Old Acquaintance

Three out of the past four new year's I've had this same picture set up. Seriously, '08, '09, and now '11. Here's to good friends and a bright future! No resolutions other than to be resolved. Try and figger that one out!

Snow? No. Flakes? Yes.

I did a bit of shopping and sewing today, and the girls came home from Sheila's. That's about it.

Good sidekicks usually have thumbs

Jason's weekend is finally here, so we decided to celebrate in style, by going out to a place that makes you take your onion rings for a walk before you eat them. But on the plus side, my hands kind of look like fighting elephants in this picture. See, 'cause elephants don't fight aggressively, they just turn away and refuse to talk to one another ever again. 'Cause they never forget. *cough* We went for a little walk around the plaza and hit up the Starbucks when all of a sudden my stomach did one of those "Oh yeah, I forgot that I hated you..." things. (Stomachs and elephants have very little in common.) I tried to suck it up as we drove to Westport to continue the date, but after half an hour or so I just couldn't take it any more. Ughhhhh....so we were headed home by 10pm. How disappointing. But we had fun while it lasted, and on the plus side, I got to spend a little more quality time with not just Jason, but Spartacus. With the girls gone, he's been extra clingy this week. I'm okay with that. (Mmmm.......fuzzy)

Home

I had a friend-filled day today. My favorite! I went to the movies with Chez and Matt, spent the afternoon and evening with Jason, then hosted a small but mighty get together with some friends from school. Wonderful, but exhausting. I will be sleeping in tomorrow, and then I am going to exfoliate my forehead.

Running and Sparkling again

It's funny how much easier it is to get things done when you have the entire house to yourself. Jason did more overtime today so he slept late, and during that time I got a lot of my 'do this during Christmas break' list done. I had a few plans just in case I got bored, but didn't end up needing them. I did make him take me to Chick-Fil-A for dinner, though. They're not open Christmas or Sundays and I've been craving one since Christmas Eve. Mmmm...a well-won prize for a hard day's work. THIS IS SANDWICH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Know You.

Today was rather low key. Jason worked some overtime so he slept pretty much all day, so I used my me time to do a little grocery shopping and catch up with Dr. Who. Win.

Heart's Desire

Merry Christmas, everyone. We opened presents and watched Star Wars and had dinner with the fam before Jason and I drove home sans chilluns. They are going to spend the week with Sheila since our original plans for the week fell through. I got home to find I had left my phone on the bed (no reception down there anyhow...didn't need it) and I had a whole slew of texts wishing me and mine a merry Christmas. I fully and freely return the sentiment and any and all accompanying kindness and/or love with which it was sent to each and every one of you.

All About the Eve

Christmas Eve at our house was pretty low key this year. We opened our presents (I got a new car stereo! Rawk!) and giggled as Spartacus opened his own present, a catnip mouse. He shredded that package. Once I got the mouse set up he spent a good hour rolling around and flipping it in the air then catching it with eager paws and blazing claws. Jason tried to take part of the wrapper off his body at one point and Spartacus actually HISSED at him! We've never heard him do that! We went to the church in the afternoon to rehearse for the service at 6pm, then spent a lovely evening with Jason and I onstage bringing the musics while the girls sat with friends. Brianna was given a candle this year and the whole time she had it I was watching her from afar. "Aww....look how cute her face looks when it's lit up like that....don't catch on fire, don't catch on fire, don't catch on fire. Hmmm....if I pole vault the altar with my music stand and jump over that family there I could probably reach her in about eight seconds...." After the service we got into the car and drove straight to Jason's mom's house, where we visited for a bit then promptly crashed. Bring on the Christmasness!

Reach out, smack down

Sommer came over today and we did some sewing. Much fun was had. She made a friend in Spartacus, too, they booped noses. A lot. Missing my extended family today. I kept reading statuses on Facebook from Janina's friends about how they were all going to see her sing at the coffee shop she works at. I would have given quite a lot to have been there tonight. I love Kansas City, but it does get hard living so far from them sometimes. And hey, on a less somber note, merry Christmas eve eve, all!

Wallaby, a Monkey's Uncle.

One of Jason's co-workers has a pet wallaby, and he invited us out to see it. Isn't Noah adorable? And wow, they look so cute when they hop around like kangaroos! We all had a great time petting him. He licked the girls all over their hands and arms, too. Nice. This evening we went to church and practiced songs for Christmas Eve. After the usual 'which songs do we do and when' argument, we played some stuff and it ended up sounding pretty decent, which is great since we have two days and we only do this stuff once a year. If that. Blergh.

