Michelle's book is now available! Click here to go to her website where you can order from her or from a couple of other sources. I would recommend ordering from her since you'll get a signed copy and you'll be supporting her more than the "big box" stores. She also has a couple of difference ebook versions in case you've got one of those readers.
Enjoy!! Plus you can say that you know someone on a cover of a book.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Fun stuff for the week
Since it's summer, I've been out of the loop when it comes to the blogging stuff. I used to do it frequently because I was sitting in front of the computer all day at work, but now that I'm at home I'm either working on costume stuff, working on the house, or just taking some time to relax.
However, just to keep it fresh in people's minds, the book that a good friend of mine is publishing comes out the second week in August and she's having a contest. If you'd like to enter it, CLICK HERE! and it'll take you to her author site and you can read up on it there. Plus, you can always brag that you know someone who's on a cover of a book. (I still can't believe that it's me on there.)
On other news, we've been doing some more updates to the house. Nothing really major but it is enough to start making a difference. We bought a new dishwasher because the old one was becoming a nuisance. We had to wash the dishes again after it went though a wash cycle because it wasn't cleaning correctly. And to top it off, a good majority of the pegs on the inside drawers were broken off (that is how it came). Now we've got a new one that is a stainless steel interior and uses EcoSense, which is a newer technology that "senses" how dirty the dishes are and adjusts the temperature and amount of the water so it only uses the right amount. Plus, it's black on the outside and that is the color of appliances that I want to go for when I redo the kitchen entirely.
We also, just recently, got a new fridge as well--and it comes with a interesting story. My parents have 2 fridges. They have one in the house and one in the garage. The one in the garage finally went kaput after 14 or 15 years of working. So they went shopping for another one. Jakob and I were sitting talking in the kitchen when my mom gives me a call saying that they bought a new fridge and were taking it over to our house. I was a bit confused and then she explained that why was she going to put a new fridge in the garage when we could use a new fridge and she could take our old one (which was working) and put that in the garage. So now I've got a new black fridge to match my dishwasher. All I need now is a oven that works and a above-range microwave that is easier to work with and I'm set.
Jakob is in Pirates of Penzance, which plays at the Castle Theater this weekend and next weekend, then goes to the American Fork Amphitheater for the first week in August. You won't be disappointed with Jakob's performance. It is classic Jakob. To be honest though, ignore the Cops when they come on. They really aren't that good. Some of the Maidens are worth watching, but the rest just make some of the show drag. I'm filming it either tonight or tomorrow (Saturday) night again because my first recording didn't turn out so well. My camera had a bunch of glitches and I didn't like the way the recording turned out, so once again I've got to sit through it. The only real reason I'm recording it is we're trying to put together a archive of Jakob's shows and his fight choreography so he can send it out to agencies.
My two little ones are driving me bonkers but I love them. Jimmy has learned a new talent: he can open base cabinet doors. I never thought I would have to go and get child proof locks to ward against a cat opening cabinet doors. Sadie has learned that she can get on top of the china hutch and see everything that goes on within the main floor and Jimmy can't get to her, so she spends a good majority of her time there.
However, just to keep it fresh in people's minds, the book that a good friend of mine is publishing comes out the second week in August and she's having a contest. If you'd like to enter it, CLICK HERE! and it'll take you to her author site and you can read up on it there. Plus, you can always brag that you know someone who's on a cover of a book. (I still can't believe that it's me on there.)
On other news, we've been doing some more updates to the house. Nothing really major but it is enough to start making a difference. We bought a new dishwasher because the old one was becoming a nuisance. We had to wash the dishes again after it went though a wash cycle because it wasn't cleaning correctly. And to top it off, a good majority of the pegs on the inside drawers were broken off (that is how it came). Now we've got a new one that is a stainless steel interior and uses EcoSense, which is a newer technology that "senses" how dirty the dishes are and adjusts the temperature and amount of the water so it only uses the right amount. Plus, it's black on the outside and that is the color of appliances that I want to go for when I redo the kitchen entirely.
We also, just recently, got a new fridge as well--and it comes with a interesting story. My parents have 2 fridges. They have one in the house and one in the garage. The one in the garage finally went kaput after 14 or 15 years of working. So they went shopping for another one. Jakob and I were sitting talking in the kitchen when my mom gives me a call saying that they bought a new fridge and were taking it over to our house. I was a bit confused and then she explained that why was she going to put a new fridge in the garage when we could use a new fridge and she could take our old one (which was working) and put that in the garage. So now I've got a new black fridge to match my dishwasher. All I need now is a oven that works and a above-range microwave that is easier to work with and I'm set.
