Remabulous

Too much living, too little blogging.

2009-11-11T15:06:18-08:00

I have been terribly neglectful of this site, despite the fact that it is one of my very favorite projects. Really, I swear.

But the thing about the 32 for 32 project is that there is an awful lot of doing involved in plowing through this list and that leaves less time for writing about it.

I have been busy though...

Here are my updates: (they're pretty awesome...)

Really they are.

First and fabulously, there was a stakeout! A real one. My assistant, Jen, Catherine Cassidy of Ustyled, and I hit La Cienega last Thursday the 5th and staked out (what is the past tense of stakeout, anyway?) a couple of bars.

Now granted, it was only 5pm- we didn't want to keep you east coast viewers up too late, after all, but we still saw some sights. A grown man in Mom jeans was a big highlight. Most women know better than to wear those things these days, let alone men.

You can also witness me dumping a box of donuts on my own lap- I couldn't seem to open the thing right side up- as well as a thermos of coffee on the floor. It's delightful. It's posted.

If you missed the live broadcast, don't fret. It's right here on the site. Yay! So #32 is done! But there will be more stakeouts to come. This thing is bigger than just one dream now. It's got a life of its own.

#20: I have been getting the produce box and thanks to these magical green bags that I got at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I have been able to spread the veggies I get over the two week span between arrivals and cook them up.

My latest and greatest: brussels sprouts sliced thin-ish and sauteed in the frying pan in a generous helping of olive oil and garlic. Made it last night with my friend Amy and it was magic.

Also- if you haven't made roll-it-yourself sushi with quinoa and sliced veggies you must. it is a fantastic treat.

#24: I saw a crazy play with several college friends in it: The Conquest of the South Pole at the Elephant Lab theater on Santa Monica. It was a wild ride. It's going through November 22. Buy your tickets here. Now watch the trailer to see what you shall see:

Tonight, I am going to see the tech rehearsal of my neighbor Sam's production of the Odyssey at a high school in Pasadena. It will involve the music of the Pet Shop Boys and Bjork. I am pretty goddamn stoked.

It's been a good stretch for theater. Next, I need to get my hands on some live music.

#10. I've found a wingman to go see the museum of Jurrasic technology. I am pretty excited about this. We almost went on Sunday, before we realized that our sense of what was possible in the limited hours of the day was severely compromised.

Instead, we went to Madame Matisse on Sunset for Huevos Ranchero and Chef's Revenge. Yum. The museum will be soon. I am excited!

Look at this crazy thing! Is it a typewriter or a camera or a projector?

I have no idea, but I am going to find out. Yessir, I am.

#27: Many thanks to my stepmother Anne, who had an inspired fit of generosity in the Macy's in Santa Barbara last friday. I now have six new delightful pairs of underwear an as many new bras. I feel much better about the underwear and did a thorough clean-out of those that needed to be retired to that laundry line in the sky.

We are getting there, panty drawer!

And finally, #16: get Jackie Page's help with my apartment.

This lady is a marvel. She came back to touch up all my oops spots with my paint and now all the walls, the office and the kitchen look amazing. She didn't even bat an eye when I forgot she was coming over because I had a gentleman caller at my place that Sunday. Oops. They did get along and all was well. I am keeping progress on #6 on the DL for the moment. Everyone I am interested in is smart enough to know about this site. So I shall keep my trap shut.

Thank you for your support on this exciting ride through the state of the 32 for 32 adventure this 11th day of November.

It's 11-11! Make a wish. Tell us what it is below, if you dare...

Back from the beyond, AND: Stakeout tomorrow!!

2009-11-04T11:49:00-08:00

Hello all of you out there! I am back from Vegas and am now no longer sleeping until noon to recover as I was the entire weekend. Wow. David Neagle's ERS was a last minute opportunity for me and it was such an incredible gift to be able to go.

And now... I jump back into my life at home. I am back to my client calls, hearing about businesses and where they are headed- so much fun!

However, the really big announcement I want to make as this is my fun 32 for 32 blog now: #32 will be in effect tomorrow.

That's right. A REAL LIVE stakeout. I can barely contain myself. Just two short months after my birthday I am going to be in a car with a thermos (see left for our thermos, purchased for us by my wonderful friends Erin and Jesse) and trashy magazines. And the lovely Catherine Cassidy, who is going to try to explain to me and all of us WHY ON EARTH women dress the way they do when in line for bars on La Cienega.

If you're not in LA, you have these bars in your town. I promise. These are the bars with ladies in skyscraper heels and tiny barely-there minis who flounce to the front of the line and get in.

