Review and Schechter House Update #2

Ok, I have one more review from May Festival. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20060528/ENT/305280006/.

My favorite line is "Robert Porco has trained his chorus to sing with buoyancy as well as power. Indeed, few places on earth can one hear such a finely trained amateur chorus. The result was vibrant and rich." I must say that I am proud to have been in such a fine choir. I do feel a great sense of relief now that it is over! It just took so much time!

Our meeting went well today. We worked out a lot of details about our house from, different types of foundation, windows, shingles, appliances, flooring, lighting, plumbing, etc. We are now in the process of getting our house plans printed (he needs 20 copies) in a big copy format so that our consultant can start to gather bids. We are going to try and get those very soon. It is a little out of our hands, however. I asked him today how long he thought this house would take to build. He estimated that it would take about 4 months to build this size of house. We will hopefully break ground sometime in late June or July and therefore I am hoping to be done by November. It would be great to be in our house for Christmas! Anyway, I feel like things are really moving now. A lot of this is all over my head but I am hoping to catch on soon. If anyone is in the area and wants to help when we tile, paint, finish, etc, let me know. We will probably only be able to pay you back with favors or a nice meal in our home, once finished! :) Anyway, I will continue to update when I know more.

New Baby

Here is the announcement I received from my college roommate about her second child. I actually got this a few days ago but I haven't checked my email recently! You know I am BUSY when I don't check my email! :) I guess I got the baby's name wrong in my previous post.

Toby Graham
8 lb 7 oz
21" long
Black, thick hair and dark blue eyes

I can't believe my little friend had such a big baby! Anyway, congratulations to them!

Soapbox

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060525/NEWS07/605250364/1009

I have always been against too much TV watching. In middle school, one of our teachers had us go 24 hours without watching TV. It was wild to see how people struggled with it. I enjoy my shows (24!!) like the rest of the world and I still watch too much TV (especially at night). I do believe that the majority of the world's children watch way too much TV. So, I was glad to find this article through Google news that has backed my theory of too much TV. Just think of how much we could get done if we weren't so captivated for hours a day by watching television.

Happy Anniversary!

I don't want to get too sappy on this blog because I know several family members read this who don't appreciate sap. Anyway, I just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my husband. It has been a wonderful three years and I am looking forward to many many more! I love you so very much!

Miracle

It is strange to think that my college roommate is getting ready to deliver her second baby by C-section in about 15 minutes. I am so glad that things have gone so much smoother this time around for her and the baby. I can't imagine having children so it is hard for me to fathom having two! I will wait until I hear any news about the birth to update this since they don't know stats yet.

I haven't gotten any calls from my voice lesson add that I placed in the Pulse Journal a week ago. If I don't get any interest, I might just forget it for now. I really would like to teach again because I enjoyed it so much. I could write local schools but with school so near the end, it seems pointless.

Another Review

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20060522/ENT03/605220328/1083/rssenq05

Websites of Interest

Well, I just got home from our second May Festival concert of the season, which went well. I must say that I have such a love/hate situation here. I love certain aspects of May Festival and hate other aspects! Andrew has given me good advice to just take the next year off and then decide whether I will continue on. If you'd like to read reviews and other information about this year's festival. Click on the links below.

1) Interviews and a clip of a performance: http://www.cetconnect.org/arts_culture/index.asp

2) Cincinnati Enquirer review of Friday's performance:
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20060520/ENT/605200347/1083/rssenq05

Article

I thought this was a good article, describing the May Festival history. I was actually surprised to read that the Orchestra was created originally for the May Festival. Enjoy!

http://cinweekly.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/a1/20060517/NEWS0102/605170330/1082/rsscin10

Schechter House Update #1

We have a meeting set for the 30th of May. It is hard to get a meeting set up there and the only available time they had before that conflicted with my staff meetings. I need to remember to set up these meetings quickly after the last one so no time is wasted. Oh well, it will give us plenty of time to get final house plans finished (thanks to Tim) and get some information on other specific products we want in the house since it is a specs meeting. Our consultant claims it will last 3 or 4 hours. I am just looking forward to the fact that I will be completely done with May Festival (until a later date, anyway) on that day! I had the hardest time going to sleep last night, even though I was tired, because all of our music kept running through my head!! I am feeling ready for a relaxing summer and hopefully some hours spent in Rolf's pool (when it warms up! It's only 54 degrees right now! Brrr!).

What I will be doing!

If I happen to not post much in the next two weeks, I wanted to explain why. I am going to show you the schedule we have for May Festival this year. Thankfully, I am not in the Mozart Vespers and therefore I do get a few (three) evenings off in the upcoming two weeks. I don't know how the singers in that will do it. You can read about the upcoming concerts at www.mayfestival.com.

