It's Never Too Late...

Hello Hello blog universe. Please forgive me it’s been almost 2 ½ years since I blogged last. So much of my life has changed in these 2 ½ years and I promise to update everyone on my life little by little over the next couple of months.

So, for any of you that have talked to me in the last 2 weeks, you’ll attest to the fact that I’ve been completely obsessed w/ the movie Loving Annabelle. The movie itself, the director Katherine (Kat) Brooks (@thekatbrooks), and the actress who plays Annabelle, Erin Kelly (@erinkellygirl). If you haven’t seen the movie… uh what are you waiting for?? You can live stream it today on Netflix… Stick it on your Instant Queue. Do it now! =) With this obsession, I’ve become huge fans of these ladies and follow them both on twitter and have completely been inspired by them both. I can’t tell you how just reading/learning about them has affected my life in such a positive way.

First, Kat – She popped my live video chat cherry when I watched her May 9^th Vokle Session for her upcoming documentary Face2Face Movie. You can actually hear/see her reaction to my answer (she says my name... whoo!) when she asked -- Do you believe in “the one”? - My response was “it’s a ridiculous concept” - ask me about that sometime and I’ll tell you why. Shameless plug for Kat - Face2Face is an amazing project. She’s gonna go visit 50 random Facebook friends in 50 different cities and live stream 24/7 the whole darn thing. She’s so brave to do this. Her video explains it all. Her latest film is coming out July 12 called Waking Madison (which Erin Kelly is also in). I can’t wait.

Second, Erin – Erin’s got an amazing website www.erinkellygirl.com, entitled Women Empowering Women. It’s all about positive energy and women sharing stories and their lives to help others. Go check it out! I love her blogs. She’s so amazing. Shameless plug for Erin – She’s a co-founder of Rock Rose Entertainment and has really cool stuff going on right now: two film projects (Lilith and Mercury Arising), screenings called “Indie Colorado Cinema Experience”, and an all in one day write/perform extravaganza called Hitching Post Theater.

Why I’m blogging today… Erin had a new blog post today. She got inspired to start blogging again and inspired me (and in a way so did Kat through her Vokle Sessions and constant tweets). So, here I am following her lead. She found a book called It’s Never Too Late… 172 Simple Acts To Change Your Life I’m feeling that this is exactly what I need right now.

Many of you know that my father passed away just short of 4 months ago, January 17, 2011. I miss him so much and his passing has affected me in ways I can’t really describe. I feel stagnant and have been going through the motions, putting on a brave face, and I secretly cry on the inside almost every night. I’ve been wanting to do something to get me out of this rut. Do something different. Make something of my life and myself to honor my father, who was the most amazing man. Over the last 2 weeks, Kat and Erin have awakened something inside me that I haven’t really felt in a long time. So, I’m just gonna go w/ it. If I can make someone smile or laugh or inspire someone today through this blog, the way these ladies have made me smile, laugh, and inspired me… then YAY!

So the book… It’s Never Too Late… 172 Simple Acts To Change Your Life by Patrick Lindsay. It’s got little suggestions on each page on how to affect change in your life one act at a time. Every day (or couple of days not sure what I’m gonna do. Maybe I’ll ask Erin to see how she’s gonna do it) I’ll post the topic/act for the day and blog about it and how it’s gonna affect/change my life. Sound cool? Come along on this journey w/ me (and Erin) and see what happens. Even if you only do one 1 out of 172, I’d be so stoked! If you’re interested in buying the book (I was disappointed it wasn’t available on my Nook.. boo), so I went to Barnes & Noble to buy the book it was $6.98 in the Bargain section. However, I’ll post the acts and the associated quote before blogging about what I’m doing to affect that change in my life. =)

Act 1:

“It’s never too late… To Make Plans

Looking ahead takes you out of the daily grind. Planning ahead brings hope. Small plans first, with realistic goals. Build confidence. Then make bigger plans with bigger goals. Always have plans." – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: "You are young at any age if you are planning for tomorrow." ~Anonymous

Here are the 10 things I plan to do: (in no particular order: small, big, short term, or long term)

1. Blog about every act in the book It’s Never Too Late… 172 Simple Acts To Change Your Life. If I start today and do 1 a day my last blog post will be Nov 3rd. Let’s see if I can do it.
2. Stop Playing Farmville – I’ve been trying to do this for a long time now. I set a goal to hit level 100 w/ my bro this weekend and then I’m quitting. It takes way too much of my time (even if it is relaxing)
3. Pre-order Waking Madison – Shout out to Kat
4. Support Rock Rose Entertainment by doing one and/or all of the following: Donate $$ (just like I did for Face2Face Movie), go to an ICCE or Hitching Post Theater Event. Shout out to Erin. I go to Colorado all the time… I should be able to do it.
5. Organize a UCI Merage Alumni Reuninon. Been missing all your faces… let’s get together.
6. Lose a total of 25 pounds this whole year – I’m about 15 lbs down from the beginning of the year
7. De-Clutter my apartment by scanning all the paper: so I can finally have an electronic archive
8. Finish the GLEE DVD project I started before my dad died: I was putting together all the GLEE music performances from season 1 in one DVD for him as a XMAS present, but I never finished
9. Finish the key architecture by working w/ SE&I – It’s a work thing
10. Find a special way to celebrate my bday this year – My bday just so happens to be the same day of my parents anniversary. It would’ve been their 35^th wedding anniversary. I wanna make it special for me and my mom (and bro), because it’ll be the first w/out my dad.