Sunday

It's Sunday. And I'm writing because, it's Sunday.

Sometimes I have to remember that I don't need an excuse to write.

I mean, I think that sometimes I feel there must be a special occasion for me to write--an occurrence, a bad moment, a life-changing event. But that's not true.

So today is Sunday and I am writing as I catch up on episodes of Law and Order SVU. One of my most favorite shows of all time! It took me a while to get used to it after Christopher Meloni left (good Lord that's a beautiful man!). But I got used to it :)

I don't watch a lot of TV. I have my shows that I watch--Grey's Anatomy, SVU, Scandal, and Gotham and Empire I watch with my husband. Oh, and anyone who knows me knows I LOVE Judge Judy but I just catch those on YouTube whenever. But I have recently become in love with doing puzzles on Sundays. So far I have done 3 500 piece puzzles in the past couple of weeks. I don't know why I've become so into them lately. I think they ease my mind. I like just tuning out the world and working on my puzzles. And I am determined to finish them quickly. I've always had a mind for puzzles of all kinds. I think my former job was like a giant puzzle. When I would tour, putting a light plot in another venue was a lot like a puzzle. Piece by piece, placing the lights where they complete the picture. It was an exciting time. Maybe that's my way of filling the void.

I actually never thought of that until this very moment...

So as I learn how to manage my finances and scrimp my spending a bit more, I will share with you something that has changed my spending life!


One of my newest ways of saving money is surveys and product sampling. There are a large number of sites that allow you to complete surveys and sample products--for FREE! Now there are quite a few survey sites that are not as easy to deal with but today I will share with you my most favorite of all--Crowdtap!

Crowdtap is a site I joined just a month ago and it has made a huge difference. Answering surveys on this site will earn you points--just 1000 will earn you a $5.00 Amazon gift card! So far, I have earned $25.00! This site allows you to follow certain products, answer questions about their products, and sample their products! Here are some photos of the products I have sampled thus far!

So once you receive these products you are given certain missions--what do you like, what don't you like, etc. It's so easy!

This was my most favorite product from the personal care items I sampled. If you haven't tried dry spray before, you are missing out! This is an amazing deodorant product that you simply spray on. Not only does it smell great, it is so light you can't even feel it! No caking and no messing up your clothes!

This was a great product as well. A tablet that cleans your garbage disposal. The only thing I didn't like about this one was the smell--it kind of smelled like ammonia. But it was so easy to use!

If you own a Keurig, this product is a MUST HAVE! I am constantly trying to figure out how to properly clean my Keurig and this does it for you! Just drop this tablet into the reservoir and run a few cycles. If you do it properly, the descaling light will come on your machine and then you just keep running until the light goes off (mine went out after just one cycle)! Then empty your reservoir and run a couple of cycles and you're done!

As the wife of a diabetic, I am constantly trying to find ways to still make great tasting food for my husband who can not have a great deal of sugar products. This is an amazing product. I never buy Splenda because for years it has contained aspertame which is a HORRIBLE ingredient. Splenda always had a horrible aftertaste and made everything taste...like SPLENDA! This new Splenda Naturals Sugar and Stevia product is AMAZING! It tastes...like Sugar. I made this quick cinnamon apple topping for my husband's pancakes and he was so happy! This I will definitely be buying in the future!

Overall, I am madly in love with my new adventures in product sampling/surveys. I earn enough gift cards to purchase my dry goods online which means I am getting my groceries for FREE!! This is a huge help to my messy finances. Here's to a better financial future!

Have you ever just wanted to be alone?

I will admit. I'm enjoying having my nights and my weekends to spend with my family. I love not having to work until 11pm and then have to get right back up at 6am just to get to work by 9am. I do enjoy being able to cook home cooked meals and watch TV shows with my husband and movies with my kids. I love bedtime stories and being able to do my own laundry and all of those things.

But can a mom just have a few moments alone?

