Driving! ACK!!!

Darly has actually been old enough to start driving for a while.  A good year and a half.  But she hasn't wanted to do it.  Honestly she is still very nervous about it.

However, I am getting very tired of being the mom taxi for a kid who could be schlepping herself all over town.  Just last Saturday she "needed" to go to the park to meet up with her friends...I sat in the car during this as it was too far to drive home...and I didn't want to go shopping.

She HAS finally read the driver's handbook.  She HAS finally took the online test and passed it.

She STILL isn't all that interested in driving though.  But she'll need to hold her permit for a year before she's allowed to get her license...so I would like to get her started before it's time for her to go off to college as I don't want her to be like a friend of ours who has her mom drive up to college (an hour + away) every weekend to bring her home and then back again.  bah!

She is nervous that she'll forget everything and/or the actual test will be poorly worded like the online test and trick her into choosing the wrong answer.  I'm sure she'll do fine.  She's been correcting my driving.  ;)

Update of sorts...

This is an update to the When it rains it pours post.

Yesterday was the audition for Show A.  Darly decided to not do it.  She gave a very good reason for not auditioning.  Even though I wanted her to go and prove them wrong about their opinion of her acting training she was right.  Her reason was that she did not want to take a part away from someone who actually wanted to be in the show.  Knowing that if she did get cast, she was going to turn down the part.  I felt this showed great maturity on her part...or at least a very good excuse making skill.  ;)

This show had a new screenplay and new songs written by the director.  A friend of ours warned that the director could be very picky about how he wants things to go and might cancel the show on a whim if he doesn't get his way.

This was the show where the artistic team had a very poor opinion of the theater company that Darly has been with for the past 4 years and had me change Darly's resume to omit all references to that company...including the part about her stage combat skills because they wouldn't be "up to snuff" because they were for the "inferior" theater company.  :p

Other red flags...
They were planning to use the local theater here for the show, but had not booked it. 
The run date for the show is in August with rehearsals starting in July but casting it now.
The actors are supposed to get paid (nicely) but I couldn't see where the money was coming from as it is an expensive theater to rent.

The good thing is now we don't have to worry about Show A anymore.  Leaving shows B & C free and clear for being in...no more conflicting schedules.... although I did find another show to audition for.  ;)  I'm saving it as a back up for if she doesn't get into show B.

Lez do it!

sorry, channeling Tone Loc there.

For not being "in a show" Darly has had a very busy schedule of late.

Last weekend:
Saturday
Improv show at 11am
meeting at 3pm
Sunday
church at 9:30
dance at 11
voice lesson at 3

Oh and she had improv practice the Wednesday before

This weekend is a bit calmer
she has a "competition" today...it's a weird thing that her voice teacher wants her to do.
and just dance tomorrow

but on the horizon
voice lesson
possible improv practice
vet for Lilly
blood donation for me

then the two auditions!

She has FINALLY finished reading the driver's hand book.  Now to get her to take the online test a few more times so that she is comfortable taking the test so we can get that over with.  She is still petrified of taking the driver's test and driving too.  sigh!  But mom is sick of being her taxi.

Getting back into the game...

So right now our weekly schedule has changed.  Not that it was all that set before, but before I knew that Friday evening and Saturday would be busy with rehearsals.  We don't have that now.

I also used to have grocery shopping day tacked onto voice lesson day as we were already out of the house and I was showered and dressed.  But Darly has asked that we stop doing that because by the time we get to the grocery store it is packed with moms herding their cats while talking on their phones...and is frankly a mad house.  sigh

So here I sit on Thursday in my pj's dreading getting dressed so I can go to the store to buy all the stuff we are out of.  sigh

Anyone got any motivation???  One would think that the lack of lunch items and coffee for tomorrow would be motivation...but really not so much.  :-/

Well THAT didn't work!

I had been considering getting a cat for our family for a while.  One main problem is Darly is allergic to cats.  However, we learned that there are certain "Hypoallergenic" cats.  And that explained why Darly did okay and well with some cats and not so much with others.

