And We're Back!

and i put the sock on that so i don't have a sock hold on hold on i need to understand this you pull the insert insert out how are we not recording this right now i put the sock on the insert okay great why does the sock go on your foot because i don't like the way it feels this is probably okay look i'm going to back up because i think a lot has happened since the last time we recorded yeah or really talked yeah just talked but i feel very confident i am it it's i'm on some level of the spectrum at this point

like okay i start self-analyzing you've given enough time yeah and i really feel pretty confident on it i have not taken the the rad it's the rads test right michaela is it rads the dsm r it's rads are rads are thank you i have not taken the rads are i i need to do it but i just feel really confident that i am on some level there okay i mean listen adult diagnosis is not it is i mean they didn't diagnose girls no with that when i was a kid like that was just not or even any of it as a kid women in their

40s now are being consistently diagnosed with all this i know i have adhd like that's not even a question um but yeah so anyway so the sensory stuff bothers me so i don't like having socks on my feet i just don't and i don't like i don't want to wear i don't like the look of it anyway i'm like ankles out so i'm wearing my sock right here for all to see i own some like that i just don't like them i understand it does get a little tight the really like low cut socks and i put those i pull the insert out of my

hey dude and i put the sock on that and then put the insert back in do you put on upside down so the whole where where your ankle would be on that would be on the bottom okay yes so you're walking on the bottom of the sock essentially okay gotcha um but yeah where was i going with that because what this is something about the dance floor oh so at harrison doing you do the rehearsals in the dance studios you have to take your socks off when you go or your shoes off when you go in sure yeah but i didn't have my socks i

don't wear my socks so my dogs were out i caught so much crap from the kids oh your dogs are out i was like listen they have i don't know what you want me to do there it's a very big deal yes really kate freaks out if she sees anybody's dog she's like their dogs are out i'm like and it happens like some of the kids do that like fresh off a pedicure like hello like no can't do that apparently not it's a thing it's a thing so much shit for that from the kids yes yes yeah i can see that i've learned so much

in the last year we have so much kids are very educational to be honest with you wow yes we're not there yet no you're not yeah so we're back by the way sorry we've been gone you're you're you're two are in what grades now seventh and eighth seventh okay so max is he but yeah i think he's a boy different non-theater boy like yeah yeah things might be a little bit different for him i don't know but yeah but gabby's got a whole nother year before we even think about and now your youngest is in high school yes oh welcome everybody oh yes yes how

do we do this again i have no idea i'm angela and i'm kathy and this is the drama mamas yeah back after gosh i don't even know how long a year has it been a year over a year because it was october was our last well we have that recording we brought on cc we need to get it edited um chris pulled it off the recorder i did make art for it last week because i was like a week two weeks ago and i was like we should go ahead and put this one out before we record the new ones and then like this time

of year is so crazy yes it's just so crazy there's like no time flies by yeah so um yeah we haven't it hasn't been edited yet but we'll probably put that one out and then we'll do this one and then maybe the tommy one okay yeah and you're not going to learn anything today we're just catching up no but i don't i mean we can definitely educate but i like this i like the idea of like maybe pivoting and being a little more just like hey this is conversational moms yeah this is us have kids in drama who do a lot of stuff like we

all love volunteering with the theaters and being a part of our kids lives in that way yeah absolutely so you know you'll definitely hear a lot of that but also just normal daily drama i think just a little slight pivot slight pivot we'll educate when we can well and we kind of last october we all kind of went our own ways you know after being together doing things together for so many years all our kids got into different things and yeah life got in the way of progress for us it totally did so we have lots to catch up on just on our own because

we haven't just go around and just talk about like what we've been doing do you want to kick us off you want me to i feel like you've been the busiest with i really i i sort of agree i do sort of agree you're now like stage manager show to show to show yeah or what a year and a half i was counting today so i think the last show we did when we were recording i think we're getting ready to do happy elf right that was october yeah it was matilda yes oh yeah we were finished finished yeah and then we did happy elf

at lct at lakeland community theater and that was a great show we had so much fun it was a kids show but pj was actually in that one too so it was like adults and kids he was santa and then from there i think we've done like 10 or 11 productions and i'm not even joking so we did happy elf and then we did big because that was right around evening by the lake like our big auction time right so we did big and gab um pj and gabs they got to do that together and then from there we did was mean girls right after

that yes yep so now we weren't in that one because gabs was too young but we still helped out backstage and gabs did projections and pj was in the flies and you know you guys got to your kids were in that one and we'll talk about that yeah that'll come on that was a great show and then from there we did school of rock mm-hmm yeah so that was that was also it was a main stage with adults and kids that was a lot of fun it was a fun show yeah it was and then um from there we did summer camp which was rock

of ages and then from there we hopped on was that between between the lines between the lines and now we did projections pj was in that one i helped out backstage so we had that one then from there we went into alice and wonderland and we did that one um then you did then you did jekyll ever yes then we did jekyll and hyde oh my gosh that's right you know none of my family was in that one but we all helped out pj did the flies and that was a fantastic show oh my god like the talent that showed up for that new folks

love it we'll talk yeah oh i love all the new blood right now oh my god it's so good yeah and then now we're doing tuck everlasting next weekend is starts tech week oh it's just crazy well that came fast yeah it did sprinkle in two out of the box shows in between there two oh yeah spring and then fall and then um yeah and then we got encore going on so we have a couple dates coming up but after tuck so after the middle of december we are taking a break good like i've heard that before oh no but we really are because well

it's kind of a force break like there's nothing for gab's to do like main stage wise theater winter haven's doing the lion the witch and the wardrobe but that's not till spring and it's a play yeah that's a straight play right oh okay it's kind of cool it is cool is that the a theater for you thing or is that some other oh oh really yeah yeah that's a theater for you thing and then how did i not know that that was a straight play i i think it can be a musical yeah but i mean i've seen it definitely a straight play because we

