Well today is the 2nd day of my diet & after last night's dance rehearsal and workout session, I woke up ravenous. If I had been a bear caught in a trap I would have gladly chewed off my own foot to get to a Sonic Drive-In. Luckily this was not the case, and I will not have to hop on one foot to get from point A to point B.
We have another rehearsal tonight for Jekyll & Hyde. I am so blessed to be in this show with these amazing people. My only fear is that I will be the one who sticks out like a sore thumb and brings down the quality of the production. I haven't gotten called down for anything, so maybe that isn't the case. Yet. There is still the possibility that dancing like an epileptic walrus could damage the choreographer's vision :)
Tonight we are learning a new song. One of my favorite numbers in the whole show is called "Good And Evil" and it pretty much explains the entire show's theme: inside each person there is good and evil, and we must all make our decision to be one or the other; but ultimately we will be both regardless of our intentions. Unfortunately, Wolfbane couldn't get the rights to the song, so we're doing "Bring on the Men" which I also really like but for a different reason. This one is really brash and funny. But it has a 10 measure dance break in the middle where all of the whorehouse ladies shake it. I am really really worried about that dance break. I am neither graceful, nor sexy so I'm not sure how I'll fare with this choreography. All the other women (and in Tim's case, man) are dancers and then there's me. I do have to admit to feeling like I'm the stretch cast in all of this. I am not a great actress, I can't dance my way out of a paper sack and my singing abilities are greatly diminished from where they were when I was in college. But everyone is being really nice and not saying any of that to my face. One lady even mentioned to me that I had one of the prettiest female voices she had heard in a very long time. Which was a huge compliment because it was right after a vocal run through where we heard our principals sing for the first time.
But I do have to just gab for a minute here. There are so many cute guys in this show. Even though we are a small cast, we are powerful and everyone is just gorgeous. We have the smouldering dark dramatist, the adorable blond comedian, the wolf-like blond mystery, and the funny independent goofball. Something for every woman :) It's pretty bad that for my first performance in 5 years I have to work with so many hot men, because hot men make me nervous. Really nervous.
Well, I will sign off for now. I'll return and write more later.
30 June 2009
First Dance Rehearsal!!!
Today was a pretty uneventful day until the mid-afternoon. I didn’t have anything to do this morning and still didn’t get any calls about my job applications so I puttered around the house, did some laundry, dishes, and all that jazz. I found out my mother would be coming to the house to meet an insurance adjuster so I wanted to make myself scarce before she got there after the last episode between us. I must have taken the world’s quickest shower and folded all my laundry in record time. It was all for naught though, because literally as I was walking to my truck she pulled up. Great, I thought, here we go again. My good day will be ruined by her manic mess. I always feel really bad for reacting that way, but when your mother is mentally unstable and uses you as her trigger in all situations, makes up horrible things about you to make other people “get on her side” because she feels she needs that, has violent outbursts directed toward you, and is verbally and physically abusive when you see her… all this doesn’t really add up to the most stable loving mother-daughter relationship in the world. And I have to say that I am more used to it now. My mother has been this way for 13 years. This year that will be exactly half of my life. She’s always had these weird paranoid tendencies and cared too much of what other people think about her, but when I was 13 she went over the edge. Now we know that she is bi-polar, has a paranoia disorder, agoraphobia, auditory misapprehension (essentially she convinces herself she hears things she doesn’t. Not hearing voices exactly, but she wants to think the worst so she twists things in her mind until they actually are the worst and then she believes what she has manufactured), and we are all pretty sure that she has started over the edge toward schizophrenia and dementia. Yeah, it’s a mess. It’s times like today when I am so thankful that I take after my father. I do struggle sometimes with caring what other people think of me, and I have a self-esteem issue but I fight both of those daily so that they will not win the battle for my personality. And the self-esteem issues really only set in when I started to gain weight after Brandon left. Those issues are diminishing more as each day passes and I anticipate that they will continue to do so as my weight goes down and my confidence in my abilities goes on the rise.
