Willow's Blog

Now that the we're finally DONE filming...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:46:34 -0500

Now that the we're finally DONE filming the movie, the Gothard house actually seems to have a daily, constant schedule. (We'll see how long it lasts... )

In order to be able to play dolls, we wake up around 7 and play until 8. Then we have breakfast, and go seperate ways to do school and work until an hour before lunch, when we practice our instruments. I'm learning how to play the mandolin, Greta practices guitar, and Solana practices solo violin.

SO, then after lunch we all convene on our new practice floor in the living room and work on show numbers and new songs for things coming up in the next few weeks. This part usually takes a lot of the day, but after dinner we get to play dolls again if we're in the mood.

With all the playing in the morning going on, Alex is getting worried that the Grumpy Troll will be the only restaurant to ever get business since it serves breakfast! She's considering opening her restaurant for breakfast as well, but having healthier options than the Grumpy Troll for people who want to lightly. I'm pretty sure Lisa would like that idea. :)

Meanwhile the Larsons aren't doing so well, because they don't have all that much to do. It's funny because whichever doll family has the most to do tends to be the one that is the most fun to play with. If they have a million things to get on top of, it's a good thing because it means we have lots of ideas for them. The Larsons happen to be at a point where none of their chores are really necessary, their house is clean, and they aren't under any pressure to make money, or work, anything. That just makes them uninteresting to play with. Something's gonna have to change

That's it for this week,

Willow

Latest Events

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:11:51 -0500

I just went on a jog outside in some really cool weather. It's all misty and chilly, but it has this feeling about it that suggests the sun is just waiting to come out and warm everything up.

The latest from Pleasantville is that Suzanne and John went to a dinner party at the Merrimans for the weekend, and it was going to be very elegant until Nafy decided to turn it into a blog!

Meanwhile, Suzanne left Polly at the Larson's house, and Lara decided the best thing for Polly would be for her to put on some sensible clothes and participate in some good hard work. Surprisingly, Polly thinks it's a great idea and loves not having to wear frilly dresses and act prim and proper. She probably won't want to go back home when the dinner party is over.

Cristal has been thinking about her clothes/fabric store, and she decided to add some brightly colored yarn for sale because then she will get the business of the Montoyas and the Larsons. What that means for Cristal is more money, which, to her, makes it a good plan.

Solana learned how to use the sewing machine a few days ago, which means all of her dolls who are in proper school can finally do their homework. The students are all making their own uniforms, and part of the blouse you can only do on the sewing machine. I don't even know when the last time we were able to do Proper School was because it's taken so long for everyone to do their homework! LOL

ttyl!

Willow

Spring (Winter) cleaning

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 12:18:51 -0500

First of all- our house is back to normal. Almost. We actually turned the whole thing upside down in order to make a scene in the movie! Now that scene is finished, but we're not even done. We learned so much in the process of filming that the earlier scenes aren't nearly as good as the later ones. Sooooo.. we want to film them over again. It's annoying to have to go backwards like that, but I don't think I'd be happy to settle with material that is not as good as it could be.

The Parkingtons are about to start decorating for Valentine's Day, since they are always on top of their holidays. Something we figured out recently has allowed us to have SO much more room for creativity and making new things. Almost all of the doll families have separated their fall/winter and spring/summer belongings, and they have certain boxes where they keep the things when they are not in season. That way, during spring and summer they don't end up having closets full of winter dresses that are just taking up space. It also means we have room to make more clothes. ;) I like that part.

The Parkingtons have been doing this for a while now, but the rest of the town is finally catching on. The Parkingtons probably have the most boxes though, because they have so many holiday themed boxes for their decorations.

I can't wait for Spring to get here!!!!

Love,

Willow

Improvements

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:59:56 -0500

Good morning! I'm feeling really boggled about stuff that I need to do. We're STILL filming scenes for the movie, even though it was almost finished a month ago. We just keep coming up with ideas for extra scenes we didn't originally plan on.

