hope sprouts designs.

i have the opportunity to care for 18 magical, delightful unique little creatures everyday.  when i’m not acting or performing, it’s the best gift i could experience.  i really feel like i make a difference.  learning how to love children - i have always loved children, but creating a little school family…or community of sorts…has challenged me to really love them in a mightier way.  this job calls me to love them day in and day out, when they’re being cute and when they’re being testy, when i feel like it and when i’m tired.  it’s definitely made me reassess what unconditional love looks like and how i want to get there and how much i want the children to experience it both at home and at school and everywhere. 

i encountered something today at work in a new way.  i already knew about it, read about it and even have experienced it.  but when you experience it in the life of a three year old you have been blessed to care for for almost a year, it makes you sad in a new way.  i know that i will be stretched to the maximum when i, myself, become a parent and have to watch my child suffer in some way. 

so one of my children was adopted when they were a year old.  i actually at one point had 5 children in my class with that story.  and sometimes, when this child’s world of attachments gets ruffled (i.e. i am on vacation or someone in their little family is) this child experiences it far more deeply than most others.  they aren’t necessarily a child who craves routine, but they definitely crave stability within their relational world.  if i were describing what this child is like 95% of the time it is JOY.  they simply ooze JOY and when they are gone their presence is felt.  even other children note how JOYous this child is.

but when they cry, it is gutteral.  it is heart-breaking.  it comes from a very deep place, their whole body shakes, and they cry from every pore of their being.  this child is not acting, but is perhaps the most honest connector to the human emotion of sorrow. 

Continue reading ‘joy and sorrow today in one child’

and if i dont reach in there and grab as many of them as i can carry everyday, then i deserve to get sent right back there.

-”simon” on studio 60 (dl hughley)

salvation.  liberation.  redemption.  transformation.  i don’t just mean these in the born-again bible-believing hook-line-and-sinker way we’ve been taught.  i mean these words, yes, spiritually, but broader than just those who call themselves “christians”.  i’m talking about faith.  about beauty.  about art and truth and love.  i feel like if someone has extended these qualities to you, if they have reached into the muck and carried you out.  if they have delivered you.  if they have opened the doors to your dreams.  you should pay it forward.  if you seek integrity, i think it is necessary.  i don’t see how it is personally avoidable.  if someone ever opens the door to my dreams, a director thinks outside the box and casts me in a truthful, mainstream way…the only way i could live up to it were to extend that to others, wherever possible.  the joy from acting, from being paid to emote like that, would simply bubble over and i couldn’t help myself not to.  the joy would be impossible to contain.  what do you think?

since there’s nothing i could do to convince my youtube-obsessed brother to not post this, i’m rolling with it and allowing you all to preview the embarrassment.  he filmed an audition video for me and we were just being dumb at the end and trying to come up with promos for our websites.  two even worse takes can be found here and here.  decided to suck up the pride and just roll with it. :)

and don’t take any of it too literally, we really aren’t attempting to be famous-er or hot-ter than mk and ash. :)  well he might be.

oh and the dumb (funny to us) wicked thing at the end comes from killing time youtubing really bad wicked movie trailers.

www.jenmontzingo.com

www.awkwardpeet.com

practically perfect in every way.  i’m sure they aren’t really, but i’ve stumbled upon the perfect scene of my former ambitions.  i’m enjoying the air conditioning at peet’s on queen anne when i stumbled upon four very “ann taylor loft” young professionals having bible study.  they really are a pretty picture.  petite, blonde, perky, professional, sweet and soft-spoken.  other than the petite and once in a while the perky, i feel like an alien.  bibles open, they seem really committed to studying.

and it’s kind of funny, because four years ago i would have been so there.  maybe somewhere along the way my faith got weathered, i got jaded, life made me angry or i just got real.  i’m not implying that they aren’t genuine, just realizing that i wasn’t when i tried to be them. 

Continue reading ‘practically flawed in every way’

© jen montzingo

for all you grey’s anatomy fans out there, i basically live in grey’s paradise.  i mean, i can see the space needle and the “ferry boats” out my bedroom window (btw, they are ferries not ferry boats).  so i am pretty excited about the seattle fireworks tonight over the needle.  i took these two pictures from my bedroom window.  too bad i don’t run into meredith and derek at starbucks, although i have had the derek+meredith sandwich at maggie bluffs, a little cute restaurant they frequent when they are in town filming.

