Good times

I have been throwing around the idea of getting out of theatre. For more reasons than I care to go into right now. But it is Murphy's law that as soon as you decide something is bad/over/done that it becomes good.

I have had a very stress free, enjoyable time. We have had many social events. Between shows on Fridays we hang out and have a drink, just shooting the shit. (and have dinner, we have five and a half hours between shows!). On Wednesday we had a fondue party in the green room. Tomorrow we are going to Banff (because the actors are from Toronto and have never been). Everything about the show has been delightful. Including the show itself. They sing, the ladies love it, they laugh, we laugh.

Did I also mention I have a bit of a crush on Frank Sinatra. I have finished one biography and am looking for the next at the library as we speak. He lead a very fascinating life. He dressed well, drank well, spoke well and lived well.

Show photos

"Come Fly with Me"

My current show is delightful. It is a little lacking in the story department. But it is light and charming. I love it. It makes me happy.

Yesterday was opening. We had planned a Martini party, ala Frank Sinatra. Everyone brought booze and food and we had a great time.

Sidebar - Opening usually means gifts. I have been so uninspired by the shows I have been working on that I have been making cookies or something and putting a card on top and calling it a day. This time I was moved to do something more. I bought martini glasses for everyone. I researched martinis with names of the songs in the show, "New York New York", "Stormy Weather", and "Mac The Knife". There was also a martini created by a famous bartender for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, "The Flame of Love". I bought mini bottles of the key booze in each drink and made recipe cards for that martini ingredient. I wrapped them up with cellophane and ribbon and they looked great.

The party was a huge success. The show comes down at 1:05 in the afternoon and we started drinking shortly after. The one thing about doing a lunch time show is that you can drink to excess, get drunk and sober up all before bed. I went to bed with a hang over headache. But it was all worth it, it was a great time!

Wow, January 14

Time has flown by.

It all started with the flu. I find that my body is very considerate and waits until I have days off to get sick. I am not complaining, this has come in handy more than once. However, this time it didn't check the calender and see that there was only two days off.

I was fine the whole Christmas holiday - entertaining kept me busy. After all of the family went back to Regina I spent the days prepping for my next show. We went to Canmore for New Years (which was delightful, by the way), and then on the 2nd had a Production Meeting at the theatre. The meeting was so laid back and everything was going well. I was told to take two days off and we will start rehearsals on Monday rested. I went home on Friday ready to relax. Saturday went well too. Then I went to sleep. It was cut short by the sudden urge to toss my cookies at around 1am and stuck around for the whole of the night. It is the worst flu I have ever had. You usually have a bit of a reprieve between bouts of throw up. I was up so much that Logan called in for work because I had kept him up all night.

I was in a bad way all of Sunday and Sunday night. I didn't even bother to see "if I could make it" on Monday morning. I called as soon as it was a decent hour. ***As a side bar, you don't call is sick in theatre. There is no substitute teacher, no understudy, no make up test. There is a tight timeline and rehearsal cannot happen without the stage manager, legally. Let's just say they had to call someone else in. Ouch.***
I threw up all day Monday but had a decent sleep on Monday night. I got up with full conviction that I would work on Tuesday. Not just "see how I was feeling", I had no choice. I made it through three hours of rehearsal before I excused myself and left for the day. Wednesday and on were the slow climb up the mountain of recovery.

Rehearsals have been going great though. "Come Fly With Me" at Lunchbox Theatre. It is one of the best rehearsal processes I have ever been apart of. There are two actors that sing to me all day, they have both done the show before (but not together), and everything seems to be coming together fairly easily. I am sure by typing that I have jinxed the sound levels session that is scheduled to happen in 20 minutes. Oh well. I am ready.

Before and After :: Living Room

Living Room

Before

This photo is from the original listing and has the previous owner's stuff. But it will give the idea.

We painted and added curtains. The panels are just brown and from Ikea. I do have a creative touch I would like to add, but that will wait.

Before and After :: Kitchen Floor

Kitchen

These pictures of the kitchen are from the listing. The old owners stuff. But you get the idea of the before.

Then you may remember the updates we did when we first moved in. Mostly new paint.

Before

We pulled everything apart (at what seems like the same time - note the toilet in the kitchen from the bathroom flooring). We reinstalled the toilet and sink and then started on the floor one Monday.
I thought for a long time that we would tile. We brought home samples of Dura-Ceramic and I asked your opinion on what looked the best. We brought home samples of other tile as well. But I think I put off the decision because I really didn't want tile. It's cold and hard and the tile we had in the last apartment was terrible. It has left a bad taste in my mouth. It was always dirty and stained terribly. So we decided on hard wood. I couldn't be happier with it. It is an engineered wood, so it should work well in the kitchen. It is designed to stand up to water better than solid wood and is treated with a polymer top coat to protect from scratches.

The first row.

You can see all of the dishes from the China Cabinet all over the counter. Renovation is messy work.

Glamorous picture. Me in pajama pants and knee pads, recycling bins on the counter and Christmas tree in the background with all the boxes of wood laid out.

Charlie didn't seem to mind all the commotion. He really wanted to help, he had his nose in everything.

Here is Logan returned from the basement. We had set up the mitre saw downstairs because the temperature had dropped and it was too cold outside (like the tile saw on the deck several days earlier). He kept track of his trips, I think it was 104 round trips.

After

Before the new baseboards

Complete
I love the new baseboards.

Before and After :: Powder Room

Powder Room

In preparation for Christmas we did a number of home renovations. One of the first places we have really conquered (more than just paint) was the main floor powder room.

Before

You may remember what it looked for before. 10 year old lino, stained wood crown molding as a chair rail, wood toilet seat, toilet paper holder and towel bar.

We decided to tile. 16"x16" porcelain tile. Logan put down the mortar and I laid the tile.

After 24 hours of jumping from the kitchen to the living room Logan did the grout.
The toilet and the sink were in the kitchen for what felt like forever. We even had Dan stay over night for a job interview with the new fixtures in the kitchen.

After 48 hours we sealed it and the floor was done.

After the floor was ready we started painting. I figured that with the dark colour already on the bottom we should probably do two different colours again. The bottom colour is two shades darker than the brown colour in the kitchen.

The top colour is the same as the brown in the kitchen.

Here it is finished. New towel holders, new faucet, nice chair rail.

I think it looks great. On the wall is the candle holder from the gift exchange.

Christmas Exchange

On the 15th we hosted our 2nd annual Christmas exchange. It was also the warm up to Christmas as we hosted 12 people for dinner.

Jason, (Charlie), Stef, Craig

Tyler, Jen, Logan

Jason, Megan, Jonathan

Raveigh

Cris

And myself

We did pot luck, I supplied the roast and everyone else brought the fixings. The food was delicious, the mood was festive and Charlie wore his Santa Hat.

We had a gift auction that was very tame this time around. Logan, the game hater, picked the only game in the pile.

And I walked away with a gift that we put in. A fun geometric, wall mounted candle holder. It was a coveted item as it was stolen three times. It stayed here and is now hung in our newly renovated bathroom.

One of the gifts (the other that we put in) was Twister. We had a rousing game.