65/365

The reflection of my emptying apartment in my lamp. Slowly but surely.

64/365

This is Toby. Toby is a red panda and incredibly adorable. A friend let me go to the zoo with her as a guest and we were early enough to catch this nocturnal creature up and about.

This was my best shot of him... of like a million. He's so adorable - I'm going to miss him!

63/365

One of my favorite quirks about River Oaks at Gray & Shepherd is the dual Starbucks. Yes, two Starbucks right across the street from each other. One is a drive-thru and the other a normal walk-in, but still. The irony is there. I'm used to Starbucks being ridiculously close together... but this is amazing...

62/365

This was the unhappy sight that greeted me when I returned to Houston. A leak (very slow) had escalated since I had reported it last, and caused a disaster which potentially ruined several pieces of clothing, a pair of good winter boots and a dresser.

What a mess... literally and figuratively.

61/365

A little love from Southwest. Due to the post-All-Star-game exodus, I ended up volunteering to catch a later flight back to Houston and got a decent voucher in the process. A fair trade for waiting for another hour and a half - now just where do I go to visit??

60/365

This was the day when I came back to St. Louis and met my roommate in person for the first time, and saw our new apartment. We went to an old favorite place of mine, Frank and Helen's pizza. YUM.

59/365

This is approximately a halfway point between St. Louis, MO and Saratoga Springs, NY. Seville, OH. I stopped there on the way to my job because I had had enough driving in the rain right after the accident. It was dark, rainy but I found a nice haven in the Comfort Inn there.

I decided that being the opera dork I was, I wanted to stop here on my return journey to see if there was indeed a Barber in Seville. And there was. Two actually. If you look very closely at the blown-up picture you can see a sevillebarber.com web address.

Sometimes its the little things in life... right??

58/365

This is the Hall of Springs, which is next door to our little theatre that we perform operas at. My ASM and I went for a walk before calls on the last day. More of these pictures to come.

Yes, I'm a little behind because of a week without internet access, packing up and apartment and driving across part of the country again. Still getting settled but I'll be posting more regularly again. Despite the chaos, I've managed to maintain the 365 project somehow. Go me!

Happy List, Week 34

1. Southwest Airlines. For a few hours delay, I received a lovely travel voucher in compensation. As a friend said, in this economy, freebies are especially appreciated.

2. My new apartment. I got to finally see it (other than in excellent pictures) and meet my roommate in the flesh (versus Skype, phone calls and emails). It's going to be a fabulous year.

3. Mom. She came out to Houston, helped me pack up my stuff and most importantly, helped me drive the scary truck back to St. Louis. What a mom. She's the best.

4. PS. He picked me up from the airport, drove me around, helped me pack. His friendship and help was absolutely invaluable.

5. CS. My very helpful, very generous neighbor. He helped move out from the Closet Disaster 2009 and helped pack the truck...twice. He also helped figure out that I had the wrong size truck before we wasted too much time.

6. Penske for being a very helpful truck company, who did a last minute truck switch and didn't charge me an arm and a leg.

7. Newest Harry Potter. That is all. Enough said. Snape = awesome.

57/365

Meet Hazel, who NB and I met in Congress Park while duck watching. She was quite adorable, super friendly and got very excited when she spotted a big lab across the pond. So excited that when she barked in excitement she sent a duck that was bigger than she was flying out of the water all aflutter. Priceless. Go Hazel!

Happy List, Week 33

1. Closing the show... FINALLY. Thank goodness. Our fifth performance was our best.

2. Learning how to knit. Or more realistically, re-learning. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. i've already completely one scarf and am working on a second.

3. Taking photographs. Still makes me happy. Am amazed that I managed to keep up the 365 project even with the crazy time in upstate NY.

4. Heading towards home. And gearing up to pack up old home. YIKES!

5. Finding not one, but two, barbershops in Seville, OH. Too true.

56/365

This is the paging microphone that I used to call singers/technicians/staff to the stage for the performances. This mic and I are good buddies.

55/365

We pass by this stoop with this terrier pup cutout every time we walk into downtown. After over a month, it was time to take a photo, finally. Too cute to pass up.

54/365

The absolute irony of rain drops in a rain puddle with blue sky reflected. That's how a lot of our storms work up here this summer...

53/365

Back on track now... we've been having lots of pretty sunsets lately. I wish the parking lot lamps weren't in the way of this picture.

49/365

I did not in fact, miss a day in my 365 blog. I simply did not pay close enough attention when uploading. These are my darts. Darts are an opera tradition here. Go darts! I do have to confess that Maestro, who is also the GD/AD here, whipped me at a game after conducting nearly 3 hours of an opera. Go Maestro!

52/365

On this day, I learned how to knit and made my first scarf out of the gorgeous yarn found in Saratoga. I love love love this yarn, and knitting is more fun than I thought. Maybe NB's created a monster...

51/365

Another day, another show... this is the upper lobby of the Spa Little Theatre where we perform our shows.

50/365

Not quite as impressive as last year's but fireworks were fun to capture again... this time hand-held and different settings... I can't wait to try again next year!

Happy List, Week 32

1. Finally opening a show. What a relief.

2. Smooth running performances. After a slightly insane tech week, everything seems to have settled in quite nicely. Two down, three to go.

3. New apartment. I'm so excited! 3 BR, 1.5 BA. Located near my parents in a suburb that I love. I can't wait to move in!

4. Days off. Did I mention I like days off?

5. My camera. I tote it everywhere and it pays off quite often. I took it to a company picnic, and tried my hand at some action shots. I uploaded them to facebook and almost every young/studio artist used them as their profile pics. Very flattering.

48/365

This is a Dammit doll, and the opening night gift from the other stage manager to me. Its very appropriate. And very funny.

47/365

Taken the day before our season officially opened, the standard theatrical drama/comedy masks are very representative of our season. "Madama Butterflly" is definitely a tragedy and "Don Pasquale" is definitely a comedy.

46/365

I highly suggest going to Flickr and looking at this picture there because you can see the "notes" that I've added. This picture represents my 'desk' at work. From which I call the show and keep everything running smoothly.

45/365

This wasn't the original photo of the day. We took a walk in the earlier parts of the day, and saw some beautiful hydrangeas. But then we took a walk a dusk and passed this hair salon. This was such a striking picture that I had to take it. Turned out well, considering no tripod, yes?

44/365

This dog belongs to our wardrobe coordinator, and he was just too adorable not to photograph at our company picnic.

43/365

A welcome sangria at the end of a very long tech week... this is post-orchestra dress. Our last rehearsal before final dress and then opening. Our first orchestra rehearsal.