Once Upon A Mattress et al

I can't believe I haven't posted in over a month. Yeah, real life got in the way, but that's besides the point. I should have been more proactive about keeping my little diatribes on a roll.

So, you ask, wazzup?!?!?

Let's start with work.... oooo, er.... nevermind. Who wants to talk about work?

I've become involved with my daughters' high school theater production. Don't get all excited. They don't act. My oldest is the senior stage manager and the youngest is training to take over once the oldest graduates this year. So they're both backstage. But, as some may know, I have a B.A. in Theater. I was a lighting designer and the high school group have no one with any experience in lighting, so I roped myself into it because, as usual, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. (Someday, I'll be missing an entire leg. I'll be chatting along and simply swallow the foot right on up to the hip... ) If I remember correctly, I'd stopped in to grab oldest daughter's books to carry home for her and made some sort of typical comment like, "You call that #*^@ lighting?!?!?" Next thing, I'm digging into a file cabinet for colors and crawling around the catwalks, inserting gels. Mind you, this was just a few days before the show went live, so it wasn't pretty. The next night, I'm refocusing lights and setting light cues. The results were worth it.

But now I'm sort of doing it every year. We won't mention the t-shirts, but I've been doing those also for the last couple years. This year was... er, interesting to say the least. I was actually beginning to panic that we wouldn't get them, but they're out being made as I write so that's another thing off the list.

What else? Ooo... I'm knitting this absolutely fabulous shawl! I tried taking a pic of the thing. IT's a real simple basketweave design, so it's reversible. Natural alpaca (think llama) colors and I found the steal of the century. 600 yds for $27.00. So I bought 3 hanks, wound them up (the balls are so big, they durned near fell off the ball winder ) and I've been working on that at the full-time job. It's going to be simply dreamy! I tried taking a few pics this morning, but you couldn't see anything more than a big blur. I think I have to play with lighting and stuff to get it to come out. Hmm... I have an Ott light. I betcha that would do the trick. Since I plan on doing some spinning later this morning (before I head off to the auditorium this afternoon to work on this year's production), I'll see if I can aim the light at the shawl and get a decent pic.

Oh, and I just returned from St. Louis. We had the big TEAM national convention. 35,000 people in the Edward Jones Stadium (where the Rams play football, I take it, since football isn't my game). Wow! If that doesn't convince me that I'm in the right place at the right time, I surely can't think of a better indicator. So I came back with some new goals and some new ideas on how to network this business all the way around the country. Oh yeah, I'm going to take this thing and run with it like they've never seen before. I can't wait for the semester at school to be over so I can hit the gorund running and never look back.

Today is exciting. Payday. Gee, I get to pay bills so we dole out the money before it's even settled into place in the bank. Lovely thought... Argh! Tomorrow will be a bit different. Shelby is finally getting her fibularsesimoidectomy. IOW, they're finally removing that dead bone from her foot. I'm sure we'll have to be at the hospital in the wee dark hours before the rest of the world realizes it's time to get up. And we get the pleasure of doing this on Mark's birthday. Oh boy. What did you want as a present? For my kid to have surgery on her foot!

Course, my birthday is just around the corner on Monday. What will I get to do? Go back to work!

Pfffffftttt! (think big, hairy raspberry )