to be working in theatre again and really happy to join this group, since it seems like there will be a lot more opportunities to work on future projects with them in even higher capacities, and they're lovely people besides. Show details to follow, but for now you can check out their site above and keep the first weekend in June open.
  
• We have finally managed to check out all the venues we had picked out as potential wedding sites. Some we loved, some we hated, some we couldn't afford. We still haven't decided on anything, but I can tell you the following details: it will be in South Jersey and it will be late spring next year. We have to compare prices and let a few more people in on the decision-making process, but the ball, it would seem, is rolling.
• I've lost weight! I'm now 9 pounds down and people are telling me I look skinny left and right. Of course, I think people tell you that when they know you're dieting, but I have heard it from a random stranger or two. I'm now halfway to my goal and then the next goal after that is to keep it off, but I am winning the battle against my weight, woohoo!

A Weekend in Status Updates

I had a lot of interesting facebook updates this weekend, I'd thought I'd use them to tell my story.

Friday night Karen thinks life's too short to drink shitty beer. Since being on Weight Watchers, I have had only light beer or wine when an alcoholic drink was called for. Friday night I had points to burn and needed to unwind, so I decided to open just one full-calorie, high quality beer. It was a Brooklyn IPA. It was sooooo delicious and just one was enough to relax me a little. I then resolved to try to avoid drinking light beer when dieting, in favor of earning extra points with exercise and using those to drink real, good beer.

Saturday morning Karen is heading to the gym to complete one full week of exercising every day. When Sarah first told me ideally people earned 28 activity points per week on WW, I laughed out loud. (If you're unfamiliar, that's like, a half hour of intense or an hour of moderate exercise PER DAY). I ended up with 24 last week. When I had to get somewhere far away in the city, I walked. When I didn't have any other opportunities, I went for a walk in my neighborhood. One of the days, I counted helping Kris unload his VG collection from the rented van, 'cause that was a lot of work. And of course Zumba. I'm going to the gym tonight and that brings my streak up to 9, go me!

Saturday noon ish Karen is hitting the showers and then time to make it work! After a kickass workout, big delicious breakfast, and a little relaxing, I took on the task of searching out some theater gigs. My search yielding four applications to various things, none of which have I heard from yet, but I will keep it up.

Saturday 2 pm ish Karen is running some band errands with her fiance. Due to a newly decided upon band dress code, I went around with Kris, helping him pick out all brown pieces for his band wardrobe. Despite the hecticness of Saturday afternoon shopping, it was nice to get out in the warm weather.

Saturday 4:18 Karen thinks that in the 2nd inning, it's already time to pull Wang. Dammit. In a game that began at 3:40, the Yankees starting pitcher had given up 9 runs in the top of the 2nd inning. Shortly after I typed this, Girardi did pull Wang out of the game, and then put in a rookie who proceeded to allow, like 6 more runs. At which point I turned the game off. I later found out the final score was 22-4. Abysmal. (Also? Pull Wang. Tee Hee.)

Saturday 8 pm ish Karen is walking to get ice cream with her guy. Kris and I have been making a habit of this, walking to local places to get ice cream when the weather's nice. The DQ is 3 miles roundtrip, but this time we opted for a local mom-and-pop, only a 20 minute walk. The exercise earns us the ice cream and it's a nice cheap, kinda romantic date. The ice cream cone was an ideal reward for my consistent exercising.

Saturday 9:45 ish Karen just got back from watching a little league game. Both teams played better than the Yankees did today. On the way, home from the ice cream parlor, there is a little league field, and two teams happened to be playing as we were headed home. Kris suggested we watch and we sat for the last inning and a half, rooting for the red team. The kids were great to watch, really enthusiastic and pretty talented for their age. It got us to daydreaming about our own kids (I hope they want to play baseball) and generally it was just a nice sweet fun thing to do. And the game ended in a tie so I didn't feel bad for the kids on either team. And yes, they both played better than the Bronx Bums.