Everything's Okay

Today was the girls' last day of school before break, and Jason was sleeping after a long night of work. I decided to take advantage of the day by going on a little adventure all by myself. I drove to Lawrence where I walked around listening to my music and snapping pictures everywhere I went. Got some cool shots at one of the parks there. It's just warm enough to be nice outside but with everyone knowing it's cold-ish and it's not going to really be warmer for a long while, so they mostly stay inside. A lot of my pictures have zero people in them, which was a pretty cool effect. I also managed to snag a super cute vintage wrap skirt (denim with huge strawberries!) for four dollars. How could everyone let such a gem work its way to the clearance rack? I'll never know. I came home and made dinner for everyone and spilled a pretty good amount of boiling hot potato water on myself, which was fun...nawt. Par for the course, I suppose. Both girls got to go to Girl Scout Christmas parties this evening as well, so Jason left for work leaving me to deal with their sugar-buzzed little selves. It sure was amusing eavesdropping at Leigha's door where they held a sisterly sleep-over tonight.

How to ride a Unicorn

I finished the girls' hoodies tonight. Finishing touch: putting the thumbs on the built in mittens. And no more finger injuries, hooraisin! Today was just as good as yesterday was bad, too. I got to spend time with my two best friends in the world, began choosing music to go on a mixed cd for an upcoming road trip, had a couple long-distance conversations (even though one was to convey disappointing news, it was nice to talk), and witnessed the full moon slowly sliding behind the shadow of the earth as Winter solstice reached its apex. Beauty.

Chin up, Girlypants.

You'll have to excuse the rain check on my picture*, I left my camera at church today where I was taking pics of the girls singing in the children's Christmas program. I'm on quite a roll today, actually. All my plans for the day fell through, the kids were just not at all well behaved, (Spartacus and Jason were a'ight.) I went to a meeting at my acting teacher's house (a woman I admire and respect greatly) and the first thing I did was trip and spill apple cider on her couch, then when I came home to work on the girls' jackets for Christmas, I totally sewed my index finger into Brianna's. OW. There's a noticeable divet in my finger pad. I give up on today. You win, stupid bad day.

*edited to add picture, 12/22/2010

This *is* my formal face!

Austin's roomie decided to throw a formal Christmas party tonight. So I dug out my pretty dress from when I was in Anika's wedding, then added a long sleeved shirt underneath because, yeah, it's December. I also added my green boots underneath because I felt like being that much more quirky, and they were only seen by those I chose show them to. It's fun having secrets. I was unable to stay very long but I had Chad take this great picture of me, Austin, Hillary and Sarah, and every one of us on our best behavior.

Taking the hint

Today was my first day of Christmas break, and what better way to celebrate than by going to Sarah C's house and burning our notes from this semester? Woo! I kept the ones I thought would come in handy in the future and showed up with a huge stack of papers. We had a blast roasting marshmallows and finding old scripts to read to one another. The night was cold, but not too too cold, so we kept rotiserrie-ing ourselves around the fire to keep warm evenly. Awesome. I'm so tired and drained now, I think I'm finally aware that the semester is over. I am so sleeping in tomorrow.

And I feel fine

Before anyone asks, yes, yes I was wearing a long sleeve shirt today. It was a vintage wool sweater and it got very itchy. But not too long after completing my acting final (which is the reason I wore an itchy shirt to begin with. We have to treat it like an audition, which means looking purdy.) Jason texted me and asked if I wanted to go out for some lunch. Uh, yeah! So we decided to hit up Cracker Barrel for my victory lunch, 'cause I like their biscuits. They have that cool triangle game with the tees in it (because the name 'Monopoly' was already taken) on every table, and every time I go there I gotta play. So while we waited to order, waited on our drinks, and then again while waiting on our food, I was playing this game. Jason even grabbed the one off the table next to us so he could play as well. I was waiting for him to finish eating so I tried it one last time...and bam. Got it down to only one tee remaining. According to the board, I'm GEENius! Booya.

Never as cool as Christopher Walken.

Okay, so I know that Shelby looks uncomfortable in this picture and Jeremy looks almost predatory, and there was a very funny and specific reason for that...But for some reason my brain is going, "Oh come on, I gave you the clues, now connect the dots!" And my memories are going, "WE LIKE CRAYONS!!!!!!!!!!!!" So there's that..... Oh well. Either way I am now 3/4 of the way finished with my finals. Woot! I had a great day. Mostly because I came into it with lowered expectations (Science final. Yuk.) but then when that part of the day was over everything just got better. Funny how that works. One more final tomorrow. It's my acting final. The final consists of a one on one monologue, audition style, and talk about my future goals with Beate. Yeep!

