Three-day weekend FTW! Will no doubt want another when it's finished, as I will be using it to Get Stuff Done, but at least I have it do that in.

Stuff to Get Done includes as many costume renderings for Shrew as possible. I was hoping to have them all done by now, but the real drop-dead date is the first rehearsal in mid-June. Will probably be sketching madly away while socializing with company today.

Tomorrow will be all about studying new scene for acting class, brushing up on audition monologues and songs (everyone and their dog has general season auditions in the next couple weeks -- also need to put in for slots for those!), and getting mailings together for agent queries and a couple auditions that require snail mail instead of electronic submissions. Also need to order prints of new headshots.

Search for better-fitting day job continues apace, with sod all to show for it. Suspect at least some of them are getting filed in the "overqualified" (i.e. "she's going to want too much money, isn't she?") category, while others are looking at my rather eclectic work experience and going "Bzuh?" Sent a snail mail resume for one last week that I would really love to get; not saying any more 'cause I don't want to jinx it.

Dear AEA: Your Contract Associate job sounds faboo. Whywhywhy do you have to say "Employees of Actors' Equity Association are not permitted to perform in or stage manage any Equity or non-Equity production"??? [emphasis mine] I do not love you. (Not that this is particularly news.)

Monday is for housecleaning and car shopping. Car shopping is a necessity because (a) the one-car household thing is getting OLD; (b) the one functioning car does not have functioning air conditioning, and I'm so not doing that another summer; (c) better mileage plz!!; and (d) need new car before driving to Toronto in July for reasons (a) through (c). Have been looking very seriously at the smart car now that they're finally available in the U.S. If you've ever parked in the North Side neighborhoods where most of Chicago's storefront theatres are, you will immediately understand the appeal.

Evenings are for writing. Was writing an action scene yesterday (um, yeah, for the Lizzie project. Sure. *sheepish g*), and getting up to walk through the moves (to make sure they made sense in real space as well as in my head) made me realize how much I miss fight work. Good thing there's a Babes workshop coming up in a couple weeks. (For which registration is another thing on my to-do list this lovely holiday weekend.)

So, still lots going on, but all of it worth the doing.

Okay, so I'll do the next First Tuesday at MIFF.

On account of the rest of my week is booked, so tonight is the only time I have to help get the place straightened up in preparation for delivery of NEW COUCH YAY!

It is purty and sectional and cornery and did I mention NEW?

:: Happy Homeowner Dance ::

Thanksgiving was lovely, lazy, and spent primarily sitting in the living room with hubby and in-laws, being reasonably social while scribbling away on new fic that grabbed my brain and ran. (Now to keep a hold on this word-crafting momentum and get back to the $(#*&$ Lizzie project and make it actually happen.)

This morning I paged back through a flist full of lovely posts about what you lot are thankful for. I thought about posting a similar one, but the inspiration wasn't there. So...just thankful. In general. Because life, for all that I may sometimes grouse and pick and flail, is on balance pretty darn good.

Brightest blessings to everyone who can say the same, and more to those not so fortunate.

Today's agenda: PR post, more scribbling, thankfulness for four-day weekend, and more Dutch apple pie. :-) And hopefully dinner with peeps in town for Chicago TARDIS.

We're about to find out my answer to that question. As of today, I'm working from home Tuesdays and Fridays. *bounce*

First thing I did, of course, was sleep until OMGSEVENFORTYFIVE. Yes, I'm a morning person, but 6:15 still comes awfully darn early, especially if I have a show or rehearsal the night before.

And it's actually more than that; four hours is just the drive time. There's also the whole showering-and-making-self-presentable thing that becomes entirely optional.

And already being in my house for lunch. Over which I can do things like watch the Army Wives season finale. (mylittleredgirl, I know I said my inner Air Force brat would have made me check it out anyway, but this is still ALL YOUR FAULT. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Gotta say, I'm glad we know this puppy is renewed, frustrating as it is that it seems like it "cut in line" when we're still awaiting a verdict on Blood Ties. Because if this thing were over with that cliffhanger, I'd be after somebody's head.

Conclusion: Technology yay!

In other news, much to my surprise, some kind soul nominated "Still Waters" for the Stargate Fan Awards again. I thought I'd need to pull it, but apparently a piece is only ineligible if it's previously won, not just been nominated, so what the heck. I guess it makes sense to have the authors choose the categories themselves, considering how many they've accumulated over the years, but it kind of threw me for a loop. I wasn't sure whether to class it as a Sam or a team story -- I wouldn't say it's "equal focus," but it's not totally Sam-centric either. So I called it Sam, with team as the backup, and I'll let the crazy nice people running the thing figure it out.

Actually, it's not as bad as all that, at least anywhere I've immediately dealt with.