asked they're doing yes and that's because the case like if i can't sing and dance i don't want to do it oh gotcha i don't know gabby's a little excited i think to like that's great yeah do a little bit of acting absolutely um and and the director's gonna be fantastic i don't want to say because i don't know like how public that is but who the director is yeah yeah it's gonna be fun yeah so well but now i need to know well yeah now i don't know i have the can you sign it yeah i don't i don't know if it is i

don't know how that works either until they announce it like the auditions and stuff they usually will put who the director and yeah so i'm sure that's coming soon yeah but i don't want to be the no don't be the ruiner yeah don't be the spoiler no i don't want to because we watched we went to wicked last night and there was something in there i did not expect and i don't know how everyone isn't talking about it oh we see it tonight okay i'm not i'm not going to spoil it i was just like what lily kate both we looked at each other yeah

you're gonna have that conversation off without me yeah because i'm not going to spend you know a hundred dollars to go to the movie theater to see wicked i'm gonna wait till it comes out and i can rent it for 20 bucks i'm like yes that's gonna be where i'm at with it so don't tell me no i'm not gonna tell you anything because i was like how did the whole world not spoil this little piece yeah that's wild i'm sorry i interrupted no no you're good it's gonna happen a lot possibly we don't really have anything pj's excited so we there's tootsie coming up

so he might audition for that one is that in like the springtime no that's gonna be like around the auction time so january february okay yeah it directly conflicts with curtains okay mm-hmm yep yeah also so does waitress yes which will be i mean there's gonna be a lot it's a lot good in our community i don't know we talked about this before we have two wonderful theaters you know we have two very like well-known theaters but we also have the missing piece we also have what's the one out of haynes city um crap you had to ask that falling out of my brain yeah

i can't remember it right now well we have the one that's out of haynes city that yeah we watched forever plaid uh two years ago i think that they did it yeah crap i wish i could remember the name of it now it'll come but that's that's that's two others that aren't quite as big yeah because they don't have their well actually the missing piece does have the gem and mulberry they do have their own theater it's a very small theater and then with love productions has their thing and then with love yes i think they're doing high school music is considerably more mobile yep

yep here we're gonna google this right now so anyway so yeah so we're looking forward to a little bit of a break we're gonna just be enjoying christmas and yeah because you like stopped working and i don't feel like you ever actually stopped working you may not be getting paid for it but it feels like you are just as busy as you were when you had a full well it's all about stage management that you've been stepping up to do without any training yeah pretty much pretty much kind of the way it goes here you go yeah we just do it i i don't call

the swim i just do rehearsal yeah and it's been working out fine you know i mean i'm assuming everybody knows where they're supposed to be and you know it's it's it's going well i'm enjoying it i don't know if i'll ever call a show but that's okay yeah that's a lot of pressure asks me i always tell them this is my boundaries these are my limitations i'm happy to help out i can teach you if you would like just a shadow i think you should shadow me call a show yeah i don't know when it'll be because i don't know what i'm going to call

something next but um but yeah you're welcome to come and shadow me just see it with no pressure yeah but i think it will help you not be quite as afraid of it because it's not as bad as you're probably thinking that's how it was for me too like you could take the whole show down by calling it wrong but don't worry about it yeah it's nothing to be worried it's nothing to be scared of comfortable backstage yes yeah this goes on this goes on yeah you know and like taking care of what's going on hands-on i think it's a control thing to be quite

honest with you because i feel like calling the show you're up in the booth you're far removed something goes wrong you can't run down and fix it no you just have to talk somebody through right yes and like and something always goes wrong oh yeah oh yeah that's how theater is there's a show that goes wrong and i find when it goes wrong and kristin can attest to this with mean girls when something goes wrong and then everything i absolutely 100 new uh-huh goes out of my brain and then i'm like starting from zero yeah i don't know what happens in my pocket because i'm

like what is going out yeah and that has so much stuff yes and those desks and yeah anyway it had a lot of stuff and actually you guys you'd be really proud because when we did jekyll and you know chris was like super instrumental with that because we had this huge piece of i wasn't about to call it furniture but it's not just that piece it's a lab it has a mind of its own but like three days he could come good job chris there more than three days i was just happy to have another like adult with me because i had kids you know

so i'm like i need like an able-bodied adult even just to like but thankful for all that kid tech help yes keep coming i will never forget so chris come we're getting a little off track but anyway chris comes and he was like all right what am i getting myself into i could totally tell like he's like oh my god and then we're thrown in his lap that i had a thing to do for my kids we had had that hurricane and a couple activities had gotten rescheduled and it was junior honor society thing i didn't want to miss that because both the kids were

in it anyway it was a whole thing so laura was going to cover for me but then oh it was jordan's it was the award for the out of the box thing right then but then laura also got an invite through winter haven so it was like okay who's she's like well chris will be there i'm like you're right chris is gonna be there so like i put that on him and i was like listen if you feel like you and so in the beginning i think he was like how this is ridiculous like i'm here for like five minutes you know it's gonna be

one night of shadowing and i will never forget i don't know if it was intermission or right before and he looked at me and he was like oh so we just tell the kids what to do like the boys are gonna do it and i'm like yeah this is cake i'm like i've never put you in a position where right i felt like you know whatever and he was like oh okay yeah this is easy so he saw we could just literally sit back and be like they told me what to do yeah yeah yeah i'm sure the maxes were on it yeah so anyway

