JOURNAL REVOLUTION

real life

My big plan to spend a couple hours sitting by the pool getting caught up on email didn't really happen because instead I spent a couple hours getting caught up on day dreams and sleep. And Oprah magazine.  And Vanity Fair.

The Salton Sea was interesting. I have a lot to say about it but no time, really. There was one moment when Tod and I made the same observation out loud. It was such a good one that I said it would be a great opening line of a story or essay and then we wondered which one of us should get to use it. I think Tod said he should since he writes fiction. Uh, I think I should because I write about real life and there was once life where we were standing...maybe. There certainly is not anymore. Either way, it does not matter now because thanks to Topamax, I do not remember what that great best-selling line was. But, at the moment I do not have a migraine so forgetting an idea every 5 seconds is worth it.
I haven't had a chance to upload any of my photos yet, but my beloved husband  has uploaded some of his.
Oh man. I need more Go Girl. Makers of Go Girl, please send me a lifetime supply.  I'm gonna turn up the music, squirt some paint out and get to work. I need the music blasting while I make art.

*Clickety click over to the Stars Down site. I like their logo. I  like that Mona Lisa song.
*When I was in Salinas, Mistress O' Marketing, Wendy Brickman got me listening to Mike Beck.
*Check out Jen Foster. If you like Brandi Carlile, you will like her.
* Neil Diamond has a new cd which includes a duet with Natalie Maines!!!!! OMFG!!! Am I in Heaven?

cough, cough

I am packing, clearing memory cards and charging batteries. Tomorrow we are off to Palm Springs for a short visit to see Tod and Wendy, the Salton Sea, a chaise lounge, and a swimming pool. In the course of 1.5 days, there will be photo shoots, a bbq, a trip to the middle of no where, some no fucking ways!, a Boston cream pie, the petting of some dogs, and some time in a chaise lounge by a pool where I will attempt to get caught up on the email I keep saying I haven't answered yet.
I am also going to finish some art journaling for a magazine feature I am very excited about. I can't believe I haven't even talked about it yet. It's one of my all time favorite magazines! I'm so excited about this.  Wait, maybe I am not supposed to talk about it yet. I don't know. Oh no. Cough, cough...GET A SUBSCRIPTION TO MARY ENGELBREIT'S HOME COMPANION MAGAZINE...cough, cough, cough.  I have a really bad cough! 

*That photo has nothing to do with this post. I just like it.

i'm twittering

Today We're FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~A gift of super cool BIG art made by a friend. I am so lucky!
~YOU GUYS!!! Your responses to the the really nice email I got from the scrapper mom were so great. Thank you!
~You can post leettle movies on flickr now. Cool. I know, not new news but new to me.
~I'm twittering.
~I've not yet been kicked out of Target for taking pictures. They are smart. I love them. Buddha bless Target! Go buy a lot of stuff at Target.
~Fruity Pebbles. Still good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
~OMG! A Neil Diamond channel on Sirius radio. Am I in heaven?

Our Bêtes Noires:
~I need to clone myself or find an intern. I don't really have time to do either.
~The Salton Sea must wait a day for me to get there. Everything must wait a day this week. I think this week might even have to wait a day to happen.
~I Am Legend.  Almost 2 hours of my life I won't get back.
~We don't have time to get anyone a birthday, mother's day, anniversary, wedding, wedding shower, baby, baby shower, bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, Christmas, Hanukkah, or graduation gift this year. Sorry.
~The parking lot at the Northridge Mall. WTF?

ridiculously nice

It is a saturday night and things are just so happening over here at the Woods house, as usual. I am eating brownies and answering emails, or at least trying to. This is my favorite kind of happening. The type of happening where I am at home and nothing is happening. One email caught my attention and I thought I should just share it with you for some extra fun! This one comes from youtube user scrapmom65:

I am an avid scrapbooker and would never scrapbook using these ridiculous techniques. Use masking tape, gum wrappers to scrapbook? Ridiculous! Would like to see what the scrapbook looks like in 10 years! I want my scrapbooks to last for many generations and always use acid and lignin free products. Looks like something my 4 year old would use for scrapbooking.....gum wrappers and masking tape. I will pass this video on to my scrapbook friends for a good laugh!

