happy new year { 2011 }

this year has been rough to say the least...

generally, at the advent of a new year, i'm slightly indifferent.

who is to say that a calender is a benchmark for anything?

however, last year, i felt fear and massive apprehension.

perhaps i intrinsically predicted the wretched onslaught of what was to come.

remember last year's pep talk to myself for the new year?

when i wrote that, my dad was in intensive intensive care (scary) , my show was closing (scary), and i was falling deeply in love with an amazing guy (also scary).

for some reason, i knew this year would be a doozy and wished i could stay in the loving, known and exciting cocoon of 2009.

honestly, with the exception of the last month, the last year has been epically sucky.

the heartbreak department:

for those of you just catching up, i fell in love with an incredible man who i will (most likely) never get over (nor do i want to, really... our relationship-when we were in one-was just that cool). it ended and it shattered me... and i'm still pulling the glass bits out of my skin. (will it ever end?!).... to be honest, my friends and family are sick of the mean crushes (so am i) especially since mister's behavior is so totally and completely undeserving of this continued energy, but what can you do? i was in.

time, people tell me.... time.

the work department:

i was thisclose to booking about 5 bway shows and didn't score anything! i couldn't even book easy regional gigs (that i was overqualified for)! and with the exception of a few readings, at&t apprentice and dr scholls commercials, i didn't do anything that furthered my career.

i seriously felt like i couldn't get arrested!

but.....

nothing lasts.....

i'm starting to see some rays of sunshine already....

and i've been thinking a lot about dealing with pain:

when i was doing my yoga training (namaste, darlings) we did a little experiment in our pre-natal section and focused on breathing thru labor pains. we put an ice cube in our palms and were asked to focus on the sensation and dig into it. then breathe it away.

cinchy, right?!

um... have you ever done that?! it's actually really painful for me! the cold seemed to arrest my veins and i squirmed and squealed and stopped breathing all together! who can focus and calm yourself? i panicked and ultimately had to throw out the ice cube.... lame, i know.

(which obviously sent a strong message about my initial ideas about having a natural birth--turns out, it's not for me. give me an epidural! )

but it taught me a deeper lesson:

sometimes we can't avoid the pain.

maybe you didn't create it. maybe you can't get out of it. maybe it's just there...

but pain is like that little stinger of an ice cube..... eventually, it will melt.

and you really have two options; you can squirm and squeal and curse that icy burning in your palm, or you can be still.

you can breathe, pray, and allow it to be there.. instead, focusing on the heat of your body and the strength within you to melt that cube.

trust me, i felt like i was falling down a bottomless hole. but now, the tides are turning and the ice is melting (well, until the next cube ;).....

most importantly my miracle dad is still with us, still fighting, and still completely amazing.

i have a brand new show and a brand new show family to go with it.

i have an open (albeit bruised) heart and plenty of new possibilities to go with it (**and thank you to all you fantastic blends who are willing to set me up with your friends/brothers/sons- i take it as a huge compliment and am excited to see what happens with that.)

i have a brand new niece who i can't wait to smudge again.

i have finished one of my resolutions from last year and am excited to see where it takes m.e

and i have hope.

i have.

so to this new year, i say "bring it!"

i can't wait to close 2010 and see what adventures 2011 bring!

my wishes for this year:

healthy dad

long-lasting wonderland run

make my pilot happen

be even more thorough in my scripture study and personal prayer

nourish my relationships

be a more thoughtful friend and sister

clean up my language

travel out of the country

more shenanigans

i wish so many beautiful things for you for this new year

.... oh, and melting ice cubes.

{ happy new year 2011 }

i have a feeling this year is going to be amazing.

merry christmas

xo stellie claus

lovies, i popped over to houston for christmas and have had all of

4 hrs of sleep in 3 days...

(day one: maybe i pulled an all nighter with a young buc ;

day two: played santa ; day three: rook tournament)

so before i post pix of our adventure, i'll leave you with two christmas conversations:

7 yr old cousin: natalie, how 0ld are you?

me: 29.

cousin: WHAT!?!? and you're not MARRIED?!?!

me: no. does that make me a loser?

cousin: YES!!! kara got married and she's 20!!

{ awesome }

and at friend (single and gorgeous) kate's house:

kate's grandma: katie, do you want grandma to buy you 6 months on match.com for christmas?

kate: no, grandma... it think i'm ok.

kate's grandma: ok. do you want grandma to buy you a short skirt?

kate: no thanks, grandma. i'm ok, really.

any funnies happen at your house?

flirting for free fendi.

