Alternative Christmas Cards

It's that time of the year again. You're thinking about what picture of your family you are going to put on one of those glossy postcard-esque print outs from Sam's Club and you are devising the letter you plan to write to all your friends and family bragging about your recent trip to Hawaii, the fact that your eldest daughter just got accepted into a top Ivy League school, and your youngest son's baseball team is the state champion. You'll gloss over all the things in life that are just mediocre or completely miserable like how you got a wicked sunburn while in Hawaii or how your middle son decided he wanted to go to clown college. Meanwhile, all your friends and family will also be writing, editing, rewriting, and re-editing their list of accomplishments from 2014. So why not break away from the pack and do something unique and different for your Holiday cards this year.

Here is a list of alternative Christmas Card letters you could send to your family and friends

• A series of limericks that merge holiday themes with your lousiest moments from 2014
• A hand drawn crayon portrait of your family with a description of the symbology of the picture
• A crossword puzzling challenging your friends and family to care enough to decipher clues
• A Dadaist piece involving random words and pictures from 2014
• A letter from your future selves divulging the secrets of how everyone meets their ends
• A 100 page novel about a fictional family with a perfect life
• A series of cave paintings narrating an epic adventure you wish you took with your family 
• Your Christmas card for 2015 explaining that it's never to early to get a jump on sending out your Christmas letters

No matter what you decide to write just make sure that the pictures are perfect and only capture the half of the family that you care the most about!

My mom accidentally, through a series of unfortunate events, printed 200 of these Christmas cards with duplicate pictures of me, my dad, and sister. Finally 200 cards later was able to get the second picture to correctly be of her and my brothers! I like to think that my parents just wanted to remind the world how much they love me and my sister. 

Liebster Award

I got nominated by Becky from BeckyBoop for the Liebster Award, which is an award given out by bloggers to other bloggers for being awesome and usually geared towards newer bloggers! (Say "bloggers" one more time in that sentence!)

Here are the rules:

-Link back to the blogger who nominated you
-Answer all of their questions
-Write 11 facts about yourself
-Link 11 blogs with less than 200 followers and tell them you have nominated them
-Ask 11 questions of the people that you nominated

Hold on to your pants team this is going to be a lot of information about me, and there is no stopping it!

Questions from Becky

1. If you could live in any book universe, where would you choose?
My immediate reaction to this question is Narnia. Is it cliche? Maybe, but I am sticking with it... it's so gosh darn pretty there!

2. What is the most odd term of endearment that you have used for someone, or that someone has used for you? 
Well, I have used some pretty weird terms of endearment in the past and present and to avoid any seriously lasting embarrassment I am going to go with some of the ways that I address the little girl that I nanny. I like to make up new nick names for her all the time so here are some of my favorites: Pumpkin Pie Face, Mocha Choca Latta, Yoga Baby, Giggle Butt, Tortellini, Poopy Pants, Pooper Scooper, Buga Boo, this list could go on and on.

3. Snap Question: Zombie apocalypse! First weapon that comes to mind? 
Axe...

4. If you were a vegetable what would you be and why? 
Romanesco... Because you've probably never heard of me!

5. Do you have any tips or tricks to posting regularly? 

I don't necessarily post regularly. I try to post a couple times a week even if one of them is just about my week or something fun that I did. Then I try to come up with another post of something more creative and comedic. It doesn't always work... but what cha gunna do? 

6. What is your families most important Christmas tradition? 

I wish it didn't say the word "important" because I think the best holiday tradition we have is our annual foosball tournament. Which pits everyone against each other and always ends up with my little brother winning. But that's not as "important" as having lasagna every year, come hell or high water, we will be eating my Dad's lasagna! 

7. Do you have an outfit or item of clothing that you have owned for a long time but rarely wear? 

Yes, I do. I own a sweatshirt from when I was 6 years old and started swimming on the neighborhood summer swim team (so if I am doing my math correctly that is a 17 year old sweatshirt). The miraculous thing about this sweatshirt is that it fits me! My mom bought the sweatshirt about a million sizes too big when I was a kid so I could fit my whole body inside of it while at meets. Lo and behold I perfectly grew into it. 

8. State a favorite character. Now explain what kind of underwear they would wear. 

Scarlet O'Hara. Historically speaking she would be wearing all those crazy petticoats, bloomers, corsets, and such. But I would like to think that Scarlet O'Hara is actually wearing days of the week underwear and always the correct day of the week is being represented. 

