First Snow of the Season

Today is the first snow of the season. It's not sticking of course, as it is too warm still. Our nights have been in the 30's, but days are still in the 40's and 50's. I tried to take a picture of it to share, but the snow fakes are too small to see.

I am happy to report that the patio is finished! The last picture you saw was of Jon standing on the first three pavers - that was last Thurs. The next picture was how it looked on Mon. And he finished it on Wed.


Jon still needs to get electricity out to site. He will probably do that Sat or Sun. Then all we have to do is wait for the hot tub. We are hoping to hear today on when it will be arriving. And we are hoping that will be the end of our outdoor projects, until next spring.

This will not be the end of our indoor projects. As soon as Nano and the play are over, we will return to unpacking, which has been woefully neglected since the beginning of Nov. After we finish that, we will start painting. Which is backwards of the way I normally try to do it, but events were beyond my control. Part of the house was painted quite nicely, and most of it was done rather poorly. Not to mention most of the colors do not go with our things. I haven't decided what colors to use, but I am thinking warm tones. Although, perhaps not as warm as the orange mustard seed color that is in our office!

As for Nano, both Diane and I are a bit behind. We should have passed the halfway mark yesterday, and we didn't. However, we are very close. I do have a few concerns about finishing on time. Extra rehearsals have been called, leaving us even less time for writing. And we will have to finish before the end of the month, as opening night is Nov 29th. I am hoping to finish by the 27th, so I can have the 28th to hyperventilate about the play.

I know I promised a picture of Diane in rehearsal, unfortunately, I forgot my camera. I will try again next week. Our parts are going quite well. Jon's and my part is quite small, so the lines were not difficult to learn. Our staging is also quite easy. Diane's staging is also quite easy. Her lines are not. She has a short monologue at the very beginning and a long monologue at the very end. Her biggest challenged has not be the memorization though. It is speaking loud and slowly. There are no microphones, so her voice is easily lost in the theater. And Diane is related to me. In other words, she talks a billion words a minute.

On this past Mon, the director told Diane that by Wed's rehearsal and she had have her part memorized, get louder and slower. So Tues and Wed we practice. Out back we have a large stone about 50 feet from the house. I had her stand on the rock, while I sat on the back steps.

Wed's rehearsal had several issues. Diane was not one of them. She gave her big monologue and she nailed it. The director was impressed that she was a good speed and loud, not to mention she needed no cues to remember her lines. The rest of the cast even clapped for her. There are advantages to being the youngest - even if only by 2 years.

As this is a musical, extra rehearsals have been called for the dance numbers. All three of us are in the chorus - in fact unless your on stage with a speaking part at the time of the chorus, your in the chorus. There are 10 cast members, and when we all get on stage it is very tight. For being amateurs, we are not too bad. But we still need tons of work before opening night.

That's all I have to report this time. Since I don't have any more pictures for you, I stick on some of the cats. They aren't the best pics in the world and they were taken this past Jan, when we were spending the winter on the island. The black cat is Diane's. Her name is Amore (with a tic over the e). She is almost 3.5 years old. The other two are Freya and Koko. They are 16.5 years old now. Both Siamese are doing pretty well. Koko (far right) has lost his sight and hearing, but he doesn't let that slow him down too much. His eye drops keep him pain free. He has been very happy in our new home. We can tell, because he stopped waking everyone up a half dozen times in the middle of night. He also stopped sleeping on my face/head/neck every night. Which is a great improvement!

Some of you were asking about leaving comments. Jon thinks he was able to fix the problem on that. Also, you have to have a google account to leave message.

Since this is my first time doing anything like this, the layout will be changing as I figure things out. I have gone back today and made some format changes that hopefully will make it easier to read.

Just in case anyone does not know, you can double click on the pictures and it will give you a bigger one.

And while I was wasting time on this, and not typing on Nano, as I should be, it started snowing harder and sticking. Well, it's sticking to the grass and tables, but not the actual ground. So I snapped a couple pics of that. My favorite is with the crabapple tree out the front door.

Till next time....