My Movie Stars!

Gus and Waldo are movie stars!

Yes, you read that right...movie stars.  At Girls on the Run, I met a girl named Kelly, who is studying film at a local college.  One of her student projects is to produce a film--and when her group decided to do a dog-based story, she cast Gus and Waldo in the film!

Here are some pics from the filming they did today at our house.  I was shocked at how well Waldo did!  He was very nervous about all of the equipment and people.  But his part was to follow the treats--and he didn't need any coaching or encouragement about that!  He "sat" and "stayed" until they called Action, then I said, "go get it" like I usually do, and he followed the treats just like a seasoned veteran!  I was so proud of him.  Not only did he do it that one time, he did it several more times as the camera crew got different angles of the shot.  He had a couple of moments when he didn't "stay" through the whole shot, but it was mostly because the wind was crazy, and it would knock the light and make a loud noise, which would freak him out a little.  But he always listened to me, and did a great job!  A couple of the crew asked if he had done stuff on camera before--they were impressed at how well he did for the first time.

Gus had a small part--the actor brought him to the front door, and the owner of the house paid him for the dog.  Turns out, the owner of the house that they cast was me!  I was not expecting to be on camera, so hopefully not much of my face is in the shot--I had crazy hair because of all the wind!  But because I was in Gus' scenes, there aren't any pictures of his scenes.  He did such a good job, though!  He stayed right where he was supposed to.  The crew was actually surprised about this, because Gus had been kind of hyper around the set up to that point.  But when the camera started rolling, he acted just like a pro!

It was fun for me to be on the set, seeing what goes on, and the cameras and crew members as they did their work.

Gus liked getting lots of love from all the crew:

Here's Waldo, waiting for "action":

"Go get it!"

This is Kelly, and Waldo was enjoying the rub-down.

Here he is, doing another angle:

This is what he was acting in front of.  For a dog that tends to be skittish, he did a really great job!  Again, I was so proud of him!

Gus gettin' some lovin' from the director, Erica.

Thanks for the opportunity, Kelly!

Food Journal

I am trying to get better at making meals at home. We spend a lot of money going out to eat, simply because of the convenience of it. I think if I plan ahead as to what we will eat for the week, we will be less likely to eat out. Plus, I will spend less on groceries, because I will have planned out what I will need, instead of needing to run out last-minute, like I usually do.

So, without further ado, here is my meal plan for the week (with photos and links, if you'd like to try the recipe yourself):

Tonight (Saturday):

Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake


Sunday:

Crisp-skinned Chicken with Roasted Potatoes


Monday:

Hawaiian Ham and Cheese (with some adaptation, since I'm not a fan of poppy seeds)


Tuesday:

Healthy General Tso's Chicken


Wednesday:
Fend For Yourself Night (as I am working--probably sandwiches)

Thursday:

Marinated Steaks, Veggies, and Rolls with Texas Roadhouse Cinnamon Butter

Friday:

Honey Butter Pork Tenderloin

Feel free to check in with me at the end of the week, to see how I did with this challenge. I don't have the best track record with food, so hopefully it will go alright!

So, what do you want to do?

Since moving here, I have had lots of time to think about what I want to do with my life.  Ideally, I would love to have a job where I could work part-time at something that I love, and make enough money to be able to provide a great life for my family.

Photography is something I love, and I am working on building it up in this area, but it is admittedly going slower than I had anticipated.  I am working at Old Navy, but I don't want to work retail my entire life.

I really want to do something in the entertainment field.  Not necessarily acting, though I know that is where bigger money is, but even something behind-the-scenes would be fun.  I also really enjoy writing, and so a red-carpet reporting job would be a lot of fun.

Basically, I am a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of none, which means that I can do a lot of stuff, but don't exactly know which thing I want to do.  It's a frustrating position to be in, because I am basically pursuing a ton of different things, and my resume looks like it has ADHD.

One of the things I have started doing is reviewing television shows for a website.  I have been following Film Thrasher for a while, and saw that they did a lot of reviews, as well as other entertainment news.  I follow the editor and the writers on Twitter, and would have discussions about TV and other things with them.  One day, I just wrote to the editor, and offered my services as a reviewer for some of the new shows for the winter season.  And to my surprise, he said yes!  Not only that, he said that he had thought about asking me anyway.  Sweet!

So, since December I am a featured reviewer on FilmThrasher.com.  I have done an end-of-year recap piece, as well as a Golden Globes Prediction piece (and I did pretty well on it).  I am reviewing the NBC show "The Firm", and the upcoming NBC shows, "Smash", and "The Voice".

