Two weeks until opening night…

And nothing could be heard thru the theatre…

But giggles and guffaws on a Friday night rehearsal to fix problem spots.

[I never said I was good with words… just saying them onstage!]

The director said we had to run my one and only scene because damn, we haven’t seen it in weeks and we DEFINITELY needed to run it!

It seems like I keep running thru my lines too quickly. Thebes said I should slow down, like Gretchen needs to RELISH each word and love how it feels in the mouth. I also need to float down the stairs so I won’t fall on my ass. Gotcha.

Good points, but sometimes it’s so hard to put all of those notes together in one performance when I’m still trying to remember lines. I know I’m only onstage for a minute, but I need to try to stretch out my time and make it memorable. The other characters talk about Gretchen for the rest of the show.

Glad I’ve got a few more weeks before we open.. and a few more times to run it. This weekend I have to come up with a way to get my hair into a 1950s hairstyle. I’m thinking curly pony tail.

A really tough weekend

Last Thursday, I was prepping for a small event at work. While printing the name tags and waiting for the caterer to arrive, my personal cell phone rang. I grabbed it and saw that it was my parents’ home line, so that meant Dad was calling in the middle of the day, since Mom would still be at work. I figured he was calling to ask about Thanksgiving arrangements, since they were about to purchase tickets for everyone and start to arrange the hotel for the trip.

It was definitely not the call that I expected.

My dad started out with “Jess, I’ve got some bad news.” Words that you never want to hear!

My mother’s only sister, her younger sister, was found a few minutes before passed out, and the paramedics thought she had a stroke. Her son and daughter-in-law who live with my aunt found her and called my mom to ask for their advice.

After a few hours and a bunch of expensive tests later, they had administered the blood clot-busting medicine inter-cranially and she was resting comfortably in the ICU.

My mom was on a plane, and I was cleaning up from my event, mentally going thru my closet to make the packing easier when I got home. The next morning, I was up early and after grabbing a Starbucks to get me thru the long trip across Missouri, I was off.

I’m glad I went, because it was better to be around my family and to see the doctors working to help my aunt. We’re a really close family – only two kids and three grandchildren.

We had a few ups and downs, but she’s ok and getting better every day. Once they figure out why she had a blood clot and fix the whole in her heart that allowed the clot to enter the arterial side and up to the brain, then we’ll be ok.

She’ll be ok and we’ll work thru this. We just have to!

It’s all about the Benjamins

At some point, I asked Mike why the school’s financial aid office couldn’t just tell us what the best bank for us was. Apparently there was this scandal back in the ‘80s that prevents them from doing that.

So we were on our own.

After some Google-ing, I came up with three contenders:

• MOHELA
• Wachovia Securities
• Bank of America

All of the companies I researched had the same fees, same repayment schedule and other various details were the same as well. Since graduate school loans are backed by the federal government, this makes sense! But it makes choosing a loan servicer hard, because there’s basically no difference.

MOHELA is the biggest loan servicer in Missouri, and happened to hold Husband’s undergraduate loans. Unfortunately, the customer service that he has experienced over the years and my experience with their phone responders didn’t give me the most confidence in them.

I truly think that whichever company you decide to go with, you have to trust them. You’re going to be working with them for a long time, and spending a lot of money with them. You gotta have confidence in their business.

We survived the first week… God only knows how many more to go!

Husband had a great first week of law school!

He had a bunch of homework, and spent the weekend going over the professor’s power point presentations for the week.

He has three people in a study group and as soon as they get a fourth, they’ll have a complete one. He also spent a bunch of time socializing with other people in his group and making friends!

It’s kind of odd that he has this whole new world with new people and learning new things. I hope I can keep up with him.

The good news is – he still wants to be a lawyer! I told him that’s a good thing because we have a lot riding on his education.

Law School Swag

I stumbled on this website tonight – and I might be spending a lot of money there!

It’s Cafe Press and this area of the site features stuff for law students!

You can get these different sayings on lots of different things, like coffee mugs and onesies. :)

This one would be great for the little one – if we had one!

Well, this one was a no-brainer.. hehe.

I don’t even GET this one. Do you?

What about this one for May?

Can anyone the movie that this one is from?

This one makes me giggle.

I could have this one right now…

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

I love it! :)

We did it!

Husband started law school yesterday. He was at SLU for most of the work day, starting at 8 am with contracts and going throughout the day with all of his other classes.

