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Thank you for visiting LaurieM.com!

I'm Laurie Mikulasek Simpkinson ("Laurie M"), a native Californian artist, author, philosopher, and actress. My professional background is in Philosophy of Mind, while all the faces of my expression focus on my core as a storyteller. The goal of my work is to blend the worlds of images, words, and refreshing ideas to create inspiring pieces.

Be sure to check back often as I continue to add projects, particularly to the Artist, Author, and Actress pages. Please email me for more information about art prints and products.

What's New

November 9, 2008: My solace is becoming absurd. I now am trying to convince myself that because I'm attempting to write a novel while kids are screaming in the background, it will be that much more easily read with screaming kids in the background. Or, maybe, I just need to force more quiet writing time. Perhaps in the same way pigs will fly out of my ass. However, Obama is President Elect. I now have relentless hope for the seemingly impossible. It's wonderful to be alive to witness history being made. I'm still in despair over the (temporary) passing of Prop 8. Since I still lack a Blog I'll write a rant on that later and link it here.

A few big things over the last six months: The twins started Kindergarten! Wu! But three hours a morning (I'm NOT complaining) is only such a smidgen of time that I have yet to feel the full force of freedom of having school-aged children. But time passes more quickly for this 35-year old than for them, so I can at least see the dawning of first grade next fall. So much of my life has been about waiting... I can sit in this space for a few more months.

The biggest news of all, however, is that a 27-year old dream was finally actualized in July. I bought my first horse! He's a 3-year old APHA (paint) 17+ hand (very tall) gelding, rose-gray, and perfect in every way. Granted, July was just *before* the economy tanked, so my ambitious goals of training and maybe showing someday are on a month-to-month basis. Right now he's being trained Hunter/Jumper, and next month we will start with Western so he can be shown in the All-Around. I'm also anxious to get him on the trails and beach, but I lack a horse trailer. We'll get there, though, all in good time. I must say it is amazing to feel an underlying shift in the 10-year old me I still carry. I am no longer waiting or trying to figure out what needs to be good enough about me to finally own a horse. It's here. And nothing is lacking.

May 6, 2008: You know life is good when you can look forward to everything in your future. The flowers are blooming (I finally got the hanging plants hung!), the kids are growing, I'm enjoying writing and horseback riding and driving the kids to soccer (ha-HA! It finally happened! I'm a Soccer Mom!). Hubby is enjoying his new job at Google (woot!) although we miss seeing him in the mornings.

My new excitement was winning first place in the Friends of the Felton Library's annual poetry contest! This year's theme was "Friends" and you can find my poem if you click at the bottom of the right hand bar on their website, or you can click here for the poem I would have sent in two hours later after I changed one more line. :)

January 16, 2008: Time is flying! Yes, there is nothing like a three day power outage to remind me to be grateful for the things I take for granted. And I have a new appreciation for the generator, and the man who knows how to run it!

The two new things of recent months are (1) a two-day shoot on the Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn movie Four Christmases to come out next December; and (2) my writing group led by Laura Davis. It's been a juggle to be able to commit to something for ME every week, but thanks to the support of my friends I'm able to make it work. It feels great to be able to spend a delicious three hour block to just write and explore where that leads, and it feels like the perfect step in the road I'm building to writing my novel. Stay tuned!

July 27, 2007: Enjoying the summer! Perfect weather, beautiful redwoods, kids and the beach, lots of summer reading, fewer alarm-clock mornings... ahh...

I've updated a few pages, cleaned up the Actress page and made it more job-friendly for those checking out that link for that reason, checked most of the links on the site to make sure they are current; I'm prepping some more art stuff to get online soon, waiting for the latest photo shoot finals to come so I can post them, etc.

Feel free to shoot me a hello. It's been really fun to connect with those "remember me?"'s from ages past.

May 14, 2007: I've just posted the great photos from my latest shoot a few weekends ago! A big thanks goes to photographer Tristan Tom! Now that I have a few more professional shots, it is finally worth the effort to add a whole other page and left-column link to "model" (instead of having it buried in the Actress page). So if you click here or just look to the left column you can reach the new "Model" page.

A big (late) Happy Mother's Day goes out to you all, especially my Mama and Sister Mama and the six other special BC Mamas in my playgroup. I'm so very optimistic about the next generation!

May 7, 2007: Did it! New sketches are up here! There is a link toward the top of that page leading to the old sketchbook page (also found here.)

(What's Not So New)

Looking for the world-famous sculptor Chris Mikulasek? That's my Aunt!

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