I'm on Instagram!

I finally joined the Smartphone world just a couple weeks ago and have access to everything right at my fingertips.  It was quite the feat just to get the phone and get it going thanks to a postal and apartment fiasco but it finally arrived and I practically hugged the UPS worker!  I didn't even have Internet on my old phone which in all actuality was kind of nice.  But now that I have this phone, it'll be hard to let it go.  In fact, I'm surprised my phone doesn't breathe for me with all the things it can do.

In addition to being able to check my e-mail, have an amazing camera with me at all times, check my Facebook and Fantasy Football scores and just feel connected to the world, I joined Instagram to share pictures with those who want to see some amazing food, fun, and friends!

You can find me on Instagram at: http://instagram.com/lyndseywegner# 

Happy Sunday :)

Fantasy Football Semi-Final for Week 16 and Placing in Week 17

It came down to Monday night this past week to find out if I would be playing for the big money in the Championship this week but unfortunately, Vernon Davis had his worst game, not catching anything and didn't have any rushing or running yards therefore, scoring no points, and knocking me out of the Winner's Circle.  I out-scored my projections and beat every other team in the league but couldn't out-score The Dawg's who will take on Count Drunkula in the final.  I'll be playing for 3rd against the fallen Travel Belly's and hoping to win back my buy-in.  It's possible!

Cordarelle Patterson has proved to be a great pick-up and brought nearly 18 points and playing my other pick-up Emmanuel Sanders also was smart, even though I benched Cooper for him, playing Randle instead, and those extra points would have been what I needed to prevail against The Dawg's but with Cooper not doing much, I didn't think he'd be a winner with Randle and the Giants playing Detroit.  Per usual, Murray had a wonderful game but Jennings had an average game with McFadden back in but I have no doubts for this week's game!  Once again, my Kicker, Gostkowski brought in a huge game with 13 points and my Cincinnati Defense got me 24 points.  It's unfortunate I lost but I'm proud of my season and team for playing their best!

My Week 16 Match-Up

This week I picked up Michael Crabtree at WR since Sanders was Questionable and Randle hasn't had a good game in weeks thanks to my arch nemesis, Eli Manning.  I've got Cooper back in as well as Patterson who is already having an incredible game.  Even though Aaron Rodgers will be starting this week against the Bears in what's going to be a great game to make the play-offs I'm playing Foles who will also be looking for a play-off spot.  I had to laugh when I heard the analysts this morning talking about who to start at QB and they all said start Rodgers unless you have Foles, then you have to start him.  Of course, I have both of them.  

Most of the games are really important today in teams making the play-offs or having a home field advantage. Keep an eye on your favorite players and root for the best team, The Packers to make play-offs and bring an interesting season to fruition with a win today and perhaps a fun Superbowl in a few weeks!

Mom's Visit to LA!

Mom came to visit me almost two weeks ago so she could see me in my play, 'Babes in Toyland,' and luckily she found a great flight and we were able to spend a few days together before Christmas!

She got in on Friday afternoon so she came into The Garage to visit me at work that night and got to try one of my favorite meals, the Loaded Chips, and hang out with some of my regulars and friends.  On Saturday we had the play, which she loved.  Although, she started tearing up during one of my solo's and that almost made me cry but I was able to hold it together till after the show.  She got tons of pictures of me with the kids and there were lots of little ones at the show that day.  She also got to see me read in Church which was nice!  After that we had Dinner at Tender Greens which was delicious and had some Yogurtland and Game Night along with one of my favorite Christmas movies, 'Serendipity' later on since she had never seen it.

Mom with Me (Mary Contrary) after the play 'Babes In Toyland'

On Sunday I had set up a Brunch at Skylight Gardens in Westwood, with Unlimited Mimosa's and all sorts of goodies.  My Short Rib Eggs Benedict was incredible not to mention, there was no shortage of champagne.  We went next door right after Brunch to grab some espresso and coffee and I'm not joking, I had the smallest double espresso I have ever seen.  I think there was more in my sugar packet than my cup!  We took a nice long walk that afternoon and made Dinner at home, my Gnocchi & Tortellini Recipe and had a quiet night in :)

Brunch with Mom at Skylight Gardens

We spent a good part of Monday doing some shopping and then made my Carrot Soup for Dinner and went to The Castaway in Burbank for dessert and after-dinner drinks.  If you haven't been to The Castaway, the view is amazing, and even a photo doesn't do it justice.  On Tuesday we went for a walk in the morning before heading to the airport a couple hours later.

It was so nice to spend a few days with her, just me and her, having some fun here in LA and having her be at one of my shows.  Thankfully, I'll get to see Mom and the rest of my family in just a few days when I head back to Wisconsin for a nice long week for Christmas and the Holidays.

