Elizabeth-Michelle.com

Seinfeld, Two.

Elizabeth — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:08:20 +0000

I had more plans to plug on through the “songs from musicals” series, but after this week I just didn’t feel like it. It’ll return over the weekend or at the beginning of next week.

A week ago, Friday night, we headed to the Civic Center Music Hall to see Jerry Seinfeld. He was fantastic! Now that I’m an adult I tend to go into things with much lower expectations. I think it’s some kind of defense mechanism against being disappointed.

I bought the tickets as a surprise back when I got one of my first paychecks from the new writing gig and I was a little concerned about how the situation was going to turn out. See, the tickets had been on sale a week already and I had to wait until I had enough money in my account to buy them, and by the time I did there were like 8 seats left in the entire place.

EIGHT.

All of the really cheap ones were gone (and honestly, Civic Center? There were only like 2 rows of the cheap seats) so I was already going to have to pay $20 more per ticket. There were only 2 open seats that were anywhere near each other and they had two filled seats between them. It had to be a couple, or two singles who purchased seats next to each other. Surely they would let us sit together.

I bought them. Of course, a few days later when the show was sold out they scheduled a second show after the first because of the popularity, but I’m an old lady and I can’t even remember the last time I went to something that started after 8pm, much less 9:30, so that wasn’t an option.

The day of the show arrived and I donned my new Ariel scarf, ready to sit for an hour or so and laugh, determined to enjoy myself.

But if I’m honest with you? I was a little worried for weeks beforehand. I mean, the two people between us would be kind and let us sit together, right? They had every right not to. All kinds of thoughts ran through my head.

What if they aren’t together and just want to sit in the seats that they bought?

What if they’re like Sheldon Cooper and have determined the acoustic sweet spot and that’s where they’re sitting no matter what?

What if they’re just jerks?

What if…come on, it IS a Seinfeld show and this is exactly the sort of situation I could see Jerry and Elaine finding themselves in.

We arrived, took the stairs (and HELLO that is a workout in 3.5 inch heels), and found our seats. We waited and waited and waited. I’d told Kevin he was in charge of this negotiation because me and even the idea of confrontation don’t get along. (Unless you are Mathis Bros Furniture, then all bets are off). It was almost time for the show to start and still, no G8 and G9 (we were G7 and G10). I started to get comfy. Maybe they decided not to show.

And then I saw them. Creeping down the aisle, trying not to slosh their beers around. The lights were already dimming when they made it to our row and I think they would have taken their seats and not known any better since they were the only two empty ones. They sat and Kevin leaned over to the man and asked if it would be okay if we just kept G9 and G10. Honestly, I’m not even sure that the guy heard because the applause was starting for the first act.

So, like many of my life situations that I expect to end with the crashing of cymbals and all kinds of calamity…everything was fine.

That’s what Jerry looked like from where we sat. Since I’ve been watching him on TV almost every day for the past 10 years, and frequently converse with the people I see on my TV, I had to fight the urge to respond to some of the things he would say. Now, I was a loooong way away so a) he would not have heard me and b) I would have just seemed like the crazy lady shouting things from the audience. But it’s another thing that, well, maybe it doesn’t prove this, but I think it sorta reinforces this thought that I’ve had for a while — I don’t think I get star struck. Like…at all. I mean, who gets the urge to shout at someone in a crowded room like they know them, when they don’t know them?

Not getting star struck may have something to do with my issue with not wanting to annoy them in public, but I’m thinking that shouting from the audience is pretty counterintuitive on that point.

And maybe it’s not that I don’t get star struck, it’s just that I’ve got worked out in my head that they are way more likely to become my friend in real life if I just act normal around them. Right? That’s what I thought.

#PrayForOklahoma — How You Can Help

Elizabeth — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:13:48 +0000

Further updates on how you can help will be posted on my Facebook page.

Damage video

I want to thank everyone that checked on me and my family yesterday. We are fine. People in Oklahoma need your help. I’m putting some information together for anyone who would like to help those who lost homes and loved ones yesterday. Many of them lost all that they have. I’ll be updating this as I get more information.

To donate $10 via text:

Text STORM to 80888 for Salvation Army
Text REDCROSS to 90999 for Red Cross (Please be aware that funds donated to the Red Cross in this way go to national relief efforts and are not guaranteed to help Oklahomans. Seek out a local chapter of the Red Cross to help Oklahomans.)
Text FOOD to 32333 for Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma

There is a comprehensive list of places you can donate over at NewsOK.com.

Donations to Southern Baptist Disaster Relief are currently being routed to Oklahoma and the needs here.

Give blood — Oklahoma Blood Institute currently has an adequate supply, but there is always a need for blood. If you can, especially if you have O- or other Rh- blood types, please make an appointment to give blood or stop by one of the many blood drives going on around local casinos this week.

Norman residents — LOCAL will be taking food to volunteers and will accept and deliver your donations. I’m thinking water bottles and such, but I would call the restaurant before you bring anything by – (405) 928-5600 — 2262 West Main Street, Norman, OK.

The Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma is in need of donations:

Items needed at the Animal Resource Center – 7949 S I-35 Service Rd, Oklahoma City, OK 73149:

Gallons of Water

Paper Towels

Toilet Paper

People Snacks – Bread, Peanut Butter, Crackers, Cereal Bars – anything non-perishable and easy.

Blankets/Sheets/Pillows

These items are for those coming in with injured or animals that are in need – we have plenty of supplies for animals, with vet care on site but need supplies for owners that would like to stay with their animals – again please email Tami at info@petfoodpantryokc.org for more details

Dropoff/donation information from KFOR

Current needs:

If you live south of Moore, donate items to @journeychurchtv. Here’ s a list of items needed: journeychurch.tv/may-20-relief/ #prayforOklahoma

— Wendy Johnson (@wen1027) May 21, 2013

Taking donations for needed supplies today at both @peopleschurchtv locations – OKC and MWC.

— Mike Koehler (@mkokc) May 21, 2013

Those looking to support Oklahoma can donate blood for patients still in the hospital. Find a location near you ow.ly/lf2e8

— OK Blood Institute (@okblood) May 21, 2013

Please stay tuned here & on Facebook throughout the day for specific needs! Right now we’re needing volunteers here at 9am! #journeyrelief

— JourneyChurch.tv (@journeychurchtv) May 21, 2013

–

For those who suffered loss yesterday - FEMA has a website and phone lines for those who sustained losses: DisasterAssistance.gov and 1-800-621-FEMA(3362).

Tornado document and photo recovery – Facebook group

Pray.

My Favorite Songs From Musicals — Part 4

Elizabeth — Mon, 20 May 2013 05:01:27 +0000

I’m back. Let’s skip the excuses and get to the music.

53. All That Jazz — Chicago
Another one that’s just fun to sing. I’m probably in the minority here, but I don’t care for the show all that much. Just a few select songs. The version I picked to share is from Glee (FYI, I haven’t been a fan of this show since the first season) just because I think it’s fun.

52. The Way He Makes Me Feel — Yentl
I have feelings about this. First, Mandy Patinkin. I really shouldn’t have to say anything else, but I’ve come to the understanding that his mere presence in this film doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone else as it does for me. Second, Babs. Love me a good Babs song. Thirdly, well, this song is a pretty good little description of…you know…feelings.

There’s no storm yet I hear thunder
And I’m breathless, why I wonder?
Weak one moment,
Then the next I’m fine

51. I’ll Be Seeing You — Right This Way
This one is probably more of a standard in most folks’ minds, but I was surprised to learn a few years back that it came from a musical. The version I’m sharing is by Jo Stafford because I love her voice.

50. I Could Have Danced All Night — My Fair Lady
One of those floaty, falling in love songs. *sigh*

49. The Point of No Return — Phantom of the Opera
As the title suggests, this is a turning point in the story that brings us to the final action. And that moment when Christine realizes who he is…I love it!

You have brought me to that moment where words run dry
To that moment where speech disappears into silence, silence

48. With One Look — Sunset Boulevard
With one look I can break your heart
With one look I play every part
I can make your sad heart sing
With one look you’ll know all you need to know

47. Surrey With the Fringe On the Top — Oklahoma!
I just love the way she pretends not to care for him at all. It’s Curly! How can you not like him?

46. Once Upon A December — Anastasia
I think this animated feature gets overlooked a lot, but it has some of the prettiest music. I so enjoy this one and I can’t wait to see how the scene plays out on stage.

Far away, long ago
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart used to know
Things it yearns to remember

Sunday Morning Coffee

Elizabeth — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:36:02 +0000

YAWN. We didn’t get in until super late last night from a fabulous wedding (my cousin got married! photos later), had to drive through a raging thunder storm with some scary greenish/bluish glow in the air (looked like hail), an enormous lowering that thankfully did nothing more than sit there and glare at us while I prayed that it would stay in the sky, and a bag full of York Pieces got me through the whole thing.

SPRING IN OKLAHOMA, you are not good for my nerves. I don’t care that I’ve lived here forever. White knuckling a steering wheel in the middle of the night, going 20 miles per hour on the interstate while the car is pounded with heavy rain is NOT my idea of a good time. (Luckily, I did not have to drive.)

Looks like we have another interesting afternoon ahead of us. I was supposed to do a family photo shoot today, but I’m already thinking that will be rescheduled.

I Believe In Story’s Writing Advice from the Spice Girls
I’d never heard of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry until I saw this photo from THIS LAND and now I want to go. Go with me?
The most incongruous book covers of all time — Everyone has seen that Anne of Green Gables cover (which has since been pulled from Amazon), but my favorite is definitely Wuthering Heights
“…the impulse to connect the dots and to share what you’ve connected, this urge is what makes you an artist and a writer and the formats are infinite.” — this talk by Amanda Palmer is fabulous
The Challenge of Friendship (for the Highly Sensitive Person)
I love stamps and this (not so) little project makes me giddy. It also makes me want to buy chunks of whatever you carve stamps out of and an exacto knife.

Merely an analogy

Elizabeth — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:35:59 +0000

And So It Goes by Sara Gazarek

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player.
(Download) this music.

♥ Fair reader I offer merely an analogy.
A delay.
- Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband
♥ dreams of ships
♥ butterflies & bees
♥ Don’t say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! – Anaïs Nin
♥ conversations at the farmers’ market
♥ Deacon & Rayna
♥ backyard wildlife
♥ garden centers
♥ the one cricket who sings on my back porch all night
♥ this is why my eyes are closed

Sunday Morning Coffee

Elizabeth — Sun, 12 May 2013 13:46:45 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day to my mama. I’ll be seeing her later this morning. A few days ago I wrote a really, really long post about motherhood and blogging culture and where I am in life and I sidelined it — because even though no offense was meant, it’s guaranteed to be taken by some. If I’m going to share my feelings on all that, I’ll wait until after today.

Just…love your mom today. Or a mother figure in your life. If we all just focused on that, I think things would be better.

A strong cup of Tribute Blend has me sort of awake this morning. Yikes. And we’re leaving soon. I need to wake up.

A Million Ways to ‘Lean In’ — a great piece on work (writing) and motherhood
“I take comfort in knowing that, despite how things seem at present, goodbyes were never meant to be, and are, in fact, on the way out.”
Something to try! — “Stormwriting is essentially a heartbrainstorm, a process by which you open your heartbrain and provoke it to not merely dump stuff out, but generate new questions and ideas that lead you to more good stuff: The stuff that becomes building blocks for your book.”
ASMR, the Good Feeling No One Can Explain — I’ll come back to this later. Right now I’ll tell you that I’ve experienced this since I was at least 4-years-old. If you don’t understand it, you don’t and that’s fine. People who do…do. (h/t Misti who brought my attention to this. I didn’t even know it had a name.)

Wordless Wednesday

Elizabeth — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:31:22 +0000

Sometimes you just need to stop and throw rocks in a pond.

Dress Me Up – Update!

Elizabeth — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:29:19 +0000

Thank you so much for all of your input and assistance yesterday! Sometimes it’s nice to know what other people think of the ideas you have floating around in your head, even though sometimes I just let those things go in the wind and do what I was going to do in the first place. Can’t help it!

In this case, I had a sort of favorite/front runner among the dresses…

So yesterday when mom and I were at the mall I looked for it. Unfortunately, our Dillard’s didn’t have the dress in stock. If I want to try it on, I’ll have to check out the one in Oklahoma City. Hopefully I will be able to get up there sometime in the coming week. I do want to try it on, badly.

On a whim, we visited Dress Barn. I think I’ve only found one thing there in the past 10 years that I really cared for and I wasn’t optimistic. But there was this vibrant, royal blue dress hanging up and I pulled it down to get a better look. It’s a fairly classic cut in a comfortable fabric that would be nice outside if it happens to be warm. The dress available in 3 different colors — a sort of cerulean, purple, and the royal blue. Out of them all I wear royal blue the best, so I headed to the dressing room to try it on. I’m not posting the photo here, so you can consider it an Instagram exclusive. Heh.

I put the dress on and I loved it. It’s another safe choice for me, but it’s so pretty. And I can’t deny that I wear the color better than most other colors, even some of the ones I’d picked out in the first post. It was a good deal to begin with, so I went ahead and purchased it. The tags are still on and a saved the receipt just in case I do find that other dress and fall in love with how it looks on me.

Here is the dress and the fabulous pair of shoes I ended up with…

It’s pretty form-fitting on me, so it hangs a little differently, but I love it.