In LA it takes more than that to get right in because everyone is dressed that way.

We will not be dressed that way, don't get excited. We will be in all black to be inconspicuous. With large thermoses of tea and soup. And trashy tabloid magazines.

Goal #32 has gotten so big and exciting that it has its own website now!

Visit us at www.stakeoutgirl.com

And remember- the show is TOMORROW (Thursday November 5) at 5pm pacific and it is live. This means that if you log in to Ustream that you can ask us questions via chat and join us all on the stakeout, too.

It wasn't enough for me to go with just Catherine and my assistant, Jen.

I am taking all of you with us.

I have many more stories to share from my week in Vegas and from other goals, but as this is the big one, I just had to share it first. I'll report back after the show.

If you can't be on live, it will be posted on the site after the fact. Don't cry!

We can't wait... hope you'll be there with us!

How to be generous.

2009-10-29T00:41:32-07:00

My project and my challenge this week has been looking at giving and receiving money through the lens of money, donation, and asking for help.

If you feel moved to participate in this experiment, please share what you can in the tip jar in the top right corner of the site.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

Much love to all.

Help me make wishes come true!

2009-10-28T00:55:04-07:00

Hello all. I have undertaken a challenge and I need your help. I believe I can raise $1000 dollars by this Friday. I want to donate this money to the make a wish foundation.

Here at Remabulous, we are all about dreams. I believe that if you set your mind to something there is hope. I believe that dreams are what this world needs. And sick kids need dreams more than anyone.

I want to raise $1000 for Make a Wish. If you would like to support me, please donate using the tip jar in this post or on the top right hand corner of the site.

When we help others dream, our dreams can get bigger, too.

I'll have a new cause next week, but for this week if anything I have ever written means something to you, please show your thanks by helping me help these kids.

I had my tonsils out last February and it shut me down for a month. That is nothing compared to what these kids go through. I am honored to help them reach a dream and live well.

Thank you in advance for your support!

32 for 32 Vegas Edition

2009-10-25T22:38:39-07:00

Hello all!

I am writing this post from my almost frighteningly large suite at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Through a crazy series of events I find myself here for a David Neagle seminar. When you get one or two signs you are supposed to attend something, it's still possible to say no and get on with your usual life. However, I just had far too many signals that this was an essential experience for me.

I can't entirely say why that is, but in the 31 for 31 list, I said that I would say yes to more adventures and so I have built that habit from last year.

It is an amazing thing to look over all that has happened since last October. I was just into my new apartment then, just getting used to the east side and getting to know new friends there. And now these friends are some of my favorite people. I have met so many wonderful people in the last year: mentors, clients, friends an colleagues.

I feel so lucky!

So now I get to lie on a gold couch and watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer- I never watched it when it was on TV, but now I am hooked. Hooked enough to bring the season 3 DVDs with me on a business trip that I borrowed from my friend Amy.

Hi Amy! Your Buffy disks are on a trip. I think they are happy to be here.

As am I. I am not entirely sure what I am in for this week, but it feels exciting. I'll keep you all posted.

ps- I made an amazing version of Madeleine cookies that is wheat and sugar free. I am really excited about it! I'll post it as soon as I am home this upcoming weekend as I don't have the original recipe I modified with me on this trip.

It will be my Halloween present to you all.

Enter Jackie Page: List item 16

2009-10-21T14:50:05-07:00

One of my big items was getting my house ship shape this year. No more beige couch against beige wall! This past weekend, Jackie Page or Alter came to visit. She is a friend whose work I've had my eye on for quite a while, so it was such a treat to have her come on down and take a gander at the house.

So far so good... above is my new, but not yet totally finished, living room. I love love love to sit in it now. Before it was just a bland and cramped area. Now it is a real live room!

More to come, but wanted to update all on what's been going on with 32 for 32...

Yay!

Today, I will go to dance class.

2009-10-15T11:07:35-07:00

Given that all I have been focusing on the last week or so on the list has been stakeouts, I decided it was time to give some attention to other items on the list. #4 is "take a ballet class." Now, I have found a proper ballet class, but when I was at my knitting group last week, I heard about this.

I think this might be the most terrifying ass I have ever seen in my life.(click on the image of the lady in yellow when you first land to see what I am talking about.) It's hypnotic really, in its tiny green shorts and wrist bands.

Rest assured that I will not be dressed in the same outfit while attending this experience, so please don't start a stakeout of your own outside the class. I will be in sensible yoga attire and just trying things out.