9. If you could add one hour to your day what would you do with it? 

My initial reaction was to say "What couldn't I do with it! I could be so much more productive if I had an extra hour every day!" But, lets be real, I would just sleep an extra hour. 

10. What do you want to achieve by the end of 2014?

Seeing as I only have 28 days left, being a realist, I would say very little. But last year for New Years I came up with this project idea to do an improvised painting project. I really loved the idea but I have yet to actually do a single one. So maybe I can do one before the end of the year. 

11. If you could be any Harry Potter character who would you be? 

If we are basing this on personality I would be Hermione Granger, if you know me this is so explanatory. If we were picking based purely on who would be the most fun to be, I would say Luna Lovegood.... obviously! 

11 facts about me! 

• Christmas is my favorite time of year. And for me Christmas season starts early to mid-October!
• I dislike chocolate dairy products; chocolate milk, pudding, ice cream, hot chocolate, etc... But I love just having a bar of chocolate
• I never get sick of talking about improv and comedy in Chicago... hope you don't get sick of hearing about it
• I am currently picking fingernail polish off my fingers... cuz that's what I do. 
• I got head shots taken a few weeks back and I finally settled on which ones to get edited and I am so stoked for you all to see them! 
• I love the winter and all snow and winter activities
• But my favorite part of winter is cuddling up with a bunch of blankets and a hot cup of tea. 
• I have recently started being obsessed with red lipstick, and I am liking the drastic change. 
• I have been known to talk in my sleep and even on occasion sleep walk. 
• I am super freaking proud of my girlfriend who just got cast in Twisty, the House Ensemble team at Second City!!  
• This section, by far, took me the longest to write. 

People I am nominating: 

Mary Keith

Georgia Peach

Sincerely and Sarcastically

This IS my real hair

Wonderfully Made

SunDarla

Life in German

CamomilleTeaTime

The Color Coded Life

Going the Distance

Kelly's Kinda Crazy

Now it's your turn! Answer these questions!

1. What makes you smile? 

2. What is a secret talent you have? 

3. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to blogging?

4. When you are stressed or upset what makes you feel better?

5. Who is your favorite literary character and why? 

6. What movie have you never seen that everyone else has seen and would be appalled that you haven't? 

7. What is your favorite smell?

8. Tuna or egg salad? 

9. Where is some place you never want to visit again? 

10. What is the most strange, weird, exotic, or disgusting food you have ever eaten?

11. It's a rainy Sunday afternoon... What are you doing? 

Thanks for sticking it out till the end! Here is a picture of a couple cute puppies to say thanks! 

The Best Holiday Show!

Dear people of Chicago and people who will visit Chicago this holiday season,

Please do yourself a favor and go see It's A Wonderful Santa Land Miracle Nut-Cracking Christmas Story... Jews Welcome at Stage 773. It is the most fun you will have watching a holiday themed show!

I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more. I sang along, I ate fresh baked cookies, and drank cold eggnog. I might be biased because I am friends with two of the talented actors/performers in the show, but I think regardless of my bias it is a great show.

Let's start at the beginning. When was the last time you walked into a live theatre show and they handed you fresh baked christmas cookies covered in powdered sugar? If your answer isn't this weekend, then you are doing something wrong!

Making fresh cookies right on stage as you walk in! 

The whole show was full of singing, dancing, instruments, hula hoops, puppets, christmas lights, christmas trees, and an all around good time. 

 I can't even put into words how wonderful this show was. It really was a full experience from the moment you walk in to the moment you leave, brimming with holiday spirit, joy, and fun! 

If you don't go see this show then you will be missing out on the best holiday experience this season! Of course, that could just be my biased opinion. 

Thankful Thanksgiving

Phew! I don't know why the past week was so exhausting, but I feel like I can finally sit down and get some "fun" stuff done. I have been writing like crazy, unfortunately not for my blog,  and I feel like I have been running around Chicago with my head cut off. So I finally had a chance to sit down and read some blogs on the blogosphere and write.


Nancy from Sincerely and Sarcastically tagged me in her Thankful Thursday post and now that it is two days past Thanksgiving and not even a Thursday I think I will finally write on it. Plus, now I can tell you guys about my wonderful Thanksgiving.

PS This is the turkey that Travis made, isn't it beautiful!! 

1. My family- Of course!

2. Megan- I love her so much!

3. My friends- in all their crazy wonderfulness!

4. The Chicago Improv Community- so many opportunities and awesome people

5. My Job- It's the best day job for a burgeoning comedian!

6. That I don't have to pay for heat in my Chicago apartment- warm winter months ahead.

7. Left over Thanksgiving food in my fridge- so I don't have to buy groceries for a couple days,

8. The heat lamps on the train platforms- for heating only the top of my head.



My Thanksgiving Extravaganza!

