Summertime Fun with Habitat

Today we kicked off a special building blitz at work.  We called it Summertime Fun with Habitat, and we got t-shirts and summer treats for our volunteers, all in an effort to quickly build ten more homes.  There are so many families who need our help, and we are just trying to serve as many as we can.

It was a great kickoff day, with only one glitch.. it rained... A LOT!  Right after lunch, we were hit with some crazy thunderstorms.  Yeah, we got soaked.  It was fun, though.  And all you people out there who know me - you won't believe this, but I actually did some hammering while I was out on the build site!  A lot of hammering!  It was great exercise, but of course I'm sore now!

I'll be in the office tomorrow to take care of some things.  A person I was going to hire accepted the job but then today she emailed me and told me she got another offer and was going to take it instead.  Now I know why some people say that when you do that, you burn bridges with that company.  I replied and said I wasn't offended, which is true, but now I have to call someone back and say "you got the job after all," which isn't the best way to hire someone.  It just puts me in a bad position, which I hate! 

Other than that, things are going great!  I love the job and it's really allowing me to grow and learn a lot - which is exactly what I wanted.

rose yarn - first dye project

I've joined the Ravelympics as part of Team TARDIS. It's a game we're doing on Ravelry where we sign up to participate in an event and knit during the Olympics. My event is the Bag -n- Tote Backstroke and I'm doing a simple felted bag. I'm using the yarn I used as a test for my Kool Aid dyeing project. It was supposed to be purple but it turned out more like dusty rose. That makes it perfect, though, because I can relate my project back to Doctor Who by saying I'm using rose colored yarn in honor of my favorite Doctor Who companion, Rose Tyler. A lot of my Team TARDIS teammates are doing Doctor Who related projects - some of them are knitting toys based on various characters and some are doing TARDIS iPod cozies and other related things, so this way I won't feel left out! Not that I care about being left out, but it's nice to fit the theme. The bag is pretty plain on the front, so I'm thinking of things I can do to decorate it.  I'm going to look up needle felting and see if it's something I'd like to learn how to do for this project.  Maybe a Celtic or Chinese symbol that means something to me.  Or something like that.  Anyway, here's a pic of the yarn:

Just one more word about Kool Aid dyeing... it's fun!  I used one package of Blue Raspberry and one package of Cherry to get this color.  While it didn't turn out purple like I originally wanted, I still think it turned out pretty.  It'll make a nice felted bag, I think.

Currently working on my second Log Cabin block.  I need to get back to the Christmas Throw too, or it'll be Christmas before I'm finished. 

I'm still thinking very seriously about making a blanket using the quilt patterns in the show.  It'll have to be after the show is over, but I really think it would be a neat project.  Lots of intarsia work, but totally worth it in the end!

Act 1, first run through

We ran Act 1 through for the first time last night.  It was pretty rough, but we managed to get through it without the whole thing unraveling completely, so I'll call it a win!  I had to call for a line twice - two different scenes - but I thought that was actually pretty good considering everything!  After the rehearsal, the director talked to us about starting to put some character into our characters.  She said nobody has gone too far yet, which means I need to stop holding back.  I've been sort of holding back in a couple of scenes because I'm interpreting them as very emotional and I'm not sure she agrees.  We will run Act 1 again tomorrow night, so I think I'll hit her with both barrels and see what she thinks.  She'll probably tell me to reel it in, but that's okay.

We run Act 2 tonight.  One of the girls will be out, but we'll get through it.  I wonder when we will work ourselves up to running the entire show in one rehearsal... it should be soon - I hope!

finished except the curtain call

Yay! We finished blocking Act 2! We ran most of it after we finished blocking, but it was getting pretty late, so we stopped.  One of the girls has a sitter for her kids who has to be home at a certain time.  That's the way it works in community theatre, I'm afraid!