yes very thankful for the kid help and they're totally growing and i've gotten able to be able to see my kids just kind of grow and mature through responsibility yeah theater which is an awesome thing too you know because the first time that he was on the other side of the state i think it was between the lines they put max and braden on one side stage i don't know right or left no they were stage left and i was on stage right i think and i was like okay let's do it let's see how they're gonna do it and they did a great job

like yeah yeah we often don't give kids enough credit for what they're able to do it's so true and yeah it's easy to just kind of shelter them you know it's easy to do that as a parent absolutely it's a lot harder to let them do some stuff on their own i've been really impressed with michaela and what she's been able to to learn how to do so quickly um in the theater especially like we just throw her in stuff and she just knows it first time oh she's our go-to sound because she could just walk in here and be like the go-to for spots

and she would learn the show you didn't have to call spots she's brilliant you just hit the go and it brings them up and she's already on the person she's she knows exactly what to do she's running the roost up there so all three spots can be manned and she knows who's supposed to be on what and she handles it that's amazing and now i can't use her in spots because we put her down in sound and she's killing that i know she's doing so good i wish we could have her all the time so but yeah so yeah we've been busy life's moving yeah

i totally quit my job like it was like i'm done we're gonna any regrets there you're like yes i'm so glad i did this i have zero regrets with that i mean it had its season it's been wonderful for us but like it was just a time where pj and i just kind of refocused what we were doing and kids their activities and just you know their needs right you know we're at a point where we can do it so i was like okay we're just gonna do it and here we are i keep i'm beating a dead horse but we have limited time with

our kids they are going off to college and they're getting older and yes and we don't want to miss a thing no no you know we just had autumn harvest at their school and i was able to go for the day and not worry about and before with my job i could do that but then i was always worried i was either on a phone call or i had a meeting or yeah i had to carry two phones with you everywhere you went every yeah where i went and honestly i really think you know it's been a couple months i quit in september but i

feel like sometimes i still have a little bit of anxiety like what was that was that the phone was that my what was that a text message is somebody calling in like does somebody need something for me i'm constantly right still on that a little bit so i think it's just gonna take a little bit of ptsd yeah it is ptsd totally and probably self-inflicted you know because i think people probably could have done my job and not felt that but like i felt that but not yours no and you cared yeah and you want it done right and you're a perfectionist so yes yes

and it got to the point where i wanted to be a hundred percent like i felt like i wasn't a hundred percent of anything i was doing and so you know i want to be a great mom a great wife a great you know and so that's kind of the focus yeah so that's where we're at we just moved again i think you've moved five times since our last podcast i'm not exaggerating it has yeah housing for us has been an adventure yeah so i'm so sorry because i feel like we convinced you that it was like the right time to sell your house you

sold when we sold and man you have had a ride it's been hell yeah i mean i'm super grateful we sold our house because we made like we totally took advantage of the market yeah yeah made great money off our home which has been wonderful but um it's been two and a half years and since then we have lived let's see we moved in with the in-laws that lasted six weeks we'll just leave it at that and then that could be a whole episode on its own yeah yeah um anyway so we did that and then that was just supposed to like you know let

the market kind of chill out a little bit and then we could go and we could get something else so yeah so that lasted six weeks and then to the point where we stayed at a vrbo for like the cats with a million cats oh my god with the cats and our poor dogs i know but i i thought that vrbo was really cute listen i don't know what it is i drive the five million cats outside that's a bonus for me we drive by that house and it will always have a special feeling i don't know if it's because we like wrote out a

hurricane in that house or if it gave us a soft place to land you know and like it we just kind of regrouped as a family in that home and it didn't matter that it was super tiny and what i mean it was just perfect for what we needed um until our other home was ready like that's why we and we had like it was a friday and we were like that's it we're leaving now like and so kathy go find us a home and so that's what i could find on you know four hour notice so we made it happen and it was great

um super close to the theater right downtown you know beautiful location yeah beautiful unfortunately all the homes out in that beautiful location are all tiny yeah yeah they are and old and very old yeah and old lot of yeah i don't anyway lots to say on that topic's not even remotely relevant and we never had any issues in that home because you know i was still working obviously and so the kids would be home for a little bit we had this one thing where max called me i don't know if i ever shared this story with you guys but thank god laura lived down the

street because she had to come and like rescue the kids so max calls and he's like mom i'm like what he goes there's a lady here i don't know what's going on she's knocking on the door i she won't go away i'm like oh god okay well is everything okay i'm like just ignore it you know and he's like okay and because it was a vrbo it had like a digital like lock box on the door so i'm assuming that's why but anyway and then he's like well wait and it's a play by play right now he's like oh wait there's another lady at the

door so there's two ladies he's like their trunk is open and i'm thinking oh my god are they like wanting to steal and they were in the house had like a enclosed front porch right so this is where the ladies are they're like in the front porch trying to get into the house and um he's like i don't know what to do and i said well just sit tight for a minute like let's see what's going on like maybe they have the wrong home i mean i don't i don't know you know so he's like well wait they're leaving i'm like okay so they leave

and he's like he told me he saw them take something out of their trunk and he had no idea what it was but it was large and tall dead body yeah something so i'm like oh my god now i know even if i left work at that point i'm like a good 20 minutes away right so and it was after school so i called laura and i was like laura can you go down to the house like there's something going on there's people outside i'm getting ready to tell max to call the police like i don't know what's going on i'm texting the vrbo owner

like hey are you guys expecting anyone because now max is telling me i don't know it could be a vacuum so now i'm thinking okay well maybe they're like cleaners they're yeah maybe they're there to clean something they got the wrong hat like maybe it's the wrong address yeah you know they think we're leaving so they're coming to clean the house but max is thinking they're taking stuff off of our porch and putting it in the trunk right so which is nothing that's ours by the way except for maybe a case of water because we had just had a hurricane you know so he goes

