Christmas in Seattle...A Look Back

Chad and I had a beautiful, busy, action-packed, snowy Christmas in Seattle! We feel so blessed to have wuch wonderful & giving family and friends who gave us places to sleep, food to eat, and most of all great conversation and fellowship. I loved every second of our visit, and while I hated to leave, I feel refreshed and content now that we're back in LA with all these great memories to feed me until the next time we can come back North!

Some of my favorite moments from Christmas week '08:

Being with our families at all. We were sweating bullets the day before we left, worrying that our flight would be canceled and we'd be spending our Christmas in L.A. (yuck!) But it all worked out and we saw (almost) our whole family (my Dad went back East for Christmas.)

Seeing all the kids! Sinclaire, Campbell, Simon, Levi (aka Louie, my nickname twin!), Evan and little Wes... It was fun to watch every one of them enjoy the magic and excitement of Christmas. Every year it gets a little crazier with the whole Gough/Evans/Babcock crew together, and I absolutely love it!

The snow! I know it was a big annoyance to most everyone, but Chad and I adored it (then again we only really got stuck once at my mom's house, and even then it wasn't too bad.) It was really something to finally have a white Christmas in Seattle.

My birthday dinner at Brouwer's! I was really overwhelmed getting to celebrate with all these friends I haven't seen in so long. Plus treating myself to yummy pommes frites & Hoegaarden beer, which is a very rare treat!

There were so many little moments to cherish, too many to list here, but I will certainly remember them all year long. Thank you everyone for a Christmas to remember. :)

2008...Our Year in LA

10 on 10 :: December :: FAIL

Well I wish I could have made it all the way to December but my streak is broken. I did not do 10 on 10 today, and I probably won't tomorrow either. We've been trying to work as much as possible lately to alleviate some of the pending holiday strain on our bank account, and since you can't really take photos on set...and since most days on a set are no shorter than 8-10 hours...well you see my problem. On top of it all I've caught a cold from working a long outdoor night shoot (did you know it can be freezing in California at night? I didn't) so right after I post this I'm going to go lie in my bed with a cup of tea and then sleep for as long as I can before starting all over again in the morning.

At any rate, apologies for the lack of a true 10 on 10 today. I'm bummed because I had such nice ideas for capturing the Christmas spirit in our house! So I thought I'd post a few photos I took after we decked our halls. Happy Christmas everyone, peace to you and yours.

City of Angels Half Marathon: Check.

We did it!





Chad: 1:48:30
Lindsay: 1:53:26
Erika: 2:02:00

Not sure of all our official results yet, but I know I came in 976th out of 7000 runners, 214th among all women and 31st in my age division. Not bad for a first timer!

Next: Agoura Hills Half Marathon in March, followed by the Seattle Rock 'n Roll Marathon in June!

Stardom

I've been saying I would try to post some of my "best of" moments of working on tv sets, and finally I can make good on that promise a little. Here is a video our roomie Tyler put together of clips of each of us being pretty "featured" on different shows.

Enjoy!

Our Featured Week

City on Fire

Having never lived in an area prone to yearly wildfires, all of us here at the Waverly house have been a little taken aback by the insanity transpiring over the past week or so. First, we were just watching it on tv like the rest of the nation (though probably moreso, since an even like this absolutely takes over the local media--even the local NPR stations interrupted their fall fund drive to cover the fires!). But the last two days we have been directly impacted by the fires, even though they are miles and miles away.

To give you an idea, this is the view from our living room window on a typical day with fairly moderate smog.

And here is the view from our window this past Sunday.

That is all from the wildfires, probably the ones to the northwest (Sylmar) which are closest to us at about 20 miles as the crow flies.

All the smoke has left me feeling kind of sick, but the air is definitely clearer today and hopefully I'll start feeling better...and can start running again! Our half marathon training group had to cancel our 8 mile training run for Sunday since it was just plain unsafe to be outside breathing that air too deeply.

That was a bummer for sure, but then again that's absolutely nothing compared to people out there losing their homes and businesses. It's not like an earthquake or a flood where there's the possibility you can salvage something--these people come back to absolutely nothing. Just awful... Anyway, I hope you'll all throw some prayers down this way for all Californians who have been seriously affected by the fires.

Baby!

Congrats Jenny and Jeff, and happy birthday darling little Wesley James! I am glad that you and your mommy are healthy and happy, even though you came into the world over a month early!!

Guys, Chad and I absolutely cannot wait to meet your little one this Christmas. Blessings and love on your new family!

