Whew. . .

Most of what I do could be considered a juggling act. I know I'm not alone in this as most people wear a lot of hats and juggle multiple responsibilities and I'm sure there are always nagging fears about dropping one of the many balls that are swirling around at break neck speeds above one's head. Last week was especially trying for me with school and quizzing weighing heavily on my mind, my poor house has been calling out to me for attention for months and, to top it off, we had 8 different events that were mostly crammed into 3 days. Granted, I rely on Rob and Kurt to do the bulk of the work, but I lay awake nights trying to figure out how we can be in 5 places at one time! And then I worry that with so much going on, the inevitable phone call will come wondering where we are when the concert starts in an hour!! OK, this hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't keep me from losing sleep over it!!!


The first event in the busy week was very fun to be a part of (which makes all of this worth it in the long run. . . ): Menopause The Musical! We originally thought this was a one day show but in actuality, it started on Tuesday and ran through Sunday afternoon with two shows on Saturday! Rob and Kurt were both required to be there for every show but our weekend calendar was jam packed with other stuff and we wouldn't know until the group rolled in on Monday how all of that would unfold. At any rate, the show was hilarious and the cast and crew were great to work with. I would see this production again in a heartbeat!!


After working the first three shows, Rob and Kurt were excused until Sunday from the Menopause Production. That was a good thing because it took us all day Friday to set up for the weekend. The guys spent the day Thursday setting up for our Sunday concert at the Egyptian and then on Friday we set up a stage in Garden City for a Saturday Fun Run:


It was a pretty small area so there was no way the Uhaul could pull the trailer in and still turn around to make it out. Fortunately, Kurt's truck has enough umph to pull the stage!! (And, thankfully, my truck does not!!!!)



Ta-Da!!:

The next stop was at a hotel where a weekend conference would be held. This one required a small stage, a few lights and a couple of light trees that we could set and forget until Sunday. . .

Next stop, Ann Morrison park to set up yet another stage.

This one was for a Saturday Beerfest that we could also set and forget until Saturday evening. . .

The hardest part about setting up the short stages is the shimming and clamping. Even when the ground looks fairly level, it's amazing how much of a slope it becomes when you are trying to make it perfectly level on top!!

I think it turned out pretty good in spite of the fact that we didn't care enough to drape it!! :)

The stage set ups were completed by Friday evening but we still had to pack the trucks for more events on Saturday. It wasn't as late as some of our nights have been but we had to be up much earlier than usual on Saturday morning!! Rob and I were back at the site of the stage trailer at 6:30 a.m. in order to set up all of the audio.

These are the lovely banners we had made a couple of months ago but hadn't had a chance to display yet:

Gary came out to be our crew on this event (thanks, Gary!!) but we were just barely ready for the 11:00 a.m. start time. The band was Soul Purpose!!:

Oh yeah, it was FREEZING!!! The temperatures for the day ranged from about 34 degrees to, maybe, 45 degrees!!

I admit I was feeling a little cranky by the time the band started playing so I took a few pictures and then decided to check on our other events. . .

Chef Lou. . .

Our logo on the Fun Run t-shirts:

Kurt and Hailey were over at The Grove running sound for The Worldfest. . .

Did I mention it was FREEZING???? Wow!

These girls are barefoot and sleeveless!! Brrrrr. . .

I even made a trip over to the stage in Ann Morrison Park. The Beerfest was in full swing although it seemed a little cold to me to be drinking ICE COLD beer!!

By the time I made it back to the Fun Run Event, Rob and Gary had made good progress on wrapping cables and taking down the audio. Both of the morning events ended around 1:00 p.m. so between all of us, we managed to put things away and fold up the stage trailer in record time. Mostly, we just had to keep moving so we didn't freeze to death. . .

We also had a projector rental out so Kurt and Hailey checked on that, too, and then we took a small break before tackling the next tear down!!!

Taking down the small stage is almost as much fun as putting it up!! Hailey volunteered to crawl under the stage to undo the clamps . . . No fun, but someone has to do it!!

We had to work around the audio company that was set up on and around the stage so it took a little bit longer. . .

I know I've said it before, but it's always more fun for me when Hailey is on an event. She makes me laugh!! She's also a very hard worker so that makes my job just a little bit easier!!

We were finished for the day around 8:00 p.m. but we still had our biggest and most stressful (in my opinion) event ahead of us. We were up early again on Sunday morning to finish the set up in the Egyptian that Rob and Kurt had started on Thursday. I helped as much as I could and then headed over to the hotel in the early afternoon to pack out the stage and lights that we had set up on Friday. Rob stayed at The Egyptian to sound check the band that would be playing in the evening, Kurt headed back out to Nampa for the final Menopause production and load out so my capable crew turned out to be Zach and Gloria!!!