OH MY BUDDHA! She sounds like a lot of fun to rise up and create with! So warm and fuzzy! And nice, don't you think she seems nice? Ridiculously nice.

serious thinking

One thing I have learned about myself and about the way Karen and I work the best together is that when there is a lot to be done and thought about, the best way to be sure it all gets done is to not do whatever it is that needs doing. We need to do the opposite of what needs doing. I think best, solve best, do my best when am doing something other than what needs to be done. A really big part of writing or creating art is thinking.  It's a huge part of it. Thinking matters.
Sometimes thinking appears as just sitting in front of the tv, or sitting in a chair listening to music, or mindlessly putting cookie after cookie into my mouth. Today, thoughts came in the form of me experimenting with various forms of foundation and blush. And, for extra drama, I tried brown eyeliner instead of black. There was some serious thinking going on today.
I think I am ready to tackle that pile of crap on the table now.
I wonder where I put those cookies.

Sephora, get over yourself!

Here's where I could rave about Sephora. I had planned on giving them some love here and telling you about the great time I had learning about how to apply cheek stain (so it doesn't look like I spilled ink on my face) from Canada's best make-up artist, Jake Surette. See, you can tell he is famous because he is wearing a baseball cap. All famous people wear those caps! I wanted to show you Jake's tips with pictures. Apparently, the sight of a woman, a make-up artist to the stars, a mirror, and camera frightens the people at Sephora because as soon as they saw me take this photo they told me to stop taking pictures. I could be telling many thousands of women to rush to Sephora to buy the blush that Jake is applying to my cheeks in this very photo, but I am not. Isn't it interesting that a place that  sells art supplies for your body doesn't allow photos of the artwork? The manager of Sephora should've offered us some eye shadow and lipstick to play with, then offered to take our picture together. I'd have bought more stuff and would be telling you to RUN to Sephora right now. Being a NO PHOTOS FREAK is just not good business. Whatever happened to making customers feel welcomed and wanted?
If I were not busy gazing lovingly at Jake's artwork in the mirror, I'd totally be writing to Sephora right now.

to relish

Today We're FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~Go Girl Sugar Free Energy Drink. I finally found it after a blogger suggested I try it a few months ago. Blogger, you were right! It tastes good and refreshing and not at all like battery acid. I am now officially addicted to it. We all know what that means: it will probably be discontinued soon. Buy it in bulk.
~Orville Redenbacher's 100 calorie packs of microwave Kettle Korn. It's really good and it makes your entire house smell like a carnival.
~Next week I am going to photograph the Salton Sea. I have always wanted to go there, even after seeing that horrible movie with Val Kilmer.
~I'm starting to make a dent in the 5326 emails I need to respond to! YAY! Since I got the iPhone, life got way easier. I can respond to stuff while I am in line at the post office or waiting at places. I love technology. Still, though, I don't look iPhone cool. I don't have a messenger bag.

Our Bêtes Noires:
~On The Tudors, last season His Majesty called Brandon Brandon and this season he keeps calling him Chaaaaahlz. They are the same person, right?
~It's sinus infection time of year again, so now I get to combine the oh-so-fashionable "baby-doll" maternity wear look with my head-is-going-to-explode expression, creating the strong appearance of pregnancy for all I meet [that is Karen. I just wear black t-shirts and  jeans no matter what the temperature is. This outfit combined with the head about to explode expression works well with being an artist]
~My daughter DID return home from camping and kiss her Hai flat iron before kissing me!
~My husband is home sick today. My husband is sick and Karen's kids are sick. We're locked in our offices blogging with our faces tucked into our shirts so we don't catch any sickness.
~The problem with the iPhone is that whenever I text Karen the word delish, it auto-corrects it to relish. That is a HUGE difference. I need to learn how to fix that.

