What Kind of Fool Am I????

I can't even believe that it's April.

And it was about 30 degrees when I left my house this morning. Good lord.

I think it's about time that Spring gets around to springing. Please?

Anyway...things are great in my world. Work has been busy, the show has been going well, and in spite of the chilly weather (grrrrr!) I can't complain.

I had to go right from work to a wake last night (sad) but I came home to a lovely surprise.

In his 'time off' Jim has been doing SOOOO much around the house. On Monday he cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and did all the laundry. Then, I came home yesterday and he had TOTALLY transformed the back yard.

As I mentioned on here a while ago, we had two VERY large trees removed from our backyard. Well, Jim spent the entire day working out there and now it looks AMAZING.

Before the trees were removed, we had a total of three garden 'areas'. One on each side of the yard and one that surrounded the largest tree. When the largest tree was removed, it looked really odd to have a garden smack dab in the center of the yard. In order to even things out, Jim transplanted all the plants/bushes from that garden (as well as the cobblestones around the perimeter) and moved them to the left side of the yard, so now we have a great, big, fancy garden where there used to be a 'smallish' one.

In addition to the major garden shift, he leveled out the entire yard and covered the whole thing in grass seed!

Not only that (yes, there's more!) - he cleaned out our entire screened in porch and made it all nice and pretty!

I'll have to get some pictures so that I can do a little 'before' and 'after' post.

It's incredible. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that the grass grows. :-)

Tonight is the first show of a 6 show week. We have a show tonight, Thursday, Friday, TWO on Saturday and one on Sunday. I'm sure it will be exhausting, but fun. Thankfully, everyone is still getting along, and the show itself goes by so fast. It runs two hours, including intermission.

Love that.

Yes....it's April Fool's Day. Hopefully I'll make it through the day un-fooled.

Have a delightful day.

xoxo

I'm an Award Winner!!!

I just found out this morning that I was given an award by a fellow blogger!!!

Apparently, he was given the award by someone, and has decided that I'm a worthy recipient as well....I'm truly honored!!!

This is the award:

"This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog's content or design is, in the giver's opinion, brilliant."


Of course, it comes with a 'hitch' :-)
Basically, the recipient has to post 10 random things about himself for all of his readers to see - so my winning the award will benefit all of you!
Assuming you care.


Anywhoo....here are my 10 random things:

I’ve never kissed a girl. (not counting a friendly peck on the cheek or a ‘stage kiss’)
I’m terrified of drowning or being buried alive.
I could eat ice cream every day
I think about smoking every single day. I still miss it, and I haven’t had a cigarette in almost 4 years.
I watch the Food Network EVERY Saturday and Sunday morning – even if it’s an episode that I’ve seen before.
So many people say that Jim and I are the perfect couple that I’m starting to believe them.
I’m seriously thinking about shaving my head this summer.
I’ve never had a one night stand.
I hate confrontations and will do almost anything in order to avoid them.
I think the people who read my blog are wicked awesome.

There...now you can all say that you read an award winning blog.

Kisses!!!

Hooray for Friday!!

I'm just tickled pink that it's Friday!

Even though it's a grey and drizzly morning, it's still the end of the work week and me likey.

We had a great show last night (which is a very good thing, considering the fact that we had three 'show free' days before it) and the rest of the weekend should be exciting.

My sister PJ and 4 of her friends are coming tonight, my friends Kerry, Guy, Leah and John (and L&J's 2 kids) are coming on Saturday, and then on Sunday afternoon my other sister, Donna and 19 of her closest friends :-) are coming to the show. Actually it's going to be her entire family, plus a large group of friends from their church. It should be very fun.

In addition to the shows, Jim and I are going to a special mass for one of his relatives early Saturday morning, and then on Sunday morning, I have a softball meeting before the show.

No sleeping in for me!!! Poop.

I'm not entirely thrilled about having to get up on a Saturday morning, especially to go to church, but it's a special thing for Jim's family and I'm sure it will be a fun event. His family events usually are.

We got a good review in the local paper on Wednesday.....here are some highlights:

"Godspell'' also has many fantastic moments. Most are created by the rock, folk and gospel music and choreography. Music director Michael Joseph, his band, choreographer Sally Ashton Forrest, and the many talented singers and dancers combine to make our spirits soar."

"Jill Akins and Caitlin Ford lead the cast in the folk-inspired "By My Side,'' and Matt Mello does the same for "All Good Gifts.'' Their soothing voices, and William Buonocore’s exquisite guitar playing, wash over us like a pleasant dream."

"Melissa Sepulveda adds more good feelings when she earnestly sings "Day by Day,'' the show’s most well-known number. Paula Markowicz lends her considerable vocal talents while belting out the uplifting "O, Bless the Lord, My Soul.''

"Markowicz, Melissa Kutchmanich and the cast perform a powerful, drum-fueled (Scott Brenner), Mideast-inspired version of "Light of the World'' to bring the first act to a rousing conclusion."

"In the second act, Karen Cavallo heats things up with her fun rendition of "Turn Back, O Man.'' Later, Michael Iemma gets the finale gears turning by singing the revivalist strains of "We Beseech Thee,'' while the dancers strut their stuff."

"Jim Sullivan adds credibility and substance to the story as the angst-ridden Judas. Alex Valentine, as John the Baptist, gets the show moving with "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.''

I was very happy that Jim (my husband, that is) got a nice mention - as did the rest of the talented group of friends I have. :-) Yahoo!

There was another reviewer there last night, so if his review gets posted today - I'll HAVE to update the blog.

