The Hives Outbreak - Week 4 - Auditions

So um yeah, I still have hives. Remember back when I thought these would last two or three days? Remember when I was shocked to find out there were such distinctions as acute and chronic hives? I was so innocent. I've been living with hives for like a month now. 

But they aren't nearly as bad as they were back in the first two weeks. They are mostly small and I can get the itching to go away quickly if I take one of my pills. 

And I'm not taking the full dose anymore so I don't have the stomach problems or the headaches I was getting on the full dose. So things are better. 

Though I would like to get rid of the hives for good. I'm working on that. 

The big news this week was that Charlotte, Lydia, Veronica and I auditioned for Seussical. But that didn't happen until Friday. So we'll talk about all the other things that happened this week and then we'll talk about that. 

Monday May 11 - There is nothing on my calendar for this day. I know that Brandon was helping his friend Mike with some electrical stuff and I got a little salty that he was gone the whole day after work. 

Really a lot of my free time these last few weeks has been spent weeding. There's been A LOT of weeding. I always joke that that best place to grow grass is in the flower beds. So any time I say that I don't remember what we did you can just assume I was outside weeding. 

Tuesday May 12 I had a meeting with Ivan about doing prior - authorizations for his remaining clients that have medicaid. Health and Welfare was really stupid this year and they require all Speech, Occupational, and Physical therapy providers to submit prior - authorization paperwork for any clients who need more than 20 visits in a year. It's really just a bunch of dumb busy work. 

I've been ignoring it, but Ivan's clients are getting closer to those 20 visits. So we had to tackle everything. Thankfully my billing protégé Andrea has been on top of her clients Prior -Authorizations. So when Ivan and I got stuck I could text her and she told me exactly what to do. 

But the process still sucked and I found myself playing devils advocate and asking things like, "Do you really want to keep these six clients?" The answer is yes, for now. We'll see how things play out in the fall. 

I was at Aspen Grove after working with Ivan. I'm so glad we don't have to do prior -authorizations there. 

Brandon was at CSI - for the last time for several weeks - so he wasn't home. We had a really chill evening at home without him. And yes, I was weeding. 

My yellow rose bush is starting to bloom. 

And look at this beautiful flax. It's just incredible this year. 

Here are the kids doing their favorite things. They are so happy to have a trampoline. 

They go out and jump on it every day. 

Another thing we did every night this week was work on the audition dance for our Seussical auditions. Our friend Sara is the choreographer. She filmed herself teaching the dance and then doing the dance. We'd been casually learning the dance before this week. But this is when we got serious with it. 

Here's the video of the dance. 

Our biggest struggle was that it was so fast in some places. 

Wednesday May 13 was my last real day off before school gets out. I spent a lot of it playing in my garden. I also took a nap which was really nice. 

At 2:00 I took Veronica to her last therapy appointment for the school year. We are taking a break for the summer. And really I don't think she'll need therapy in the fall. She's all adjusted to middle school now and so confident. 

After her appointment I had a panic attack which was NOT GOOD. I was like "what the heck, where on earth is this coming from? Who has a panic attack on their day off?"

I also had a hives flare up on my arm that was making me feel like I had carpel tunnel. I sometimes talk about the hives like they are sentient. It's like they decide where to go to to bother me. 

So I took one of my pill for the histamine and the anxiety and that helped. Then Charlotte and Lydia came home from school with their year books. They showed them to me. The books were brand new and smelled super strong. I joked, "Hey your book is making me high." 

That evening Brandon helped at the girls young women activity. He taught everyone how to jump a dead battery, how to change a tire, how to check tire pressure, and one or two other little things. It was a success. 

I went over to Jori's and had a fun talk with her for 4 hours. She convinced me that I should probably look into ART therapy. And I was like, "yeah, I know." Actually funny story about ART. A lot of my co-workers are certified in it. They are like ART this and ART that. And finally at a team meeting I had to be like, "Um what does ART stand for?"  And people were surprised I didn't know. I had to remind everyone that I can't see their notes. I can only see the CPT code for their appointments. I don't know what they are actually doing in session. And then everyone told me that it stands for Accelerated Resolution Therapy. It's like EMDR. And it's really good. 

So I started looking for an ART therapist because having any of my co-workers do it would be weird. 