I'm almost completely off book now.  I do have a couple of parts that I'm a little unsure of, but those are the new ones that were given to me just last week, so I figure I've got a pass on those for another day or so.  I'm also setting up publicity now so that we will have a lot of it before we open.  It's a tough time for a show and our run goes through Labor Day weekend, so it's going to be a challenge getting the audience in the seats.  Add to that the fact that it's not one of the "famous" musicals that the other community theatres do every few years, and you've got yourself a publicity challenge.  We're trying some new things and are really hitting the quilt and craft shops hard so that those folks will know about the show.  I think it'll do well - but there's always a little nervous feeling in my stomach before a show because I don't want the actors to play in front of a half-filled theatre.  Almost my entire family is coming, so that will fill a few seats!  I have several friends coming too, and my coworkers all said they would like to come, so hopefully I'll have some support out there!

Have I said how much I love this show?  I absolutely love it.  There is so much to it, you know?  It's challenging and fun - and I think the audience will leave the theatre and talk about it, which is what you want.

The lovely woman who is making our costumes told me the other day that another local theatre is doing Company in May.  I've never seen it before, so I looked it up and it sounds great!  I bought the soundtrack from iTunes just to see what the music was like and I really enjoyed listening to it.  I think it will be a fun show.  I'm going to try out.  I'm in the right age range for several of the female roles, so that's good!  By May, I should be in much, much better shape too, so that will be perfect!

10 down, 90 to go!

I made my monthly goal!  I lost 10 pounds in July!  I have to give most of the credit to all the exercise I'm getting in the show, but other than that, I've been really focusing on eating right and limiting my daily calorie intake to 1200-1400 every day.  I'm hitting about 1300 most of the time, which is pretty good.  The best part about it is that I'm not feeling hungry or deprived.  I seem to have more energy and I'm feeling better.  Sparkpeople is helping me a lot because I can enter whatever food I ate and it tells me the calories, fat, carbs, and anything else I want to track.  I'm tracking calcium and iron because I don't usually get enough of those.  One thing I've been doing is if I don't have enough calcium at the end of the day and I have some calories left to consume, I can drink a glass of milk to help boost that number.  It's great. 

Since I made July's goal, I'm going to call around and find someone to detail my car, because that was the reward I set for myself if I made the goal. 

For August, I'm shooting for another 10 pounds, to get me down to 226 by the end of the month.  If I make that goal, I will reward myself with a new iPod for my workout music.  I'm thinking a Shuffle or Nano - I don't want to spend a ton of money on it, but I do want to get something that will do what I need it to do.  I might get the Nano this time and then next time make my reward a pair of Nike+ shoes and the Nike+ sport kit.  It looks like fun!  There's another possible reward, the Nintendo DS system and My Weight Loss Coach.  It looks like a neat way to keep track of weight loss on the go.  It would fit in my purse and I could eventually get other games to play on it too.  So those are the options for rewards.  I'll decide during the month.

sooo close

We literally have about five minutes of the show left to block.  I'm not sure why we didn't just finish the show last night.  Well - I know why, the director was being nice and let us go a bit early.  What's funny about that is that the stage manager, another actress and I, all sat outside and talked for awhile after everyone left.  It was nice to just chat after rehearsal. 

We finished all the difficult scenes, last night was my last very emotional one, so I feel pretty good about everything so far.  Next week, starting Tuesday, we'll be running Act 1 one night and then Act 2 the next until we can start running the whole show in one night.  It shouldn't take long to get to that point, since our rehearsals are about twice the amount of time the show should actually take!  No rehearsal today, but we'll finish blocking tomorrow and will hopefully be able to run Act 2 completely.  I really hope I haven't forgotten Act 1!

Blog structure

I've been thinking about this again and I think I need to restructure this blog.  I'm finding that most of my posts end up with so many labels that the labels are not really useful anymore.  I might start doing different posts for each subject rather than a post with all the subjects.  That way, if you click on a certain label, that's the only content you will see.  This may end up creating more than one post a day, though. 

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

blocking progress

We blocked the scene that I consider the most difficult one last night.  It took nearly the entire rehearsal to do it, mostly because each person has a lot of "business" to take care of before, during and after their lines.  It's also the most difficult because of the subject matter.  It's just extremely emotional, especially for the actress who is playing the lead in the scene.  To make things even more interesting, though, the actress who played a fairly large part in this scene went to the director with some concerns about memorizing all her lines and asked if she could switch parts with someone who had fewer lines to learn in this scene.  Wouldn't you know it?  She chose me.  So now I have more lines to learn and I'm almost completely off book!  I don't mind, though.  It's a great part and I'm enjoying doing it.  I got the part two nights ago and almost have all the lines down already.  It's not hard, so that's good! 

