We are right in the middle of a "show weekend." To those unfamiliar to what that means in my home I'll fill you in--all 3 of my kids are involved in a local theatre company. There is no way that I can afford to pay tuition for all of them so they are all on scholarship in exchange for me helping out. For years we were involved in a small theatre company and a good friend, Julie, and I pretty much ran the show as far as box office, raffle, and concessions go. When they moved to this other theatre I offered to do pretty much the same thing I had always done and the transition has gone very well. Julie and I are happy to relinquish box office duties over to the other theatre staff but aside from that we still do a lot of it. So, that means--I bake a bazillion lemon bars and half a bazillion chocolate chip cookie bars for the concession stand, I also get prizes for the drawing, and sell tickets for the drawing before the show and during intermission. So, in addition to getting 3 kids ready for a performance, including dinner at about 4:30, I get there early and along with Julie help set up and then work, watch the show, duck out early to prep for intermission, and then work through intermission, watch the rest of the show, then pick up trash in the theatre, bag up trash and find some strong handsome boy (Jonathan) to take it out, and make sure everything is cleaned up in the concessions area. I added a new task to my responsibilities (at least for this weekend) and that is doing the lights during two of the shows. This is highly stressful for me because I live in fear of messing everything up but in reality it's not that hard. I have a script with carefully highlighted cues for everytime I am supposed to push "go." Thank you to Jonathan (that strong, handsome trash boy) for training me so well and making the cues so easy to follow. Last night was my first night and I got through with only 2 minor mess-ups. There is a lot to do physically on a show weekend but in addition to that, emotions run high--I get nervous for my kids sometimes depending on their part, I get excited, I am proud of them, and so on. By Sunday evening I will be wiped out physically and mentally...but exhausting as show weekends are I love them, I love being such a big part of something that my kids are so passionate about. In my last post I mentioned that we were taking the whole summer off from theatre...well, plans sometimes change and after re-thinking and talking to Ollie we've decided that the kids will be in the 2nd session of summer camp. The show they will be performing is "Honk! Jr.," a musical retelling of the story of the Ugly Duckling. It should be super cute from what I've heard and I'm glad we get to participate. So, we will only have a 2 month break but that's plenty enough.
On another note...Two Christmases ago we entered the iWorld--Ollie got an iPhone, I got an iPod Touch, and Hannah got an iPod Nano, and Grace got an iPod Shuffle. Then about a year ago, Hannah bought a used iPod Touch so she sold her Nano to Grace and Grace gave her shuffle to Joe. Today we are having another big iSwap--Hannah is buying a friend's iPod Touch (it's a step up from the one she bought last year, this one has speakers so she can play music without earbuds or docking station), she is selling her iPod Touch to Grace for $15 and Grace is selling her Nano to Joe for $5, and Joe is selling his Shuffle to me for $2. I decided that I wanted his Shuffle for the gym. The complicated thing in all of this is getting them all onto the computer, synced with iTunes but still transferring songs they've bought and stuff like that. Thankfully Ollie has agreed to oversee all of that fun. Now if only Ollie would only upgrade his iPhone so he can "sell" me his old one. That's an iSwap I want to be a part of.
I am in the middle of reading The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson--it's about a preacher back in the 60s who went into New York City and witnessed and ministered to gangs there. So far it's a great book and very inspiring to see the power of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this man's life and I've also been inspired by his willingness to be obedient even when it didn't make sense. It's a great book! I will say that I wouldn't recommend it for kids any younger than 16 or so, there is graphic explanations of a world that many kids don't even know exists yet. I have also recently read two books by Kristin Hannah--Magic Hour and Firefly Lane. Both were great books and I highly recommend them. Kristin Hannah is Jodi Picoultish without the twists at the end. The kids and I just finished listening to Savvy by Ingrid Law. It won a homeschool award and it's well deserved. I highly recommend it as an audio book, read aloud, or just a book for yourself or your child. Great story! I've got 4 more books on my bedside table that I'm eager to get to and I'm hoping for a lot of reading time this next week. We'll see...our activities are done but we have a lot of school I'd like to plow through since I'm hoping this will be our last week of school.
Stay tuned for lots of photos and videos (if I can get it working) of "Camp Rock: The Musical!"
2 comments:
I read some of this to my family and we all had a good laugh, including the handsome trash boy. Garbage was his passion long before lights were!!
Great post! FYI- there is a movie The Cross and the Switchblade that is a retelling of the book. I think it was filmed in the 70's, so it is pretty old school, but the message and the story are so, so great. Maybe your local library has it?? I like to watch movies that go with the books and do analyses on it all (its the English major in me). I just read Wrinkle in Time and wasn't too thrilled with the whole thing but I decided to check out the movie and it's pretty dumb. I think I might finish the rest of it tonight, but I don't think it will change my idea of the whole movie being dumb, but we'll see. We had pizza last night and there was like a tablespoon of giardinera left in the jar before dinner started. Dad said he forgot to make some more. If you were there, I think they have been some major arm wrestling or dance off for the last teaspoon. Thankfully Gabi was a nice b.i.l. and let me have most of the jalepenos. We def have to stock up from when you come out this summer. at least 2 jars!! okay i am rambling... can't wait to see your nose ring.. and of course YOU!
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