more than knee deep into summer

These weeks keep flying by. With approximately 2 days off each month, I feel like I never quite get a good amount of time to relax. Granted, a lot of evenings I'm done around 6 or 7pm, and can make dinner and read or whatnot, but without a full day off, it feels a little crazy around here.

Work is going well all around. I realize that there's no possible way I can keep it all up when school starts, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it. I'll have to start thinking because within a month I will have to have made a choice!

My practicing varies from really good to pretty unsuccessful. I have reason to believe I may be developing allergies (scratchiness in the back of my throat) and that does nothing to help my practicing. It seems to shorten the amount of time I can sing at once, and all I can say is that I hope it either goes away or at least I'll figure out how to fix it. I'm dying for some voice lessons so I can make sure I'm doing things correctly, but I still have almost a month until Ms. Wise gets back. In the meanwhile it's all work and practice, and saving money for future costly ventures (this career).

Tonight I start rehearsals for Two Gentlemen of Verona. I still do not know what the schedule for rehearsing will be, so that's just another thing to add on to my busy days. I've been cast as 3 different people, all men. It's like a reversal of how it used to be, with men playing women. Two of the roles are ok sized and one is just a tiny part. All in all, it'll be fine, though I don't have any idea how I'll pull off a man's voice. Plus, having played men probably won't help me much on my resume, or even for experience because all my opera characters are young women (or birds or bells or fire or something like that). I guess it'll just expand my horizons and hopefully help me to role-prep. We'll see....

Well, I'm off to spend some time with Marion. I really feel like I'm making some kind of difference in her quality of life, and that's really really rewarding. I certainly wouldn't mind just working with a few people at Meadowood, which would cut down my work hours and probably make me more money. Ah well.

Hope all is well for everyone that might read this. Probably not too many people, as I haven't been updating. Anyhow, if you do read this, yet haven't spoken to me in a while, please write or call. I'm so bad with keeping up...

And for those who have asked for pictures on the blog, here's one of just another graduation: