On the Stage

I'll have to get some pictures tonight and pop them onto my blogger sometime soon. It is dress rehearsal tonight, baby! Well, we had dress rehearsal last night too, but tonight they'll be more people there and tomorrow is opening night. Ahhh the butterflies, the excitement, the thrill of it all! :-)

I'm so nervous my voice is just going to go kaput for no reason or I'm going to get sick and then the show will be screwed. I always do this to myself when I have important parts. You don't want to be around me the last month before I have to go on for a role because I am the most paranoid person about getting sick. If you're sick then I avoid you like the plague.

My voice *probably* isn't as delicate as I make it out to be, but when I'm singing the notes I'm singing, I need it all there or it's just not going to be good enough for me. If I'm singing normal people notes, I could get by with singing longer and harder, but these notes up in the stratosphere take a certain kind of conditioning on my part. I can do it without conditioning, but it's better with conditioning. Can I say conditioning again?...conditioning.

When I post pictures you'll also see Lars with just a mustache :-) 'Tis very amusing.

I saw Ocean's 12 last night...confusing but pretty good.

I saw 80 minutes of Frida...I liked what I saw! I was enthralled by the story and the acting...I was also enthralled by Salma Hayek's chest.

There's probably a lot more I could talk about, but time being as it is and my memory being as it is I will stop now.

WOW...um, thank you Lord for watching out for me this morning.

I was running a little late this morning, and well, I speed anyway, but I'm doing probably 80 mph on I-80W towards work. I'm going with the flow of traffic, if you've ever been on I-80 you know it's a fast moving Interstate. Well...wouldn't you know it some lights come on behind me.

I watch out for cops like it's my job, this guy was in an SUV and he was unmarked, so come on, who wouldn't miss that? I pull over and I"m about to shit myself.

This guy was the rudest cop I'd ever met in my life. I don't really have time to go over the whole story, but I got chewed hard about how fast I was going.

First he wants my drivers liscense. So, I try to show it to him through my wallet because my liscense is almost split in half from the way it sits in my wallet. SO, I get chewed hard for that and told to fix it. (Which I know I need to do, but don't have time to go to the DMV. Will try to do that tommorrow since I don't have rehearsal.)

Then I got accused of stealing the liscence plates because I couldn't find my registration at first. I told him those were my stickers and they were up to date and then I found my registration.

Now at this point, I am terrified, I'm scared of cops period, but this guy was mean and scary and so when I hand him the registration my hand is shaking so bad, literaly the papers are flopping up and down as I hand it to him.

He then says it's not the right registration after comparing it to the VIN. Then I am flabbergasted, I don't know what to say, so he grabs it again real quick and checks it again and then recants, never apologizes, but says it is indeed the right registration.

Next, now here's the really bad part, he asks for my proof of insurance. I don't have any, I lost it or never had it or something. Here is also the uncanny part of the story. Yesterday I had called my insurance company to get an insurance card for my car (long story) and so they're sending me one. I asked them yesterday on the phone, I kid you not, what I should do if a cop stops me. They said to tell him you have insurance they'll just need to call us.

So here I am with this really mean cop. I try to tell him that. He gets real pissy then and chews me out hardcore about how much it costs to not have insurance and how "I could take your keys, your car and your liscense plates right now and send you walking down this interstate and I probably should for the way you were driving."

Some more mean talking chewing out occurs and he tells me how lucky I am and from the first sentence out of his mouth I've been agreeing and apologizing profusely. I am apologizing more and listening and shaking and he says something to the extent of slowing down and watching out from now on and how lucky I am and then just walks away.

I pull back out onto the interstate and go 65 mph the rest of the way to work.

Well, got the inspection done yesterday...it went well!

The guy was super nice and super awesome and made sure I understood everything he was talking about. He always asked if I was "tracking" as in "Are you tracking?" LOL, he was hilarious.

We spent from 4pm-6pm going over the house and everywhere. He is going to write up his report and send it to me over e-mail, that'll be nice.

He said it is perfectly ready to move in to, just a couple things he'd suggest we try getting done as soon as possible. The furnace (and add central air while we're getting a new furnace) and put dirt around the house, it is low all around and it needs to be at a small slope away from the house and right now it's all soggy dirt from gathering and storing rain water instead of it running away from the house. Some windows have been replaced, some not, so replace the ones that aren't yet.

But the good thing was it's all just "as soon as you can get the $$ and get to it" it's not anything dire. I mean, they need to be done, but you know what I mean.

I was very pleased, very happy, he seemed to like some things about the house quite a bit and was impressed with the house, so that was good.

This guy was very, very knowledgable and I am glad he was my inspector.

One step closer!!

This is the house that Veronica and I just got! We found out yesterday that they accepted our final bid :-) It closes June 27. We are beyond excited!! These are the pictures from the realtor. When we get in we'll take more pictures, of course :-)

Just a little about this house. It is in the same town I grew up in, and in fact is 2 doors down and across the backyard from my parents house. This is a good thing though. I've always been really close with my family and so it doesn't bother us. Grandma and Grandpa being closer is better since when we're done at their house for whatever we're doing we usually have to drive back 15 minutes to Ames, now we need to walk 1 minute back home. Kaia and grandma and grandpa love being this close to each other too :-)

It is half a block from the pool, park, can carousel. Couple blocks from the elementary school.

This is all so exciting. Just relieved to have a house we wanted and to not be throwing away our money on small apartments anymore!

