Sunny With a Chance of Thanksgiving!

So our Annual Friendsgiving was a blast! Great friends (old & new) came out to play and we served a feast for everyone. We like to provide all the food and just ask guests to bring beverages to share. And share they did! We had loads of wine, beer, spirits, juice, cider, coffee donated to the party-it was lovely. We served the following menu (all of which is 100% vegan):

Apps:
-sundried tomato dip with homemade bread
-herby tofu dip with homemade bread
-grilled cheeses (made with 3 different kinds of Daiya and homemade bread) & tomato basil soup shooters

Salads:
-Caesar salad with homemade dressing & croutons from scratch
-warm spinach salad with a maple balsamic dressing

Mains & Sides:
-vegan short ribs in & red wine sauce
-vegan pork chops with spinach, sundried tomato, & soy goat cheese schmear with gravy
-mashed potatoes and gravy
-Cuban style sweet potatoes
-sweet potato, banana, & pecan casserole
-garlicky green beans
-brussell sprouts with granny smith apples & red onions
-cranberry chutney
-chestnut stuffing

Desserts:
-homemade pumpkin pie with homemade crust & coconut whipped cream
-apple crisp with vanilla soy ice cream
-peach & blueberry crumble with vanilla soy ice cream
-almond thumbprint cookies with homemade raspberry jam

Needless to say EVERYONE was STUFFED. And it was all animal friendly & I adopted a turkey named Gable this year from Farm Sanctuary that everyone loved. We posted her story on the dessert table so everyone knew who they were supporting by eating a vegan Friendsgiving. We also have a tradition where you have to name at least one thing you are thankful for before you can eat and let me tell you they were wonderful things to be thankful for. I teared up a few times. I am grateful for such a wonderful holiday with friends! It was a blast and we cannot wait to do it again next year! :D

 Here has been my week of gratitude posts:

Today I am thankful for officially being on Joe's insurance and submitting it to the doctor so the surgery can be submitted to the insurance company for approval. One step closer. Day 20 in my Month of Gratitude. [SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!!]


Today I m thankful for silliness. It saves my life everyday to be silly and have silly people in my life. Anytime things have been hard (hello all year) the thing that makes me feel betters SILLY. Day 21 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am thankful for family & friends near & far, of this earth & those who have passed. I am thankful for the health of those people still here. I am thankful for the feast Joey has been preparing like mad, I am thankful for the turkey I adopted named Gable who was saved and now lives on a Farm Sanctuary. I am thankful for my pups who woke me with snuggles and kisses. I am thankful to be having surgery soon. I am thankful for a nephew due any day now. I am thankful for so many reasons today. Happy Thanksgiving to you all and know I carry my gratitude of you with me throughout the year! Day 22 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am thankful for days in bed, setting up our tree, watching White Christmas, snuggling my pups tight, and a husband who loves me. Pretty great day! Day 23 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am grateful for someone who indulges my love of all things Christmas. I bought 6 new holiday movies & he is supporting me about more from Amazon & Disney.com, buying a tree skirt, 3 stockings, more ornaments, bought snowflake placemats & and getting a wreath. Thankful he is patient with me about this obsession... Day 24 in my Month of Gratitude.  



 It's been a pretty great week off of a previously pretty great week (thanks to an amazing shoot with the one and only Michael Madsen and some amazing friends & crew mates). Cannot complain my dear chickens. Hope all is well with you in your worlds. Joe and I are now gearing up for our big birthday week (12/1 I am 28 & 12/5 Joey is 30!)-Disneyland and a big USO themed party. It should be a hoot of a time. I am excited for what this next year is bringing: surgery, healed back, a vow renewal, adventures, and who knows what else! Grateful gal here, really and truly.


 Xs and Os dear chickens!

 

Sunny With a Chance of AMAZING!