Last night's performance was cancelled, not because the theatre specifically needed to be closed, but because the other girl in my one-act was leery of driving in from the 'burb next to where the funnel cloud was spotted yesterday. Can't imagine why that would be. I was more relieved than anything (although I had been looking forward to seeing iingaartist! *pout*), both not to have to go into the city and not to be the cause of its cancellation myself (since the best case scenario had me arriving about 45 minutes after scheduled curtain).

Of course, I found this out when I called in from I-294, where I had been merrily creeping along at a top speed of 10 mph for a Very Long Time. (For the locals -- from the 294/290/88 mega-interchange aaaaaalllll the way up to I-90, and it looked to be the same as far as north as I could see when I exited.) Through sheets and sheets of rain, and an extremely impressive 360-degree lightshow. The ginormous lightning bolt splitting the sky from beyond the scope of my windshield to the horizon, simultaneously with a similar one directly behind me that was reflected clearly in the back of the silver van I was following, was particularly impressive.

It's not my normal route home, but if it were it would normally take just slightly longer than my usual one-hour commute. Last night took two and a half.

This morning, since we are currently a one-car household, I got to get up at 4:20 am to get brainiacfive into the heart of downtown Chicago by 6:30. I was...less than sanguine about the radio reports indicating that the majority of Villa Park (home of Office of Doom) was without power, and extremely relieved to see lights on when I arrived. Getting up at that hour and then not even being able to work would have been...actually, I'm not sure I have a word for what that would have been.

As for home, the house has been there for a hundred years for a reason. We're one of the higher points in the neighborhood, and on pretty high ground (thank goodness) relative to the river six blocks away, which happens to be the same one flooding BigBabyBrother's neck of the woods upstream. (He and Fiancée had some wet basement issues, but are otherwise fine.) So far, so good.

Quite probably the best line ever written for Enterprise. Certainly the most memorable. Which is...kinda sad.

But not as sad as the fact that Hoshi loses her shirt about five minutes later for no dramatically defensible reason.

On a completely unrelated note, what is UP with the kamikaze wasps hell-bent on squeezing into the house around the air conditioners? This is not the Promised Land, guys! All you'll find in here are a couple of freaked-out humans with a flyswatter! Scout's honor! O.o

Yes, the Six Weeks Of Overscheduled Crazy are over, and this is what I'm posting about. *blush* Errr...check back when I've had more downtime...

Original plan for today: Get back to the job of painting the garage that was half-finished last summer.

:: looks at weather forecast ::

Oh, there's not a chance in hell. (Yeah, I know I'm going to have to suck it up and do it on at least one day like this anyway, even after spending the previous sauna-like afternoon at faerie boot camp. But not today.)

New plan for today: Finish cleaning indoors. Possibly recruit assistance to haul the bedroom AC unit up from the basement. Make more headway on converting my old shows to DVD and making copies for my parents (to be delivered when I head out there in a couple weeks for class reunion). Experiment with sock puppet design for The Stand-In.

That should be sufficiently productive to assuage the guilt...

Actually, I'm starting to suspect it's not just reaction to the weather change but an actual sinus infection. Not that it's easy to tell, since the weather's been changing every 45 seconds or so. *wry g*

Either way, a day of feeling like complete crap and thus not going to lunch with irish_horse et al, and then to the swashbuckling BtvS game, was pretty much inevitable. Since, y'know, there's this benefit a week from tomorrow. Which is only the first time I've actually performed since February. (Barnum doesn't count, as I was essentially a living prop.) *sigh*

Hopefully it's just barometer-ness, tho. Or at least just working on the infection, which could still be headed off by proper rest and fluids. (The first part of which will be served by going to bed very shortly, promise.) All I know is, it was not much fun to have a headache yesterday before driving home into the torrential downpour and tornado watch. :-P Less headachey today, but very draggy.

In any event, the decision to stay home today was based largely on saving my energy for the Tut exhibit tomorrow, at which point I will see the out-of-town folks. Wanted to see them more, but life goes on. And on the upside, in between loafing/nap/etc., I accomplished (a) laundry, and (b) the Cafe Press shop for Elgin Opera. Which is just various stuff with the basic logo right now, but hopefully some of our little cadre of loyal supporters will be interested. As opposed to, y'know, just the singers.

Which will also be cool and all, but the point is to add a minor income source, and that works better if it's coming from outside the loop. They're really still learning the ropes of How You Get Money To Do Cool Artsy Stuff In America, and the production momentum (as is typical of such ventures) is tending to pick up ahead of the admin momentum. So every little bit helps.

I'm starting to wonder if we'll have a non-rainy weekend before it gets too cold to finish painting the garage, which is about half done. Not that I would have painted today anyway, so I guess it was a good day for it to be rainy...

