I am the drama teacher. This is not an identity I ever intended to take on, but here I am, a week away from my directorial debut.

To say it's been a crash course would be putting it lightly. Everything I've attempted to do has been met with obstacles, whether minor or major. Getting rights: paperwork gets lost. Casting: everyone does sports. Blocking: why is this stage so small?

But from the moment I found out that I was going to be putting on the play, the thing I've dreaded the most was building the set. You have to understand, I don't know how to do anything like that. I've built pre-drilled bookshelves from Target and even those end with me yelling at Amelia and quitting halfway through. I read a bunch (a bunch) of books about sets and set-building and still, it was a completely different language.

Lucky for me, I have students. Real students. Students who take shop classes and have farms and saws and junk. And just like that, my set building fears were assuaged by some 16 year olds who implored me to, "Just move out of the way of this."

It reminds me of the old wives tale of the teacher who says, "Today we'll learn about fixing my car" and then gets her students to get under the hood of the car and fix whatever. Learning experiences abound.

This past weekend has been a scramble to get together all of the last pieces and props and costumes. This would be my Prius full of the parts of a fireplace:

And here it is with two giant ferns. Not pictured are the urns, telephones, nail guns, 8' pieces of trim, and other assorted garbage.

I have a theory that I will get my life back after the play and at that point I will be able to unpack our house, which looks exactly as it did when Spring Break ended--possibly a little worse. This past week, our refrigerator died (RIP Big Fridge). Lucky us, we got a home warranty, so it's being replaced, but because we are going through the warranty it is taking for-ev-er. But maybe once the fridge is taken care of and the play is over, maybe then I could possibly unpack things.

Right now that thought makes me laugh. Ha ha ha.

Oh worrrrd.

Here is Ruby at our old apartment, where we could not control the heat, the oven was broken, the neighbors downstairs got arrested multiple times, and we had one bedroom two humans and two dogs. 

Say goodbye to that life, Ruby Sue!

Oh hey, having a house. 

A whole flipping house. A house for two humans and two dogs. And a whole Spring Break to "unpack" and "move in." Bunny quotes because there was minimal unpacking. But we are in. 

Also, for posterity's sake, our first week in our new house there was snow. Snow in April. 

It was during the snow that I realized the heat was broken and then the dogs and humans had to band together to stay warm until the HVAC guys could come the next day. Home ownership! It's like having the worst landlord ever.