Cyber Lovin' ... Had Me a Blast

First things first: Monday Missions. I was too sick over the weekend to think up a list for the February Missions, but fear not. Here they are:

2/4 Off for Mardi Gras. No mission this week.
OK, OK, I know you all don't celebrate Mardi Gras (but you should!) Really, I'm taking the day off because I will be flying to California this day (and theives... don't get any bright ideas. My home is guarded by an attack cat). So relax. Write whatever you want, and we'll see you back for the next Monday.

2/11 Promotion Recommendation
(In this post by the lovely Jen from Get in the Car writes: "In the Air Force, officers are expected to write their own OPRs for their commander to sign off on. An OPR is a progress report that evaluates how you are doing and whether you should be considered for promotion.") So write your recommendation for a promotion. Go ahead. Toot your own horn.

2/18 Homage to another blogger.
Write a post in the style of another blogger. This is in honor of the other person, so be nice, but have fun!

2/25 Award acceptance speech
Oscar or anything else. Will you be humble or boastful? Who will you thank? Who will you forget to thank? Will the music cut you off?

(little aside to LaskiGal - thanks for delurking. your webpage isn't linked from your profile page, so I can't come visit you. Help!)

OK. Now, on to the awards (apparently I need to write my own acceptance speech right now). Perhaps you all knew I was about to get hit with the plague, and wanted to bolster me up, but last week it seemed to be raining awards. I tried to keep track of them all, and now I'm going to say thanks and try to pass them along, like the good little blogger that I am.

CandyGirl (who flies!) from I Can Fly, Just Not Up! awarded me with a Daily Dose, saying "PM, at "Painted Maypole", who "gets" all my theatrical silliness, and shares the details of her life and work with me..." Shucks. CGF is a fellow theatre geek, and I love the video clips she puts up. And her stories of her Wee Three Girlies.

I'm going to pass this on to my real life friend over at On Dragonfly Wings who provides me with a daily dose of The Little Mister... since I am too far away to actually shower him with love. I'm so glad you started blogging.

From the lovely bipolarlawyercook I received this doozy of an award: calling me a "Down to Earth Drama Mama." Thanks. I try to keep my feet on the ground while I reach for the stars. He he. To pass this one on....I'm going to give it to Kyla who has Mad Skillz keeping her sanity as a parent of a child who needs a lot of extra attention, and then going back to college on top of it. Way better skillz then any balancing of cans on a forehead, although that may come in handy at all the frat parties she'll be attending now that she is a coed. Oh. And she's got pretty good skillz with that new camera she got for Christmas!

From Tracey at Just another mommy blog and the crazy gal RimaRama I received this:

I'm trying not be disappointed, because I thought for sure that my blog would get a triple X rating, but since I didn't get that, Excellent is pretty good. Seriously, thanks, ya'll. But how do I pass this on? All the blogs I read are excellent, of course. I will give it to Catherine at Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry for, in addition to everyday excellence, her excellent series on world religions, which has been so thought provoking and world expanding for me.

And finally, I received a big bloggy kiss

from Jen at A2eatwrite and Ewe at Wherever Ewe Go, There Ewe Are. I'm going to send this bloggy kiss on to Joy, who tells us she is going through a rough time these days, and could perhaps use a little cyber lovin' to cheer her up (and not in a pornographic way, 'K?)

Whew. Wow. That was a lot of awards. Which means I was richly loved by so many of you last week, when I was feverish and achy and miserable, and I thank you for that, very much. You like me, you really like me! Now... go spread the the cyber love.

Rock On

Because I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, I decided to make some more album covers. It was so much fun last time, plus it gave me a great excuse to look at all the cute pictures from when May Queen was a wee girl. So here are my proposals for new covers for albums in my collection:

(That's me on the far right... in the plaid apron. Alas, no dancing with a bottle on my head for me. The boys get to have all the fun. And no, the bottles are not attached. They are all balancing them in their hats. Apparently during the show I missed a bottle fell into the orchestra pit. Good thing they're plastic.)

Girls Night, Interrupted

I was really looking forward to last night's girls night. Because it wasn't just any girls night. It was to be a night out with Julie and Kyla. I've been enjoying their blogs for a while now, and looked forward to getting to know the women behind the words. I longed to hear their laughter and their voices and their stories... particularly after a few drinks. I wanted to cheer Julie up after a weekend of solo parenting, and take Kyla's mind off of Kaytar's eating issues. I knew it would be a lovely end to a day spent with The May Queen doing touristy things while The Big Guy attended a conference. We were going to tag along to this conference so that we could play hooky a few days... swim in the hotel pool, check out the local kid friendly sites, etc. When I discovered that Julie and Kyla were nearby, it was icing on the cake.

But alas, it was not meant to be. On Saturday, the day before we were scheduled to leave, my husband was still shivering with a fever. I was still coughing up a lung. Reluctantly we cancelled the trip.

