Born a child of gratitude, grateful for an extremely humbling year.

The more time goes by the more I realize it is no coincidence I was born Thanksgiving weekend because what you don't know is that I arrived a month early but I believe I arrived right on time. My mom tells me she was terrified at how tiny I was and she would hold me so close to keep me warm because I was all shades of purple. Well mom now I'm almost thirty-four and all shades of red as I have a crush which I am grateful for as it is proof that my heart has healed from all the lessons of this past year and then some breathing life into me again! I am filled with the colors of love, life, hope and gratitude! ;-)

This past year has brought so many lessons with it and my heart has broken and healed repeatedly showing me how beautifully complex we are and how amazingly we can recover from anything if we choose to. I believe that in time depending on how we see things we can also have gratitude for life and its lessons. While I may not always agree or understand the expense of what it took for some of those lessons I still eventually without a doubt arrive into gratitude. I have come to realize it is how I was born. Thinking back on my life as thirty-four arrives on Monday I am able to see that no matter what has happened I have eventually been grateful for the journey and the lessons it brought. Most of all I am grateful for the people those lessons and roads less traveled have brought into my life.

I have met the man whose work I read for over ten years, which inspired me to keep up the good fight eventually collaborating creatively with him. The people who are going to make my next dream a reality have come into my life and become my "family". I have crossed paths with women who do anything to help my dream come to life and who selflessly give asking nothing in return. I have shared a road with a man, left that road and returned to it to find two adults able to be friends and support eachother. These days it feels like he is supporting my dream more than I am his but in time I know the tables will turn. I have walked all my years with six brothers and sisters, an amazing mom, and a lovely step dad. All have been great teachers and all have led me on the road I am on today whether they knew it or not. Life gave me the gift of knowing what it's like to have a man believe in you when no one else does. Even if some of that journey's timing felt incredibly off in many ways, in one particular way it's timing was perfect. This was the first man to not only support me and my dreams but show up and show his support for my work and because of that I am eternally grateful to know what having someone GENUINELY believe in you asking nothing in return is like. Especially in my industry. Someone who just wants to see you succeed and is rooting for you even if our time together was brief the impact of the journey is forever.

I have said before that perhaps the biggest risk I take in my life is believing in a God and its guidance. I believe in its existence not because I have been taught to but because what I have lived has taught me to. Everything that happens in my life, harsh or beautiful, eventually leads me to an understanding of how truly magical each day is if our eyes our open to it. How precious each breathe is and how wonderful life can be if we make it about more than just ourselves. If we share our journey and allow others to share theirs we see how connected we are and what a small world it really is and how powerful it is to be of service to others.

Perhaps that is one of the biggest lesson life has brought this past year. I have had to be the receiver instead of the giver and have had to allow others to be of service to me. Something I originally fought with my Sagitarrius fire and stubborness and a lesson so constant that it reminded me that resistence is persistence so eventually I left myself be taken care of by others. From colds to production stuff to bigger things friends and family have stepped in to be of service to me. For them and their giving hearts I am eternally grateful and I am grateful to myself and my stubborness for learning when to let go and let God. ;-)

If I listed everyone that has impacted my life in this past year or past thirty-four we would be here for a good ten blogs. They know who they are and they know what they have done and best of all they have expected nothing in return. Tomorrow I will visit one of them in a way I NEVER EVER could have expected to. The last time I saw him he was walking backwards out of Portos with a big smile on his face, holding a bag and saying thank you A. Tomorrow I will pay him a visit and tell him like I did when he was here how GRATEFUL I was to have crossed paths with him, after all it's the day of gratefulness. If God ever showed its face to me it was definitely by allowing me to cross paths with Neil. He set the bar high as he was such a man of character and I am honored to have known of the existence of such a man.