The woman in my knitting class who told me about it was about my age and making a beautiful twisted stitch cardigan, so I feel I can trust her judgment. She says she goes about three or four times a week. If it's that good, I might actually get enough exercise to be able to run around the reservoir! Without actually having to run. Especially in the rain we've been having lately. I prefer to stay inside and read. Perfection.

So... I will dance, sculpt, lift weights with, and generally stretch myself all over the place this evening at this class. Will report back. I am not giving up on the proper ballet class, but the promise of this ass was too good to give up. If mine ends up looking like this one, I will absolutely be photographing it. But as for right now, no dice.

Send me strength!

image: popphysique.com gallery.

Anyone seen this guy? I want to date him.

2009-10-12T14:00:00-07:00

Ok. So one of my goals this year was "find love." #6 on the 32 for 32 list, in fact. Throughout my life, I never thought of myself as the sort of person who had a type. None of the guys I dated were very similar to each other. They looked nothing alike and often had had totally diverging interests.

However, as friends have pointed out, there is one sort of guy I have a weakness for. He's probably pretty tall- around 6 feet at least, pretty lanky, sandy brown hair to light brown, green or blue eyes and black framed glasses. It gets a bit more specific, but I have encountered enough of these creatures to know they do a number on me.

Beyond that, I am going for the sort of guy who shuffles around in socks on a Sunday morning reading the New York Times. I recently spotted one of these types in the current issue of ReadyMade. He has a painting BFA and is a custom bike builder. Perfect. Unfortunately, I then spotted a wedding ring in the photo. And he lives in Portland. Enter the sad trombone.

So... I decided to take matters into my own hands and found a composite sketch generator online and am broadcasting my type out to all of you. Here he is:

I couldn't really find the right hair in the program. His hair is usually a bit longer in the front and short in the back. Looks like he just messed it up. And the glasses are black or dark tortoise. You know what I mean. If you know this guy, and he's 32-40, gainfully employed, kind, well read and looking to date an unconventional lady... send him my way. If he lives in LA, that would be preferable. Extra points for the east side... and super extra points for non-american (British, Scandinavian, German, etc.) Thank you!

I'm not too proud to ask for help on this one. It's a big goal, people. But I figured that if I knew he was this type, the rest would be a bit easier.

Also... I would die to go out with Stanley Tucci. DIE. So that's a big wish list item, too. Just thought I'd throw that in.

On trying to take days off.

2009-10-11T11:03:06-07:00

I am a big list maker. I make big lists, it's what I do. I make a longer list each year on my birthday and when things get overwhelming and crazy, I make a list.

I think lots of us do this. It works, and we get more done for the most part.

Recently I have been trying to challenge this idea. Is getting more done really the ultimate goal?

As I am jumping into a new project with a kick-ass collaborator, she pointed out something to me in a meeting we had: "I don't think our goal in doing this is to work 18 hours a day."

What a sigh of relief. I watched Yes Man, and read the book and took it to heart. I want to embrace opportunity and excitement and adventure in my life and my business.

Given the option of participating in something, I'll probably find a way to say yes. It was a good thing to try this.

I am kind of a homebody sometimes. (translation- I work from home, and you sometimes need a crowbar to get me away from the computer.) Getting out is good.

But when making plan after plan is the only way to get me to stop working, and I start working again as soon as I get home, hmmm. Not so good.

I looked over my 32 for 32 list this morning again, as I like to do on a fairly regular basis to see how I'm progressing, and realized a few goals have had to shift.

When I put down "learn to make cheese" as #3, I didn't realize that #22, get rid of my skin condition was going to require me to give up dairy. Hmm.

So what's the answer? For this one, it's a raw cooking class and learning to make nut cheeses. And maybe goat cheese and sheep cheese as I can add those things back into my diet.

But the specifics aren't the point.

We make lists with the knowledge that we have when we make them. We do our best, and if we update lists on a weekly basis, then we have the chance to bend and flex as needed.

But an annual list? Does everything always fit the same way it did when you made it? Probably not.

I think it's just as much of a gift to myself to allow the list to evolve as I do. And when #32: Stakeout becomes a big screaming opportunity, as it has in the last few weeks, I can then have the space in my life to reach out and grab it.

After all that's the whole point.

And in the meantime, I might be able to teach myself to take a day off now and then. Today, that day will be Sunday.

Hugs to all.

image: Flora

Video Friday: Clean up that kitchen, people!

2009-10-09T23:05:00-07:00

Your kitchen matters more than you think.

Especially when I am trying diet modifications to get rid of my skin problem. Let me say that it's a whole lot easier to make these things happen when you don't have a million off limits items at home.

But either way, it's easier to get to those goals with gusto if you're eating well.

Check out my new kitchen, above. Yay!