Wicked: A Broadway Musical.

Note: This is no substitute for seeing the actual play. However, for those of us who will not be able to see the play anytime soon, I found the below videos on Google Videos (Side Note: As I am one of those poor unfortunate souls who have never seen the live play, I promise that it was not I that recorded these. I am merely posting them until such a time as I can see the live play or the movie comes out.)


Act1




Act 2





P.S. Each of these is a little over an hour long.

Artist Anika

Thanksgiving with the Family!

I just downloaded my Thanksgiving pictures off my camera. This year I went up (note to my fiance: I said UP! UP! See, I'm not directionally-challenged) to visit my family for the holiday. They had made all this homemade food that I am far too picky to appreciate and we all visited and watched Wall-E...which I am quickly becoming obsessed with.

Anyway, just thought I'd share some pics of the trip.

My younger brother and his girl:


My older brother and his girl:

My cousin and her guy:

My aunt and grandma:


(yes, they kinda match).

I took a picture of my dad and his wife too, but it turned out too dark to see. My mistake for taking the picture in the living room with the lights off. And, much to my shame, I forgot to get a picture of my other aunt and my uncle. Ah well...I will just have to use it as an excuse to visit again soon, though they are a good 300 (I think more than that) miles away.

Artist Anika

The Moment

The Moment - By me to my fiance
(written a few years ago)

Do you remember the moment when I met you?
When the sky went dark and the stars exploded,
When the heavens were aflame and the earth turned to dust,
Before I even knew it, eight letters formed on my soul.

Do you remember the moment when you kissed me?
Everything faded, but the world was built anew.
The music went silent, but the drum pulsed on,
And the part of me that never knew how to fly…it flew.
In that moment, three words rose within me.

Do you remember the moment when you asked for me?
When silver fire branded my heart and claimed me through,
And the sun came up and the rain came down,
And everything above us sparkled with diamonds and dew.
And I finally understood the meaning.

And somehow, in those moments, I finally knew,
No matter what happened on this earth,
No matter how the fates weaved their threads,
Nothing could change the way I felt about you.
I finally understood that everything has one meaning.

------------------------------------------------------------

831 = 8 letters, 3 words, 1 meaning and stands for "I love you"

There are a bunch of other hidden meanings in this poem that are only really apparent to my fiance and I, but I refuse to explain them. Sorry, they are personal.

Artist Anika

More pictures

My version of scrapbooking is pretty much just cutting out pictures and gluing them into a page as a collage. Sometimes I do this in my scrapbook and sometimes I do it on the computer. Above is a page in my actual scrapbook which has a lot of pictures of my family (or those friends close enough to be considered family).

Below, is a digital collage of my fiance and I. 831 stands for 8 letters, 3 words, 1 meaning = "I Love You." FLY stands for Forever Loving You. The text at the bottom says "A love bigger than anything, everything, anyone, & everyone" though my font choice was pretty poor.

Next is a collage of my older brothers wedding and reception. Aren't they cute?

And finally is a collage of my cousins wedding (recognize the picture in the upper, left corner? It was my wedding present to her).

Anyway, just thought I'd share some pictures. :)

Artist Anika

Halloween!

Okay, I admit that my fiance posted these on his blog first and I stole the pictures to post on mine....but I am posting them anyway.

These are some Halloween pics of my fiance and I on Halloween as (kinda) the only ones to dress up. The "kinda" is because one other employee were a tie-dyed shirt and headband, but I'm not counting that.

So, I was Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West as seen in the novel Wicked (yes, I'm obsessed). My fiance, were the same monk outfit that he has worn for the last two years, but this time he discarded the cross, put up the hood, added a cape, and called himself the Wizard Zed from whatever book series he is currently reading.

Above is my fiance being spooky and cute. Below, is his son from California holding a pumpkin. I'm hoping we'll get pics of him dressed up soon.

Finally, we have a lovely pic of me and my friend (and coworker) Carie. Her yellow shirt is really blinding next to my green skin.

Well, happy Halloween to all...and to all a good night.

Artist Anika

New Template

I put up a new template for my blog. This is a little more interesting than the old one, though the header took a lot of work...and learning how to not show my Page Title in the header took the most work of all. Anyway, hope everyone loves it.

Below is the old template, just so you can compare. ;)

P.S. Did you notice the lovely new fairy art gadget in the left menu? Isn't it lovely?

Artist Anika

Yoyo & Cici

So, this post is a little random.  At work, everyone uses Windows Live Messenger to communicate.  A few months back, I came across a few monkey emoticons with matching monkeys in them.  I fell in love.  For weeks, my fiance started sending me every version of this monkey emoticon as he found them.  One day he even sent me a female version of the same monkey!

Finally, I managed to accidently stumble upon the name of these emoticons: Yoyo and Cici.   Yoyo is the male, Cici is the female.  Well, after collecting them for a while, I finally saved them to a thumbdrive, took them home, and made a cheat sheet so I could remember all the short cuts.  I was very relieved to see just how many I had managed to collect.  

I am still finding the occassional new emoticon, but I believe I have most of them.  (I have found a few that I never saved because I didn't like them or because they had backgrounds...I prefer emoticons with no backgrounds or at least white backgrounds).  Anyway, with the amount that I have now I just thought I would share this fun new collection.

Also, I have a challange for anyone who comes across this entry: Find me new Yoyo or Cici (not their friends) emoticons and add the url in a comment!  

Artist Anika