down there by the time she gets there they're gone but there's cameras so now the vrbo people are are contacting me and we're going back and forth and he's like okay well i'm going to check the cameras so laura stays with the kids until i can get to the house and um sure enough it's a big fat vacuum so these ladies were come you know to clean it and he's like i'm so sorry my wife gave them the wrong address oh gee they were supposed to clean out somebody that had just left anyway so it caused this whole big turmoil and i'm thinking oh my

god here we are we're you know where did we move to like there's people trying to get into our house anyway that was super stressful but that was the only little even hitch that we had at that home except for my dogs trying to kill a cat in the shed but other than that it was okay dogs are pretty brutal they are yeah they are they're so silly lizard population out there took a big hit yeah it did while you were yeah it did 100 um but anyway yeah so we lived in that house and then we lived off of new jersey which was a

great home and then um we rented that house for a year and we were like okay maybe we'll like look to purchase it but she was not looking to purchase it and as a matter of fact she was looking to raise the rent and pj's like that's ridiculous yeah we're not spending that kind of money to rent a home so then we found this great little house off easton which was awesome we moved into that home and tiny and it was great but then we ended up having a mold problem like i got pneumonia gabby got pneumonia that mold cells no joke it is no

joke so then we stayed at a hotel for three days oh geez because we had to leave like asap yeah you can't just stay in it no um and then we were lucky enough during that three days to find that house off oh the one that we saw yes okay off of ivy brook so we were there and we didn't stay there a whole year until we found the home that we're in now okay you're at six houses i was wrong i was exaggerating at five times i'm like oh wow i forgot that one i forgot that's a level of focus angela like that's impressive

yeah so for the first time in two and a half years that is a lot of focus because i just took you guys i was there with you she's counting on her fingers the whole time you're talking about homes where's the other home um and then yeah so so here we are and we love the house we're in we signed a two-year lease so i thought you bought anywhere no we haven't bought it okay um she's not wanting to sell it yet because she just bought it in february so we'll see what happens after the end of two years but it's pretty much our home

we can do anything we want to it we can paint it we can oh that's nice yeah it's got lots of space as a brand new ac unit yeah yes yes the entire thing is all done because we moved into there yep it's got a pool i mean it's got all the space we need um it's the perfect home for us so we're really excited that's good and it's not tiny and it's not tiny like we fantastic yeah peaches like kathy i was telling you you weren't going to be happy in a tiny home or not tiny but like a smaller home so because we

were had like three storage facilities oh my god y'all have a lot of stuff you need to just set a match to that and you guys know that because y'all have helped us move at some point yes i haven't helped you move chris has though oh chris but but i have gotten the tour and i've heard a lot from him do you still have three storage no this home has allowed us to have all oh we just shoved it in yes you need me to come over i do that's my dream business is like organizing people's houses oh god you can make a lot of

money doing i know yes girl i'll be your first customer come on over i'm coming and because now i'm not worried like i've really been focusing on the house um right now it looks like a bomb went off because we're we got christmas you know did you get your little christmas things out that you got for pj every year all the reindeer is it a reindeer that you have it's like a rudolph um giant family it's a village they have cousins and uncles right i've told that story yes podcast i think you have yeah so we still have that we have rubber maids are you

gonna pull them out of the box this year well i don't think so because i don't know where we're gonna put them you just said you have a big house okay i do but i have like a hundred of these like styrofoam cubes come on i'll come over and help you that'll be a blast so so how big are the reindeer are they outside reindeer right so we did for my mom it's they're inside so they're inside little like figurines and it's a village it's like a christmas village i don't know why for some reason i in my head i thought they were outside reindeer

like you could be flocked almost outside you know that'd be awesome how people do that to each other with the uh flamingos yes block each other oh yeah yeah yeah no it needs almost like so he's like a shelving right like the shelves people have your your family room and then that's what we then you need a train you have that you have to have a train so we have a train can the can they sit on the train or is the train too small no the train is probably like this big because that'd be awesome to see the little guys going around it probably

could yeah zip tie their feet yes onto the like the flatbed type of train it's like it's it's like the general store and the church and the and the home and i mean i stopped opening them so i really don't know what's in them to be honest with you but i assume they're just all little parts of the village it might be really cute it might be it might be so we you know maybe get there we'll be next okay your current home now does it have like a loft is the loft used we have a two-story it's a two-story home so there's bedrooms upstairs

i don't but there's not like a lot a lot of those two-story homes have like a loft area up yeah no no loft area no we have a really large family room yeah so you know if if we could now this is the other problem when i know i've talked about this too is that i love my husband but he's not not like super handy so i can't be like hey i can't be the face he was making oh listen no no no some dirt now on the podcast i do listen to this podcast is he gonna hear us i know i mean we've been

together almost 20 years married like he knows what he's good at and what he's not as i'm i like i don't cook i didn't cook a thing for thanksgiving my husband cooked the entire i did peel some potatoes oh see that's more than i did i was in my pajamas i don't want to talk about it but mostly so i could have because i like to like cut a piece of potato for myself yeah so and i only get to do that if i cut if i'm peeling the potatoes like a raw potato yeah they're so that's nasty that's so gross they're like chalky and

i love it you might have a little problem there it's a texture thing normally yeah i actually really like them yeah but i've grown up my dad does it okay it's my dad's fault who's he's probably also autistic to be fair they say that's genetic hereditary yeah yeah my dad used to eat butter he would like grab a stick and bite uh milo loves butter we discovered our dog oh yeah cats love butter yeah our cats always try to lick it well we we had a cat we had a cat years ago and we had a butter dish in it the dish had a lid