Dear friends, treasure every moment, forgive yourself and others often, hold yourself in the same respect and high regard you have for others and you will not allow others to belittle you, give and expect nothing in return, believe yourself powerful and unique because YOU ARE, and accept nothing is guaranteed and you will LIVE!LOVE-LOVE-LOVE no matter how hard it may seem somedays to believe you ever will again, believe me in due time or as I say right on time you will again. Most of all have no doubt that just because you can't see someone anymore doesn't mean they aren't with you. Next time that crazy coincidence happens to you, look up, look within, smile and be grateful as I believe your friend, lover, mother, father or whomever you have lost has just crossed paths with you again. They are protecting you now and forever! For that protection, you, life, every breath, the sun, the moon, the smell of decaf coffee, my christmas tree (that is already up), my family, my friends, every part of body, my journey and its lessons and the ability to have thirty- four years of all this I am GRATEFUL. For this humbling year I am grateful because I was born a child of gratitude.

May you allow life to show you how magical it truly is and may everything and everyone make you grateful to have crossed paths with them. May they inspire you to thank them like I did earlier to all those who had stood by me this past year, via email, with the song below. Most of all may you be grateful no matter your circumstances and not be a victim of them trusting that everything is leading you somewhere or to someone. "A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles”. Tim Cahill

Thank you God, family, friends, and everything in this magical universe that makes this sometimes challenging journey a beautiful mess! Thank you for the gift of life GOD and the universe!!! Thank you!!! Happy Thanksgiving everyday! If you open your eyes you will find something to be grateful for everyday. I am grateful for your eyes which you have leant to my blog and spent some time with my thoughts. I thank you!



A glimpse of the people I am grateful for. This is just of sample of the beautiful souls who make my journey magical!

Neil and Millie Lisk- a lot of people have questioned the character David in my film and why he is so almost perfect. Good guys exist and the inspiration of keeping him as he is written is Neil. Never doubt that men of character whose love for their family exceeds life's temptations, exist. Neil is proof! He here is with one of his two favorite ladies and the reason he worked so hard. Words can not express how much you are missed.

My mentor, confidant, supporter and forever friend Paul.

Good times in LA this year with one of my six siblings.

The woman who made my existence possible, my lovely mom, and me in one of my FAVORITE pictures!

A weekend of work turned out to be a weekend of words my soul needed to be fed with. Here with the two people who are responsible for them, Michael and Lisa. Having wardrobe fun!

Bearing Fruit Family FUN! Love my "family". Couldn't have asked for more talented people to join me on the journey!



Once again thank you GOD for all the beautiful souls you have sent my way!

Striping it all away- the reality behind the dream.

To say my life is busy right now is an understatement. I am being pulled in so many directions while challenges arise having to choose between moving forward or stopping. I have chosen repeatedly to move forward. It is this choice that inspired a friend of mine from Germany to send me an email and suggest that I write a book based on all I am living and have lived in 2010. His email came after my friend Silke also from Germany emailed earlier this year after reading my blog and suggested I turn my blog into a book. To me it is synchronicity to say the least because I have been wanting to finish a book I wrote in 2008 for a while now but just haven't had the time. I've trusted that when the time was right I would have the time to sit down and finish. In living this year I realized that the book wasn't ready to be continued until this journey I am currently on comes full circle.

I can say without a doubt that the past year of my life has been one of the most difficult years of my life. I have been continuously stripped of something or someone I thought I needed simply by believing in myself, my dreams, and my choices. It is in choosing to honor my individuality and my calling that people have walked out of my life or I have chosen to walk away. I have also been stripped in many areas of life and yet I trust with all my heart and soul that everything is exactly as it should be as it is leading me to where my journey needs to take me in life in order to fulfill my calling. So while you may see my website or my pictures of fun being had while casting my film, or doing wardrobe with the cast, or hanging out with them I see what it takes to live those moments.

