Those damn Yankees!

Last week I wrapped up a show with the MilledgeVille Players called Damn Yankees. We started rehearsals in the beginning of July and went just about everyday singing, dancing, and passing the time backstage in between scenes.

I had a number of costume changes (5) and alternated genders each scene I was in. It was a challenge, but it was fun!

I started out as a housewife with my green dress, brown apron, and my gold jewelry...and black shoes.
After that was over I then quickly had to change to a baseball player.

That's right. I was a man, sans lipstick and blush. Well, at least I tried to pass it off. I know the people in the audience could tell (at least I hope so).  I sang a song, then had to change yet again to be female again.

I had to put back on the blush and lipstick, let my hair down, change my pants, and tie up my shirt. Though this wasn't my favorite part of the show, this was one of my favorites. This was a duet song and dance with one of the main characters, Lola. We were the "I love Joe fanclub" and sang a song that doesn't have anything to do with the show really. It's just a dance break to watch talented people dance as far as I know.

I went back to being a baseball player and sang "The Game" which is a song about women the game of baseball and not women. This was my favorite, because I got to be all googely-eyed during stories about women baseball.

Then I changed yet again to my least favorite costume that I didn't even take a picture of myself in it. I was a woman this time for a night club scene.

But I had fun even though it was tough to sit through a very long show each night. And I'm pretty proud of myself because I had bever had such a featured singing and dancing part as I did in this one.

Stars in a Jar

After seeing "stars in a jar" on Pinterest, I thought to myself, "That's a cute idea! And I have all the necessary equipment, all the way down to the glow-in-the-dark paint!" So, once we used up a jar and cleaned it out, I gathered the stuff I would need to put a galaxy into a glass container that would be placed on the bedside table next to the child staring at the wonderment of how stars were captured and given to them.

Anywho, here's the basic equipment that I used:

On a table I spread out paper so I would get any mess on the table and make it look like a landing strip at night. I, of course, used a mason jar (cleaned out) including the lid, though that's probably optional and I'm sure you could use whatever you want to normally cover a glass jar. I used a toothbrush to splatter the paint. And lastly, I used glow-in-the-dark paint.

After I stirred up the paint, I dipped the toothbrush in the paint and splattered away inside the jar. I didn't realize it was going to be difficult until I started but trying to get more coverage of the jar was limited to how far my hand could take the toothbrush and still splatter. So I took the paint stirrer stick and the toothbrush down further into the jar and used the stick like my thumb. It worked so well!

I'm quite enthused by it all! I can't wait to make more for the rest of my little ones in my life!

This last one was an attempt at a picture in the dark, but when it was in the dark there wasn't enough light to see anything. But the kids loved it sitting under the covers looking at the stars!

Jessi Graduates!

Well, last week my sister, her two daughters, my brother, and our mom drove out to Ft. Sill Oklahoma to support my sister in her graduation from Army Basic Combat Training class 49-11. Jaime got in last weekend and then we left on Tuesday. We packed up the 15 passenger van which should have been a minivan and we left. We stopped in Conway, Arkansas Tuesday night and arrived to Ft. Sill Wednesday afternoon. We didn't get to see Jessi then because she wasn't released for Family Day until Thursday.

On Thursday, we saw the Bravo Battalion 40th Field Artillery do a little demonstration about what they had learned during their training, they went to change, and then we got her for almost the whole day.

Jessi was the guide for her platoon. She did us all very proud. She told us that she was the guide for the platoon, but we didn't remember until we saw her in front of the entire formation with the other guides and then we were so happy. We started the cheering by calling out her name. And we happened to be sitting right in front of where she was standing. When she caught a glimpse of us, she smiled.

I mean, who wouldn't be distracted by us? She got to go with us in her Class B uniform (I think). She looked really good!

The nest day was her graduation which took place indoors (thank goodness!). We were able to hear everything, see everything, and sit down without anyone in our way since we were sitting on the front row of the balcony.

We all had a great time and we were so proud of our sister/daughter/aunt!