So nice of you to have dropped by and yes, before I go any farther...I know it's been 2 weeks since my last post but hey, what can I say? It's the end of the school year (my daughter is wrapping up her Freshman year in high school) and it's been a C-R-A-Z-Y few weeks!
Let's go back about a week before the fortnight* (Incidentally if there's a word that means '3 weeks ago' I love to know it because I know that a fortnight is the shortened version of a period of time that covers 14 consecutive days/nights, fourteen-nights and I know that using the term 'moon' as it relates to time means month, ex. the baby was born full-term at 10 moons, but I've never heard of what comes between a fortnight and a moon. Granted it's not really an altogether important thing to know but now that I've had a moment to consider the notion...I have to wonder.
And perhaps now I've made you wonder, too, thus creating the sort of off the wall tangent that really gets me (and you, Kind Reader) all discombobulated and wondering how in the world I'll ever make it back to the point of the matter which in this case happens to be...looking back 3 weeks ago. (Wow, am I good with the transitory phrasing or what? My English teacher, Mrs. Jewett, would be SO proud of me to know that I'd wiggled my wordy way back to where I was supposed to be!)
So 3 weeks ago my daughter was busily preparing for her choir's 'Spring Show', a 2 act musical extravaganza wherein Act I started off with the 'A Capella' choir (which actually isn't a capella at all, rather it's an all-female junior varsity sort of thing singing and dancing to Adele's 'Rumour Has It'. There they were, about 40 really attractive girls between the ages of 14-18 dressed to the 9s in black & white with a hint of red complete with stage makeup to really make their features stand out. UGH!
The rest of Act I was filled with soloists, duets, and a trio singing all different kinds of songs to prerecorded music or they played the piano or the guitar. My Jessica plays guitar (both acoustic and electric) and sings, too. And yes, she's quite good, too. No, I'm not just saying that either. She really is. Oi! Blonde hair, blue eyes, curvy, brainy, athletic, musical, and just kooky enough to be her own person--I can practically feel my hair turning gray as I think about the next few years! But luckily she's got a good deal of common sense mixed in with all those other things which makes me feel a bit better. Anyway, she played her guitar, sang her song and got lots of cheers. And I could see that magic little sparkle in her eyes as she listened to the crowd clapping. Yes, my sweetie-pie has been bitten by the performing bug and you know what? Her dad and I support her 100%.
And then there was Act II. It was...different. Essentially it was made up of selections from the Broadway musical "Spring Awakening" which is a really dark sort of tale filled with sometimes gut wrenching songs. At first I wondered why J didn't get a part in it. But in retrospect, I'm kinda glad she didn't. But the final number 'Go Ye Now In Peace' (they sing this at the end of all their classes...it's sort of a nice way to leave class don't you think?) was wonderful.
Of course, that doesn't say anything about how busy 'I' was during this time. Aside from just being a happy mom watching her child perform, I also offered to take pictures of the dress rehearsal as well as video the performances...that took about 4 days of my time. But I didn't mind because I really enjoy being around the kiddos and I also run the choir's website so I wanted to get a few shots for it. And then I got this nifty idea to take 30-45 second snippits of each performance to load on the site via YouTube. Simple enough right? But as the patrons were leaving the first performance a woman came up to me and asked if I could get her a copy of her daughter singing because she'd goofed up her recording. So I said, 'Sure' then another parent heard me and asked me the same thing. And before I realized it, I had several parents asking me to do the same for their kids. Which I didn't mind doing.But somehow my original plan to simply make little 30 second snippets turned into creating a full-fledged video with layered sound that I engineered to get all the little blips and whatnots out of. (Now if you've never done this sort of thing--it takes a good deal of time because you take the video, separate the sound, edit the sound. Then edit the video. Then you layer the song back onto the video track, making sure to sync the sound to the movement of lips--not exactly easy peasy) Oh, and since I'd already pulled the audio tracks, I decided what the hey-ha-hooey, I'll just make an audio CD, too. It turned out to be a 2 CD set.