So here is the deal, I am shooting as Wardrobe (and a sometimes actor) for my dear friend's web series and today is EPIC. Like mega-star epic. When the pilot is ready I will post it and you will crap your pants with excitement about the fact that I got to work with this person! I am just really excited and grateful to be starting to live the way my dreams in my head are. So very thankful!

And to continue with that thankfulness:

 Today I am grateful to have found where my passion is and to be able to pursue my dreams as an actor. Got to shoot today and it just reminds me that I get to play for a job. Makes my heart happy! Thanks for the fun start today 2 Hopeful Spinsters. Day 14 in my Month of Gratitude.



Today I am grateful for opportunity. Past, present, and future. Day 15 in my Month of Gratitude.

 Today I am thankful for the community I've found at Second City Hollywood. Great performers, teachers, staff, students, interns-I'm glad to know all of you! Day 16 of my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am thankful for my brothers Jason, Marcus (happy birthday!!!!), & Dominic.  You are the best big & little brothers a girl can ask for, even when you're punks. Love you fools! Day 17 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am grateful for my sisters Sam & Gabby. You two are great sisters and even though you both are hooker faces I love you more than I can say. Thanks for being obedient when you were super little to teach me my passion for acting (and directing-oh Blueberry Muffin & Chocolate Lottie), for being brats when you were tweens to teach me patience, for being argumentative as teens to teach me to debate the hell out of any topic & to learn fabulous curse words in 3 languages, and for being great friends as adults to teach me that we all grow up (well mostly). Love you both so much. Day 18 in my Month of Gratitude. 

Today I am grateful for BIG dreams and dreamers! On set with good pals, great crew, fabulous talent, & the amazing Michael Madsen! Day 19 in my Month of Gratitude.

  

 


 

Chilly With a Chance of 1 MONTH!

Here it is, 1 month-ish that we've been married. Here is what I am grateful for these days:

 Today I am thankful for understanding. Having no voice is SO hard for me but people are being so understanding and sweet. And on a much larger scale I am grateful for understanding in general. That moment we all can choose to take to be empathetic and understanding towards one another's ideals, opinions, etc. Day 9 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am thankful for a day of rest. A full day of quiet snuggling, sleeping, and general taking it easy. Sometimes being totally sick reminds you to really take care of yourself. Day 10 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am grateful for my Pops in his birthday! You are the best dad a girl could ever ask for. You are supportive, understanding, encouraging, hilarious, smart, imaginative, and know when to push me. Thanks for making me who I am and for always believing me. Love you Pops! Day 11 in my Month if Gratitude.

Today I am grateful for all the veterans past (my grandfathers and uncles), present (my cousins and friends), & future. Also to my dear friends or their wonderful wedding gift of Mumford & Sons at the Hollywood Bowl tonight. Day 12 in my Month of Gratitude.

Today I am grateful for great friends who support and love me unconditionally. You are my other family. You keep me humble & grounded whilst keeping my head and dreams in the clouds. Thank you for loving me so completely and always saying "I love you." not "I love you but..." Day 13 in my Month of Gratitude.

   
So many, many things to be grateful for in my life! A very glad hearted gal am I dear chickens.

 xoxox

Partly Sunny With a Chance of Election fever

So I had the fever, literally & politically. I am super sick again. BOO! I also got the fever to spread the word to vote, not only is it a right but our duty. Less than 100 year ago women were starving, jailed, and beaten fighting for my right to vote and it is my honor to live up to that legacy. So here are my past few days of grateful posts:

Today I am thankful for tea, soup, and someone who takes excellent care of me when I am super sick! Day 5 in my Month of Gratitude. Also, Happy Guy Fawkes Day and also please, please vote tomorrow. It is so important to vote for the person who will not set women's rights back and the person who will treat ALL our citizens as citizens and human beings and help fight for their right to marry whomever they love. Please put aside petty crap and vote with your heart and your humanity. There are more than 1 or even 2 candidates so educate yourself on all those who are running and all the propositions in your area. Vote and vote well Informed please!



