Remember those?
It doesn't seem to be 'the thing' to do in Mormon culture anymore. When I was growing up it was a big deal. A huge deal--stake, regional, and state competitions, gigantic budgets for scenery and wardrobe.
The last roadshow I remember hearing anything about was in our own stake 12 years ago.
But now our stake is doing them again.
And I'M our ward Roadshow director!
As part of my job I've been looking at other roadshows and found this one that's a HUGE success because of the TREMENDOUS amount of audience involvement.
29 May 2009
28 May 2009
SILENCE!!
The fans are gone!
A gentlemen from the disaster cleanup company came to my door. I told he was my favorite person in the whole wide world just then.
He checked the dryness of the walls and floor and took those $%&@#*!! fans out of my living room.
But now we seem to be playing a waiting game. We don't know why. Maybe it's the insurance company who's holding things up. I don't know. At any rate, the fans are gone and nothing is happening to get things moving on the restoration.
So we're walking across a low spot in the floor and looking dismally at the the horrid stains on the carpet and figuring it's probably not worth our while to wash the walls since they're still covered with little red stickers showing the extent of the water damage. We're also looking at our piano--which is EXTREMELY heavy, by the way--and kind of hoping things DON'T happen any time soon, because that would mean having to move the piano again. Whether we get new carpet or have the carpet cleaned and the pad replaced, the piano will be in the way where it stands. So do we move it now to try to restore some sort of order to the house while we wait? Or do we wait to find out what's going to happen?
Heck if I know.
*sigh*
At least my garden's all planted now.
I put in three more rows of onions, a row of spinach, a couple rows of beets, a row of carrots, a row of parsnips, two additional hills of crookneck squash, and a few more potatoes this morning. I can hardly wait to start eating fresh garden produce! Yum!
A gentlemen from the disaster cleanup company came to my door. I told he was my favorite person in the whole wide world just then.
He checked the dryness of the walls and floor and took those $%&@#*!! fans out of my living room.
But now we seem to be playing a waiting game. We don't know why. Maybe it's the insurance company who's holding things up. I don't know. At any rate, the fans are gone and nothing is happening to get things moving on the restoration.
So we're walking across a low spot in the floor and looking dismally at the the horrid stains on the carpet and figuring it's probably not worth our while to wash the walls since they're still covered with little red stickers showing the extent of the water damage. We're also looking at our piano--which is EXTREMELY heavy, by the way--and kind of hoping things DON'T happen any time soon, because that would mean having to move the piano again. Whether we get new carpet or have the carpet cleaned and the pad replaced, the piano will be in the way where it stands. So do we move it now to try to restore some sort of order to the house while we wait? Or do we wait to find out what's going to happen?
Heck if I know.
*sigh*
At least my garden's all planted now.
I put in three more rows of onions, a row of spinach, a couple rows of beets, a row of carrots, a row of parsnips, two additional hills of crookneck squash, and a few more potatoes this morning. I can hardly wait to start eating fresh garden produce! Yum!
23 May 2009
Aaaaaaaah! & Grrrrrrr!
We've all had a HUGE week. Now that it's over we can take a little bit of a breather (three-day-weekend!) before things turn crazy again next week.
Suzanne taught her class on Flash Fiction. It was a lot of fun, and I think it turned out pretty well. She also got to spend some time with a writer friend of hers and found out that Munchkin has two new add-on packs! If you've never heard of Munchkin, it's a spoof on Role Playing Games, it's very irreverent, and it's a LOT of fun.
The garden is planted--and we found ourselves with about 100 sq. ft. with nothing planted in it. How did that happen? We plan to fill it with a few more rows of onion, plus beets (if I can find beet seeds this late in the season because I don't know what happened to the beet seeds I thought I had), and I'm not sure what else. My little baby tomato plants (which aren't such babies anymore--they're close to 2 ft. long) are finally in their beds. We planted some petunias, transplanted my Rose of Sharon shrubs to the garden they were intended to occupy when we bought them last year, and planted a hedge of lilac and Nine-bark along the fence between us and our neighbors. Privacy! Well, at least in a few years. The plants are little more than a foot high right now, but in a few years they'll be 8 ft. tall by 8 ft. wide! I can't wait!
The junk pile is gone!
The lawn is mowed!
The trees have little green fruits all over them!
Life is great...
...or it would be if I didn't have four HUGE fans buzzing away night and day in my living room right now.
This is the Grrrrrr! part.
Monday Ian and Darin went up onto the roof to get the swamp cooler hooked up. Everything went GREAT and we were enjoying the cool air on that hot day--UNTIL Hannah asked one of the most frightening question a homeowner can ever hear:
"Mom, why is there water on the floor?"
