Life's too short . . .

. . . to not have a room painted your favorite color.


Yes, I've been wanting a gray room now for a good couple of years but just always thought I would wait until I had a real house to do it. Well, this weekend I decided that life's too short for that "later" mentality so my sweet husband helped me paint our guestroom. And a couple of bathrooms. On very short notice. In the midst of trying to finish his screenplay that was due today (thanks!!!!).

It is lighter than my dream gray, but the room is tiny so I didn't want to shrink it too much so I went for "Light French Gray". Mary picking out paint swatches . . . I'm sure you can imagine that process. That's a whole other blog.

My next step is to (hopefully) get some amazing graphically patterned curtains and/or bedding for in there. The old college comforter is feeling a little tired, I think.

Come see it and let me know what you think!

Using my hands

Tonight I am at home and am making some invitations for a friend's shower. Yup - making.

I spend so much time with high-tech cameras, computers, software, etc. that I am finding it's very therapeutic to do something by hand rather than digitally. Last night I sat on the couch with Adam watching American Idol and cutting out (no, not the apple + c kind but with real scissors!) paper birds, and, much to his dismay, making my best bird sounds. Tonight I am gluing! I know, exciting, eh?

But it's been great and makes me want to do crafts and projects that aren't on the computer. I've forgotten what this is like!

UCLA

As many of you know, Adam is taking class this year at UCLA. He's doing a graduate program in screenwriting which means that 2x a week, he makes the trek up to Westwood for class - it's quite the commute but has been worth it as he's learning tons.

I finally got to go to school with him last week since it was "Bring Your Spouse to Class Day". Just kidding. We took an afternoon off to go up early and do some exploring around campus and Westwood.

Walking around Westwood was great - it's such a great little college town - who wouldn't want to go there? We started with dinner at the supposedly famous (I've never heard of it but let's be honest, I'm not always up on the pop culture) Jerry's Deli.


And then, on to my much-anticipated choice, Diddy Riese!


What is Diddy Riese, you may ask? Well, let me tell you. It's this great little ice cream shop that makes custom ice cream sandwiches for you - you pick your 2 cookies and the ice cream that goes in the middle. I had chocolate chip cookies with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in the middle. Brilliant. And it's crazy cheap.




We then wandered off to the the UCLA campus. It's incredible - kind of like Samford on steroids. It definitely made me miss college and the academic environment. No offense to anyone but it sure made USC look like a dump!



Eventually Adam had to go to class so I hung out in the graduate library reading my wedding magazine and baby shower book - I fit right in! It was so great to see where Adam runs off to every week and to see his little world up there. I was really impressed by the Film Department. They halls are lined with movie posters with autographs of actors, directors, etc. who got started at UCLA - it's really incredible and makes me so excited for Adam to get to learn from somewhere as prestigious as this!


So, in light of my great visit, I had no choice but to pick the Bruins to go all of the way in the tourney (see entry below). Clearly a beautiful campus = great basketball!

My Bracket

In case you were wondering, here it is.



I'm holding a steady 3rd in the Rosenbaum Family Bracket, but all of my Elite 8 are still in, so I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of a sneak attack in the later rounds.

The detailed account

So .... sorry to keep you in suspense but I had very limited blogging capacity yesterday after getting about 2 hours of sleep the night before and having a very long day!!!

So the big annoucnement is that my brother Daniel was the one who got chosen to be a contestant yesterday. It was awesome and we were TOTALLY freaking out the whole time.

Luckily, the studio didn't make us sign any confidentiality notices, but we promised Dan that we would keep the results under wraps so he can watch with his friends at school and the results can be a surprise! What I can tell you is that he was in the first 4 contestants called down and that he at least made it to contestants row.

The show will air on Wednesday, April 9th on CBS and it looks like they also post to CBS.com if you miss it. I'll be sure to remind you.

Here are a few photos that we were able to snatch during the day - cameras weren't allowed in the studio so we got what we could:

Waiting in line outside the CBS studio - we got there around 4am and were about 30th in line:


We waited in the first line until about 6am when they gave us #'s based on our arrival order and let us go until 7:45am. The sun didn't come up until about 7 so it was a cold dark morning but luckily we made friends in line and brought snacks, travel Scrabble, etc.:


After we returned to the studio at 7:45, they replaced our arrival numbers with priority numbers:


After those, we got about 30 minutes off again. We just walked a couple of blocks to keep ourselves awake and accidentally stumbled into this. You know you're jealous:


Then we went back to the studio for the longest stretch of waiting - it was about 8:30-12:00. We were definitely getting antsy by the end!! We did receive our much coveted nametags during this time!