and we'd occasionally come up to the counter and discover the butter dish slightly skew and i'm like i think nothing of it put the lid back on maybe we somebody bumped it you know yeah but then one day we walked out there and it was oh how long have you been doing that we've been eating it and you've been looking in there licking on it i don't even know how long i don't know how long but like a while we had been like just correcting the dish lid not realizing like how it got that way yeah how the butter was slightly deflated right it's got

a little lick mark on it but he was in there like oh god but yeah but milo we discovered like he's also a butter fiend oh my gosh that's so gross yeah raw potatoes and raw butter now you put the potato and butter together and cook it i'm all yeah and i can load up on butter if i'm gonna have some like well i can't have bread anymore but like you know but it the gluten-free stuff is just horrible um yeah but yeah when i would eat bread yeah it was equal almost portions of bread and butter yeah well because but no butter solely alone

like biting the stick that's so nasty he also used to eat uh raw ground beef like how disgusting is that you get like worms i know yeah you're supposed to oh you're not supposed to do that i mean it's not lips and assholes but like it's not the best cut of meat worms and yeah i mean it's just raw meat well parvati won't eat ground beef because it looks like worms because like that's how ground beef kind of likes yeah it's because it comes out of the thing and yeah that's how that works it's like ramen noodles yeah yeah she does she likes noodles because

she won't eat the beef well i can't blame her what are you gonna do yeah you know that's okay no way gonna do but yeah so that's pretty much what we've been up to we are settled we are in a wonderful season right now with our family and our life and awesome friends and yeah it's all good stuff so we're super happy to i'm super happy to be back here with you guys i know we got together for friendsgiving yes and we hadn't all been together and laura and jordan were there and our new family the smiths yeah shout out to them and it's like

we had never been apart not that we haven't seen each other but yeah no no we don't for us all to be together in the same place it's like we picked right back up yeah yeah yep same old table and have fun giggling laughing and being stupid that's what we do that's what brought us together it doesn't go away no yeah it doesn't go away that's just the way it goes you know i love it so you've been kind of busy kristin i have been very busy yes tell us what you're doing i did have some down time though because um i didn't end up

sm-ing jekyll right kathy took that one yeah kathy kathy took that one over kathy and then um shannon stepped right call yeah yeah shannon called um god bless her and she stepped in a bunch of times this season to help when that need was there um but yeah i'm doing headshots of her kid tomorrow oh cool yeah that's gonna be fun they're gonna come here yeah yeah it's not like a portrait session you know so we're not we don't need to like go tromp around downtown or anything it's just simple headshots but excited for her because that's all in preparation for college i was gonna

say we're gonna which is crazy to think that that they're at that age anyway so um because all these kids just seem so young to me and then all of a sudden it's like oh it's time for college right yeah there's still the penguin you know that you remember five years ago they're my little squirrel you know right yes i know another growing so in the past well we're saying what year and a half mm-hmm hey she'd be a good one to have on by the way shannon yeah so much experience well she was a professional sm yeah yeah yeah um just stuff with the

symphony and yeah yes yes yes with the lakeland symphony orchestra i think um so yeah so uh i did um stage management mentorship last season at harrison or last year at harrison so i did uh their big all-school musical which was cinderella um that was an amazing show it really was um and the only reason why i was brought in is uh one of the teachers had passed from cancer and um you know they he did a lot of that stuff and he did a lot of prep as it turned out um prior to that event happening um which was over the summer so like

they cast the show at the end of the school year prior which is like a april may somewhere in there they get their notification i think it was may and then school starts up so they have the whole summer to like get familiar with the show and they really want the kids to be off book when they come back in for rehearsal which happens within days of the school you're starting right school year and sometimes a little bit before school starts yeah yeah um so we came in um the one of the last days of school they were doing like a meeting or whatever and

laura and i were both doing the mentorship stuff and so we came in and we met everybody and then summer and i was like okay well i don't have like i don't have like a script or anything like that so we just kind of chilled for the summer and came in yeah like i come into a lot of shows i didn't know what i was in for yeah you know seems to be a theme yeah it's definitely a theme but um i'm i it's an adventure and i love that and it's the only reason why i keep coming back i think because that adventure sometimes

can be rocky but it's still a lot of fun it's never monotonous no it definitely is not monotonous um so we we had this uh amazing show sort of ready for us but susie stepped in as director um and now head of the department there at harrison and she was spectacular um got her broadway i think she got a broadway star of the future nomination for that didn't she i believe so yes yeah oh wow that's yeah yeah um we didn't get to see that show we haven't seen any of the harrison shows this year so uh that was the all school musical that happened

in october november somewhere in that range and then the um musical theater department specifically the theater department specifically they like break off and do their own departmental show oh they just did shrek yes so they're all school musical this year was shrek yes okay so last year cinderella right right right then they did um sister act and so they asked us to come back because it turns out they really liked having that help i think um so the teachers asked for laura and i if we would come back and help with sister act and we were like yeah sure we'll come back you know um

the kids that we mentored to be stage management in the cinderella show were not the same kids the next show and you know the reason why we were even needed in the first place is kind of related to coven so come to find out so uh the kids sort of teach the younger kids so they've never really had to have an adult involved in in that process like like gentle leadership from their tech leader who is uh miss laura jordan and um so but she didn't have to be like heavily involved in teaching them how to be in sm because that stuff had always been

sort of passed down as i understand it from kid to kid well those kids sort of aged out and the kids because of the way that covid kind of happened they weren't teaching younger kids how to do it and so then there was no one to teach as this huge gap yeah it's just a big gap and so they brought us in to sort of help with that gap to be you know teaching them and we ended up being very um very much help mates for the the whole production team um i sort of took the kids more than laura did and laura sort of

