Goal Review (6 months!)

So here we are. Six months until I turn 29. The big Half Way. On that melodrama-inspired note, let's get started.

1. Pay $1500 in school loans-
Aug- I'm on schedule. I will pay that bad boy (amt) off.
July- Now I'm at the $500 mark. That said I'm basically staying on a budget and everything else is going into a wedding. OK, not true, but maybe should be true.

2. Create at least $500 cushion in bank account
Aug- I am not on schedule but I'm now putting at least $200 away into a savings account. It's safer that way. I have access when I need it but I won't get week in a Michaels and lose the coushin.
July- I have like a whopping $1000 in my bank acct. But this is b/c Paypal charged me a bunch of money to pay Zach and so he declined the payment. I now owe him oooh, $1000 for rent and plane tickets.

3. Attain 2 octave singing scale
Aug- I'm finally back to full voice capacity. I'm taking off singing goals. I have enough others. This seems ill defined and arbitary. (Just started learning New York state of Mind last week. I like it.)
July- Being sick has decimated singing. I got over June's head cold from hell. Now I've got something else. Gah.


4. (I'm cutting this b/c it's been completed.) (Musical audition)

5. Finish writing 1 song with accompaniment. (Guitar and/or piano)-
Aug- Huge strides here. Wrote a third song ("ALoveSong") but have heard nothing back from Paul on it. I guess that means he's not as excited as the last one. Paul and I worked on "Your Everything" and we have a track layed down. Now it's back in my court to perfect vocals and figure out a (G*damn) bridge. I will work on this while I'm driving all over the valley this week. Score!
July- Sent off a song to a local acquaintance. He's an actual musician. He replied and the next move is mine. Needs to set a bit. Hard to work on music when I can't sing.
june-Been working on this. Slow and steady. Getting close on a couple. Close doesn't actually mean close but I'm making progress on a couple. Maybe have found a way to get help.

6. Send 5 birthday cards- ON TIME
Aug- I totally failed with Nikola's card. Oh I made one...but it was ugly. So it didn't get sent. Still plan on making her one. Emily too. (Hello Emily!)
July- I'm done with this. Wait, Nikola. Hmmmm.....OK, so I'm almost done with this!
(May 9 change of goal.)
(June 24 change- 5 is enough. Cross the sucker off your list but still try and send people cards.)

7. Send cards for one holiday-
Aug- I'm soooo excited about Halloween cards. I can start working on them in September!!!
July- Take THAT Halloween. Today I unearthed (and I do mean unearthed) those suckers. Oct 1 I will start writing. Oct 20th I will send them on their merry ways. !!!
June-I've been trying to find the Halloween cards I started last year. They might be gone. This royally sucks b/c they were a lot of work. Also I really liked them. *sigh*

8. Pursue art/design/craft/collage: figure out specifics and how to gauge-
Aug- CUT! Or change it to wedding goals. Hmmmm.....
July- I say screw this. I don't know how to gauge.
June-Still unsure of what this means.

9. Get through 5 drafts of 3 shorts total (includes at least 3 people writing comments on each draft.)-
Aug- No progress
July- no progress anywhere.
June-(These names won't make sense to you probably but are for my records:)
Zach's Taco Shack- Draft 1 complete (3 people have viewed and commented) How can I design a set for this?
Phone Calls- Still rough drafting
Car Faith- Found draft an dam working.
Happy Birthday- rough Draft 1.
Cranes- Story board draft 1 complete.

June:
You're Paranoid short: had 3 people review. This would be filmable. We'd have to mock police lights and find a uniform.

10. Learn Flash
Aug- Hold!
July- After maybe having the book for 3 months I finally returned it to the library. Flash learn'n is on hold.
June-I'm on chapter 8 or 18 or something. I should try and make like Tuesday after frisbee my Flash night.

11. Design and do photoshoot.-
July- This is a winter project.
June-Gathering ideas for this.

12. Direct music video.-
Aug- I have an idea I'm really excited about for "Your Everything" but it's an outside idea. Maybe I need to switch it to an inside one and plan for winter.
July- My test for the video I discussed below was a total fail. Not sure how to proceed. Or if I should proceed. Or really much of anything.
June-In May I think I decided that I was going to do a Flash animation music video for this but now I think I might try and do something from a song a man here in town wrote. I don't know how to categorize it. It's not pop. It's not folk.

