The Mom
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Decluttering the Kids Room
Now, to tackle the toys. The playroom/schoolroom was in a constant state of disorder and disarray. Getting my kids to clean it was impossible. They were overwhelmed and so was I. I was done. So done. But in order to get my kiddos on board I needed to go about this in a way that allowed them to understand the “why” of minimizing. They had been raised in a more-is-more environment. In fact, I had unintentionally trained them to place so much value on their stuff to the point that everything was made to feel special and needed. I needed to find a way to retrain them. I took a…
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Fight or Flight
I don’t know how I heard about it, but somehow I started following and watching a movement called 1000 hours outside (https://www.1000hoursoutside.com/). The basic premise is to replace screen time with green time. After observing other people’s adventures for a year or two we finally decided, as a family, to take the plunge and commit to the challenge for the year 2023. I am proud to say that we fulfilled our goal! We hit our thousandth hour on December 31st, 2023. The year was full of many adventures; the following story is merely one of them. We started 2023 strong- averaging two hours a day in the dead of winter.…
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Performing With Pickleville On Tour
Have you ever heard of the legendary outlaw El Juandito? Those of you who have have probably visited Bear Lake, where El Juandito has spent many a summer entertaining audiences at the lakeside theatre, Pickleville Playhouse. Once, a few years ago, we were fortunate enough to visit there as a family. It was an experience I will never forget, because the atmosphere was so different than any other I had ever experienced. The talent was phenomenal, the stage was intimate, and the air was fragrant with the fun-filled scent of popcorn and summer. This year, my actor hubby had the opportunity to co-star in a show with Pickleville On Tour.…
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Summer Plans
The Christmas of 2021 was one to celebrate. It was the first time in a long while that we had our own tree, next to our own window, with our own ornaments, in our own home. We did everything we could to bring the Christmas spirit. We baked, wrapped presents, sang carols, and picked a Christmas read aloud. Since we started homeschooling we have tried to always have a book that we’re reading as a family. I decided on a childhood favorite of mine, “The Paper Bag Christmas.” My mother loves Christmas novels and is always reading a new one. She introduced this book to me as a teen and…
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When Not Much Has Changed, But Everything’s Changed
How are you all holding up? I mean… national emergency, quarantines, toilet paper shortages, social distancing, schooling at home and the threat of an unseen culprit that did all this. Are you all doing okay? We’re used to much of this. I mean… who knew it would take a pandemic to finally find commonality with the rest of the world. We already homeschooled and Ben for the most part worked from home when he wasn’t on set (which recently has been less than normal because they always want to hire someone who can have his face shaved or hair cut if need be, and Ben can’t right now). We already…
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Suddenly Homeschooling? Here’s 10 Tips and Tricks
Welcome! To those of you who don’t know much about me let me introduce myself. My name is Cindy. I am the wife of a working actor (Ben), mother to four beautiful little girls (ages 9,7,5, and 3) and I’m 36 weeks pregnant with our fifth little lady! We have been thoroughly blessed. As I’ve discussed in previous posts, due to the nature of Ben’s job and the abundance of support we receive from the charter school system in California, we decided to homeschool this school year. Because of that, now that the Coronavirus is having everyone move indoors, I have had several friends reach out to me for homeschooling…
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Good Things to Come
This November I am grateful for being a mother. Just shortly after Ben and I got married we decided to have children. We had such a powerful feeling that God had children waiting for us and that we should allow them into our home and our lives. I wanted to finish my degree first. Ben wanted to finish school. We lived in a tiny, one bedroom, 450 square foot apartment. We had been married for a few weeks and trying to figure out married life. Having a baby right away seemed like a ridiculous step… but our guide had shown us a better way, so we decided to start our…
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Our Decision to Homeschool
You read that right. We’re homeschooling. This past week Jess and Liz had their last day of public school. It feels like it should have been bitter sweet… but to be honest, it was just sweet. We have always made it a focus to have a stable home for our children. Once we made the decision to move to California to pursue acting, we realized that we’d have to change how we defined stability. Moving is often difficult; and moving in with my parents, we knew that, sooner or later, we would have to move again. But we figured we decided that wherever we are, as long as we’re together,…
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The Musical
I have so much to catch up on… sigh. Life gets crazy. I can’t fill you in on everything in this post, but I am so excited to tell you about this. I recently auditioned for a musical. Our Stake (church group) is putting on a show. The musical is an original script riddled with beautiful and inspiring well-known songs. As soon as it was announced I was determined to be in it. Jess wanted to be involved in the show as well. Ben’s schedule is so hectic that we figured it best for him not to audition. Okay… here’s the deal. When Ben works he’s often gone from before…
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Flattery
One of my favorite things about doing background work these last couple months is the social aspect. While we do work plenty, there is also usually a fair amount of time where I get to just sit around and chat with the other background actors. I’ve met some lovely people. And they always make me feel good about myself; I’m constantly being flattered. My favorite part about it, however, is the shock factor. I don’t know why I get such a kick out of it… but I do. Here I am sitting with a group of people my age. We’re usually discussing acting and the jobs we have recently worked.…
