A string of good lessons - I think I'm getting this!

Had another good voice lesson today.  I continue to hit snags, still have a few places where I'm trying to work out the technical things (phrasing, breath control - the usual), but it all feels much more solid and much easier.  As I told my teacher this afternoon, I think I'm finally getting the hang of this business. :)  Seems like I'm thinking about and applying the latest technique I'm working on even when I'm not working on my lesson music (i.e., at church or in "Mattress" rehearsals). 

My two uni audition pieces are far enough along that they're ready for a second opinion.  A previous voice teacher lives near (and was the one who sent me to) my current teacher, so at C's recommendation, we've asked K to sit in on the 2nd half of my lesson next week so she can hear my audition pieces and offer suggestions.  It's been a long time since she's heard me sing; I'm looking forward to showing her my progress.

Tomatoes! And other food

The cherry tomato plant (Sweet 100 variety) is really coming into its own - we've got about 2 cups of little red gems sitting on the counter waiting to grace a relish tray on Saturday, with more tomatoes expected to join them in the next few days.  The grape tomatoes have also been ripening; it's just that the other plant is so very prolific, it makes this one look like an underachiever, even though it's already produced more tomatoes than I got off my container-grown plant all last summer.  I've mostly resisted snacking on the tomatoes, but it's hard - they're just so good!

TW and I are having an open house Saturday afternoon.  It's been 21 years since I bought the house (!), so maybe we could consider it a coming-of-age party for the house?  (Of course, the house is much older than 21, having been built in the 1920s.)  I spent most of yesterday & today making party food - triple batch of hummus, double batch of dill dip, triple batch of salmon spread, triple batch of brownies, double batch of muesli cookies and gluten-free peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies.   We'll also do a deluxe veggie tray and a full batch (makes about a gallon, by actual measurement) of "awesome salsa", which has black beans, corn, and other goodies in it.  The lovely thing about making this kind of party food is that we can have leftovers for dinner and know that it's all good for us (well, except for the brownies & pb-choc chip cookies; even the muesli cookies are pretty healthy).

Last music-only rehearsal

Last night was our first music-only rehearsal in about a month, and our last until we get to the Sitzprobe in a few weeks (!).  I was reminded of the difference between doing this for a musical vs. an operetta.  Operettas tend to attract a LOT of trained singers, with the rest of us being amateurs with a lot of choir experience, all of whom can read music at least a little.  In community musical theater, on the other hand, you get a much wider range, from trained singers and instrumentalists to those who learn only by ear, or can carry a tune but have trouble holding their musical line when the people around them are singing something different.  That means a lot more time spent woodshedding parts.  I think that's at least one of the reasons we lost one of our ensemble members - didn't understand why others had so much trouble learning music he got on the first or second run-through.

So yes, in an ideal world we wouldn't need to spend nearly so much time on the music, but this is community theater, where the performers have day jobs.

Sometimes our good deeds do come back to "haunt" us

Yesterday I finally managed to line up an audition accompanist - hurray!  Better, she's someone I already know, as she directed a show I was in 4 or 5 years ago.  I also gave her daughter rides to several "Yeomen" rehearsals and performances last year.  Because of that good deed, D quoted me a rate for 4 hours of her time that is only slightly more than I pay for a 1-hour voice lesson - a very friendly rate indeed!  I told her that her daughter had already given me a thank you gift for the rides, but "this is from a very grateful mother."  Happy to oblige!

Here come the tomatoes...

Our two tomato plants (cherry, Sweet 100 variety; grape, Santa variety) have been thriving - the Sweet 100 is quite bushy and at least 6' tall!  Both now have a dozen or more clusters of little green tomatoes on them.  We harvested the first few tomatoes a week or so ago, and have been getting at least 4 or 5 a day the past few days.  Looks like those numbers will start rising steeply pretty soon, though, given the dozens of little greenies that are getting paler by the day and starting to turn orange.

These are doing SO much better than when I tried growing tomatoes in containers on the deck - we've already harvested more than we got all last summer.

Better yet, the replacement zucchini plant seems to be thriving.  I'd be delighted if we actually manage to get a zucchini off the thing before the weather turns colder.

I've got my books!

My books for the semester (well, all but one) arrived from Amazon the other day.  I could wish they'd bothered to put the box between the main door and storm door, as it was raining and my box was wet, but fortunately the books weren't damaged.  I got a better deal from another vendor for one of the books so that one is still en route.  Ordering online was cheaper than getting them from the school's bookstore; I managed to save about $78 with the sales tax.  (It helped, of course, that I already owned one of the books for my Intro to Stage Make-up class.)

They're all sitting on a shelf together, just waiting for classes to start 3 weeks from Monday.  Well, for two of them to start that week.  The other three don't start until 3 weeks later; odd schedule!

