Hi Friends,

I’m sure you’re all feeling things over what has been happening in relation to COVID-19. I know I wasn’t particularly worried about the virus itself however due to LA county mandates, gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned. The theatre industry is now seeing tidal waves of cancelations.

I understand many industries are seeing this type of reaction in hopes of slowing the virus and for freelancers we suddenly find ourselves with huge gaps in our livelihood.

Me included – my next two shows have canceled and it’s looking like I won’t see wardrobe supervisor work until Mid May.

For many of us in this already fickle industry we are used to calling upon all of our creative outlets to make ends meet but my goodness it feels as though all of my friends are feeling the extreme squeeze of everything changing at once.

I have friends that have seen their schools close, their children’s childcare options close, shows cancel, new work from home measures, and a lack of provisions to get us through the quarantine. It all feels like a bad dream.

I have yet to venture out because earlier this week I started feeling under the weather and decided to stay home until I feel 100 percent because I don’t want to risk anyone getting what I have. Ultimately it’s just not worth it – I don’t want to add to the scare by taking my coughing ass outside.

Let’s stay home and protect the vulnerable. I’m sending you love and healing vibes during this time.

I’m hoping we can all get back to some normalcy soon BUT in the mean time I am working on some blog posts of home friendly activities – we shall be sending you making home fun ideas soon!

Wishing everyone well!

XO,

C

P.S. Are you officially working from home? How are you keeping from going stir crazy? Did you get Toilet paper??

Hi!

I’m a little anxious about this post but when I started this blog I figured that I would honor it and you – the people that take time to read it- by being honest. I didn’t realize how quickly I’d find myself wanting to share a situation – please use me as a cautionary tale – cue mean girls musical intro (if you know you know)

Recently I had a work issue arise that left me feeling not so great about me and honestly the entire situation was less than ideal HOWEVER I am now using it to share my most important observation after the fact: YOU ARE YOUR BIGGEST ADVOCATE. YOU.

I am a free lancer so I’m in constant communication with about a hundred different parties on any given day so miscommunication can happen. However I find as a manager myself that it is always important to make your team feel like they are valued parts of the delicate ecosystem they work in. Basically YOU HAVE YOUR JOB FOR A REASON. we all have our roles and we fill them to the best of our abilities. I take my role very seriously – and honestly I’m very good at my job.

I spend a lot of time with actors during their most vulnerable moments and I do my best to not only make them feel comfortable but I’m usually changing their clothing as fast as humanly possible in almost total darkness. why yes – my job is odd but also fun and I take it pretty seriously. Not every show I work on has the same needs but that does not affect my pay. So I want to remind everyone Your scope of work has nothing to do with your value. I will say it again for those of you hopefully having the come to Jesus moment I had when I realized this. YOUR SCOPE OF WORK HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR VALUE.

I took an opportunity to stand up for myself when my role was being undervalued and although I did not “win” I have never been more proud of myself. We deserve more.

YOU. DESERVE. MORE. It is totally ok for you to ask for more – even if the answer is no. “Hello – welcome to no group anonymous… you got a no for standing up for yourself in a work environment? ” “WELL HELL YES TO YOU KNOWING YOUR WORTH.” (this is me welcoming you to this new cool kid club)

Following the less than stellar email I received that covered why I should be grateful for doing more work for barely any pay increase – I spent some time crafting my very respectful but firm response while pacing back in forth in casa Chi-rez with mounting anxiety as to why I felt I was worth more and felt undervalued. AND THEREFORE WOULD NOT BE DOING WORK OUTSIDE OF MY ORIGINAL CONTRACT. mind that this exchange took quite a few days to end so I spent all those days with a turning feeling in my gut that felt like I might cry or poop myself out of frustration for being in this position to begin with.

I think it’s safe to say – you might know that feeling? Anyways. Please use my experience and know you too are capable of feeling this and standing up for yourself – because I did. I want more for myself and in this particular situation I also deserved for it to be handled with a lot more care.

You deserve to feel respect in your work environment. You have this right among many others and maybe you need this friendly reminder like I did. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start advocating on your behalf – because if you can’t – who can?

And you might be like me and sat quietly while things happened to you – so you’re like oh gosh why now? – BUT NOW. like. right. now. because if you don’t start now when will you? and will that terrible gut feeling about how you’re being treated be worse than if you started saying this isn’t the best thing for me? I can assure you it’s not – and the gut feeling goes away. and you feel better about yourself.

I want you to feel better about yourself. that’s all. Hopefully this gives you a little courage.

I am my biggest advocate – I will always be my biggest advocate – and I will not turn this responsibility over to anyone else. *gets off soap box

(please take this opportunity to familiarize yourself with the broadway cast musical album of mean girls if you haven’t already.)

