1st real week at work in 2009

Well, I completed week one of 3 night a week rehearsals for the musical. It's going well. It's still going slower than I need it to. And I still have a handful of kids not showing up. BUt we're working on getting all that done. All the help I thought I had rounded up have been no-shows, all except one who is being extremely faithful to the work we're doing. A girl I graduated with (Tammie Fisackerly) had a sister, Michelle, that was much younger than we were. But now Michele is grown and is a coach and teacher for about 3 years now. SHe has been there with me every single time and helping me TREMENDOUSLY. My band director friend is currently tied up with winter guard but I'm sure he's going to be helping out a lot more soon once they're competition is over. I've been trying to recruit adult musicians all week long because the music has turned out to be incredibly difficult. And there's SO MUCH of it. My accompanist, Mrs. Leese, decided it was just too much for her to tackle and she wouldn't have the time to practice it and learn it. So I've got to decide if I can just program it into my keyboard or if I've gotta find another pianist. But I've got RUsty playing bass, I think Keith is gonna do some of the guitar work, and Jonny is going to do the drums. I have a couple of high school kids lined up for trumpet, flute, etc. Now we just have to coordinate some rehearsals here soon. In addition to my rehearsals of actors. And perhaps I can find a way to have about 4 hours officially added to each day of the week for me to get even more of this stuff done. Sheesh! All this, and I'm getting 3 choirs ready for competition in February too. Spring Break will be AWESOME this year.

Let's see. I got Tanner to get a haircut this week, but it's not what you or I would consider a haircut. He had the back cut up even with the front. Kind of a skater-do I guess. It's still in his eyes. So I don't know what the point was in even going. He has decided he doesn't like it because it looks kinda strange, so he says. And last night he told me he wanted to just go ahead and get a regular haircut and start growing it all over lol. But it will be at least a week before I have any money to take him lol. I got more bangs cut myself, and I'm still liking that. American Idol (my guilty pleasure) began this week but I only got to see the 2nd hour of the first night. I feel SO guilty being a choir director and watching that crappy show. I'm ashamed. So yall have to help me keep my big secret. And the worst part of it is that I mainly watch those first few weeks when they have the really crappy singers on there and they make real big fun of them.......that's my favorite part. DON'T TELL ANYBODY! It's really sad and cruel. But I can't stop myself from watching it.

I finally happened to try to balance my checkbook for the first time since........uh.......I don't know when. It was BAD. BAD, I tell ya. It's hard to believe that I just flat have NOT had time to figure any of it out since early November. Not even with 2 weeks off at Christmas. But things are bleak and it will take me 2-3 months to get back on top of things. I got mad and started cancelling all kinda stupid stuff I pay for. I cancelled my second gym membership. Why the hell I'm a member of two I do NOT KNOW. Both of them are cheap. But STILL. I barely go to ONE gym, much less two. If I ever get faithful I might go back to that other one because I really liked it and liked the exercise classes. I just don't have time to do them! I ordered another Direct TV receiver and I'm cancelling cable TV. Why the heck have cable AND Direct TV???? I'm sure I'm going to have a hefty Direct TV bill this next time because the receiver was 120.00 and I have a feeling they will charge me a service call even though they said they would NOT. The guy had to replace our dish because we didn't have the kind that you could put more than one TV on. And he had to run wires through the attic. I can only imagine what that's gonna cost. I'm considering cancelling netflix because I've had the same 3 movies here since mid September. I have a hard time letting go of that one though, because we do go through phases of ordering the movies a whole lot. And Tanner really loves netflix. I cancelled my membership to AFT. Been meaning to do that ever since they came out and announced support for Hillary Clinton. And then they backed Obama once she was out. Also, I am required to be in a music teachers union so I have no need for two of them. And I'm currently looking for anything else I can cancel. I'm tired of paying for stupid things lol. Cancelling things is almost as fun as throwing things away!

Still trying to diet. And can't understand why I can't stick to it like I used to. I need to book another cruise. That was my motivation last time. I wanted to feel happy and look good in all the hundreds of pictures they take of you on the cruise ship. So I stuck to the diet religiously.

Today is MLK Day and we are all at home. We've been doing some cleaning, Rusty even tackled his piles of junk on the bar. I moved the big sectional couch into the den where the TV is to see if our guests will start congregating in the den instead of the kitchen bar. Rusty really hates that people stand around that bar and visit lol. So far, last night the band folks did indeed hang out in the den instead of the bar. So maybe it's going to work.

I've been trying to talk Tyler into participating in the musical in some small form or fashion. I wanted him to be Thing 1 or 2 and he wouldn't give me a final answer. I told the kids at rehearsal one night that he wouldn't commit to it. Within 5 minutes a girl said......."Tyler says yes, he will be Thing 2". Apparently she texted him and persuaded him lol. I should approach him from that angle more often lol. So now he is committed. He wants to be Thing 2 as opposed to Thing 1 because in the movie Thing 2 gets to have a nickname of "Chocolate Thunder" or something silly like that lol. His friend Thomas is going to be Thing 1. THey don't really have much to do, just some cameo type appearances. And if he falls down, Thing 1 is gonna grab him by his feet and drag him off stage and it will all look like a planned funny thing lol. I've wanted to use some younger kids from our district to do some small things in the play also, since WC is doing that with The King and I. So I've got Tanner, Brooke, and 2 of my former students who are in Jr. High and have a brother in the play to be Seuss animals. I'm trying to talk Matthew into being the Baby Elephant Bird in the end. And I"m getting some little sisters and brothers of other students to be Whos. It's kind of a PR thing as well. I want younger kids to know me, to see what we do, to get to where they just can't wait to get to high school and be in choir lol.

Apparently Tyler goes to the doctor Feb. 11. I'm going to just take that whole day off I think, I'll be needing it by then. It's a Wednesday so there are no musical rehearsals. I can NOT convince them to get me in quicker. Even though the dang head doctor said in mid-November that he wanted to see him back in no later than a month. I'm going to insist on seeing him this time and I'm going to have a talk with him because we want him EVERY time. And at this point, I feel like I should be able to call him and talk to him personally whenever I want to, he should give me his personal cell phone number so when his office pulls this crap we can get him to fix it. He's a terrific doctor and has us on a road to getting fixed, I just know it. But he runs the whole Sleep Center and spends most of his time at a desk. He needs to come out from the desk once a month to see Tyler. Or I guess I'll just have to see what else there is to try.

Well I guess anything else at this point would just be rambling. lol. I always posted on Fridays til things got crazy, but I'm gonna try to get back to Fridays. I actually started this one on Friday but just now finishing on Monday. No pics this week.