New year, new tack

It has been just over a year since I last posted. But, my new voiceover mentor, Randy Thomas, tells me I am a, "Fascinating, worldly woman," who, "Needs a regularly updated blog." Well the voice of The Academy Awards©, The Emmy Awards©, The SAG Awards©, and The AFI Awards©, to name a few, is probably best heeded. (Sometimes I cannot even believe the company I am allowed to keep these days.)

In the past thirteen months, I have:
~ Found my dream occupant of my orchard (after which this blog is named), Modie Pathfinder. Modie is a beekeeper from Egypt, and is producing honey on the land! My little farm project is now officially the United Nations of Ecuadorean agriculture. Modie hopes to one day buy the land from me. In the mean time, another trip down there in the next year or two is likely in order.
~ Met The Love of My Life, Jake, on bikes on a street corner in West Hollywood. Long, romantic story, but in short - my ($3500 custom-built) bike broke down, he rode by, I called for help, we fell in love. We celebrated our anniversary last month, Dec. 11 - we met on the birthday of my best friend, Mimi Moss.
~ Oh, sweet Mimi. When I started studying Death Midwifery w/ Sacred Crossings Death Midwives and hospice with The Twilight Brigade 4 years ago, I never imagined that my first client would be my best friend. After an intense 3-year struggle with breast cancer, we lost Mimi from this realm in May. I was with her up until minutes before she died, and it was hands-down the most sacred thing I have ever experienced.

~ After losing Mimi, LA just didn't feel the same. She was much of the reason I left Ecuador 2 years ago, and returned to the bustle of Hollywood. Jake never did much care for Los Angeles, and his job at UCLA had just ended, ♪♪so we loaded up the truck and we moved to...♪♪
~ Minneapolis, where we bought an adorable house, where our monthly payments are less than Jake was paying for his one-room studio, in Miracle Mile.

Home Sweet Home
(We're also renting out our upstairs on AirBnB, if you know anyone heading to Minneapolis for a visit! Jake makes our guests a killer, restaurant-quality breakfast.)
~ Shortly after moving home, I enrolled in Adaptive Yoga training, through Mind Body Solutions. I'm now teaching adaptive, restorative and senior yoga at yoga studios around Minneapolis, including Svasti Yoga & Nokomis Healthy Seniors.

As for my VO career, 2018 was a slow year, since I was just getting my VO bearings back after South America, and then was homeless (studioless?) of sorts until we bought our place in August. Now, it is showing signs of a full recovery - especially since Jake helped me trick out a sweet home studio here in our new digs. I've got a lot of irons in many fires, and will report some of my most exciting bookings here over the coming months...

It can get a little lonely here in the home studio, so please feel free to write back with your updates. Better still, comment on the blog, below!

Finally, this is a painting of Mimi I commissioned a few years ago:

Doesn't do her beauty justice, but I'm glad I had it done. Love ya forever, li'l sister.