FUEL TO THE FIRE inspiring new friends

justin and i are headin into this week fat, full and happy. we filled up on INSPIRATION sunday when the amazing Shelley Noble http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/ with her guy Paul and Michael Granberry http://www.redhatchetfilms.blogspot.com/ came to play. OPEN, FUN, LOVELY each of them (not to mention 3 of the nicest people you're likely to meet). though we met online, it felt like old friends walking in the door. we showed 'em our sets and puppets and shots and kids; took 'em down in the "hole" where we all worked up an apppetite by sword fighting, boxing, climbing, bouncing, bungeeing, swinging and such; we ate grub (didn't taste so bad this time, so we are improving on the hospitality front); we watched Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf (which was insanely inspiring and especially fun to watch with other stopmo freaks); but very best of all was the conversation that wove through it all. it's so exciting to hang out with people who "get it". we talked about puppets and sets and stories and and how we all got started in the first place. we talked about motivation and balancing real life with stop mo schedules. we talked about theater and musicals and pakour (google it, it's pretty damn cool!) and life and art. we talked about how stop mo is addictive and meditative at the same time. sharing the passion with these guys just fueled our fire. justin and i often talk about how grateful we are to the online stop mo community for all the friendly and generous support they've freely given, so i guess it's no surprised that as we begin to meet them in real live person it's just like meeting up old with friends.