Anyway, enough back story. Now back to the day at hand. We had a pretty quiet interaction. I didn’t say much so that I wouldn’t unwittingly cause her to attack. That’s pretty much the way it goes with us: I don’t say anything because I don’t want to set her off, and I hold my tongue until I just can’t anymore. Then I speak my mind, and she has a fit. I do feel bad for my mother. She used to be so put together and intelligent. Now all of that has left her and she can barely muster the will to take a shower and get dressed. But the fact that I set my mother off means that I cannot be around her very much, for both of our sakes. It’s not good for her to get that upset and she is pretty much the only person on the earth who can make me feel bad enough about myself to contemplate self-injury.
After the encounter, I left the house and drove out to Lynchburg. I was early so I met Heather Beth at PetSmart to do some shopping. She went home to take a nap & I puttered around Barnes & Noble for awhile. I bought a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mister Hyde which I did not have up until now. There are a couple of books that I wanted to have with me while my other copy was in storage (and buying a 2nd copy was less expensive than driving the 6 hours to get stuff out of my unit) but this one was a new one! I love getting new books, and I am hoping that reading this novel will help me in developing my characters for the play.
After Barnes & Noble, I drove on over to Heritage HS to wait for rehearsal to start. I got there about 20 minutes early so I was the first one to arrive. Once someone with keys showed up I went on in & tried to see if I could help in any way. There wasn’t really anything I could help with, so I went on over to the chorus room to wait for our choreographer. I got to talk with DaShay, our pianist, for awhile. I absolutely love him. Probably one of the nicest men I have met in a long time. Just inherently nice. When Kenda, our choreographer, showed up we ran the song so she could see who sang where and so on, then we jumped straight into the movement aspect of it. The song is “Façade” and the premise is that there are two groups on stage, the poor and the rich. The interplay between them is told by the lyrics and dance interplay. To open the song, Ashley & Aaron playing two poor beggars run through the aisles of the audience and jump on stage & at the same time at the back of the stage are myself, Bev & Terry who are three laundresses. I have a heavy, heavy basket of sheets to carry and slam down. Bev & Terry have an interplay with one of the sheets from my basket and then the rich begin to walk onstage. The next part for me is really fun, but kind of scary if I do it incorrectly.
Scott is playing a rich man sauntering slowly and haughtily by the laundresses, and as he passes I flip my sheet at him making a very loud snapping noise (that’s the plan anyway. It will depend on whether or not we can find a sheet that will snap well). He sneers and walks on his way. A little further into the song, the poor begin to converge on the rich and make rude and vulgar gestures at them to make them uncomfortable. I get to shake my chest, Aaron is doing pelvic thrusts at another man, Terry accosts our only rich bitch, Bev chases a man up the stairs doing a shimmy and Ashley hikes up her dress hem. It’s a really amusing part and I can’t wait to see it play out on stage. Since the show is so dark, it is up to the ensemble to add little comedic elements whenever we can fit them in to lighten it up a bit. It’s a good thing that we have Aaron in this number, because that is kind of his default setting: comic. He’s our one male poor person and he acts as our protector through the rest of the song.
Not too much real dancing in this one. We have lots of stage movement and character acting, but not like “step one, step touch, raise arm, gesture wildly” or any of that crap. And thank goodness, no umbrella choreography like they do in the video version with David Hasselhoff. The man literally sounds like he is being overtaken by a goat when he sings. Too bad they don’t have a video version with a better Jekyll/Hyde. After rehearsal, I drove to Appomattox to Heather Beth’s house to stay the night. She & Brady have been so kind to let me stay with them some nights to help me save on gas money. They have a WiiFit so I decided I wanted to work out for a little while. I did 32 minutes worth of aerobics and I was spent. I do love that it tells you how many minutes you are doing and what kind of weight you are losing, and how your BMI is reacting to your weight loss. I have brought my BMI down just shy of one point since I started doing the WiiFit and now that I am on my diet I anticipate that dropping even more! I am so excited to be motivated to lose the weight I gained. I felt too sorry for myself to really do it after the breakup, but now my confidence is on the rise and I want my body to feel good and be in shape. And I know I will get there :P
Ok, that’s all for tonight. Have a good one!
Anyway, enough back story. Now back to the day at hand. We had a pretty quiet interaction. I didn’t say much so that I wouldn’t unwittingly cause her to attack. That’s pretty much the way it goes with us: I don’t say anything because I don’t want to set her off, and I hold my tongue until I just can’t anymore. Then I speak my mind, and she has a fit. I do feel bad for my mother. She used to be so put together and intelligent. Now all of that has left her and she can barely muster the will to take a shower and get dressed. But the fact that I set my mother off means that I cannot be around her very much, for both of our sakes. It’s not good for her to get that upset and she is pretty much the only person on the earth who can make me feel bad enough about myself to contemplate self-injury.
