Cooking and Voting and LACMA-- oh my! EPIC POST

Okay. So I'm a slacker. It's Saturday and I'm going to write about Monday through Wednesday. It's been a busy week. So sue me. But it's been a great week and I feel like I've had the perfect blend of productive and fun. I've also been submitting for roles on LA Casting and Actors Access every day. I even booked an audition, but the director changed her dates and I couldn't go at the new time. C'est la vie... but it's nice to be considered, at least.

Monday was spent cleaning the apartment and researching for the Tuesday election. I posted to my other blog, as I wrote about last time, and got tons of hits. It was really a shock. But I felt good about making a conscientious effort towards my voting and made myself a tasty veggie medley to nibble on while I researched. Look at the color! Roasted potatoes, carrots, and red onion with just a little EVOO, fresh thyme and basil, salt, pepper, and fresh sauteed spinach. It was soooo tasty and satisfying! I also made a homemade vegetable stock (LP helped, thanks!) to use for a soup recipe the next day. I hadn't been able to cook as much lately, so I felt great about this. I did all this and worked the dinner shift!

Tuesday was just fantastic. I slept in a little, made myself a healthy berry-banana smoothie and an egg on a bed of spinach, then walked to our polling place with my current and former roommate. Yay for voting! I felt really informed and prepared with my little sample ballot filled out and ready to go.

After voting, I took our five full bins of recycling to the center--a herculean task, I assure you! Turns out we actually had $17 worth of stuff! WOW! There was about 72 lbs of glass alone. And I hauled that around by myself! It makes me glad that we don't throw all of that away. (Random side note: when driving back I was listening to Market Place on NPR and even that reporter commented that on Project Runway, MONDO was robbed. Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, and I totally agree. It just had to be said.)

After that, my friend Amy and I got fancy coffee and shared a crepe at Solar de Cahuenga in Hollywood. Nutella and Strawberries....mmm. Amy swears that she saw Josh Radnor of "How I Met Your Mother" out on the patio where we were sitting. I was completely oblivious, but she was probably right.

We waited until 5 PM, which is the magic hour for me in LA, because after that the LACMA is free to local residents. That leaves 3 whole hours for leisurely browsing before they close. The museum has a great collection for being as small as it is and I've been there quite a bit. And I always have to take a peek at my favorite painting of all. I geeked out the first time I realized it was there!

But we especially wanted to see their newest building and the latest exhibit on the History of Fashion. The clothes were GUH-OR-geous. Amy and I had an interesting conversation about feminism and fashion. She regrets not getting to dress so outstandingly today, but I feel like you can dress however you want... hoop skirts and corset? SURE! But if I felt restricted in my clothing options, you can sure as hell bet that I would rebel against whatever it was I was expected to wear. Even as recently as my mother's generation, girls could get sent home from school for wearing pants. PANTS, ladies! I can't imagine not getting to wear jeans, and I love that I have the option of wearing a skirt if I feel like it, men's clothes if I feel like it. Punk one day and feminine the next. Isn't it FANTASTIC that we have choices? I feel privileged.

I love the outside "sculpture" at the LACMA... its iconic light posts. One of my favorite LA image.

After a couple hours at the museum, I took Amy home and then went home to cook! I used my homemade stock in a Butternut Squash, Green Apple, and Leek soup! I took the recipe from the November/December issue of Vegetarian Times. My brother got me a subscription for Christmas and I definitely want to renew. They have a lot of great ideas and are a major source of inspiration for me. I wanted to test-drive the soup before Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite holidays and I asked off for it this year so I can really make a feast! My oldest brother hosts, but I always bring something vegetarian. The soup was definitely a winner!

Tuesday was a great day, and I was so eager to make Wednesday great, too. LP got me up early when he forgot his keys, but I thanked him for it because that gave me the time to make Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes for breakfast! From a technical and taste standpoint, these were the best pancakes I've ever made. I even had leftovers that I ate the next morning for breakfast, spread with a little peanut butter (to go!). I spent the rest of Wednesday running errands before going to work at night.

And the rest of this week? Well, I doubt I'll have much time to update, but right now I'm in IOWA for my cousin's wedding! I'm so excited to see family that I haven't seen in two years or more, but I'm not so excited about the chilly weather. Going from 98 to 27 degrees is freaking brutal. But more on that to come!

Election Day! And other news

It helps if you fill this out before you go!

It's Election Day in America and I hope everyone is going out to vote. My other blog has been getting a lot more attention than usual because I did a post on Judicial Elections in California and it had 300 hits in one day! I wish I had gotten around to it sooner! Voters are starved for information and there's so little out there for them! This also led to my first experience with negative comments. Oh, well. You can't please everybody! It was really just for us, but if other people find it helpful, I'm very pleased about that. By the way, if you read this blog, but happen to be a religious conservative, you won't like my other one. Fair warning!

In other news, I've been making good strides towards furthering my career. I've joined both L.A. Casting and Actors Access and have my photos and resume uploaded. I've been submitting every day as long as there's something appropriate for me and I've already had an audition! It was for a student film at Chapman, and I read for the role of a cancer survivor. See, I knew the short hair would come in handy! It was just a cold read, but I was stupidly a little nervous, so I don't know that it went that well. I think they might have been looking for someone a little more emotional, but I just don't believe in forcing anything. You can only go with what you've got. Otherwise, it will just read as a lie.

Thank goodness for online profiles, though, because the day before my audition is when my computer died! Like an idiot, I didn't have anything backed up, so I had to re-write my resume. Luckily, all that info was right on my profile! All I had to do was copy and paste. It didn't look as good as what I had saved on my computer, but it got the job done.

My next step is getting my IMDb Pro account set up, build/edit my reel, get a website started, get business cards, print about 5 million headshots/resumes, and then submit like crazy to agents! Hopefully, I can work on a few more projects during that plan's execution. I also need some new headshots, because I keep my hair shorter now than I did when I got the last ones taken. *sigh* It's not drastic, so I'm not in a rush to do it. LP has a fantastic camera, so I just might have him take a few shots for me.

Tomorrow/Today is looking like it's going to be a great day! So much planned, I hope I can get everything done!