Thursday May 14 was a really good day. I was out at Chattertown working on some things. Andrea and I always talk about theatre stuff. We were both really nervous for our auditions. Mine would be on Friday and her's would be on Saturday. The two of us have spent more time talking about kangaroos, and birds, and Who's than two 41 year old women really should. But this play had become our shared dream. We were both super committed to getting into the play. 

I spent the afternoon at Aspen Grove. 

Normally Brandon picks up Derrick after school, but Derrick went home with his friend Max. They had a good time together and then Max's parents took them out to dinner at A&W. Derrick loved that. 

At home Brandon was FINALLY home for the evening. And that meant I put him to work. When Derrick came home Derrick mowed the lawn and Brandon weed whacked all the edges. Then Brandon helped me hang up hanging baskets that I'd planted on Wednesday. My dream for years had been to have lots of hanging baskets, but I never want to spend the money on the baskets. So I was super happy when I found like 6 next to a garbage can a few weeks ago. I took them home and then got them planted this week. 

After all the yard work was done I walked around and took pictures of the beautiful yard. 

Here's a bed with lots of pretty irises. 

Here's the house from the street. 

Here's the other front bed. I'd planted zinnias this week. 

Here's another view. 

Here's one of the hanging baskets. 

Here's the patio with the original hanging basket.

Another hanging basket. 

And another basket. 

Earlier in the week I'd put up the hummingbird feeder. But so far no hummingbirds have found it. 

Here's the back yard. 

Here's one of my pots, I'm seeing if the geranium and dahlia come back from last year. 

Here are a bunch of larkspur getting ready to bloom. 

And here are the larkspur growing in the micro climate. 

I'd weeded this area earlier. This is where all my drought tolerant plants are. 

I have silver artemisia and prairie cone flower growing here. 

This is a fern bush.

Princes Plume

A Penstemon. 

And here are my raspberries. They are doing so well. 

Here are our happy chickens. 

And here's a view of the trampoline. Lydia is laying on it wrapped up in a blanket. 

Here's my garden area. 

I think this is bee balm. But it might be cat mint. I can't remember. 

Here's another view of the trampoline. 

This is my compost area, with a big sweet pea plant growing in front of it. 

Here's another one of my pots. 

And here is my desert willow. It's got little green leaves coming out. 

I'm really in love with my yard right now. All the weeding and other work has been worth it. 

Around 9:00 Brandon and I went on a date to A&W. We'd actually planned this before Derrick went there. They had $2 rootbeer floats that we wanted to have. They were delicious and worth every penny. 

Friday May 15 was audition day!  Like nothing else really mattered. Sure there was work and school and all that. But let's just skip to the auditions. 

Our audition times started at 6:00. The kids were home from school around 4:00. I played the Seussical audition music on spotify and we just practiced to that. We didn't need Sara's vidoe help anymore.

I had each of us sing our audition songs. I'd picked "My Strongest Suit" from Aida. I've LOVED this song for years and it's on our fun songs play list. I always sing along to it when it comes on. But for some reason I just didn't consider it as an audition song even though other Aida songs were suggested. Then on the Wednesday night of the girls Orchestra concert Brandon and I went over a whole list of songs while we were waiting for the concert to start. There were a lot of songs I didn't even recognize. Then he read off "My strongest suit" and I was like, "Wait, I know that one."

He pulled up the lyrics and I did a near perfect rendition of the song just sitting there. I was like, "well this is my song." I liked it because 1. I knew it. and 2 it had enough soul in it to show that I could do some of the Seussical songs.  

I'd been singing the song every chance I had for the last 10 days. There was a lot of singing in the car. 

Charlotte and Lydia would be singing "Impossible" from Cinderella. So I had them practice that. 

Veronica had been pretty cagey with her whole audition process. She hadn't practiced the dance as much as me and the twins, but she's learned so many dances for her other plays that she picked it up really quick. I had her show me her dance and she did it just fine. 

She'd refused to tell me her audition song until this point. I was like, "I need to know you have something prepared."  So she told me she was doing Adventure is a Wonderful Thing from Alice in Wonderland. I pulled it up on Spotify and she proceeded to sing the whole thing word for word. I was like, "Okay, I guess you are ready."

