Back in July, I did a mid-year check-in, going over some of the highlights of the year thus far.  The second part of 2013 was no less exciting and busy as the first part!

July

• Rehearsed and performed a remount of [THEY FIGHT!] at the Palace Theatre to a huge, appreciative audience
• Made 80 jars of blueberry jam with Shawn and my mom for wedding favors
• Started a Free Resources page on the blog
• Played baseball with Shawn and the Richardson family, and got my own baseball mitt!
• Saw a Blue Jays game in Toronto (J.P. Arencibia bobblehead giveaway!)
• Finally got new contact lenses!  (HUGELY overdue)
• Bought our wedding rings!
• Co-hosted TLTDAY podcast #12
• Puppet Making Day 3: Return of the Puppets!
• Went camping in Rondeau Provincial Park with Shawn, Nicole and Justin

August

• Attended the VIP media night for Mysteriously Yours Dinner Theatre’s new show, “Uptown Abbey” and stayed at One King West Hotel & Residence in a gorgeous suite!
• Attended and volunteered for Puppet Fest at the Palace Theatre, including running spotlight for “Sing Along With the Muppet Movie” with Heather Henson’s IBEX Puppetry!  Also got to meet the REAL Animal and Gonzo!
• Adventures in Toronto: Canada’s Wonderland (including randomly bumping into ALL the CampOK counselors!), a hotel misadventure which ended up with us staying at the Trump Hotel Toronto (!!!), and attending another Blue Jays game, this time with a Brett Lawrie bobblehead giveaway!
• Purchased my first gun… that shoots marshmallows.  🙂
• Ran my third 5k (ish… more like a 3.5k) of 2013: The Color Run
• Announced OKTC’s Fall 2013 season, “The Season of Many Colours,” and was featured on the Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon poster
• Spent an evening filming a scene for the short film “Sleep With Her” with EDV Productions
• Saw The Amazing AcroCats live at the Palace Theatre
• Bachelorette party!!!

September

• Shawn’s and my last date as an unmarried couple was an NHL rookie game: Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Chicago Blackhawks!  We even saw Coach Q himself (Joel Quenneville) walking down the street while we had dinner at UpFront at the Market!
• September 7, 2013 – Shawn and I got married!
• Week-long honeymoon in Walt Disney World!
• Was cast in Duel Love with Maybles’ Productions, to be performed at the London One Act Festival
• Guest instructed for T.A.G. (The Actor Grows) at OKTC; taught a mime & tableau class
• Attended the London Psychic Expo

October

• Lots of rehearsals for Duel Love
• Saw The Three Musketeers at the Stratford Festival with OKTC
• Co-hosted TLTDAY postcast #14
• Co-hosted the Midlanders Performance Ensemble’s “FUNale,” featuring performances by a number of regional drum & bugle corps
• Celebrated my friend Maggie’s birthday in Toronto with shopping, Indian food, and a costume party!
• Choreographed violence for OKTC’s production of The Hobbit

November

• November Blogging Bonanza was a huge success
• Performed in Duel Love at the London One Act Festival, which was very well-received and won three awards!
• Participated in an actors’ workshop taught by Alan K. Sapp
• Saw MTP’s production of Oklahoma
• My sister-in-law had a baby boy!
• Created a Press page for the blog
• Announced OKTC’s Spring 2014 season, “I Dream, I Wish,” which includes two shows I’m directing in 2014: Disney’s Peter Pan Jr. and Through the Looking Glass!
• Learned how to knit slippers
• Actually having an entire week with no plans and getting to relax and spend time with Shawn!

December

• Guest instructed for LYTE at the Palace; taught a class on mime, tableau & clown technique
• Ran my fourth 5k of 2013 with Shawn, Kody and Annika: The Santa Shuffle in Toronto
• Had a planning meeting for the second OKTC coffeehouse (Read about the first one here!)
• Participated in a staged reading with the London Playwrights Lab
• Shawn’s 29th birthday was on December 19
• Went to what felt like a million parties
• Attended a Winter Solstice celebration at Heaven Scent in Wortley Village
• Saw Saving Mr. Banks at the movies with Shawn… and ran into Ceris, Joe and Andrew 🙂
• Finished ALL the thank-you cards from our wedding… that was a HUGE sigh of relief for me!
• Went to Toronto and saw Les Miserables at the Princess of Wales Theatre with Kendryth and Andrew, and stayed in the Trump Hotel Toronto again!

All in all, this was an incredibly busy year, full of travel, theatre, fun and friends.

So back in July, I had made a list of seven things I wanted to achieve by December 2013.  Unfortunately, I only accomplished one of those things.  Let’s take a look:

1.  Have a beautiful wedding in September!

Yup.  Achievement = unlocked.

2.  Edit my two existing one-act plays (After Alice and Inspector Noble and the Figure in Black) and post details on how to purchase the rights to them on my website!

Haven’t done anything towards this one other than get some ideas for blog posts (which I still haven’t written).  I still want to do this!

3.  Finish The Artist’s Way (I gave up after Week 7, and I want to finish it once and for all!)

I don’t even know where my Artist’s Way book is right now.  Unfortunately this isn’t much of a priority at the moment.

4.  Write 30 pages of my one-woman show.  (If I finish this by the submission date, I just might submit it to the 2014 London Fringe.)

This has also dropped off my radar at the moment.  Not into it, and I’m ok with that.  I tend to get inspired around London Fringe time after seeing so many brilliant and brave performances.  This year’s deadline for the Fringe came and passed really quickly it seemed, and I just wasn’t feeling it.

5.  Get my own business cards.

Now this is just silly.  I could design and order business cards from Vistaprint in less than an hour, I’m sure.  Don’t know why I’ve been lagging on this one.

6.  Stretch daily and be able to do the splits.

Nope.  Haven’t been working on this one.  I am starting P90X today, so this will be a focus.

7.  Pay off the balance on my credit card and keep a zero balance.

Eek.  After my wedding, honeymoon, and a half dozen trips to Toronto, my credit card is not happy with me.  Paying off this bad boy has to be my #1 priority in 2014, especially if I ever want to own a MacBook Pro.

As you can see, while I’ve had lots of achievements and forward movement, I’ve also let some parts of my life slide as well.  So I’m going to re-evaluate my goals, thusly:

Edit my two existing one-act plays (After Alice and Inspector Noble and the Figure in Black) and post details on how to purchase the rights to them on my website!

• Pay off the balance on my credit card and keep a zero balance.
• Get my own business cards.
• Stretch daily and be able to do the splits.
• Complete at least five 5k races in 2014 and improve my personal best time (currently 37:32).  My goal is to do a 5k in 30 minutes.
• Edit my two existing one-act plays (After Alice and Inspector Noble and the Figure in Black) and post details on how to purchase the rights to them on my website.
• Publish informative, creative, engaging content on my blog — 3x per week.

Here’s to an awesome 2014!