After the encounter, I left the house and drove out to Lynchburg. I was early so I met Heather Beth at PetSmart to do some shopping. She went home to take a nap & I puttered around Barnes & Noble for awhile. I bought a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mister Hyde which I did not have up until now. There are a couple of books that I wanted to have with me while my other copy was in storage (and buying a 2nd copy was less expensive than driving the 6 hours to get stuff out of my unit) but this one was a new one! I love getting new books, and I am hoping that reading this novel will help me in developing my characters for the play.
After Barnes & Noble, I drove on over to Heritage HS to wait for rehearsal to start. I got there about 20 minutes early so I was the first one to arrive. Once someone with keys showed up I went on in & tried to see if I could help in any way. There wasn’t really anything I could help with, so I went on over to the chorus room to wait for our choreographer. I got to talk with DaShay, our pianist, for awhile. I absolutely love him. Probably one of the nicest men I have met in a long time. Just inherently nice. When Kenda, our choreographer, showed up we ran the song so she could see who sang where and so on, then we jumped straight into the movement aspect of it. The song is “Façade” and the premise is that there are two groups on stage, the poor and the rich. The interplay between them is told by the lyrics and dance interplay. To open the song, Ashley & Aaron playing two poor beggars run through the aisles of the audience and jump on stage & at the same time at the back of the stage are myself, Bev & Terry who are three laundresses. I have a heavy, heavy basket of sheets to carry and slam down. Bev & Terry have an interplay with one of the sheets from my basket and then the rich begin to walk onstage. The next part for me is really fun, but kind of scary if I do it incorrectly.
Scott is playing a rich man sauntering slowly and haughtily by the laundresses, and as he passes I flip my sheet at him making a very loud snapping noise (that’s the plan anyway. It will depend on whether or not we can find a sheet that will snap well). He sneers and walks on his way. A little further into the song, the poor begin to converge on the rich and make rude and vulgar gestures at them to make them uncomfortable. I get to shake my chest, Aaron is doing pelvic thrusts at another man, Terry accosts our only rich bitch, Bev chases a man up the stairs doing a shimmy and Ashley hikes up her dress hem. It’s a really amusing part and I can’t wait to see it play out on stage. Since the show is so dark, it is up to the ensemble to add little comedic elements whenever we can fit them in to lighten it up a bit. It’s a good thing that we have Aaron in this number, because that is kind of his default setting: comic. He’s our one male poor person and he acts as our protector through the rest of the song.
Not too much real dancing in this one. We have lots of stage movement and character acting, but not like “step one, step touch, raise arm, gesture wildly” or any of that crap. And thank goodness, no umbrella choreography like they do in the video version with David Hasselhoff. The man literally sounds like he is being overtaken by a goat when he sings. Too bad they don’t have a video version with a better Jekyll/Hyde. After rehearsal, I drove to Appomattox to Heather Beth’s house to stay the night. She & Brady have been so kind to let me stay with them some nights to help me save on gas money. They have a WiiFit so I decided I wanted to work out for a little while. I did 32 minutes worth of aerobics and I was spent. I do love that it tells you how many minutes you are doing and what kind of weight you are losing, and how your BMI is reacting to your weight loss. I have brought my BMI down just shy of one point since I started doing the WiiFit and now that I am on my diet I anticipate that dropping even more! I am so excited to be motivated to lose the weight I gained. I felt too sorry for myself to really do it after the breakup, but now my confidence is on the rise and I want my body to feel good and be in shape. And I know I will get there :P
Ok, that’s all for tonight. Have a good one!
18 April 2009
Trying out a new site
So I'm trying out wordpress.com to see how I like their blog setup. I like my blogger account; it was the first one that I have ever had. But I fear I may have outgrown it. The themes are not quite up to what I want & I am not HTML/CSS savvy enough to change them myself.
If I do decide to change my blog over, I'll post the link so the few people who have linked to me will be able to change their links. Thanks for looking guys & wish me luck!
