a peek behind the scenes of movie special effects

i'm always fascinated to see how special effects happen in movies.  it's way different than it is in live theatre.  i found this article which shows how 40 different well-known movies accomplished their special effects using green screens.  pretty cool.

love, laurie

please stop snowing!

i absolutely cannot take this winter weather anymore!  leko can't either and he has taken to staying warm under multiple layers of blankets.  summer, where are you?

love, laurie

that face!

we're supposed to get even more snow today, yuck!  leko doesn't like this cold at all.  he takes every chance he gets to cuddle close to stay warm, and i don't complain one bit.  i can't resist that little face.  what a cutie!

love, laurie

spamalot

this weekend we worked the national tour of the broadway musical spamalot when it came to town.  we both worked the load in, ryan had show call and ran spot light for all five shows, and we both worked the load out.  since we drove together to the load in on friday, i stayed at the theatre to see the show on friday night and bought myself a cheap ticket way up in the balcony.  spamalot is one of the few musicals that we have never seen, so it was nice to finally get a chance to see it.

love, laurie

a very thirsty kitten

this guy loves water in any format.  when we're in the kitchen he jumps in the kitchen sink multiple times per day.  it's not uncommon to see him in the bathtub or bathroom sink either.  he loves to get wet and loves to drink water. 

he also loves to drink water out of our water glasses.  whenever we sit on the couch to watch tv we often have a water glass next to us.  lately, leko has been fast asleep on our laps and wakes up all of a sudden out of a deep sleep so thirsty!  he looks at us, looks at the glass, looks at us, looks at the glass, and needs us to bring it over to him for a drink.  this happens a lot.  i snapped a picture of this ordeal one night this week.  what a silly guy!

love, laurie

new mics!

our shipment of new microphones arrived at the theatre this week and we're excited to set them up and put them to use!  it's like christmas over here!

stay dry today, it's raining like crazy!

love, laurie

who writes these quizzes?

when my mind is mushy, i like to go to buzz feed and take one of their silly quizzes (like this).  i found this quiz this morning which was supposed to guess my height based on my restaurant preferences and they got it way, way wrong . . . i'm 5'2'' not 6'4'' . . . still fun anyway and a good way to take my mind off this crazy weather!

love, laurie

is it summer yet?

i'm not a fan of this snow and ice.  i really hate the condition of the roads around here, and the fact that my tires have slid twice in the past two days going back and forth to work is really ticking me off royally.

the only thing getting me through is dreaming of the summer.  i'm definitely not made for this cold weather!!!  so, on this cold-miserable winter day, i'm dreaming of this trip to north carolina and meditating on that nice warm summer beach with my mama.

namaste

love, laurie

snow weekend

this weekend's forecast called for a big storm with a ton of snow followed by a bunch of freezing rain.  (luckily, neither of us had work on saturday or sunday.)  after we both got home from work on friday night, we decided that we would just hunker down for the weekend and stay at home.

it was glorious not leaving the house at all for two days, staying in pajamas, getting some stuff done around the house, and being able to actually see each other and spend quality time at home with leko!

leko took full advantage of us being snowed in and sat on our laps with a bunch a blankets every chance he got.  together, the three of us binge watched a bunch of old episodes of the pioneer woman that were backed up on our dvr.

we weren't lazy bums on the couch all weekend long.  we did manage to get our basement organized and all of our closets in our house straightened and cleaned out.  it was a good feeling.  we even dug out ryan's old computer from college from the back of our office closet, and were both shocked to see that it turned on and functioned!  what a blast from the past.  (i'm telling you, windows xp was the best out of all of the windows operating systems.)

we dug out some board games that we haven't played in years and sat around the dining room table to play scrabble and yahtzee.  we also had some time to cook together and made some delicious breakfast burritos, homemade pizza, yummy pancakes, and great shrimp fried rice.  in between, we snacked on some leftover christmas cookies and candy, including a cute nutcracker chocolate-covered pretzel stick from when we worked the nutcracker over the christmas holiday.

all in all, it was a solid weekend at home and we felt like we had a stay-cation.  it was great, and leko loved it too!  now it's back to work today in sub-zero temperatures with snow-covered icy roads!

