Midweek and holding

It is now Wednesday of play week and I have gotten the two initial long days under my belt.  I am not quite so desperately tired as I was yesterday.  I woke up at 4:15 and knew that if I went back to sleep, it would not be for 15 min, it would be for 1.5 hours.....  and that would have sucked.  Well, that would have been a really good thing for me, but you know what I mean.  But I feel pretty awake, and Wednesday is generally a good day.

I do have to work on grades though, as I WILL be done with them by Friday!!!  I will not be doing my quarter grades over the spring break, no sirree Bob!  That will not be happening, so I have my work cut out for me today and Friday.  Thursday is off the table, as that is the day I am involved in the play from 7 am until 3:30- 3 performances of the first act, and the second act once.  But I can't get ahead of myself, tonight is a dress rehearsal, no makeup, which reminds me, I have to go clean the greater village of Park Falls out of #105 Covergirl makeup- those little munchkins are all so light, they need this color. Well, not all are super light, but the majority of them are.

Anywho, the scenes have all been taped, and tonight, if the stage crew manages to all show up, they will have a pretty easy go of it.  My impatience for a couple of those young people is growing daily, as I do not want to be waiting to change out these scenes because they are holed up somewhere playing a video game or texting or what have you..... I mean if I have my phone on silent, they certainly can too.  Oy.  And JUST when I get them trained, they go and graduate on me.  But that is the nature of High School!

Yesterday's events went fairly smoothly, even though there were some crazy delays.  But those can't be helped, and for some unknown reason, a usually dependable person was not there to be my door guard, which I had some stand-ins, but much of the time I was doing double duty.  We have a large auditorium and I covered a lot of ground between opening the top door, letting groups in the bottom door, talking to the judge as needed and then going back and closing the bottom door, and then the top door as the groups started performing.  You get the idea. Heard a huge variety of things- but super enjoyed hearing the jazz bands and the woodwind and brass choirs.  Awesome stuff, and our school should be very proud.  They rocked the house!  I was also very impressed that our superintendent was there to watch solo and ensemble!!  Granted he is a "band guy", but I don't think I have EVER seen a Sup't at one of these in the MANY years I have been participating in them as organizer/mom/worker.  And trust me, I've been to a lot of them.  YAY Mr. Anderson!

Yesterday was also pretty epic in terms of what a progressive school we do have, especially when you compare to others of similar size around the state.  Let us just say, we are not rolling in dough at this point in time. I try to avoid, like the plague, ANY knowledge of the school's financial situation as I get too stressed out by it.  I can't even.  But virtually NO school in the state is "comfy" shall we say.  But we have managed- possibly through a little grant money, idk, I stay willfully ignorant- to become a school that is using one to one computing now.  We have enough small laptops for each student to use in the HS every day.  This is pretty cool, really, and yesterday was rollout day.  I really don't want to have this turn into a debate about anything, so if you have something negative to say, keep your mind OPEN for crying out loud, and know that I will delete your comment if you bum me out.  I know that this is an awesome thing, and we all know that computers are not "the wave of the future" or the "up  and coming new thing" but a fact of life.  And we are pulling our students, who traditionally are insulated from the rest of the world by virtue of our isolated geographical location, right up into a modern mode of learning that will involve more fluid ways of working instead of the regimented and rigid system of bells, clocks and separation of school from all other aspects of their life.  whew, not sure where all that came from.  But it is the truth!!  This is a good thing, even though we actually have some pretty close minded kiddos who think this is "stupid".  But fortunately, they will benefit from this, they just don't know it yet.  :)

So the next few days we will have a huge learning curve and things may not go smoothly all the time, but it will be a good thing in the end.  And like most things, in a year this big move will be a matter of fact and not at all a big deal.

Fortunately there will be things at school that do not happen virtually, things like, oh I don't know, the PLAY and ART on a canvas and MUSIC in an auditorium and SPORTS and RECESS and other group and individual physical activities.  Things that make a person complete, things that stretch the mind and enhance your creativity and ability to solve problems and work well with others, which is what we all need as we grow up and move on....  And remember this is a techie chick talking.....

Onto Wednesday, I hope to get home to rest for a while tonight, and I tell you people, this second week of no TV is killing me.  I want to sit and listen to the news and have something funny to relax me and take my mind off of whatever is bothering me.  Which I have a few things of this sort, but won't go into it now.....