Meanwhile, Alex completely rearranged her whole house, and now it feels a lot nicer there. Suzanna and Elinor get to live in separate rooms, (which is great, because they usually ended up bickering pretty constantly when they're together too much) and Alex gets to use the whole downstairs and make it look spacious and relaxing. It was difficult for Greta, Solana and I to play in their house before since it's a small closet, but now with the way all the furniture is arranged we'll probably find it more pleasant to spend time there.

The bank is SO close to being finished. The last few pieces of it are gluing in the garage right now. Pleasantville will probably have an "opening of the bank" celebration when it's finished. Maybe governor Merriman will say a few words and have Lisa cut a ribbon around the door. ;)

My dad's next project sounds like it will be remaking the Larson's cabin. Just think of an adorable realisitic wood cabin with a roof and door and windows. Eeeeee! I get really excited when I think about it. I mean, right it only has one wall made of cardboard and we covered it in popsicle sticks to make it look like wood. The new cabin is actually going to be made out of logs!

I can't wait.

Love,

Willow

Town Events

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:15:38 -0500

I'm starting to get a little bit tired of having Christmas decorations up. We haven't taken down the dolls' decorations yet because we still have some filming to do in their houses, and haven't gotten around to it quite yet. I really don't like the idea of leaving them up for too long though, because then they don't seem very special anymore. Also, the greenery that we put up back in November is completely dry and brittle, which makes it annoying to play anywhere in the houses because you just end up cleaning pine needles off the floor.

The most recent thing that happened in town was a poker party at the Grumpy Troll, which is basically the men's version of the ladies' sewing circle, except they plan it secretly because they don't think their wives would like the idea. Edward, Anders, John, Tomas, Andres, and James all came to play a few nights ago, and had a rolicking good time.

I would really like to do a sewing circle sometime too, because that's a great way to get some new projects going. At sewing circles, each of the ladies is required to bring something to work on, so we have to make sure that each of them starts or works on an actual project.

Alex is thinking of starting a yoga class for all the people in town who want some organized exercise. She plans to move the table out of Bamboo Terrace in the mornings and have yoga classes, and then reopening the restaurant for lunch and dinner. (She doesn't serve breakfast there anyway.) So far she has interest from Lisa, Paul, and Elinor, and she is very excited about it.

That's it for now!

Love,

Willow

Jan. 6th

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 12:40:25 -0500

It's another Wednesday, and here I am finally writing another blog. This is a very good sign, it means that life is starting to fall back into some kind of normal pattern! After the completely hectic month of December now I can actually sit down and figure out what I want to get done in this next year.

The last few days I've been trying to organize all the video tapes that are laying around from the last few months. I usually catalogue all the tapes and put them in a number system so that if I want to find a certain thing on a certain tape it's very easy. That's handy when you have about 360 tapes going all the way back to 1993! Since we've been filming a new movie about Pleasantville, that in itself is another 24 video tapes that need to be catalogued. It's fun to go back and look at all the scenes that I've forgotten about. We're up to watching tape #9 right now.

I just edited a blooper video of Nafy's first 5 blogs. We're going to have a DVD of Nafy's blogs with the blooper reel as a special feature available on the website pretty soon. The blogs are a lot more fun to watch on a big TV screen than on the computer!!!!

Today is a home day, I'm not going anywhere but the day is devoted towards being prepared to drive to Salem, Oregon tomorrow for a fair showcase. That's where you perform for a bunch of people who might hire you to play at their fairs in the summer! So basically packing and practicing, and Greta has a violin student coming over for a lesson later. While she's teaching, Pierre and William will probably do a Latin lesson. Pierre is Lavender Fox's nephew, and he likes to wear fancy suits and top hats to Latin lessons since he is so wealthy. He usually makes fun of William for wearing the same old vest every week, but this year he gave William a very fancy silk vest and over jacket for Christmas which made William very happy!

Anyways, happy NEW YEAR!! I hope you make lots of great resolutions and keep them. =D I want to learn how to play the mandolin.