There is a saying that behind every great man stands a strong woman. Well beside, not behind as I believe in equality, this woman stand the family and friends who have not only found a way to let me be but have also encouraged me to follow my dreams. If I am to speak in all honesty than I have to say that this production has had a constant revolving door like no other before. We've had to cast repeatedly to replace people, I've had to let people go who thought their job was secure and stopped making an effort to do their job and life has also simply changed things in ways that did not allow people to stay on the production. I believe in life we have to risk to reap rewards and with that thought in mind I have to thank Randy Kent, Jodi Scott Elliot, and Ryan Caldwell for not letting the constant in and out of others take their faith in me and the film from them. I don't even know if they've realized it but by standing firmly with me they've given me the courage to continue to move forward. Three people can make a bigger impact on me than a hundred challenges!

Those challenges are daily occurrences and the most important thing for me to remember is that my contribution to the world and humanity can not be deterred by occurrences which are out of my control. The most important thing for me is to be able to rise to the challenge and once again in the process realize just what I am capable of. What continues to happen, which should be of no shock to anyone who knows me is that my faith in God, the universe, and their plan for me continues to grow! The way I see it is by allowing to let things be what they are and not trying to fight the guidance of God I allow the journey to become more magical. People are being added to the mix right now that are making this journey even more meaningful and special as I was stripped of people my mind was tricking me into believing I needed. For me it's somewhat easy to continue forward because I believe in God and the universe as much as they believe in me therefore I know and trust I will live things that only this journey lived the way it's meant to could bring to life.

Everyone who CHOOSES to stand beside me is here because they are meant to be and together we will contribute to film making in a unique, impactful way that allows others to relate not escape. I don't produce to create an escape. My calling is to produce work that allows people to relate and creates a bridging of the gap society has imposed repeatedly on us with false advertisements only to make money and really in the end not with one care of how it affects the human race and our evolution. I am not out to make a buck and sell images so I believe firmly that everyone God sends my way ultimately has to support a collective dream or it won't work. Anyone in it just for their benefit can not be in this with us. Why? Simple, indie film making does not allow us the luxury of egos with a budget so small. It allows us the luxury of telling a story with passion and faith that it will impact the lives of others in a powerful way and in the process lead us to wherever life wants us to go.

For me to be able to help make some one's dream come true along with mine, whether it be the musician whose song will be heard by audiences watching our film, or the actor who will finally be seen after years of being unseen in this city of dreams called Hollywood which can actually destroy them more than help nourish them, for me that is part of what fuels me and allows me to move forward. To be able to tell a story and have so many people's voices heard drives me! I whole heartily believe that because my dream is not just about helping myself the universe conspires. While the journey to the conspiring may strip me of things, places, or people I thought I needed my reality based on my journey, which I've been paying close attention to, is that life is simply making room for what I truly need and not what I thought I needed.

My reality now brought a young woman with a dream into my life this past week. A woman who I have to admit reminds me a lot of me when I first got here. She's very young and very brave. Lisa has stepped in to fill some big shoes in our production and the more I get to know her the more I know it was no coincidence that the universe crossed our paths. Like I told her after a long day of wardrobe and after she said some very nice things to me, "I have no doubt that we were brought into each other's lives because we both NEEDED each other." It is in her that I see the face of God and it is those "coincidences" of life where I find the courage to move forward. I had to be stripped of someone to be led to her so I yet again can see that having my reality continuously stripped of the way I see it is ultimately God's way of helping me along the journey. NO MATTER HOW MUCH I AM AFFECTED BY THE INITIAL SHOCK OF YET ANOTHER CHALLENGE. Tell your mom I've got your back Lisa. ;-)

So Alex and Silke to answer your question, I have no doubt that when the time is right I will be guided to finish that book and until then I will continue to be grateful for people like you who help my dreams along the way. I'd be here forever if I told everyone who has helped thus far but I would like to say that people like Michael Mullen and Blanca Valdez who did not receive a dime for their services to my production and jumped in when I was stripped of others have the utmost respect in my heart for they believed in me when it seemed like so many where living in constant questioning. THANK YOU!!

