Do you ever feel like...

I'm halfway through my revisions of my Plan B Report in preparation for my defense on Wednesday.  So far it is 103 pages long.  As I have been working on the monster I've been thinking about next semester.  It's going to be a weird semester because for the first time since I was 5, I'm not going to be in school.  (I realize that I wasn't in school on my mission but it was kind of like school.)  I'm trying not to freak out.  It's a big deal to graduate and be DONE.  I'm planning on working next semester so I don't go crazy and so we can live comfortably.  As I have been casually job searching I feel like I have
  no skills.

I realize that's not totally true, I can make stuff.  Lots of stuff.  I know how to take a drawing of a costume and make it real: pattern and all.

But I don't have the skills to fulfill the jobs readily available.  It's kind of freaking me out.

That could also be the fact that it's 1 AM and I started working on my Plan B Report at...7?  I'm not sure.

Bedtime.  I'm sure about that one.

Fall Break!

Today is Fall Break, it's only one day but I am very glad to have it.  While my parents and youngest sister are in Vegas, we are at home, wishing we could be there.  I wish I could be there to see our niece's face when she opens her birthday present:

 

 It was my conference craft.  It might be here Halloween costume as well, she has said she wants to be Cinderella.  I'm excited for the time when I won't be in school and I will be able to make stuff like this for more little girls.  Seven more weeks of fun and then finals week.  I don't anticipate that I will have anything much to do except clean out my grad lab cubicle and my costume shop drawer.  It seems like I just moved in.  Weird.

Next up, an old post of a DELICIOUS dinner.  Sourdough bruscetta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella:

We had purchased a bunch of sourdough loaves with one of our Bountiful Baskets and figured we shouldn't let it go bad.  It was so good!  I diced the tomatoes and then mixed in some basil and garlic.  While that was marinating I pre-toasted the bread sliced in a frying pan.  After that I layered some cheese and piled the tomatoes high!  It was SO GOOD!  I think we should have a tomato plant or two in our next place.

In terms of our lives, James is working on his thesis project in the water lab.  He's collecting data from his soil waste-water columns and this is what they look like:

It's pretty cool.

Here is my current layout for my Plan B Report.

  I still need to include bibliographies, tables of contents, acknowledgements...that sort of thing.  It doesn't look as impressive on the screen but once you hold 85 printed pages in your hands, it does.  I defend it in 3 1/2 weeks.  Wish me luck!

Proof Progress

Proof opens a week from Thursday.  I'm feeling pretty good about the costumes just not the wardrobe crew.  Apparently we don't have a crew.  That's a problem when almost everyone changes for every scene.  I hope we can find some people to work!

Our "connect with the arts" display and poster for Proof

My renderings, in the order of the show

Some of the shoes for the show, check out the wedges!

the rack of the costumes

the mock-up for the funeral dress

I'm taking draping this semester from the amazing Louella Powell.  This is my dress form that is padded out and covered in tricot.  It's sort of depressing to realize that you look a certain way but it guess it could be worse!  This is our first draping project, the front to a foundation skirt.  I have tiny darts in my skirt because I don't have a defined waist.  Oh well!

So close....

I've included a photo of my latest efforts, taken with my camera even though I have my real camera with me. Oh well, you get the picture.I've finished all of the plates except for the bottom row (minus the one second from the left) and I'm really close to finishing. I wanted to have so much more of the show ready for the time that school started again. This was hampered by the minor renovations in the costume shop and I didn't want to add to the mess by pulling costumes. Anyway. Here are all of the costumes for Proof, but it will probably change because that's what usually happens in theatre. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've rendered an ENTIRE show. Shoot.

The past week and a half has been interesting and busy. James has been working at the Landfill and in Roosevelt. Why Roosevelt? It has something to do with cacti that have been threatened and a group of people has been tracking them. Seriously. I've been working on my renderings, trying not to go crazy. I've never done this many in so short a period of time. It almost makes me wonder if I've been lazy during the past five semesters. I'm going to hope the answer is "no" because I feel like I've really worked hard on my MFA.

Did I mention school starts on Monday? It's my last first day of school EVER.

Holy insert-favorite-curse-word-here.

It worked!

I used a tutorial I found on Delia's blog to make a button for my portfolio. If I really knew what I was doing I would know how to make one without the copy box below. I think it looks a whole lot neater than just a line that says "click here."

In other great news (and much more important) James received a tuition waiver for this fall! We are so excited about it. James is very low key about it all. He's so modest.

I'm slowing chugging my way through my Plan B report. I really want to have a good solid draft for my committee to read and then tear apart with re-writes. It has become my lima beans on my dinner plate, standing in the way of dessert. Although in this case 'dessert' is making stuff and knowing I have a huge hurdle behind me.