This year, like last year, I was staying in Chicago for Thanksgiving and as such would have to make my own Thanksgiving fun. With my group of friends we continued out tradition of a big pot luck Friendsgiving on Friday night.
On  Thursday Megan, Courtney (her sister), and I went and saw Birdman (sidenote: it was pretty amazing!). After the movie we spent all day cleaning my apartment making it presentable for guests. We ended our night with a delicious Thanksgiving feast of Buffalo Wings and Mexican Train Dominos!

On Black Friday we got our shopping on but not in the way your thinking. We headed down to The Village Discount Thrift Store to find another table and some chairs for our Friendsgiving dinner. Everything at the store was 50% off so we bought a pretty nice outdoor patio table for $4 and a kitchen bench for $3, plus a Pictionary game for $1.50. 

After the thrift store we went to the dollar tree and got some decorations for the party. Some of them I already had from Target and CVS.

We spent the rest of the day cooking and prepping things and of course I forgot to take any pictures of all the delicious food that we made and that people brought. We had an overabundance of dessert, most of which was left at my house so I will be feasting on pie, cheesecake cupcakes, and chocolate peanut butter desserts. 

Anyway the whole event was a huge success and I got to spend this wonderful food centered holiday with some wonderful friends, new and old. 

The Peak of my Career

I will never be as funny in my life as I am to this child right now.

I have reached my comedy peak. Every single thing I say and every face I make sends this Drool Monster into adorable fits of infant giggles. No audience will ever smile with such genuine enthusiasm and deep appreciation for the subtle art of silly sounds. No audience will have to hold their side from the sheer comedic genius of a truly goofy face.

I don't think any comedian has ever been greeted with high-pitched laughter and shrieks of enthusiasm upon exiting the bathroom, quite like I have. Not to mention, the content of my jokes are completely irrelevant, its all in the delivery. How many comedians are lucky enough to not have to write a single joke? Not many I can tell you that.

Just for me every seat in the house is filled... A sold out audience every day, and thats the dream. With stuffed animals, little plastic people, a couple of fabric blocks, and of course my #1 fan, The Baby, waiting patiently for todays set, I knock 'me out of the park.

So write this down in the history books of my life as the day my comedy career reached an all time high!

Spinning Fiasco

These people have clearly not yet started the class.

3 years ago I went to a spin class for the first time and I vowed I would never go back. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself  sitting on a tiny bicycle seat, unable to feel my legs, wishing for death to take me quickly. 

I don't know what sort of demon possessed me to make me enter that room yesterday but it left me alone and helpless about 10 minutes into a 60 minute class of sweaty, painful Hell. 

The instructor, Steve, started out nice enough. He welcomed me into the class. Helped me adjust my bike and told me that if I felt dizzy, or fatigued I could take a rest before rejoining them. But that nice, gentle Steve was replaced with boot camp, drill Sargent Steve. Every time he yelled "keep moving" or "all the way to the finish line" or "don't give up on me now" I imagined myself rebuffing his commands with a long series of hate filled expletives.

I especially loathed when he told us that in our next set our "rest" would be standing up on the bike (still pedaling, mind you). But really, is that even a rest? To me, a rest would be getting off your bike and taking a 5 minute nap on the floor. You might be thinking, gross, Emily you wouldn't want to take a nap on the floor of the spin room! But nay, I tell you, I would have. Right around minute 40 I would have gladly abandoned my bike for a nice sweaty, bacteria infested nap on the floor. 

By the time we got to minute 60 I was sure that when I dismounted my bike my legs would just cease to work completely. I imagined I would be like a baby deer just entering the world collapsing with every feeble, wobbly step.  I pictured Steve scraping my remains off the floor of the classroom and adding me to a pile of similar sad saps who didn't survive their first spin class. 

But, I mean, I'll probably go back next week. 

Sketchfest or Bust!

I am so excited to announce that On Hiatus will be performing in The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival in January!!

Check out a preview of our show from Midnight Melt

We are a pretty talented group of weirdos, or so we think. But I didn't know if the rest of the world would appreciate our finely crafted fart jokes and eccentric off the wall characters. Alas, they do! Thanks to our incredibly talented director Tiffani Swalley who has been able to gently tease some wonderful sketches out of our chaotic mass of ideas.

We are so thrilled to be taking this next step as a group of comedians and super excited to see what the final version of our show will look like for Sketchfest. We are hard at work writing and fine-tuning to optimize the laughs per minute!