Check out my recipes here :)

Carrot Soup 

Gnocchi & Tortellini Dinner

Fantasy Football Play-Off Week 15 and Semi-Final for Week 16

I had a great Play-Off game this week but it was close for a while!  The Cowboy Monkey's started off strong for their Thursday Night Game and on Sunday morning we were still neck in neck, thankfully a strong performance by DeMarco Murray, Rashad Jennings, Nick Foles, and Vernon Davis brought me a win, even though my Cincinnatti Defense was bordering on another week with negative points.  In typical fashion, my WR's couldn't get anything together, and that was partially due to horrible play by Eli Manning, as well as a continued disconnect for Riley Cooper with Foles.  My pick-up of Cordarelle Patterson was a smart one as he got me 11 points!  *I do know what I'm talking about!*  I beat my projected points by 14 and am going to need another big week in order to beat my nemesis, Ditka's Dawgs.

My Week 15 Play-Off Match-Up

I lost Victor Cruz for this week due to a concussion and knee injury (not that he's been that much help in the past month) and with Detroit's Defense giving up the 3rd most Fantasy points to WR's I'm considering playing Rueben Randle even though he was catch-less this past game.  He should be starting this week with Cruz out but it's still a risky play.  I could use another WR in place of him or Cooper, and Rod Streater continues to be on the radar since his bro-mance with McGloin has been on par since Week 11.  He's over-shadowing Denarius Moore and has become the go-to guy!  I've also mentioned Emmanuel Sanders before, and he had a 3 TD streak going up until last week but should be back on track for his game against the Packers this weekend, even if I don't want to admit that.

With the incredible game that Foles brought last week I couldn't bench him even if Rodgers was coming back this week.  I love my Packer's QB but coming off an injury and not playing for the past 6 weeks is too risky to start him.  I've got Murray and Jennings starting at RB and moved Patterson up to my WR1 spot with Davis at TE.  I might look at some other Defenses this week since Cincinnati has been having some trouble as of lately but that's not something I'm completely worried about.

This week's semi-final is going to be a challenging one as I haven't won any match-ups against The Dawg's but that doesn't matter, because it just comes down to this game.  I'm still in 3rd place, playing the 2nd place team, while Travel Belly is still in first playing the 5th place Count Drunkula team.  There were a lot of close match-ups this week but for the most part, the best teams have prevailed and if I can out-wit my good week vs bad week for the past 6 games I can win this game with hitting past my projections and rooting on the good guys of Elle Dubbs Dudes!  To top it all off, my Packers have won their last two games in a row and can still make the play-offs so good vibes to them this week against the Pittsburgh Steeler's :)

Bar Lubitsch Holiday Party

I covered a shift at Bar Lubitsch over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend which was nice since I had my Thursday off at Irish Times because of Thanksgiving.  It was a slower night at the bar due to the Holiday but it was nice to be back in a busy bar with all the right ingredients for craft cocktails and other good stuff.  And I got to work with my old Saint's & Sinner's buddy, Mike!

It was the Comitted Inc. Holiday party that Sunday night.  This year it was held at The Pikey on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, once again, fully catered meal thanks to The Pikey and an open bar with all sorts of goodies.  Thi and I went to The Pikey for Dinner a few months ago and it was absolutely delicious so I was super excited but this was more bar food (at least when we got there) which was good too; I had an awesome burger and salad.  I was definitely bummed to miss the dessert because they ran out though.

Lubitsch Ladies, Ashley & I with Jake & Neil

A few of my co-workers from Bar Lubitsch were there so it was nice to catch up with them outside of work and get some fun pictures together.  Plus, they had a Photo Booth which is always great :)  I drank 'The Stanley' which was a Rum & Pimm's cocktail served up in a martini glass and didn't really notice the alcohol in them but my tummy ache the next day reminded me not to drink so much rum.  Thankfully, I had switched to Hendrick's Gin later on but the damage was done thanks to Stanley!

Saint's & Sinner's Love

This was my first Christmas Party of the Holiday season and hopefully there will be some more coming up before I head back home to Wisconsin for Christmas with my family!

Song-Filled Wednesday's at Karaoke

As the busy holiday season is upon everyone, the Christmas parties and shopping begin, Bartending has kept my schedule full.  While rehearsals for my play are over we've got our performances every Saturday for the next four weeks and my Mom just headed back to Wisconsin after spending a few days here in LA with me.  It's time to catch up on some blogs and what's been happening so here's what's been going on at Karaoke the past couple weeks.