Make sure to find the time to spread some joy!!!!  Avoid those joy stealers.

ON TO PLAY WEEK! (is it done yet?) and weekend wrap up

Play week is not for the faint of heart.  It is a tremendous amount of work and I will be standing a lot this week.  A LOT!!  I hope I can find my black crocs, because I am going to need them.  Which reminds me, I have to find a black t-shirt sometime this week, or go buy one or something, because the ones I had are just too unimaginably big and I think I thrift shopped them.  I am so impetuously compulsive sometimes about that sort of thing.  I am sure those big t-shirts would have been fine.....  ugh.

So tonight, it is full dress and makeup dress rehearsal, and I am going to be putting makeup on the main cast members.  I am excited about this, being able to do the lions and scarecrow's makeup, PLUS the witches and the tin man!!  And Dorothy, but I just need to glam her up a bit, she can do fine on her own mostly.  I adore this part of makeup, including sliding eyeliner on the nervous and blinking furiously boys that are in the cast.  Some of my favorite moments of hilarity and bonding have taken place while staring at the anxious eyelids of the play cast members.  It is an intimate moment in time, so to speak, lots of fears have been revealed over eyeliner.

I am making sure to pack healthy food, including some of the copious amount of hummus I made last night and probably will have some almond milk along to make a protein shake.  I will need the energy to teach all day, then go directly to makeup and then to staging and marking for dress rehearsal tonight. The first dress rehearsal generally finishes after 8:30 pm.  With 49 munchkins involved......  oy.  They will soon find out that the witch really resides behind the stage, as I do not take any fooling around when we are in character..... something that the big kids understand, but the little kids don't quite get.  Sorry kiddos, Mrs. Oswald has been taken over by one of her other personalities.

So weekend update- I did end up getting the card table- even though we went and had Chinese last night to avoid the whole cooking thing.  Which is cool as I have lunch now for today, since I did not get all the cooking done I had planned yesterday.... but that is fine.  I had NO IDEA that the Chinese place had a tofu dish.  YAY!

I got a 5.5 mile walk in also, even though I swear people were conspiring to goof up my afternoon to myself.  I didn't exactly get what I planned for, but oh well.  It was good enough.

One week from today people- one week from today begins my spring break, and I begin it with............drum roll.............. a dentist appt!!!  WTF?????  WHAT WAS I THINKING??????? I can't even.

But then I can go to the gym all day if I want!

Can't think about that now, too much to do before that.

So a few weekend photos, I have a couple including a stone house one or two and a few other little things.  Because it reminds me that life will be back to "normal" soon

peek!

Stone house

Little Cabin in the snow

Winter shadows

Until next time, be a joy giver and avoid those joy stealers!!  HEY, and if you find yourself to be stealing someone's joy, give it back. You both will feel better!  :)

preparation part 1

I am going on a 7 day canoe trip to the Boundary waters in only a couple days!!  Sunday to be exact!  I was talking to the Mad-sistah Rose a little while ago, and we are making final preparations and plans.  We know mostly what we are and aren't going to take.  You all would have laughed as we definitely agreed that makeup, anything beyond basic hygiene and personal style will not be a concern..... that comfort for a 45+ year old body(shut up, I know how old I am)  is way more important than things, like, oh I don't know....  say FOOD or something!  We must have our sleep pad, our pillow and our canoe seat.  Our bodies, heads and butts just can't take the abuse any more.  I don't care if I eat, but baby, I sure as hell have to sleep at least a couple hours.  Or they will be helicoptering me out of there, just because they can't stand the crabbiness!  Lol.  Just kidding, I can take anything for a week.  We also enjoyed comparing how we are not thinking about any of this other than the fact that we are so NOT in charge and what a pleasant change of pace that will be!  And how we are doing our best to avoid JOY STEALERS!!!!  There will be no talk of anything unpleasant, like the weather or wild-life or anything else that I do not want to think about.  And of course we discussed the final trip or two to REI that needs to be made, my new personal favorite retail establishment!  Though I have to visit their online location or have the Mad-sistah go there for me, which of course she will!

It was an interesting conversation at any rate!  I was laughing at us, it was a hoot.  And now it is late and I have to go to bed, but I am starting this preparation posting, because we all know there will be more!!!

3 days to go!!!

I'll find some more joy tomorrow!







*They will have coffee won't they??????