(sweaty and straight from rehearsal-one foot in fendi and double fisting louboutins)

tonight, i breezed into neiman marcus for some last minute christmas shopping.

quickly, i slipped on some gorgeous fendis and took a spin to the mirrors where i was met by a man who offered to buy them for me. ... no strings attached (seriously, it's a long story).

he was insistent and threw cash at the lovely saleswoman.... and by cash, i mean $600.00.....

so i had to decide... it got down to louboutin, fendi, valentino, weitzman but ultimately, the fendi won.

my beautiful and insanely jealous friends.. heather, laura and katie.

katie died from shoe envy...

i'm happier than "geraldine" at the capital grille.

the fendis.... oh my. they're so hot on.....

considering we hung with the bucs & yankees on monday and now free fendis on wednesday, i think i should stay in tampa!

can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!!

*** oooh.. and just so you don't hate me for my good fortune (finally!!!), i'll tell you this:

i have a zit the size of Maui on my temple.

feel better?

i would very much like to be here..

{ deer valley 2010 }

i'm missing my family something fierce.

and missing my moguls.....

and looking at palm trees does nothing for my christmas spirit.

bah humbug!

tell me what YOU're doing for christmas?

skiing, i hope...

le petite hibou embroidery kit

my friend alison is selling this clever little conducive embroidery kit in her etsy shop....

so you can keep your digits warm while texting!

genius right?!

now if only i could find someone to actually DO this for me after i buy the kit.....

hurry, you can still get it before christmas!

provo tabernacle painting.

our beloved provo tabernacle was ruined by a fire this weekend.

i'm sick about it.

saved from the ashes, was this painting "the second coming" by harry anderson.

look at the miraculous burn pattern.

i love the look on this sweet fireman's face.

what a glorious reminder to keep Christ the center of your Christmas.

read more about it { here }

why am i in tampa?

this is my bestie, laura.

she is a (well deserved) big huge star.

for all those wondering WHAT i'm doing in TAMPA...

well, i'm doing the technical rehearsals for wonderland then we'll open for 2 wks before we come back to nyc before the broadway run @ the marquis theatre.

which means, we're standing around in gorgeous costumes under beautiful lighting in a stunning set and working to make everything look perfect.

so far, so good....

last night, i was able to see my bonnie and clyde family at the asolo theatre in sarasota.

seriously, people, my friends laura, jeremy, clay (go utah!) and melissa are so completely brilliant it just blew my mind. and frank's music is SO different from Wonderland..... oooh , it's just so good.

i'm so proud of them and can't wait for it to open on broadway!

soo yes, i'm here in Trampa,

living in a hotel for the holidays and flirting with football players.

not exactly how i envisioned this holiday, but i'm thrilled to be in the show.

you should come see it!

welcome to trampa!

nugget and i had been in tampa all of 1 hour when i met

4 tampa bay buccaneers (that's football, kids)

and gave

1 baller my phone #.

i think we're GU-NNA like it here!

xo fertile

annual nyc christmas spectacular, ex-boyfriends, and babies

clearly i'm a very selfish self-portrait-er

worthini and had our annual christmas in the city tree/window viewing spectacular tonight.

my favorites were cartier and bergdorf's.... i love the glamour.

aaaand because nyc is a VERY small town, we ran into a darling FB of mine on the street....

who said this

(not knowing anything about the previous post- i'm NOT even kidding):

"Nat, you look so great! you need to have a baby! why don't you have a baby yet?!"

what's with these men?!

after we laughed ourselves silly and left him,

worthie thoughtfully remarked, "natalina, you really have smooched some hot men."

isn't that the truth!

hot men with babies on the brain.

naturally we had nightcaps at serendipity.

i love my girls.

xo fertile

fertile myrtle

ok...

i was mid (first) PG make out with a gentleman caller

(very successful, very handsome, 37 yrs old, jewish--just thought you should understand the demographic)

when this happened:

him: i really love your body.

me: thanks!

him: i have to tell you.... well.... this is a little weird.

me: what?

him: this is a compliment...

me: what?

him: but it's weird, i know...

me: WHAT?!

him: you just feel so...... fertile.

FERTILE?!

me: is that line usually a turn on the over 35 set who are worried about their fertility?

him: no, i just feel like you're such a woman! so fertile! like i'm sure if you'd let me, we'd have a baby in 9 mo.

me: [ speechless ]

um.....i STILL don't know how i feel about that.

but the next time i hear that phrase that word had better be from my OB-GYN.

what would you think?!

you can find that ridiculous tank here

i do not ho ho hook up.

i received a rather pathetic attempt at a booty call....

which, while already pathetic, is EXTRA pathetic when a non-LDS guy tries to booty call a MORMON girl-fully knowing he wouldn't be getting any real action (we'd already been down the dating path so he knows the rules and knows that i uphold them... guess i really am a spectacular kisser... or he was scraping the bottom of the barrel).

anyway.... he even threw out "cuddling" as an incentive and after denying my insinuation that he was a bit tipsy, i finally nailed the coffin when i wrote, "well, considering we haven't seen each other in over a year (and i'm mormon), i'm pretty sure you'd have to be pretty drunk to attempt this."