13. Shoot a short.
Aug- I may cut this. I should try and do this OR the music video. I should probably try and do this in that the music video is suuuper complex. BUT I did come up with a super short short idea and it's filmable inside. It needs music. It's very heavily dependent on music.
July: Need to do something more than just write those first drafts.
June: Need to write those drafts first.
May: Need to write those drafts first.


14. Write, create, shoot, edit super short stop motion-
Aug- Take THAT number 14!!! Building and shooting complete! Rough draft edit COMPLETE! Need to figure out a plan for all the sound effects I'll need. (!!!)
July- This weekend was suppose to be the weekend I did this. It's now been moved to August.
June-Working on this as much as time allows. I'm figuring out today which weekend I can pull aside and finish building and start shooting. This may not be done until August or September.

15. write, shoot, edit 1 CCP review for YouTube. -
Aug- Hold!
July- no progress
June: Drafted a version. Need to redraft the words and begin building the set. Memorize as well I suppose.
May: I've got a quarter of this entire process finished. I watched the video and did artwork. This is on back burner until #16 is over.


16. (Officially finished )Edit CCP vid under craftcat brand.


17. Learn to cook 5 vegan entrees.
Aug- hold!
July-nada
Cooked two recipes last week. One was excellent. One was not excellent. I need to cook again but probably won't happen until next week.
May: Banana empanadas
June: nothing to add. I've not cooked in a looong time. Although I made some really excellent non vegan sopes recently. Delicious!

18. No bed piles.
Aug- *cough*
July- the bed piles were removed today.
June-The bed piles are back.

19. Learn congressional committee chairs and cabinet members.
Aug- Still mostly doing cheat sheets.
July- still trucking. Missing some of the cheat sheets but doing around 3 a week.
June-OK, so instead I'm changing this to read the Cheat Sheet from Daily Beast every day. It's not much, but it's something. Have I mentioned I hate politics?

20. (Removed from list in June)

21. Call/write my Grandmother once a month.
Aug- Big time fail.
July- Dad sent her the proposal video. That should so count, right?
June- This is sort of verging on fail as well. *sigh*

22. Thank You cards for birthday presents.
Aug- GAH!!!!
July- GAH!!!
June-GAH!

23. (removed from list)

24. (May 9th add) Write rough draft 1 of a feature screenplay.
Aug- no progress, but maybe I'll work on this this weekend.
July: no progress
June: No progress.
May: I've got one in mind and have started outlining in my mind but nothing more than a story plot is committed yet to paper.

Food

It's always strange to come home from working on the food preservation shoots. Last night Zach and I hauled everything into the barn for the final time on this project and then pulled our tired bodies home. It was 3 days of fascinating conversations. Three days of relearning food and rethinking the way we live.

These shoots, while stressful, have an element of magic to me. As if someone pulls out a pouch and says, "Here is your peoples' lost ancient wisdom." I don't think it was some master plot but at some point we got hoodwinked. We were told enough times that food was too complex and too tiresome that we had no time for its art. That that knowledge was neither desirable nor necessary. Did you know that you can make pickles w/o even boiling them? Or that cabbage has vitamin C and you can make sauerkraut that sits out on a counter (no need for refrigeration) with merely salt and water? Or that some apples late in the season can be "cellared" and last the whole winter?

Me neither.

I had this realization that if I wasn't so obsessed with my weight I would drastically change how I eat. I don't eat for health, I eat for size. (An expanding one at this point so maybe I have nothing to lose :) Yes I drink diet coke because I am mentally and physically addicted but also because it's something I can have without calories. But what the hell am I putting in my body? It's a filler for something that could actually be feeding my body. And I am a glutton for packaged foods. There is something about the bright lights of a 7-11 that really evokes a childlike joy. But Jesus. If all it takes is salt and water to make kraut, what unnecessary crap am I putting in my body when I buy one off the shelf?

When you begin to think about all the extras put into our food so that it can be made with bad ingredients en mass and then survive shipping and shelf life, it doesn't matter if we're buying it at whole foods or safeway, we are buying inferior products. We are feeding our bodies a lot of unnecessary crap. I'm not saying it's going to cause something like cancer, but it's unnecessary. And it's created a system that is wholly bad.