10 on 10 :: November : A Day on Set

Remarkably Unremarkable

No updates for a while, I know, but life has just been remarkably unremarkable lately. I'll let you know a bit about the unremarkable, though I highly doubt anyone is especially interested.

I had a disasterous full time temp job at a medical office for about two weeks that, though it was not all that horrible a job, made me feel like Garth in "Wayne's World" when that guy is giving him a haircut with his dustbuster/haircutter...("It's sucking my will to live!") So that is all over, and I've learned a couple valuable lessons. Lesson #1: For me, there is an inverse relationship between distance/time driving to work and job satisfaction. I've made a little graph to demonstrate:


I just cannot be happy driving 45 minutes to an hour to get to work, particularly when it is nothing but stop and go traffic and on a clear day it should take me 20 minutes. No thank you.

Lesson #2: I gotta speak up. I never should have accepted this job in the first place since it was temp to hire, full time, and working in Beverly Hills, and I did not want any of those things.

Lesson #3: No more temp agencies. At least not the one I went with this time. They were bossy (with a smile) and bullied me (with a smile) into sticking with this job way longer than I wanted to. In the end I don't think they were really concerned with what I wanted, but with how their company appeared to their clients.

Anyway, it's in the past and I am moving on! I have a final interview for a fantastic part-time office assistant job on Tuesday, it's a 10 minute drive with wonderful people and higher pay. I am pretty excited about it. It would still allow me to audition and take classes, and maybe even do background everyone once in a while. Things are looking up!

Another nice thing is that fall has finally arrived in LA. It's rained a little, and some days it has been downright chilly! (To SoCal standards, that is.) I love it, but in some ways it makes me miss Seattle even more. There's just no comparison. In my head I am already counting the days until we fly up for Christmas. :-)

I Won!

I've been waiting something like 3 months to be able to post this blog, and here it is!

I was on a game show in August...and I won! Yes, I am a certified nerd for life because of this, especially since it wasn't some cool game show like Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy or anything. It was a show called "Bingo America" (oh my gosh, so nerdy) and it only shows on the Game Show Network. So the likelihood of anyone EVER seeing my super nerdy, overly-smiley (according to my mom), ridiculousely-easy-trivia-answering performance is very small. Darn!

I won't tell you how much I won, but suffice it to say it was not a life changing amount (especially after taxes)...though it will certainly be very welcome during these tough times!

15 and a half miles

Today I ran 15.5 miles. It was easily the second hardest thing I have ever done in my life, right behind moving to California. Physically, definitely the hardest thing I've ever done.

We've been doing these Sunday group runs with our half-marathon training program at Griffith Park for 5 weeks now, doing long slow runs ("Aerobic" or "Aero" running, keeping our heart rates low, the idea being you develop a good aerobic base this way, allowing you to eventually go faster for longer on the actual race day). We've increased our time each week, to culminate in our longest run today: 2 hours and 40 minutes. And I thought 2:20 was hard!! Several times I seriously considered slowing down, walking, stopping to stretch, but I must say I am proud of myself for pushing through to the bitter end... Or should I say blissful end? At any rate, I made it thanks to my awesome pace group comrades and especially my wonderful hubby who always encourages me when I start to falter. This week is our "cut back" week, and after that we start working on speed, so no more long runs until race day! I can handle that. :)

Erika and Tyler return from their month long European honeymoon tonight. We're excited to have them back! I'm already mulling over our own return to Europe someday, I'm sure we'll be even more inspired when we see all their photos and hear their stories. Just got to figure out how to pay for it all I guess! I'm also excited for Erika to hopefully join our training program so I can have someone to run else to run with on race day. I'm not sure if our paces are the same, but it's so nice to run with someone for a little ways if not the whole way and I will be eating Chad's dust on December 7th. :)

I hope you are all enjoying the fall weather wherever you are. These chilly(ish) LA mornings are just what the doctor ordered for me! That and some ice for my knees and a couple ibuprofin. :)

10 on 10 :: October

10 on 10 :: October was an absolutely perfect autumn day in LA. Too bad I didn't spend more of it outdoors! Nice cool breezes all day, it didn't get above 72 degrees and the sun was shining just as bright and lovely as can be! Nice break from the 90+ record setting days we've been having...

Hope you enjoyed these photos of our autumnal home decor. I can't take credit for hardly any of it--it's allll Erika. Except the Fairy Tale pumpkin, that's me. I'm thinking of carving it up a little untraditionally...maybe will post more photos if I actually make good on that thought!