Problem number two is FINDING one of these cats...and I like to rescue my pets, not buy them.  So I kept checking our local animal shelters for the breeds I knew, but I was also looking at the characteristics of the cats because sometimes the shelter has no idea what they have.

That was the case with Chai.  I saw her photo on line and noticed that she met many of the characteristics of a cat that "could" have less of the protein that Darly is allergic to.  So we went to visit with her and yes, we were correct in that Darly didn't react to her at all.  

Darly & Chai

As you can see in the photo, Chai is a shy girl, but who can blame her...she was at the shelter surrounded by all sorts of strange things and the visitor's rooms have glass walls so she could see everyone going down the hall...including all the dogs.  Poor kitty.

Chai is actually a very sweet girl and of course my softy fell in love with her right away.  But we still had another hurdle to jump here...  DAD!!!!

I hadn't bothered to tell DH that we were even thinking of a cat because the chances of finding one that Darly could have were so small.  Once I told him, he was not at all for getting another animal.  Ya know, I probably shouldn't have told him.  :-/  He was never for me getting any of our other pets ... well he was for getting Misty, but that was a long time ago.  

So we called the shelter and told them that we had to give up our hold on Chai.  I'm guessing that was for the best as that evening we saw that they took Chai's picture off of the shelter's website.  So we assume that she was adopted.  Hopefully she found a wonderful home with a dad who really wanted a cat too.

When it rains it pours!

After MONTHS of waiting ...

Let me back up.  Darly decided that she wanted to try out some of the other theater groups in our area.  There is one group that she is particularly interested in trying out for (Show B), but they had not announced when their next audition was going to be...or when the show was going to be either!

We knew that one show that Darly REALLY would like to be in will be in the fall...they announced that a long time ago.  Darly knows most of the people in that group and likes them and is excited to try them.  Show C

In the mean time I found another show that looked (to me) like a lot of fun.  So after quite a bit of work tweeking Darly's resume (this group has a very low opinion of the theater group that Darly has been in for the past 4 years, so I had to take out all mention of them) she has an audition scheduled with them.  However, after finding out that this is completely an Adult cast we know that Darly's chances of actually getting into this show are pretty slim and her chances of getting a part other than ensemble are nil.  However, we're sticking with it for the experience.  Show A

Well yesterday (very late in the evening) we found that the other show that Darly was interested in trying for has announced their auditions and when the show will run.  I don't know when the rehearsals will be yet.  However, the shows over lap.  Show B

I fully expect that the formatting on this is going to be all wonky.  As you can see below there is NO WAY to be able to do all 3 shows.  It is either do show A only or do shows B & C.  Thank goodness the chances of getting into Show A are not that good and while Darly would be great in show A she isn't all that interested in doing it.  If she sees this, she'll freak out and not want to even audition for A.  So I am going to wait to post this until AFTER show A auditions.  LOL

sun mon tues wed thurs fri sat show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 Prob TECH show B Prob TECH show B Prob TECH show B Prob TECH show B Show B open 5pm Show B 5pm Show B 12:30 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 Show B 5pm Show B 5pm Show B 5pm Show B 12:30 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 show A rehears 4-10 Show B 5pm Show B 5pm Show B 5pm Show A TECH Show A TECH Show A TECH Show A TECH Show A open Show A Show B 12:30 Show A Show A Show A Show A Show C audition Show A Show A Show A

The really sad part is IF she does get into show A it won't be very professional of her to drop it because she would rather be in shows B & C.  Especially given that the folks of Show A are really going out on a limb to even give her the audition spot.  Oh well.  I'm sure it will all work out for the best, we'll just have to see what that is.

UPDATE:  I actually ended up posting this before the auditions because Darly figured out the messy schedule on her own.  There's actually another snag in that a trip Darly wanted to go on is during rehearsals for show B.  But since none of Darly's friends can go on the trip either, it is less of a big deal. We asked a friend about show A because we couldn't find any info about them.  She warned us that show A might not even happen (check to see if the theater was booked, it wasn't) and a few other tips also.  So it will be interesting to see how things go at the auditions.