Those are the shoes! First I have to say that image is NOT true to the actual color. And the angle of the photo doesn’t really do the shoe justice, but I haven’t taken the time to snap a photo yet. The real color (as far as it appears on my screen) is much closer to this one:

I tried on a half dozen variations of the same shoe and felt a little like Goldilocks.

Too spikey.
Too tall.
Too squishy.
Too small.

As I was talking to the sales associate (oh, I wish I had gotten her name!), I told her the issues I was having, what I liked about one shoe and disliked about another, and she said, “Give me just one second. I think we might have something.”

She returned with the Antonio Melani Helena Pump. I put it on (in a SIZE AND A HALF SMALLER than usual!) and felt like Cinderella. It was perfect. The heel is a little more substantial, I still got the rounded toe, and I ended up with a platform. The platform is NOT what I expected to walk out with. I’ve avoided those over the years, well, since 1998 when I grew out of my platform, low-top Doc Marten phase. But the platform on this is so nice because it makes the drop from the heel not so steep! I’m 5′ 7 and 1/2″ in these things and I like the air up here.

There you have it! If I end up checking out that other dress, I’ll definitely let you know.

BlackBerry Z10 – First Impression

Elizabeth — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:17:40 +0000

Recently I received another phone to check out from Verizon Wireless. It’s the BlackBerry Z10. This is my first BlackBerry so this is an entirely new experience for me.

I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and wanted to let you know what my first impressions are.

Screen – It’s big and bright. I like it. The sensitivity is good as well and it responds nicely.
Back cover – Seems a little flimsy and it’s very easy to remove. I’ve never used a phone with a back cover that comes off so easily. I don’t feel very good about.
Battery life – Is more limited than other phones I’ve used. Also of note, because the back cover tries to come off, I’ve had the battery lose connection a number of times. Trying to find out if it’s just me or if this is a known issue.
Photos – Clear and beautiful. I just wish there was Instagram for BlackBerry!
Network – Still loving Verizon. It’s great for someone like me who isn’t always in a city or a town where coverage is expected. This continues to surprise me out near my parents’ house in the country.

Next time I’ll be back with some of my favorite apps that I’ve found for the phone.

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Wireless Ambassador program and have been provided with a wireless device and three months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Dress Me Up

Elizabeth — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:00:00 +0000

One of my younger cousins is getting married in a few weeks and she has asked me to be a hostess at the reception. Of course, I’m choosing to make this a reason to buy a new dress. It’s an outdoor wedding, middle of May, in southeastern Oklahoma. There’s no telling what the weather will be then, though we’re all hoping it’s pleasant. FYI — it’s May 2 and it’s SNOWING in parts of Oklahoma. Good grief.

But anyway, I have the dress choices narrowed down to a few. I’m heading out to the mall today and may end up with one from Dillard’s (those are included here), but if I can’t find anything I like there, I may be going with ModCloth. There are a few that are reasonably priced that I like a lot. Another bonus — over there at ModCloth people post photos of themselves in the clothing so you get more than just a form model wearing the clothing. It is so nice to see someone with a figure closer to mine. It’s often difficult to make the leap from mannequin to me (things I think would look nice look awful).

So, I am asking for your help and opinions. Which do you like best and which do you think I would wear the best? Have an opinion on one that’s better for a wedding? Please share!

Dresses are below the cut if you’re viewing this from the front page of my blog!

**Just a few notes for those of you who have never actually seen me in real life. I’m on the curvier side and I try to dress fairly modestly, but not with a collar that goes up to my chin or anything. I’ve got thin legs, but I’m closer to Joan Holloway than Peggy Olson (in general shape/size, not personality).

This blue number is a perfect example of one that looks pretty bad on the mannequin, but good actually on someone. It’s also available in jade green and looks very nice in that as well.

This sorta reminds me of a dress that I took senior portraits in 10 years ago. I like the color and I think I wear the style well, but I’m a tad worried that the ruffles could add some bulk or draw attention.

This is another that looks better on a person. This is a style that is pretty standard for me, in a color I wear well, so it would be a safe choice.

I like this style and I’m going to try to locate it at Dillard’s today to see how it looks on me (prepare for Instagram spam from dressing rooms). I also want to know about the color and how true what I’m seeing on the screen is. The color might go better with the wedding, but I’m not wanting to look like a bridesmaid (they are in peachy-colored dresses).

The more I look at this one, the more I love it. I need to see it on though and I have a feeling a good pair of Spanx will be involved.

Not much different from the fuchsia dress, just a different color really. There are a few noticeable differences in the fabric (if it’s chiffon, I may avoid it) and I think I prefer it in black, but I’m not wearing black to a wedding.

SHOES!

I’m dead set on buying a pair of nude pumps today, I just don’t know which ones.