And I don't mean in my house. I mean somewhere else. Outside--anywhere. I feel like my entire body is inside of a box and I just want to get out!

Where would I go I wonder? I mean of course my first thought is, I want a massage!!! A nice, comforting massage always makes me feel better. My last massage (well that was in May sadly) was a Thai massage--my first and it will definitely not be my last! I discovered I had muscles in places I thought were bones! It was a thrilling experience for sure. But as tight as funds are, probably not a good idea.

I don't really go to the movies alone. I can't even remember the last movie I saw...Doctor Strange maybe? Plus it too is an expense I can't really afford.

I do live near D.C. now so going to a museum seems like a great option--there's quite a few of them to choose from! But the mom in me of course says, that's not fair; you said you were going to take your kids to the museum! I wish the mom in me would shut up.

There's no real "beaches" and it's not beach weather but there's quite a bit of water to hang out near--Old Towne Alexandria has a wonderful waterside area with shops and an old torpedo factory with an art gallery inside (or should I say many art galleries!). I enjoyed that with my family but maybe it's worth a trip alone...?

My best friend Jay says my alone therapy is walking through stores aimlessly and just looking at stuff. I don't really buy anything--but I just look. I never actually realized that was something I did but I do seem to remember the times I have done this, I've felt a lot better. Michael's is one of my favorite places to do this because usually after I leave there, I feel very creative--I go home and someone's room gets a do-over!

But of course, my absolute favorite alone time event is couponing! I love going into a store and with my list and my phone and my binder and save, save, save! I love going at 6am and singing the crappy store music that's playing over the speakers and marking things off my list. It is my true happy place.

Tonight I'm going to do something I've never done before--I'm going to see a show--ALONE. Can't wait to tell you all about it!

So, what's next?

Writer's note: This post is from 2015 and I'm not sure why I didn't publish it earlier but here it is!

Now here's the downside of what I'm going through...

I'm totally torn between two different factions. On the one hand I am madly in love with my company and all the wonderful things that we're doing. I can't even think of something that could replace it. But then there's this part of me that is sadly still torn between this and the opera. How do I embrace the inevitable change that could be the end of my 11 year run with the opera? It's a battle that I feel that I am facing on multiple fronts, both personal and professional. My biggest fear is that I will lose the personal relationships in either instance. I'm sure that's not the case but I can't help but think of it that way.

I guess the easiest way to to solve this is to make a list of the two things and compare right?

My happiest times at the opera have always involved the people that I'm working with. From learning how to be a stagehand, to times at the console, to becoming a part of the creative process--they've all been enveloped by a variety of people. When I came into the opera I didn't know anyone, not a single person. Not only did I have to face learning about the people I was working with but also had to re-assure myself that I knew what I was doing. When Dave hired me in 2004, my initial reaction was denial; I had been out of the game for at least a year and maybe the last time I picked up my wrench was to tighten a bolt on my dining room table. But the wonderful thing is that he saw something in me and quickly attached me to the then lighting supervisor, my former boss Ken. Ken was an interesting person; at first I was totally scared as hell of him. But he did teach me quite a few things about being a lighting supervisor but the most important thing I think he taught me was how to just plain survive the drama that was Virginia Opera. Of course working with Jay was one of the highest points of my tenure...and then he left...That definitely left a giant whole in my opera heart--who was going to be my partner in crime? Dave returned in 2012 and made that whole close a little but then he was promoted from TD to Director of Production. In an instant I felt alone again. I'm not opposed to working alone but it's a different kind of feeling when you feel alone in your environment. Trying to hold on to that friendship/work relationship started to become fairly complicated last year and I feel like something was lost. Guess that's one strike.

