Kure Beach

Winter has packed up her scarves and sweaters and gone back to Canada or wherever the hell she came from. There's no more frost on my car in the morning. No more cold steering wheels. No more drippy noses. Spring is officially here. Is there a better way to celebrate than a trip to a sandy shore? We headed to our favorite beach in North Carolina, Kure Beach.

The mere sight of a palm tree makes me giddy. The local houses are all pastel colors with palm trees in the yard. Oh, how I would love a little beach cottage of my own!

The ocean was so cold we couldn't put our feet in it more than a minute, but we had a great time making a game of this. We'd run into the water and run back out screaming...with smiles on our faces and bloody red feet.

Even when the water isn't being cooperative, you still have an enormous sand box to play in. Finally, that art minor from my university days pays off! We built sand sculptures on the ground and on each other.



And there were crashing waves and skim surfers to watch. I often see traditional surfers at Kure Beach, but this was the first skim surfing I have ever seen in person. I'm totally going to get one of these boards. I am pretty sure my husband would love this, too!

On the way back, we stopped for some serious fro-yo. We don't keep sweets in our house so we get to go out for ice cream on occasion. It's a good trade off.

North Carolina is full of these gorgeous blooming pear trees. Rows and rows of them. They are stunning, but their first week in bloom, they smelled like cat pee. But Jumping Jehoshaphat, they are gorgeous!

God, I flipping love spring!

Get Paid to Stand Around

I was paid $50 to dance in a flash back scene in a documentary once. I got to dress like a flapper, got a glimpse at behind-the-scenes filming, met nice people, and they paid me $50. That's the adventurous life of an extra!

Surprisingly, you don't have to live in NYC or LA to get extra work. Crews film all over North America, mostly during summer and fall months. I live in smallish city in North Carolina, and I can't tell you how many television shows, commercials, webisodes and films were shot within two hours of me.

A friend of my sister's has even gotten the most coveted extra job, being a walker on The Walking Dead. He's done it twice. I met a lady that got paid thousands to be in a food stamp commercial with her kids. I can't wait to try my hand at more interesting work as a "background actor." A hobby that pays you!!!!

Check out Auditions Free. They are one of the few websites that don't charge you to get the contact info for extra work. Hope to see you on set someday! 

Balls, Marbles, Dickey's, and Dr. Quinn

If blogging were my job, I'd be fired. Well, yes, because of the lazy, grammatically unsound writing and sometimes boring subject matter. (Oh, boy, you took your kid to Chuck E. Cheese. The whole world must simply know every detail about this!) But, today, I am referring to the fact that I am just now getting around to posting photos from the weekend before last. Shame sticking the hell out of myself.

Pretty much every post starts with me winning tickets to something or somewhere. I'm Lady Perpetua Brokington of Frugalton over here. If it weren't for local giveaways from blogs and tv and radio stations, my blog would be about getting my taxes done and teeth cleaned. Guess, what? I won tickets.

 My weekend kicked off with a win for tickets to The Laurie Berkner Band. If you have ever watched Nick Jr. or Sprout you know this group! "I'm gonna catch you, you better run.." Ring a bell? All the songs were very audience participation heavy with hand motions, call and response, jumping and spinning. I wondered if my daughter, who is almost seven and a half would like songs about cake, loving your family and planting seeds. She absolutely did! She was dancing n the aisles. I didn't get in the aisles, but I danced in my seat. I couldn't help it!

During one of the final songs of the show, the band released beach balls into the crowd. If you know a struggling band, tell them to do this. The crowd will go wild! Well, it worked on preschoolers so I'm guessing it would have the same effect on drunk people in a bar.

After the concert, we were famished, but the restaurants were closed in Downtown Raleigh. On a Saturday! We headed to the local vegan eatery. Closed! But next door was a Dickey's Barbeque. Just what every vegetarian wants. They didn't have tofu, but Dickey's actually made a really nice vegetable plate. My daughter loves corn-on-the-cob more than candy so she was heaven, with butter dripping down her chin.

I heard Jane Seymour, aka Dr.Quinn, Medicine Woman, had her art displayed in a gallery downtown so we swung by. I couldn't take shots of the pieces, but Ms. Seymour was actually very skilled in a variety of styles of painting and sculpture, too. They were pretty traditional, flowers and oceans, but good! She had a few kind of cheesy self portraits as Dr. Quinn. Those were my favorite. I love corniness.

This blurry thing is actually the Jane Seymour poster outside a gallery

We missed our chance to meet Jane in person, but we happened to be in town for a little belated Mardi Gras madness.

Lastly, Le Kid insisted we check out Marbles, the children's museum in Raleigh. There happened to be a kid's career fair that day. The whole place was epic. The kind of epicness best explained in pictures. Let the poor quality photos roll!

Le Kid cried like an infant when, after 3 very noisy hours, I announced it was time to go. And she slept like an infant the whole way home.