***for the record, he has since apologized- he's a really sweet guy.

it reminded me of another (and more hilarious) response my girlfriend k had in response to a suggestive (well.. not suggestive... overt maybe?...no, not overt..... graphic) pic she received from a certain pro-athlete....

"do you know who i am?! do you not remember who my father is?!

i am not a HO, a TRICK, or a CHICKEN HEAD!!"

classic and succinct..... think i'll use that next time ;)

a night at the museum : part 1

i had spectacular view from my hotel room!

a few months ago i did a corporate gig in chicago...

essentially a big business will hire broadway folks to perform for their business convention.

this event was sort of hilarious... they wanted it to be "nine" themed (as in the musical and ill fated film).... well, if you know the music, you know that very few songs can be taken out of context.... so i was left to sing "a call from the vatican" (let's just say it's a very suggestive song sung by a mistress to her mister) in a floor length sequin dress (with a slit uptohere) all over a former gentleman caller.....

that's showbiz, kids.

never a dull moment.

the event was held in the rotunda at the field museum at night.

we sang next to miss sue, the t-rex and a ginormous elephant thingy.

the event was for a fashion company... obviously, i treated my costume very well...

sequin dress in a bag.

sound checking with some of the gang...

they brought in hair and makeup teams (which was very fancy-considering we lowly bway folk usually do it ourselves...) while we ate...

miss autumn (remember her from the legally blonde tv show??) sketched our insane dresses..

latina barbie & skipper... hilarious.

tendenza

my new *must have* jewelry designer is

tendenza

the most delicate, beautiful, custom engraved necklaces and tiny sweet diamond jewels.

they're so sweet (and old-fashioned) that they don't even sell online!

so you'll have to make the trip to their nyc store

8 Spring Street

New York, NY 10012-4225
(212) 966-5323

or hit their pop up store at the seasonal shops at columbus circle.

this is SO tiny and a gorgeous rose gold...

if i had the funds to give everyone (including myself) one gift this year, this would be it...

the de-friend.

ugh.

i've always said no good can come from facebook......

i'm not really that stalky with anyone--let alone the host of FB's collecting dust in my facebook friends list--i don't think it's incredibly healthy to continue to look and obsess, so i try to exercise self-control and not look too often (plus, i have so many random friends, they hardly ever come up).....if we part ways, i may hide him from my feed but i NEVER de-friend.

once, an ex did it to me shortly after our breakup (which was in no way hostile) and it stung.

as hard as our break up may be, the last thing i would ever do is pretend that i'm not affiliated with that person... especially if i've cared a lot about him. he was my best friend and now we're not even associates?

i had a hard time swallowing the de-friend.

but really, why was i so upset?!

was he hiding something?

was he in a new relationship he didn't want me to see the online evidence?

well, he can see me at any time whether or not we're facebook friends (hello, you. are you reading this right now?) on this blog and on my twitter..... i'm easy to find...

but de-friending cut MY access to him. (btw.. how did we stalk our ex's before facebook? did we? or did we move on like normal people..i can't remember)

now that the sting is gone, i'm incredibly grateful that he gave me the online guillotine. the last thing i needed was the temptation to see what parties he's gone to or what women of questionable repute were writing on his wall, etc... etc...

so the other night, as cool as i try to be, seeing a different not-really-active-on-fb-but-total-fb-stakery-former boyfriend have some activity in my fb feed was enough to make me vim (yeah, obvs i'm still hurting over this one-and i've come to the sorry conclusion that i always will).

yes, i could hide him.. but knowing me, i'd still torture myself by peeking from time to time.

soooooo i gave myself an early christmas present and de-friended him.

i did it.

to protect ME.

from seeing HIM.

so that i don't have one more opportunity to think about him.

i reneged my policy and cut him out of my online life...

this is a first.

what do you do? do you de-friend when you break up? or do you hide profiles?

what is the appropriate facebook etiquette? do you heal faster when you don't watch/question their cyber moves? believe it or not, i'm not really all over the facebook thing, but even i am starting to struggle with this.

what do you do? (i feel so 12 yrs old asking this question!!)

photo via le love

happy holidays to me!

picked up this gorgeous dress from shabby apple.

it's stunning on (i'm nuts about the color) and perfect for my friend's 1940's holiday party....

(and shhhhh... it's wrinkle free! seriously... i pulled it from it's pouch and it's ready to wear!) that's MY kind of festive wear.

all i want for christmas is you

and this amazingly delicate necklace from minor obsessions
and love knot ring from finn

(wouldn't it even be divine as a wedding ring?! see? i'm low maintenance...)