Ostracized

Brianna drew a picture of herself as the trick or treating lemon today. I think she's excited. This is going to be great. I'm beginning to run out of steam, myself. Finals week is rough. The good news is that I'm certain I got 100% on my music final today. The answers came far too fluidly and I provided more information than the teacher asked for. It's in the bag. *whew* Today down. Ready to go, tomorrow?

Sweet talk, sweet talk.

Because I had a lot of super great stuff happen today and I didn't get a picture of any of it, I decided to punish myself by taking a 'duck face' picture. I solemnly swear to never do that again. Duck face, that is. No guarantees about the bad non-picture stuff on my part, especially right now during FINALS WEEK. (Ker-pow-ow-wow!) Yup, it's that time of the semester again. I had one final today, which I think I did well on. I had a meeting this afternevening for Godspell, since it's going to Iowa, so to kill time I accompanied a friend of mine on an outing. I got to see Johnson County the way a born and raised townie sees it! That was enlightening, to say the least. Also........there's a ton of rich people down there, did you know that? I mean filthy stinkin' rich! I knew that before, but I didn't KNOW. Now I do for sure, wowza. At any rate, this festival is going to be a blast and a half topped with awesomesauce and I can't wait. We are going to have an ubermonster of a rehearsal, though. We will only have one day to set up before the show goes live on a stage we've never seen before, so we're going to practice by taking our (altered) set, setting it up in one of the other theaters on campus, rehearsing, then tearing it down and putting it in the truck for the trip to Iowa. The scheduled time for this rehearsal is 6 AM TO MIDNIGHT. Augh!!!! Insanity. But hey, the show must go on. Thank goodness that's not until next month, I'll have plenty of time to rest and drink lots of fluids first.

Oh wait, Christmas is coming up. Scratch that.

Weezer was right.

We had our first snow of the season, about a 1/2 inch of white dust. Leigha got all geared up to go play in it then opened the door with a huge smile on her face....only to come in about five minutes later. "*sigh* Bri, don't worry about it. You can't even make a snowball out there." So I suggested they do snow angels. Bri was only interested in making tracks across the driveway (which surprised me considering the word 'angel' is part of 'snow angel.') but Leigha decided to give it a shot. She lay down in the yard, flapped and kicked furiously, stood up carefully, then sighed while admiring her work. Finally, she decided to follow Bri around for a bit. Not enjoying the making tracks in the snow thing as much as her little sister, she returned (a little less dejected, but still dejected) into the warmth of the house once more. Bri was right behind. They both asked for hot chocolate, which I did not produce (five minutes? Please. You gotta earn your marshmallows around here!) so they sighed and went to color. Oh well, I tried.

Anti-popular

Today was one of those lovely, "Hey...wait, wasn't it fourty degrees warmer yesterday?" kind of days. Also known as completely worthless weather. Yuk. I think cold fronts this mean should take a very convenient trip and fall down a flight of stairs. Fortunately, I had insidey things to do today! My friend Amanda hosted a 'cookie exchange' party this afternoon, so a bunch of us gals from the theater department gathered together with our various sugary offerings and exchanged first tastes, then the recipies. I made my 'party tea cookies' that Selena gave me a recipie for back in Denver. Thanks, friend! They were a hit, of course. Amanda told us that a ton of the guys from the department had wanted to get in on the party as well. Heh heh heh. Late tonight I got an e-mail from Beate stating that Godspell has officially been accepted into KCATCF. (what does that mean?) What that means is we are going to be taking the show to our region's Kennedy Center sponsored theater festival and performing it! I will be performing with needle and thread, of course. If the show does well at regionals it stands a chance at going to nationals! Woo hoo!

TGILame.

Spartacus has had trouble in the past controlling his 'climbing' urges when we dig out the tree. Last year he actually broke the stand. This year he hasn't even tried to climb it, preferring instead to pretend he's a present and lick the underside of the branches....you got me. I attended my last formal classes of the semester today and sold some of my books back. I have one still that the guy said was 'liquid damaged' so I'll just go back and sell it when someone else is working. The guy was brand spanking new. He asked for help so many times his boss finally said, "Okay, just finish this, you're in the middle of a transaction!" So yeah. I'll just be selling it back later, there's totally no liquid damage of any kind. I did an awful lot of sewing this evening too. A few Christmas projects I'm working on. I started and completed one, in fact, so that felt good. Now the problem is waiting until closer to Christmas to give them to their rightful owners!