There wasn't much--or at least there didn't SEEM to be much. It was only a little yellowish puddle on the kitchen floor. My first thought was the refrigerator. So we pulled out the refrigerator only to hear the even more frightening sound of water dripped down between the walls behind the refrigerator!
Only one answer to the question now. The swamp cooler. It's the only source of water of any kind in the attic. While I hurried and shut off the water to the swamp cooler, Darin ran for the ladder. The copper supply tube to the swamp cooler had sprung a leak that sprayed water into our attic. We hoped it wasn't too much, but the final analysis is not great.
We've had the insurance man come and a disaster cleanup company come. In the end we had to pull the insulation up from the ceiling, where we found a 6 ft. by 8 ft. water stain running between four joists. The stain comes up against the main beam the runs the length of the house. That's where it started moving down through the walls. So our walls are wet, our ceiling is wet, AND it ran under the carpets over an even BIGGER area, ruined the hardwood floor and soaked through in a few places to the subfloor.
The disaster cleanup company came Thursday and spent half the day pulling up the carpet, ripping out all the wet carpet pad and damaged hardwood flooring, and installing these lovely fans. One is actually a dehumidifier. They have to run for 3 to 5 days, pumping air into the walls, under the floor, under the carpet, to dry everything out. They're LOUD!!! And they run ALL NIGHT!! Needless to say, we haven't slept hugely well, but we're getting used to it. And the living room is a jumble of furniture all shoved into the corner opposite the water damage. The piano is sitting in the middle of the room.
They told us today the fans will only need to run for one more day. Which means, really, they'll have to run until Monday at the earliest. We don't know if the crew will work on Monday, what with the holiday, so we might have to live with the fans until Tuesday. After that we'll be beset with restoration work. First they'll attempt to clean the carpet. If it doesn't clean I suppose we'll be getting new carpet, which will mean moving all the furniture OUT of the room. We're actually kind of HOPING to get new carpet--if that happens we're thinking of putting in enough extra money to recarpet the bedrooms, too. They'll also be replacing the carpet pad and hardwood flooring in the effected area, and patching and painting the walls.
THEN maybe we can restore our world to something akin to normalcy.
But then, it's us, isn't it? There's very little about life in the Vincent Vassalage that can be called normal.
And we LOVE it that way!
Suzanne taught her class on Flash Fiction. It was a lot of fun, and I think it turned out pretty well. She also got to spend some time with a writer friend of hers and found out that Munchkin has two new add-on packs! If you've never heard of Munchkin, it's a spoof on Role Playing Games, it's very irreverent, and it's a LOT of fun.
The garden is planted--and we found ourselves with about 100 sq. ft. with nothing planted in it. How did that happen? We plan to fill it with a few more rows of onion, plus beets (if I can find beet seeds this late in the season because I don't know what happened to the beet seeds I thought I had), and I'm not sure what else. My little baby tomato plants (which aren't such babies anymore--they're close to 2 ft. long) are finally in their beds. We planted some petunias, transplanted my Rose of Sharon shrubs to the garden they were intended to occupy when we bought them last year, and planted a hedge of lilac and Nine-bark along the fence between us and our neighbors. Privacy! Well, at least in a few years. The plants are little more than a foot high right now, but in a few years they'll be 8 ft. tall by 8 ft. wide! I can't wait!
The junk pile is gone!
The lawn is mowed!
The trees have little green fruits all over them!
Life is great...
...or it would be if I didn't have four HUGE fans buzzing away night and day in my living room right now.
This is the Grrrrrr! part.
Monday Ian and Darin went up onto the roof to get the swamp cooler hooked up. Everything went GREAT and we were enjoying the cool air on that hot day--UNTIL Hannah asked one of the most frightening question a homeowner can ever hear:
"Mom, why is there water on the floor?"
There wasn't much--or at least there didn't SEEM to be much. It was only a little yellowish puddle on the kitchen floor. My first thought was the refrigerator. So we pulled out the refrigerator only to hear the even more frightening sound of water dripped down between the walls behind the refrigerator!
Only one answer to the question now. The swamp cooler. It's the only source of water of any kind in the attic. While I hurried and shut off the water to the swamp cooler, Darin ran for the ladder. The copper supply tube to the swamp cooler had sprung a leak that sprayed water into our attic. We hoped it wasn't too much, but the final analysis is not great.
We've had the insurance man come and a disaster cleanup company come. In the end we had to pull the insulation up from the ceiling, where we found a 6 ft. by 8 ft. water stain running between four joists. The stain comes up against the main beam the runs the length of the house. That's where it started moving down through the walls. So our walls are wet, our ceiling is wet, AND it ran under the carpets over an even BIGGER area, ruined the hardwood floor and soaked through in a few places to the subfloor.
