TRGX4!: This week: A Tantrum, A Pot of Chili, Working the Football Team, and the Discovery of DVR

Basically an uneventful week, if you don't count the constant rehearsal for the musical. Not sure what else happened besides that this week. My minutes, hours, days, are running in together. All I know is it is now Saturday and I somehow got here. Can't breathe and every muscle I have aches, but I'm here! (This is the part where yall feel sorry for me, waaaahhhh, lol).

So. Anyway. We had last Monday off so that was cool. I didn't do much. I did rehearsals on Tuesday, THursday, and Friday evenings this week. The first night was kind of crazy. I think it was the first night. First or second. I had the full cast for the first time on the stage whichever night that was. It was WILD. Everyone was so excited about it all, they couldn't settle down for CRAP. I spent an hour and a half dealing with the insanity and finally I just LOST IT. I've never really yelled or gotten extremely upset with any of these kids the whole year. But at one point I was trying to get a group out front in place, and trying to get a group behind the curtain in place, and I just lost it on the group behind the curtain. But they shutup. And they lined up. And we got the scene going. It took us an hour and a half to get through that scene 1. But in the next hour and a half we got all the way through scene 4. I've been on edge all week and I know it. But I've tried to keep it steady. But by the end of the Friday evening rehearsal several kids said "Mrs. Gardner you get some rest this weekend so we will have the NICE Mrs. Gardner back on Monday" lol. It's just stressful to be able to see how FAR we have to go, but to be unable to get the kids to see that.

I spent a lot of time on the stage during 7th period this week going through stuff and seeing what we have. All the football coaches were gone to some conference all week. So they stuck the WHOLE football team in the auditorium for 3 days with this poor young black lady substitute teacher. I was working backstage and hearing the hard time she was having. I turned on a microphone for her at one point. But they were having a hey day in there. She was yelling for quiet, they were ignoring it, etc. Then I remembered I still had a whistle on my thing I wear around my neck that holds my badge, leftover from elementary school days. So I stepped out in front of the curtain and blew the whistle real loud. You should have SEEN how fast they sat down shutup and started looking around. You could have heard a pin drop. I think they thought the coach had suddenly returned and they were busted lol. When they realized that it was ME that had blown the whistle, they were even more confused lol. Befuddled maybe? It was several minutes before anybody spoke. The first one to speak said "I guess you knew that's what we are used to responding to". The next one said......"What da choir teacha doin' with a WHISTLE?????" lol. They eventually got talkative again, but they weren't as rowdy at least. And I came up with more ideas to make good use of them. I was pulling out big pieces of wood and props so every few minutes I'd choose a few to come and move something, but I'd only choose those behaving, etc. None of them knew what a musical was, so they got a lesson in fine arts as well. I tried to talk them into trying out for choir next year but I don't think I've gotten far enough along yet to convince any football players to sing, but I won't give up lol.

Today is Saturday. It's cold. It's rainy. I'm tired. I'm swamped with work. But I made a pot of chili I still haven't even eaten yet. But I enjoyed the heck out of making it. While I was standing there stirring, for some reason I started thinking......"God, I wish that I could just stand here and stir this chili and that be my sole purpose in being. That I am only meant to be the person who stands here and stirs this chili on this particular date. And that I could just keep standing here and stirring it for hours and hours. For real, I'd love to just keep stirring, keep stirring......" lol. I'm not crazy yet, but maybe I'm getting there??? lol A whole new meaning to "stir crazy".

While I had the football team helping me a good bit, it seemed that everyday as soon as they left, I found something really big I needed done and I wanted it done NOW. One day I found a HUGE shiny silver curtain that I just felt like would make a great backdrop for Seussical. But there was no way to know without seeing it up there. I found a bar that I could lower and attach the curtain to then raise it back up. I don't know if any of you have dealt with stage pullies and bars before, but they all have weights on them to balance out the lowering and raising and whatever. I won't pretend to know how or why it works that way. But I lowered the bar, attached the curtain, then went to raise the bar again and OMG. Whatever weight was on that one had to weigh close to my own weight. But I was determined. I pulled and pulled and finally got it up there. THen when I went to lock it down at the bottom pully, I realized that the lock was broken and I was going to have to use a little piece of rope that was tied to the big rope and tie the whole thing in place. So I had to stand there holding one rope with the huge weight on it with one hand while tying it down with the other hand. Hard to tie good knots with one hand. But I got it done. ANd I'm paying for it today. I can hardly move. Between that and going up and down the auditorium steps 50 times per night, I'm SORE as HECK!

ANyway. I'm still undecided on the silver backdrop. Some people say it looks cool. Some say well maybe not. It's wrinkly right now. I'm still going to wait and see how it looks once we get the stage set built and then decide. I did find a large 3 story contraption that I think we will use to make our monkey caves. And several pieces we will use to make a back platform. And other stuff. The only pics I have this week are of my stuff I found.

Rusty has been learning the music for the musical. After 2 days, he became just as charmed and obsessed with it as I am lol. He's all about some Seussical now.

Tanner and I have been enjoying the HECK out of the DVR. He sets it to record cartoons and stuff. I set it to record AMerican Idol and CSI. And I can sit down and watch them just whenever I feel like it. I never know when I"ll get the chance to sit and watch any tv. And this way, I always know I'll have something good to watch when I do get to sit. It's the BOMB. And it's SO much easier than doing it the old VCR timer way. That was always more trouble than it was worth it seemed. I might actually get my moneys worth out of Direct TV now that I have DVR.

This coming week I'm going to take Tanner and Brooke to rehearsal a time or two so they can start learning what to do as Seuss animals. Probably Tuesday and/or THursday. I've gotten a few more kids into it also now, little sisters and brothers of some of my cast. But I think I've about got enough now probably. I took Tanner at least once last week I think. He did better on his behavior. I tried to get him to sit up top and push play on the cd player and stuff so I didn't have to run up so much. But he wasn't too reliable on that. Everytime I needed him he had run off to go aggravate some teenager lol.

Anyway. Here are a few of my finds from the stage this week. I just LOVE plundering around in old stuff! It's fun!

If you can tell what that is up there, it's a platform with 3 different levels. We will design the front to look like a mountain of caves. Use your imagination lol.