)O( Heather
If I do decide to change my blog over, I'll post the link so the few people who have linked to me will be able to change their links. Thanks for looking guys & wish me luck!
)O( Heather
09 April 2009
A stab at a new craft & LOTS of pictures!
This is my first try at drawing. I know I have very little spatial comparative ability and have never endeavored to draw before because of it. But here goes.
This horse is my first drawing ever (besides the doodles you do as a kid & in your notebooks in school if those count). Literally ever. It's done on sketch book paper with charcoal. I never knew how messy these stupid things were. My fingers were black for a day afterward from all the shading & blending.
The next one is another charcoal sketch that I did a couple of days later. He is a wizard modeled after a little figurine I have. I really like how he turned out. I love wizards with voluminous beards! His robe has moons & stars on it and the folds actually turned out very well. I was pretty proud of this one :)
These next few pics are in a series that I started that were inspired by the artwork of a woman I found on etsy.com. She repurposes book pages into art. I decided to do a little homage to her & made these. The first two are my metallic trees; the tree on left surrounded by silver, the tree on the right done in gold.
I love that you can still see the text in & around the trees. These two were from a book called "The Junior Classics" that was printed in 1985.
This one is another permanent marker drawing on "The Junior Classics" but it has a different feel. A hauntingly romantic red background paired with a tragically dying tree. A great allegory for love. The little twiggy parts are my favorites. They were a little wide so I tried the image again with an ultra fine point marker. Strangely I was able to get smaller lines by hovering the thick tipped marker over the page that I was with the UF marker.
The next two images are the same drawing but two different photos of it. This one is from the same book, on a page with nursery rhymes on it. Done with prismacolor colored pencils.
I love how the trunk is ashy white but you can still see the text through it!
And last, we have a few more permanent marker drawings. But these are smaller & on the pages of a different book. These are from a play called "Two for the Seesaw" from 1963. I purchased this little book specifically to be ripped apart. I love the size of it & the neatest part is that the book came with the agency card still inside reporting that the play carried a royalty of $25 per performance to be paid to the agency. So awesome!
The left image says "ERECT" and is supposed to be phallic. And the scantily clad can-can girl on the right says "LINGERIE".
These are the first two in a series of Naughty Images that I am doing. I have one that drops the F-bomb that I am debating putting up. I don't know how to censor it & don't want the wrong person to stumble across it. Maybe I'll just post it on Craftster so that I can tag the photo. We'll see. I also have several different subversive cross stitch patterns that I designed that I want to show off, so I may just put the warning in the title of my post.
I guess this post is long enough for now, so I'll let you all go :) Happy crafting and have a blessed day!
)O( Heather
This horse is my first drawing ever (besides the doodles you do as a kid & in your notebooks in school if those count). Literally ever. It's done on sketch book paper with charcoal. I never knew how messy these stupid things were. My fingers were black for a day afterward from all the shading & blending. 
The next one is another charcoal sketch that I did a couple of days later. He is a wizard modeled after a little figurine I have. I really like how he turned out. I love wizards with voluminous beards! His robe has moons & stars on it and the folds actually turned out very well. I was pretty proud of this one :)
These next few pics are in a series that I started that were inspired by the artwork of a woman I found on etsy.com. She repurposes book pages into art. I decided to do a little homage to her & made these. The first two are my metallic trees; the tree on left surrounded by silver, the tree on the right done in gold.
I love that you can still see the text in & around the trees. These two were from a book called "The Junior Classics" that was printed in 1985.
This one is another permanent marker drawing on "The Junior Classics" but it has a different feel. A hauntingly romantic red background paired with a tragically dying tree. A great allegory for love. The little twiggy parts are my favorites. They were a little wide so I tried the image again with an ultra fine point marker. Strangely I was able to get smaller lines by hovering the thick tipped marker over the page that I was with the UF marker.The next two images are the same drawing but two different photos of it. This one is from the same book, on a page with nursery rhymes on it. Done with prismacolor colored pencils.
I love how the trunk is ashy white but you can still see the text through it!And last, we have a few more permanent marker drawings. But these are smaller & on the pages of a different book. These are from a play called "Two for the Seesaw" from 1963. I purchased this little book specifically to be ripped apart. I love the size of it & the neatest part is that the book came with the agency card still inside reporting that the play carried a royalty of $25 per performance to be paid to the agency. So awesome!