Again with the waiting game

Last night I reapplied to uni, this time for the Spring 2016 semester.  Aug. 1st is their early-admission deadline application; those of us who make that deadline will hear by mid-October whether we're in.  Sure would be a nice birthday present to get the electronic equivalent of the fat envelope this time.  (The last time I was going through the college admissions process, a thin envelope contained  "thanks but no thanks" letter, while a fat envelope contained a "welcome to our institution" letter and a packet of forms to fill out for financial aid, housing, orientation, etc.)

It's official!

I spent much too long this morning waiting to see an advisor (confluence of mis- and non-communications), but eventually I got myself all signed up for classes for the fall!  The book list is already on line, so I ordered all my books, too.  (I was pleasantly surprised to see that I already own the book required for the Stage Make-up class.)

Unless a discussion with someone in the Theater department causes me to rethink, I'm going to be taking Acting I, Technical Theater, Fundamentals of Movement, Fundamentals of Script Analysis, and Intro to Stage Make-up.  This semester is gonna be so much fun!  

Now for Plan B

I finally heard back - the university doesn't have a space for me in this fall's class.  (The Chief wondered aloud how many transfer student spaces went to out-of-state students, who of course pay higher tuition.)  Not what I wanted to hear, of course, but at least now I know how to plan.  Tomorrow I'll work on my application for the spring semester and send my draft community college schedule to my contact in the university's Theater department to see how many of the classes will transfer.  Depending on her response, I'll get myself signed up and start back-to-school shopping. :)

The university has an arrangement with local community colleges whereby you can get university credit for community college classes.  I'll start looking into that tomorrow, too.

I'll have to commute a bit further, then deal with transferring if and when the university sees fit to admit me, but at least I'll still be going back to school.  The Chief has offered to buy me a Cinderella lunchbox in honor of the occasion. :)

Any day now...

Now that we're into mid-July, it's getting harder and harder not to check my email almost compulsively for something letting me know whether I've been admitted for the fall semester.  Yep, "wait" is still a 4-letter word.

Zucchini 1.2

The first zucchini plant died pretty definitely, so Wednesday the Chief and I put in a new one.  He took some scrap lumber and built a frame to create the mound they recommend when planting zucchini.  He also had me filter the dirt going into the hole to make sure there were no grubs.  We filtered  2 or 3 cubic feet of dirt and only found a few grubs, but at least those grubs will not be attacking the new zucchini plant.

It's probably much too late in the season to be planting zucchini, but hope springs eternal. :)

At least we don't have to worry about keeping it watered.  With all the rain we've been getting (25 of the past 36 days), I'm more concerned that it doesn't get washed away!

Not the fabric I meant to buy

The Chief and I took a day trip to Amish country on the way to a birthday party last weekend.  He wanted to look at furniture, I wanted to look for fabric for that cloak pattern I bought.  I did find some Christmas-red wool, but at $21 a yard, I decided to keep looking.  I wasn't really surprised to find that, this being quilt country, 99.99% of the fabric on offer was quilt fabric.  In one such shop, the Chief ran into Irene, a Mennonite quilt saleswoman par excellence.  She had him helping her peel back quilt after quilt in a big stack, told us the name of each pattern, pointed out all the features (different types of work, "every stitch sewn by hand") that made them special.  Funniest was that she kept warning us that if we didn't buy this or that quilt, someone else would.  She got to the Chief; we walked out of there with not just one but two quilts, when we weren't planning to buy any!  However, he did show his own shopping skills by asking if we could get a discount, since we were buying two quilts.  We didn't get the markdown he asked for, but we did get one.

We stopped at one last fabric store on our way to our hotel, where the Chief picked out some flannel for another pair of flannel lounge pants.  I also bought some lavender dotted cotton to use for the mock-up for my first Regency dress.  I figure if my maiden effort goes together reasonably well, I'll end up with two dresses - the practice model and the "real" one. :)

Getting a little ahead of myself

I'm already starting to costume myself for a Christmas caroling group I haven't even auditioned for yet, and which only asks women to provide a "Victorian" blouse.  I checked their website, decided they're going for a vaguely Dickensian look, and the hunt was on.

The first pattern I ordered, which arrived yesterday, was Folkwear #205, the Gibson Girl blouse:





I also ordered Butterick 5266, for the cloak.  I may or may not ever get around to making it, but if I want a mid-19th-century cloak, I've now got a pattern that will suit admirably.  (However, I'd probably change the closure to something a little less labor-intensive than all those tabs.)

 

But the purchase I'm most excited about is the one no one will see.  It's a corded petticoat (worn in the 1830s-50s, before the invention of the hoop, to make skirts stand out and achieve more of a bell shape), much of which is handsewn!  It just arrived today.  I'll need to add a small extender to the waist but that's a trivial adjustment, and MUCH quicker & easier than sewing one of these from scratch! Because it's used and has a couple of tiny spots near the waistband, the price was eminently reasonable.