Jakob is in Pirates of Penzance, which plays at the Castle Theater this weekend and next weekend, then goes to the American Fork Amphitheater for the first week in August. You won't be disappointed with Jakob's performance. It is classic Jakob. To be honest though, ignore the Cops when they come on. They really aren't that good. Some of the Maidens are worth watching, but the rest just make some of the show drag. I'm filming it either tonight or tomorrow (Saturday) night again because my first recording didn't turn out so well. My camera had a bunch of glitches and I didn't like the way the recording turned out, so once again I've got to sit through it. The only real reason I'm recording it is we're trying to put together a archive of Jakob's shows and his fight choreography so he can send it out to agencies.
My two little ones are driving me bonkers but I love them. Jimmy has learned a new talent: he can open base cabinet doors. I never thought I would have to go and get child proof locks to ward against a cat opening cabinet doors. Sadie has learned that she can get on top of the china hutch and see everything that goes on within the main floor and Jimmy can't get to her, so she spends a good majority of her time there.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Funny videos
While I was taking a break this morning from working on costume stuff, I found these videos. Enjoy! I thought they were kind of funny.
This next one I didn't find too funny, but I thought I'd put it up here anyway. It was sent to me by a friend.
This next one I didn't find too funny, but I thought I'd put it up here anyway. It was sent to me by a friend.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Car glitch
So, earlier I was talking about the trip we took to Southern Utah. Well, it wasn't without incident--can't my trips go without a major setback? So the story goes as follows:
We started the trip out at around 1:30pm. We didn't have to be there until around 5pm so we were thinking of taking the scenic byway and enjoying some stops (considering it was one of the few weekends that I would have Jakob before his show). Right before the exit to the scenic byway I started noticing that my car would lurch every once in a while, so I clicked off the A/C and after discussing it with Jakob we decided to stay on the main interstate as an "in case" scenario. We're happy that we did because about an hour into the trip the Check Engine light came on and every time the car tried to accelerate, the RPM would go up but the car would slow down. We got off at the nearest town (Fillmore) and tried to find a mechanic to talk to. We found one, but he took one look at my car and said it was 'too new' and he didn't have the right equipment to figure out what was wrong and the guy in town who did was closed for the day. (Closed? at 2:30pm on a Saturday? Yeesh, small towns). He told us to continue down to the next town after letting the car sit for an hour or so to cool down. So we let it sit for about 30 minutes because I wasn't sure if the car would accelerate and we had to take it super slow in order to get it anywhere.
So off we were again to the next town which was about 50 miles south. The car again didn't accelerate when called upon so we had to gently get it up to 60, turn the cruise control on and use the hand accelerator. It still had issues but at least I got up to somewhat interstate speeds. Unfortunately the speed in that area is 75-80, so I was going 65-70. Yep I was the slow grandma in the right-hand lane. Took us twice the amount of time to get to the next town (Beaver) because of it. When we pulled into Beaver, we looked for the mechanic that the first guy had told us to and when we did, he didn't look happy to see us. There wasn't a greeting or anything. In fact he looked like we were disturbing him. Anyway, I let Jakob deal with him on almost anything and I answered the questions about the car when Jakob couldn't. The guy took one look at it and said that my car was 'too old' for him to look at because he had just replaced the sensor hookup for his equipment. (By the way, my truck is a '95.5. Since when is that old? It's 15 years only and I just barely broke 100,000 miles. My yellow Oldsmobile is a '86 and it only has 87,000 on the original engine). Anyway, after staying there for another hour, I called a friend who was coming down as well and asked where they were. Luckily enough they weren't far behind, so after the "mechanic" saying that since the car was still working to just continue on and ignore the check engine light (I'm never going back to him) we continued on. When the turn-off came, there were 2 vans that had pulled behind us and then pulled in front--yep, it was the friend and their caravan. We were the caboose the rest of the way there and it was not fun.
When we finally got to the location, we ended up leaving the car and seeing if a long rest would do it some good. We were planning on coming back after the event that evening, but we ended up staying the night. We took off the next morning and here's the kicker: there was no problem on the way back. None. We were fine the rest of the way. We had my mechanic look at it once we got it back into town and he kept it for the day running every test he could think of and there was nothing in the computer's history codes that suggest anything went wrong. My guess is that my truck was throwing a tantrum because it didn't want to go down south and it knew we were coming back up so it ran smooth.
Ugg! I had to drive up to Ogden the next few days after that for some teacher's workshops and there was nothing wrong with it. It didn't give me one symptom. I really think that my truck has a mind of it's own. And what's even worse was the guy in Beaver suggested to me to "get a newer truck, one that I could handle". Yep, never going back to that guy again.