© jen montzingo

they film the helicopter transport to seattle grace scenes on top of the komo building pretty close by.  but other than the outdoor scenes and the aerials i think most everything else is filmed in la.  too bad.  i’m looking forward to season 5 this fall.

okay, i’ve said it before that i find miley cyrus endearing.  i’ll dance to “see you again” with the best of ‘em in detroit.  anyways.  i’m stalling.

i want to like her new music video for “7 things”, i really do, even though she is disney channel and my musical tastes should probably be too mature for her.  but she’s catchy-pop and i like it.  but the video?!?!  first of all it’s rumored to be about her break-up with one of the jonas brothers (hence some dog tag reference and the photograph) and i have to like the jonas brothers because they had coffee with my best friend after they all filmed oprah and he said they were super nice.  miley probably is too.  so sorry miles, if you’re thinking i’m insulting you.  i think you’re a fun performer.

okay, seriously, back to the video:

• it’s kinda boring.  it doesn’t really change.  not really artsy-edgy.  it makes me feel even lamer for liking her because it’s basically making her look like a 7th grader who’s slamming her locker door after reading “do you like me? check yes or no” notes and drawing hearts on her binder.
• what is with the casting of bad-acting 11 year olds?  isn’t she what, like 16 now?  her “backup dancers, crying brokenhearted posse” seems like they are a good 5 years younger than her.  (and whoa around 2:11 they really start going for it.  that’s some shmacting lol!)  is she trying to make amends for the vanity fair adult-y shoot by recapturing her tween fanbase?
• this is a confusing move because the song doesn’t really seem appropriate for the kid/tween audience.  it’s not very disney and she says “i hate” about 81 times.  and the redemptive factor is going to go way over the heads of her average fan who is probably a good 10 years younger than i.

granted, i am reading way too much into some miley video, but like i said, i find her endearing and i watch “hannah montana” whenever i’m sick.  and for the record, i still like the song despite the video.  :)  and yes, i just spent way too much time analyzing miley.

So I enjoyed the luxuries of my friend Lisa’s cable tonight and we watched a couple of episodes of Jon & Kate Plus 8.  My first time seeing it, although I have heard a lot about it both from friends and through TLC connections.  What an endearing, genuine family.  I recently heard that “Little People Big World” is the only show the Gosselin parents allow their older twins to watch.  I would have to say their show is just as sweet.  It’s weird to watch another TLC-reality show since I have the behind-the-scenes angle on another of their shows, but they are pretty cool.  I am a “fan” of their genuineness. 

i’m such a “good” hip teacher that one of my 3 year-old darlings had to come to school late yesterday so she could catch rihanna performing “umbrella” on the today show.

all they know (and sing nonstop) is “you can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella eh eh eh”.  it’s not like i’ve played it for them but we sing it sometimes in the hall and they are obsessed.  they don’t get the friendship message, to them it’s about rain.

gosh, maybe i’m actually a bad influence.  lol.  oh well.  music education for my little muffins.

I haven’t posted in about a week because I have been super swamped getting ready to leave town on Sunday.  I am hosting the Talent Show and attending the National Little People’s Conference in Detroit (what!).  Preparing to hold the microphone (love that!) requires me getting lesson plans ready for my assistant to take the reins next week in teaching and caring for my 18 little darlings.  I have fallen in love with my little babies, okay they’re three, but I still feel like a mama hen.  Also preparing for the possible but likely meeting of meetings with one of my heroes in which could be the career move of my life.  We’ll see, not thinking about it too much now.  Anyways, that’s what’s up! :)  Oh and so enjoying Weeds Season 3 on DVD. :)

Oh Eric Mathew

Oh Eric Mathew.

How I wish you lived in Seattle.

Because Rosie’s coming July 1st on her Crafty Tour.

And we could show her we are the Ross & Rosie: Next Generation.

Except we both like boys.  Pitch us a show, write us a play.

Oh Eric Mathew come to Seattle that day.

(And PS. it’s a Tuesday, a workday, how do I justify?! 

Anyone wanna go with me if Eric Mathew declines? :))