What a week!

This week I was a busy girl. On top of my volunteer work, house work, working out, cooking and eating I also had 2 sets of visitors from WA. The Riggs, Ashley, Erin , and Caitlyn were down in San Diego for Ash's business trip so Xian and I jetted (in the Jetta:)) down to spend the day with them. The weather was beautiful and it was SO nice hanging with Erin and Caitlyn during the day. We then picked up Ash and headed to the Gas lamp district, or just the lamp district if you check out Erin's blog:), for dinner and dessert. It was ideal! As we walked back to the car after we said good night Xian shook his head and said that he could only imagine the havoc Erin and I wreaked back in the day. I just smiled as a wave of nostalgia spread over me!

Then on Saturday night John and Diane arrived at LAX for their 48 hour layover in LA on their way home from Mexico. First off, I was shocked that Diane and I had equally tan skin...Oh I mean we had completely oppositely tan skin...she was 60% Intense Cocoa chocolate and I am diluted milk choc...no, make that white chocolate! Over the next 2 days we went to fabulous restaurants, the farmers market, on a hike, on car tours of Beverly Hills & Santa Monica, and discover John and Diane's previously untapped talent for the Nintendo Wii! It was great fun.

I moved away from home long ago and I started completely over 4 years ago when i moved to LA. I knew NOONE! I established new friendships and relationships down here but there is something that is so soothing to your soul to be around people that GET you. They KNOW your past...you don't have to explain why or how you are what you are...they just know. AND they offer insight into your situation based on that deep rich knowledge and understanding. It was a good week!

FINALLY...

...I BOOKED MY VERY FIRST GIG FROM AN AUDITION!!! I moved to LA 4 years ago and enrolled in an acting school where I worked my butt off for 2 years learning how to: reign in my natural energy, use my life experience, live honestly-good bad and ugly, and live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstance. For the past two years I have done student films, short films, starred in a play and done misc. other projects here and there. Since buying our first home 7 months ago I really haven't been putting the time and energy into my career that it deserves and demands. It has been all about getting our home up to par. Well in September I refocused , wrote down my goals, and got to work. I have been movin and shakin. I have been giving my headshot to anyone that will take it, submitting myself for roles, interning at a talent agency, and continuing my personal development as an artist.

As with most industries right now show biz is slow. Many of the agents that I work with are having a hard time finding enough auditions for their existing talent to make a living so they aren't accepting any new talent. Anyways-my mangager got me out on 3 auditions this week. THe first one was odd. It was supposidly at GOLDEN ERA CASTING but it was really in a wierd office @ the Church of Scientology. It was for a commercial to try to get people to convert. The next audition was for Verizon. THe project would be used for in house training and website. The third was for a Web-series...I was sexy Wonder Woman that is icey, manipulative,bitchy, and uses her sexuallity to get her way and kills the bad guys. I just for a call from Jack, my manager, and he told me I BOOKED THE VERIZON GIG!!! It is so exciting! I will post more when I have more info:)

(Mr. Rychlinski-the good luck coin that you gave me totally worked!! Thanks a ton.

CASA

I am currently in training to become a CASA-Court Appointed Special Advocate. I am going to be a sworn officer of the court that will act as the judges eyes and ears for a foster child. When a child goes into the foster system they get an attorney and a social worker. Each social worker has 40-50 cases and the attorney has at least that. So my job is to make sure that my assigned child doesn't fall through the cracks. I get full access to the family, school, and medical records. I check out the foster house, talk with my child and make sure that they get what they need. I am so excited to have the opportunity to really make a difference in a childs life. Xian and I are considering opening our house to foster children in the next couple years so this is good research. A chance to get a first hand look at how it all works. It is a volunteer position, a two year committment. They say it is about 6 hours a week, court every 3 to 6 months and minimun monthly visits with my child. Every case in unique so I am earger to see what case i will be assigned. I will keep y'all posted.

And the verdict isssssss........

MARCH 28,2009!!!!! Thanks to my sisters help and slight cajoling we finally set a wedding date and booked our venue. So save the date. It will be in Tacoma so that will make it easy for some of you and a little bit of a trek for some of you. I am so excited!! My sister will be doing the majority of the planning with the help of my mother, that will be interesting!! I am so happy that I get to see all my peeps and dance the night away...oh yeah and marry my favorite man in the entire universe!

