December, so far

As usual it has been COLD in Logan.  Not as snowy as usual but cold.  Here is some proof:

Lovely icicles connecting Tessie to the ground

And another picture

 Don't worry, it's just ice from the INSIDE of my windshield.  Did I mention it was cold?

I handed in my paperwork for graduation last week.  It was all so final and somewhat scary.

The blue paper is my binding reciept from the library for my Plan B report, I can pick it up after 2 PM January 17!

 Alex was set apart as a missionary on Tuesday night so we drove down for that.  It was great to see.

The grandparents Arbuckle with Elder Keller

My ridiculously good looking siblings

Elder Keller showing off his mad yo-yo skills

Me and my Keller grandparents.  I tried to get a picture with the Arbuckles but it didn't happen

My Dad with his parents

 We slept over so we could see Alley before he went to the MTC:

See you in 2 years!

 Some of the fruits of my education, a dress made in draping class and a mock-up from a paper patter I drafted off of a completed pattern.


I'm hoping that my dress looks more Modcloth than weirdo

 USU is producing "Pirates of Penzance" with the music department.  We borrowed several costumes from the Utah Shakespearean Festival (specifically the daughters costumes) and we need a few more.  Luckily out of the seven (?) costumes we borrowed, six fit the actresses so we only need to build four.  My job was to take a paper pattern off of the largest dress and then alter the pattern to fit the remaining actresses.  Our luck continued because the four girls were basically two sizes so I only needed to make two more patterns!  I wish I could be there to help make the other dresses.  I'll really miss working in the shop with my friends.

I think that's about it!  James took his only final today and I have to meet with my design studies professor sometime this week.  We're basically done!

Goodbye cruel world! Also, when it rains, it pours.

Okay, so the title is a little bit over dramatic.  I scheduled my defense for my Plan B Report (thesis) this afternoon during my graduate committee meeting.  I am going to defend my report on Wednesday November 16th in the afternoon.  So, what does that mean?  I'm not going to be doing much of anything fun until that point.  I also have revisions to complete for my portfolio and projects that aren't going to create themselves.  I know I can do it.  I HOPE I can do it.  That means for the next eight weeks I'm going to be a writing machine. Ugh.

Proof had its final dress rehearsal this evening and we open tomorrow.  Here are some pictures I snapped with my cell phone during the rehearsal process.  Most of the pictures are from tonight with the exception of the first picture.

Felicia and Kent as Catherine and Robert

Adam as Hal and Felicia as Catherine

Nikki as Claire, Adam as Hal and Felicia as Catherine

Felicia and Kent as Catherine and Robert

Adam as Hal and Nikki as Claire

Felicia and Kent as Catherine and Robert

Felicia and Nikki playing Catherine and Claire

Adam as Hal

I'm going to try to balance out everything that I need to to with the things that I want to do.  Hopefully I don't go crazy!

Ka-pow-ski!!

I saw this DVD at JoAnn's at the beginning of the semester and it made me laugh.

What a weird week!  Some good things happened and some concerning things too.  Proof is ready for dress rehearsal on Monday, we have a wardrobe crew AND the stage crew is more than willing to help if needed.  Another theatre miracle.  One of the concerning things that happened was an accident my Dad had while riding my brother's scooter.  He's banged up but he'll be okay.  That was NOT a fun text to receive, much less while I was getting actors ready for publicity shots and a run through.  I'm just grateful that he's okay!  I'll have pictures from the pub shoot soon, my didn't really show up very well.

One last funny thing:

Last first day of school ever???

I finished my renderings last night at 1 AM. It was just sort of hard to get them done. I'm glad it's done but it was just an ordeal to do it.Tomorrow will be my 23rd first day of school (not counting spring semesters.) Isn't that kind of disgusting? I've been going to school since I was five and I only missed one fall semester due to my mission. It's kind of mind boggling.

Off to bed...

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.

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!

Post #199

I've realized that talk of children comes up more frequently when I'm not in school or unoccupied. The conversations usually go something like this:

Lindsay: Hey, James...

James: Yes?

Lindsay: When can we start our family?

James: Ummmm....

Logistically, it would make sense to wait until I'm done with school and maybe even until James is done. I don't know how long it would take to get pregnant (knowing that would be great for planning.) I've had a couple of my friends who took years to get pregnant but I also have friends who got pregnant really fast after getting off the pill. Everyone is different, right? I just really wish I knew when things were going to happen. On the plus side, I do know that my last semester starts on August 29th. Isn't that crazy? I swear I was just blogging about how apprehensive I felt about grad school. It's almost done!

That post reminds me of the reoccurring fascination I have with bangs. I keep thinking I want them again. My history with bangs hasn't been great. Whenever I get them I usually regret it because they either look funny or I just get sick of them. Either way, I probably shouldn't do it. Here are some pictures of great bangs:

Julie Christie in "Darling"
Zooey Deschanel (recent, probably at an awards show) Doesn't she look THRILLED?
And Marianne Faithfull in the 1960's.

For some evidence of why I SHOULDN'T get bangs see here, here and here.

We're moving next week, we have a LOT to do!

Okay, now I just feel like it's overkill....

Okay, so I realize I've posted a lot of pictures of this set but I hadn't posted any with the cool lights we have in class. So, it's okay...right?

Seriously though, I did add a few extra bits to the living room, namely the sconces and the junk above the fireplace. I think it really adds to it.

If I had really been ambitious I would have made the items dimensional. Seriously though, if cutting pictures out of a magazine gets the job done, I'll fall back on that.

And, here is ACT II with the painted backdrop.

I'm so glad this project is over!

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...

Picture update

The following is a bunch of pictures that I started to take at the beginning of the break, I thought I use them in my blog and I also thought I would take more pictures.

First up, the "decorations" from our apartment. I figured our place is small enough and we were planning on leaving for the whole break. Thanks for the Christmas cards!
Next up, the pretty drive through Sardine Canyon:
Even James was excited to go on break:

The next picture is my Mom coming into the house at the beginning of her surprise party. She was really surprised.

Nice face Alex...
My brother and his girlfriend made this sign:
Here is Hil presenting our Mom with her birthday cake. Believe it or not, our Mom is 50. I don't think she looks like it at all.
Jordan the lumberjack and Avery.
The candles from her cake:
Avery and her computer from her grandparents, she likes to send "e-mails."
A better picture of the Christmas stocking for James. The elf on the left is Eric Clapton, the one in the middle is Paul McCartney and the one on the right is Mick Ronson. Awesome.
And the final picture is my re-organized make-up tray. It's sort of a ridiculous quantity but it was just Christmas...
I know it doesn't look organized, but it really is. The face stuff is on the right side of the box, the lip and cheek stuff is on the left side and the eye stuff takes up the rest of the box. I love make-up.