Golly I am so thrilled I just can't stop smiling! If you're in Chicago, you should definitely come check us out!!

Terribly at Proofreading

It has recently came too my attenshin that I am really terribly at proofreading my posts. What a sham! I think of myself as well readed indiviual. I have written many many assays in collage and passed with flying collars! I even graduation with honors... how could someone so smart strudel with proofreading her own blog posts?

May be I get two egg cited about how smart I am too rereread carefully. May be  i get distributed by how funny I am. Maybe I know I brilliant and don't need two proffread. Cause righting isnt really that hoard, is it?

I am a artist. Why should I charge what I do, if its werking for me, I car less if its werking for you. Because why squelch the my creatively and alloy the systematic rules of languid to stop me from wrighting what I want. Storys and poetrys are a writhers bush and canvas... would you tell a pointer that her paintwork was grammaticaly incorrupt?

We can argue the merlots and demerits of proofreading all day lounge. Irregardless, when it cames down to it I guess it sorta maters if I spell things correctionally and if i us the corrective gamer.

I guess its oblivious now, that in really my streem of conscientiousness isn't so smart after all.

How I feel about proofreading!

PS While writing this I remembered the poetry done by Taylor Mali. I think all of his work is brilliant, but especially given my issues with proofreading here is one of my favorite poems by him.

Weekend Update

I had a wonderful action-packed but, thankfully, it was also relaxing weekend!

Megan and Courtney had a childhood friend, Rachel, in town visiting so we went out and did a lot of fun stuff! Friday night we went to the iO Theatre to see Improvised Shakespeare. I hadn't yet seen a show in the new iO building so it was really great to see the new space and laugh my butt off in a fabulous show!!

Before the show! 

Before the show we went The Burger Bar, which was a very cool little bar and restaurant with a huge delicious looking list of gourmet burgers. Unfortunately I had already eaten so I got a "boozy" vanilla malt milk shake with Bailey's in it.

And it was so delicious!

Saturday was a nice lazy morning and afternoon followed by a delicious home cooked meal by Rachel. And after that I got together with some of my friends from my class, we drank margaritas, played board games and ate left over halloween candy! I even won trivial pursuit... and I never win any games especially Trivial Pursuit!

Nick making margaritas!

Sunday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I have been wanting to go since I moved here to Chicago and finally we went. I had so much fun and took so many pictures I can't post them all here. But here are some of my favorite parts!

The building is the last remaining building from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

The Chick Hatchery... I got caught up here for a while watching these little buggers enter the world! 

The exhibit about the German U-Boats was pretty fantastic including an actual U-Boat! 

Megan enjoyed the Farming exhibit, as you can see! 

I think the best exhibit of all though was the one all about Walt Disney. It talked all bout Walt Disney and his rise as an animator in Hollywood, his animation process as well as his animation studio, the imagineering of Disneyland, and they even had an area where you could learn to draw the characters! 

The original book used for the beginning of Snow White!! 

Guys, I drew Mickey!! 

After the Museum, since we were on the south side and I have heard that all the good southern style comfort food is on the south side we headed over to Chicago's Home of Chicken and Waffles and ate ourselves sick with fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens, corn bread, etc... I wont have to eat for days after that meal. And unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures, but boy was it amazing!!

Last night we played Mexican Train before Rachel has to leave today to go back to California. And in true Emily fashion I lost gloriously by over 200 points, because when I lose; I lose with style!!

I finally got to do a bunch of things I have been wanting to do in Chicago this weekend and I got to do it with so many great people!

The Writing Process

What is my writing process? Well, that is a question that I am actually trying to figure out everyday. BeckyBoop tagged me in her Writing Process post and I thought I would answer those questions and see if we can all discover the hidden secrets to my writing process, together! 

What am I working on? 

You have probably  heard me talk about this all the time, I am working on two sketch shows currently. One is through the Second City Training Center and the Conservatory program. We will be putting our show up in February and March. In addition, My old improv group On Hiatus has transformed into a sketch group and we are hoping to get into sketchfest (We find out next week... keep your fingers crossed!) in January and then open a show this spring. So I am currently working really hard on sketch writing, song writing (yes, you read that correctly Mom, I am working on writing a song), and putting a whole show together. 

How does my work differ from other of its genre? 

In regards to my blog I am working on finding my unique voice and I want it to be comedic yet honest and true to who I am. I want it to be a lifestyle blog that shows who I am, what I am doing, and also a little bit of my sense of humor. 