took the adults more than i did um so but it was a big help to them and they loved it so they brought us back so we did we did sister act um that show wasn't without its challenges like a lot of them but um we made it through that one had another just fantastic show honestly i the the shows that happen at lct and winter haven are amazing and harrison is no slouch either yeah uh you know you can go to a lot of these high schools and you get a mixed bag some are are on the same level and some are not and

it's that's just how it goes and then you go to the middle schools and stuff and we've seen what they can do they don't have fly systems they don't have the resources to put on that same level of show but um you know it's never it's never been dull and it's and it's always been beautiful but to see what harrison is putting out and how um amazingly beneficial that is for the kids i just i was like sold i was sold on it i i wanted to do it anyway because i just wanted to like get my foot in the door and be a parent

and be more involved yeah just like i've always been right yeah because pinky's there now yeah so pinky that was pinky's first year there yeah yeah and mikaela had gone through and did orchestra there right but i did you know the like our experience with mikaela and orchestra they don't really need parents right for much of anything yeah it's a little bit different yeah um and so you know i came in and did some photos of the orchestra uh a couple of years but like it wasn't every year and yeah you know we just didn't get to know the teachers at the same level now

i'm like the teachers text me we're having we have jokes and memes and you're like we're friends now yeah i would say we're friends yeah um and we have the best time and of course that's not without its challenges for the children right so uh plenty of stories with that one but um my favorite was you know of course we're friends with preston through lakeland community theater but it turns out he's also a sub and uh he was subbing for mikaela one day like her english class or something and i get this text in in the morning and it's from preston and he's like oh

my gosh um you need to put your you need to control your child mikaela is standing on her desk and she's yelling i know hell no i will not go or whatever and i was so text or chris texted mikaela and i hear that you're you know which could it'd be further than the truth right yeah obviously mikaela yeah she's such a rule follower but um yeah it was hilarious you know to to get that text from just to have that kind of connection with the people that she spends a lot of time with in school um you know whether that's tc or it's suzy

or any of the teachers yeah um it's been it's been really great getting to know them getting to understand their contributions to my children's lives um and their friends lives but also being able to help them like it's just been amazing it's really been amazing it's also been a learning experience because the way that harrison does shows is very different than the way that lct does shows which is different still from winter haven like every place is just a little bit different and if you can take the knowledge from those and then you know trash the bad and keep the good and you make everything

that you do just a little bit better every time and that's how this year has gone so i didn't have anything to do with shrek um that was a different production team i haven't really spent a lot of time with them i've done some stuff with laura jordan who was the director who uh is the technical director for harrison and she teaches tech theater to those students um but uh i you know befriended her during the last school year but they don't they didn't see a need i think they used some of the students that i had already mentored to stage manage um just talking

with the students and they saw me in car line one day and they came over which i love that yes i love that's the best like one of them like dove through my i put my window down because i was just sitting in the car line i put my window down to talk to them she like dove through the window you're right and like give me a big hug and i was like oh because they're like they're they become your kids yeah and you you know you have a vested interest in their success yeah absolutely um but yeah so i i caught up with them

briefly and they were having a fantastic time and i'm using the book that you gave me as a gift because we would put a little sm kit together for them um laura and i did and it was like a bag and a book and pencils and it was all personalized to them had their names on it oh that's laura did that part i got the bags and put some other like trinkets and i got them like a a book light so that they can always have light on their script and that kind of thing um anyway so they did a fantastic job with uh shrek

uh and now we're on to the musical theater so this is the same time slot as sister act was will be this show and the show's curtains which is kind of like um kind of like clue yeah a little bit yes um but you kind of pivot you see they're trying to put on the cast is trying to put on uh a broadway show and it pivots so you're watching it from behind so it's like a show within a show yeah yeah okay yeah and then it's what they're putting on for broadway and then it pivots back and you're in the rehearsal space and then

it pivots so you're kind of just flipping vaccine you know from the house back scenes and then from the house um but yeah it's a it's a murder mystery and um it's gonna be a lot of fun i don't want to give away too many details yeah like i know some stuff but twists yeah yeah yeah i'm really excited for it yes and the rehearsals have already started for that we actually started a little earlier this year with the rehearsal process than we did um for sister act and um it's we almost have all of act one already blocked the bones are there and the

choreo stuff they're they're wrapping up so before we uh before winter break hits we'll have run act one a few times that's crazy i know and we still have in this one like two two full months after we come back pinky yeah and stella yes that's a huge difference you're right so when you go your first year at harrison um at least for musical theater you're spent learning and getting acclimated to high school because it is very different and um it gives the kids a chance to sort of learn but also focus on their academia and make sure that they keep their grades up um

when they are cast in shows there's a lot more criteria than what like we've talked about what goes into casting you know at lct for example like how those puzzle pieces sort of fit together sometimes it's about appearance you know the look of you with this other person they want to cast and that's why you see it callbacks they kind of mix everybody up and okay now you read the scene with this person or whatever but um in in addition to that you know you think about the behavior that they've had if they've ever been in past shows are they going to be problematic is

that something we can overcome is it not are they ready for it are they age-wise ready for it because you know some roles are very big responsibilities and a lot to take on and when you put that on a younger student for example that maybe they're not really equipped for that and that could be a lot and you don't want to break them you know right right you want it to be a positive experience you want it to be fun yeah so um so yeah like you have those criteria but then also in a school setting it's very different too like okay well they're here

to learn this you know is it is this going to benefit that goal um there's the academia side of it how are their grades are they keeping them up and that kind of stuff and then you know beyond that is it is it their time you know you kind of think oh well what does that have to do with it it's like well if they're seniors and they've only had one other role or maybe they've not had a big role yet is it their time now right did they did they do enough to earn it but is it their time now right because if they