My bottom line is this if you strip it all away from me you will find courage and faith backing my voice which refuses to be silenced simply because while life has chosen to take me through some pretty harsh roads to show me how precious each day is and how temporary this life is, it has taught me worthy of acquiring the knowledge that life is too short to abide by anyone else's voice but my own. Serelda G. Wallace was quoted as saying "The highest form of development is to govern one's self" and the only way to do that for me is to trust the engineer at the helm of this train ride called life. It is for me in its guidance that I have not only found my voice but I have found the courage to not allow anyone even those I love dearly to silence it. "when a train ride goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off, you still still and trust the engineer." C.T. Boom

Seems I found my theme for 2010. ;-) "If you strip me strip it all away what would you find? Take what you want, steal my pride, build me up or cut me down to size, shut me out but I'll just scream. I AM ONLY ONE VOICE IN A MILLION BUT YOU AIN'T TAKING THAT FROM ME. SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS ONE VOICE"

Turns out that in order for my voice to be heard and become stronger I have to be stripped. May you allow the challenges of life that strip you of what you thought you needed fill you with courage and faith to allow what you truly need to live your dreams to enter your life! To all who choose to stand beside me I am deeply and eternally grateful. God thank you for the team/teachers ;-) you have chosen me worthy of traveling this journey with and thank you for letting them trust the engineer of this train ride. ;-)

Seeking rewards without taking a risk.

I find myself in a lot of situations these days that bring with them the lesson that society has perhaps taught us that things should be easy and handed to us and that if there is any sort of struggle then we should just give up and walk away and call it not meant to be. While sometimes that can be true and there will be obvious signs that will demonstrate that sometimes detours are there to lead you to a more extraordinary journey than the one you envision. Roadblocks to me are God's way of showing itself. Accepting them gives me the ability to know what to do with them, which comes from paying attention to my life and the lesson is has brought repeatedly. Roadblocks just happen to be the way I co-create my life with what I believe is my creator and meet my destiny. A creator I have no problem calling God simply because it's a God of my understanding not anyone else's idea of God or what we've been sold to believe God is. No punishing God for me. God is what is with me when life happens on its terms and it happens everyday of every year and some years, like this one for me, more than others.

I know that the media is constantly reminding us these days what terrible times these are so much so that I have had to make a conscious decision to not watch the news. Yes I agree these are definitely interesting times like I have never seen in my thirty three years of existence but I will hold onto my belief quite firmly that everything happens as it should. There are no accidents. There are plenty of times along the way I have wished that wasn't the case but in time have come to understand that for me there is a plan taking place in my life. That plan aka destiny aka my calling will not unfold unless I consciously choose to risk and plant seeds in the winter in the middle of the snow in Denver. Yes it sounds ludicrous but I believe in miracles and following my heart and that means that sometimes my heart asks such request of me. Have no doubt when I am initially given the direction I must head to next and it sounds as crazy as planting seeds in the middle of the snow in Denver I think to myself "Seriously, wow this just keeps getting more interesting" but I do it because I have trust in what is to follow.

This past year has asked A LOT of me. Perhaps more than any other year or at least it seems like it. I've seen the man I thought I would marry wed someone else, I've seen my production company grow smaller than it was which seems almost impossible, I lost tremendously on some gambles and finally was dealt with another blow of this already tumultuous year, seeing Neil leave this planet. As if everything hadn't already been a lot. However this was also the year I continued to help raise Zoey, got a humongous crush on someone just so my heart could show me it was still possible, raised awareness of the global water crisis, continued to watch my commercial for such a cause take home awards including one in Shanghai, chose to volunteer six months as a UNICEF Tap Project coordinator in order to produce their fundraiser, moved forward with my dreams in spite of what I see before me and accomplished what I long for the most, growth in my beliefs and faith.