Now all I have to do is come up with an audition recording to submit and hope my voice is what they're looking for.  If so, I'm already half dressed! :D

Amusing recipe instruction

The Chief sent me a link to a lamb dish that I plan to try sometime soon.  The recipe happens to includes prunes among its ingredients.  In reading over the directions (I'm learning to do that before diving in, to avoid starting something that's going to take a lot more time than I have), I saw this instruction:  "assess your prunes"!  They want you to see if they look a bit dried out, but the wording makes me chuckle, as if they're undergoing some sort of medical or other inspection.

Don't remind me!

The Chief happened to mention today that I should be hearing in the next 2 or 3 weeks whether the university accepted me.  I really could have done without the reminder, as it just makes the waiting that much harder. :(

"Bad singing day", but productive voice lesson

We worked on both my audition pieces today.  "Mandoline" was challenging because, despite warming up, the voice was working hard to do what I wanted.  Even putting it down a whole step didn't help.  "Vouchsafe, O Lord", which sits a little lower, wasn't quite as bad but still an effort.

However, I still managed to make some technical progress:  I suddenly consciously realized the difference in "feel" between the way I've been breathing and taking a proper breath, using my sides & back; and I actually felt how activating the zygomatic arch frees up my sound.  My teacher was pleased with what we accomplished technically, even if I was having what she called a "bad singing day".  It's always a good sign when your teacher lights up; means you're actually achieving what she's trying to get you to do. :)

Good for my ego

Got a Facebook message this afternoon from one of the women in the first production for which I did hair & make-up, nearly 2 years ago.  She's producing a play that'll run this fall and wanted to know if I'd design hair & make-up for it, or even audition for it (nine roles for women 40+!).  It's quite far - probably 25+ miles one way - but more importantly, it opens a week after Mattress does, so no way.  When I offered to send her names of other hair & make-up people, she said she was looking for an excuse to work with me again. Given that I didn't really work with the cast that much - came to a couple of rehearsals, then worked with them during Tech Week through Opening Night, then didn't show up again until strike - it is very good for my ego to realize that I managed to make such a good impression on at least one cast member. :)

A few notes on last Friday's concert

Last Friday I sang in a benefit concert that R organized.  Six women (5 singers and our VERY gifted accompanist), so R had all of us wear black dresses.  I had a great little vintage number, which I took to the run-through to get some opinions on which jewelry to wear with it.  Unfortunately, the zipper broke when I went to put it on.  I mean really broke - a few zipper teeth broke off.  Vintage, remember, and this was obviously the original zipper.  Yike!  I ran out and made an emergency purchase of a back-up LBD, in case the local dry cleaner's tailor couldn't replace the zipper in time.  Fortunately, the tailor came through for me (and replaced the silver zipper with a black one - even better!) so I could wear my smashing little vintage number.  Good thing, as my Plan B dress was the very same one R was wearing!

We had fun singing, the program had a good variety, and the audience seemed to enjoy it.  I was even sounded out afterward by someone prospecting for potential Ms. Senior (neighboring state) contestants!  I had a good chuckle over that - I NEVER considered entering a beauty contest!!!  The Chief thinks I should consider looking into our state's program once I hit 60 (the minimum eligible age).

Waiting...

Still waiting to hear about my university application.  The closer it gets to when I can first hope to hear, the harder it gets to wait.  In the meantime, I've already drafted a class schedule for Fall 2015 at the community college, just in case.  Eager, much? ;)

I'm also waiting for a choral acquaintance to get back from vacation.  He's got a recording studio in his basement and is willing to help me make my audition video.  Once he gets home, recovers from jetlag, and gets a chance to check his calendar, he'll give me some dates for a recording session.  Then I can work on lining up an audition accompanist.

So many things to juggle to make this happen!  I need to find out how long he needs to refine the video after the recording session - don't want to rush him to meet the application deadline!  I may want to schedule my rehearsal(s) with my accompanist fairly close to the recording date, to maximize the time I have to learn and polish my audition pieces, or maybe I should have two rehearsals, spaced a week or more apart, so I can work on any suggestions in at least one lesson before the 2nd rehearsal.  The timing of all these will determine how much time I really have to work on these pieces.  Gonna be a busy summer!

Tomatoes! Zucchini?

The Chief made sure I noticed last night that our 2 little cherry tomato plants have tiny little green tomatoes on them!  Fingers crossed that they'll produce like crazy!

The surviving zucchini plant is doing well, too.  I just hope I don't find out, oh, this fall that zucchini are supposed to be planted in pairs so they pollinate.  (Sister3 learned that last month when she bought blueberry plants at the farmers' market.)