Take a look:

I know, I know, I just started playing the bidding game, but I don't want to play anymore...I'm done. Just call me, Ms. Agent, (Yoj, can she be my secret agent like you have?!) and let me know they accepted our bid and we can move into this cute little house. It's funny...I was excited about the last house we bid on, pretty dang excited, but I wasn't excited by the locale. Now, this house is where we want to live and we went and looked at it again and it's SO cute, so I'm even MORE pumped about this house.

Last night, when we put the bid in, Ms. Agent called them while we were sitting there, hoping to get the squabbling out of the way and get us into this house! However...they weren't home. SO...I was thinking by this morning it would all be over with and we would be first time homeowners. I have not received a phone call yet though...

I'm getting very anxious. Extremely anxious because someone swooped in and stole the last house we bid on...our very first house to ever bid on, so I now feel like it's going to happen to every house we bid on, and I don't want that to happen because I want this house really pretty damn bad, and it's one of the only ones left that we're interested in.

I will continue to wait anxiously by the phone pretending I care about the work I'm doing right now, when really all I want is to know that we got this house...

We put a bid on a house Sunday night. We bid a bit under what they were asking for, because this house has been on the market quite a while, the owner doesn't even live there anymore (but most of her stuff is still there) and we can only afford so much. We got a counter-offer on Monday and it was still higher than we can go, so we put in a counter offer of the max we can go. We are finishing up getting approved for a loan here in Iowa (we are approved for one in AZ where my future BIL is our loan officer) and our agent calls and tells us there has been another bid put in on this house and we are to tell her the max we can go and then just wait.

Well, we already were at our max, so we just told her that and now we are waiting.

We're kind of hoping this is an elaborate ploy to try and get more money out of us even though she wants to sell this house pretty bad. But we can't fold under this ploy, if it is a ploy, because we just can't go any higher! So poo-poo on her if it is, if it isn't well then it just sucks.

Sucks because this house is on the market for a long time with no bids or offers or anything and now WE bid on it and all of a sudden someone else is interested in it too, that would be just our luck! LOL

But...there are 2 or 3 other houses we're interested in, so if this doesn't work out, we're pretty sure there is one in SC that we would like to make an offer on and we think it could be worked out to down to what we can afford.

This house stuff is so exciting! Except for the anxiety of waiting to hear back about offers and knowing we'll be in debt for at least 30 years!

Judge Story’s Theatrical Troupe Proudly presents:
The Music Man
Book. Music and Lyrics by Meredith Willson
Based on a story by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey
Wednesday, June 1 – Saturday, June 4
At 7:00 pm
Matinee on Sunday, June 5
At 1:30 pm

Presented at the
Historic Story Theatre/Grand Opera House
§ Tickets for Meredith Willson’s The Music Man will go on sale May 2nd.
§ JSTT has raised ticket prices to $10.00 because of increased production costs.
§ JSTT now accepts MasterCard and Visa credit cards.
§ Doors open 45 minutes prior to performance.
§ The Historic Story Theatre/Grand Opera House does not have handicap accessible bathroom facilities.


I play Jacey Squires the 1st Tenor in the barbershop quartet! I will put up some sounds in a few days when I can figure it out and get some new sounds. I'm going to record us tonight at rehearsal!

You can call for tickets:

Norsemen Insurance & Realty
P.O. Box 274
Story City IA 50248
(515) 733-4315

Meritt...always keeping me in check ;-)

Well, we're meeting with our realtor this Wednesday to look at some houses we are interested in here in the area.

There's a big hooptido over our loan being from a different state (long story) and so we'll have to get that solved.

Music Man is high into rehearsal, since we open in under a month! Meritt, Doug/Jody -- anyone coming? :-) Tickets are on sale now...I need to make my announcement here on my blog like I do.

Work is really stressing me out, but that's just not something I"m going to discuss on my blog.

That's about it :-)

Got some new pictures of Kaia on my digital camera from the park, they are excellent, I'll post soon!

Doug/Jody -- SORRY we couldn't make it to your party :-( Really wanted to dangit, I hope you have another one.

I never get stressed...but I'm stressed right now. Stressed to beat hell.

Ugh...you wouldn't tell it by looking at me, but inside I'm tearing up and everything is churning and it's hard!

Stressed about: (in no particular order)

Money
Work
3 year olds
Wife
Buying a house (haven't mentioned it yet...but we're approved for a loan, just need to find a house now I guess...)
Musical

The big stresser is the house. I just don't have time to go into it right now, but we have some houses we need to look at, but we're not even close to FINDING a house, but my future brother-in-law is a senior loan officer and he is handling all our stuff and doing a good job, and he's got us approved for a certain amount. We found a good dozen houses around Ames and Story City for that amount or less, but we haven't looked at them yet. Then if we find one, we haven't talked to anyone about making that our house or done ANYTHING.

All I've done so far is got us approved for a loan for a house for a specific amount of money. I have NO idea what I'm doing and I don't know how to deal with it.

I'M PULLING MY HAIR OUT OVER HERE!!!

Ugh...I'm always nervous having to do adult things like this, I'm not cut out for this... :-(

then don't say anything at all right?

Here's another one of my "Ive been gone for a while but now I'm back" posts.

Thursday we were done with work at noon because we were packing up to move to the new building. Friday we didn't have to work because all the boxes and shit were being moved to the new building.

Saturday we came in to the new building and unpacked and I've been busy all weekend besides :-D

I think I'll post nothing about my job here in case there is some lurker here I don't know about!

V tells me there is another job open at that church that dissed me so bad, so I'm going to personally call them on Monday and tell them who I am and that I would like my resume to be brought out for that job as well. Hopefully it pays well and something can come of this.