Rainy Days and Mondays...

always get me down. But at least I have Karen Carpenter to keep me company.

Trying to make the most of another day without work. Grocery shopping, baking cookies, exercising (so I can eat the cookies). Since the money is not rolling in, I feel compelled to make these "free" days as productive as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes I start watching a random tv series on Netflix and keep clicking "next episode". So it goes.

Just finished reading a book called Zeitoun about a family in New Orleans and their ordeals during Hurricane Katrina. In light of everything that's happening in Japan right now it was an even more sobering read. I would recommend it.

What else is up with me? The Bushman film did not make it into the SF Underground Film Festival. It's looking like it won't be in the Sonoma Film Festival either (though I don't know that for sure yet.) Once it's confirmed that we won't be screening locally anytime soon, I'll get the film up on Vimeo so people who weren't able to make the screening can see it.

I'm working on another Scary Cow film, this one about aliens. Fantastic! Still have to come up with an idea for another film I can direct, but there's time so no need to panic yet. This Saturday I'll be in a fake car commercial someone else in Scary Cow is making. Nice to have some time in front of the camera to mix it up a bit.

And, well, um... now I am remembering why I fell out of the weekly update thing in 2010. I'm adding another goal to make my life more interesting so these posts will be more interesting. Yeah!

Habitat Flashbacks

I haven't quite gotten back into the swing of weekly posting. But considering I only wrote once in the entire year of 2010 I'm still feeling pretty good about myself and my updates.

Habitat flashback #1 was attending the wedding of my friend Nan. She was the team leader on my first ever Habitat trip to Guatemala back in 1998 and the one who encouraged me to become a leader of the trips, not just a volunteer. She's a fabulous, enthusiastic, energetic woman and, getting married at 70, quite the inspiration.

Habitat flashback #2 was provided thanks to Facebook. I am now connected with a young woman who I met in 1998 on my 2nd ever Habitat trip to Ilo, Peru. We worked with her family to build several houses in their neighborhood. She, her mother and her brother were one of the families I grew closest to over the course of the trip.

The day before we left, the volunteers said goodbye to all the families and made our preparations to return home. The morning we left, she and her family came to our hotel to say one more goodbye. It was full of tears and hugging and promises to stay in touch but then I got back to life in the US and didn't expect to ever hear from them again. Wrong.

Thanks to the power of Facebook, I'm reconnected to this young woman and have an update on her family. Her brother is still in Peru going to school and playing in a band. She and her mother have moved to Spain and she is working and studying environmental management. It is beyond fabulous to hear from her again and know that things have worked out well for her and her family.

These are the kind of encounters that make me think it may be time for another Habitat trip.

New Year's Resolutions. What?

I know, you're supposed to think about things like this in the beginning of January, not the beginning of March but hey, I was busy.

Since I have updated my LinkedIn profile and thought about doing my taxes - which to me is very close - I only have three for 2011.

1. Clean out and de-clutter my house.

I'm trying to put a positive spin on only being employed part-time. Sure, I don't earn enough money to cover my expenses but it leaves me plenty of time to dig through my garage and look for random things to sell!

2. Make a movie.

Now that we've got some cash from winning awards at the Scary Cow film festival earlier this month the next movie can be more involved. Or at least when we buy the crew In-n-Out burgers for lunch we can offer to get them a shake as well.

3. Take a trip out of the country.

Yes, this will be the most difficult to accomplish what with the part-time job and the time spent cleaning and movie making. But that's what resolutions are about right? Striving to do something that is going to be a stretch to actually accomplish.

I don't know where I'm going in this big/small world, nor do I know what to make a movie about but it gives me something to think about while sorting through cassette tapes, old photos and papers that seemed important enough to put in a box.

And no, this picture doesn't have anything to do with anything here but someone sent it

to me and it makes me laugh every time I look at it.