 Today I am grateful to all of those who fought to get me my right to vote. I am grateful to be able to exercise that right today. Day 6 in my Month of Gratitude. VOTE!

That speech! Oh America... I'll say it again: let's move forward with love, honesty, humanity, and peace. Throw in some understanding, equality, tolerance, empathy, and vegan pizza and we cannot be beat! :D



Today I am grateful for love triumphing in so many states & for this: "I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America." Day 7 in my Month of Gratitude.



Today I am grateful for the following quotes to remind myself to love myself: "Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not and to believe in your own individuality." -Henri Frédéric Amiel & “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” -E. E. Cummings. Day 8 in my Month of Gratitude.  


Hope you are doing well dear chickens! Avoid this bug that I have caught again, it is a bugger. ;)

Too Hot With a Chance of More Gratitude

So more being grateful! Here are my day 3 & 4 in my Month of Gratitude!

Here was my post from Saturday: Today I am grateful for the wonderful friends Joe made through his first play, Ghost Light. I am grateful to have a shared experience, theatre, with him now so he and I can talk about the love of my craft with mutual understanding. I am also grateful to have seen most of Ghost Light's production team do some interesting karaoke last night! Day 3 of my Month of Gratitude. I am so grateful Joey got to be an "actor" and got to see what I do from the inside. I am also glad that he loved the experience and that I now get to call him "The Diva". Such a hilarious process but he & I loved it and we got to share it with our family the night after our wedding and they loved it too!

Here is today's post: Today I am grateful to be on the set for 2 Hopeful Spinsters, doing the things I love to do with some flipping delightful friends & people! Day 4 of my Month of Gratitude. My 2 pals are writing, producing, and starring in this series. I get to be an actor, Head of Wardrobe & Hair Dept., and all around helper. It is a blast to be doing what I love with friends & a great crew. I am so excited to see how the pilot turns out. :D

Hope y'all are doing well dear chickens! 


 

Partly Cloudy With A Chance of Gratitude

So I am again doing a Month of Gratitude this year on Facebook & I decided to post it here on my blog too. To help remind myself how grateful I am for my life.

My day 1 post was that I am grateful for Halloween to be over and to be alive & safe. Boy is this one SO true. Read my last post if you don't believe me. So glad to be alive & safe. And so flipping glad that the b.s. of Halloween this year is over. May it never come back again!

Day 2 in the Month of Gratitude is that I am grateful to wake up in my snuggly, zombie blanket covered, Cali king size Tempur-pedic bed with my 3 loves: my husband and my 2 silly pups. I am thankful for that bed-it helps my back and makes me feel better and I am oh so thankful for Joe. He is my best friend and my home. He is also helping make me healthy. For 7 years he has supported and loved me and now when I need surgery he sacrificed a big to-do wedding to help me get his insurance (since mine sucks) so I can get my surgery. He is THE BEST. And I am so thankful for Colonel Mustard and Zeb. Those little pups are snuggle muffins and even though they've eaten my shoes & underwear, I love them for their puppy love, snuggles, kisses, and loyalty. They are the best baby bears in the world!

So that is what I am grateful for so far. I am trying to stay away from material possessions and focus on my intangibles and mostly have, but damn am I grateful for our bed. That thing is AMAZING. ;)


 

My LEAST favorite Halloween ever.

This is a rated R posting, please be aware it involves a description of an assault and a shooting.

 So here is the deal, this Halloween has been horrible. I am about to describe the horrifying incidents I have had the displeasure to be apart of this holiday season. And I don't mean horrible and horrifying in the spooky fun Halloween I mean horrible & horrifying in the very bad situation way.