Sunday 1 am ish Karen must go in search of Knowledge and his bastard son, Truth. This is a reference to a sketch in an episode of The State. Kris's recent storage unit emptying unearthed some 90s nostalgia in the form of old yearbooks (Kris was an ADORABLE highschooler) and VHS tapes of the old MTV sketch comedy show we love. We knocked back about 5 episodes and laughed our asses off all night. Not a bad way to end a lovely evening.

Sunday 12:45 pm ish Karen is holding a container of frozen spaghetti sauce against her head. Banging around the basement, trying to get around the piles of video game stuff that lives in our basement now, I stepped somewhere you normally wouldn't otherwise step and clocked my head on a low-hanging pipe. OW! I have not done this since I was a kid. I would bet you haven't either. I came upstairs sobbing and Kris rushed to my aid. I asked him to get me some ice and then immediately remembered noting the night before that we didn't have any ice (and yet not making any, dummy that I am). He came back with a tupperware of frozen spaghetti sauce wrapped in a towel. It was the sweetest bit of TLC I've had in a while.

Sunday 2 pm ish Karen is crossing her fingers that Kris practicing drumming isn't too loud for the neighbors. Look, I love my guy, but we share a wall with other people that until yesterday had no idea a drummer lived next to them. He set up in the basement and made it as quiet as one can make drumming. We haven't heard any complaints yet, but I think it will take a few more practice sessions before I'm convinced they're OK with it.

Sunday 7 pm ish Karen is cooking and dancing. This actually started a lot earlier. I decided to play around with iTunes Genius (for the unfamiliar, a feature that analyzes your music collection and creates a playlist of similar material when you select 1 song). My guinea pig was the Otis Redding version of "Try a Little Tenderness," one of my faves. I got Sam & Dave, Ray Charles, Etta James, and the Jackson 5 in one delicious playlist that was the soundtrack to my afternoon cooking. I whipped up a loaf of banana oatmeal bread to eat for breakfast this week, and then a fancy Morroccan dish called a tagine that I'm eating for lunch all week, topped it off with brewing a pitcher of iced tea and heating up dinner. DELICIOUS.

Monday morning Karen is celebrating being 9 pounds lighter. At my Sunday night weigh in, I found I'd lost a total of 9 pounds since I started dieting, which is about halfway to my goal, which is incredible. I guess I shouldn't say I was celebrating, 'cause I didn't actually do anything, but still it's a good thing.

I hope you had a nice full fun weekend too!

Remember Why You Do This

I've been sort of waiting to update till I had something to report on one particular venture I was excited about, but that has sort of fallen through. Being bummed about that and various other minor things made me not want to blog more, but then I remembered that this place is about cheering myself up and remembering the good things so here I am, back again.

• As I said, the project I was hoping I would be working on has turned out to be a bit of a dead end, BUT to point out the silver lining, I did pursue something I wanted to work on creatively for the first time in a long time. I put myself out there, I made first contact, always a hard thing for me. The fact that it hasn't worked out is basically no fault of my own, and basically, I'm considering it a good thing because it means I'm free to pursue other things. It's a little like a job hunt. You can't just apply for one thing and hope it turns out, you have to apply to as much as you can and see what comes back.
• I started on Weight Watchers, officially, under Sarah's watchful guidance. I have so far lost 5 pounds and managed not to exceed my allowances once yet (so far). I have never successfully dieted in the long term, so this feels promising. Also it is nice to be supporting Sarah as much as she does me, because doing something for someone else always feels nice.
• We began the journey of wedding planning yesterday, in terms of visiting reception sites. We absolutely fell in love with one and felt definitively that the other was Not For Us (not least because of Wedding Coordinator Barbie, who works there). Ways This Makes Me Happy:
  

1. There is something out there we know we like.
2. I am not going to like everything out there (this was a concern for me, mostly).
3. I have a very good idea know of what "what we like" and "what we don't like" is.
4. We agree at least on the basics of what we like and don't like.
5. Having at least started this process makes me no longer feel like we're so far behind in our plans.