Lemon Squeezy

Even better day than yesterday! We had callbacks tonight for Marcus is Walking at school and not only did I get a part (YES!!!), Brianna got one too! She's going to be playing a trick or treating lemon with 'Sunkist' across her forehead. Her role involves making noises to make the other kid laugh! She's going to have a blast! After callbacks we all went to celebrate at a coffee shop near the school. It has a bunch of couches and games and sometimes live music. No band or anything tonight, though. But we did play Texas Hold 'Em. I took out three players in the first round! Didn't win, but no matter, it was a blast. Love my friends, love my life!

It's like the 'Inception' of zits!

Phenomenal day, truly. I wasn't in a great mood this morning at all when I got up, but everything about today was utter and complete 'winner winner chicken dinner'age. The above picture was, um, mysteriously found on the call board today. No clue who did it. *cough* Brianna and the cat have been seriously amusing me today. Spartacus has taken a liking to licking (hehehhehehe....) the Christmas tree for some odd reason. This is the first year he's done that out of three. It's also the first year he hasn't tried to climb the tree at all. Last year he climbed and broke it. I was so busy laughing at his "Aw no..............." face as it fell to be mad that he broke the stand. Jason made a new one out of wood, though, so this year we were like, "Yeah, we're good. He can't break that." Maybe that's why he hasn't tried. Bri, on the other hand, decided that life is more fun when your bellybutton has the capacity for speech. My kid has a sentient navel. I'M going to sleep well tonight....

Helena Bonham Carter to your Tim Burton

Auditions tonight. This is a great action shot from the hallway during the process. I love the atmosphere in this picture, the theater kid love shines through as does the fact that we are all NERVOUS! I didn't do my best...but I did well enough. As in, I didn't set the panel of director's aflame with sheer lack of talent, which is good, and I had some friends text me with results. Apparently I got a callback! Cool. Guess we'll see how this shakes out....

Vending machine rock paper scissors!

Pouty Jessica is pouty because she doesn't like the cold, and the basement is COLD. Not cool. (ah ha ha, irony. Plplplpl...>:-P) Had a great time at school today working monologues with some of the other acting students. Tonight and tomorrow are the auditions for the spring shows. We all bogarded the black box theater on campus and performed our pieces for one another then gave each other feedback. I have a lo-HOT of work to do. (ROCKZOR, the irony! *pleh.*) This evening I made the brillllllllliant decision to watch the Hitchcock thriller 'Stage Fright' while eating my awesome homemade potato soup (pictured) and working on some Christmas presents. Oh cool, murderers at the theater? I'll be able to sleep well now AND do my in-theater classwork and auditions just swell after that! *bleh.*

/sarcasm and ranting.

Pour coffee on her. POUR COFFEE ON HER!

Today in church our youth pastor's son (redhead with the thumbs up) was in the kitchen before the service. I came in to pour myself and Jason some coffee and he came up to me and said, "Miss Jessica! This is VERY important!" He pointed at the sign on the door and said, "What does that say?" "It says 'not an exit.' I replied. He said, "Not an exit? Okay, thank you!" and ran out the door. Ha ha ha! I love little kids! This evening we had a freaky fun improv rehearsal, but I tell you what, I contracted some pretty awesome bruises! Seriously, there's a big one above a scrape on my ankle, a few up my arms, and a mysterious tiny deep purple one on my thumb knuckle. I have no idea how I got a couple of them. I know my back will probably be sore from being flung to the ground via my own momentum (that was one entertaining squawk I let out when I fell....) and the ankle is from being dragged around while clinging to somebody's leg. (THAT was a fun scene!) Fantastic. But boy, out of context, improv scenes sure are weird! Even in context! I love what I do.

I'm never wearing THAT dress again....

Got paid for this today. Yay!

Wrapped in a box

Had a blah day today. Not fun. School was blah, then I got to have coffee with Jason which was nice, and then a music rehearsal for a paid caroling gig tomorrow which was also nice, and then I did some Christmas shopping...which was blah. There's not much good stuff out there this year. Oh well, my girls will have cool presents and blah stocking stuffers. They're luckier than most children in the world either way.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.

Odd day. I went to an improv show with some friends. The show was a smaller group unconnected to the Kansas City Improv scene and I had met one of the people in the group before but hadn't seen them yet. I showed up with a bunch of friends from school and we were sitting near the back, couldn't see, weren't that engaged, so we went to the front part of the venue and played Cranium (I was on a team with Nate and we totally won. Bam.) During the time we were out front the guy I had met came up to me (I can't believe he remembered me, it was like May when I met him) and invited me to join the troupe. I said I'd think about it. It could be fun to play a few shows with them, so I guess we'll see. As we were leaving I walked out onto the sidewalk and saw this pretty girl painted in front of a salon. Very pretty!