I won some tickets to an early screening of "Smash" on January 9th, and headed down to The Grove to check it out.  It was a really fun night, and it was fun to watch TV on the big screen, with NO commercials!

"Smash" is airing Monday after the Super Bowl, and NBC is doing a HUGE marketing push for it.  You can actually download the first episode on iTunes right now for FREE.  It's also on Amazon Instant Video for free.  Here's the link.  Aunt Bren, Katrin would LOVE this show.

You'll have to wait for my official review for a couple more weeks to see what I thought about it, but until then, you can catch my reviews on filmthrasher.com.  Just search for my name in the search box, and you'll find everything I have written about so far.

Here are a couple of pictures from the sneak preview:

New Friends

Slowly but surely, I am meeting new people here in LA.  It definitely took more time than I was hoping for, but thanks to Girls on the Run, and our church Ecclesia, I am finally getting some people to hang out with--and I am so happy to say that they are friends I can really share with!!

One of the people I have been blessed to meet out here is Jessie.  She goes to our church, and the first Sunday we went, I introduced myself to her and her husband.  We have since been in choir together, and now spend time together doing other things, too.  She has 2 boys who I just adore!!  Her boys really want a dog.  So, I took my dogs over to their house yesterday afternoon, so that they could get a taste of what dog ownership might be like. :)  (it is a shame that we don't have any pictures together--we will have to remedy that soon!)

This is Gus, Waldo, and Locke.  Locke absolutely LOVED the boys!  The problem is, I think I turned him into a "big dog person".  Oops!  Sorry Jessie!

This is Shepherd.  While he wasn't as into the dogs as Locke was, he still had fun chasing Gus around the yard, and playing with the ChuckIt.

He got a big kick out of the fact that he could fit an orange into the ChuckIt!  He giggled so much about it!

We heard Waldo give a warning bark, and we turned around to see him investigating Lionel Richie cornhole.  Guess he doesn't like the crooner!  :)

Thanks for having us over, Jessie!

Dollhouse Delivery

Something I forgot to blog about last year when I went back to Ohio was the delivery of my childhood doll house.  My grandparents and my great aunt/uncle made this dollhouse for me when I was young.  It had working lights, and was as much homemade as you could get.  They built it from scratch, and all the wallpaper/carpet inside was from either my house, or one of their houses.  They handmade all the railings and crown molding around the whole thing...and did I mention it had working lights?

The dollhouse has been sitting in my parent's house for many years.  My sister played with it when she was growing up, but it hadn't gotten any use for a while.  I held on to it because it was a special gift, but I also knew I couldn't keep it.  Besides being very detailed, the dollhouse was BIG!!  It took up a huge space, and we couldn't take it with us cross-country.

My friends John and Pam have 3 amazingly wonderful girls, and I figured that they would be happy to have a dollhouse to play with.  So one afternoon when I was home, I took the dollhouse over.

It was a hit!!  Peyton (the younger daughter) started to play with the pieces immediately, and Anna (the older daughter) did what I always did--took out all the furniture, and rearranged it several times.

Since their youngest daughter Sarah is only now 5 months old, I am so excited that this dollhouse will continue to excite little girls for years to come!!

Happy Haircut Day!

Gus got a haircut the other day! We usually cut his hair ourselves. It ends up looking like a hack job, but we only cut it maybe once a year, so it ends up being okay. :)  It actually makes Gus look a lot younger. :)

Can you tell how happy he looks?  :)

All done!

Corona del Mar

My friends Loren and Kelly just moved to Corona del Mar, which is about 70 miles away from where I live.  I am so excited for them to be "nearby"!!  They moved this week, so I drove down to help Kelly and her friend Jess to unpack.  While we were there, we walked down to the beach.  I LOVE Corona del Mar!  Such a great little town.  When you think of a California beach town, you would think of a place like it.  I loved going down to the beach and walking on the sand and the jetty.

Umm...thanks for the warning?

 

 I am kind of in love with this picture of Kelly...

 

This was the jetty.  The rocks were huge!  I wasn't wearing appropriate footwear, but I would like to go back and climb on it some more.  Great photo place! 

While we were at the beach, the fog rolled in.  It was crazy!!  It went from totally clear to completely misty and horror-movie-like in about 20 minutes.

Jess, Kelly, and I displaying our matching "lip lube".