Month: March 2012 (Page 1 of 2)

I know we don’t have the most pleasant looks on our faces, but we were concentrating!

Thanks for your prayers – the concert went really well. Erica got here about 3:45 and we played through the whole thing and practiced a few problem spots. Then, in warm ups which lasted an hour, we played through a great deal of it. Then through it all again at the concert. By the time we hit about 35 minutes into the concert, both of us were having trouble keeping our concentration. I knew it would happen with playing steadily for such a long period of time. But we both managed to make it to the end without any noticeable errors. It was really a relief to hit the last chord.

Don took some photos and I will post them later.

If you think of it this evening, please pray for Erica and I as we make our professional piano duet debut. We have the music well rehearsed and can do a great job if nerves and sticky pages don’t get in our way! So please pray that all the pages turn easily and that our concentration is perfect and we do an awesome job of backing up a choir that does an equally awesome job of presenting Mozart’s Requiem. You could also pray for Erica as she drives over today and back tomorrow.

The first two performances have been great! We have had good sized crowds and not many glitches. The fire alarm did go off because of the dry ice “smoke” the first night, but they got that fixed. Everyone knew it wasn’t a real fire, so everyone just stayed in their seats and ignored it. We keep playing and the soloist kept singing!  Yesterday it seemed the characters had a better understanding of the humor in their particular parts and they hammed it up just that little bit more that made the audience laugh a lot more than Friday night. They are doing amazingly well. And to top it off, I experienced their traditional treatment of the band members. We have to walk through the reception line to get out and when we get in the middle, they all cheer really loud for us. Quite deafening really!

Another performance today, then I have to concentrate on the Red Cedar choir piano duet until Thursday. I’m finally getting most of it right and up to speed.

We discovered that our new stove is 1/2 inch too big, due to the thing on the back with the knobs on extending just a little past the width of the main body. So we had to switch it out with the stove at 126, which just fits. Which means I now have a new stove at 126.

Well, this is it! Opening night for Grease. I heard that a bad dress rehearsal means a good opening night, and I sure hope that is true.  All the snafus were technical ones or costume changes, but still, it wasn’t a very tight performance. I mean, does the audience really want to listen to 5 minutes of scene change music while the gals get dressed? I don’t think so… Hopefully they will learn how to change a LOT faster tonight and the microphone people will get those bugs worked out. Things like the backup singers being so loud you couldn’t hear the soloists! But, no matter how it goes, I’m really glad to finally be to the performance stage. We had really a lot of rehearsals – more than I’ve ever been part of in the past. At least I know my part well!

Other than that, this promises to be a quiet weekend. I actually will get to work with Dad on the house tomorrow and Sunday, which I am looking forward to.

What I’m really excited about is the fact that this was the last weekend that I have to spend most of at play practice. I was only there 3 hours yesterday, because I had to leave early to go practice with Erica, but I was there 6 hours today. Between that and church, it didn’t leave much time for myself. But the play opens this weekend, which means only about 2 1/2 hours a night instead of 3 – 8 hours of rehearsal a day starting Friday!

My hives are gone now as long as I avoid things like nuts and strawberries that cause them to come back. Peanut butter, too, I think. It is hard to tell exactly what causes them to flare up, but I’m assuming it is those things that people are often allergic too. I had a few this a.m. and all I can figure was it was the peanut butter in the scotcharoo bar I got at Kwik Trip on the way home last night. I’m pretty sure they don’t have nuts in them, but I think they have some peanut butter.

I went for a ride on my scooter this afternoon. It was so beautiful I almost couldn’t make myself go home. I just rode around and around the countryside. So wonderful!!!!

At first it seemed like just a warm snap, but now it appears that spring might actually be arriving early this year. The weather this week is simply gorgeous – sunny and in the 60’s or higher. Most of the snow has melted and the resulting puddles almost dried up. Time to break out the rakes and get started on the yards!

We are down to the last couple of weeks before the play opens and the Red Cedar choir concert, so I have to spend too much time inside practicing piano. But it looks like we’ll have a longer warm season this year, so there will be plenty of time to enjoy the outside after things settle down in April.

As you can see, the cabinets came with protective plastic on the fronts – we didn’t get pink cabinets! But we’ll leave that on until we are finished with everything. The wall color doesn’t come out very well in the first picture, either. It is about the color of chocolate milk. Pretty close to the right color in the last picture, but I’m sure it will look better with white cabinets than it does with pink.

It was gorgeous today and I spent it all at rehearsal – 10:00 – 5:15. Ugh! I’m ready for this musical to be done, already. I’m getting quite tired of the music. I know it will help when we have costumes and an audience, but right now….

Dad painted the kitchen, but didn’t get any further. I thought he was going to put the vinyl down and start on the cupboards, so I was pretty disappointed. I guess that is how the whole project has been going. S   L    O    W