We managed to pack it all out, strap it down and haul it all back to the shop. . .

. . . just so we could unload it with everything else that had been piled in the day before!!! I guess you could call this the aftermath:

Back to The Egyptian just in time to help set up the opening band, Fountains of Wayne:

Kurt had finished up the tear down in Nampa and flew back to The Egyptian to run the monitors for these two talented guys. . .

The show started right on time and I thoroughly enjoyed Fountains of Wayne! Their most popular song is Stacey's Mom but many of the other ones were familiar as well. They put on a great show.

The main act of the evening was Aimee Mann. She was in the band 'Til Tuesday back in the 80's and has since become a fairly well-known solo artist probably known best for the song, Voices Carry. . .

It was a good concert but a very long day and an even longer weekend. It was all I could do to stay awake during her performance and was relieved when it was over and I could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We packed it all up and pushed it into the lobby so we could load it all up the next day so we could unload it all out at the Civic Center on Monday for a Tuesday show!! Whew!! And just for the record, in all of the busy-ness of the week, not a single ball was dropped!! Unless you count schoolwork and housework. . .

Fountains of Wayne. . .



Aimee Mann. . .

How I'm Feeling Today. . .

Farm Pics. . .

School. . .

School has been in full swing for several weeks now and I'm getting to the place I come to every year around this time when I start thinking, "What was I THINKING???"

I had someone ask me for advice the other day about homeschooling and I wanted to say, "Run! Run away!" But I didn't. This is my 10th year teaching my kids so you'd think by now I'd have it figured out. Well, I don't. Not even a little bit! When asked, my advice is usually along the lines of :

1. Let your child lead the way by finding out what interests them and then giving them plenty of opportunities to find out more about it.

2. Understand that kids have WAY different learning styles and the sooner you find out what they are, the easier your job is.

3. Don't feel like you have to complete EVERY subject EVERY day. (This is hard for me because I like to check off boxes)

4. Remember WHY you have chosen to teach your kids and try to keep that in mind on especially challenging days.

5. Most importantly, keep in mind that all parents screw up their kids just a little bit no matter what type of education they choose so just do the best you can with what you have and cut yourself a little slack from time to time.

Some days are definitely better than others and I almost always have a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day but, as the kids get older, it becomes more and more challenging. Mostly because I'M getting older!

Fortunately, I love numbers and even get excited at the prospect of solving a quadratic equation but, more often than not, I have to tax my brain and peek at the answers before I can fully explain a math problem to Zach. Thankfully, he gets it most of the time but occasionally, he asks for my help. For instance, the other day one of his test questions asked him to find the area of a triangle with a half circle attached to it. My first response is usually, "why would you ever need to know this". I try to keep that to myself , though, as we tackle it together. I (mostly) remember my formulas and, between the two of us, we can usually figure these things out, but there were a few square roots in this problem and, even using the Pythagorean Theorem to find the height of the triangle, we still had to find the square root of a squared, square root. No one should have to do that.

To top it off, I'm usually helping Gloria with her math at the same time so I'm going back and forth from percentages, polygons and long division to imaginary numbers, negative vectors and multiple radicals. It's physically painful sometimes.

And then there's Science. My least favorite subject. Gloria is studying the blood and guts of human beings (no dissections, thankfully). . .

While Zach is studying the blood and guts of much smaller creatures. . .

I wonder if my life wouldn't be a lot easier if I made a different educational choice for my kids. And then I remind myself why I do it. . . :

Yep, it's so the dogs won't get so lonely during the day. . .

My Fine Looking Quiz Team. . .

We may not have all the right answers at the first quiz meet of the season next weekend, but we're sure going to look good trying. . .

Back To The Farm . . .

Horse lessons started back up again last Thursday. . .


Gloria is the only returning student from last year so she has a whole new group of friends to hang out with. . .


Cookie was rotten, as usual, but she's still my favorite. . .

The first class was all about safety and the very, very basics of being around horses. . .

Once the class gets up and running, hopefully Gloria will be able to go at her own pace rather than starting from scratch. She'll find out today which horse she'll ride and we'll have a better idea of how the season will unfold. I enjoyed being around the horses again and am looking forward to continuing my love/hate relationship with all things equine. . .

The Perch. . .

No commentary necessary. . .