Following the Yellow Brick Road...

...has brought me from being this girl at 12 years old:

To being this woman at 24:

This weekend, I get to perform at the Gershwin theatre for 1600 girl scouts and get another teeny tiny taste of what it's like to work on Broadway. I've found that every time I do the Wicked workshop that I'm a part of, it gets harder and harder to walk away from that world and go back to being on the other side of a Broadway stage. It's wonderful, though, to get a little kick in the ass and remind me what I'm working so hard for.

This is my dream and I will get there.

2010 Twitter Retrospective

So it's a new year, huh, folks? Funny how fast that happened, isn't it?

I get very contemplative and analytical around this time every year, much like many people do. And I've always thought that keeping one of those "one line a day, every day of the year" kind of journals would be so cool and manageable (and perfect to read on December 31st!), yet I've never been able to get one going.

But then I realized, "hey, I do kinda keep a one or two line a day public journal -- Twitter!" So I spent some time combing through the good ol' archives from 2010 and picked a few of the tweets from each month that best encapsulated my experiences to bring to you: The 2010 Twitter Retrospective!

January:

14 - Gah, I cry every time I write a wedding recap, watch the wedding video, or listen to music from our ceremony. I am suuuch a sap.

27 - Very proud that my little fledgling businesses have inspired one of my friends to create his own -- stick it to the man, my friends!

30 - Just rocked The Gershwin. Hope it's not the last time The Gershwin and I meet.

February:

15 - Spending the afternoon crafting up a storm and re-vamping monologues, while surrounded by snoozing puppies. This is the good life.

17 - Hey fellow actors -- it does absolutely NO good to be cold, snarky, or standoffish in the waiting room. We're all in this together, yo.

24 - Welcoming my husband's fledgling NYC casting agency, @HatsOffCasting, to Twitter!

Just another dose of producer crazy ;)

If you follow me on Twitter, then you may have seen my tweets last week about the silliness I encountered when dealing with producers and auditions:

1. The guy who wouldn't give me an audition slot until I told him how many people I would bring to see the show, then when I politely declined an audition, wrote me back a terse email completely devoid of capitalization or punctuation informing me that 300+ other actors would be attending his call (**implication: you snotty actress, you**).

2. The very kind and accommodating producers who were otherwise nothing but wonderful, minus the fact that they sent me my audition slot in military time. Nothing wrong with that, just a first that caught me off guard!

Today I got a casting notice that actually made me laugh out loud. These guys want actors to do background work on a music video for them for the following compensation:

"No pay but Free Brunch and Four Loko"

That's the kind of favor you ask a friend to do you, not a group of professional actors looking to work and advance their careers. At any rate, I may start asking for my checks to be made out in increments of Four Loko.

One (very over-sized) dose of holiday cheer, coming up!

We were in Jack's 99 cent store last night looking for cheap ornaments to fill up the cheap vase I bought from TJMaxx. We did find those and create this (I think) decidedly non-cheap-looking Christmas centerpiece:

But what this post is really about would be this lovely holiday decoration:

The LARGEST CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENT KNOWN TO MAN! Dan and I kept trying to figure out what this could possibly be used for. The only thing that comes to me would be something like decorating the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, but come on...you know they don't use dollar store ornaments at Rockefeller Center.

Any ideas?

Thanksgiving Brunch -- Realized!

I know we're all starting to get into the Christmas spirit (at least I know I seriously am!), but I just wanted to share with you how our little Thanksgiving Brunch turned out, since I teased you with a little inspiration board already.

Here was the spread, pre-devouring (also, no one had shown up yet, so a fruit salad and some more muffins were added after this picture was taken):

I loved the tablecloth and how cute Martha's pumpkins looked. Also, there's something so fun and fancy about whatever you've cooked/baked when it's served from either a footed cake plate or on a cool platter. Thank you, wedding gifts! 

A close-up of the Pumpkin Cream Cheese muffins, the Blueberry Cheesecake muffins, and the Coffee Cake. Plus, the little orange tented signs I made the night before so everyone would know what they were eating!

Please do yourself a serious favor (and your waistline a serious disservice) and run, don't walk, to your nearest grocery store to get the ingredients to make these Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. They may be the best thing I've ever baked, and I bake a LOT.

Yummy from-scratch Cinnamon Buns that taste so much better than store-bought. And they're on the pretty platter my Mom bought me for my bridal shower! :)

Dan insisted of getting a picture of me in front of my masterpiece after watching me work so hard to get it all together. It took me the entire day before Thanksgiving to bake everything and almost three hours that morning to do last-minute prep and assembly! Totally worth it, though!

We had some seriously yummy things to munch on while loving that view.

And just in case you wondered if everyone else enjoyed themselves, too...