XO,

C

ps. real talk thank you if you made it to here. I want you to know I’m routing for you. set. your. standards.

Hi Friends!

Jerry gifted me a paint by number for Christmas and of course as projects go this one went a little forgotten… OOPS. nothing says Christmas like “here do some tedious work to make a master piece.” All jokes aside I really enjoyed the process, I did it in a few large chunks and worked about an hour and a half at a time! Fancy adult paint by number later I finished my cute custom Totoro! Oh and I ended up mixing my own acrylic paints because the paint included in my kit dried after my failure to use them in a timely manner… but upside I altered some blues and green to ones I preferred!

Oh, I guess this was a legit fancier Paint by number kit as the canvas was an actual canvas! The company that made it is called DIY Painting – available on Amazon!

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I gifted my parents a CHI-REZ family Disney day for Christmas, Disney has a special place in our family history – growing up in southern Orange County we celebrated all major events and birthdays with a trip to Disney! As a child my mom used to surprise me with Disney trips and we still go just the two of us, we love the park atmosphere and all the magic – including the gardens, Disney planters are just so dang beautiful.

So I was extra excited to introduce them to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge because I knew they would be amazed by the immersive experience Disney created in their own backyard! I was also really hopefully we would be able to ride Rise of the Resistance as a family for the first time. SO began my planning! I had read online how difficult it is to get boarding passes for Rise and after some phone calls to the parentals everyone was ON BOARD to attempt to get boarding passes (there is no “line” for Rise of The Resistance, you have to apply for a digital lottery at opening of the park for the opportunity to ride. Once assigned a boarding group number there is still no guarantee to ride! Disney usually boards groups 1-82 most days but we heard some horror stories about getting stuck on the ride or it malfunctioning. A family next to us said they were removed from the ride after it broke down and were given a rain check ticket to return when it should be behaving!)

Main questions I had while reading everything about raising you ride opportunity!

1. Does your entire party have to be In the park to be eligible for boarding passes? YES. have your whole parties digital tickets attached to your Disney app for best results!
2. How Early does the lottery begin? SO, this is where my research failed us! I was under the impression we could park by 7am and be inside the park by 8 am! I WAS WRONG. at least on the day we went we weren’t allowed in the parking garage until 7:30am, then we waited to enter the park until 8:30. to be honest I WAS PANICKED. because I was worried I’d forced my whole family into this hair-brained scheme and we were already loosing if it was 8 am and we weren’t in the gate! BUT the lottery opened at “park opening” so the park fully opened at 9 am so I hunkered down on Main Street around 8:45 am to get myself ready to try my hand at the digital lottery!
3. How Quickly does the lottery close? APPARENTLY 2 minutes. which is bananas. within two minutes over 150ish boarding passes are distributed.
4. Finally – is this worth it??? YES- the ride is very very cool! the whole chi-rez fam was highly skeptical but we all left with huge smiles talking about the incredible production value of the entire experience!

Ok – here’s what I did. at 8:58 – I opened my Disney experience app. 8:59 – clicked on the “find out more” button under the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. 9:00 rolled around (watched by the second hand count down on Jerry’s watch) and I clicked join boarding group. At this point you can hear people having success around you – which is an amazing shared experience but it’s also very nerve racking! THEN BOOM. I loaded all our tickets for a boarding pass and we were assigned group 66! WE DID IT!!! I was so excited I was shaking! (might of also been a lack of snacks and a 5 am wake up call to get to this happy moment!)

Group 66! woot woot! sooooo then you wait for your group to be called. We ended up being called around 4pm, once called they scan in all your digital tickets (via the app) and then you wait in a more typical “line” before riding! Honestly I’m so pleased we were able to have this experience as a family and sharing these memories is so dang fun!

Disney is the best, we had such a perfect day! My parents loved exploring Batuu – we tried the specialty flavored popcorn, the bantha milk and had reservations at the cantina! Jerry and I piloted the Millennium Falcon – not our strongest showing! We’re already planning another trip for flying redemption!

If you’ve been putting off making plans for something fun – PLEASE DON’T. GO OUT AND MAKE A LITTLE FUN even if it’s make-believe.

let me know if you go, or if you were able to snag boarding passes!!!

XO,

C

I took myself to the movies tonight. just me- no Jerry. I went to see “Emma” the new retelling of one of my favorite Jane Austen Novels, it’s directed by Autumn de Wilde. (YAY for ladies in charge.) It’s totally beautiful and I have to say so was the solo experience. I recently went on my first national tour and with that I became accustom to doing everything on my own – I went to art museums, shopped, and ate completely alone. Aside from relying on chatty Lyft drivers to take me to my mini adventures I spent much of the tour with myself.

