bread and butter

Dear readers, this post has a split personality. But that’s kind of just how I am. I’m leading you, just momentarily, to a more personal place.  A place of bread and butter.

I was reading this post the other day about following your dreams and your passion and it really resonated for me. Now, while it may seem that I spend most of my time in the kitchen our out photographing fun stuff with Shawn, the truth is I have a full time, totally not creative job,* just like tons of other people out there. I spend most of my day calculating things and making a lot of spreadsheets.

Then I get to go home and bake and blog and photograph and sew for the few hours I have before I am too tired to function. It’s been going like this for about the past few years with a few variables. At some point there was a lot of script writing. Sometimes there are a lot of night time bicycle adventures. At one point there was a lot of watching edits of Brainwashed Love.

It hasn’t been easy. It’s been a lot of work, to keep up all these interests and paths. Sometimes I hate that I can’t just decide on one thing. I know it won’t ever be like that for me. I want to make movies. I want to bake cupcakes. I want to do it all. Of course all these creative endeavors come at a cost. So that’s what the day job is for in the mean time. It’s the bread and butter.

In 2009 Shawn and I took that crazy leap of making a feature film. We completely produced and financed it ourselves. It was something we both knew we had to do. I’m sure it was one of the best decisions we’ve made even though it was scary. I’m still so proud of what we’ve accomplished by making a movie together. It’s something that many people dream of doing and never get the chance to do. We did it, and we did it well. Not to mention it just gave us that much more confidence for the next one.

So here I am, a bit over a month out from the first time we screened our film, thinking about how to follow my dreams. I know I have to devote as much of myself to these creative endeavors as I can stand.

I’ve realized that I love this blog. I don’t just enjoy blogging, I LOVE cute & delicious. I love that it is a place where I can sprinkle bits and pieces of all the things I create. So I’ve recently invested more time into it, trying to post more often and make it as cool as possible because it makes me happy.

I’m loving planning our wedding. It’s like the biggest excuse to craft and design ever. How could I not love that?

The one thing I’ve had to let fall to the wayside recently is Vegan Bake Sale. It will return. In a grander more splendid form. Cross my heart.

I’ve been really into practicing photography lately. I’ve always taken photos for this blog (although, in the past, all the good photos were taken by Shawn). I’m really trying to step up my game. It helps that I have a good teacher.

I’m still trying to figure out how to turn all these loves, these things I’m truly passionate about, the things that I live for, into my bread and butter. I know somehow someday this will happen, I just haven’t figured out how to make it happen yet. I’m ready though.

So I’m leaving you with these thoughts and some insanely good Beer Bread from a mix I bought at Trader Joe’s. I know I said I don’t usually buy boxed bake goods but sometimes you have to make an exception. This is one of those times.

August 10th

I might get in a little bit of trouble for this post, but I just can’t contain myself.

Three years ago today I met the man I’m going to marry.

That’s him up top, his name is Shawn if you hadn’t caught on yet. He is also known as Studiodrome. These days you might know him as Little Vegan Planet.

Here’s the setting…it’s the second Friday Midnight Ridazz ride. The Clown Ride to be specific. Hundreds of cyclists swarm the streets of Los Angeles from downtown to, in this case, mid-Wilshire. Here we are stopped at a 7-11 to refuel. This photo in particular doesn’t quite grasp the magnitude of how many of us there are. I’m going to say this was during the second golden age of MR.

We met on this fateful night moments after I caught him taking this photo above.  I tried to get out of the frame, and he told me I wasn’t in the photo. Obviously that wasn’t quite true. I kind of love that there is a photo of the moment we first saw each other.

The next day he broke all the rules and asked me out. In fact, he asked me to go get ice cream at Scoops. How could I say no?

So we met up, ate ice cream and talked for a long time. I found out he was vegan too (major bonus points), was crazy about movies just like me and of course, loved riding bikes. I honestly couldn’t believe how much we had in common.

Since then, everyday our life together gets a little more awesome.  We love Halloween. We love spending a whole day (or weekend) watching movies and eating vegan pizza. We love dressing up like zombies. We love biking around every city we visit. You might find us taking photos of all the food we eat.  Or you might find us hanging out and snuggling our cats, Meeme and Mochi.

Last summer we wrote and shot a feature film together…Brainwashed Love. It was by far the craziest, most stressful and most awesome thing I’ve ever done. I know it was only possible because we did it together. Not to mention the work we’ve done in the past year to make it as special as we can.

I wish I could put into words how awesome being with Shawn has made my life. I’m so happy and excited all the time. We get to do the coolest stuff. We get to do all the things that people are nervous about and not worry because we’re together.

I couldn’t be happier that in six short months we’re going to be getting married. I can’t wait for all the things our life together holds. Last night I stayed up late stamping save the dates. I can’t wait to show you guys some of the cool stuff we’re going to be putting together for our wedding, but for the moment it will have to stay under wraps. I promise, cool stuff ahead though.

Tweed Ride 2010

So here are some old (but always good) photos to remind us of the past few years. It’s crazy that nearly the whole time we’ve been together Shawn has had a beard and now he doesn’t.

Happy Anniversary Shawn. I love you more than anything. xo