So anyway, it was a tough night.  My character sits on a stool the entire scene and just talks when it's time, so I didn't do much more than work on the lines and watch everyone else work on their blocking.  Tonight, though - tonight is going to be a very active night!  We'll be blocking a very fast, very fun song, and I know there is jumping involved in the dance because the director mentioned it.  This might be the night I wear my ankle brace! 

I love getting to know the other women in the show.  Last night, one woman who has been a lot of fun backstage (and really onstage too!) whispered to me that we needed to go get a glass of wine tonight after rehearsal.  This was just after the director said it was going to be the most difficult night of rehearsal yet.  Of course, she says that every night!  Anyway, so I mentioned our local Irish Pub and she said that was a good idea, so it looks like some of us will be going for drinks afterward.  I told her to be on the lookout for single men - she's in the National Guard and hangs out with mostly guys one weekend a month - and she said she would, but that most of the guys in her unit are married.  *Sigh* The story of my life.

wow - this could have been me

I saw this on PostSecret and it really hit me hard.  I could have sent this postcard in myself.  It's always what I'm thinking deep inside me and my greatest fear.  I feel for the person who sent in this card, because I know exactly how she feels.  It sucks when the wonderful things you have to offer the world, and a potential partner are not the kinds of things anyone cares about.  I thought it would get better as I got older, but it still seems that all men care about is physical attractiveness.  Even into their thirties and forties, that's all they seem to care about.  Sometimes I feel like screaming: "I'm a great catch, why doesn't someone want me?"  Of course, that would never work.

first log cabin square

So here's the first square.  I'm using Caron Simply Soft (no dye lot) yarn in the following colors:

Dark Side: Royal (I Love This Yarn instead of Simply Soft), Autumn Red, Dark Sage, Violet

Light Side: Orchid, Soft Green, Soft Pink, Soft Blue

Center Square: Black

It took me about two weeks of working about 30 minutes a day while waiting for rehearsal to start to complete the square, which ended up being 14 inches by 14 inches.  It was a little bigger than I expected it to be, but that just means the blanket will be larger than expected, or I can make fewer squares.  Either way, it's going to turn out really cool!  I'll cast on the second square sometime this weekend.  For the rest of today, I'm concentrating on lines!

Butterfly

We blocked The Butterfly last night.  It was the second scene I was looking forward to working and it was great!  I love, love, love this scene.  I'm trying really hard not to watch this too much, but here's the one I found on YouTube.  It's really an amazing scene and I can't wait to really get into it.  The director said last night that I was doing fine.  She was setting up appointments with different people to work on their scenes individually - for some more intense direction, and when I asked her when she wanted to see me, she said she didn't.  That felt pretty awesome, actually.  One thing about this show that I'm really working on is that every scene is a different character, so you really have to make every character different.  Now that I have most of my lines down and we've finished blocking Act 1 (completely! yay!) I can really start fine-tuning everything and give each character her own personality.  That's the fun part!

log cabin - first block complete!

I finished my first log cabin block! Pictures to come a little later. I would have uploaded the pictures last night, but I was so tired and it was almost midnight when I finished the block that I decided to wait until this evening after rehearsal. I am so looking forward to the finished blanket. It should be very snuggly.

Draha stalled - for now

I did a little more outline work on Draha. I'm always thinking about it, even when I'm not writing, so there has been a little progress on plotting too. Now, my lines for the show, the songs for the show, and the plots for Draha are competing for my brain's limited time and resources! Oh, and work stuff is also thrown in there too! So it's no wonder I haven't done much on the writing lately. I do miss it, though and will get back to it as soon as I possibly can.

music and dance

Last night we had our music directors for the last time until next Sunday, so we worked on the music from Act 2 and the choreography from Act 1.  We were all off, though.  The music portion went much better than the choreography portion did, I will say that.  When we sang "Never Grow Old," the stage manager just looked out at us and said "wow."  That was cool.  It really is beautiful and I can't wait until we do it in front of a real audience.  We did have some guests last night and I'm not sure if that's why we were thrown off a bit or if it was just an off night for everyone.