want to go on and do this stuff professionally they do need that take that into consideration exactly who's gonna do it post high school and who's just you know what i mean like i wonder if they take that into consideration if they know what yeah i don't know i kind of i my are you losing your mic it was a slow droop um yeah so like i've learned a lot about the the processes that go through the production itself this time around i'm not so much mentoring stage management because uh both of these girls are girls that i've worked with in the past shows yeah

um and they're doing fantastic uh so so proud of them they were asms and now they're uh sm and asm but they're both doing all of the stage management stuff so sm stage management asm assistant stage management for those that don't know that are they're listening to this but um they're doing fantastic they don't really need a whole lot from me um but i am production manager now for the um for the show which basically feels very much like project management in relating it to my past world of corporate america right you know i did some of that you just kind of keep things on

the rails yeah make sure your deadlines are being met you you know communicate with the whole production team make sure everybody's on the same page you coordinate meetings things like that yeah um i started employing chat gpt so like i use a program to record our production meetings and then i take the transcript from that and i place it in chat gpt and it gives me my summary it's gives me my action items and then sets me up for the agenda for the next meeting which right now we're doing weekly i think i don't know if that would slow down at all as we kind

of get through the process but anyway right now they're weekly and uh that's it's been so nice to have that that's like yeah but it it brought a whole other element to the the teachers because they don't use any of that and so they were kind of like okay well i tested everything before i brought it as the solution we were gonna do um and then i um i use google meet for anybody that can't attend but wants to attend virtually and we just i just record it all they're so lucky to have you you know all that stuff and you're not afraid to try

it yeah i was a little worried because i didn't take like much written notes the first time that i did it uh the second time i took more written notes because i was doing it just slightly differently but like uh it it worked fantastically it got it all i i got lucky now that's pretty amazing yeah yeah but yeah um of course you know michaela big event there a big life event for all of us she graduated last year uh in may and now she is going to florida southern and that school has been such a blessing um she it's perfect for her it's just

i love it i love everything about it i love the way that they run their school the classrooms the way that they communicate with the kids they keep them all engaged there's always stuff going on um everybody's hyper invested in making sure that the students are a success and that when they come out of that school they've got you know a job lined up they've got stuff for them they get their junior journey year which is amazing opportunity for all of the kids to like to like study abroad yeah essentially like for example one of the orchestra teachers was telling us about one of her

students and he went off to japan it was totally unrelated to what he was you know majoring in um but he went off to japan for the six months for the junior journey and he just didn't come back he finished his degree abroad still lives in in japan wow um it's like hey i'm out of here teaches in japan america's all screwed up so i i mean it what a fantastic school to be a part of and you're not just a number there and everything like it's just amazing i can't say enough good about it and so like any kid that's like oh i was

thinking about going to florida southern like when i was talking with stella i was like you should definitely look at it yeah like don't just discount it because it's local right and she had she really wanted to go to um and now she is going right now she went and visited she's like this is where i'm going yeah she's early oh gosh well i can't wait to get to you too because i want to hear all about that i have no idea what's going on in stella's life yeah okay so uh so yeah so pinky teched last year and this year she's in she's in

the vocal ensemble now she's a sophomore um lots of big strides in pinky's life this year and um so proud of her yeah just she's just thriving right now and just so so so happy for both the kids and it's weird because mikayla dorms at florida southern so most of the time she's not here we have her now uh you may have heard her in the background on the recording earlier but like uh she's here for the the holiday weekend she'll come back for winter break but she dorms on campus you know and we might go two three weeks before we really hear much from

her we get to the occasional text and yeah bro you know mom you should send the bra yes bro you should send me 50 bucks yeah yeah i should huh huh yeah um oh jordan's texting us i know my watch keeps buzzing yeah doesn't they don't they know we're recording i know we didn't put it in that text channel right oh yeah that's okay but i did i looked at pain city real quick while you were talking oh yeah yeah and you know what it's because it's just hayne city theater oh there you go yeah so at least from what i can see if you

know excuse me if i got that wrong but yeah from what i can see it just says hayne city theater it doesn't really have like a like a hayne city community theater yeah so anyway yeah i mean we're very blessed to have as much as we have here um from a theater side like when we were considering moving to apollo beach there's really nothing right there's nothing we'd have to go all the way to sarasota out there well and i think about the kids there's a lot of kids at harrison that come from davenport and it's like an hour bus ride for them and yeah

but they make that journey because there's not well orlando has the orlando rep has cfc arts like tampa has the strass and the strass is not the same no it's not the same it's a that's where you go when you're watching stuff that tours right um they do have uh patel patel thank you i was like in my head i was going peabody but that's not it but isn't that like a pay to play it is a pay to play right yeah which is the beautiful thing about winter haven and lakeland community theater your kids can be involved and it costs you absolutely nothing you

might need a hair shoes remember when we first but it's still even then it was 25 yeah that's i mean it's still nothing and pretty lashable yeah you got a t-shirt for that exactly just pay for the t-shirt right yeah very true yeah you know so it's accessible to everyone i just want to tell you i okay so i started a new adventure uh i opened up an etsy shop and i was gonna be like oh i'm making all totes you know and parvade will make charms for the totes which you see on that one that's a counterweight holding go look at that it has

like a little beach on it anyway and she was gonna make bracelets uh to put in the shop as well and now i'm making a puff uh puff quilt or there's sometimes blanket quilts i think is what they call them or anyway so it's a puff fabric on one side and then regular in its quilt right lots of time invested in making a quilt i've i was cutting squares last night it's all up on the craft table right now but um anyway where was i going with that you're in almost an hour by the way oh shoot gosh yeah how did that happen already so