love, laurie

snow, snow, snow

we woke up to a dusting of snow today and the forecast is predicting an absurd amount of snow for this weekend.  i guess we can't complain too much since we've been lucky thus far this winter and haven't had too much snow.  (i'm happy that we don't have any shows scheduled for this weekend or else they would have to be cancelled.)

even though it was just a dusting, leko had no interest in getting out of bed this morning and i really can't blame him.  it was cute to see him snuggled up in his blanket watching the large flakes fall outside the bedroom window.  i felt awful moving him so that i could go to work.  i'm looking forward to getting home tonight and snuggling with him all weekend long if we're snowed in!

have a good weekend and stay warm!

love, laurie

hello, spring semester

ah, it's that time of year again and the spring semester is upon us.  my syllabus is updated and ready to go and i'm dreading the fact that my class roster is telling me that my class is over enrolled once again meaning that i have too many students signed up to take my class (with even more on a waiting list) and there's no way we'll ever get through all of their projects in the time allotted for the class.  course caps are in place for a reason people, stop over enrolling classes! 

i had to laugh when i found this buzzfeed article this morning about clever professors.  sometimes the students make us crazy.  glad buzzfeed compiled these gems for a good laugh!

i have been teaching the exact same course for the past 11 years now (yes, that's right, over a decade) and have managed to not go completely crazy yet.  here we go, spring semester . . . fingers crossed for a good group of kids this go around!

love, laurie

blast from the past

i was looking through an electronic folder on the computer of old pictures and came across photos from the first day we brought leko home.  oh my goodness, my heart burst looking back at how tiny he was!!!  it's hard to remember that he was actually once that small!

i couldn't resist sharing this picture.  even though it's a little blurry i love it so much.  it was the first time he sat in our bed and he was so small compared to the bed.  i'm so happy that seven years later he still loves to cuddle up in bed with us.  what a cutie! 

love, laurie

happy 75th, aunt ruth!

on sunday afternoon, my parents threw a 75th birthday party at their house for our aunt ruth.  we enjoyed salad and veggie lasagna for dinner followed by cannoli birthday cake for dessert.  it was nice to see everyone and we all had a great time.  happy 75th, aunt ruth!

love, laurie

disney on ice

the tour of disney on ice: 100 years of magic came to our local arena this past weekend.  we weren't originally planning on going to the show, but when we found out at the last minute that we were free on thursday night, we decided to grab some tickets and ryan's parents, and go see the show. 

it has been decades since i've seen disney on ice, and ryan had never seen an ice show like this, so we were excited to go.  the show was really well done and we really enjoyed it!  it featured over 30 disney songs and the costumes, sets, and special effects were great!  above are a few photos i snapped on my phone during the show.

love, laurie

birthday treats

^the friday before my birthday, my co-workers surprised me with a card, a pair of earrings, and cupcakes at work!  it was so sweet of them and the cupcakes were so good!^

^i love all of the freebies and discounts that come during your birthday month!  this year i was happy to get a free birthday (veggie) burger a johnny rockets.  ryan and i went out for dinner on a weeknight before my birthday and made a little burger/fry/shake date of it.^

^on the morning of my birthday we went out for sunday breakfast at a new restaurant that opened near us.  the food was sooooo good and we can't wait to go back!^

have a great weekend!
love, laurie

look, ma, i'm on tv . . . again

over the last three years, i have had the opportunity to go our our local tv station's "pa live" segment to promote upcoming shows several times (oct 2018 / may 2018 / june 2017 / june 2016).  yesterday i visited the studio again to promote an upcoming musical-comedy at the theatre and think i now want an anchor spot on the segment since i've been on it 5 times!

it's always a lot of fun to do the show and i always look forward to going there.  here is a link to the segment that aired live yesterday.

love, laurie

electric city aquarium

we were looking for something to do on sunday for my birthday and all of our plans kept falling through because things were either booked up, sold out, closed, etc.  we finally decided to check out the new electric city aquarium that recently opened in our area.  here are a few pictures we snapped on our phones while at the aquarium . . .

love, laurie