Hello all!  And  a Happy Thanksgiving to you!  I am so thankful for...

1. simplicity.  i love that i am blessed with a very simple life

2. grace.  both heavenly and earthly.  i am so thankful that friends and family extend grace to me each time i blunder (which is far too frequent)

3. dogs.  they make me laugh and smile.  for instance, as i was walking to the kitchen today i quickly caught them mid action:

Lilly yawning and wagging her tail, Jack with his tongue sticking out.  It makes me giggle.

4. electric blankets!  i've been using mine nightly as matt and i cuddle on the couch and read.  so nice.  so very very nice.

5. that we get to spend all thanksgiving with my whole family, mom, dad AND sister.  this might be the first time in years.  i'm way excited to play games, laugh, talk, eat, and hit some black friday sales for christmas presents!!

What are you thankful for?

In other news, we have (disgustingly) found out that we have some rodents in the house.  Matt found dog food piled up under the sink and we couldn't figure out how in the world it got there.  Enter the pitter patter of tiny feet in the walls.  ugh.  Last night I pulled the fridge out in frustration and cleaned behind it and opened up the back.  DOG FOOD!  Can you believe it?  Inside the fridges electrical workings.  So I cleaned that out and we caught a mouse:

ok, so maybe you can't really tell what it is.  Well, it's a mouse.  That we caught in a tupperware.  It's very small.  Gross.  So, Matt and I debated what was the most humane way to get rid of it.  I would like to let nature take its course and feed it to some wild cats or something like that.  However, I am not aware of a wild cat refuge in town :)  Does anyone have any ideas for us?  We're hoping that the rest of them in the house will all get dumb while we're gone and get caught in the traps.  So far we've had no takers. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Man oh man are things crazy busy!  I feel like I haven't had a moment to think.  Halloween was great, as per usual.  I love this holiday.  I dressed up as a bumble bee (been wanting to wear that one for years- my mom made it and wore it when she was pregnant with me).  Matt was a football player.  Me making Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett costumes did not work out because of aforementioned busyness.

We carved our pumpkin on Friday night- And it's quite spooky if I do say so myself!

Yay for Halloween.  We had a ton of wonderful food and had a great time.  We watched Beetlejuice too.  I haven't seen that since I was a wee little tot.  I will be keeping up my Halloween decor until I feel like I had made the most of this holiday.  Since I've been out of town a lot, I feel like I haven't gotten to fully experience it.  

My short film, Extreme Measures, will be showing this Tuesday on Austin TV!  I'm quite excited about that.  Kind of a cool thing to have your movie on TV.  I'm hoping some Casing Directors in the Austin area watch it and get familiar with me and my work.  I'm getting together promo postcards right now. 

I've got a new scr i pt written, a comedy that will be 15-20 minutes long.  I'm very excited and ready to get rolling on that.  Hopefully we can get it filmed before the end of the year.  The clothing drive will be this weekend at the church.  What a great opportunity to serve the community! 

I also got new headshots two weekends ago.  Getting them ready to print now.  Way cool stuff.  Anywho, that's some of the things going on in this gals' life.  Now I need to get back to work on acting stuff.   

It has been busy busy busy lately.  Fall certainly makes up for the morbidly slow Spring and Summer.  I feel like I can't keep up with anything! 

First things first.  I finished the bookcase!  Finally.  I really like the way it turned out.  In case you can't tell, the back of the shelves are painted torqouise, and the rest was painted white.  I think it blends better with the room now.  I've been starting to organize the desk, so eventually this room will get better.  I've been working on painting the screen door and have one side left.  I'm anxious to get that hung back up.  We have had so much rain lately that it's prevented a lot of painting, and then I got really busy working.

Acting: yesterday I shot a commercial.  The call time was 7am in Muskogee.  That put my wake up time at 3:15 am.  sick.  But it was nice to book a job.  Today I auditioned for something else.  A few weeks ago I auditioned for a CBS local promo, but they haven't made casting decisions yet.  I got a callback as a mummy for a Winstar casino ad, but sadly did not get chosen.  But I was quite pleased to make it to callbacks.  I apparently have been cast in a film I auditioned for, but it's been kind of up in the air.  I'm not too impressed with the writer, so am a bit apathetic about the whole thing.  I've been reading a Self Management for Actors book that I'm enjoying and learning a lot from.  I'm getting more and more skilled at making my acting my own small business.  Interesting stuff.  I also wrote another screenplay.  This is a 15-20 minute comedy and I'm really quite excited about it.  I got hit with inspiration last week and sat down to write- 3/4 of it just poured out.  I'm looking forward to finishing it and getting it shot.  Extreme Measures didn't get accepted into the Chick Flicks Film fest, (lame-o's) which was really disappointing, but I have hope that it will still get some good exposure somewhere.  

Last weekend we went to Texas to meet up with most of the cousins for the state fair.  We had such a great time!  It was really cold (unexpectedly) but the whole weekend was fantastic nonetheless.  I had a corn dog, fried olive bites, funnel cake and cotton candy.  Matt had a turkey leg and tater swirls.  We saw the crazy skilled dog show again (LOVE it!) and watched a BMX show, a diving show (that was lame) and other stuff that I can't remember now.  It really was a great weekend.  (I ripped these off of one of the cousin's blogs)

Well, I'm still catching up on sleep from the shoot, so it's bedtime for me.  I'm ready to have a day off (mostly off) tomorrow so I can catch up on the jillion things I have on my to do list.  Well, at least make a dent in it :)

I have been wanting to make shutters for our front windows for years now.  I finally got the wood from the bargain bin at Home Depot and got to work.  Wasn't hard.  I just cut all the wood, screwed it together, painted it white, and then Matt helped me attach them on Saturday.  I am so pleased with how it turned out!  It makes the front of our house look so quaint!  Now, I want to paint the screen door white so it all ties in together.  

New Floor
Less than a month ago, Matt and I made our first foray into a huge home improvement: wood laminate flooring.  For those who haven't been to our kitchen (the chosen room to lay down the flooring, this is what it looks like:

As soon as Matt got home we got to work.  I won't sugar-coat it for you.  It was tough work.  Definitely not above the skill level of the average person, but 160 square feet with corners and coves to mess with meant a lot of cutting and very precise measuring.  Matt did a wonderful job of cutting whatever I measured for him.  He used the circular saw and the super nice miter saw my Dad got him for Christmas.  It made such an easier job for us!       

Making progress!!  We took a break for a little bit to breathe and get some food.  Luckily Sonic was just waiting to cheat us out of some of our money : )  After some chit-chat we got back to work, with the goal of finishing the floor.  We got to the point we could put the fridge and stove back in place, which freed up some space, and Matt put some mouldings back on.   

 

 

 

We didn't quite finish that night as there were some boards to cut and we weren't positive about how to transition between the carpet and the new floor.  But it was pretty much finished and we collapsed in bed.

 

 

 

 

  Yay!!

The next day was a huge family day at church, so we were there (and sore) from 10-7.  When we got home, we didn't bother with it.  The following week I had gotten some quarter rounds from the store and we finished it up.  It took some creative ideas and a few more purchases, but the floor is pretty much to the point we'd like it to be. 
And it's beautiful!!  I love it!  We both agree that it makes the kitchen look a whole lot better.  We didn't do a perfect job, but it was totally worth it.  I feel like I have a brand new kitchen.  Here's a picture of everything in place and mouldings up. 

New wood laminate floor kitchen
Cost: $175
Labor: 2 days

I love it!