Will feel better tomorrow. Will have fun. Am determined. And have things to do.

Off to bed with me!

The transplantation of the baby trees went...not so well. I had wanted to let them get a bit bigger, thinking it would increase their chances. Which is a great theory until you get to the part where bigger tree = more extensive roots. Which are, it turns out, not so easy to get out of the ground with some actual soil around them. Or, indeed, get out of the ground whole at all. Especially when one (the catalpa -- after some additional research I have discovered that the big ones down the street from which it presumably sprang are catalpas and not pawlonias) is rooted about three inches from the base of the deck. *sigh*

So, they were both all shocky and droopy by about half an hour after being moved. Still the case this morning, no idea if they'll make it. Tried to leave them enough roots, no idea if we succeeded.

Which sucks, but it was a crapshoot to start with. If they're dead, well, we would have had to kill them anyway, because they couldn't stay where they sprouted.

Cross your fingers and green thumbs.

Or at least that's all it is for me. If you're looking to buy or sell a home, could actually be useful:

http://www.zillow.com/

Satellite photos + information on the home. You can do a broader search, or narrow it to one address. It actually has the year ours was built -- 1908 -- which I haven't seen specifically elsewhere. (The tax assessor's website said its age was 96 when I looked it up last year, but there was no way to tell when exactly that was updated, so I had been guessing 1909.)

There's another thing I want to finally get to while I'm not in a show: researching its history...

This stuff has the approximate mass and consistency of buttercream icing (well, of a stiffer batch, like you'd use for piping flowers). I have therefore spent much of this weekend frosting my basement like a great big cake, which amuses me greatly.

Outer walls of sewing area all coated now. Decided I want a little bit of whimsy in lieu of more stark white, so, off to Menard's to pick up paint in as-yet-undecided color (probably a warm tone, as the paint for the floor is tan) for the backside of the beadboard paneling on the stairs, the stair supports, the wood frame to which the acoustic-tile ceiling is attached (apparently the previous owner also had the idea to make this part of the basement a finished room, but never got farther than that), and various exposed pipes and conduit.

It makes me ridiculously happy to be getting this done. :-)

Looking forward to first Weekend Without Plans (okay, without plans that involve going anywhere for any length of time) since J&H closed. Last weekend was in Michigan, at the lovely wedding of brainiacfive's cousin. Slightly bittersweet, as ( bride and groom and their beautiful 2-year-old daughter live at the edge of the French Quarter. )

With Monday off, I finally started making some headway on the ( basement ) Ridiculously excited about this. Six months without a sewing room = cranky Val!

MiniElphie is in the building! :: blinks at webpage :: Which appears to be a good thing, as she's now sold out. Dude. Again, there would be pictures, but, camera. She, er, looks like the picture on the site. *shrug* (And she really does resemble Idina.) Excellent quality, but with Tonner I knew that. Oh, and the stand base is a chunk of the Yellow Brick Road. *giggle* I'm really, really tempted to get a Glinda now, too...

I feel like I should be posting more about Katrina, but..."others have it covered" seems like such a copout, but I don't know that I have anything else to say. I have thoughts about what government should or shouldn't have done, and about the face they're putting on, and not all those thoughts are pretty. But I really, really don't have the heart for talking about those thoughts with others, whether to debate or to commiserate. I just want people to be safe and get to rebuilding their lives, and am taking stock of what is within my ability to contribute to that. Anything else...it's just not where I feel my energy belongs.

Good weekend -- the first floor is now almost entirely in moved-in-and-settled form. (And I really must take pictures. *nods to Mom*) Good feeling. Back to the basement next, to get my sewing area up and running. Partly because I want to work on my own projects, darnit, but also because I strongly suspect, with 50 people to dress for 1888, Summerplace is going to take note of the costuming experience on my resume. Even if that weren't there, I would have been outed yesterday when I lent them the seamstress' tape measure I always carry in my purse. ;-) (Mostly to measure inseams of pants before I bother to try them on, granted, but I originally put it in there for costume designer purposes.)

( And speaking of show... (plot spoilers; you'll know most of them if you've heard the 1995 concept album, and all of them if you've seen/heard the Broadway version) )

Had a laid-back but fairly productive weekend in Columbus (and partly in Dayton, where I got to watch my honorary li'l bro' get himself hitched *sniffle*).

Among the things now checked off the must-do-to-house list is cleaning the gutters. Which turned out to be desperately necessary on the lower section in front in particular. One really shouldn't wait 2+ years in between gutter cleanings when there's a Great Big Pine Tree looming over that corner of the house. It was actually kind of fun climbing up on a ladder to dig and then hose out all the, essentially, mulch that was up to the edge for more than half the length of the gutter.