****ART ALERT: Original art on canvas will be available for purchase soon*****

we need a number

We love the fine folks at Borders. They always get our names right and they always make two signs for us to steal when our event is over! We never have to have the you can have the sign in winter and I'll have it in spring chat on the way home from an event with Borders.

On Saturday night, Tod called to tell us that it was unbearably hot at the Festival of Books and if  people weren't going to be looking at him,  he'd just wear shorts and a t-shirt. Really fucking hot, he said. He told me that even though people will be looking at us, we should just wear  t-shirts but for the love of God, man, don't wear BLACK! It's hot, wear WHITE! That is easy for a man to say. I am an artist, I can't wear white! I must wear black, it is the law. Also, I have a big chest and I am at the roly poly age, so yeah. Must wear black. Karen could wear white because she is thin, but she doesn't look good in white, either. Searching for the perfect not white shirt to wear made us wonder...
How many degrees hotter does wearing a black shirt make you? Really, we need a number.

All the people in sweaty white shirts looked really hot, too. The white shirt people looked as hot as the dark colored tee wearing people, so there.

Moments from the FOB:
*We were in the green room and hallway with Aimee Mann. OMG.
* During our signing, Karen saved my life. A giant bug was about to kill me
*When I noticed how odd it was that I'd been at the festival for 3 hours and nobody had given me a free tote bag yet, Lee whipped one out of his bag for me! I love free tote bags!
* Dumb asses lined up at the Borders booth where we were doing a book signing then asked us for directions to the LA Times tent. It should be no surprise that the dumb asses were all men.
* There was really good cake in the green room (also known as the super secret air conditioned room full of food and water for the authors)
*Male writers are still too hairy. I know we often come away from these literary events with this observation but it is still true. Men, you need to shave. You need to get haircuts. You need to stop living only in your dark room lit by the light of your computer screen. Get out of the house and into a salon! You'd have way more sex if you looked better. And, judging by most of the conversations we heard, sex is all these male writers want or want to talk about. Well, duh, it is all all men want. Well, actually, it's all they want TOD to talk about when he moderates panels. Odd, that.
*Just as we were about to hang with Julie Andrews that thing that I was waiting for that should've been here 15 days ago decided to arrive. Of course it did, I am me! Luckily, I was not wearing white because it was not easy to get to the super secret author bathroom way the hell far away from where we were and through the masses of people in the hot, hot, hot sun. By the time we got through all the people and out of the bathroom, Julie vanished in a poof of air! WTF? Good thing we have already seen her a few times before.

I put a few of our photos from the day in my flickr.

Wicked Funny

We didn't get to see Wicked tonight, but something wickedly funny happened anyway. Dr. Laura, who has no problem questioning the biological correctness of homosexuals,  is not happy that our beloved brother, Tod, asked on his blog if she is really a doctor. She doesn't think he was being kind. I guess Dr. Laura is one of those people who might benefit from the sarcastic font.  It's not like he called her a deviant or anything. Sheesh.

Maybe we'll bump into Dr.Laura at the Festival Of Books tomorrow! We hope she comes by the Borders booth to get her copy of Journal Revolution signed! Hey, Dr. Laura, Karen is a Doctor, too!

*I had a little cupcake photo shoot this morning. They looked good and tasted good.

representing

~We're so proud to see art by Art Army members on Rosie's blog! We're thrilled for them! Art connects people- no special skills or supplies needed. The desire to express yourself is ALL YOU NEED. Paint, paper, and glue do not judge YOU, so don't be afraid. It's fun. It is FREEDOM!

~I think I might maybe- actually- finally be seeing Wicked tomorrow night! I am always the last one to see anything.

~Another busy weekend ahead. All four Goldberg-Woods-Dinino siblings in one place. Better be sure your camera batteries are charged! Lee and Tod are doing a signing together at a booth right near the Borders booth where we are signing at the same time (11:00 am on Sunday). You could come see us FIRST then go see THEM. That sounds like a good plan. If there is a Dove ice cream bar cart between the tents, stop and get one. So good.

See you and JULIE ANDREWS on Sunday!