The disaster cleanup company came Thursday and spent half the day pulling up the carpet, ripping out all the wet carpet pad and damaged hardwood flooring, and installing these lovely fans. One is actually a dehumidifier. They have to run for 3 to 5 days, pumping air into the walls, under the floor, under the carpet, to dry everything out. They're LOUD!!! And they run ALL NIGHT!! Needless to say, we haven't slept hugely well, but we're getting used to it. And the living room is a jumble of furniture all shoved into the corner opposite the water damage. The piano is sitting in the middle of the room.
They told us today the fans will only need to run for one more day. Which means, really, they'll have to run until Monday at the earliest. We don't know if the crew will work on Monday, what with the holiday, so we might have to live with the fans until Tuesday. After that we'll be beset with restoration work. First they'll attempt to clean the carpet. If it doesn't clean I suppose we'll be getting new carpet, which will mean moving all the furniture OUT of the room. We're actually kind of HOPING to get new carpet--if that happens we're thinking of putting in enough extra money to recarpet the bedrooms, too. They'll also be replacing the carpet pad and hardwood flooring in the effected area, and patching and painting the walls.
THEN maybe we can restore our world to something akin to normalcy.
But then, it's us, isn't it? There's very little about life in the Vincent Vassalage that can be called normal.
And we LOVE it that way!
18 May 2009
Nag, Nag, Nag
OK. Fine. I'll post something.
Of course it's probably be totally random drivel, but it's a post, right?
So, May has been very busy so far. Our poor calendar is suffering from burnout and looks like a freaking RAINBOW from all the different colors of pen, pencil, and marker used to help us keep track of everything we have going on!
Maren finished up her soccer season and started a new physical adventure--track! She's joined a Hershey Track group and has her first practice meet on the 30th. We were doubling up track and soccer practice for a couple of weeks, but now that soccer is over things'll settle down just a little. I think she'll be really good at track--especially as a distance runner. A very good friend of ours (a nationally ranked miler during her high school and college years) thinks so too. She can't wait for it to be warm enough to try out her new swimsuit in the sprinklers. Today might JUST be the day.
Hannah is working hard to finish up school, study for the ACT, and get her high school Fiddle group ready for a few performances. They've played three times so far this month, and still have at least one performance left before school is out. She's also reading (recreationally!) The Aeneid. She loves epic poetry--Beowulf, Chaucer, Dante. Go figure. Hannah is very excited for summer and the potential of easing some of the stress that inevitably comes with a school year. Plus she's begun to explore her options for colleg, looking right now into taking distance learning courses from BYU. She's leaning toward literature study, maybe a minor in music, with the goal of fiddle school and applying for a Nauvoo Music Mission next summer.
Ian is also working hard to finish up school. He's already been told that if he doesn't get it all done he won't be getting his learner's permit next month. Threats. I love 'em. He is also involved in the fiddle group (he plays penny whistle), and actually built his own Low D Penny whistle from copper tubing and a wooden dowel. He's working on his second one now. He's also getting excited for marching band to start up again next month. They'll be marching in parades on the 4th and 24th, plus band camp the end of July. He's working hard mowing lawns this summer in hopes of earning himself a new bike--he wants a Trek 7300. But he also wants a new clarinet, and a compound bow, and a shotgun, and a .22. and....
Suzanne is mostly busy keeping track of everyone else's lives. Isn't that the way it is? In between she's been reading LOTS. Her editor has gotten behind on sending stories out, so he's been making up for it in a big way. She's read something like 60 stories in the last week or so and has about 120 more to read, with more potentially coming. She's also joined a Book group comprised of published writers and professional editors. It's been loads of fun, but that means more reading! This week she'll be holding a recital for her piano students, and Friday will be teaching a workshop of writing flash fiction at a sci-fi/fantasy convention. Plus singing in a senior citizen's branch in our stake Sunday. And somewhere in there she needs to find time to get the garden planted.
Darin is busy working hard to take care of all of us. They've been slammed at work lately, mostly because of some recent firings (a couple of guys were caught falsifying records) and the acquisition by the company of a smaller independent company. We're truly fortunate if he's home from work by 6:00. This week he gets to take charge of sprucing up our yard. As we speak there is a huge dumpster sitting in front of our house waiting for the PILES of trash we've accumulated due to various yard projects and a few years of junk accumulation. I think he's really looking forward to Memorial Day--when we can all sleep in and take a leisurly day with no obligations and nothing to do but whatever in the heck we want! He's also been involved in a fitness challenge at work. They're supposed to walk at least 5000 steps per day. Everyone in the office got one of those pedometers. Darin's isn't working anymore though. He gets plenty of steps on the days we go jogging. One jog piles up more than 5000 steps, then he probably averages 3000 steps on top of that during his working day.