i know we need to hear about long story short i'm like i'm i'm doing all of that stuff also at the same time as i'm doing all of the stuff with harrison and whatever that's pinky's christmas present i'm gonna be making for her i'll have to show it to you guys yes i want to see it and if people i mean we're not doing video but like you have the cutest craft corner over here what's your store i love it um gg crafty nook like letter g letter g letter g crafty nook um yeah yeah i look it up i think it's just gonna be

like my adhd etsy stuff like whatever it is that i'm making i'm just gonna put a version of it up on there and if you want it go buy it and if you don't it's fine it's fine just look at it but i have to cut 208 squares for the throw sized quilt throw size throw size oh my gosh how big are the squares 208 squares how little are they bigger so the squares are i cut them 12 by 12 five by five i could i guess i could but i kind of like the way the little squares look so they they're five by five

unsewn and then when you're finished they're four by four okay so they're pretty small squares yeah yeah 208 of those and it's it should be warm i've got like quilt batting i'm having to learn because i've never quilted before um but i mean it's pretty straightforward from everything i've read like when i started i made one it's a lot of repetitive a regular quilt like i've looked at some of the quilts that people like regular quilts that people do that shit looks insane to me it's a lot of work yeah that yeah this is i was a one and done easy this is like a

marathon one and done i can check that off i mean it's it's tedious work but it's an easy quilt in comparison right like you see people like yeah sewing machine and do all these like squiggly designs and stuff and i'm not doing that this is easy straight lines yeah like i don't know about the rest of that uh i don't know i have i did save all of my scrap as i've been cutting yeah i'm maybe three quarters of the way through cutting the squares you're such an add person because when you want to focus on something oh yeah you're hyper focused yeah right hyper

focused that's ween that's why i keep thinking it's it's autism as well so it's ah dhd a-u-d-h-d well why don't you take that test then we can talk about that i know we probably i probably need to i just i need to sit down and take the rads test or whatever like yeah yeah i'll be like so i'm a 200 which basically means i'm self-diagnosed i don't know it's really hard to go to doctors these days and actually have them take your stuff seriously because of how much of it you can research ahead of time online so you come in and they're like oh yeah

one of these people again yeah it's just another you know mom with too much time on her hand and now she's like web md'd her way into a diagnosis and now we have 10 minutes to talk and it's like all right what are we going to talk about exactly i know exactly i know i feel bad because like i go in and i i come in prepared i've done the same thing like with pinky stuff um but yeah i i am trying to shortcut the process because the diagnostic pathway for a lot of stuff is just so long and there was like there isn't a

need for it if i can shortcut this by giving you all of this data like why do we have to then collect the same data again we literally have a book for lilly kate that we carry around it's every test she's ever done i have a compiled list of blood work so they can ask me a question i can like flip to the page be like all right here's the answer for that one next like don't waste your time on this because he's already done this here's the blood work here's yeah the wheel right yeah exactly yeah it's so hard i know that's a whole

nother podcast we could all talk about for real i know we'll start the healthcare podcast yes we can totally do that because that's still on my burner yeah yeah my burner to start that hey i made you a logo i know you did girl you got it's amazing yeah i know yeah because it's just it's so broken and there's so many things that we can do and insurance has a lot to do with what doctors have to have to diagnose and to get things covered and you can't just jump to the mri you got to do yeah right or you got to do this first

you got to do this lab or you got it you know like so many things so many things and there's no there's no captain of the ship anymore it's all these specialties yeah i mean listen i could talk forever because you actually know what you're talking about yes the rest of us just google it so decide we know what we're talking yeah it's your turn we're running out of time for next time um well let's start a little bit a little bit yeah so what have we done since we were together we did you've done some you guys have done some shows matilda and then

we did um adam's family at rochelle yes she was morticia morticia yes she's so good yes mean girls which is an absolute blast yes then we did the summer show the rock of ages okay and then dory dory nemo nemo and now tuck and curtains kind of something kind of overlapping right gotcha yep cool and so i've just she's swinging she is she's fantastic she's fantastic uh they were trying to do this dance move that i i understand has been cut um i don't go that i don't go to every rehearsal i go to a lot of them but i oh is kerrigan choreographing too

is kerrigan choreographing too um yes yeah yeah so kerrigan williams and she's so good yeah so good shout out but she made this fun choreo where the the girls get picked up and flipped upside down um and the boys like facing the boys yeah so they're not facing the audience like that okay so um they they hold them up and then uh they sing and then they would turn and the girls sing in between their legs basically facing the audience the boys facing upstage anyway that got cut but she was being picked up for that and flipped around and stuff yeah such a champ she

loves it kerrigan's like here let me show you how it's done and she just picks up willie kate and shows and she's like you've really got to kind of grab her here you know yeah and yeah i love that all the boys are all scared to touch the girls yeah it's just the world you don't want to drop them on their head you know yeah but it's all about leverage right i mean i'm not a dancer but i'm assuming i think yeah she used to get the right point in their body i think we did that for between the lines yeah and then i saw

it where did i see it again it might have been um during shrek did i see it during shrek did she choreo any of that uh i don't think i remember seeing a show it it might not have been shrek but i remember seeing a show and being like that's kerrigan's move where'd they get that from and i can't remember what it is i don't know but anyway so yeah it's a fabulous i hope they figure it out but they cut it you think i think i think as i understand it that got cut or replaced or something with something else it was very challenging

to be fair um and it had to happen now too they're gonna talk uh-huh well kerrigan's doing that so that makes sense yeah yes yes because it's a fun dance move you can get it figured out but it had it had to happen really fast in curtains and i think that was the challenge safety issue yeah all right we should wrap yeah we probably guess we probably should yes tommy just walked in let's wrap all right so we'll do a part two part two and we'll pick it up with angela