My job was a rocketed progression of promotions. From stagehand, to programmer, to touring electrician, to master electrician, to lighting supervisor I had the opportunity to learn a variety of things over several years. I embraced programming...after all, that's where I started. But what I realized about my promotion is that with all of that I was losing pieces of me that I didn't want to lose. And to try and justify that by saying, well just get your fix on your off time. There is no off time. I was starting to sacrifice my off-time which should have been family time to take on a ridiculous amount of outside work. It was a bad decision. Not only was I losing my family time but I became distracted from all the other things that I was supposed to be doing for the opera. My creativity was being fed, but my job was suffering. Strike two.

I think that's two pretty significant strikes.

So if it's that easy to drop those two reasons out of my brain, why is it not so easy to walk away?

Simple answers would be loyalty, respect, dedication. Those are usually the things that leave me attached to things that I no longer want to belong to. I like to describe this relationship as Ike and Tina.

So where are my strikes against my company? Well I think the obvious ones would be long days and long, long, hours. I mean, but what arts job doesn't have those? The opera does, the shop did, even my stupid pizza delivery job did. But I don't even feel like that is that big of a deal. I could say that we're a bit disorganized, which makes my little obsessive compulsive brain go insane but again, what new company isn't? Every step is a step towards organization and progression.

So with all that being said, what's next? What is my next move? How do I continue from here now putting on paper what I have been avoiding saying out loud.

Reason number 32 why I have this blog I guess.

Finances...the story of my life.

I've never been good with money. I mean, I like to think at one point I was. I remember maintaining a credit card and saving money enough to buy a car on my own with no co-signer so I must have been good at some point. But here lately I feel like every dollar I save, five more go out the window. I just don't know where I've gone wrong. Maybe if I look at the last 8 months of my life I can find some insight.

December 2016--I quit my job with Virginia Opera after 12 years of long, hard service. It was a job I loved and was getting paid pretty well...well enough to pay my rent with ONE week's worth of pay. But here in lies the rub: I started having delayed paychecks. Over and over again. And it's so hard to plan your life when you keep having your money delayed. So among other things, I left. I found a job in the great District of Columbia. But I needed to move ASAP. I pulled together as many funds as I could and moved my family in less than a week to Alexandria VA.

January 2017--So I'm working. My husband isn't. And the bills are piling up. He eventually gets a job working for Jackson-Hewitt, only temporary of course. And mostly part-time. Now we've gone from me making rent in one week of work to making 3/4 of the rent on a paycheck. Our rent, doubled. Our insurance doubled. Our bills doubled. And our income reduced by half.

March 2017--I picked up a short term gig in Atlanta to make money. However, because I didn't pay my tolls before I moved, I now have a whopping 1800 bucks in tolls to pay. I settled with the company for 1200. My pay from Atlanta--take a guess how much that was? So the trip, while it was amazing and fun, left me right back where I started.

April 2017--My husband now has a full-time job. Hallelujah. 

June 2017--I quit my new job at Studio Theatre after months of unrest and just way more drama than I wanted to deal with. I went back to Norfolk for a week to make some extra money doing lighting design gigs. Did pretty well with that. Then headed back up home to start my new job at Barbizon.

Later June 2017--Summer camp--you know that thing you need for your kids when there's no school and you have to work and you don't have any family to help take care of your kids. Up here, 200 bucks a week. So total up about 3 grand in summer camp money and well...now you're back in debt again.

Now September, I'm stuck with a feeling of helplessness. I'm doing everything I can to save a dollar. Couponing, selling, surveys, quick jobs. And why oh why do I keep coming up short? What is there left for me to do? What else can I minimize?

I just want to get to a better place financially--is that too much to ask?

Well...my life has been full of huge changes lately.

I quit my job after 12 years of Virginia Opera life.

My family and I have relocated to Alexandria, VA. I have a new job with Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. as the Lighting and Sound Supervisor.

I will post more...but right now, all I can think about is cutting these coupons in front of me!

Madly in love

Wow...

So many things have happened since my last post...

Let's see, the biggest thing that's happened is that I'M HAPPY!

I mean I think I'm always pretty happy. I'm madly in love with my husband and my kids. They are my rock, my ground, my stand.

But here's my new happy place...And Scene Productions.