Speaking of Jim getting a job, he was successful in his 'wheelings and dealings' with a former employer and he now has a part time job that will become a full time job when October rolls around. (so they say)

As it stands, he'll be working Tuesday-Thursday from April 14th through October and then at that time he'll be switching to a full time position with the company.

It's a small company (the owner and his co-workers are awesome)which he worked for a couple of years ago. His only reason for leaving that job was that he was tired of the commute into Boston and wanted to find something closer to home. Mind you - his commute was (and will be) about a half hour shorter than my daily commute, so I think that he is prepared to suck it up and be happy to have a job. :-) :-)

Seriously though, I'm very happy for him. He was able to work out a deal so that it's more than he'd be making on unemployment, and even though it's not a full time position, he'll still have the ability to find a second part time job closer to home until the full time work kicks in. Of course, in case you didn't notice, his schedule guarantees a 4 day weekend every weekend during the summer and fall, so I'm SURE that he'll be running out trying to find a part time job to take up that time. Sure he will.

OK - I've written long enough.....have a great day and an even better weekend!!!

xoxo

Here are some photos of Jim being unemployed ;-) He totally needs a haircut, but can't get one until the show is over. He'll probably be angry that these are on here, but too bad for him.

I think they're A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E and so is he, long hair or not.

So there.

He met up with our friends Barrie, Julie and Ben (who has made several blog appearances)....as well as Barrie and Karen's dogs Ollie and Lucy.

As always, a big thank you to Barrie for allowing me to swipe photos from her blog.

Heavens to Betsy!!!

I have been B-U-S-Y!!!!

Opening weekend of the show went GREAT. The Friday night show opening night) was very exciting and was a typical opening night audience. The opening night crowd is generally made up of family and friends who are thrilled to be seeing the show. Unless you REALLY screw things up, chances are they're going to love everything that happens on the stage.

That was the case with our opening night crowd...they really loved it. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the show was really quite good anyway. :-)

The other two performances (Saturday and Sunday) went well too, and the audiences seem to really like what they're seeing. Sunday's audience in particular was a very responsive crowd and really had a good time.

Saturday was a super-fun day 'off'; spent at home doing nothing but relaxing, catching up on laundry and spending time with Jim and Scooter....good times.

Monday was a quiet day at work (but busy as ever) and yesterday I actually spent the day working out of the Milton office. That's where my boss and the rest of my team is located. It was nice to be driving to work (40 minutes or so) as opposed to taking 3 different trains over an hour and a half. They seem to be a great group of people, and after some initial connectivity 'issues' I had a very productive day. Granted, I didn't get any training done (the initial reason for me being there) because I don't have the access I need, but it was a nice introduction to my teammates, whom I've never met before.

There's a fun little 'cafeteria' in the building, which happens to be on the same floor as my group, so that was very convenient. I have to say (BITCH ALERT!!) that the staff of the cafeteria were a tad frightening. They seemed to be quite 'rough around the edges' and I think they MAYBE had 32 teeth among the three of them. Just sayin'

Tonight is my last night 'off' because we have shows Thursday through Sunday, so I'm planning on doing some stuff around the house and resting up for the 4 shows that are quickly approaching.

I do however plan on having a quick review of the show so I remember everything that goes on. Nothing like doing a show after having 3 nights off, and forgetting everything that happens!!! Yikes.

Speaking of the show....there haven't been any reviews yet - but I'll let you know once they start rolling in. Assuming they're positive, that is. :-)

Have a Happy Hump Day!!!!

Opening Night!!!!

Well, the day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived!!!!!

Wow...isn't that the oddest graphic???

Anyway....the final dress rehearsal went very well last night.

They say that if you have a bad dress rehearsal then you'll have a great opening night, so what happens if you have a great dress rehearsal? Should we expect disaster to strike tonight? Hardly.

Personally, I had a few minor flub-ups last night, so it wasn't PERFECT for me. I guess that means that tonight I'll be absolutely, without-a-doubt, flawless.

Sure I will. ;-)

I'm looking forward to the opening night energy (so fun!!) and seeing how an audience reacts to everything.

I'll be sure to post and let you know how it went.

Oh - and HAPPY SPRING!!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Feeling the Pinch

Jim is being laid off.

SAY WHAT???

My thoughts exactly.

All this time, we thought that I was the one in real danger of being laid off, but apparently Jim was too.
I can’t go into too many details, but I can tell you that his last day is Friday and he’s getting a minimal severance package. With an emphasis on the m-i-n-i-m-a-l.

Some remotely positive news is that he spoke with one of his former bosses yesterday, and she thinks there’s at least some part time work out there for him.

Which is good….at least it will be something.

I’d be a big, fat liar if I said I wasn’t worried, but I’m sure we’ll pull through OK.

As I’ve said many times before, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason…I just have to keep on telling myself that...and stay focused on all the positive things in our life.
Thankfully, we have lots of support from our families and friends, which is a definite plus.

On a happier note – the show is coming along nicely.

I can’t even wait to see what an audience thinks of it.

(and I won't have to wait long - 2 days!!!!!)

I’ll do my best to keep you informed as to what’s happening…..work has been busy, but as always, I’ll try to find room for my blog-life.

Kisses and hugs…

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

I'm super busy at work, but I didn't think it was very nice to keep seeing scary Jason Voorhees at the top of my blog. :-)

Things are going well...work is CRAZY, the show is coming along nicely and even though I'm feeling tired and old, things are fine and dandy. (Lord it IS like a hard candy Christmas....thank you 'Whorehouse')

Anyway...I've got to run.

Please have a few drinks for me today/tonight.

Instead of enjoying a beer or two I'll be at rehearsal praising Jesus....and pretending he's a big mug of Miller Lite.

Have a GREAT Day!!!