Put it in the Hat

Tuesday of Tech Week is here, and we're just so busy with preparations.  As with any tech week, some challenges popped up, and they're not insurmountable.   We just watched the "Prep & Landing" Christmas specials, and there's one where Lanny is intensely worried about a mission.  Wayne takes off his hat, points at it, and tells him what do we do with our worries?  Lanny knows the answer already, and answers timidly, "We put them in the hat?"  The payoff is that later on Lanny worries again, and mutters to himself, "I think my hat is leaking!"

So that's been the running joke of the week for us, particularly when I'm worried about any aspect of the production.  Mom turns to me and goes, "Where do we put our worries?"  Yes, we put them in the hat.  I kind of want an elf hat right now.

Anyway, it's been a busy week.  Maddie didn't see us much today, as we were at practice tonight for a long time.  Practice was until around 9pm or so, but there were plenty of other things to do afterwards, discussing lighting, microphones, props, set issues, and so on.  It was a late night.

Maddie had a good day at school.  This morning as we were going out to the car before school, we were literally marching.  That's because I hit the button on the Main Street Electrical Parade ornament on the tree, which immediately starts to play that parade theme, and sure enough there's this fun little march out the door.  We're doing okay - just busy.  The birds are really flocking to our back deck now because it's getting cold out there and food is getting harder to come by.  The bluebirds are tapping on our windows to let us know when there's a refill needed, and even the chipmunk is climbing up the railing to get to the safflower seeds. 

Just to let you know, we still have about four sea monkeys left in the tank.  These hatched back at Easter time, and I've been good about giving oxygen each morning to them, and food once a week.  This is the longest I've ever had sea monkeys - they're doing pretty good!

And I'm still doing the iFit thing, staying on the treadmill each day.  Since I've gotten the machine back in October, I've done seventy workouts on it, according to the stats.  Lately I've been walking in Antarctica with penguins, which is fun because they're penguins and what's not to love about penguins?  And we read from our scriptures each day too - currently at Genesis 16 with this commentary Bible.  God is testing Abraham to see far he'll go to help his family, even if Lot keeps getting in trouble by hanging around the wrong people and areas.  This Bible commentary has been super interesting at points, discussing mysteries like who exactly Melchizedek is - we were learning a theory about it actually being Shem, Noah's son.  Interesting stuff!

Maddie's been playing her new game, an extension of the Animal Crossing game that she's enjoying.  She's also been making origami flowers and leaving them everywhere.  Also, she spends a lot of her time talking with her groups on the phone.  She's keeping up with her school work of course, and this has been a good week for her spirits in pre-Calculus because she got an A on a big test, and that was a big help.

Meanwhile, Mom is working tirelessly on costumes and props.  Ordering things, wrapping things, sewing things... always busy.  Less than a week to go.

We closed out the day with prayer, and we did spend a little time reading from "Wintersmith" again, plowing forward (through the snow) as we attempt to save a big part of the Discworld once more.  Time for sleep.  It was a good day - just a busy one!