Random

• Very tired and I did not even stay up/get up to watch the Royal wedding!  What kind of Anglophile am I? it has been too long since I lived in England I fear - and I miss Princess Diana...

• Am trying to figure out a way to get my son to his soccer game and my daughter to her canoe racing practice at the same time on the same day in towns 40 miles apart... something has to give there

• I wish it would stay sunny for more than 2 hours at a time. I also wish that even if the sun does not show up, the rain would stay away for a few days so my basement would dry out. And my slippers - I am tired of the dog drooling in them every time it thunders!

• Opening the show Home Fires and Reservation Roads  tonight.  I did props and costumes - maybe this is why I am tired.

• I have 20 more bayberry bushes to plant.

• My Girl Scouts are not very dedicated to getting things done this year... sigh... 

• Tomorrow I think I will stay in my jammies all day.

Who's Afraid of Thunder?

   "Not I," said the little red hen.
We have been having some ridiculously strong thunder storms this week.  Last night the thunder and lighting was amazing, but very unsettling to the children. Not one of them was asleep on time, and my eldest was still walking the floor at midnight due to the noise of the thunder.  The dog who is horribly afraid of storms, drooled on everything, then followed me into the bathroom when I was brushing my teeth, and climbed into the shower and hid behind the curtain. I guess it is easier to clean up any drool from in there!
    Even so, this is nothing compared to what the folks in Arkansas and other sections of the South and Midwest are getting.  My thoughts are with all of them. I have been vividly remembering the floods of 2006 when we lost a good chunk of our back yard to flooding.  The hill just dropped off and became a cliff, taking 5  of our pine trees with it and exposing part of the septic tank.
    Today we were in the 80's with sunshine and summer like humidity.  Tonight we are in thunderstorms again.   I suspect all the peas I planted are going to rot and I will have to reseed. What an odd spring.

Easter Monday

      Back to work - three more weeks of classes, then busy with summer stock.  In the meantime this week we have the show Eric Gansworth wrote to be performed at our college, so we are all getting ready for that. I am doing props and costumes, so I am a little busy.

      Easter was spent at Mom's house with many of my nieces and nephews, as well as three of my sisters. We had a good weekend.  We celebrated with Easter egg dyeing,

an egg hunt and a football game

but all on Saturday as we all had to travel on Sunday.
    Sunday we all  drank far too much coffee in a sad attempt to wake up after sitting up until past 4 a.m. talking.  There are some things that are great while you are doing them but the next morning you wonder what you were thinking...this was one of them.   Still, what a treat to spend hours talking with my youngest sister (who lives on the West Coast) and my second youngest niece, who is in college.
    Off to grade papers which should have been done last week, but I allowed myself to break during Spring Break!

easter thoughts

We know the Christian traditions often sprang from pagan  ceremonies in an effort to convert new folks to the Church as well as to aid the Church in being accepted by others.

Early Pagan traditions for Spring Equinox.

Easter eggs

Easter Bunny

 Just some fun reading for the holiday.

BIg Love = over

   I was recently quite wrapped up in the final faculty show for the college.  Big Love has nothing to do with the television series. It is a play by Charles Mee and revolves around three of fifty (yes, 50) sisters who are trying to avoid marrying their cousins. After a good deal of protestation, mayhem ensues and the show ends.  My husband directed the show and I designed and built the costumes.
    Here are a few shot from the show.

Did I mention that the grooms drop in from a helicopter?

Giuliano was the most lovable character in the entire play

Tomatoes represent good sons and bad...

pre-wedding pep talk

I was drowning in white satin

I love the look of fear on his face and distain/disgust on hers.

Catching up and finding time

   The past two and a half weeks were completely devoted to the construction of the costumes for Big Love.  We opened the play on Tuesday, so now, after catching up on laundry and vacuuming and such, I have time to start, well, everything else.
  This weekend is going to be devoted to nothing and everything.  I have sap to boil into syrup, but nary a whole day to do it.  So , Saturday I will get the outdoor fire started early - 7 a.m. or so, and get some of it boiled down, before heading out to a dinner engagement with my husband.  My youngest is sick at home today, or I would have started it today.  I may cheat a little and start some of it on the stove - this can be tricky, because the sap requires so much evaporation, you can literally steam the wall paper off the walls if you boil it all inside. Hmm... maybe I should set  it up in the dining room and get rid of the nasty "old lady" floral wall paper in the process!
    I have to get the process of packing going for my daughter.  Her class is heading to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park for Spring Break - well that is if the government is still open then - if it is not, I guess they will be sitting around in hotel rooms in Utah and Arizona. She needs lots of things she has outgrown since last year, like a swim suit, water shoes and the like.
    I am behind schedule, but some of the "start indoors" seeds are finally getting planted today.  Spring is definitely on the way as the snow is gone except in the lingering plowed piles in certain parking lots, and the daffodils have buds ready to burst.
    Hoping all of you are well and enjoying the warmth that is slowly creeping into our weather.

Hopeful...

I take hope in nature. Spring is coming!