Julia's Mexico City

Making Room

I've already bought maternity clothes, so I've made room there. But my office, which will eventually become a combo office/nursing/changing station, needed work. So I cleaned out a bunch of drawers and Kurt did a lot of heavy lifting and my office is now almost ready to to become something new.

Here it was before:

So full of stuff! Mostly bits of leftover furniture.

Now here it is after:

Ahhhh, space.

There is still much to be done. The bookshelf in the front left foreground needs work. I'm going to go through and pull books out that need to move on to other homes and then decide where this shelf will go. Can I make room for it in here or will it live someplace else? The two bulletin boards will be consolidated into one behind my desk. The map of Italy will remain where it is so I can gaze upon it daily and plan future trips. Our awesome Star Wars Art (click here and here to see what we bought for the room) needs to be framed and hung plus we need to decide on wall colors for the room, more general tidying, etc etc.

Anyway, the idea is that there will be a chair and small table and lamp in the far left corner. Then a changing table along the left wall. Baby will sleep in a basinet in our room at first. So a year from now I will have had to figure out where my office will go as we move wee one into her own room. We aren't buying furniture for a while yet so I have months of wide open space to play with.

The nice thing about Kurt and I is that we agree so well on what we want the baby room to look like. We don't want it to look so much like a baby room. We are looking at sleek modern colors and designs that match the art. As with our wedding, our style is "not fussy".

So much more to come!

 

New Year Book Stack: Update!

So a month ago it looked like this:

And I blogged about it.

Suddenly I turn around and as of today it looks like this!

The books simply seem to multiply like rabbits!! Leave them alone in a dark room for a couple of  weeks and whamo - more books! Okay okay, to be honest, I know what happened. After reading my previous blog post, my  mom sent me (surprise!) the two books I wanted to get (Franklin and Eleanor and Diviner's Tale. Thanks Mom!) The Patton Oswalt book was a gift for my birthday. (Thanks Tom!) The top two on that stack are a little harder to explain. And by explain I mean excuse. Mom and I were talking about Hawaii stories, books, movies, etc and told me that George Clooney had been there to shoot a movie based on a book called The Descendants. So I thought I'd read is as RESEARCH (no really) because there is a tv show or mini-series idea I have that takes place in Hawaii and I want to see what's out there being made...The Paul Theroux book is there because it was in my cart on Amazon and if I bought it (along with a third book that hasn't come yet) I would get free shipping. So yeah, free shipping is always better, right??

Getting an e-reader of any kind is going to be tough for me (and probably won't happen for a long long while - no mom, DO NOT buy me one!) Finding more space in our 950 square foot house for all these books is also going to be tough, but that is a challenge I am looking forward to solving.

I have finished two books -- Russel Brand's Booky Wook 2 and Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw. They are similar in that both writers are loud, opinionated and passionate about themselves and their careers. I love them both for that and more power to them. I'm finishing up the Vanity Fair with Beiber on the cover and will probably start my RESEARCH by reading The Descendants. Looking forward to it.

Oh and Russell is in a remake of "Arthur" (a movie I also love) and I'm really looking forward to seeing it. He's perfect for the part and OMG Helen Mirren as Hobson??? Oh yeah. Here's the trailer. (Sorry for the ad up front...)

EXT. COMFORT ZONE - DAY

I can see my comfort zone. It wouldn't take much to step back over there and fully immerse myself into it, pulling down lots of income and spending hours and hours every day focused on something incredibly non-creative and mundane. The money always looks good, but I have to remind myself that there is no such thing as easy money. No Such Thing.

Luckily I had two great quotes come at me through email this week. The first from Seth Godin:

"You don't need more time...you just need to decide."

And from Thomas Edison:

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't."

Both of these things kept me away from the CZ and toward my goals.

 

UPDATE: After posting this I found out that today is Thomas Edison's Birthday! Nice timing. (See Google for their cool artwork celebrating this fact!)

Back On Track

Okay, let's try this again. Happy New Year! 

This week feels more like the official start of it than the previous three Mondays, that is for sure. Now that the mom-in-law is healing really well and totally on track (and ahead of schedule) for a full recovery, the stress levels are almost normal. Along with the lowering of the stress level is the lowering of the amount of comfort eating. I've lost three of the eight pounds I gained since Christmas and am on track to get back to where I was in December. That feels good.

The mornings have returned to my favorite routine as well -- up early, coffee, journal, writing or researching on whatever my current personal writing project it, checking email and going for walkies or spending time on the Wii Fit. I like these mornings. By 10:00am I've gotten a lot done.

The gears are turning in our writing world and my aim is to keep them going and going. My "Be Bold" strategy is working - every time I feel myself wimping out by not doing something bold, I remind myself to step up and just do it. Yesterday my goal was to make a long list of people to email about my goals, people who can potentially help me, and then, you know, EMAIL THEM. My list was 17 people long and I emailed all of them with bold and straight forward and nice messages and I'm very pleased with myself. 

My fantasy life was stoked this week as well. I got my latest issue of Budget Travel Magazine and it has an article about six hotels in Paris that are between $100 and $200 a night. I went to all the websites and dreamt about staying in each one and eating the fresh pastry and hot strong coffee at breakfast every morning. Haven't been to Paris in four and a half years and that is too long. More distressing is that we haven't been to Italy for eight years. EIGHT YEARS! (I know, I know: "First World Problems.") Travel has always been a big priority for me and while I'm lucky to be able to travel for work, much of that time is spent, you know, working. So a trip to Italy just for fun would be dreamy. 

But the bigger dreams are up front - writing, getting an agent, selling the writing, writing more. From the realization of these dreams come other dreams. 

Look out 2011, here I come!

 

Support From Seth Godin

I am catching up on emails from the last two weeks, reading daily posts from Seth Godin. This one from December 18 is really a compliment/supplement to my goals for 2011:

What are you working on?

If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer?

I hope so. If not, you're wasting away.

No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there's a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might make a difference is right around the corner.

Hurry, go do that.

 

Hurry!

Moving Forward to 2011!

Okay, got that off my chest. Let's look ahead.

My main goal (once I got rolling) for 2010 was to pitch a tv show to a major producer. We did that three times! Woo hoo!! Once we got there I realized, crap, I have to make bigger goals! That seemed so huge at the time, now it seems puny. 

The theme for 2011 is: BE BOLD. 

So the writing goals are (in no special order):

--Get a good agent

--Sell something I've written

--Continue creating and pitching great ideas

--Continue to remember that "People don't fail for lack of talent, they fail for lack of commitment." (via @revrunwisdom)

--Meet with anyone and everyone to get the word out that I've got writing projects to pitch and sell. This involves not being shy or afraid of saying or doing the "wrong" thing. 

As for other personal goals, the weight loss will continue (that was also something on pause for these last 3 months). My hair continues to get longer and I still have yet to achieve the 167 mark that I set in March of 2010. My exercise routine for 2010 was not bad, I think I averaged 3-4 days a week of working out. I will raise that to 4-5. (That's average, mind you).

There are other smaller projects and plans to work on, like continuing Safety Graphic Fun and starting a couple of other goofy little websites. (More on that coming soon...)

And Kurt and I keep realizing that as we work our butts off on the writing and wait for the baby-to-be-named-later to arrive, we know it will all happen at once and be incredibly stressful and insane and AWESOME. Can't wait!

 

Excellent Dream Last Night With Julia

I'll start with the reality of what was going on yesterday: I finished a very rough draft version of our tv pilot script and gave it to Kurt to read, then I went to a blogging.la meeting and I almost asked Kurt to text me when he was done because I really hoped he liked it. (Even though it needs work.) But I felt silly so I didn't ask him. Two hours later as I was leaving the meeting, he did text me saying "Nice job on the script!" It made me feel soooooo good!

So that was reality.

In my dream I was walking out of a hotel and in the lobby or right on the street was a bakery with the most beautiful pastries and food. I walked right by it and Julia Roberts was there choosing something yummy. I think maybe we were working on the same movie in this dream because she caught my eye and I felt bold enough to say something like, "those pastries are unfair!" She laughed and then started walking with me down the street and we started chatting. Mind you I was quite pleased about this in general. We talked really easily and comfortably for a while and somehow conversation got around to the fact that I was really focusing on writing and how much I loved it. She asked more about it and I said I had written a feature, was finishing a pilot script and there was a mini-series to come (all true in real life). She said, "I would really like to read your scripts." In my mind I'm thinking "Uh huh, that's very sweet of you to say..." But then I actually said out loud to her, "You would?" and she kept saying yes. I said, "Why don't I send you the short overviews for both instead." She said, "No, I want to read the scripts." I put my hand on my heart and told her that I was really pleased and stunned and happy. I was then trying to figure out A) if there were any parts for her in any of the projects (no) and B) how to get around to the fact that what I need most is an agent. But the dream never got that far.

That was it. But when I woke up this morning I was so pleased. My inner Julia Roberts (because of course I was talking to an aspect of myself in my dream) really really liked me and my writing. Hooray!

Weigh in Wednesday

Weighed in at 176 today, down from two weeks ago but up slightly from last week. I'm aware of the amount of eating I've done as I have a colleague in from out of town and Halloween didn't help (though I limited my candy eating to the day itself and a couple more on Monday.)

A year ago this month I weighed 186. Progress is progress. But now that the holidays are upon us, my focus must be clearer. Luckily Thanksgiving is a minor eating day for us (we might do a restaurant with Kurt's mom which means no leftovers). But Christmas, most likely in Seattle, will be challenging. 

So I have to get going now. I must be committed to my self and my good health goal! 

HOP TO IT!

Belated Weigh in Wednesday

Yesterday I barely squeaked into 174 land. Today I'm on the low end of 175. So I'm getting down toward my goal. The weight has not been flying off and I'm focused on these next two weeks to get and stay well below 174.

My goal, remember, is 167. I didn't give myself a time limit on it, other than the vague "end of the year" plan. I will make it before then for sure. I'm feeling very neutral about it all, wanting to get down there, but not actually working super hard to make it happen faster. Silver lining is it's better for my overall health in the long run to do it slowly. Right? RIGHT? Ahem.

Last weekend was a tough one. Much sadness and angst which became much ice cream, pie and pizza. Hi, I'm Julia and I'm a comfort eater. But I woke up Monday morning and said enough now, let's get back on track. All I can do is move ahead.

So far this week I've stayed on my WW numbers plan and will be quite strict about it as I want next Wednesday's number to be 173 (or less). Totally doable. The fridge is stuffed with lots of fruits and veggies, ready for my devouring.

Forward, little kitty, ever forward.

Self Reflection

(It's a blog, isn't that what every post is about?)

Seth Godin's email today was this:

SELF DELUSION AND SELF LOATHING:

Two shores of the same river, either can get you into a lot of trouble.

Self-delusion is lying to yourself about how good you are. You might think you're a world class designer or actor or chef or administrator or problem solver, but you might be merely well-intentioned, hard-working and pretty good. Which is fine, but pretty good is hardly remarkable. Telling yourself the truth about what you've got to market is the first step to marketing with success.

and...

Self-loathing is lying to yourself about how bad you are. You might think you've got nothing to add, that you're a lame designer or actor or chef or administrator or problem solver, but you probably have the potential to be great. Awe-inspiringly great ...if you're willing to do the work, make the sacrifices and stop undercutting yourself. Supporting yourself with the truth about what you could market is the second step to marketing with success.

It's only Tuesday and I've suffered a bit of both already this week, though more the second than the first. We are in a strange waiting room, waiting for many babies to be born-actual babies and creative babies. Moving forward while still waiting waiting waiting is challenging. Some days I overdo the bravado and am slammed back to reality with excellent notes from Kurt on something I've written, or news that we didn't get chosen by a birth parent.  Some days I overdo the misery and then fall into the predictable routine of eating too much as a way of "feeling better." Ha.

I've achieved some good goals that I set for myself this year. But I recently read a quote (can't find it now) that said something like "if you achieve a goal, it must not have been big enough to begin with." (I've mangled it, but you get the drift.) I appreciate this idea so much because while I thought my goal was pretty huge (Pitch a tv show to a major producer/production company) now that I've done it, it doesn't feel big at all. It feels only like the first mile in a marathon. I need to set a goal equivalent to the 13.1 mile mark then the 26.2 after that. And then an ultramarathon after that. This is what I'm working on this week: higher marks to hit.

My first goal is to set the goals without the self delusion and the self loathing.

Wish me luck.