So in a prior blog post I talked about this little company that together with my best friend Jason "Jay" Tuthill and our friend Dave Young we started officially in 2013. And Scene was Jay's little brain child. I remember we were sitting out on his back patio one day in the summer of 2013, broke as hell, talking about how we were going to survive. Jay has this interesting love for horror films and I will admit I'm not that into it. But it was the passion in which he discussed being a production designer for  movies and music videos (as a matter of fact we were in the process of working on our first music video design together) that intrigued me. I think initially I was thinking, I don't know anything about how this works! So fast forward to October 2013, here we were in Portsmouth signing paperwork to make this dream a reality. When Jay and I came down those steps you would have though we were getting married or something! It was definitely a step in a direction of some sort. Again and still I was like, I have no idea where we are going with this! So in 2014, we got our first big design: a film called The Possession Experiment with the Digital Thunderdome Studios. I felt a bit sad at first because this was a big project and I, of course, was still in opera season and super busy. But, the moments I was able to be there were very special. I think I was really starting to get into the idea of hey, we are totally doing our own thing, for ourselves, on our own time. It was a bit quiet after that, a few projects here and there. Well, in the beginnings of this year, Jay started talking to me about some guy, who was coming back to work on a project with these two British guys. Now Jay's talking to me about all this for months and I'm listening to him on the phone. He seemed really excited about it and yet and still, I couldn't get there with him. I mean how often does someone call you and tell you that your company is going to be working on a new television series for the Sci-Fi network? So fast forward again to the end of April and surprise...we are definitely doing this thing!
Of course my thought was, what the hell am I going to be doing on this? I mean, I'm not a carpenter I told myself. Let me just say for clarification: I've told myself for years that I can't build anything, I'm an electrician, blah blah blah. Visual Art is one of those things I gave up on when I thought I couldn't make any money off of it. I mean, my mother is the artist, not me. My two brothers are even artists. But me, I'm the singer (or was). So building and creating things was not one of the things I thought I would ever do in a even semi-professional sense. But the things I created for this show made me go wow...why did I ever stop? I impressed myself as much as everyone else. When the main set was finished, I thought I was done. But my dear friend Jay somehow came up with this bright idea that I was the Art Director for this show. A-hem. Excuse me? So that's what I became--Art  Director. For 6 weeks I have doing things that I never thought I even had the mental capacity to do. It became like this part of me that I just kept hidden for so long. Now let's just be clear--I'm no expert. I mean, Jay is like a natural at this. He has a good eye and he's a super quick thinker which is extremely valuable in the film world. I'm still learning some things. But I'm loving every minute.
So why is all of this important? Here's the biggest part of what has happened to me in 6 weeks--my pain level has been at maximum a 2. 2...for at least the last 6 weeks. Little to no pain, excluding the normal stuff--lack of sleep, sore feet, etc. So then I think to myself, hmmm...there's a connection here somewhere. Then I came to the ultimate conclusion: I am madly in love with my business. Because what else but love can conquer pain that quickly? Sheer and absolute happiness has been my biggest and only medication for 6 weeks.
The other great thing about this is that I am back with my partner in crime. Short history--Jay and I met while working together at the Virginia Opera several years ago. I didn't like him at all. He was loud and I thought he was cocky as shit. But somehow the planets aligned and just like that we were dominating the stage together. We could run a work call like nobody could. I couldn't explain it, but with him I felt like we could do anything together. From that we became friends...best of friends. And then one day, Jay told me he wasn't coming back next season. I could have killed him really. I mean first of all, I had a migraine that day and I was laying face down on my bed with a pillow over me. Getting that call made my heart break into so many pieces. How could I do this job without my partner. Fast forward to 2013...you know the rest.
There's word for what we are...Anam Cara, which means soul friend. It's amazing how we work together. It's like magic. So there I find my cure. I think its a phenomenal thing to finally find someone who understands everything about your work ethic and how you work.