Act 1 dancing complete!

Rehearsal was great tonight. We finished the choreography in the first act! We'll be doing all the non-musical blocking next week because our musicians and music director will be out of town. I'm looking forward to doing that blocking because my best scenes fall into that category.

where did the weekend go?

I really feel like the weekend just went by too fast.  I'm not even sure what I did yesterday!  Oh right - laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.  It's almost all finished now, but I still have some clothes to put away.  I did work on my log cabin blanket some.  The first block is almost finished.  I'll post a picture when it's done.  I have two more strips to do and then I'll be able to measure and figure out how many blocks I need for the full blanket.  I'm thinking queen sized or similar. 

Arrowhead lace not working out

I may have to frog the arrowhead lace shawl. I'm having so much trouble with it! If you forget just one of the many, many, many yarn overs, it screws up the entire pattern and you have to rip back and start over. The only problem is, you don't always know you messed up until a few rows later, so all that effort is wasted. Because of the complex nature of this project, I decided to start on a simple one that is also designed to get rid of a lot of the yarn I bought when I first started knitting. It also fulfills my desire to quilt (sort of) because it's based on a quilt pattern. It's a log cabin blanket and I had started a variation of it for my nephew some time ago but I don't really like the way it's turning out so I might rip it out and start over. I want to do a traditional log cabin design, as a tribute to the quilters who made them long ago. I'm thinking about using the "barn raising" design, because something about it really appeals to me. So anyway, the good thing about knitting a log cabin blanket is that it's fairly mindless - all garter stitch - but it's interesting because you only knit a little of each color so you get to change colors fairly frequently. I can't wait to see how the first square turns out! I will be posting a picture when the first square is finished.

Inspiration

The log cabin pattern is such an interesting design.  I can't stop thinking about it.  I'm working on the first square right now and if it looks okay, I will continue to make squares until I have enough for the entire blanket.  Here are some sources of inspiration for me as I begin this project:

Cara's Log Cabin

Square Instructions

Log Cabin Sample Layouts

Traditional Log Cabin Settings

Piecing Animation

Design Dynamics of Log Cabin Quilts

Log Cabin pattern PDF

And when I'm finished with the one I'm working on now, I think I may start working on this:

nav menu

Did you see the new navigation menu? I rock at xhtml now! Well, okay - I sort of got the code from another blog template - but I did tweak it for color and everything. Anyway, I've been trying to figure out how to make a navigation menu for the blog, so I'm glad I finally got it to work! I'll be making a new header image sometime soon - it's time for a change, I think.

blocking and choreography

Is there a difference?  I know blocking refers to where you move and when during a play and choreography refers to dance, but in a musical, do you have both?

We just finished the second day of blocking for the show.  We've blocked the first two songs and the scene following them.  The choreography is pretty simple except in one or two parts where it's not really hard, but we have to be pretty quick or you get totally turned around!  The singing sound better and better every night.  It really sounds like everyone has been practicing, which is great! 

Next week we will be working on the monologues during one on one sessions with the director.  I'm excited about working my first scene with her, because I have some ideas about what I'd like to do and I am anxious to see what she thinks of them.  This is the scene that will be heartbreaking if I can manage to get it right. 

Great weekend!

Wow - I had an amazing 4th of July weekend!  I hope you did too.  I'm not even sure where to begin...

Thursday evening, I took the kids shopping to buy some fun things to play with on Friday.  We got a badminton/volleyball set and a giant frisbee.  We also got some snacks and sodas.  I knew the morning/early afternoon on Friday would be family stuff and that we would have a little time later in the day for together time, so I wanted to make it fun. 