Hope you all enjoyed this first 10 on 10 of the fall season!

Phoenix, Marathon Training, and CSI: NY: Revisited

Last Saturday we drove five hours East on the 10 for a lovely long weekend in Phoenix with Jim, Patti, Grandma O'Brien, Julia, Erina and the girls. Phew! Quite the packed household! We had a truly wonderful time: relaxing by the pool, teaching Sinclaire how to swim, catching up with the fam, and just being away from LA for a couple days. I did come home with a pretty ghoulish cold, which manifested itself inopportunely on a 13 hour day on "Bring it on 5" (coming to a video store near you in 2009!) I'm over the worst of it now, though, and I've had some glorious, beautiful cloudy and cool days to spend in doors mostly getting better. Finally! Bring on the rain, SoCal!

As I mentioned in my previous post, Chad and I joined a training program for the City of Angels Half Marathon, which is on December 7th. Chad has done two halfs (halves?) in the past; I, on the other hand, have never ever done anything even close, so this is all very new to me. I have never, I repeat, NEVER enjoyed running, but in the past month I have really developed quite a taste for it! Now I find that when I'm on set working, mostly what I am looking forward to all day is getting home so I can go for my 30 minute run. So far we've been building "an aerobic base" in our training program, meaning we do lots of slow, low heart-rate running. We'll work up to 'race day pace' eventually, but honestly my goal is to finish, and to run the whole way without walking or slowing. And if the all goes well with the half, we may very well continue on to train for the full marathon in early March! It's actually very nice to have something other than acting to work towards--I am definitely feeling much happier and healthier physically and psychologically since we started training.

Also! If you've been waiting to glimpse me on the small screen, I think you may have your chance this coming Wednesday. Remember that episode of CSI: NY I blogged about forever ago? Well that episode is airing this Wednesday, October 8th, at 10pm on CBS! My part would be basically in the very beginning, and I'm seated on the "hero" side of the airplane, about five rows back from Gary Sinise, on the aisle. I'm wearing a striped hairband. If you miss it or don't have tv, it also will be posted the CBS website I'm sure. I'll also post my bit here someday, with the other ones. Once I figure out how to do that...

Already Autumn

Despite a lack of updates, life in L.A. clips along at an alarming pace. I cannot believe it is already autumn (and not only because it is 85 degrees and sunny out). Time absolutely whizzes by here, and I am honestly not sure if that is because every day is exactly the same (sunny, smoggy & hot) or because every day is completely different (basically what amounts to having a new job everyday).

Regardless, of course things have been happening. I'm still doing background work, which I have a like/hate relationship with. On one hand it is low-paying, un-glamourous, and requires long hours. On the other hand it is the easiest job I have ever had, I get fed, and it's a way to possibly move up and on in the acting world. Some days I really just want to stop and find another way, but other days I realize that it is pretty freaking cool to be on a movie or tv set... Not sure where I'm going with that, but there you have it... I guess that's working background: not sure where I'm going.

There are some shows coming up that you might glimpse my little face in (and some have already aired actually). I've glimpsed myself on Greek nearly every episode so far, and Chad and I were seen a little on Boston Legal's season premiere a couple days ago. Kinda neat to see yourself on tv! And I know there are several more things coming up pretty soon...I'll post them here, and also try to post clips in case shows like Nip/Tuck aren't quite your cup of tea (they sure aren't mine!)

Chad, Tyler and I were also in one of those ubiquitous Verizon commercials, as part of "the network". Here's some lovely photo of us in our Verizon gear and hard hats. Taken with a cell phone (Verizon!), so the quality isn't great.


We spent the entire afternoon on a sweltering dock in San Pedro to make that commercial, and I'm positive you won't see any of us, but we did get to see the Verizon guy! And those famous glasses!!

Even neater, I worked one of my favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother, and small-talked with Neil Patrick Harris a bit (who I love on that show.) He was super friendly, and the three guys did nothing but joke around in between takes. Really great, friendly set... I hope I get to work it again!

We're taking a road trip to Phoenix this weekend to visit Jim, Patti, Grandma O'Brien, Julia, Erina and Sinclaire. I really can't wait--it should be a lot of fun to see everyone, hang out in the pool and just get out of LA. Now we've just got to figure out how to incorporate our training for the LA Half-Marathon into our mini-vacation...

Did I mention we were training for a half-marathon?

10 on 10 :: September