Love,

Willow

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:46:10 -0500

Well, as is pretty typical of this time of year, I have way too much to do. There are so many projects that I want to get around to that I have a hard time keeping track of them all! When I get stressed out about how little time I have though, I tell myself, "WILLOW! This is all stuff you WANT to do. You don't HAVE to do any of it." And it's true, I really have to keep reminding myself to be grateful for all the wonderful things that I DO have time for. I am so lucky to be able to do everything that I love the most full time.

Pleasantville is officially snowed over, and almost all the houses are decorated besides that Montoyas. Yes, we are a little bit ahead of the season. You can never have enough Christmas though, right? Right.

We are about a third of the way done filming the movie, and we are really making progress quickly. Filming is going to have to slow down pretty soon though, because we have a lot of trio jobs coming up.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! Try not to get too stressed out and take a day to relax and be grateful. There is always something to be grateful for!

Love ya,

Willow

Yesterday was the first sunny day here...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:31:12 -0500

Yesterday was the first sunny day here in a really long time. Greta, Solana, and I went on a jog with a friend and on the way back to the car we found lots of pine tree branches laying everywhere along the trail since it had been really windy the night before. We collected lots of them and brought them back so that the Pleasantville families have some fresh greenery to work with while they decorate for Christmas. The smell of pine needles is amazing and it makes everything feel (and smell) way more Christmasy.

We've been really busy filming these days. It's a pretty long process and there's so much left to do. We've been waiting for some sun to do certain scenes, and today is looking pretty good. It's cooooold though! Not nearly as cold as it is for some people in other places, but I'm definitely having to add on blankets onto my bed so now I have something like 4 or 5 blankets piled up on there.

I'm happy because I've definitely gotten a good start on my Christmas presents and it's only half way through November! This never happens! I'm might just be able to have everything done in the next month and a half. It's difficult to catch up though, because every time I make one present I think of about 10 other ideas to make for people.

Stay warm! Love,

Willow

It's getting pretty cold these days, not...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:56:47 -0500

It's getting pretty cold these days, not to mention wet. It is half way through November after all which is CRAZY. Christmas has started early in this house, because December will be so busy that we wanted to start decorating a month early.

All the dolls, (well most of them at least) have lots of ideas for presents to give each other, and the hard part is that Greta, Solana and I need to make them secretly which is hard in a small house! I've claimed the sewing room for the last week, and have to keep reminding Solana, "DON'T look in there!"

Greta bought some new Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music that we didn't already have, (gasp!) which I absolutely love. Everything they do is so brilliant.

Meanwhile, down in town square Cristal and Suzanne are busy trying to do everything that "The Pleasantville Lady" says is fashionable to do in the holiday season. This includes baking cookies, decorating on the day of the first snowfall, writing Christmas cards, going gift shopping, and making sure that each room has decorations. So far they are quite on top of things except that Cristal has yet to bake cookies and Suzanne still has Christmas cards to write.

See you all next week!

Love,

Willow

Goings On

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:44:27 -0500

Well, the Christmas music has started playing around our house. Right now I'm listening to a Scottish Christmas CD. It's really pretty.. I think some of these songs will have to go in the Larson's Christmas playlist.

Mr. Larson is off at the hospital right now getting his arm fixed, so it's up to Peder to be the man of the house for a few weeks. It's really cute. He is trying to get everyone in the house to get moving in preparations for the winter, and definitely motivated Mrs. Larson to clean the barn which was a complete disaster. She even fixed the storm shelter too, so the Larsons are finally on their way to being ready for bad weather. Who knows when the first snowfall will be so it's best to be prepared!

Alex has been feeling a bit threatened recently about her restaurant since the Grumpy Troll has become so popular. Yesterday she decided to come out with a new fall special, which was a new recipe of curried crabs. Sure enough, she had quite a few customers that day including John Wickon who ordered a plate for himself and one for his dog, Watson.

Well, time to get my day started.

Love,

Willow

Willow's Blog

Now that the we&#39;re finally DONE filming...

Latest Events

Spring (Winter) cleaning

Improvements

Town Events

Jan. 6th

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was the first sunny day here...

It&#39;s getting pretty cold these days, not...

Goings On

Now that the we're finally DONE filming...

It's getting pretty cold these days, not...