News In Knitting

It has been so long since I wrote in here, I'm almost embarrassed. With the start of my last semester in college I find myself increasingly becoming more and more the housewife. The strange thing is, I love it! Amber began a new job a few weeks ago and with her going off to work everyday I fell into a really awesome routine involving lots of cooking, cleaning, dancing and knitting. I find I don't mind being a housewife at all! My classes this last time around are all online and I am taking a nice break from theatrical endeavors at the moment (ok, so I'm working on about twelve ideas for things and a new project just cropped up last night! I'd call it less theatrical and more literary ;)

A lot of my thoughts are about knitting or dancing so let's catch up on both. Knitting wise I'm working on two of my first designs, a shawl and an owl and I continue on with my sock obsession. In fact I just a bit earlier was trying out a new increase for the tie. I hated it and ripped out the whole thing. Amber looked at me like I was quite insane, particularly as the sock in question is the second in a pair for her!

Dancing, I am having a great time teaching, attempting to further my client base, choreographing and coming up with ideas for performance (got some ideas for student performances and for me too!) and costuming fun is a whirl in my head as well. Oh and new ideas for a photoshoot too! (what's the point of having talented friends otherwise? ;)

Well that's a nice catchup post and hopefully the only one for awhile! I plan on doing a lot if blogging about knitting and cooking over here sphere we go! O

Oh and a giveaway might happen if I get say 15 followers? Maybe something yummy and hand knit?

Till next time,
Elena

Back At the Desk

Wow! Has it really been almost a year since I last blogged? Seven shows later, 2 new apartments and finding the love of my life, (ok...she was there all along, but now she's mine!) and I'm back. So many things have happened, but I won't go into it all in detail. I'm just gonna hop back on the wagon.

I've created a new blog all about dancing. http://elenabellydance.blogspot.com/ I think it's going to be fun, I'm chronicling my journey towards getting back in really good dancing shape and the fun stuff I do along the way. Lots of workshops planned! :)

And as this is just me rambling on (here), I'll be writing about whatever's going on. Right now cooking, dancing, knitting, writing and just really loving life are what is on my mind.

So for a fresh start for fall I was cleaning out all my email inboxes and I found this site I had emailed myself because I thought it was cool. I love vintage stuff and these signs are so cool!

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/08/showcase-of-beautiful-vintage-and-retro-signage/

Later I'm going to be doing a review of Paranormal Activity 3, which we went to see last night. I didn't sleep well afterwards. And I'm making French Onion soup for dinner. Might have to post the recipe if it's good!

Have a lovely fall afternoon! Here are a few pretty pictures if you're stuck indoors (like I am!) today!

Elena

 From TheHeartofNewEngland.com - Maine

 North Carolina

From coolest-traveling.com -Maine

From captainkimo.com- Portland, Maine 

From about.com- Niagra On The Lake, Canada

Winter Solstice, England, and Cold Weather

Since I last posted I have performed in two shows (Emma in early October and The Last Night of Ballyhoo, which closed on Saturday night), costumed another, and attempted to keep up with schoolwork (the bane of my existence). So blogging has unfortunately been low on my list of priorities. Tonight though, as I sit in bed with a cup of tea, a cold and anxiously awaiting the light snow we have been promised I picked up a favorite book of mine, Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. This is a wonderful book set in England in Winter. Two of my favorite things. It's a beautiful story about people finding themselves and each other at the most magical time of the year and of course, as with all Ms. Pilcher's books, a little lovestory (or 3) is thrown into the mix.
I first found the book at the local library sale. I had become entranced with Ms. Pilcher some years ago from an article in Victoria magazine about her home and writing and included in the article was a short excerpt from her novel, Coming Home. I soon found the novel and read it, but while I enjoyed it was at the time too young to fully understand and enjoy it all. Some years later right after coming to university I found Winter Solstice for a mere dollar and snatched it up and took it off to my brand new apartment to read. I have come back to this book at least once a year since and often at other times through the year as well. There is just something about this one that is unlike the rest of Ms. Pilcher's work. It is even better, even cosier, even warmer than the rest.

Cliffe High Street

Lewes, East Sussex

Now I shall have a bit of a ramble about England. My mum has always wanted to live in England. We have ancestors from there and it is quite frankly in our opinion the most wonderful country on the face of the Earth. I'm an American girl and proud of it, but England is just magical, I can't even describe what it is about England, I just know that someday I will live there. I decided when I was about 15, around the same time I decided I wanted to be an actress that I wanted to live in England. Practically, for a theatre actor, you can't find a richer place to work. With theatres all over the country and the respect and love that the people have for the artform, it is no wonder that an actor would want to work there. But it's more than just the practicality. I look at pictures of certain parts of England and they just feel like home. I have been looking at a wonderful site http://www.picturesofengland.com/ for the past couple of days to entertain myself while sick. They have wonderful picture tours, I've just finished "England In Winter". I'm not sure when it will happen, but I am determined that one day I will live there. I think the West Midlands would be a good fit for me.