And, I must say, it was a wise choice. I spent all day Monday sleeping. The Big Guy has taken both days off of work as he tries to recover from the flu that never ends. The good thing is that since we had intended to be out of town we have nothing scheduled for these days, and can take the time to sleep all day and curl up on the couch to watch movies (on our new DVR!). And I'm even getting a wee bit of scrapbooking done. Through this haze of tiredness and no energy.

So Julie and Kyla, I'm sorry I missed you. But I'm not very good company right now, anyways. Just ask the May Queen. I don't even have enough voice to read the poor kid a bedtime story.

When Mommy Is Sick

This bedtime story was brought to you by Monday Mission Publications. If you have a children's book or poem that you would like to submit to Monday Mission Publications, please place your link in the widget below. (and please, please, only links to posts that are doing the children's story or poem Monday Mission. Other friends, just leave me a comment. thanks)

Forging ahead

I did the show tonight. I did pretty well, except for the singing bit. Ack. I have a brief solo in one of the songs, maybe 8 measures or so. I think a frog could have sung it better than I did this evening. People were lovely, saying things like "oh, you sounded fine" and "i didn't notice." They lie. Clearly. I try not to be a person who speaks ill of myself to get others to compliment me, and I try to take a compliment gracefully, but when I just barely manage to croak the words out, and some of them clearly were not on the right note, well... you can tell me the truth. It was rough. But then I have to remember... it was 8 measures. In a song nobody really cares about anyways. It's not what the audience is going to remember.

Although, as I said to the fabulous gentlemen who plays my husband "Alas. I know Hal Prince is out there tonight and he was all set to give me a role on Broadway, but then he heard me sing and said "forget her!""

Perspective is a lovely thing. I worried about that piece all night, and now it is over, and no one cares about how those few measures went but me.

Tomorrow is our last show. Hopefully my voice will be a bit better. And I remember. This coughing like crazy thing? It's how the soprano in my opera lost her voice. But I don't think they're going to fly a replacement in from Spain for me.

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Monday's mission is to write a post in the style of a children's story or poem.

A Plague on My House

Today marks a first for me: the first time I ever missed a performance due to an illness.

I've performed with all manner of sniffles and coughs and low fevers and migraines (which I really don't recommend. The second the show was over I crawled into a corner backstage and pulled a coat up over my head). But this 102.6 fever, can't get out of bed, coughing up a lung thing? I had to call in sick.

I started feeling a bit under the weather Tuesday night, but forged ahead and did the performance for school kids on Wed. And what a performance it was! Yikes! We had to cut over an hour from the show, some of it cut on the fly in the middle of scenes, bells rang during the show, the fiddler ran into someone backstage and ended up with a bloody nose... I had some chest congestion and a wee bit of a cough, but I did OK. That night I went to practice with my praise band at church. That was probably pushing it a bit, but I never call in sick. I am a gal who forges ahead.

The next day I woke up and drove The May Queen to school. Then I returned home and crawled into bed. I didn't move until 2:30, when I had to go to the bathroom so badly I couldn't ignore it. So I did, had a brief bite to eat, and crawled back into bed until 6:30, when I had to get up and watch The May Queen and put her to bed at 7:30 while The Big Guy attended a meeting. At 8:30 the fever broke a bit and I managed to eat some leftover pizza and read some blogs, and was back in bed by about 10.

Today has been better. I managed to focus long enough to watch a movie. Make a phone call. But I can feel myself sliding back down into the rabbit hole. So it is back to bed for me.

Oh. And The Big Guy is sick, too. He's a day or two ahead of me in all this, so slightly better, but not much. We are a sad, sad pair. The May Queen is her usual energetic self. Shoot us now.

(oh, and I guess I should have expected this. Yesterday I had planned to spend the whole day scrapbooking. Why on earth did I think that would happen?)

Freigraf holding auditions for unusual musicians

I've been tagged by the lovely wooly gal over at Wherever Ewe Go, There Ewe Are for the album cover meme. Which is quite fun. Follow these rules to create your own album cover:

1. Click on this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click on this link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Finally, click on this link: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your picture.

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I think my band is destined for stardom, and way better than the band "syke" that I dreamed of forming when I was a child. Here is our album:

Freigraf is currently holding auditions. As this band and album are by-products of other activities (like blogging) it seems only fitting that I audition you, my fellow bloggers. The hook of the band, of course, is that we make music out of non-musical things (by-products of other activities... get it??). So if you have a talent for making your keyboard sing or your mighty winds blow or any other sound that may fit in to this eclectic album of cover songs (ranging from musical theatre to hard rock) please leave me a comment, and I'll contact you for an audition.

And I think I may just have a knack for this designing covers thing, so I decided it would be fun to look at some of the CDs in my collection, and propose some updated covers for them. What do you think?

(steal this meme! I'd love to see what albums you come up with!)