He called me when he was done with class and he still wants to be a lawyer! So yay!

I’m really glad that we have a microwave… or else, we’d starve.

I can’t cook.

My aspirations are great but the skills are not.

Tonight, I defrosted a pound of ground beef and made cheesy baked potato Hamburger Helper. How SAD is that?

I’m so jealous of those who always have a stocked fridge and a healthy meal on the table each night. How do they do that?

With law school upon us, I’m determined to start my meal planning up again. That way, each night I’ll know what to make and what we need to buy while it’s on sale to make that happen.

How law school is like elementary school

Husband starts law school on Monday. As long as we’ve been planning for it, I’m actually surprised it’s here so quickly.

I really feel like a mom sending her kid to school for the first time. I don’t know how I’m going to do this for real, like when it’s OUR kid! There are so many loose ends to tie up, but I think we’re on our way:

• Tuition – We’ve paid a ridiculously large sum of money to SLU for the pleasure of Hubs to sit thru long hours of classes and do lots of homework.
• Books  - We have killed a small forest in order to give him the knowledge he needs to get thru his first semester of classes.
• Uniform -
• Clothes – Apparently his other polos weren’t good enough and he needed new ones for law school! Add in a new suit for all those presentations and we’re set.
• Shoes – Oh but he’s going to be walking around campus more than he has been! Since his tennis shoes had holes in them, I figured he would need some new ones. Have you priced tennis shoes lately? Highway robbery!

As we count down the hours (now only one day and eleven hours before his first class), I am trying to set everything in our lives in order so he won’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve done his laundry and bought his shoes, and worried about how to pay for his parking fee that apparently is due in September. I think he’s ready but I’m not sure I am!

It’s scary to think that he’s moving into this new phase of his life while I’m still at my same job. I’m doing everything the same but he’s moving on. I know he’s not leaving me behind – he’s doing this for the both of us – but I don’t think I ever put two and two together until now.

We’ll see where this journey leads us…

This is why I’m not a master electrician

Last week, my director of Sabrina Fair asked if anyone in the cast was able to help out with set construction, since our usual helpers are out of town for this show.

I offered up myself, Husband and a friend of mine from college who now builds set for a local events firm. I figured that I had done enough of this in college to be able to help on a community theatre show.

So early morning Sunday comes and we grab our doughnuts and head to the theatre. After going over the basic set idea with my friend from college (MC), we ventured down to the basement to see what the Guild had left over from other shows.

We actually were able to find lots of extra wood, some flats (walls) plus a few platforms that would work for us. That means we only needed some new 2x4s and some plywood to build the steps and other decorative walls. MC said it wouldn’t be a problem.

This is what we ended up with at the hardware store:

Not bad for $300, right?

When we got back to theatre, we had another girl from the cast to help us out with the building. MC basically went to town with his special tools and started building platforms while Husband and I installed platforms. We got a lot done for only a few hours’ work.

MC said he was going back on Monday to finish things up before they had rehearsal that night. In the afternoon, I get a FB message that the set wasn’t going so well.

So the Theatre Guild has some peculiarities – like the stage slopes backward as you go upstage plus the ceiling is very low. We didn’t take that into consideration. When MC went to install the flats atop the platforms, they didn’t fit under the pipes and other various things hanging from the ceiling over the stage.

WHOOPS! MC said we have to build the flats and every door frame from scratch rather than using all the pieces we found in the basement. More money, more time.

THIS is why the Guild never uses platforms – they just don’t fit on the stage!

Looks like I’ll be spending next weekend at the Guild with Husband’s new screw gun.

This Week in Law School - Orientation

So after the bills have been paid, books have been purchased and we’ve even bought Husband new boxer and socks, it’s come time.

Time for orientation. He took a tour of the law library today and made two friends! Oh, I’m so proud!! :)

He has an orientation party tomorrow evening and then major orientation-type stuff on Wednesday and Thursday.

Did you know that all incoming 1Ls into SLU Law must take the Student Oath? It’s even administered by a judge. We have no idea what the oath consists of, but it’s pretty funny to see it as an agenda item in his orientation packet. I guess that’s because he’s training to be an officer of the court? I can’t wait to hear what he has to promise to do!

And so it begins… he’s excited, and I’m wondering how this is going to affect us as a couple. I’m preparing myself for the fact that I won’t see him a lot and that I can’t ask him to help out as much around the house. God help us all! These next three and a half years will be interesting…