Ill Advised Awesomesauce

The above picture shows all the people (plus myself...taking the picture...see mah shadow? Word.) that we managed to cram into the cab of that teeny weeny truck. Not only did we all fit, we got the doors shut. They never told me college would teach me such practical life skills on top of the academic stuff we learn and immediately discard! I feel very fulfilled! (ow, my tongue. It's stuck in my cheek.) Either way, it was a blast and I only have a little bit of internal bleeding so it's all good. Oh yeah, and I managed to whack the crap outta my funny bone and have a nice bruise to show for it. Yay! Tonight was my friend Sarah C's birthday and she invited a bunch of people over to her house for homemade sushi! Yum yum yum, it was so amazingly fantastic! We had a blast, played monopoly, ate cake, etc. At the end of the evening Sarah offered me a piece of cake to take home so I said, "Well, I don't want any but maybe I could take a piece for Jas..........you know what? Nevermind. I don't think I'll be taking any, thanks just the same."

Speaking of my peglegged wonder, he is doing really, really fantastically well. I swelled up like a chipmunk...the boy has none at all. Lucky. Hopefully he'll be back on solids for good before he goes back to work on Saturday.

Demolition Crew in the Hizzouse!

So....we got this odd thingy in the mail today. It said, "Build your very own cat." I followed the instructions step by step exactly the way it said to and this is how it came out. I think I messed up, can anyone out there help me with this one?

Moving on, Jason is doing much better today now that he can feel his face. You'd be surprised at what a nuisance it can be when you mean to say, "Hello there old chap, isn't it a lovely day? Fancy a stroll then? There's a clever lad." And it ends up coming out a glassy-eyed head-cocked tremulous smile that's all chin, teeth, and drool. Thank goodness he's past that and back to being all British again just the way we like him. Thanks, friends out there who have been asking about how he's doing and supporting me as well. It's great to have people in my life who I can play around and laugh with to help me be me. You know who you are and I appreciate you very much.

Zombie

Poor Jason had his wisdom teeth taken out. Oh, and yes, he consented to this photo. Even made a crazy face for it. Anyhow, yeah, he's doing really well. Much better than I did! Probably because mine were all sideways and cemented in my jaw and his just went 'BOOP' to the distant, tiny applauding of the tooth faerie. Also, he has me to cook for him. Not only is his food much better than what I had, but I know exactly what is and isn't impossible to eat so he doesn't have to learn it the way I did. We even rigged up a great system that injects water into his mouth so he didn't have it dribble down his chin while his lips were numb like I did.

50 million screaming fans are never wrong

I had a wonderful day. It's great coming back and resuming my regularly scheduled life. Most people aren't fans of their routines I've noticed, but mine is great because it provides hecticness and breathability and for the most part I can shuffle things around to fit what I can most productively do into any given time slot. For example, if I feel chill I can do homework or watch a movie and sew in that space. If I feel bouncity and energetic, I can cook or clean while dancing to music. Something always needs to get done and I am happy to do it, no matter how much of a freak that makes me....beyond the obvious already in progress. Either way, today I felt like seeing people and lucky me, that's exactly what I got to do! Church in the morning, rehearsal in the evening with my improv troupe. I was going to take pictures at rehearsal, but whenever it's really good and fun (like tonight was) it totally slips my mind. Not such a bad thing. As I was pulling away I remembered, however, so here's a picture of my rearview mirror faerie that I got in San Fransisco this Summer and just put up. I didn't have her up for a while because one of her wings broke off, I fixed it, it broke, fixed, broken....etc. So I fixed it again and surprise surprise, it fell off again. Time to get some heavy artillery I guess. It's a sad day when superglue fails you and your faerie is left with only one option: To fly around in sad little concentric circles because you can't steer effectively with only one wing.

It's Crazy, I know.