By the way, this wonderful act of kindness on my part wound up taking about 50 hours of intensive labor. But more about that later!
Because, you see, the show was on May 11 & 12. And if you read my previous post, you'll know that my birthday was on May 15. I turned 6. (For those of you who may be confused...hold up your left hand to show '4' and your right hand to show '2' and bada bing, bada boom....6! Don't you just LOVE the sort of math we double Xer's use as we age? Now that YOU know the secret you never have to be over 55 (or 10) if you use the less advanced hand formula because unfortunately, since we only have 2 hands, the whole thing gets a bit confusing (trust me try to make your fingers 'show' 68...not so easy. Of course, you could use your feet but, heck, I'm only 42...er...6 and my back protests when I try to bend like I did when I really was 6!
Anywhooooo...back to the tale. Now nestled between all the show stuff (May 9-12) and my birthday (May 15) was Mother's Day. Ah, the day when moms (and I don't care if you're a 'traditional' mom; a single mom (or dad); or in a nontraditional double mom or double dad parental situation; or...well, you get the idea...Mother's Day is OUR day! Because we DESERVE it! And I got nifty cards, candies, and vouchers for 1 hour massages. Oh, and we drove 3 hours up to Dallas to see the musical 'American Idiot'. Totally worth the drive! Absolutely adored the show. Yep, I might be 42--drat, I've gotta stop thinking that--6--but I love me some serious rock-n-roll! And Michael Bublè. Weird dichotomy I know. But hey, I never claimed to be 'un' weird!
On my actual birthday...I had a fabulous time at...a Theatre Booster Club meeting. Yes, I know. But they sang 'Happy Birthday' to me. And when I got home, there was a cake for me. So that turned out to be great.
(All the while I'm working on that video...tick tock, tick tock)Moving on to May 17...that was the day of the Theatre Banquet held at a local country club. It was so sweet. The theatre director got all weepy because this year is the FIRST year that my daughter's school will have an actual graduating class. (The school is only 3 years old) And the rest of us in the crowd got weepy too because we all realized that one day it will be our kids who are the Seniors. (J graduates in 2015...sigh)
(All the while I'm still working on that video...tick tock, tick tock)
May 19 & 20 found Todd, Jessica and I criss-crossing the greater Austin area multiple times hunting for the last 6 of 20 unique animals for a PreAP Biology project. And you know how they say everything is bigger in Texas? They're not lying. Austin lies in 2 counties...Travis & Williamson and together they have a combined area of 2,157 sq. miles (5,587 sq km for those of you on that wacky metric system!) It took flippin' forever because 1/2 the animals around here are deadly and the other half aren't but they hide so it's not the easiest thing. It came down to needing one more mammal. Only it couldn't be domesticated or livestock.
That sort of narrowed the field a bit. Because it's not like you can quietly tip-toe up to a coyote and say, 'Hey there, pretty puppy. Can I take your picture?' And you know how a house cat gets all clawy and hissy and generally want to rip off your face when you try to sneak up on it and take a picture? Try imagine doing that with a Mountain Lion. Hmmm....we needed a mammal!
What to do? What to do? Ooooh, wait. Austin is called the 'Bat Capital of the World'. Yeah, bats. You know those creepy winged critters that swarm out and scare the pajeebers out of a person. (Though, to be honest, when I was growing up in NC, the house I lived in had a really high attic that was never used, so there were a few bats that liked to hang out in it and my mama always said in the summertime, "Now when you see the bats coming out, it's time to come home." So my pajeebers don't really get totally scared out of me when I see them. But for most people it does.)
So there I was snapping pictures of the eclipse waiting for the bats. And never once did it dawn on me that the eclipse (even though it was partial) sort of messed up the internal clocks of the bats. So 8:30 came...no bats. 8:45...no bats. 9:00...no damn bats! 9:15...finally they came out. Only instead of hundreds of thousands of them swooshing out across the night sky, only about a hundred came out and they seemed disoriented. Thank goodness my flash was fast enough to catch a few pictures of the wing-flapping critters! (Of course, it took something like 50 shots to get 2 that were really good!)