Pics from Seattle Trip

Our trip to seattle

Papa Joe, nana and Sierra picked Xian and I up from the airport. The air was so clean and COLD. I adored my time with Sierra. She is so refreshing with her big smile and tiny little voice. We truley enjoyed our time wakeboarding with Jamie and Pete in Bellingham, dining with Caitlyn, Ashley and Erin in Federal Way, BBQing with AnnaBelle, Trevor, Kristen, John, and Diane on the boat in Olympia, and playing mexican train, exploring, eating laughing, and swimming with Tam, Sierra, and Chris.

What a happy birthday!!

Today was a great day! I woke up next to the man of my dreams. Yes we live together and sleep next to each other every night but Xian recently got a "promotion". This means that there was a problem store that was in desperate need of a good manager. It has been chewing managers up and spitting them out for the past 3 years. It is an incredibly busy store with employees that...hhmmm..shall we say...they have been in survival mode instead of really living the values of our company. It has been 3 weeks and Xian has been making good progress...but it means a lot of over time, stress, and WORK. He works from 5am-5pm and I work 4pm-1am. So we never wake up together. So it was a special birthday treat to wake up, open my eyes, and see my beautifully delicious favorite person in the world.

Have you heard of the House of Blues' Gospel Brunch? I went to it for my 13th birthday in New Orleans. Then my friend Julie took Xian and I to the one on Sunset today. It was SO GREAT! I danced, stomped my feet, and clapped my hands and did I mention danced? It was phenomenal! i had sooooo much fun. The energy was intoxicating. I even danced on the stage with the gospel singers because it was my b-day!

Then I went swimming @ Steven and Sarahi's.

Then I went to Stacie and Tim's for a campfire...or rather a backyard fire. It was fabulous just visiting, hanging out, and enjoying each others company. My birthday was spent with great friends and I couldn't ask for anything else.

OKAY OKAY. If I was allowed to be greedy I would want to have seen my friends and family that are in WA, WI, Denver, and Sacramento too...but you get the point:)

HEAT WAVE!

Okay...so I am so not a happy camper! It is 103 degrees here and it is almost 9pm. It reached 109 today! IIIIICKKKKKY! There were two things that were very important to Xian and me when searching for our house: central air and a garage. This place has both...however the ac broke on wednesday night. The good news is that we asked the seller to buy us a home warranty for 1 year from the purchase date and it included the ac. They are coming to fix it on Monday and we only have to pay a $50 deductible...the bad news is that we have to suffer through this excruciating heat with three little fans that do nothing but push around the stifling hot thick air. Poor Xian slept through his alarm this morning because it sounds like a 747 is taking off in our room with all the fans! C'est la vie!

I had an audition for a national commercial for Gold's Gym. They wanted a "normal, beautiful, athletic, natural, woman in her mid to late 20's with an athletic build that can 'mock' exercise." I am way ahead of the game because I can actually EXERCISE! It was in the basement of this cool building that appears to have once been a bank. I was wearing work out attire so I was, at the very least, comfortable. It was somewhat unorganized with my call time being at 3:30 and me not actually going in until after 5. I did great. It all boils down to the "look" that the client wants because I am sure that we all did sit-up, push ups and ran in place PHENOMENALLY well. Although i wore capri pants they asked me to roll them up and my scar was exposed...I will have to get some make-up to cover it up in the future.

The most interesting aspect of the afternoon was that they were casting a horror porn film in the office next to us so there were many interesting and colorful characters coming in and out (no pun intended). I befriended three drag queens that possibly looked better in 4 inch heels, thongs, and fish net stockings than I could ever hope for myself. This is Mayhem, Detox, and Paulina. You go girls!

Triathalon Day!!

My great friend Stacie and I continued on with our second annual tryst @ the Danskin Triathalon. It was at Disneyland at the California Adventure Park. For those of you who haven't been to CA Adventure it is set up like Coney Island ( think Tom Hanks making his wish in BIG) with a lake in the middle and the board walk surrounding the perimeter of the lake with all the rides and attractions. We swam in the lake in the middle. Then biked. Then ran. It was fun. My biggest strength is the swim! Stacie and I had a good time together. I will post pics when I get them

Sierra!