After the parade, we went to a friend of a friend's house and had a delicious and entertaining Thanksgiving dinner with new friends. All in all, an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving, if a bit a-typical!

How was your Thanksgiving? What did YOU make (or eat?!)?

File this fashion statement under, "Thanks, But No Thanks"

The only possible use I can think of for this hat would be if your occupational hazards including "freezing to death" and your work address is "#1 North Pole":



Just thought you could use a laugh on this dreary weather day :)

First NYC Snowfall of the Season?

Last night, while walking home from "Fuerza Bruta" (go see it!!), we came across Madison Square Park blanketed in the first snowfall of the year:

Or was it?

Not really, since the rest of the city is decidedly NOT covered in snow. Actually, it seems like they must be filming something set during the winter, since they put a whole lot of effort into trucking in snow machines and blanketing four whole blocks in man-made snow, then proceeding to rope it all off with caution tape.

It was just a funny thing to all of a sudden step into a winter wonderland and then right out of it again. Only in New York, huh?

Has your area had its first snowfall yet?

Holiday Cards 2010 Style

We had a very talented photographer friend come over and take some cute pictures of our little two-person, two-canine family last week for the express purpose of sending holiday photo cards! I don't want to show you the photo we chose to use (because some of you may be getting our cards in the mail!), but I can show you one of the silly outtakes:

(photo credit)

So I started looking for places to get holiday photo cards printed (since I am way too lazy to go the DIY route this year), and I fell in love with the adorable charm of the Shutterfly cards.

These are a few of my favorites:

(photo credit)

I love the simplicity of the message: "joy." How lovely, right?

(photo credit)

I think the charm of these fun fonts just won me over for this card. I love a good word montage.

And finally, this one, which is the card we'll be getting, minus the adorable child, of course:

(photo credit)

Again, I think the fun fonts and the cheerful colors won me over. And I think the swirls are sweet, too. I can't wait to see how our cards turn out, as this is the first year we've ever done photo cards! I always write a little family newsletter to include in our cards, too, so hopefully everyone enjoys opening our little paper holiday greetings! :)

*Disclaimer: Shutterfly is currently offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers who write a post about their holiday products, so I am being compensated for this little dose of holiday stationery cheer.*

Thanksgiving Brunch Buffet Inspiration Board

So what do you do when you love to craft/plan/organize and you've already gotten married? Create an inspiration board for your home parties, of course!

Next week is Thanksgiving, of course. Which on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan means birds-eye Macy's Parade views. You might remember from last year that I posted a picture or two of the awesome view we have of the parade from our balcony.

Well, this year, I wanted to take advantage of our view and the fact that we don't have time to travel and be with family for Thanksgiving, so we are hosting a Thanksgiving breakfast/brunch for friends who would like to come over and share in the parade and some yummy food with us. I can't wait! I'm so excited that I bought a new tablecloth (we only owned one before...bad wife, bad wife...) and have spent time imagining how I want our little brunch spread to look:

(Photo credit, from L->R: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,10&12 are personal)

The serving ware we already have from wedding gifts, I bought that pretty tablecloth at TJ Maxx, the flowers are mums from the corner deli, I want to craft those paper pumpkins a la Martha, and the foods are all ones I'm considering making.

Whaddya think? This will be my first time hosting more than four people for a meal -- any suggestions?

What are your interesting/a-typical Thanksgiving plans?

Our Actors Day...I mean, Halloween Costumes!

Of course Halloween is one of our favorite holidays -- it's no secret that one of the most fun parts of an actor's job is the dressing up part, so why wouldn't we love a holiday where everyone gets in on the fun of our profession? :)

I was looking through old Halloween pictures to try to write a blog post taking you through my costumes in recent years, but came across a problem when I realized 1. Most of my Halloween costumes in college aren't really appropriate for general internet posting (haha), and 2. I had FOUR separate costumes for Halloween my senior year alone. Woah. In my defense, we had many, many Halloween events to go to that year, but I'm not sure why I needed a separate costume for each event. My Mom says it's because I'm a diva. Whatevs.

I guess I'll just share one from that year because it's one of our best couple costumes ever. Not because it was such an original idea, or because it was perfectly executed or anything, but just because it was so appropriate for us as a couple: Roger and Jessica Rabbit.

And now for this year...

If you haven't seen the "Double Rainbow Guy" video on YouTube, please check it out. It's hilarious, although the audio prooobably isn't safe for work, but you won't understand my costume without watching it:

This year I went as a double rainbow:

And we went to the Village Halloween Parade and saw two other double rainbows while we were there, although both were very differently executed.

Dan went as YouTube, making us quite the pair:

And our lovely friends went as a flapper and a dead, Mexican gunslinger, both very well done:

It was absolutely freezing last night, and by the end of the night, both of us ladies were wishing we had that Mexican blanket as a part of our costumes!

What did you dress up as this year?