Around 5:40 we decided we couldn't wait any more so I drove the four of us over to the Orpheum. We went up to the second floor. My friend Danica was there and she took our pictures and got our measurements. 

The people ahead of us finished and I went in for my audition. I was nervous, but this was a lot easier of an audition than Anastasia had been. That dance had been much harder and the stakes had felt higher. This time I felt better about the dance and I was less invested in making my inner 12 year old happy by making it into the show. 

And it helped that I knew EVERYONE in that room. We were all at the super bowl party at Danica's together. These are key members of my theatre family. 

The play is being directed by Mathieu who was the assistant director for Cinderella. He was also Charlotte and Lydia's dad in Music Man. The assistant director was my friend Nate. He's married to Kerri. And Peyton is his daughter. The chorographer is Sara who is also my friend. She was also in Cinderella. And she was Charlotte and Lydia's mom in Music Man. Oh and she taught Veronica during her first two Ovation plays. The music director was Cameron. He was probably the one I was most nervous to audition for. He'd been the music director for Anastasia and he'd cut me off before I'd finished my song. I know that's just because I was at the end of my time, but I couldn't help take it a little personally. So I really wanted him to like my song this time. But even he wasn't too scary. He'd been at my birthday party and ate a whole bunch of chip dip. So we were friends too. 

Still, no matter how good of friends you are with someone it can still be really scary to just start singing a song acapella in front of them. 

After a minute to catch my breath I started into my song. I did the second and third verses.

Oh now I believe in looking
Like my time on earth is cooking
Whether polka dotted
Striped or even checked
With the some glamour guaranteeing
Every fiber on of my being
Is displayed to quite remarkable effect

From your cradle via trousseau
To your deathbed you're on view, so
Never compromise, accept no substitute
I would rather wear a barrel
Than conservative apparel
For my dress has always been
My strongest suit

And I did it! And I did it well! I was so proud of myself. I got the power in my voice that I needed and I had some soul too. It went really well. 

And Cameron complemented me. He said that my intonation was perfect and that it was really impressive I could just come in and do that acapella. 

I felt like I didn't even need to make it into the play after that. Getting a complement was good enough. 

They had me read lines for Mrs Mayor. I was secretly terrified of getting that role. The song that Mr and Mrs Mayor sing together had a lot of harmonies that I wasn't sure I could pull off. 

Then I did the dance. I was so worried about it going to fast that I ended up being ahead of it for most of the dance. But hey, I showed that I knew it and that was what I was going for. 

I was so relieved when the audition was over. I was like, "Yay, I didn't die!"

Then I said, "Okay, now the real personality is going to come in."  I meant Veronica. But when I opened the door Ivan was in the hallway. He came in the room and did a whole little bit about trying to get a role in the show. Danica had to go in and jokingly pull him out. Then Veronica walked in. Ivan tried to get back in and said, "I'll take any role you give me . . . " as Danica pulled him away. It was all really funny. 

But the funniest part was what Veronica did. She shut the door behind Ivan and then turned to the audition panel and said, "I hate that guy."  Mathieu lost it. Veronica said he laughed so hard he cried. 

Out in the hall I was talking with a kid who had shown up. It was Kellin who had been at our Cinderella auditions. He's like Charlotte and Lydia's age. He'd made it into the cast for Cinderella, but had to drop. I literally hadn't seen him since and here he was again. Later I'd joke that he only existed in this hallway during auditions. 

We could hear the music for Veronica's dance. And then we heard a big CRASH!  I was like, "Oh, yeah, I guess she does still have some spacial awareness issues."  Danica went into the room to see what happened. Veronica had backed into a table and knocked some things over. She was okay, just a little embarrassed. They let her start her dance over and she did fine. 

When she came out I teased her, "Well that will be memorable."

Charlotte and Lydia went into do their audition together because they do everything together. They told me later that when they danced they got in each other's way and pushed each other. When they were done the panel told them they were being considered for Thing 1 and Thing 2. 

We all left the audition feeling really good. I'd felt like we had a 50% chance of getting into the play before the audition. Now it felt more like a 75% chance. 

Charlotte and Lydia were babysitting our friends kids so they went there. Brandon was going to see a D&D themed improve night at the Orpheum with some guys from his D&D group. Derrick and Veronica just wanted to jump on the trampoline. And I put all my nervous energy into rotating the compost. 