I found this pic of Sierra when she was about 1. She is so freaking cute!

Sierra's Baptism

Sierra was baptized in the Catholic church on Fort Lewis in January. I was finally able to meet Nate, her God dad. I think Tam and Chris met Nate in North Carolina and he quickly became part of our family. i always heard so much about him but every single time I came to town, which was pretty often, he would always be outta town or busy. I started to think that Tam made up this amazing guy one day when she and Chris were lonley and really wanted to play Rummikub...but he really does exist! I met him the day we became parents together....God parents that is!

Chris, Tamara and Sierra

OMG Here is the most amazing lil family ever. I hope that I like my future children half as much as I adore Sierra. From the moment she was born she has had this uncanny ability to look at you and everything else in the world melts away and you are the singularly most important person in the world! At barley 2 years old she is talking up a storm and makes up songs about everything. Her little voice is s precious! I have about 13 saved voice mails of her amazing lil voice singing to me. I lOVE IT!

Pics to share

The girls and I at the Consumer Electronic show in Vegas in January. We were the "booth babes" for Hitachi. Hitachi sent us a packet of dozens of pages of information that we were supposed to learn. So I was all stressed out trying to memorize all the stats and function of all the new products, but then my friend Curtis bluntly said that all i needed to do was to stand there and look pretty, attract the men to the booth, and then hand it over to the Hitachi men for any extensive questions. Duh! that took a lot of pressure off. It was 5 long days of hard work but I was fortunate enough to meet four great girls. We had a "handler" named Hyami. She was responsible for driving us from the show to our hotel and she was very "interesting". It was like having a den mother. I put a $5 bill in a Wheel of Fortune Penny slot and immediatley won 50,000 pennies which the lady next to me explained was $500:) Plus our outfits were WAY cuter then any of the other booth babes. Over all it was a good trip!

Update on the leg situation

So the stitches are out and my leg is what it is. I am not happy. Not only do I have a scar from the cut but I have a scar of the 14 holes made by the stitches. Not only do I have a Frankenstein scar on my supple, formerly prestine thigh, the scar has now Keloid. i just learned of that term which represents when the scar rises up . I have been diligent with the upkeep from the moment I came home from the ER. First with Neosporin and later with Maderma, Vitamin E cream and Vitamin E Oil. It is just destined to be ugly at this point. I am hoping that with extensive care it will become less conspicuous and eventually not be so offensive to my sensibilities!:)

SO SORRY! I AM FIRED, I HAVE BEEN NEGLECTFUL!

Okay, so there is no excuse for me not posting for a month. I take my camera with me everywhere and take fun pictures with the best intentions of immediatley sharing them with you all but I have been falling short of that last step. Much has happened in the last month! I did the ADR (additional dialogue recording) for a short film that I shot. It was so much fun. I went into a sound booth @ a recording studio. In the booth there is a tv monitor with the footage running on it and I could hear the original sound. We had to re-record portions where a bus, plane, or train interfered with the clarity. It was fun matching my voice to my image. It is a pretty dark character so I cry a lot in it. I even had to match my sobs! I learned that I cry much the same way every time i cry...breathing and whimpering in the same intervals. Who knew? The film is now finished and I will be receiving my copy soon!

I also had my first garage sale! The first day was slow but Julie and I had quality time to play Eqyptian Rat Screw! I haven't played that game in a while but it all came rushing back to me and it is still TOO much fun. The second day we moved to Xian's parents house which proved to be a much better location! We made over $100 and got rid of a bunch of stuff that we no longer need. I think we need to have another sale soon.

Our new town house is a 3 bdrm 2 bathroom unit with a 2 car garage. THe master bedroom is huge, the second bedroom is large and we use that as an office/guest room, and our friend Julie is renting out the third bedroom. She moved in a month ago and it has been so much fun to have her be a part of our family! JUlie, Xian and I all have such opposite schedules that we really have great fun when we get to see eachother. We cook and eat dinner together, play Rummykub, talk, and watch bad reality TV together. What more could a girl ask for?