Rambling, yes. But I hope this time coming home I can hold on to some of the lifestyle choices I saw our host live. And I hope I can begin to shift my eating away from processed and packaged and more into real ingredients. Actual food.

Shooting is now officially finished! (And was a few hours ago but I was editing and then watching Hulu while my brain cooled off.)

Woohoo! Now time to take it all down. A lot of work for like 6 total hours of shooting and what will be a minute final project.

(Also, I slept on the floor last night under a large piece of felt.)

sleep

This is brief b/c I'm going to fall asleep typing. I didn't go back and work on animation after the meeting BUT the meeting went REALLY well. I will be playing 5 characters with accents (oh accents, *squeal!*) from French to Bostonian to New Yorker to mid westerner. So exciting. I already checked out the four apt dialect cds. Also, I'm excited to work with the other women cast. There's another 28 year old who's into art. She looks like an artist. Or she looks like what I think an artist should look like. Also she seems cool.

On a side note, it's always interesting for me to see people's careful reactions when I ask them what type of art they do. They give really measured responses b/c they are use to people asking but not use to people understanding what they give as an answer. I always want to say, "yes yes yes but what TYPE of art do you do?" and get into an actual conversation.

Animation Update

Why does this kind of work always take longer than it should?

I've been working today now almost 7 hours on the set build and it still feels so far from completion. The mistakes are starting to show and I can feel myself losing patience. The three main components I have left are a US Postal truck, a mail box and the letter itself. Oh and putting the main character back together again. His torso fell apart. See? Hot glue only lasts so long and I literally started the main guy back in May or perhaps earlier even. With magnets I know I can construct a better torso (so it might be good he fell apart in the long run) but right now my brain is too tired to come up with creative solutions, and I'm worried I'll hurt him more. So I'm taking a break. I'll go pet cats. Lay out in the sun. At 6:30 I'll drive back to Corvallis for a 7pm meeting. After that's over (for the love of God hopefully no later than 9) I'll head back here and finish constructing. I really think I can make it.

Animation Nation

So this weekend I may have coated my lungs with a fine layer of spray paint. Spray paint, I might add, that melts Styrofoam. How do you decide you're not going to use a certain color on a tiny stop motion house? When the color begins to melt your walls, that's how.

So I've not accomplished nearly as much as I should. If I had had a schedule I'd be behind. But things always pop up. Like I decided to make a tree. Hot gluing individual pieces of yarn onto a wire frame apparently takes awhile. If I had been keeping track I could have told you how many NPR podcasts it takes to make a yarn tree, but alas I cannot.

So tomorrow I'm jogging at 6:45 and will hopefully be back at the studio no later than 8:30. I still have mailboxes, eyes, and houses to finish but I'm infinitely closer than I was on Thursday night when this all began. (Actually many many Thursday nights ago this began.)

Tomorrow will still probably be almost entirely a build day. If I get my first shot off on Tuesday morning I'll probably be fine. Wednesday it's back to work...and my parents even in their infinite resilience to my crap have their limit. Also, hot glue doesn't last forever. I had to repair major parts of my main character due to hot glue decay.

Oh also, I cut my finger in my paper cutter. Nothing severed. But. The joint of my left thumb is going to hurt like a mother tomorrow. Luckily I didn't have to retrieve any of my skin off of the blade. Also luckily it happened on one of the last slices for the white picket fence.

So on that note! Good night.

A Chicken in a Road

I've never been an anti meat vegetarian. I don't make snide comments. I don't get grossed out by chicken on fine display. I have my opinions and I keep them mostly quiet unless brought out by thoughtful conversation. And I've been totally fine with the fact that my parents are slowly heading back into meat. They have the occasional tuna salad sandwich. They eat the luncheon meats we get for visiting artists. My dad can enjoy a salmon or steak at a restaurant. BUT. I was dumbfounded (DUMBFOUNDED) by the giant tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken that greeted me upon opening my parents' refrigerator this morning. Kentucky Fried Chicken? Really?

Speechless.

(But not so speechless that I can't confess that the fries I had with my veggie burger meal at Burger King last night were delicious!)

*sigh*

Just a tiny note

I'm going to my reunion tonight.

I am a little scared.

I've had 2 nightmares since I decided to go.

I decided to go on Wednesday.

But I'm bringing alcohol.

Everything will be fine.