So then, after all of that we were interviewed by the producer in groups of 12. It was just one guy who literally walked down the row and asked each person "Hi, Mary. Where do you live? What do you do?" And that was it. I stood up on the bench that we were standing behind and danced throughout my answers - I definitely wanted to take a risk and stand out! Apparently that helps the person to your left get chosen! After Adam answered his questions, he looked at us and asked, are all of you guys together? I heard a rumor that they like to get groups with personality so they get a good reaction from the contestant's friends in the audience. Don't know if that's true but I like to at least think that my poor dancing played a small piece in the decision. I've heard mixed reports about how contestants are chosen but after the experience, I'm totally convinced that it is 100% based on the 10 second producer interview, and your behavior in line, your interaction with the pages, etc. have nothing to do with it.

After about another hour of waiting, we were finally ushered into the studio for the 1:00 taping. Yes, it's much smaller than it looks on tv and I seriously felt like we were in the 60's with draped multi-color fabric and have you ever noticed the beads hanging down around the studio with flowers, shapes, sparkles - all very 60's! It was bizarre.

We did get AWESOME seats!! We were seated in order of our ticket # which was based on order of arrival so we were in the 3rd row back in the very center so I'm sure you will be able to see Adam and I during the shots of the contestants bidding.

They encourage audience participation and it's really tough to hear what all is being said on stage, particularly when Rich is making announcements. When they announce the contestants names, they have to hold up posters with the names written because you can't even hear - it's crazy! Dan got to take his poster with him:


So, be sure to watch/Tivo/DVR on April 9th to see what happened. It was crazy fun and I don't even think I realized how much I yelled but my throat was really sore when we left!!

Thanks to everyone for the great t-shirt ideas! Adam and I both used some of yours.

Lauren and Andrew suggested making a replica of the wheel - throughout the day I saw people pointing and smiling at my shirt so I think it was a hit!!:


And Adam used Whitney's idea of "Plinko or Bust":


Thanks for the help! Apparently Big Orange and white are the way to go!

My Day Today

It went a little something like this:

2:00 am: alarm goes off. ouch.
2:58 am: leave home for Hollywood
4:10 am: arrive at CBS TV studio lot
6:00 am: receive Price Is Right "order of arrival" pass
6:30 am: breakfast at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
7:30 am: wait in line
8:15 am: receive Priority Number
8:45 am: wait in line
11:30 am: 10 second interview with Price is Right producer
12:45 pm: seated in the Price is Right studio
1:00 pm: Taping begins! Cheer a lot, dance a lot, scream a lot
3:00 pm: exit CBS studio lot
4:30 pm: arrive home

Yep - count 'em - that's about a 14.5 hours of our day that we devoted to Price Is Right . It was really fun.

7:53 pm (aka now): wondering how much longer I can keep my eyes open!

Oh, and did I mention that one of these people got to "Come On Down . . . "


to be continued ....

Come on Down!!

If there has ever been a time that I have needed my blogging friends . . . it is now. I am in desperate need of your wisdom and creativity! Can you help?

You see, a week from today I'm doing something that I've always wanted to do for literally my whole life as long as I can remember . . . going to see the Price Is Right!! I'm not even kidding my heart just started pounding even as I typed that.



My siblings and I grew up watching Price Is Right every summer morning, sick day, school holiday, etc. 10am!! I still love it to this day and so my brother is coming out for his spring break and we got our tickets to go see it!! Ahhhh - I'm so excited.

And I'll be perfectly honest - I'm dying to be a contestant on the show. I know it's a long shot but I really really want to be on it!! And I'm willing to go to extreme measures of personal embarrassment and humiliation to accomplish this goal.

So far my efforts include Tivo'ing episodes of the New Price is Right (with Drew Carey) and casually reviewing prices at the grocery store on products such as instant coffee, tums, ace bandages - and any other product that might show up.

The main thing (and this is where you come in) is that I know I need to think of a great T-shirt idea. I've only had 2 ideas so far and I'm not so sure about them. Are you ready for mad photoshop skillz?

The first was to make t-shirts so that when Adam, Daniel, and me stand next to each other our shirts all spell out DREW. But that would be weird when viewing them individually. What do you think?


My other idea is just to do a classic straightforward I Heart Drew. Here I am spinning the wheel in that shirt.



So what do you think? Any tips for getting on the show? Any brilliant t-shirt ideas? I need your help!

And yes, there will be compensation for anyone who submits a t-shirt idea that lands me in contestant row!!

Have I mentioned ...

Have I mentioned that I am blogging regularly on my photo blog these days? How exciting - twice the blogging, twice the Mary, twice the fun.



I actually feel like it's part of my job to blog now - wow. Life is good!

Rather than constantly referencing my blogs over there, I'll just assume that you are going to go ahead and link to it, RSS me, all of that good stuff:

http://maryrosenbaumphoto.blogspot.com

On another note, I'm very sad about Asia'h. She was so fun! But I only have myself to blame - I didn't call and vote!

Happy Friday!

Yay!

Vale is here!

New Hair

... and we all know how I feel about that!

(And since you asked . . . yes! The shirt is new too. Target - $11!! What a steal - I love gray!)