Green Clean

A few months ago when we decided to paint our apartment, we shopped around for paints that were environmentally and human friendly. We were shocked to learn that most paints emit VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, which are pollutants that are emitted from many household fixtures like furniture, carpet, and building materials. We spend so much time in this tiny place, we didn't want to add more gunk to the air! Indoor air can be much worse than outdoor air depending in VOC levels. Having seen the smog around here and wiped layers of black dust off the exterior of our windows, we decided to go as healthy as possible. We found a great paint at Home Depot called Freshaire; it has no VOCs and we love how it has perked up the place. 

After doing some further investigations into VOCs we decided to take up an experiment in cleaning. Since many household cleaning products contain know toxins, we thought we'd see what we could do with some old fashioned natural cleaning products. For a few weeks we've been cleaning with white vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda, and have been amazed. The vinegar smell is a bit overpowering at first, but it goes away once the surface is dry. We've cleaned bath and shower, floors, countertops, chrome fixtures, the toilet, the toaster oven, and have taken stains off of our white ceramics. It's effective. It's cheap. It's better for us. It's fun to watch the baking soda bubble. Here is the article that got us started. If you give it a try, let us know if you make any discoveries of know other natural cleaning tips.

That said, I still love the Magic Eraser. Might hold onto that one. 

Back to School Special

It was a Back to School Special 80's style for our last improv show. Based on "Pretty in Pink," the show was all things high school and 80's: bad fashion, powerful cliques, angst, just not being understood!, after-school clubs, overbearing teachers, and well-meaning parents who just don't get it. We hosted a prom following the show and many audience members stayed for the party.

Mrs. Meadows speaks with the school superintendent 

At graduation

Quintessential prom picture. Note the awkward hands.

SOUNDAWG Expands

We worked like dawgs this week to launch our Services for Actors. Some of these things we've already been doing, but we wanted to make them officially under the SOUNDAWG banner and do some advertising. We're offering demo production, private coaching, and a weekly voiceover workout group. The website has been updated in our "services" section, and Zach took our new brochures with him when he a guest teacher at a voiceover class on Thursday. 

Here are the front and back of our brochures* (imagine they've been tri-folded):

We also created a business page on Facebook. Support us by becoming a fan!

*The content of the brochure is the same as the website, so if you're dying to read all the details, you can visit the site. 

Eaton Canyon

The turtle pond inspired a quest to find a waterfall to swim in. Last weekend we travelled to Pasadena to hike Eaton Canyon and take a dip. More photos are here.