Today we made the trek back to Kansas City. I love car rides with my family so much. Torturing the girls, taunting cows, listening to music then butchering it by screeching the lyrics as loud as possible...we're a lot of fun if you're into that sort of thing. No? Cool. Well I love it. Anywho, on the way up the girls were teasing me about how I always have to get Starbucks when we travel, so to mess with them (and because I wanted it) I said, "STARBUCKS RUN!" the instant we got into the metro area and pulled off the highway to a known Starbucks location (they may have a point...). As we pulled into the drive through I was asking Jason for his order as he was giving it to me and both children were yelling for ice water. Somehow the guy got our items correct and we pulled forward, but when we got to the front it was a young lady who handed us our drinks. As I was reaching up to take the waters, she said, "Derrick says these are a present from him to you." I laughed and said, "Thank you!" and saw a young guy inside the shop smile in my direction. He said, "You can write me a thank you card if you'd like!" I said, "Sure!" So while we waited for my mocha he located a large piece of paper and a sharpie, then the girl handed them to me. The paper was already folded and 'Thank you' had been written on the front, so I drew a dorky smiley face, wrote a message of thanks for the water on the inside, signed it, then handed it to Jason and the girls to sign just as we got Jason's americano. I passed back the card and sharpie and we continued on our way, the girls teasing me about my fancy coffee habit the whole way home. When we got back Brianna wanted to test out her bike for the first time, and she rode it without training wheels for a short while! Yay Bri! We decorated the tree this evening, just in case there were any lingering doubts that it's almost December. The girls posed as you see in the picture and Jason said, "Are you gonna let them do that?" Well of course! Anyone can get bland posed pictures of their kids. Seriously, they're a dime a dozen and not interesting to look at. Someday my girls will look back on this picture and laugh and we'll talk about how well it captures their personalities. What on earth could be better than that?

The New Leftovers

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving. There were 18 people at the house...only seven of us were family. Yikes. I'm surprised the house didn't explode! We did the meal thing and after everyone left we opened a few Christmas presents since Bob won't be back before then. Bri got the best deal, though. We took her to Wal-Mart where she was allowed to choose a bike! Leigha got an ipod/CD/radio thing, Jason got a book and a hitch for his vehicle, and I got my favorite thing of all. Gift cards! The gift of shopping! I can dig it. Now that the actual meal is behind us it is full tilt Christmas time. Here goes nothin'...

What's his last name?

Happy Thanksgiving, all. We did not celebrate today because Aaron has to work, so our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of frozen pizza and the Spongebob movie. Hoping yours was better and ours will be better tomorrow. This year, I am thankful for:

-The standard issue items such as family, food, friends, etc.

-My new car

-All the fantastic people I have befriended this year

-Losing people in my life who were not fantastic

-The reaffirmation that there is always, ALWAYS a way

-My magical sewing machine of magicalness

-Flight benefits

-My purple sharpie

-Chuck Taylors

-And always, always for my sense of humor that can get me through ANYTHING.

Merry Thanksmas, everyone!

QT hearts U!

Travel day, travel day, la la la la laaaaaa! The girls and I hung out and packed today, then when Jason got up we headed down to Sheila's. We stopped at the QT on the way and surprise, surprise, they have pumpkin pie and whipped cream in their fridge! Hilarious! But hey, if you forget your dessert you know where to go now. We drove down, had dinner, watched a movie, then the girls went to bed...so Jason and I snuck out and went to Wal-Mart, dredging up a multitude of memories from when we were in high school and the only place to hang out was Wal-Mart. Ugh. The best thing about going to small-town Wal-Marts now is that even when I don't have purple hair people stare at me. It's readily apparent that I don't belong, so I welcome the staring. Exotic flowers like me don't blossom in small cages.

You don't mean it.

Last day of school for all of us before Thanksgiving break starts! My day flew by quickly and before I knew it I was out of class and basking in the company of my friends one last time before we all dispersed to the loving arms of our families. Leigha took full advantage of the no school tomorrow thing by spending the night at a friend's, Bri got to go to a tea party with her girl scout troupe, and Netflix kicked out a Dexter disc for Jason to get to catch up on today. I'd say we're all doing pretty good and have a ton to be thankful for. I'll have to remember that when it's a week before Christmas and I'm running around like a rabid ferret who knows how to cure rabies but when she got to the pharmacy she realized she didn't speak English so she's having to do charades but lacks a few pieces of basic human anatomy such as thumbs so she's just frantically running around waving her arms emphatically. So pretty busy then.

Dude, I totally won.

Holy salmon eggs today went by so fast! Went to classes then to the Godspell 'post mortem' talk for some extra credit for my Acting 2 class. It went well, lots of positive things were said about the show. When I got home the delicious pair of vintage heels I ordered were waiting for me! *SQUEE!* It's been a while since I've posted a picture of my feet, but THIS time I had a reason for it other than boredom! I still like my bored feet pics, btw. No, I don't know why.

Clean Shaven, Brah!