We all participated in the Komen Race for the Cure on the Zan Vincent Team. Darin, Ian, and Suzanne ran it, making a pretty good time of just under 34 minutes. That's 3 or 4 minutes better than our last 5K time. Our goal is 30 minutes, which we hope to achieve by the end of the summer. Hannah and Maren walked it with Darin's sister and their young cousins. It's a fun race, mainly because the attitudes of the participants is so upbeat and there are SO MANY people! They said at the beginning of the race that 18,000 people were registered as participants! That's a lot of people to run with! At the first mile marker, we were able to look ahead of us and see a sea of people AND look behind us and see a sea of people. Pretty incredible!
There's our SURVIVOR: 14 years!
Weary feet:
The crowd just before the start of the race:
Of course it's probably be totally random drivel, but it's a post, right?
So, May has been very busy so far. Our poor calendar is suffering from burnout and looks like a freaking RAINBOW from all the different colors of pen, pencil, and marker used to help us keep track of everything we have going on!
Maren finished up her soccer season and started a new physical adventure--track! She's joined a Hershey Track group and has her first practice meet on the 30th. We were doubling up track and soccer practice for a couple of weeks, but now that soccer is over things'll settle down just a little. I think she'll be really good at track--especially as a distance runner. A very good friend of ours (a nationally ranked miler during her high school and college years) thinks so too. She can't wait for it to be warm enough to try out her new swimsuit in the sprinklers. Today might JUST be the day.
Hannah is working hard to finish up school, study for the ACT, and get her high school Fiddle group ready for a few performances. They've played three times so far this month, and still have at least one performance left before school is out. She's also reading (recreationally!) The Aeneid. She loves epic poetry--Beowulf, Chaucer, Dante. Go figure. Hannah is very excited for summer and the potential of easing some of the stress that inevitably comes with a school year. Plus she's begun to explore her options for colleg, looking right now into taking distance learning courses from BYU. She's leaning toward literature study, maybe a minor in music, with the goal of fiddle school and applying for a Nauvoo Music Mission next summer.
Ian is also working hard to finish up school. He's already been told that if he doesn't get it all done he won't be getting his learner's permit next month. Threats. I love 'em. He is also involved in the fiddle group (he plays penny whistle), and actually built his own Low D Penny whistle from copper tubing and a wooden dowel. He's working on his second one now. He's also getting excited for marching band to start up again next month. They'll be marching in parades on the 4th and 24th, plus band camp the end of July. He's working hard mowing lawns this summer in hopes of earning himself a new bike--he wants a Trek 7300. But he also wants a new clarinet, and a compound bow, and a shotgun, and a .22. and....
Suzanne is mostly busy keeping track of everyone else's lives. Isn't that the way it is? In between she's been reading LOTS. Her editor has gotten behind on sending stories out, so he's been making up for it in a big way. She's read something like 60 stories in the last week or so and has about 120 more to read, with more potentially coming. She's also joined a Book group comprised of published writers and professional editors. It's been loads of fun, but that means more reading! This week she'll be holding a recital for her piano students, and Friday will be teaching a workshop of writing flash fiction at a sci-fi/fantasy convention. Plus singing in a senior citizen's branch in our stake Sunday. And somewhere in there she needs to find time to get the garden planted.
Darin is busy working hard to take care of all of us. They've been slammed at work lately, mostly because of some recent firings (a couple of guys were caught falsifying records) and the acquisition by the company of a smaller independent company. We're truly fortunate if he's home from work by 6:00. This week he gets to take charge of sprucing up our yard. As we speak there is a huge dumpster sitting in front of our house waiting for the PILES of trash we've accumulated due to various yard projects and a few years of junk accumulation. I think he's really looking forward to Memorial Day--when we can all sleep in and take a leisurly day with no obligations and nothing to do but whatever in the heck we want! He's also been involved in a fitness challenge at work. They're supposed to walk at least 5000 steps per day. Everyone in the office got one of those pedometers. Darin's isn't working anymore though. He gets plenty of steps on the days we go jogging. One jog piles up more than 5000 steps, then he probably averages 3000 steps on top of that during his working day.
We all participated in the Komen Race for the Cure on the Zan Vincent Team. Darin, Ian, and Suzanne ran it, making a pretty good time of just under 34 minutes. That's 3 or 4 minutes better than our last 5K time. Our goal is 30 minutes, which we hope to achieve by the end of the summer. Hannah and Maren walked it with Darin's sister and their young cousins. It's a fun race, mainly because the attitudes of the participants is so upbeat and there are SO MANY people! They said at the beginning of the race that 18,000 people were registered as participants! That's a lot of people to run with! At the first mile marker, we were able to look ahead of us and see a sea of people AND look behind us and see a sea of people. Pretty incredible!
There's our SURVIVOR: 14 years!
Weary feet:
The crowd just before the start of the race:
15 May 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)