Pre-stingray boogie boarding 

Hooray, Dolphins! 

David took this cool shot of Punky and I before we hit the beach 

Catching up...

Wow... I last blogged over a month and a half ago. Since then, I've done a full run of "Annie Get Your Get Your Gun," which was loads of fun... I discovered that Hastings in Kerrville has a nice new coffee cafe, and was able to not only get myself a quad before every performance, but also hook us up with a stash of Republic of Tea's Good Hope Vanilla Red Tea. That tea is like dessert for me. Yum! I miss my orchestra friends, now that it's over. Looking forward to doing South Pacific this winter.

Immediately following the closing of the show, we went to camp at Highland Lakes camp out in Spicewood. We took 9 students and had a blast. I got sick the very first night and ended up feeling miserable the whole time, but we still had fun. It was a great time of bonding with the students and also a time of refreshing for me. Food wasn't bad, either.

Since then, we've spent the summer being kids... going to Schlitterbahn, Malibu, bowling, and this past Sunday, we had all the students over to our pool for swimming and fish volleyball, which is just basically volleyball with a dead fish instead of a ball. It was hilariously gross, and the kids loved it (the grosser, the better, right?). Pictures will follow.

And so then, last week, David and Punky and I went to South Padre Island for a much needed vacation. It was great, except for the first day. We were all out in the ocean boogieboarding, and I had just caught a fabulous wave and rode it forever, and as I stepped down off of my board, I felt a very sharp jab -- what actually felt like very sharp teeth -- on my ankle. Now, when one feels very sharp teeth on one's ankle in the ocean, one immediately thinks, "Shark!" Yeah. All I knew was that I had to get out of the ocean now. And do you know how hard it is to get out of waist-deep ocean water with a very strong undertow, not knowing how much of your foot is left? And to top things off, I was scrambling to get away from whatever has just bitten me, and I saw 2-3 jellyfish, so I was also dodging them in my quest for freedom. It was like a bizarro version of Super Mario Bros, and I'm Luigi! Anyway, finally making it out of the water, I looked down to see that my ankle was bleeding profusely, and I was in terrible pain, so I just sort of collapsed onto the beach. Fortunately, a lady came up and said, "Oh, yeah, you got stung by a stingray. That happened to me a couple of years ago. It hurts like crap and then you might start having trouble breathing, so we'd better call EMS." So 4 guys carried me (no comments, please, on how many guys it took, okay?) to a chair and then like 8 paramedics, firefighters, policemen, park rangers, national guard, Air Force, Marines, and a few doctors ended up looking at my foot, said they didn't think the barb got stuck, and to go up and soak my foot in very hot water, which neutralizes the poison. Problem was, I couldn't walk, because the poison had paralyzed my foot. So the EMS dudes had to carry me up to my room on a stretcher...... Yeah. I just wanted attention.

Thing is, my foot is still hurting, almost 2 weeks later. But I have become one with the stingray, and now I have stingray powers. Mwahahahahahaha........

Oh, we went to the Schlitterbahn Beach Park while we were there... that was awesome. It's one big lazy river and you float around until you find a ride, and then you just float right onto the ride. Punky was great... he was nervous about the rides, but he was very brave and went on them anyway and had a blast. Oh, and there were 117 people there the whole time we were there, so we essentially had the place to ourselves! Hooray, school!

David got a very cool camera and has been practicing his photography skills, so I will now post all his very cool pictures from our trip and such.

It's good to be back online. I have missed blogging. I have missed our website. I have missed our music. Hooray, music.

This little fella and I became intimately acquainted last week at South Padre Island. He made a large hole in my ankle and I thought I had been bitten by a shark. Ouch. This story and more coming soon... 

Tapdance

After this week, I will be able to breathe again! Lord willing, this is my last five-day work week. I have become really guarded of my schedule... especially the after-work hours, because if I am not careful, I end up being out every evening, and by Friday I look back at my week and go, "ACH! I'm NEVER HOME!" So tonight we have to teach VBS. Tomorrow the youth are going bowling/pizza-ing, but they'll be done by 6. Wednesday is church. Thursday, I hope, is nothing. Annie is Friday and Saturday, last two shows.

Then I go to camp on Sunday. I'm looking forward to camp. I was only going because one girl from our group signed up, but now it looks like we're going to have 4 girls! Yaay! It's going to be really nice. I don't have to do anything at camp but just be available and have fun. Get to be a high schooler for a week. Cool.

Flo is back after being gone for a week. Although it wasn't too bad because we're finally both on Sprint cell phones so we can talk for free... so this week was full of text messaging and phone calls during the van drives. But I'm glad she's home... I have missed her. I'm looking forward to having more time together when I slow down.

Kathy, it seems, is still not online either...... haven't talked to her in like 3 months. We were going to start a notebook and write in it and send it back and forth, but I just now got a notebook. We are so much alike. Twins. We procrastinate everything, and end up missing each other for months, and then pick back up where we left off 3 months later. I really miss her too. We were together 24-7 in college -- literally.

Okay, okay. I really don't want to... but I must go get in the shower and get ready for work. I'm still sleepy.

Word to your mom.

Learning to stop

My goodness.... my life has not been my own for over a month now. I always end up resenting my life and my schedule when I get into this mode: leaving my house at sunup and getting home at 11:30 pm. I haven't seen Punky or David for a long time... my laundry is out of control... my dishes are unstoppable. I can't remember the last time I actually ate a meal at home. I'm at the point where anyoneone asking me to do anything extra gets a resounding and bitter "NO!" with a look of disbelief directed at them ("After I've just finished telling you what my schedule is, you have the AUDACITY to ask me to do more?"). I was actually asked yesterday at work to come in on my day off today to bring them tacos. Tacos! Umm, I live an hour away. Ordinarily, if my life were simple and I had actually seen my family once in the past month it would be okay. But today I am planning on laying out by the pool for the entire day. So no. No tacos from the Diva from Bandera.

We opened "Annie Get Your Gun" in Kerrville last night. Got to actually play in a bonafide pit... that was cool.

Ohh! David went into his old work yesterday to return some stuff, and all the Lange stuff was $1!!! For those who are not familiar with Lange, it's top of the line skincare products that are sold in exclusive salons for a TON of money (like $40-$60 a bottle)... well, apparently the owner of the company passed away last year, and his loser kids, who were the heirs, totally let the company go, stopped paying all their bills, and squandered his hard-earned money. So Lange is no more, and its suppliers, like David's old company, are left with all this product to get rid of. Hence the $1 clearance. We got a case of shampoo, 6 bottles of the facial cleanser that I so love, and a whole bunch of other stuff.... the shampoo alone would have cost $130 or so... we got all of it for $25. I love Princess Beauty Supply. See, it's the simple things in life that get me......

I must go to Super S in Bandera now and pay way too much for basic groceries. They are thieves. Example: Oreos are around $4.00 there. I think they are $2.50 in San Antonio. Super S believes that they must stick it to us poor hillbillies because we are totally dependent on them. We need an HEB out here so badly.