My visual art debut

 Yesterday I headed downtown to be part of a visual art film project being shot at the

Tri-beca Flashpoint Media Arts academy. Can I just start out by saying....this six story film/art/music/animation school is so freakin cool, decorated with breathtaking and interesting artwork. I almost wish I was super artsy so I can go here. I want to go back and take photos of it all. I loved the vibe I got while being there. I'm usually on the waiting room end of all things artistic.

My kids agency Lily's Talent Agency gets requests for the non-actor/model...the real life person. Finally one came along that was made for me. An artist had an idea to do a visual art piece using real moms. The piece   

"It is meant to grant a sense of well-being and kindness ie. a corrective emotional experience"

The goal is to have this film displayed in Contemporary Art Museums .

I was brought to the studio and put in front of a green screen for a good 30-40 min. I spoke and I even sang a song....YES I DID! 

My kids would be mortified. When I was done the artist/director "Tim" told me I did great and even used the word "excellent". Then Tim walked me out (from the 6th floor to the first) uh huh,  sure did! okay he was going on a break, but whatever...

While we were walking, he of course mentioned my kids very unique and cool names AND he complimented me on my "wonderful smile that just LIT UP THE SCREEN!"  Lit up the screen, people...yeah, ME!

All I'm sayin is, "Julia Roberts, watch your back!"

I drove home with my box of chocolates, small monetary wage and parking fee paid for...on Cloud 9.

Hopefully this man's dream becomes a reality and I don't end up on the "cutting room floor" see I even have the lingo down.

It was fun and I was nervous as HELL. When I got to work this morning I received an email from the

 cinematographer that I originally set up the appointment with. I will copy and paste his email

"thank you for helping us out on this film.  I heard your warm Irish smile lit up the screen.  much appreciate your time."

A STAR IS BORN people....just sayin

Christmas week

 The McGinty's made it through another Merry Christmas. I'm loving my new boots and Christmas sweater from Tim. Tim and I as always had a lot of fun shopping together. I feel like I won the lotto with a husband that loves to shop, but isn't gay...I just don't have any use being married to a gay man...thats all....just sayin

Moivng on, it was wonderful to spend time with family and just hanging out with the kids. It is a gift that TJ isn't playing a sport now....so much free time. That being said,  he'll NEVER go without playing a sport again. Holy Mother Mary of Jesus! TJ needs an outlet from his competitive nature. Thank God baseball training starts in 2 weeks

Moving on...

 TJ was very excited to receive an acoustic guitar. Uncle Casper gave him his 1st lesson

 Callahan scored his own tool set, complete with power tools from grandma and grandpa McGinty. Must nurture that creative mind. Callahan will go in the garage or basement and just build...build from scratch a working trebuchet and motorized airplane

 A little boy warms cold sledding fingers by the fire

 Xbox kinect was under the tree, can I say that it is just amazing! We also own the Wii, but this blows it away. I am pretty sore from boxing and I am incapable of jumping hurdles. One would think with my extra long legs it would be a breeze...not so much

 Karrick has some secret that allows him to win at boxing every time...I even bribed him with Lego's to tell me. He is not budging 

 doing the TKO dance

 When Santa leaves an 11 year old a hatchet, one must allow him to chop things up

 best buddies 

 lots of snow boarding down the deck steps and up the snow covered bike ramp

last, but certainly not least is my Android 10 in Archos tablet. What else would I expect from my anti-Apple system administrator computer genius of a husband?

It is super cool and will serve me well during my 8 hr days of baseball  in the summer 

God created firemen so policemen have someone to look up to

 Each and every time I hear of a fallen firefighter I cry. Yesterday's news was no different

The family phone tree goes into effect as we ask ourselves "was Patrick working" a call to my dad, a retired  Chicago Fire Dept Captain, put our fears to rest. "He has a daily day today" meaning he was suppose to work but every 3rd scheduled work day he gets off.

This is the life of a "fireman family".You know that at anytime something bad can happen.

I didn't know these 2 brave men, but I cried just the same. To not think twice about running into an unstable environment, an environment that has everyone else running the opposite way speaks volumes of what it takes to be one of this country's finest. It wasn't my brother, but it was someone's brother, father, son or husband. I saw the 1st picture this morning while sitting at work and tears flowed again. When FF Stringer put his coat on that morning, did it cross his mind that it would be the last time? I don't know, but if he did know, I doubt it would of changed his actions.

Growing up in a family of firemen (Dad, grandpa, step-grandfather, uncle and now my brother Patrick), I always had a sense of pride of being a fireman's daughter. Growing up in Beverly my 4 closest girlfriends fathers were all fireman too. The fireman family is like none-other, when you spend 24 hr shifts together you are brothers.

I remember countless Christmas's spent at the firehouse climbing on the trucks and Santa always visited. I remember being really mad that my 2 brother's got to spend nights with my dad at the firehouse, but not us girls..."not a woman's job" at that time. I remember countless late night phone calls saying my dad was injured or so and so died. I remember the "uniform" hanging in the front closet, the immaculate, clean, pressed official CFD dress coat, always in dry cleaning wrap with the white hat on the shelf. I remember my dad wearing that uniform too many times going to a fallen firefighter's wake/funeral. I remember my dad walking through the front door after a 24 hr shift, donuts in one hand and his overnight bag in the other. The entire laundry chute would smell like a bonfire, except it wasn't from a bonfire. I remember holding my dads dirty work shirts and just smelling them...I loved the smell...I was too young to really grasp the reality of that smell

My brother Patrick will be working (with a heavy heart I'm sure) on Christmas, so I won't get to see him, but I will be thinking of him and all the other firemen and all they do for us.