Quinton Road Harbone West Midlands









And now I will close this post with saying the chance is slim: but it's supposed to snow tonight!!!!! My Christmas tree is up and plugged in, my Menorah is in the window (we'll cover religion and holidays some other time, let's just say we have Chrismukkah for now)and I am sitting here in bed wrapped up in blankets hoping to go out and at least see a few white flakes falling from the sky sometime tonight! Here are a few of my favorite snowy England pictures to get you in the cold weather mood!
~Elena

Farm House
Somewhere in Essex

Hurdlemakers Arms, Essex

Umberleigh

Poetical Musings

This is a piece I wrote several months ago. If you have any idea of whom I speak, leave your guess in the comments, and let me know what you think of it.

OnWill

Once again in the throes of disillusionment
Your words wrap my soul with reassurance
And I know that there is a place where
My dreams can flourish
Where the thing I long for most will be produced.
This is why I come back to your words
This is why I wear the ring that symbolizes you
And others like you.
Because no matter what travesty I hear
What cheap rendering is thrust upon me
Your words, the words of the ages
Bring me the solace and comfort that I crave.

Beatnik Poetry or How I'm Falling in Love With Jack White All Over Again

This all started this past Christmas when my Dad received It Might Get Loud, a documentary featuring Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. Amidst the flurry of present opening the movie was found, and my very suprised Dad promptly had a fit over it and exclaimed that it must be played immediately. To say he is a U2 fan would be a giant understatement. Truthfully I paid almost no attention to the beginning of the film. Suffering from a general lack of sleep and too much Christmas cheer and having unwrapped all our presents, I was lounging on the couch chatting with a couple of cousins, sipping water, and deciding upon a thorough dislike of cognac. And then I remember seeing a sunset on the tv, and weathered boards of a house. I don't remember much about it ottherwise, except hearing this music with a rock, blues, bluegrass mixed sound and a haunting quality to it.



Fast forward several months. I'm doing a random search for music, this one I think "songs about vampires". I found a couple that I liked, made a playlist, and promptly forgot about them. Then, happily rediscovered them awhile later. They were "Blue Veins" by The Raconteurs and "Satin In A Coffin" by Modest Mouse. I had those two songs on repeat for several days straight! I had liked other songs by both bands some time ago, but never really given either much thought. This happened to coincide with the creation of my first project for the directing class I am currently in. While coming up with the premise of my project and forming the ideas behind the staging of it I played these songs over and over. And found more songs by each band that I liked. And played them over and over. Then it was performed. And my professor said "I'm getting this maybe 50's vibe, very stylistic, with these icons and this really beatnik, seedy feel".



Hunh?! Beatnik? The only time I have ever heard the word had been in conjunction with seedy, strung out artsy people, and not in a good way. Now, admittedly, my project was a performance art piece (a haiku) that was inspired by the painting The Boulevard of Broken Dreams and my actors were portraying Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, James Dean and Humphrey Bogart. But seedy? Beatnik? I didn't even really know what beatnik meant! So, I came home and Googled it. And the whole idea was interesting. So I read some more. And along the way Googled Jack White and started looking up his other music. And then I found The Dead Weather. And suddenly my mind's eye took a turn and began to want everything to have that weathered quality that I remember from those boards on It Might Get Loud. Luckily it rained for several days straight so the sky was nice and dreary and I realised how much I love the whole idea of A.) the beatnik culture and B.) music like this. Straight Bluegrass is still a bit much for me to digest, but a banjo and fiddle mixed with some awesome rock? Just makes it rock that much better in my opinion. And in listening to all this new music I found that my creativity has just been amped up a notch and I have been writing more in the past two weeks than I have in the past two months. Add to this an extreme influence by David Lynch's work at the moment and my slight obsession with the aforementioned painting, film noir, and creepy victorian stuff and it's quite fun inside my head at the moment!



So I now go off for a nice cup of tea, my new book of beatnik poetry in hand to peruse and a very difficult decision to make: to watch the new version of Hamlet I just bought, that I had never heard of, and know nothing about.... or the new version of Macbeth, which looks like True Blood and Underworld crossed with Macbeth. Hmmmm.

Creepy amazingness by The Dead Weather:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0YI0UUazkU&ob=av3e

And a clip from It Might Get Loud, Jack White plays some blues and talks about musical philosophy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj8f0w_SMnw

Counter Culture Blues

The road stretches out right and left
She stands on the side
Looking at the thunderheads above
Trying to capture them, and failing
The sky is that midsummer, dusty color that only happens right before a storm
Only an Oklahoma sky can look like that.
She’s fascinated by a sign
That heralds the attractions of the place she is
But no one is there now.
Just the wind
Rustling through the trees and the grass
Moving through the field across the road
Like whispers coursing through the blades
Cars pass
The children at the house nearby play
But the whole place has such a desolate air
Of counter culture blues
The light wind rolls the dust.



Poem and picture by me.

And The Moonbeams Kiss the Sea

So for the past two weeks, I have been reading virtually everything aloud. (When I'm at home, I don't just randomly read aloud in public!) Books, magazine articles, poems, cereal boxes, what have you. This is because I am currently studying and training in the Lessac system of voice and body work. Basically that's a nice, posh way of saying every week I go learn how to talk. Woohooo!!! But I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite poems that I've been reading alot, just because I like it and also I get to "paint lovely pictures" while saying it.

Hope you enjoy!

Love's Philosphy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle -
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?