So, we have a frontrunner for a reception site, the anchor to all the plans. It is not perfect (it's expensive, but what about weddings isn't) but all the rooms are lovely and so is the coordinator we would work with. We liked just about everything she told us. I'll give more detail about why this site is so great if we end up choosing it, but it's good to know there's something good out there for us.

So, I don't know. In the grand scheme of things, nothing is really going on, nothing of note. But life is happening and it's pretty good these days. 

Out Like a Lamb

Oh dear. I seem to have neglected my blog all month. Sorry readers (all 9 of you)! I bet you think I've been busybusybusy with wedding plans and I thought I would be to. But we haven't figured out our budget quite yet and without that, we can't look at venues, which will determine our date. And until we have a date, there's really no planning that can be done. Plus, as much as I can be a princessy-girly-girl, I'm not especially psyched about getting dragged into the scary wedding industry and all the psychos that buy into it. I had an unpleasant run-in on the forums at The Knot recently that turned me off to using them (the forums, not the site in general). But I'm sure once I'm in full swing, I'll change my tune and become a Stepford Bride :)

• Have been making a lot of positive progress on my body. I feel and look better. My weight dipped below a particular marker that I am always displeased to be above, here's hoping I keep it down. I have been super-faithful to the gym and also gotten in some hardcore walks. (Although, the one I took last night hurt me bad. I need to remember I am not built for high-impact.) Also I am considering joining Weight Watchers and being coached by the lovely Sarah. I'm trying to stick to a Points diet without actually being enrolled and knowing what the hell I'm doing. I've had 1 day of success and I feel that's a worthy accomplishment.
• The band has been great fun and branching out into new and different types of gigs. This month saw the test run of their first road trip as well as their first appearance in a variety show. The trip was great fun, they played a house party for friends of Kris and me. There was a little...legal interference, but once we got the volume to an acceptable level, it was a great show and a good time was had by all, including me who got a chance to hang with a bunch of awesome people I never get to see. The variety show, now called "Alphabet City Soup" is run by the Antagonist Movement. The band will headline the shows every week or every other week (TBD) and the shows will feature all kinds of performers. Last night, we had a guy-with-acoustic-guitar, 2 comedians, a magician, and a spoken word artist. More excitement to come. Look it up on facebook or contact me if your interested in more info or performing at a show.
• The weekend of the party was a crazy busy but great one for me. I got to have a wild night in South Jersey, the next night have dinner with a professor from my study abroad days and several of my classmates, and I did the Colon Cancer Challenge walk. All were very fun and satisfying.

Truth be told, I've been feeling rather boring lately. A lot of my time is spent at the gym or the library or home alone. We have had some friends over to the new place, an increasingly popular social option in these troubled times, and my social calendar does seem to be heating up in the upcoming weeks. But when asked what I've been up to, the answer is not much and that needs to change. I have plans for this, but I'd like to start putting those into effect before I let you all know what they are. Change, she's a-coming. Till then, keep thinking Happy Thoughts!

Somebody's Getting Married

If you know me, you've probably already heard somewhere. But if you haven't, here's the wonderful news.

On Valentine's Day, my wonderful boyfriend of 4 1/2 years, Kris, took a walk with me through Smithville Village. While we were on the bridge over the pond, watching the lights bouncing off the surface of the water, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes. We're engaged. We're getting married.

I have wanted this, and not just this as in "getting married" but this as in "marrying this man," for a very long time and we are both sublimely happy. I am going to marry a man I love who completes me and complements me perfectly. We make each other happy and support each other and we're both tremendously excited to commit to love each other for the rest of our lives.

Most girls want to know about the ring. Pictures don't do it justice, but here's a taste.

The morning after I said yes, when I woke up with a huge smile on my face, the first thing I did was go out to the living room and watched this, because it's how I feel.

I only know that he'll make me happy. That's all I need to know.