UPDATE:

Being a "genius" I realized that I could use the text in the copy box and make a button for my profile without the copy box. Awesome.

Carry on...

Happy Pioneer Day!

Because it's July 24th, I'm going to start this entry with a photograph of my great-great Grandpa Keller. Joseph X. Keller was born in Switzerland and came to the United States with his widowed mother and two of his sisters. They didn't have to walk across the plains because the railroad had already been built. He served two missions in Switzerland, married a Swiss born girl (Mary Frankhauser) with whom he had six children and then he tragically died in 1905 at Stake Conference. Mary was a widow for 51 years! Did I mention she was PREGNANT with her last child when her husband died suddenly? It's amazing.His second youngest son was my great-grandpa Mitt. Joseph's only daughter was named Hazel and her daughter was named Dorothy who was my friend. She died this week, unfortunately. I'm grateful for the time that James and I were able to know her and her sweet husband.

I spend part of this week at home, working on my thesis/Plan B report. It's been slow going but I only have one more section to finish before I can submit a draft to my committee. I guess it's kind of nice that it has drawings and photographs instead of just looking like this:

Depressing.

I took some breaks and tried some tutorials I had watched a while ago. You can see them here and here. They worked. Sort of.

We saw a deer near our house as we were driving home. I think it's kind of funny that we've seen deer at both places we've lived.
Even though our anniversary is two weeks away, James surprised me with this beauty:

It's a food dehydrator. Words cannot express the excitement I feel about this machine. I've wanted one for a really long time. James knew about this and he realized that we had a ridiculous amount of bananas from two consecutive weeks of Bountiful Baskets. I have such a wonderful husband. Case in point: I was at the theatre all day and when he texted me about the dehydrator I texted back to suggest drying bananas into banana chips. His response? Already in.

He's the best!

What else happened recently? We finished our good bye quilt for our boss Amanda:

We used the same fabric in the quilt that Amanda used in a lot of her shows and then we wrote messages on plain white fabric:
My friend Courtney took pictures at the park when we presented it to Amanda. You can see them on her blog.

The one where my brother got married, old toys were found and I got closer to 30...

I realized that it has been almost a month since I last blogged. That is sort of crazy because it's not like I haven't had things to write about or pictures to post. A lot of stuff has happened. Let the spewing begin....

Jordan married Lindsey in the Bountiful Temple on June 18th. The sealing was beautiful and I'm so grateful that so many of the family was able to be there. Afterwards we did the customary pictures by the fountain. I didn't take any of those so you'll have to let this one suffice.
They had their reception at Mom and Dad's cultural hall, just like us. It's so convenient to have our parent's house so close! I liked this shot of right after they cut the cake. I think it sums up Jord and Lindsey:

And my brother, looking ridiculously happy. I'm so glad they found each other, I really like the new Lindsey Keller.Oh, and they had Mid 6 play. I think the drummer is pretty hot.

The week after the wedding was pretty busy because "Little Shop of Horrors" opened and we had a whole week of dress rehearsals and performances. This meant I was gone for most of the day, except for a short dinner break between costume shop work and dressing work at the theatre. I'm lucky enough to have a husband who can cook:
Doesn't that look amazing?!? Most of the toppings were in our Bountiful Basket from the weekend before. I love getting my vegetables on pizza.

Jumping to another subject; does anyone remember Playground Kids? I found the dolls that Hil and I had. I can even remember most of the their names: Laura, Julie? Becky, Tracy, Amy and Lindsey. Granted, after a certain amount of time the manufacturer printed the doll's name on their oversized shoe. I really liked these toys. I used to play with these with my friend Brandi.

Jumping ahead to this past weekend, we went to my parent's house to celebrate the holiday weekend and some birthdays. My Grandpa Arbuckle's birthday is July 2nd but when I was growing up he used to tease me that he was going to change his birthday to the 5th so we would have the same birthday. I like this shot of my maternal grandparents and Parker, even though PJ doesn't look too happy to be there.

Moving right along to today, I went out to dinner with my wonderful in-laws as well as James' sister Candice and her cute son. They came up to visit for the holiday and to wish me an early happy birthday.
My dinner was wonderful and yes, I just turned 8...
Melanie brought a cake she decorated especially for my birthday:
I really married into such a wonderful family! They have been so welcoming and loving. I really am so lucky!

Once it got dark enough, James and I decided to finally use the sparklers my friend Amanda gave us last summer. The fourth isn't the fourth unless you have sparklers.

I figured out that the pictures work better with the flash OFF.
Artistic fun with our sparklers...
James spelled out his name but I only got "Jam," backwards. It's still really cool!

It's supposed to be a star...
Neat squiggles...
Well, I think that about wraps it up! Hopefully I won't be as busy but I sort of doubt it!