Here’s the thing – I think we need to spend more time getting to know ourselves. Even in the happiest of relationships I think it’s important to keep your own company. Is there something you’ve been wanting to do but planning it with others schedules is preventing you? I know for me I miss things all the time waiting to make plans and that is just silly. I.SHOULD.JUST.GO. and so should you!

I’m here to encourage you to get out there. I also here to tell you a movie alone is a great start! See exactly what you want, get your fave movie snack ( I got a small popcorn to myself because Jerry doesn’t eat it) and I even had a glass of wine! It was delightful and the movie wasn’t bad either! Sitting alone in a big movie theatre is not as odd as even I anticipated, if anything a movie theatre is the easiest place to be alone with other people, sharing an experience. It’s kinda poetic.

Date yourself! Remember all the energy you put into planning things early on in your relationship? Perhaps we should spend some of that energy on ourselves? You deserve a thoughtful date – give yourself the gift of your time. It could be the new art exhibit, getting a coffee at the local cafe, browsing a bookstore, a pedicure or even a movie.

You have interests – explore them! I will forever love a period drama – and being in a relationship doesn’t mean you have to share all the same interests in fact variety is the spice of life!

Wanna be alone – together? share with me below some of your solo date ideas! I’d love to know if this even appeals to you – I know I can’t properly make a fun home if I’m not feeling myself! I hope you get out there – who knows I might be there with you, alone.

XO,

C

Let’s eat, drink, and craft our way to a happy home.

— ME

Hi Friends! (we’re friends now, it is that simple.) I’m Cambria the “Chi” portion of Chi-REZidence! My partner Jerry is the “REZ” part and together we share our home which we lovingly refer to as The Chi-REZidence. Together we share two pups, a bunch of hobbies and a whole lot of misadventures! We’re excited to share our shenanigans on the regular – as most days I cook, craft or create something fun!

Now panic strikes…. because I have indeed started a new thing. I must learn how to successfully use this page and others – please be patient and please subscribe so you can stay updated on all the wondrous things I will surprise Jerry with. My skillsets are endless thanks to YouTube.

Not Really. but kinda. (Isn’t the internet magical, it did bring us together!)

A little about me I am a Wardrobe supervisor by trade which means I dress actors for the theatre – I like a whole slew of sewing related hobbies (hand embroidery, cross stitch, pattern making..ect.) Warning: I will scream happy screams for a pompom or anything needle felted. My aesthetic is mostly bright and happy with a side of true crime as during most making sprees I will scare myself with a murder podcast! We can chat our fave murders if that’s your thing on a later post! Jerry doesn’t love murder sooooo I’ll need friends to share that part of my life with :). However Jerry does love shoes, men’s fashion, leather working and nachos – but honestly who doesn’t love a hot cheese?! Oh I guess you could say he loves me too because I hot-up cheese for him on the regular! I consider myself a modern homemaker with an affinity for color. I like color on my plate, in my fashion and around my house hopefully you’ll stick around so we can make home fun!

XO,

C.

Hi, this is really an appreciation post for the small colorful food glitters that bring such joy to my baked goods – hopefully you’re cool with that.

Sprinkles! yay! I regularly bake a themed holiday treat – when themed holidays arise – and thanks to instagram it’s like 15 a month! But for the more traditional holidays I like to prepare a festive sugar cookie or for the Valentine’s Day I went with rice crispy treats! (they are both so easy and a huge crowd pleaser)

I think my key component to making the most of your sprinkle use is mixing up different types of sprinkles! I really air on the more the merrier side to sprinkle usage and if anyone complains guess who doesn’t get a treat??? THEM.

My favorite way of attaching sprinkles recently with with the candy melts! Candy melts come in a variety of flavors and colors and microwave quickly to get you attaching sprinkles like a pro in no time!

Best places I found for purchasing sprinkles have been JoAnn’s or homegoods – but you might even get lucky at your local grocery store! I look for seasonal sprinkles on sale after the holidays and stock up for future baking projects. (I might have a problem) Mixing a seasonal sprinkle with a more traditional color sprinkle really just stretches the use of the more advance sprinkle shapes. Last year for Christmas I made sugar cookie trees with candy melt icing and used tiny candy cane and ginger bread man sprinkles to jazz them up!

Or a simple heart cookie cut out is made elegant and fun with a quick candy melt drizzle and a festive sprinkle mix in an array of colors. Heck you could even lie and jazz up some store bought cupcakes with some custom sprinkles – who am I to limit your sprinkle usage to only homemade?!

The sprinkle rainbow is endless and so are the options! GET MIXIN’ and MATCHIN’ and make home fun!

XO,

C.