WEEK I:
Saturday, May 13; 10:00AM-5:00PM LRR Rehearsal; Hailstork Vespers (Lunch provided in Corbett Tower): no early Chorus Call

Sunday, May 14; 2:00PM-9:00PM LRR Rehearsal; Repertoire for Week I (Dinner provided in Corbett Tower); no early Chorus Call

Monday, May 15 6:15-10:00PM LRR Rehearsal; Basilica Program6:00PM Chorus Call

Tuesday, May 16 6:00-6:20 LRR Rehearsal; 6:20-7:05PM Stage Block Earthrise7:15-7:30PM Seat Orff Choruses7:30-10:00PM Rehearsal with OrchestraHailstork/ Orffno early Chorus Call

Wednesday, May 17 7:30-10:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Tippett; Vaughan Williams 6:30PM Chorus Call in LRR

Thursday, May 18 7:30-10:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Hailstork; Orff (Open Dress Rehearsal)6:00PM Chorus Call in LRR

Friday, May 19 8:00PM Stage Performance; Hailstork; Orff; 7:00PM Chorus Call in LRR

Saturday, May 20 10:00AM-1:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Tippett/Vaughan Williams (Open Dress Rehearsal) 9:00AM Chorus Call in LRR

Saturday, May 20 8:00PM Stage Performance; Tippett and Vaughan Williams 7:00PM Chorus Call in LRR

Sunday, May 21 3:00-5:15PM Basilica Rehearsal; Mozart Vespers 2:15PM Chorus Call in the Latin School(Light supper provided between rehearsal and performance)

Sunday, May 21 7:00PM Basilica All-Mozart Concert 6:30PM Chorus warm up in the Latin School

WEEK II:

Monday, May 22 7:00-10:00PM LRR Rehearsal; Haydn Creationno early Chorus Call

Tuesday, May 23 7:30-9:30PM Stage Rehearsal; Mozart Abduction 7:00PM Chorus Call

Wednesday, May 24 7:30-10:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Haydn Creation

Thursday, May 25 7:30-10:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Mozart Abduction 7:00PM Chorus Call

Friday, May 26 8:00PM Stage Performance; Mozart Abduction Chorus Call TBD

Saturday, May 27 10:00-1:00PM Stage Rehearsal; Haydn Creation 9:00AM Chorus Call in LRR

Saturday, May 27 8:00PM Stage Performance; Haydn Creation7:00PM Chorus Call

The places I've been: States

Obviously, most of my travel has been limited to the Midwest! Too bad Andrew and I never made time or money to take our "southwest road trip" when we still lived in Kansas. I do believe that I will at least add one state (West Virginia) this year. Thanks, Anna, for this fun idea!

create your own visited states map

House Update!

Our meeting went well. Our rough estimate was quite a bit higher than we expected. We decided to change some things and make the upstairs an "attic" for the time being so that won't be included in the cost of the total building project. We are changing our house plans to make the downstairs acceptable to a lender and then we will have a long meeting with UBuildIt to decide specifications for the whole house. I hope we can get our house plans finalized quickly so that we can keep the process moving. No, we don't know yet when we will start building. That's all for now. Have a good day!!

Oh no!

It all started yesterday when I began to feel a litte bit congested in my nose. Now, I have a terrible sore throat! This is the worst possible time for me to get sick. I do feel a bit draggy today as well. I'm hoping that it is just allergy problems and will clear up quickly!

This week!

I am looking forward to our meeting with UBuildIt on Thursday. We should find out then, the rough estimate of how much it is going to cost us to build. I hope we don't have to find another house plan!! I am also going to ask him when he things we can start the actual construction (even though I realize this planning phase is just as important . . . I am getting lots of questions that I don't have answers to!). We have had a difficult time figuring out how to get the property mowed. It is so deep that a regular mower just can't handle it!

I have actually been working out very regularly lately. I have been running (my longest run was 3/4 mile, not long, I know) and working a lot outside. On Saturday I trimmed trees, mowed, tilled the garden, and planted some stuff. Then I went for a run! Whew! I am thinking about getting my bike out and riding that some. I need to discover some good places to ride bikes around here because the roads just seem way to narrow and busy for me to be comfortable. I also don't like riding bikes because I can't take Dewey. We need to head back to my favorite park, Dudley Woods, so that Dewey and I can get a good long walk in. I will probably be in shape before I know it. I am having some weird pain in my ankle's when I run, so I need to figure that out before too long. I know these upcoming two weeks with May Festival will put a damper on my exercising routine but hopefully I can start up right after the Festival is over. I have also been doing a bit better with eating. I need to continue to eat more veggies and fruit but I bought some and have them at work with me. I guess that is about all for now!

Birthday Update!

I had a great birthday yesterday. The day started out with Andrew making me breakfast in bed. I enjoyed pancakes, scrambled eggs, and strawberries. It was delicious! When I got to work I discovered that my boss and his wife had given me a very nice book and card!! I was very surprised and it was very thoughtful of them. I know he realizes that I LOVE books but I'm not sure he knows how much I love books!! Then Susan took me out to lunch at Dewey's pizza! :) It was very good and I still have half (or more) of my calzone in the fridge at church. That will have to wait until Friday because my co-workers are taking me out to lunch today. Andrew then took me out for supper to Abuelos for some mexican food. It was very yummy! I was well fed, to say the least!!! Well, I'd better get going! Happy National Day of Prayer to all! Bye!

Weekend Update!

We had a great weekend in Cincinnati. Our only disappointment was the hotel. We had to wait in a long line, we didn't get clear instructions on anything (parking, dining, where our room was, checkout), and the bathroom was a little dirty. The show we saw was fantastic. My favorite song in the whole musical was "Bring him home." Great performance. The baseball game was great too. It was better once we left our original seats and sat down closer. We enjoyed expensive treats and the Red's won!

Yesterday, I was surprised at lunch by a birthday lunch. Susan and Jennie made my favorite, Super Nachos. I appreciated that because I know (for a fact!) that everyone in the family does not like them. Because of that reason, I would not have picked them if someone would have asked me (I am glad no one asked so . . . I could get my favorite meal, despite myself)!!
I also got to have the leftover Super Nachos which I will enjoy for lunch!