Closing day of Godspell! Due to the gritty nature of the show a lot of the guys had to grow a substantial amount of facial scruff to give it an authentic feel (and also because spirit gum sucks) so all week long we kept hearing, "Arrgh, I can't wait to get this thing off me!" *beard scratch* So today immediately following the show (before we even started striking the set) Graham and Erik disappeared into the men's dressing room and came out looking all shiny and new. Much high fiving ensued. The best part, though, was watching people react upon seeing their faces, some of them for the first time sans beardage. It was like we suddenly had a gang of strangers running around that looked vaguely like the cast members we have all grown to love. The cast party was supposed to take place at the director's house, but that fell through so I offered up my place instead and we had a great time hanging out one last time (For now. The show may get to perform at a festival in January) and bonding as friends. Fare thee well, Godspell. It was wonderful while it lasted. I'm really looking forward to some free time.

No, wait, Thanksgiving is this week. Nerp! Scratch that idea...

Lightsabers and Lollypops

After Godspell tonight Charlotte hosted a 'continuation of Halloween' costume party at her house. It was amazing, she lives with her parents and they have a huge beautiful house that they filled with amazing little details like severed hands on side tables and spiderweb curtains, not to mention a portrait of Medusa that changed from a regular looking girl into a full on snakes-a-blazin' attack picture if you got too close to it. Nice. My favorite part, however, was when she took us down their hallway (which had been lined in black plastic trash bags and was filled with cobwebs and black lights) into her room, where she had a bunch of decorations, spider webs, and animatronic figures that moved about in the fog-machine enhanced room as Thriller played in the background. Seriously, they went all out, it was great! This being a theater party, we all adjourned to the lawn for a lightsaber battle (that came out blurry but cool looking. Sorry.) then came back inside to perform our monologues for one another. Too fun!

Oh holy jeans!

Today we had TWO showings of Godspell. The morning show was for a bunch of high school theater kids. We have a great program called 'In the Wings' in which several local high schools bring their theater kiddos to our school and starting at 9am we have workshops. They range from costuming to singing to stage combat. Pretty sweet! Lucky me, I got to be the timekeeper for the improv workshop! As soon as that concluded I went backstage and got the costumes down and we put on a great show for them. After, we all went to a great mexican restaurant that's across the street from the school. When theater people get together outside of our typical thesbian haunts, we don't respect the rules of societal norms and (especially if we're in a restaurant) we sing in public. A lot. And very loudly. So while we were at the restaurant going through a few songs, I started singing Bohemian Rhapsody....and it kept going and going. Everyone knows at least a few parts of that song and we were fortunate enough for our knowledge to overlap so everyone sang their bit until we all united for "Mammaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Oooh-ooh-ooh ooooooooooooh!" when Tony yelled out, "Come see Godspell!" Awesome. And we got a few laughs too! We all rolled back to the theater after that and chilled until our respective call times, which for me wasn't very long at all. Since the costumes were still out from the earlier show, however, I did have extra time, which is great because this far into the run everybody's costume is starting to show more wear and tear. The show's concept is not the traditional Godspell with Jesus in a Superman shirt, it's set under some train tracks with a bunch of homeless and bottom of the society barrel people, so the costumes were distressed and dirtied to a great extent. However, the holes in several of the pants were getting just a little too big, so I spent a good portion of the evening sewing up the corners of knees. We want them to have holes, but not to the extent that we can see your knee cleavage (or 'kneavage' as I called it). The lucky victim in the picture is Graham. He's the drummer in the show's band and the band stays onstage the entire time (in fact, the drum set is in the bed of a rusty old truck. It's very cool.) Everyone else I managed to catch and fix before they were wearing them, and then I caught Graham trying to safety pin his knees together and I said, "Oh no you don't!" Drummers are trouble, man. You gotta watch out for them. Fortunately he was a very good sport about the whole thing, even telling me, "You do good work." Before we all headed backstage into the dark.

Which hair?

Boy I look tired and unhappy in this picture! I'm tired in it, yes, but very happy. Today was a great day. I did my monologue in my acting class, this time for a grade, and guess what? This time I nailed it. Hooray! Also, in my world music class we got to learn about Bob Marley (yes.) and ska (YES!) So happy! Then I got to see Austin for a bit and have lunch with Jason before getting my hair re-purpled (yeah!) and heading back to the theater for the brush up rehearsal for Godspell. When that got out, it was Harry Potter time. Yup, that's right, I went to my very first midnight movie premier! Some of my friends were going but I bought my ticket seperately from theirs so the AMC (who assigns seats........lame) not only had me sitting all by myself, but in a different theater! I was super bummed about that so I went to get my money back and they said, "Oh....well, which theater are your friends in?" Luckily the theater they were in had a few extra seats so I got to sit with them. Yay! Take note: AMC....stop assigning seats. We don't always buy our tickets at the same time and we'd like to sit with our friends. Southwest Airlines...assign seats. I hate having to go through a slapfight every time just to make sure I get to sit next to my six year old and not have her in the last seat which is always across the plane next to two creepy old men.