Friday was great.  We set up the net and I played with them for awhile.  Hannah and Kohl got a phone call from their dad, saying he wanted to pick them up for some quality time, so that left Noah with me.  We convinced my parents to play badminton with us, so we had the first ever Girls vs Boys Family Badminton Tournament.  I have no idea who won, because we didn't keep score, but it was such fun!  Noah and I made lots of jokes about the "old people" but truthfully my mother is in much better shape than I am, and other than tipping over once because she reached too far back to hit the birdie, she did very well!  We played for about an hour and a half, then went inside and watched Independence Day, waiting for it to get dark so we could shoot off the fireworks Noah and I bought the day before.  Now that was fun!  I taught him all about fireworks safety and how to light the fuse and run away and he did very, very well.  He's a cautious kid anyway, so I wasn't worried.  Okay, I was a little worried - cautious or not, he's still only 12 years old!  So we had our own little fireworks show, which turned out really great, mostly due to the one that he picked out that shot big ones up into the air just like the ones they use in real fireworks displays.  We made a note of the name so we could buy them again one day.  It was called Zero Gravity, in case anyone wanted to know.  Anyway, that was really cool. 

On Saturday, she dropped Noah off again and we went to the movies.  We got about 10 minutes into Kung Fu Panda and lightening struck a major substation, cutting the power to the entire town.  We sat in the theater waiting for the power to come back on for about 15 minutes, but decided to take the free passes and go home. 

We tried again Sunday and really enjoyed the movie.  In fact, we were having so much fun that we decided to see The Incredible Hulk after Kung Fu Panda was over.  We decided we liked it better, mostly because of the great action sequences and special effects.  I'm a sucker for a good action sequence, and it looks like Noah is too!

In the midst of all this activity, I also did a ton of laundry (still more to do) and finally managed to finish inputting all my vocal parts for the show into the computer.  I made a practice CD and am listening to it right now!  It's so helpful - I've already identified about 6 places in different songs where I've been singing the part wrong!  Yikes!  Time to learn it right. 

Oh, and I took my car in for a safety recall.  They called just now to tell me it's fine, but they informed me that I need a front and rear brake job because my brake pads are wearing thin.  The cost?  $460!  I told them my daddy would change the brake pads, thankyouverymuch. 

Oh, and I managed to get some writing and some knitting done, but that's too much info for one post!

Things you may not know

I was browsing blogs on Ravelry and found this great one called Knit*Six. There was a cool meme on it that I thought I would do, so here it is!

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago, I was 21 years old. I was married to my high school sweetheart and was in college, majoring in vocal performance. Shortly after, I dropped out of school to work full time so he could finish school first. Two years later, at the age of 23, I was divorced and living back at home. I was also back in school. There are other posts on this blog that describe the reasons for the divorce, so I won't go into it here, but let's just say I'm much better off now!

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. Do laundry
2. Take car in for recall and service
3. Go grocery shopping
4. Take my nephew to see Kung Fu Panda
5. Finish inputting my vocal parts into the computer and make a practice CD

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Triscuits and cheddar cheese, dried mango, candied pineapple, apple slices, movie butter popcorn, chips and salsa, chocolate chip cookies, 100 calorie packs of various cookies, baby carrots with light ranch dressing, frozen grapes.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Buy a house for my sister and her three kids, give my parents enough to pay off their loans and do some home remodeling and improving, buy my dad a good truck, buy my sister a good minivan, set up college accounts for my sister's kids and set aside some for each to get a car at 16, buy a house for myself, pay off my student loans, pay off my car and probably give it to someone who needs it and buy myself a hybrid, start my children's theatre and put some money into a scholarship program for kids in low income families to get some arts education and experience, give some money to various charities that are close to my heart: Habitat, Catholic Social Services, a local homeless shelter, the home for sexually abused children in the area, etc. There is so much I would do if I only had the means to do it!

5) Places I have lived:
I haven't really lived in a lot of places. Just here in Fairhope, then in Mobile, then back in Fairhope. I'm okay with that, though. I love living here!

6) Jobs I have had:
So many! Childcare, rollerskating carhop at Sonic, singing waitress, retail associate, medical records clerk, medical transcriptionist, public relations intern, newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, newspaper photographer, columnist, development and communication coordinator, development and communication manager.

7) Bloggers I am tagging to do this, whom I would like to get to know better:
I don't really like to tag people, but I'll copy the blogger I took this meme from - if you read this and want to complete it, consider yourself tagged! Please let me know if you answered these questions, because I'd love to read your answers!

rehearsal break

It's been nice having a break from rehearsals this week, but I'll be honest - I've missed it too. I've actually really missed it. The girls are so much fun and it's great making music with them! I absolutely can't wait until next week, when we start blocking. Talk about getting some cardio! When we start learning the choreography, I'll be thinking about all the calories I'm burning and it will make me very happy!