On Saturday May 16 I had a meeting for the "Not So Curtain Call" Committee. One of our main priorities for this meeting was to come up with a real name for what we were creating. A lot of names were tossed around. We liked the word gala and then came up with Theatre Gala of the Magic Valley. It's perfect!

I took a lot of notes on a white board at the meeting. We solidified what we wanted to create. It's going to be really cool. 

At home Brandon was working on putting up our wedding reception fountain. We'd last had it up on our patio in Alabama. It was good to have it back up.

I spent a lot of the day just puttering around the yard doing little jobs. Charlotte and I planted a chaos garden in the area where the compost ring had been. 

Sunday May 17 was our 19th wedding anniversary. We celebrated in a lot of ways. The first was by sleeping in until nearly 11:00. 

Church was good. The closing song in Sacrament meeting was "Faith in Every Footstep."  I LOVE this song. Back in 1997 when I was 12 I sang it in the tabernacle with a young women's choir that sang at Young Women's Conference. I'm so happy that song is in the new hymn book. 

I still know the song really well after all these years. So I was SINGING it. Everyone around me was kind of muddling through it, but I was singing it as loud as I could. I didn't think anyone really noticed. But after sacrament meeting my friend Jack who is the ward chorister came up to me and said, "Thank you for singing so loudly and well today. You know that song well."  I was like, "Oh, I didn't think you'd notice from like 10 rows away!"

And then I sat there and thought about how much I really really really hoped I'd make it into Seussical so I could sing lots of songs. 

After church we had a quick girls camp meeting. And then we went home. 

Since our anniversary was on a Sunday we decided to just take what money we would have spent on a restaurant and use that to have a steak dinner at home. I made smashed potatoes and Brandon made the steaks. 

I was literally saying the prayer on the food when my phone rang. It was a Washington state number. And that meant it was NATE!

I hurried and said Amen and then answered the phone. Nate asked to speak to Charlotte and Lydia. He offered them the role of Thing 1 and Thing 2. That was awesome!  And then he told me and Veronica that he didn't have a role for us at this time. I was like, "oh." and then tried to say something gracious about how we could step into a role if anyone ended up dropping in the future. 

And then I hung up and realized just how much I'd been hoping to be in this play. I was so disappointed. I'd never imagined this outcome. I'd imagined all of us in the play. Or none of us in the play. And honestly, it had been MY idea to be in the play with VERONICA. The twins had just kind of jumped into the plan with us. And now THEY were in the play?  What the heck had happened?

I'd planed to take a picture of us eating together so we did that, but this is very much me and Veronica trying to look happy while feeling really sad. 

The steaks were really good. And dinner was nice. But it was weird. I was trying to be happy for the twins while trying to make Veronica and myself feel better. 

We cleaned up dinner and everyone took turns washing 10 dishes. I was doing my dishes turn when my phone rang again. It was Nate again. I answered the phone and absentmindedly took dishes from the rinse water and put it them in the dish drain while Nate talked. He joked that he probably should have told us "syke" earlier because he did have a role for me and Veronica. He offered us roles in the ensemble and I happily accepted them. 

I got off the phone and said, "We are in the play!!!!"

Our next few minutes can only be summed up in meme form. This is what we looked like.

And this is what Veronica said.

There was only one little downside. I'd been texting Andrea to find out if she was in the show. She hadn't been called yet. At first that was great because I wasn't in the play either. But then I got into the play and she still hadn't been called yet. 

That was awful. The whole genesis of this idea was that we'd do the play with each other and our daughters. I didn't want to do the play without Andrea. 

Thankfully on Monday she did get her call. Her daughter Capri was Jojo and Andrea was in the ensemble. I don't know why Andrea had to wait so long for her call, but I'm so glad she was in the show. Now I could be truly happy about this show. 

Here's a picture Brandon and I took together. This was, "oh yeah, it's still our anniversary!"

After the dinner dishes were done we were had ice cream. We took a truly happy family picture. 

Then we watched La La Land. I told all the kids they had to watch the first scene. They liked that. Then Derrick and Lydia wandered off. But Charlotte and Veronica watched the whole thing. 

And that was our anniversary/audition results day. 

And that's the end of the week. 

Thanks for reading.