5 (Not necessarily Bermudian) Things

For the last few days I have been pretty much stuck at home as we dealt with water pump issues again - meaning we had limited water in the house. Not fun! So I've spent a lot of time on the computer, doing stuff I rarely get around to doing. Fortunately the water is finally fixed and  here's 5 random, not necessarily Bermudian things!

1. Happy Birthday Lola!

Sorry you don't get your own post, darling, but your photos just didn't turn out. Lola is 5 years old. My baby! It kinda send me into an existential whirl the other day and I started this massive blog post about being a mom that started turning into an in depth therapeutic dissertation on my life so far, so I don't know if I'll ever share it with anyone. But hey, Happy Birthday, LOLA! We hit the beach, she opened her presents and had "donut" cake. What is donut cake? Well, for my birthday this year the girls enlisted their Grandma Huntsman's help to surprise me with a birthday cake and she brought a bundt cake. Which is shaped like a donut. I love the observations of children!

2. Random internet love - a year late!

Last night I was doing some research and gathering for some promo stuff and I found one simple line in a critics blog about a show I did last year. It said "...and Sandra Huntsman’s vocally luminous portrayal of the protagonist’s mother is far and away the best thing in the show." Um, HELLO! While I humbly disagree as I was surrounded by incredible talent and my performance was very much a reflection of my incredible on stage partner, it's nice to have such a positive review of myself. Random that I didn't see it until a whole year later!

3. Fond memories - not quite a year ago!

I have some great video performance footage from some work I did earlier in the year so I set out to create a new demo reel for myself. But then I started watching a concert I put together last year called You'll Be In My Heart - a celebration of music from your favorite animated musicals. It was the first time I've put together something like this and it turned out well. I had an incredible cast and it was one of the most fun things I've ever done. So here's an 18 minute highlight reel of some great music!

4. My favorite drink!

This creation was inspired by the new diet I adopted a few months ago and had to temporarily abandon here in $12 a gallon of milk Bermuda. It's pretty much a restricted carb diet and giving up soda was the best part of it. Which left me searching for alternative drinks. At home, I really like the fizz drinks from Fresh and Easy for a treat - they are carbonated fruit juice with only the natural juice sugars. But I can only get drinks like that at the stores too far to walk to here. I was able to get the stuff to create my favorite drink from home. My diet inspiration, Traci, told me that she drinks her coffee black with heavy whipping cream in it (fats aren't restricted unless you are trying to lose weight and even then they're still allowed). Well, I don't drink coffee but I started experimenting. First I made a cocoa drink with milk, unsweetened cocoa and whipping cream, which was good but lacked a punch. I used to like a drink called Postum, but they quit making it some time ago. I went in search of a good replacement and found one at home called Pero. It's made of malted barley, chicory and rye. It tastes a lot like Postum! What was nice with postum is it was good to mix different flavors with! Well, I eventually developed this mock iced coffee drink and I found Roma here that I like even better than Pero. I love the creaminess and richness of the heavy whipping cream. So for those of you non-coffee drinkers, this is a great, tasty alternative!!

INGREDIENTS:
1 rounded teaspoon Pero or Roma
1 rounded teaspoon unsweetened cocoa (I like Ghiradelli at home, but the Hershey's I have here works just as well)
sweetner (sugar or Stevia at home)
Heavy Whipping Cream

Mix the Pero/Roma, cocoa and sweetner with one cup of hot water (tap temp is fine)

Pour the mixture into a glass with plenty of ice cubes. Add a splash (I probably put in about 1 oz) of heavy whipping cream.

Stir and enjoy!

5. My kids teach me more...

I've noticed lately that Piper kept pointing out when she would make a mistake or when something was less than perfect. I was like - Piper! Don't do that! Most people won't notice so don't set yourself up. Then I was like - gee, wonder where she gets that from! I'm ALWAYS doing that. I'm so very critical of myself, you know? Here's an example...today when I posted that video clip on my facebook page, I HAD to go and leave a comment saying that I screwed up the words and have no rhythm. It comes from wanting people to know that I know I'm not perfect because I expect them to be as critical of me as I am of myself. Now, that's not entirely a bad thing, but in a lot of cases I think I point out things that many may not notice. Once there was a show that I costumed that I was definitely not proud of. I knew it was not my best work. So if people complimented me on it, I was flippant - I had a hard time taking the compliment. And sometimes I'd even say "I wish I could have re-done this or that" or told them it wasn't my favorite, probably making them think more critically of something they saw and enjoyed. Or when things don't work out the way I want them to, I apologize before they even see it! For Piper and Lola's birthday gifts, I waited to buy most of the gifts here and then was limited to the Dollar ($2.50) store to get everything except for the iPod I had brought from home. It was my impulse to say to Piper - I'm sorry we had to get all your gifts at the dollar store, I'll make it up to you when you get home. With my new found awareness, I kept my mouth shut! Piper had NO IDEA - or if she did, it didn't matter! She was thrilled with all of her little gifts and had as good of a birthday as ever. If I had pulled her aside and explained, she would have let it affect her. I won't let go of being critical of my work - that's what pushes me to do better. But I will be more conscious of how I share that self criticism with others.