I was preparing a stir fry last week and all the ingredients looked so fabulous that I had to take a pic! All the ingredients (except the mushrooms) are from our local farmers market that I go to every Sunday. It tasted every bit as refreshing and fulfilling as it looks!

Our friend Jeff (on the phone) had his eleventh anniversary of his 25th birthday. It was fun to see our friends at his b-day dinner...since buying our place we really haven't been socializing as much as we like. We usually have dinner and game nite every Sunday but we don't have a table yet so... I need to get on that!

I close Starbucks a couple nights a week and I adore my guys on my crew. Dan , on the right, is a screen writer from Jersey and Will is was a financial adviser in vegas but was not happy so now he is going back to school. We deal with all the crazies of LA together.

Soccer Tournament

Xian and his soccer team, The LA Jazz, competed in a tournament today held at UC Irvine. They played 3 games and did well enough to then dominate the quarter finals and semi finals. After playing 5 games in 100+ heat they valiantly played the final game but came up a point (or 2) short. Honestly they were just excited to get into a air conditioned cars and go home to their showers and beds! It started @ 8 am so I dropped Xian off and went on an adventure to find a grocery store for some water and snacks. I found a Trader Joes but more importantly I found an amazing farmers market in the parking lot. It was about 4X the size of the one I go to every Sunday. It had musicians playing, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, fresh fish, and arts and crafts! It was great. I bought some fabulous oranges for the guys. It was so nice to get out of the house and just enjoy outside for the day. Since we bought the house all we have been doing has been working on projects. We need to make the time to get out more.

Yeahhh! Time with baby Diego...and his parents

We were finally able to hook up with the Iniguezs' for dinner. Diego is 5 months old and as cute as can be. He has a grown up belly laugh that I could listen to all night long! His dad, Rigo, just finished his student teaching, finished his very last final, and is now in the market looking for a position as a Phys. Ed teacher.His mom, Monica, is a school teacher herself working on her masters. I told Monica about the Megan's Law website for registered sex offenders. The LA county site is easily navigated with pictures of the offenders, details of their crimes and their home address. Monica then became quasi obsessed with entering in the address of all of her friends and family (yes she broke out her address book :)) to see if there are any offenders in their neighborhood. We enjoyed their company tremendously and are thankful for our time with them.

So many birthdays...

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY SCHMO!! I can't believe we found each other @ the Bellingham SPCA 7 years ago! Schmo misses the freedom of hunting and playing in the wilderness behind my condo in Bellingham but she is loving the new house.

I get my stitches out today. I already have some scar cream that I will use asap.

Sierra turns 2 tomorrow! I am majorly bummed that I won't be there for her birthday celebration but that is how it goes for now. I will share pics as I get them.

This week...

What a crazy life I have had this week! It started off great. Farmers Market on Sunday, followed by Xian's soccer game. All was normal until Tuesday @ 5am when I got into a horrible knife fight with a stranger on the street....OKAY OKAY! You got me...i lied...I actually cut myself accidentally with a box cutter. I have been trying to think of a better story so I can avoid telling people that I maimed myself. I am open to any suggestions! Anyways, I had to be driven to the ER and given 7 stitches. * The cut was so deep that I could see the yellowish fatty tissue that was angry that it was disturbed and fighting with my blood to see which could reach the surface first and make me pass out! Luckily everyone took good care of me and I expect a full recovery.
I am bummed about the potential scar but hopefully I will have a good story by that time!

All of my friends that have blogs also have children so I never tire of the updates, stories, and pictures. I was hesitant to start a blog myself because I was afraid that my lil life was far too mundane and y'all would tire of reading about it. But I realize that I can create drama, like my owie, to keep you all captivated! lol Just kidding. Honestly though, few of you have had the chance to come visit me...to see my life. What my house looks like, what Xian and I do for fun, where we shop, which flowers and produce grow here, what it is like to live as a new actor figuring out the ropes in this crazy town. I made a choice to follow my dreams. In doing that I have also sacrificed the ability to be close to you all and share in daily moments good, bad and ugly. This blog might serve a way to bridge that gap!

*readers that have sensitive tummies might want to read this sentence with caution. It is so GROSS! :)