Whoa, it's October?

Hi everyone.  So, much to Barbara's chagrin, it looks like posts are going to be more like once every fortnight rather than once a week.  "And we'd been doing so well to keep up our blog-once-a-week-New-Year's-resolution!" She says.  She's been incredibly busy, so, I've been asked to fill you guys in on what I've been doing while Barbara toils away at school.  I must say that Barbara is working incredibly hard, and she is doing really great work.  Just as an outside observer, I think her work is just at another level this year from last, and the amount of weight and pressure she is able to operate under this year is much greater than last.  She's focused, organized, and despite the amount of work she constantly has, maintains remarkable poise.  All in all, I'm very impressed.

As for what I'm doing, I have a show opening this week!  I've been in rehearsals for the last couple of weeks for a show at Cardinal Stage (I did Annie with them last year, and I just auditioned for the Wizard of Oz, so fingers crossed).  It's part of their Cardinal for Kids series and it's an incredibly fun musical based on the children's book Knuffle Bunny. Those of you who are parents may be familiar with it.  For those who aren't, you can read a synopsis here.  It's very fun, and very energetic.  It's only about 45 minutes long (it's for kids) but I literally collapse in sweat at the end of running it, and we have a few three show days.  It's been (and will continue to be, I'm sure) an adventure.

The other thing I'm working on is job searching.  I've talked about the job I had last year, but at the end of the school year I decided not to return.  It left me too drained emotionally to be able to pursue the things I actually want to be doing.  So the good news is that my blood pressure has dropped significantly (not joking), but the less good news is that I'm back in the job market.  One exciting possibility is that I may start teaching acting classes with local high schools and an arts studio.  That would be fantastic because it's sort of the only thing I've been specifically trained in, so here's hoping it works out.  In the mean time I've been getting applications for random places like grocery stores and such.  I'm not super picky, but I need to find something, so any prayers or good will you can send my way would be great.

It's a bit too early to go into much detail because there's just too much that's still up in the air, but I'm starting to have talks with a small local theater company about my one-man show, "Questions of the Heart: Gay Mormons and the Search for Identity."  I'll let you know more as things become more solid, but we may be aiming to debut at a fringe festival and from there I'd have a very mobile show I could take on the road.  So, hopefully more of that to come.

Finally, I've been enjoying house-husbanding.  I've always had a hard time remembering recipes I've done, and had no real organizational system.  So now I'm using Pinterest as my recipe book.  When I find recipes I'd like to try I pin them on my Food I Haven't Tried Yet board, and when I get around to making it, if I like it, it graduates up to the Tried and True board.  I'm discovering the very cool world of food blogs as a recipe resource.  I like them because the person doing it is usually just a homemaker like me, not a professional chef, and they write about it, so it's more like getting a recipe from a friend than a cook book.

Anyway, life is good.  We're enjoying it and looking forward to the fall season and holidays (which according to Pinterest is bearing down on us pretty strong).  This is the first time we've been in the same town two years in a row, so there are lots of things we know are coming up that we have to look forward to!

Powerpoint Master.

In the first four weeks of school I have made eight, count them, EIGHT, Powerpoint presentations.  I have learned so much about Powerpoint!  You can pre-record transitions and make them automatic, insert music and sound effects, not to mention animations... I love animations.  And I have not used them until now!  Well, friends, now at 26 I know better.  Animation is fun!  I know what you're thinking: "oh no, Barbara's presentations are probably super cheesy with too much swiveling, bouncing, and pulsing"  No no, I am super classy in my animation usage.  I mostly use fades and floats and I try to make it all very consistent.  I have very high standards.  If your thinking that I have gone too far, let me tell you about the powerpoint for my ritual class (this class is insanely insane, but more on that later).  It was an exercise called PechaKucha.  Here is an explanation from the official PechaKucha website (!!!)... (main points are in bold in case you don't want to read the whole thing):

Back to School?!

School officially started two weeks ago.  The evidence of school started a couple weeks before that.  The traffic became almost intolerable (construction combined with thousands of extra people is a terrible mix).  Also, stores began stockpiling things in preparation of back-to-school shopping that would occur when the new students arrived.  August 16th was widely known as the day to just stay inside your home, because it was the official dorm move-in-day.  Here are some pictures we took inside Target:

When we moved in last year, Target has already been left in shambles.