Dance it Off

I got a new workout DVD last night and tried it when I got home. It's called Dance It Off & Tone It Up and it's so much fun! As the title suggests, the workouts focus on using dance to get your cardio exercise and then there are some toning workouts focused on turning your body into a dancer's body - the upper and lower body tone-up are particularly good. I can really feel where I worked the muscles, especially in my arms and back. I feel like I did after the Carter project, when I spent all that time securing hurricane ties to the upper beams of the house... all that hammering really worked those arms! Anyway, the plan is to do two of the cardio programs and one of the toning programs each day, for a total of 30 minutes of exercise. Last night I did two cardio and two toning, and then I did about 15 minutes of stepping onto and then off of the step I bought for the step aerobics DVD that I can't find right now. I may have let someone borrow it. I guess I should keep track of that a little better, lol.

Anyway, I feel great about the new DVD and I think it will really help. Did I mention my reward system yet? My goal is 10 pounds a month. At the beginning of each month, I'll set some kind of reward for myself if I reach the goal. My July reward is to have my car professionally detailed, as it's been a very long time since I've done that and the amount of time I'm spending in my car these days (with rehearsals and everything) it really needs cleaning. Oh, I cleaned it out and did the basic ArmorAll and vaccuming, but I'd love to have someone with all those special cleaning tools that get into all the little nooks and crannies just really clean it so that it looks like new again. After all, it's only two years old. It should still look new! The point of this reward system is not really that it's a treat that I couldn't normally afford, because I could really go tomorrow and get it done. The point is to figure out something I would really like to do and not let myself do it until I meet the goal. It's a little sad that I need to trick myself into making healthy decisions, but that's what a year of stress eating will do to you!

Journal topic: Parents taught me...

I am glad my parents taught me…

I was almost 4 years old when Hurricane Fredrick hit in 1979. The storm is my first memory. It was dark and loud, and I remember the way the air felt heavy and the clouds looked angry. The wind hit our house with so much force that the house, a brick home build on concrete blocks, began to rock back and forth. My mother gathered us into her arms and held us in her lap. We all sat on a mattress pulled from my sister's bed into the hallway, the only area in the house without windows. Mama held us tightly and sang Jesus Loves Me, the trees outside beating a rhythm against the house that didn't match the song. My dad paced the house with a lantern - the power had already gone out. He opened all the doors slowly, looking into the rooms. I later learned that he was checking the windows to make sure they hadn't broken. When the wind calmed, we ran outside to see, but daddy warned us that we were seeing the eye of the storm and that the worst was still to come. I remember being fascinated by the concept of the eye, and wondered if the storm could see us, if it knew we were down there, if it knew that we had nowhere else to go. We could hear the cows in the pasture. They sounded afraid, but we didn't dare try to put them in the barn, for fear that the barn would collapse and kill all of them. Daddy said they stood a better chance out in the open, that they would find a low place and weather the storm like all the other animals do. And in fact, they did weather the storm just fine - better than the barn did, anyway. We went back inside before the rest of the storm came, and when it hit it was worse than before. We could hear trees snapping, and there was a crash that sounded louder than anything I had ever heard. When the storm finally passed, we opened the front door to see the damage. Pine trees were lying all around the house, but none were on it. We had survived the storm with no damage to our home. The barn did collapse. That was the crash we heard.

We checked with the neighbors - some of them didn't do as well as we did. A tree fell on one home. Someone lost a pet. A child was injured. Power was out all over the region. As a fairly self-sustaining farm, we had it better than others. A generator hooked to our well meant we had water. A gas stove meant we could cook. We opened our home to neighbors to allow them a shower and some food. They were grateful. For three weeks, nobody had power or water. We all took care of each other during that time, and I made a lot of new friends.

What I learned from my parents during that time were lessons I will always remember. I am grateful for them. During that time, I learned that it is possible to be calm in the face of a storm. I learned that faith can sustain a person through difficult times. I learned that it's important to keep an eye on weak places because they might break and ruin everything. I learned that sharing with others and showing compassion for those who have nothing are extremely important parts of being human. I try to show compassion every day because that is the example they set.