Weird Day

What a weird day.  I am wearing one of Megan's shirts (she's 8).  Granted it's too big for her and I'm wearing it open over a tank (it's a bright blue/black checked button up), I still have this strange realization and excitement about our future fashion endeavours..... I'm going to be able to share clothes with my daughter. what the?  How did I not realize this before?!?!  It's like when I used to steal my sister's clothes.... but better.  Anyway, I thought I'd share that with y'all.  Its a strange and wonderful world.  I can't wait for her to grow bigger :)

Aaaaaand again......

Anyone remember this picture?

  I'm in the middle between Monique Maughnn and Angie Rhoton.  I think I was about hmmmm maybe 20 or 21 when I last played Yum Yum in the Mikado.  This was one of my favorite roles.  I love this show!  It's sooo fun!  Well, it turns out that I'm going to be playing the role once more, but this time I get to have a different Nanki-Poo (Lead male). drumroll please... it's Aaron!
Yep, Aaron and I will be performing in CGCC's Mikado together again and I get to smother my honey with kisses and faint when I listen to his beautiful tenor voice!  I'm SO excited for Aaron to be Nanki-Poo.  I don't know of another show that would highlight his smooth, make-you-melt tenor voice the way this one will :)  Well, besides Pirates of Penzance, but he has already been Frederic in POP (@CGCC).  AND our kids will be in it, too.  Anyway, I thought I'd share the exciting news that I got an hour ago.  The performances will be June 24-29 at CGCC's PAC.

Picture Pages

Ahhh nostalgia...  remember Bill Cosby's Picture Pages?  I loved Cosby.  And Fat Albert.  And Picture Pages.  It reminds me of being a little girl in long blond pigtails and a summer playsuit.  Remember playsuits?  The short uni-outfit cinched at the waist and tied at the shoulders? Those were just rad. I wish they were sold now- I'd buy megan a million of those.  Hmmm..... summer project?

1980's aside, I just thought I'd add some pictures to my blog that I'd forgotten to add previously.  no words. Just pictures. Enjoy.

Haiku Wednesday

gotta go to bed

finals are almost over

boot camp in the morn.

woot!

(that woot didn't count in the 5-7-5 pattern. and neither does this)

ug. Finals Week

Yes, folks, it's finals week.  I have a lot to do, but come Saturday it's OVER  WOOO HOOO!!!!  Spectacular feelings of desertion aside, I feel SO FAT TODAY!!! I hate these days!  I just figured I'd post that on here since bloggers usually and unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) present themselves as being perfect-nothing-goes-wrong-in-my-life-people.  Well, just in case you all wanted to know, I have a sink full of dishes that I won't get to until tomorrow (maybe), a ton TON of laundry waiting to be folded (my kids have to dig for their socks every morning), and I'm wearing my fat jeans today.  Alls I gotta say is BRING IT ON! :)  Isn't life awesome?

MCAT, Cute Matthew, Juries

Sooooo.. a lot of you know that Aaron took the MCAT to apply to medical school a little bit ago- well, he got a great score back and now we're working on applications. Woot!  Life goes on!  It's amazing, right?!  Good job, Sweety!  I have to say, today I had lunch with Aaron spur of the moment and it was really nice.  I miss just us time.  You sometimes forget about real life and the people who mean the most to you when you are in school up to your neck.  Thanks for a nice lunch, babe (And for picking up my slack this semester).  I needed it after my stressful juries.  I was in a little bit of a funk and you really brightened my day :)

Awwwww how sweet. ok, enough of the mooshies.  I also have to say that I got to spend some time with my good friend, Brittney W, today and that was awesome, too.  I NEVER get to just sit and talk.  Thanks, Chica (Oh, BTW, I posted Aaron's news cause when I shared the info with BW she said "Wha?! Why didn't you POST that?!" I may be misquoting, sorry- at least it's not plagarism, right? LOL inside joke, sorry blogiverse!)

Ok, moving on- I got Matt's kindergarten graduation pictures back this week...

Awwww... what a stud.  And seriously?  They couldn't get MATTHEW to smile?  He's the smiliest kid ever.  Ah well, he's still cute.  I'm going to be sad when he doesn't have pudgy fingers anymore. booooo.  I just want to nibble on them. They're so cute.

Another note- it's officially hot enough to swim but too cold to get in the water.  Meg and I went last Saturday morning and the water was FREEZING (no, not literally) so we laid by the pool and proceeded to get sunburned.  I rubbed my back just a second ago and my hand got wet-apparently I'm now peeling. gross.

Oh yeah- I mentioned the Juries. ug.  This morning I had my final exam for private voice instruction.  The final consists of singing for a panel of 5 voice teachers (none of them your own).  They judge you on your vocal skill, pronunciation (at least three songs have to be in a foreign language), diction, presence, etc etc etc. 
(Oh, a little side note- one of the judges is an opera singer FROM Italy, so he'll definitely know when you mess up your Italian- are they TRYING to give me a heart attack?!)
When you enter the room you hand the accompaniment folder to your voice teacher and then hand a jury sheet to each judge.  This is a paper that lists all of the songs you've worked on this semester, the composers, and which of them you've chosen to present for the jury (for my grade level you have to have at least 5 songs ready to present).  You get to choose the first song that you sing.  After that, they get to choose whatever song off the list they want to hear.  It's 12 minutes of torturous singing (ha ha- I'm so dramatic).  Usually they only get to about 3 songs...
Now, EVERY vocal major who does juries has that one song that they are cloudy on the words or just recently memorized and DONT want the judges to pick.  It's the singer's "lemon" song if you will.  I made it through my three songs unscathed and  I thought I was in the clear and then they wanted to hear another song.  Wha?!  Why me?  Maybe I should've taken a slower tempo on the other songs...  well, they picked my lemon for the 4th song and I forgot words.  bleh.  slap the forehead.  oh well.  I'm just glad it's over! sigh...  The songs I sang were:

1. Un moto di gioia, MOZART (the song I chose to sing first)

2. Das Verlassene Magdlein, WOLF

3. Take, O take those lips away, BEACH

4. La Zingara, DONIZETTI

I linked for you in case you want to hear them (random youtube links not sung by me- and not all of them are great quality singing, but good enough to get the idea)

Cecilia Bartoli that sings Un moto di gioia on that link is my opera idol. She's amazing. And makes really funny faces when she sings :)

Ok, I need to write my term paper about the history and significance of the Stradivarius violin now.  Good night, y'all!

Oh- one last note- My voice teacher, Jennifer Nagy, is holding a recital for her vocal students on May 20th at 7pm at the PAC at CGCC Pecos Campus if anyone is interested in attending.  It's free and it's fun to go and listen.  I think it shouldn't be very long- maybe only a few (5 or 6?) of us are singing and maybe just one or two songs each. that way you can grab an ice cream after :)

Merrily We Roll Along

Hi friends- thanks so much for your support and kind comments! I love you all- except you, Hal, you're a real stinker.

Anyway, I thought I'd catch you up on the goings on- Megan just gave her first shot all by herself today at lunch time. Right in the thigh and then at dinner she did it in her tummy. What a grown up 8 yr old. She's dealing with it well- She has a friend in her class named Rylee that was just diagnosed with it 6 months ago and they sit and eat together and go to the nurse's office together. About a month ago Rylee's mother came in to educate the class about diabetes and everything that Rylee had to do like poke her finger and take shots and count how many carbohydrates were in her food. Megan was super interested in it and paid very close attention and came home and told me all about it. I think that was a tender mercy that helped Megan in this whole situation. She already knew all about it and didn't have the whole "fear of the unknown" factor.  Anywho, I am so impressed with how smoothly this went for her. I'm taking her in to Cardons on Wednesday for diabetes education.

Everything has come into place so easily that I can honestly say the only thing (besides the diagnosis) that I would change in this whole scenario is the timing. I think that one week from now would've been an excellent time to get the news instead of right before finals when I'm trying to memorize Italian and German lyrics for my juried vocal recitation on Friday and write term papers for a few classes- and study to be able to correctly identify the composer, genre/style/form, date, and texture for 25 Baroque Compositions just by hearing them. And perform a psychology experiment.  It's a little much. With that being said, I smashed my last vocal recital on Saturday- the Musical Theatre Concert (as opposed to classical). I sang Vanilla Ice Cream from She Loves Me and pulled it off swimmingly. it was awesomesauce. I will get a recording and put it up here. ok, I gotta get to my homework.  I'm on the clock. life's clock. tick tock.

Prayers please

Hey friends.  We could sure use your prayers right now.  We just found out last night that our sweet precious angel has Juvenile (type 1) Diabetes. This is going to be a trying experience for her. 

I noticed that she had lost weight (which I was hoping was a growth spurt) and that she was going to the bathroom a lot so I tested her blood sugar last night. 

The meter just read HI.  that's no good.  That means that her blood sugar was 700 or higher when it should be between 70 and 110.

Any support and encouragement you could give her would be wonderful.  Also, a little prayer for me to make it through these last weeks of finals and term papers while dealing with this would not be unappreciated :)

Thanks for reading :) 

Coupon for Into The Woods

Hey y'all!  I've got a coupon for into the woods for $10 cash at the door tickets instead of the normal $15- Email me if you want one to print- for some reason it cant be posted here.  strange. stephanie.shumway@gmail.com
This is the last weekend!  Come and see it! 
Thursday 7:30
Friday 7:30
Saturday 2:00 & 7:30
At Higley Center for the Performing Arts

THIS FRIDAY. wee wah.

Holy Crudite (I want you to read that [crud-ite] not [crew dit ay] like ze french veggie platter.) The show opens this Friday! To quote my friend, who just said yesterday that she was stressed out of her freaking face, I'm stressed out of my freaking face! oh wait, that was a little redundant. I'm being a little repetative. I think I'm repeating myself.  a little.

Ok, honestly, that last paragraph was my brainmap at the moment.  With school, work, kids, spouse, carpooling 3x day, babysitters, homework, a psychology test tomorrow, and the play that is not ready, I'm a little jittery on the insides.....

However, I'm wearing a bright red polka dot dress with bright red high heels and I'm going to b-slap this day in the ear. Take that, Tuesday. I own you.

In addition to that insane rant, I'd like to exhort you all to attend the show this or next week and see me as Little Red Ridinghood and Aaron as Cinderella's Prince. He rocks it.  Just close your eyes when he's kissing the Baker's Wife if it makes you feel funky.  Really, this is such a fun show with amazing music by Steven Sonheim and everyone ought to see it once in their lifetime.  How's about this week? :)  See you all at the Theater!

Buy tickets at the door or HERE.