The left image says "ERECT" and is supposed to be phallic. And the scantily clad can-can girl on the right says "LINGERIE". These are the first two in a series of Naughty Images that I am doing. I have one that drops the F-bomb that I am debating putting up. I don't know how to censor it & don't want the wrong person to stumble across it. Maybe I'll just post it on Craftster so that I can tag the photo. We'll see. I also have several different subversive cross stitch patterns that I designed that I want to show off, so I may just put the warning in the title of my post.
I guess this post is long enough for now, so I'll let you all go :) Happy crafting and have a blessed day!
)O( Heather
07 April 2009
Holy FO, Batman!
So this is a rare treat. I get to blog several times in one day. My digital camera is still in storage 3 hours away, so these photos will not be stellar, but at least I can show that I haven't been sitting on my ass the whole time I've been out of work :)
This first is a baby bib I made for Michelle Sargent's baby shower. I made everything in cream, chocolate brown & pink and called it my "Chocolate Strawbaby Gift Set". I didn't get a pic of the blanket before I sent it to its new home, but I did get photographic evidence of the bibs :)
This is the same bib in chocolate brown. The picture makes it appear much darker than it truly is. The thing I love about these bibs (aside from them looking like adorable purses) is that they are so modern that they could be heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation until they fall apart from overuse. For that reason, I made these in durable but soft yarn and doubled it up so they would be thick. I am really digging this assymetry too!
This dragon is from Dragon Dreams as well. She designed it for the tsunami that swept the pacific ocean, but her continent silhouette didn't include New Zealand, so I reworked mine to include it. It's barely visible over the dragon's hand, but it's there :) I would have preferred this little guy in green, but then the earth wouldn't have been in such contrast to the body, so I'm pretty ok with how this turned out.
This one is a cute little dragon in a tea cup from Dragon Dreams. The text says "A Spot of Tea." I think if I do this design again, I'll change the color scheme a bit.
This last little project is a garden square from Joannesanderson.com. I liked this little guy a whole lot & it's going to be a present for Brandon's mom. I've lost touch with her over the past couple of months and I need to rectify that. I didn't get to give her a b-day present this year because of the breakup, but I'm going to mat & frame this little bugger & give that to her :) This woman has the greenest thumb I have ever been witness to in my life!
My next couple of projects are going to be adult-themed cross stitches. I love it when these shocking phrases are so lovingly cross stitched. It's especially awesome when they have cutesy little borders and such. So keep the little ones away from the computer & keep an eye out for my next projects :) They'll be originals.
This first is a baby bib I made for Michelle Sargent's baby shower. I made everything in cream, chocolate brown & pink and called it my "Chocolate Strawbaby Gift Set". I didn't get a pic of the blanket before I sent it to its new home, but I did get photographic evidence of the bibs :)
This is the same bib in chocolate brown. The picture makes it appear much darker than it truly is. The thing I love about these bibs (aside from them looking like adorable purses) is that they are so modern that they could be heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation until they fall apart from overuse. For that reason, I made these in durable but soft yarn and doubled it up so they would be thick. I am really digging this assymetry too!
This dragon is from Dragon Dreams as well. She designed it for the tsunami that swept the pacific ocean, but her continent silhouette didn't include New Zealand, so I reworked mine to include it. It's barely visible over the dragon's hand, but it's there :) I would have preferred this little guy in green, but then the earth wouldn't have been in such contrast to the body, so I'm pretty ok with how this turned out.
This one is a cute little dragon in a tea cup from Dragon Dreams. The text says "A Spot of Tea." I think if I do this design again, I'll change the color scheme a bit.
This last little project is a garden square from Joannesanderson.com. I liked this little guy a whole lot & it's going to be a present for Brandon's mom. I've lost touch with her over the past couple of months and I need to rectify that. I didn't get to give her a b-day present this year because of the breakup, but I'm going to mat & frame this little bugger & give that to her :) This woman has the greenest thumb I have ever been witness to in my life!
My next couple of projects are going to be adult-themed cross stitches. I love it when these shocking phrases are so lovingly cross stitched. It's especially awesome when they have cutesy little borders and such. So keep the little ones away from the computer & keep an eye out for my next projects :) They'll be originals.
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