Two weeks ago we had a busy night of Karaoke and after singing 'I Wanna Be With You' by Mandy Moore and 'Dreaming Of You' by Selena I started a theme by singing songs with the word 'You' in them.  I hadn't sang the Mandy Moore song in a couple months since I first tried it at a Saturday night Karaoke excursion so it was time to try it again.  I sang the Selena song because Jackie likes to sing Spanish songs and that one has some Spanish lyrics throughout the song.  My new song of the night was The Supremes 'You Can't Hurry Love' which was fun but needs a little work since I don't know the timing of the song.  The words and notes were fine but I just need to practice it and actually listen to it since I haven't thought about doing that as a new song for months.  My last song of the night was 'Love Will Lead You Back' by Taylor Dayne which I hadn't sang since earlier in the Summer and a fun song to bring back.  I love my late 80's and early 90's music :)

Last week I opened with 'Special' by Garbage that I hadn't sang in a while and added that to my History and on the next round everyone sang Country music so I did 'Any Man Of Mine' by Shania Twain.  McCracken had been practicing 'Another Day' from "Rent" all week so we sang that and it went awesome!  I can't remember the last time I sang 'Baby Love' at Karaoke so I sang that next which was the song I sang for my 'Babes In Toyland' Audition so that was a sweet reminder of the play.  McCracken did an incredible version of 'O Holy Night' which is one of my favorite Christmas songs; in fact, he sang it better than Josh Groban!  My new song of the night was 'One & Only' by Adele which I've been nervous to sing since I learned it a year ago but everyone seemed to like it and I felt good about it as well!  I'll be excited to sing it again.  My closing song of the night was Fiona Apple's 'Criminal,' which is now a fun little guilty pleasure.

We've got one more week of Karaoke before we do Christmas-Themed Karaoke on December 18th...so get your 'Jingle Bells' ready!  HO HO HO!

Fantasy Football Week 14 Recap and Play-Off Spots for Week 15

In true form I went from a fantastic week to an average week and didn't meet my Fantasy points expectations.  Not that it would have mattered because Ditka's Dawgs out-scored their projections by 25 points and I lost by almost 60.  As the first games of Sunday began and I saw the snow storm happening in Philadelphia I knew it was going to be a tough week for me, thinking Nick Foles wouldn't get close to his projections because how could anyone catch any balls, and it was probably going to be a running game but he impressed me hitting his projections in the snow and Cooper found chemistry with his QB out-scoring his projections as well.  Wes Welker finally came back after a bad showing for the past month but got a concussion in the last quarter of the game which will cause him to more than likely miss his Thursday night game this week.  I can always count on DeMarco Murray and Gostkowski and Vernon Davis also had a good game this week.  My troubles came into play with my suggested pick-up of Donald Brown, a negative score from my Cincinnati Defense and yet again, darn you Eli Manning, it's got to be your fault that Cruz only got 4.2 points.

My Week 14 Match-Up

Since this week begins the Play-Offs for Fantasy Football I'm not going to get too in-depth with pick-ups because most league owners probably have their line-ups set and back-ups on deck in case you've had any late season injuries.  Since Rashad Jennings got a concussion in Week 13 and didn't play this past weekend along with Darren McFadden I picked up Marcel Reece who had an awesome game this past Sunday getting over 24 Fantasy Points.  I'm not sure I'd play him over Jennings if he's cleared for play but he's good to have in my back-up spot.  With Wes Welker out and inconsistent Wide Recievers on my team I could use another WR so looking at Cordarrelle Patterson isn't a bad idea.  He's scored a couple TD's in the past couple weeks and with Peterson out he's looking at more playing time.

I've got decisions to make in my QB, WR, and RB spots since injuries have plagued my team this season.  With the possibility of Aaron Rodgers return thanks to the win against Atlanta this weekend I'd love to put him back in his starting spot but I'm not even sure he'd play the entire game since they'll want to protect him if we get further into the play-offs and Nick Foles has been having an incredible season.  I've moved Riley Cooper up to my WR1 with Cruz at WR2 and Randle at my Flex position but I honestly don't trust any of them completely.  It would be nice to have a great WR for the next 2 weeks to count on during these tough play-off match-ups.  As for my RB I've just got to wait to see who is going to be playing this week.  There's no way I'd play Brown again so I've got Murray in for sure but need to decide on which Raider RB to play and that'll be a game-time decision.  It was a fluke this past week with Cincinnati and believe they'll come back and bring a strong Defense this week against Pittsburgh.