We started the trip out at around 1:30pm. We didn't have to be there until around 5pm so we were thinking of taking the scenic byway and enjoying some stops (considering it was one of the few weekends that I would have Jakob before his show). Right before the exit to the scenic byway I started noticing that my car would lurch every once in a while, so I clicked off the A/C and after discussing it with Jakob we decided to stay on the main interstate as an "in case" scenario. We're happy that we did because about an hour into the trip the Check Engine light came on and every time the car tried to accelerate, the RPM would go up but the car would slow down. We got off at the nearest town (Fillmore) and tried to find a mechanic to talk to. We found one, but he took one look at my car and said it was 'too new' and he didn't have the right equipment to figure out what was wrong and the guy in town who did was closed for the day. (Closed? at 2:30pm on a Saturday? Yeesh, small towns). He told us to continue down to the next town after letting the car sit for an hour or so to cool down. So we let it sit for about 30 minutes because I wasn't sure if the car would accelerate and we had to take it super slow in order to get it anywhere.
So off we were again to the next town which was about 50 miles south. The car again didn't accelerate when called upon so we had to gently get it up to 60, turn the cruise control on and use the hand accelerator. It still had issues but at least I got up to somewhat interstate speeds. Unfortunately the speed in that area is 75-80, so I was going 65-70. Yep I was the slow grandma in the right-hand lane. Took us twice the amount of time to get to the next town (Beaver) because of it. When we pulled into Beaver, we looked for the mechanic that the first guy had told us to and when we did, he didn't look happy to see us. There wasn't a greeting or anything. In fact he looked like we were disturbing him. Anyway, I let Jakob deal with him on almost anything and I answered the questions about the car when Jakob couldn't. The guy took one look at it and said that my car was 'too old' for him to look at because he had just replaced the sensor hookup for his equipment. (By the way, my truck is a '95.5. Since when is that old? It's 15 years only and I just barely broke 100,000 miles. My yellow Oldsmobile is a '86 and it only has 87,000 on the original engine). Anyway, after staying there for another hour, I called a friend who was coming down as well and asked where they were. Luckily enough they weren't far behind, so after the "mechanic" saying that since the car was still working to just continue on and ignore the check engine light (I'm never going back to him) we continued on. When the turn-off came, there were 2 vans that had pulled behind us and then pulled in front--yep, it was the friend and their caravan. We were the caboose the rest of the way there and it was not fun.
When we finally got to the location, we ended up leaving the car and seeing if a long rest would do it some good. We were planning on coming back after the event that evening, but we ended up staying the night. We took off the next morning and here's the kicker: there was no problem on the way back. None. We were fine the rest of the way. We had my mechanic look at it once we got it back into town and he kept it for the day running every test he could think of and there was nothing in the computer's history codes that suggest anything went wrong. My guess is that my truck was throwing a tantrum because it didn't want to go down south and it knew we were coming back up so it ran smooth.
Ugg! I had to drive up to Ogden the next few days after that for some teacher's workshops and there was nothing wrong with it. It didn't give me one symptom. I really think that my truck has a mind of it's own. And what's even worse was the guy in Beaver suggested to me to "get a newer truck, one that I could handle". Yep, never going back to that guy again.
Friday, July 09, 2010
I'm not crazy . . . .
It's been an interesting past couple weeks. First off, we had the Freedom Festival booth to take care of. It went soooo much better than last year. We didn't have all the stress and the conflicts that we did last year and everyone that showed up said they had a blast! We didn't raise the same amount as last year, but we still raised money for the Wounded Warrior Project.
Now, we've got projects coming into play. Jakob has a show on the weekends (again) and I've got a few costume projects due this weekend and next weekend. We've also got 2 make-a-wish events that we're going to. These are great events. Makes what we do worth while.
But the other thing that has started again is clogging. Yep, I'm getting back into it. I've healed enough and I've gotten stronger, so I want to do it again. I had a class last week and man, it felt good. There were a few things that jiggled that had never jiggled before and it felt amazing to sweat again. Yes, I exercise daily but this was a different type of sweat. It got my mind going again. It was interesting to see my feet know what to do but my mind try to take over. Interesting battle. Woot!
Now, we've got projects coming into play. Jakob has a show on the weekends (again) and I've got a few costume projects due this weekend and next weekend. We've also got 2 make-a-wish events that we're going to. These are great events. Makes what we do worth while.
But the other thing that has started again is clogging. Yep, I'm getting back into it. I've healed enough and I've gotten stronger, so I want to do it again. I had a class last week and man, it felt good. There were a few things that jiggled that had never jiggled before and it felt amazing to sweat again. Yes, I exercise daily but this was a different type of sweat. It got my mind going again. It was interesting to see my feet know what to do but my mind try to take over. Interesting battle. Woot!
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