The perfect conditions, apparently, for FOUR LITTLE COTTONWOOD TREES, each about 8 - 10" high, to have sprouted there.

Remember the posts around this time last year about the Vanquishing of the Cottonwoods in the back yard? Apparently they responded by going airborne.

On a tangential note, I'm sure hubby is far from the only person in the world who calls it an "eavestrough," but I somehow managed to make it to age 34 1/2 without ever having heard it before.

Chiming in with congrats to the SG-1 Fanfiction Awards winners. {{{pouncehugs suzvoy, seldear, josephides, allisnow and probably several others I'm forgetting}}} Much coolness!

Also, virtual chockie to my fellow also-rans. The real honor, yadda yadda... ;-)

36 minutes to interview. {fidgetfidgetfidget}

So, tinagilman was shocked that I hadn't squee'd vociferously yet about ( Space Race (here there be [minor] spoilers) )

Still playing schedule tag with photog to get the CD-ROM with the shots we did...jeez, a couple months ago now. Need them so I can do new resumes, certainly before I go to Chi. Which I'm having real hope at this point will happen by the beginning of September. If they want me SOON soon, I'm going to have to ask them if I can hold off until 8/27, because one of the doctor's appointments last week was a head-to-toe exam with a dermatologist, and that's when my appointment is for her to remove a couple of moderately suspicious moles. So I'd really like to still be covered by my health insurance at that point!

RPG stuff is continuing apace; currently I have the second SG-17 story still in the works, along with collaborating with Jack on three entries for the Season One sourcebook and three for the System Lords sourcebook. It's very cool to be involved in something actually, y'know, official, but I do find myself missing getting to work on my own fic. *crooked g* Grass is always greener.

Speaking of grass ('cause, y'know, it's in our backyard), my quads, upper back and arms are upset with me this morning, but not nearly as badly as I was afraid they would be. Hands are a little raw as my leather work gloves were wet through pretty early on, so I've been going through a lot of lotion, but other than that, feeling pretty good. I am Val the Mighty, Vanquisher of Cottonwoods. Ha-HAH!! {flourishes and lunges deep with imaginary rapier} {winces}

She's not sure how she survived, but, y'know, gift horse, yadda yadda.

High points of the past week...

( Windy City employment potential )

( That's a wrap )

( Day of the Cottonwoods )

ETA: BTW, in case you hadn't guessed, this is gonna be one of those times where I don't bother trying to catch up on my Friends list. Sorry. :-)

My house has no Jack. It is Jackless. Very odd. Don't remember the last time I spent a full night here with him elsewhere (although I keep bopping off and leaving him on his own with Diablo the Neurotic Wonder Kitty); now he's off to Gen Con until Sunday night. Bummer that it's over his birthday. :-/ Other than that, though, I have to admit I've kinda missed having the place to myself for substantial stretches, since going back to a full-time day job. Wish I could say I'm going to go nuts and enjoy it (visions of Mary Camden on Halloween are suddenly dancing in my head, and singing off-key, and taking bubble baths...), but when I'm home from work, said time is pretty much reserved for RPG book stuff. They assigned us bits for the Season One and System Lords sourcebooks, so no rest for the wicked!

Challenge from splash_the_cat: "Choose three movies from your personal library that as a set of three would allow most of your friends to guess with reasonable certainty that they came from your house, and explain why if necessary. The aim is to pick movies if possible such that any two of the three don't necessarily uniquely define you."

(I'll refrain from the "only three?" whining here, as I've already subjected poor samkicksass to it in my comment on her post.)

Hmmmmmm...

Moulin Rouge: {looks at journal style and mood theme} Okay, obvious, but true nonetheless. And anyone who's spent any time around me in the last two years is going "Yes, DUH, move along." Probably to the extent that this and one other would do it, thus disqualifying it, but let me think of the other two before deciding that...

Practical Magic: First thing I pop in when I'm home sick. Ultimate popcorn chickflick. And I know the house wasn't real, but I want it anyway.

The Prince of Egypt: a/k/a That Which It Is My Personal Mission To Make Sure EVERYONE Sees Because It Is Stunningly Jaw-Droppingly Gorgeous And Was Horrendously Poorly Marketed. Generally the second thing I pop in when I'm home sick, and the first when I want "background noise" for writing. Especially if I'm writing SG-1 fic (and yes, butterflykiki, someday I'll get around to that "That reminds me, Carter, did we ever tell you HOW Daniel found the city on Abydos?" ficlet).

{looks at list} Yeah, MR and either of the others would probably do it, so let's swap it out for 10 Things I Hate About You. Best Shakespeare update evah.