I'm still in 3rd place and playing the 6th place team, The Cowboy Monkeys, this week in the first round of play-off games.  There's a 6 point difference between our projected points with the Monkeys winning but I have faith in my team to come together and have an awesome week and start the play-off round strong to keep my 3rd place status and go into the 2nd round of play-offs next week.  Let's go Packers...I want to see a great game against Dallas this weekend; big points from DeMarco Murray, having to run the ball for TD's but with a Green Bay win overall :)

'Babes' Opening Show!

This Saturday was the opening of the show I'm in, 'Babes In Toyland' at the Miles Playhouse in Santa Monica.  It is a Children's Play for ages 11 months to 6 years and families, and we sing, dance, and act, getting the children involved in the fun.  It's running for the next 5 weeks on Saturday's and starts at 11 am and lasts just a little over a half hour.  You can find all the information on the Creating Arts website at: Babes In Toyland

Our cast is small with just 5 people but I really felt like we all lit up the stage once the show started and we heard the kids yelling out answers to what time of year it is and how one would get through snow.  After that, the rest of the show is a blur for me because I felt like my adrenaline went through the roof and the amount of energy I exerted took over and I just remember seeing the happy smiles on the kids faces, and smiling proud parents as their children were dancing and singing along with us.

Showtime for Little Bo Peep, The Toymaker, Mother Goose, Tom Piper and Mary Contrary!

We sing some Christmas songs as well as children's favorites, and a few songs from Nursery Rhymes and I have a couple solo's as well.  Maya was our director, choreographer, and singing coach and she pulled all of us together to bring an amazing show that will continue to improve week after week!  It was almost a let down after the show was over and I went back home and went about my day but thankfully I have 5 more weeks of performances to get my acting fix.

This is definitely a great company to be a part of and I can't wait for what else I can get involved with in the future :)

Fantasy Football Week 13 Recap and Projections for Week 14

It happened again...after a 66 point game last week, I almost doubled my score this week bringing in 126 points and winning my match-up!  Still inconsistent and frustrating are Wes Welker who hasn't hit his projections in the past 4 weeks, Riley Cooper seems to have lost his chemistry with Foles, and Victor Cruz who hasn't seen many balls from Eli Manning but luckily I made the smart choice this week by leaving Randle on my bench and playing my optimal line-up.  I had great games from Foles and my Cincinnati Defense, and even better games from my New England Kicker, Vernon Davis, Rashad Jennings, and DeMarco Murray all out-scoring their projections.  It was a great start to Thanksgiving seeing Murray and Jennings starting my games out right this week!  The Westside Dukes certainly put up a good fight but I needed this win and am solid at 3rd place, with an 8-5 record, tied with Ditka's Dawgs who are in 2nd and only beating me by 60 points.  I can do this!

My Week 13 Match-Up

This week you might want to take a chance on QB Ryan Fitzpatrick for a pick-up.  He's scored over 20 Fantasy Points in 4 of his past 6 starts and taking a chance on him could prove beneficial with play-offs right around the corner.  Donald Brown has taken over for Trent Richardson at RB on the Colts and with 4 TD's this past week he had a huge game.  It'll be a tough match-up at Cincinnati this weekend but he should be on par for bigger games the next couple of weeks.  Another RB to take a look at would be Montee Ball considering he was the #2 option for Denver in the backfield with 117 rushing yards against the Chiefs.  He's got a good match-up with Tennessee this weekend.  For a WR, even though he's a Flex option or WR3, Emmanuel Sanders has scored TD's in his last 2 games.  He's up against Miami this weekend and hoping for a bigger game than last week as long as he can hold onto the ball.  At TE Ladarius Green for the Chargers is a nice pick-up with Gates still not 100%.  He's a TE1 and considering he's up against the Giants who give up the 8th most Fantasy Points to TE's, he's a consistent choice.

 

With Rashad Jennings still questionable after his late game concussion on Thursday, Darren McFadden may be taking over for him, either way, I'll have a strong RB to start in addition to Murray.  I picked up Donald Brown in case I'm not feeling my Oakland boys and considering Ridley has been riding that bench like a champion jockey.  I really need to find a consistent Wide Receiver and continue to check the Waiver Wire and Free Agents to pick someone up but there's no one that I can count on more than my current team so I have to trust that Wes Welker will get back to his season starting awesomeness, Cooper and Foles can find some chemistry on the field and Manning starts to play like an actual QB and not just some lucky guy that won a Superbowl.

 

I've got a difficult Match-Up this week against Ditka's Dawgs who beat me back in Week 7 with a low-scoring game.  The Dawg's are projected to beat me by nearly 9 points but I still have faith in my Dudes and their ability to do awesome as long as they play like winners!  There's some great match-ups against teams this week so the games should be close and we've got an exciting week of Football ahead!