In regards to my comedy and sketch writing, it is so hard to stand out in this city. There are so many incredibly talented writers, improvisers, and performers that are doing some incredible things! I just want to make a statement with all my work, challenge people's ideas of the world, break stereotypes, and maybe even make a little bit of a difference.... who knows! 

Why do I write? 

 I used to hate writing... This is a true fact. I started writing the blog so that I could keep track of my adventures in Chicago. I kept the blog because it became a good release and creative outlet. I now have aspirations to be a writer because I have realized that I really enjoy it and I have so much to say! 

How does my writing process work? 

Hahaha... This question assumes I actually have a process. 

I have started just opening up blogger on my phone or computer the second the thought "I should blog about that...." crosses my mind. I think I do my best writing when I recognize that I have had that thought and then immediately let my thoughts tumble out! 

For sketches if I think of an idea I like to jot it down in one of my 3-4 notebooks that I always carry around with me. And then go back and look at it and try to iron out the details. If I need inspiration coming with ideas for sketches I sit down and read Google news and click through looking for interesting headlines. 

Wow! That was a lot of information. To be honest I don't think my writing process can actually be written about in a manageable size blog. It seems that it is never the same process twice, because it is never the same inspiration twice. But I am constantly growing and learning to take advantage of inspiration as soon as it comes! 

I am tagging some bloggers that I really admire and would love to hear a little bit about their writing process! 

The Daily Tay

Mary-Keith

Sincerely and Sarcastically

The Importance of Bus Seats

Imagine this if you will... Every morning you get on the same bus, with the same people, and the same bus driver. And every morning you head for the same seat, the one right past the exit doors up a couple of steps with a good view if the street and the sign ticking off the stops. The seat that is right in front of the young mom who always looks super sharp on her way to work. Kitty-corner from the man who works in the walgreens pharmacy or clinic, but either way is always in his Walgreens blue scrubs with his Dunkin Donuts coffee and breakfast.

Yep, that's the one! The magic seat

Now imagine that on this day you are getting on the bus behind a woman about your age who you have never seen before. She is going to the same bus as you. At first you don't think anything of it, other people are allowed to ride the bus too. But then you start to realize she is walking right towards your seat. Beethoven's 5th symphony begins playing in your head as you watch her sit in your bus seat. Then you begin having flash backs of college classrooms in which you attended class every single day and you had found the perfect seat with a good view of all your classmates as well as an unobstructed view of the teacher and the board. Then comes the day of the final exam and some kid who hasn't been in class in weeks, and therefore has not witnessed the possessiveness with which you proudly claim your desk, is smugly sitting on your throne of learning. You stand there stunned momentarily paralyzed with the realization that for the most important day if class you will not get to sit in your highly coveted, optimal learning seat. 

Thats about right... maybe a couple seats back!

And so I stood there on the bus at precisely 7:26am momentarily stunned as my morning routine came crashing down around me. "You are sitting in my seat! Don't you know that seat is MINE?!?" After a couple of long panic filled seconds I begrudgingly sat across the aisle silently judging her for completely ruining my morning routine. 

October Wrap Up

Guys, I did it!! I actually wrote every single day of October!! Not only did I write a blog post every day, but I also wrote probably a dozen different scenes for my various sketch groups!! I didn't think it was possible but it was!!

I think my favorite blogtober post to write was A Letter to My Younger Self, I had a lot of fun time writing this. The whole blogtober experience was wonderful, I met a lot of bloggers in this big scary blogging world and it has made it a whole lot less scary!!! I learned new recipes and new apps for editing photos for instagram and blogger. It was particularly exciting to read what everyone else had to say about these topics, I learned so much! Plus I added a bunch of wonderful new recipes to my cook book!!

This weekend was loco crazy for me!! After working a 55 hour week, I rushed home to throw on my Rosie the Riveter costume to go out with some friends for Halloween!

On friday we went out to a couple bars and stopped at The Burrito House in between!

A lot of trench coats in this picture!!  

And they had this perfect yellow wall for Rosie the Riveter, so I just had to take a picture

Saturday I spent the morning running errands and the afternoon/evening cleaning my house and carving pumpkins for my Halloween party! 

Megan's Pumpkin!  

My sad drunk pumpkin! 

The party was a blast we had some friends over, we ate snacks, played some party games, drank, and had a merry old time!! 

Megan as Starchild from KISS and me as Rosie the Riveter

 A successful weekend full of friends, costumes, candy, and of course alcohol!! I couldn't has asked for a better weekend!