Thank you very much

We had our Thanksgiving dinner at church tonight. Alisa did the decorating and she made a huge banner with a verse on it, then at every place setting she put these little pieces of paper with a sticky tab on the back and instructed everyone to write what they were thankful for and stick it on the board. This was mine. Not that I'm not also thankful for my family and stuff, 'cause I totally am, it's just that I am also thankful for shiny distractions (realio trulio) and figured they needed representation on the board as well. Brianna wrote that she was thankful for food.

Know your place.

Brianna sure was a firecracker today. She lectured the cat for a while about his behavior, then had a chat with the computer about the dolls she was thinking about making on Barbie's website. Also, she does this thing sometimes where she randomly talks in a southern accent, so when I decided to order pizza for dinner she solemnly declared that our pepperoni thick crust was named 'Billuh Bawb Jownz.' Strange, strange duck. Leigha had girl scouts this evening. It really does amaze me how apparent it is lately that she's growing up. Even in little things. Like this evening when Jason went to get the pizza they made it wrong and had to get a new one for us so he didn't get back until it was just about time to take her. Without having been prompted to get ready by anyone she came downstairs already decked out in sneakers and a hoodie saying, "Where's dad?" I guarantee you if it was two minutes to time for Bri to ride a magical pink glittery unicorn through a cotton candy meadow while listening to merry go round and Christmas music and eating ice cream sprinkled with candy bars, she would still be upstairs, in her room, coloring. Completely oblivious. Possibly naming a toy Billy Bob Jones, for that matter.

Photobomb IRL

Oh the things you find backstage. I had a rather abbreviated day at school due to the fact that both of my classes let out early. I have class from eleven to noon which was shortened by half an hour, a break, then from one to two which today went only until one twenty-five. Sweet! Maybe this is to make up for all the extra time I've been at the school lately. At any rate the evening was spent torturing the girls, which was a lot of fun for Jason and I. Oh, and PS- I lost my camera charger but couldn't find one at Target or Best Buy for under $25, so I came home and found one on Amazon for less than $5.....with shipping. I'm never buying another stupid cord from a store again unless it's an emergency.

Poppa, wheelie?

We had some excitement at church this morning...while I was singing during worship Dustin suddenly started swatting at something, taking one and sometimes both hands off the piano. Very odd, I thought...but didn't want to draw more attention to it than was already being drawn, so I ignored it and carried on. When we left the stage I asked him what was going on and he said, "Oh, yeah, so there was a spider on the microphone..." Yeah. What's more, the guy is an arachnaphobe. I laughed so hard! Poor Dustin! After church we stayed and had pizza with Dustin and Alanna. The kids took the whole playing together pretty seriously too. Besides messing around with the wheelchair they turned the tables (which had been pre-set for our Thanksgiving dinner this Wednesday) into forts with blankets and pillows. I was genuinely impressed at the scope of it!

Healing touch

Saturday! Yay! I had a really great day, too. I got to sleep in and chill with the fam then I joined some friends for dinner before the show. I didn't stay all night tonight because Jason works, but at least I got to be there for the flurry of activity that is costuming the cast. During all the rushing about one of the actors twisted his ankle pretty bad and we were trying to figure out the best way to help him when around the corner comes Jeremy, the actor who is playing Jesus. He happens to be a paramedic in his 'real life' job, so he checked it out and wrapped it up nicely. I thought that was great, especially considering 'Jesus' was healing the guy who plays Judas's homeboy! I forgive you, my son, now go forth and twist your ankle no more!

No Cars Go

So this is me in my backstage costuming emergency apron. Thank goodness I had it on, too, because we had a skirt that failed to stay up during the first act! Luckily the actress was completely hidden from the audience so nobody noticed. I pinned it up like a ninja and we were good to go! After the show I got to hang out for a bit with a few cast and crew members and it was a blast! Absolutely lovely evening.

Opening night and everything is all right

Today was one of Jason's days off so when I was finished with school he came down and took me out for lunch. Very sweet of him! Tonight was opening night for Godspell. After the audience left we had to do production pictures which took forever, but look how pretty everything looks! Austin came to the show tonight and ran around taking pictures of the cast along with the photographer. She even got one from the train tracks looking down. Very nice! Well done, cast and crew!