Phone dump

Very often I use my cell phone to jot down ideas or thoughts either via word or picture. I realized that I had quite a few random/funny thoughts that I should probably record somewhere. I'll start with a funny experience that happened while were cleaning the church for a ward activity.

Location: Old Ninth Ward building, chapel

Task: Scrubbing off the scuff marks off the pews

Experience: I volunteered to help clean the chapel using generic "magic erasers" to get the scuff marks and crayon streaks off the pews. We quickly realized that it takes a fair amount of elbow grease to cut through the gunk and that action makes a squeaking noise. As I was working on the back of a pew, sitting on the floor and scrubbing as hard as I could, I heard someone enter the chapel. Next thing I knew there was a little boy who exclaimed, "I thought you were a dog! I was wondering how one got in the church!" Apparently the combination of the noise and my alleged dog colored hair would make a kid think a dog had made its way into the chapel.

You probably had to be there.

Location: Our new place!

James spent my first week of working for the Lyric (and his free week before meeting with his graduate adviser) moving our stuff from our old apartment to our new one. I helped to move stuff after I finished working each day. I took these pictures as we were moving the smaller stuff over, before the furniture.

Our entry way/dining area:

Our bedroom (with a VIEW!)

A laundry room, probably the BEST thing about our new place:

Our bathroom:

Our kitchen: No couch or yellow cabinets here!

Our living room:

James had a band practice with his friends. They are playing my brother's wedding reception so they figured they should probably practice. A bit.James would probably like me to point out that he isn't playing his own kit (he doesn't like a lot of the bands mentioned on the stickers. He also traded places with the lead guitarist to sing a few songs.

My husband is the absolute cutest.

Next batch: Costume shop

Experience: A few projects that were particularly challenging

#1 sewing satin ribbons on silk charmeuse

The almost finished product:

Challenge #2: Bias cut chiffon that is flatlined with shiny polyester:

Challenge #3 Coloring in the grid on a sweater vest.

There you have it! Three weeks worth of stuff!

The weekend

This past weekend was kind of a doozy. There was the royal wedding (I LOVED Kate and Pippa's dresses,) I had my LAST day of class, we cleaned the church and we had some friends over on Saturday.

It's kind of funny how it didn't totally sink in that it was my last day of Spring classes. I had a continuance evaluation for grad school (they'll let me finish) and then I rushed off to class. It was sort of anti-climatic. On Saturday we cleaned the church, inside and out, as a ward activity. I helped to clean the chapel. We used magic erasers to clean the scuffs off of the benches. It was a lot of work but it was worth it! James helped in the cultural hall and outside. He's such a trooper.

After we cleaned ourselves up we worked on homework. I finished up my final essay and James did a take home exam. I went up to the costume shop to work on the wedding dress some more. It's coming along! I went home and made a pizza for dinner. We had some friends over for pizza and Wii. It was fun and laid back. After that we went grocery shopping where James was recognized for his senatorial achievements. Here's how it went down:

Jacob (the Smith's checker): Hey, don't you the ASUSU senator or a graduate senator or something?

James: Uh, yeah

Jacob: Yeah, I recognized your picture on the web site. I thought, "He shops at Smith's"

James:....Yeah....

It was pretty funny. More funny than I my re-telling. Just ask James.

The last thing, I really like this website: Pinterest.com. It's a cool electronic bulletin board that you can sort things that you like according to subjects like food, crafts, home, fashion...etc. If anyone would like to join in, send me an e-mail Lindsaydesigner@hotmail.com. I can send you an invite.
It's kind of addicting. Just a warning.

Grey Gardens set design

As I am typing this entry it is 3:09...AM. Yep, I stayed up late but I FINISHED! Apparently we each get a turn to stay up late doing homework. Yesterday James was up until 4:30 finishing assignments. I'm surprised he made it through today. He's a champ and I love him

Any who...

I'll just add captions to these since I'm not really up for witty comments (then again, I'm not really that funny at other times.)
An aerial view of the main room/entry/drawing room set with 1/4" scale figure. My FAVORITE adirondack chair and the rocking chair of death (it kept tipping over so I filed the bottom flat.)

ACT I, full stage setting.
A full view of ACT II, all scenes combined. It's really crazy looking but that's sort of how it's supposed to be.This is another view of ACT I with the porch piece flown in. I'm not sure how I feel about it but it's 3:15 AM and it's due in less than six hours.

I wasn't too hip on the faded garden backdrop so I tried a different approach. I found a really cool painting of the Grey Gardens house on-line so I printed it out, glued it to illustration board and painted over the top. It really gives the set a different look.
ACT I with the porch piece.
ACT I without porch.
ACT I garden piece. I'm really pleased with how this piece turned out because it looked straight out of Camelot before I added the vegetation stuff.
And ACT I again. Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the ACT II set up with the painted backdrop. I'll let you use your imaginations...