I've been here before. A place where life has shown you how precious and delicate it is that you find yourself realizing yet again it can end in an instant. So the questions have been pouring in. Am I doing what I truly believe to be my calling? Yes. Do I show love as best as I can everyday? Yes. Do I trust in the wisdom of the universe? Yes, while it's been tested severely this year the answer is still yes. Do I believe there is a plan ordained by something far more magical and powerful than I can understand and may never truly comprehend in this existence I chose to call God? Yes, while it's also been severely tested the answer is still yes. Do I believe I am doing everything I can to create my own family and live in unconditional love? Yes, everyday as best as I can. So what does this all mean to me? That I can't sit here and spill my thoughts out to whoever is meant to read this and not be genuinely me. That means I have to admit my truth. I am struggling but I will see the light again and I will shine brightly once again when the lesson has made its way through. I can not ask this to go away or run from it and trust me the thought of throwing my clothes, awards, and pictures in boxes and selling everything else and then just driving away from all this pain has crossed my mind more than once. It is then that I know I must do what is the toughest thing for me right now BE STILL AND BE IN THE DISCOMFORT OF FEAR AND SADNESS because that is the only way I will make my way THROUGH IT AND INTO ACCEPTANCE OF MY REALITY, which will allow the fog to lift and the light to shine again. So I will risk everyday not feeling well so that I can eventually be my GENUINE happy soul/self again.

In the midst of all this darkness I have not lost the feeling that God is with me at all times and it's what helps me make it through these times. I know that the light of God, Neil, my grandfather, my first therapist, and others is a shield of bright light that surrounds me and while these days the shield is cracking and darkness creeps in taking advantage of my fragile vulnerability I TRUST WITH EVERY OUNCE OF MY HEART AND SOUL that I am exactly where I am supposed to be learning and growing and preparing for what is yet to come. I am stronger at the end of each day and at the end of each lesson not because I am different and have been blessed to be that way but because I CHOOSE to be that way. I choose love and anything else that allows the light in me to shine. A friend of Neil's told me that the best she could do in his honor was be IN love like he was. The best I can do in his honor is LIVE! I know he's helping me through all this. Yes I do believe he is an angel now, maybe not with wings etc. or maybe so- who knows, but what I don't doubt is that if all of us who miss him are getting through this it's because he is guiding us. He knows I want my light to shine again so I believe he is part of what reminds me everyday that it's okay to be where I am and that eventually I will shine brighter than ever when I've made my way through the feelings.

As I make my way through these feelings I choose to be faith in action by taking action and moving forward in this constantly changing life and production of mine. I can not ask people to be willing to RISK to see REWARDS like life has shown me repeatedly is the case but what I can do is make sure all the dead weight on the ship I am steering through unknown stormy waters is off my ship, which lightens the load and allows me to make my way to the brightly lit shores sooner. That light will come soon too and everything will come together even as everything continues to constantly change. I trust that the changes, which seem to be taking place weekly these days and make my work load heavier are also as they should be and leading me exactly to where I should be while gifting me with countless teachers of lessons God and the universe know I need. So I will continue to take one of the biggest risks ever, believing that something is out there and it's guiding me, and have no doubt the rewards will arrive on time if I continue to risk. Another choice I make.

I believe that seeking rewards without taking a risk is like asking a plant to grow without planting a seed and watering it. I've witnessed a lot of people this year want such a thing. All I can do is continue to lead by example and be me which means be in this beautiful mess of a life that has chosen me, all of us for that matter, and which I have chosen back. My bottom line is best expressed in these words spoken by Diana Nyad, "I am willing to put myself through anything; temporary pain or discomfort means nothing to me as long as I can see that the experience will take me to a new level. I am interested in the unknown, and the only path to the unknown is through breaking barriers, an often-painful process."

All that means in simple terms is I choose to LIVE. May you choose LIFE and allow it to choose you and most of all like me I hope that no matter what your eyes see or your heart feels I pray that you trust that when the time is right your LIGHT will shine! I have faith that when you are ready and the universe asks you to RISK you will and you will reap the REWARDS you deserve in order to SHINE, SHINE, SHINE how only you can!!! May you have the courage to let us all see the gift only you can give us! Let us see your destiny! THIS IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

This blog is dedicated to my friend Paul Rodriguez. Life has given us the gift of coming full circle and this has allowed him to be a friend to me when I needed him most. He knows what he's done and why he deserves this dedication. He too is helping my light shine again.;-)