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.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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!
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!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
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!
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!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
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.
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!
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!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
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?
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
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