This past Saturday I was subbing as a House Manager for the night. We had a great night and closed up shop. I then had to wait on Hollywood Blvd. for my husband to come pick me up (he was in a show and I needed to wait 45 minutes for him). It was Halloween party weekend. Loads of very scantily clad girls (i.e. girls in literally [and I am using this word very correctly] underwear and fish nets with either a bra or a corset or pasties) and drunk guys in either creepy masks, no costumes, or a something not remotely creative "costume". Whilst waiting I saw a drunk man grabbing at a gal in underwear, fish nets, and a corset. Grabbing her butt, her breasts, kissing on her face & neck. She kept pushing him away playfully. He did the same to a friend in her group who shoved him quite hard and told him to get the fuck off of her. He then went back to the original girl, picked her up & wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbed and pinched her butt, then ripped open her fish nets and shoved is hands into the the leg area of her underwear, he then began to shove his hands into her butthole and [I believe] vagina. She began flailing and yelling at the man. He kept putting his fingers in and out of her butt until she wriggled off of him, pushed him, shouted, and walked briskly into a restaurant. He began to say to his friends how he wanted to "get some more of that sweetness" and "wanted a taste". This man assaulted this girl. I have no idea if she knew him or not. Her playful shoving seemed to indicate so but I have no idea of knowing. I just know I witnessed an assault and I was NOT OKAY with it. I yelled. I wanted to kick the crap out of him. I feel traumatized by it, I hope she was okay and reported it. I want that man to be punished. SEVERELY. And I am angry that I didn't do something more. That I felt scared and didn't do something. That NO ONE did something. It was not okay.

Then I was working a  House Manager again last night at Second City. We were seating for our 10PM show. We heard *POP POP POP* at about 10ish. Then there was a massive panic on Hollywood Blvd. People ran up our stairs hysterically screaming and crying. Our Stage Manager yelled everyone on the floor and away from the windows, someone is shooting! We (the staff & interns) got everyone into the hallways & back rooms, turned off the lights, and began to try to quiet the hysterical teenagers from the street down. We also tried to clear the stairwell where people were like fish in a barrel if the shooter came by. We called 911, we quieted those who were panicking and screaming, we held the doors closed against a possible shooter heading our way, we held our breaths and hoped we wouldn't have to be brave. We had people choose to leave the theatre out towards the chaos after we warned not to. We saw a young boy sitting across the street with his foot shot writhing about. The news said he was 14. We also saw a young man put into an ambulance (17 shot in the chest in critical condition). We found out a 25 year old was shot in the butt. I was in the store it happened in/in front of just an hour or so prior. I sincerely hope everyone involved ends up okay and I hope that the man shot wasn't one of the store clerks that I talk to all the time. We had one of interns need to lock herself in the bathroom downstairs in the box office until the chaos calmed down. We also locked down the theatre when we were able. We turned away some shady people who tried to get in at the tail end of the big panic. We then let people leave through our back door only in groups. The shooter/s was/were not apprehended. Needless to say the street was closed down, things were crazy, we all felt lucky as hell to get out of there okay, and when I got home at 12:15ish AM I was so glad to get into a hot shower, my pjs, and my bed with my pups and husband. I was scared and angry and shocked and proud I did do something. That I kept cool on the outside despite my internal panic button screaming in my ears. That I stood up and was brave and helped keep people safe. It was not okay though.

This holiday & these two incidents has made me dislike Halloween quite a bit. A holiday I used to love [since I got to play dress-up and watch spooky movies and hang up fun decorations for] has become a day/night/weekend where people hide behind masks and alcohol and do TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, AWFUL things to other people. No one wanted these things to happen. No one asked for or deserved these things to happen. And whilst Hollywood Blvd. has its everyday "characters" to be aware of, none of this is normal or okay. None of this will ever be okay. I am angry and scared and quite a bit scarred. I am glad it is all over and I walked away mostly okay. But I have to say I am exceedingly sad that my childhood is completely stripped from this holiday. It has become too much about horrific events like this. I am now spending my Halloweens at home safe with my family watching scary movies. I want the scary things I see to be on my television in a made up film NOT on the street in front of me.