The next day, May 21...J was at school and I was still working on that video. But time was starting to catch up to me because that video was needed by 6:30PM on May 24...the day of the Choir Banquet. Oh, and I had to take my mom to physical therapy. Hmmm, forgot to mention that about 20 paragraphs ago...so please rewind your brains and factor that into my crazy 3 weeks.
I was staying up literally until 1:30AM in the morning working on that video and not falling asleep until about 2:15ish. Then I was up at 7:30AM. Tick tock, tick tock...
Thursday, May 24 came and I wasn't done with the video. I still had 3 acts to edit. I was starting to get a little wacky. I lost the ability to form coherent sentences sometime around Wednesday afternoon. And it so happened on Thursday that my mom had therapy. So I was frantically working in the waiting area of the therapy center (by the way to the people who had to hear those 2 lines in 'Before He Cheats' ad nauseum I'm sorry but weren't you totally invested and proud when you heard the loud 'WOO HOO' I gave when I finally got the video synced with the audio?!?!)
5:00PM...still working. In fact, it was around this time that I grabbed J and Todd and had them burning copies of the videos and CDs on their computers.
6:00PM...almost done. But wait! I look like a train wreck! Seriously. My hair was in a floppy-loppy ponytail. I hadn't one drop of makeup on. I was still wearing my shorts & T-shirt. And Lordy Moses...I was supposed to be at the venue half an hour earlier to set up. But no! Still burning DVDs! But somehow I was able to throw on a dress, heels, makeup and I even got my hair to look good. And not in that 'ho-hum, neat looking' way. It was actually in a really pretty French bun style with a clippy thing. And whew, we were in the car by 6:15. Luckily, the country club is only about 7 minutes away.
Now you're probably thinking I was so pleased with myself. Got the DVDs done, CDs done, I even created a slide show with background music. But then---AAAACCCCKKKK!!! I decided to quickly go thru the DVD to see how it turned out and I'll be damned if the one video that I'd been working on so furiously at the therapy center was NOT the one that I burned onto the DVD! NOOOOOO! I'd inadvertently burned the one that didn't have the correct soundtrack added. So there was this fabulously cool video with a song being sung by undoubtedly one of the best singers I've ever heard and then there were these blips of silence where I'd inserted images to snazzify the video. GADS!
I totally F-R-E-A-K-E-D out! Especially since it turned out that the DVDs were supposed to go in the Senior gift bags! But Todd said not to worry. I could just reburn them and replace the DVDs later. And then I was able to calm down and sort of enjoy the banquet. We even showed the DVD (with the correct version of 'Before He Cheats' on it) as the kids ate. They were pretty impressed to see themselves up on a huge screen. Their smiles were all I really needed.
When I got home, I was so tired, I slept like a rock. A couple of weeks of being frazzled will do that to a person. I woke up on the 25th feeling like a totally different person. A sane person. Sane is good.
Of course, that was May 25th and today is May 30...so what happened to the 5 days in between? A few days of relaxing and getting Jessica ready for her last week of being a Freshman on June 1. Holy cow, this year has flown by. I can't believe it. Summer is upon us here in Texas. Temps in the 90s and little rainfall. So yep, I'm already preparing my emergency evacuation kit...don't want a repeat of last year's wildfire mayhem.
Then June 3rd we're going to see Les Miserables. LOVE THAT SHOW! Oh, and then on June 4th J is getting her wisdom teeth taken out. UGH!! I was just overwhelmed with a wave of stress and dread. No one likes knowing their child is going to have such a painful surgery!
Then, finally, after all that craziness is over, I can settle into summer and enjoy myself.
What's that?
***Excuse me, my brain just interrupted this post to make my fingers remind me that I can't relax.***
Why can't I relax, oh, wondrous brain of mine?
Oh, geez, that's right. J is turning 15 on June 18 and will be taking Driver's Ed in a few weeks. UGH!!! My child with a driver's permit. Maybe I ought to get some more anxiety medicine!
And gosh golly, that's all I've got...til next time!
