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Katharine McPhee

February 7, 2012 by · Comments Off on Katharine McPhee 

Katharine McPhee, Katharine McPhee showed off her flawless voice in American Idol once upon a time. Now she’s doing it again in the new NBC series Smash.

The show debuts February 6, 2012, and stars McPhee as an aspiring performer and part-time waitress trying to make it on Broadway. The charming new show also stars Debra Messing of Will & Grace and centers around a musical-in-the-making about Marilyn Monroe.

In the pilot for Smash, McPhee’s character is introduced as a talented country girl fresh from Iowa, who’s come to the big city to follow her singing dreams. She is a contender for the part of Marilyn, and without giving away any spoilers, will likely become a stunning blonde if she gets the part.

To start, though, the alum from American Idol is a lovely brunette, wearing her gorgeous dark locks in sumptuous waves, as shown on the blog Popcorn Biz on NBC New York.

Her brown eyes positively sparkle in the season’s hot look of neutral shimmers, her skin is exquisite, and she has perfectly manicured eyebrows. Mostly, the show presents her as an innocent new girl in the city, with a fresh-faced look to match.

Katharine Mcphee Age 27 March 25, 1984

January 16, 2012 by · Comments Off on Katharine Mcphee Age 27 March 25, 1984 

Katharine Mcphee Age 27 March 25, 1984Katharine Mcphee Age 27 March 25, 1984, Katharine Hope McPhee (born March 25, 1984) is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, model, and television personality. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show American Idol in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up.

Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records on January 30, 2007 and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200; it has sold 381,000 copies to date. The album’s first single, “Over It”, was a Pop Top 30 hit and was certified gold in 2008.

Her second album, Unbroken, was released on Verve Forecast Records on January 5, 2010 and debuted at number 27 on the Billboard 200. The album featured the single “Had It All”, which peaked at number 22 on the Billboard AC chart. It has sold 45,000 copies to date. Her third album, the holiday-themed Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You, was released on October 12, 2010. The album debuted at number eleven on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums chart while the single “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard AC chart. The album has sold 23,000 copies to date.

McPhee has also established an acting career, for example co-starring in The House Bunny in 2008 as the hippie sorority sister Harmony, and co-starring in the upcoming NBC series Smash.

The Happiness Project

January 8, 2010 by · Comments Off on The Happiness Project 

The Happiness Project:Gretchen Rubin spent a year studying books and research reports about happiness and then tested out the ideas on herself to find out if they would make her happier. She wrote about her experiments in a highly-entertaining memoir called The Happiness Project, which came out last week.

Rubin was actually pretty happy before starting the project. She is a wife and mother of two children, and a successful author. They have a nice apartment in New York. What’s not to be happy about? The problem for Rubin was that she wanted to appreciate the good life she knew that she had, and stop feeling annoyed so much. She felt guilty for being a nag and a complainer. “How could I discipline myself to feel grateful for my ordinary day?” she wondered. Because she knew her life was already good, she didn’t want to radically change it — she wanted to change small things in reasonable ways that made sense for her and her family. As she explains, “I didn’t want to reject my life.”

Rubin was a little concerned that focusing so intently on her own happiness was selfish, but she learned from her research that happy people are “more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, are interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens.”

One thing Rubin learned while researching happiness studies was that “people are more likely to make progress on goals that are broken into concrete, measurable actions, with some kind of structured accountability and positive reinforcement.” So she came up with a chart (inspired by the 13-point chart for virtuous living that Benjamin Franklin kept) to track the virtues she was interested in. (Here’s a Word doc of Rubin’s charts.)

Rubin went to work tackling one major resolution per month for a year, reporting on how it affected her happiness. In January, she strove to boost her energy by sleeping more, exercising better, organizing her home and office, completing “nagging tasks,” and pretending to have more energy. In February, she worked on making her happy marriage even happier. In March, she addressed work-related goals, and in subsequent months she worked on parenthood, play, friendship, money, spirituality, passion, mindfulness, and attitude.

I had fun reading about Rubin’s triumphs, insights, and failures. She’s honest about her frustrating experiences, which are often more interesting that her successful ones. I admire her for wanting to become a better, more interesting, and more helpful person, and for sharing her story. I’m going to apply much of what I read in this book into my own life.

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