I love you Pat, I don't say that often enough and Thank you!

God Bless the families of FF Ankum and FF Stringer for the world lost 2 of the good guys

Merry Christmas to all

A surprise showed up on my computer

I found no less than 20 short video clips on my computer. It appears that Callahan wrote, directed, acted and filmed all these short gems. What tickles me, is I just stumble on them, so they took me by surprise. I stitched some together to form a little demo.

Rated 'R' for adult theme and language

                                

                                               callahan from mary mcginty on Vimeo.

Salt Creek

family time

 just a cute picture, not the actual tree

This was Karrick's year to pick the Christmas tree...last year we cut one down ourselves. We went to  Hackers Glenbard  Nursery that is around the corner and Karrick found our special tree. We also bought 2 large wreath's, a swag, 3 poinsettia plants and Callahan got a cactus. Our home has the most amazing smell

Never too old to play tag in the tree garden

hundreds upon hundreds of poinsettia's in every color

A beautiful white pine

 Family workouts

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We are trying to work out together as a family 3 times a week. Out health club Glass Courts prides itself on being family friendly. There is something for everyone. I am tired of not having any muscle tone. I just have to be careful with my neck. If we go as a family it's more fun and you can't back out...good support system

 the dork that takes pictures of herself

 TJ had me do "burnouts" ummm, OUCH!

TJ has to weight train 4 days a week after school at Glenbard East in order to play football next year. He still goes to the club with us, he'll lift some different weights, play racquetball and ping pong

 Tim is teaching Karrick the game. Everything in the club is open. All Racquetball court are visible from 1st floor. I was looking down some 20 ft (over a 4 foot wall upstairs)

Is there something wrong with a fully stocked bar in a health club? We go for the free popcorn, ping pong and big screen TV's

 A track surround the outside of the pool, Karrick just runs and runs, he is destined to become a track star....Forest Gump has nothing on him. We also play basketball in the open gym

 It started snowing really hard when we left Thur night (whatever night it snowed)

our house looks so cute in the blizzard

A little bit of Christmas

This is a fake blog, the real "A little bit of Christmas" is below...it logged as Friday, but it really happened on Saturday....shhhhh, don't tell anyone

I have been experiencing technical computer difficulties also explained in previous blog

a little bit of Christmas

So a trojan entered my computer and in the span of a week at least 6 virus's entered through that....Aarrgh! is all I can say. Thank God Tim is a computer genius...what do other people do when their computer gets completely trashed?

All my files were damaged. First Tim had to remove all my invaders...don't know how, but it took a day or two. Then he backed up my computer to TJ's computer, took overnight. I guess I have some crazy big picture files that would take 200 disks if Tim were to copy them. I believe he then copied files from somewhere onto disks to reset everything to factory settings, then reinstalled everything. As we speak my picture files are still loading

How did I get mister trojan? Not sure, but he popped up anti-virus warnings that were very similar to my anti-virus....me being ever so conscious clicked on them all. NOT A GOOD THING THEY WERE EACH A VIRUS

The moral of the story...Never open anything...call the master

It took a lot of Tim's time and I don't think it was easy, but it was Free! In between he even fixed my dishwasher...my personal handyman

Today we hung at home and put up our Christmas decorations. We got our tree during the week, but those pictures are still loading (see above :)) All I have are the photos I took today.Karrick and I made some Christmas cookies...pretty much against his will. I'm "always wasting all his time" me and school that is "school wastes all my time" is what he says all week long...on the bright side he only has 18 years left...

Karrick loves Rudolph...I mean loves him. We have all the reindeer that are on Santa's team. Karrick was pretty cute playing with them...not sure the game, but they were flying and rolling across the floor...reindeer wrestle possibly?

Again, mommy pulled him off the electronics to help make puffy felt ornaments. He was more receptive to this idea

Here is Santa snowman in the middle phase of completion. Karrick made a snow-globe out of felt, but we need glitter and fabric paint to complete. Callahan told him that if you put a snow-globe on the tree Santa will bring you more presents. Hey, whatever works, right?

Karrick in his secret fort...on my phone because he was starting to get the DT's from being off video games (I was sewing his snow-globe and caved to his whinning)

I believe the year was 1987, my mother ever so proudly gave each one of us kids a Liberace limited edition ornament. I really thought it was a joke...I was mistaken.

In honor of my mother I proudly display Andy Avelos in drag on our tree and when I go, I will pass it down to my first born son to carry on this tradition

Karrick made a concert with all our holiday singing animals, snowman and a tree. Each character sings a different song, but if you play each one at the same time you get a Christmas concert...yeah, ya really do

opps, I forgot to add jazzy Santa to the playbill
a side note: year before last I accidently stepped on Jazzy Santa and he broke...guess what?

They sell them everywhere, so yeah, we were able to pick another one up, otherwise our concert would be lacking

A final note: Tim said to write down any files that he missed....spell check, honey there is no spell check