Maia is in 6th grade now. Hard to believe. At the end of last year we agreed to put her into all Pre-AP classes. So far she is complaining she is bored, but I imagine that will pass once they get through the beginning of the year review stage. Since we moved out of the Northpointe area, I received a special permission to keep her there, but I am responsible for transporting her to and from school instead of taking a bus. She doesn't mind. She wasn't too fond of the bus, riding with junior high kids or catching it at 6:40 a.m. Her main teacher is Mr. Snell, and older man who has been teaching since 1979 and spent 25 years teaching in Ecuador.
Maia is now a Super Nova in gymnastics. It has been just a little over a year since she started at the Cypress Academy of Gymnastics and she has advanced six levels and now goes two days a week, but also costs me $100 a month now. However it seems she has found her "thing" she likes to do outside of school. Her favorite apparatus are the floor and uneven bars and then the vault and balance beam. It's exciting to see Maia do so well and her coaches really give her positive encouragement when they are working with her.
Choir officially started two weeks ago with our fall kickoff which they decided to have in humid mid-90 degree weather under a tent to commemorate 10 years since they dedicated the property the church is now on. Instead of three services everyone came in for one at 10 a.m. and stayed for lunch and activities afterwards. The church is still in its growing phase. Where we currently worship is not the permanent sanctuary, but will actually be the fellowship hall. I'm not sure what the master plan is, but they will build the sanctuary adjacent to the current one. There is a youth building, school from Preschool to 5th grade, soccer/lacrosse fields, softball/baseball field and newly dedicated walking trail. Musically the anthems selected for the first two months are boring and kind of one note for the altos. Luckily there is still ASH (A Servant's Heart) the praise team that keeps things interesting.
I am still at the magazine. As of today I am one week away from my writer's deadline to turn their stories in to me and then I will have a week to edit them and turn them in to the office for design for the Winter issue that will be out in mid-November. My work on this issue will mark a year since I started with Cy-Fair Magazine. I have some good stories coming up for the issue and I'm sure we'll end up with a good product. This issue I'll be writing a story about the new President of the Cy-Fair Chamber and a listing of Asian restaurants in Cy-Fair in addition to my other responsibilities as editor including Notes and News, Event Calendar, Campus Profile, Health Bulletins and my editorial.
I also took on a job at the end of July with the choreographer of the Disney's High School Musical show I stage managed this past summer. One day he called me and asked if I would be interested in managing the office since his current and now former office manager was leaving to run a dance school. It is also part-time although I think he would like me to consider full-time after the new year. There are two sides of the job. One is danceStaff.com. Basically a staffing agency for dance teachers and studio owners. You can check it out at www.danceStaff.com. The site is currently in its Beta phase, but we are hoping to go live by the end of the year. We like to compare it to the monster.com for dancers. Dancers will be able to post their information on the site and employers can fill positions in their schools. Beyond the "head hunting" or recruiting aspect of it, we will also do a placement or concierge service meaning beyond submitting the potential teachers to the studio owner, we coordinate the interview, handle contract negotiations and also handle the paperwork and payment of the teacher. The owner treats the student as their employee but pays us directly. To date we have 7 clients and have placed a teacher in Virginia as well.
The other part of the job is the production side. Last month we took over an event from a client who defaulted on her contract and brought Tabitha D'umo (one half of the hip hop choreography team Tabith and Napoleon) from So You Think You Can Dance and local dancer/choreographer from the Bravo show Step It Up and Dance Nick Drago. We went from only having 50 attend to having nearly 120. It was a lot of "doing" (marketing, sales, registration, merchandise) etc. to do in a short time, but we pulled it off and had a great event! Another bonus is that the pay I receive for being on staff at these events (this time I was a production assistant) is above what I am paid to be in the office. Our next event will be the Telfair International Music Festival www.telfairlifeimf.com Oct. 3 which is a day-long event I will also be working on.
We also have a product called The Prodigy Project which is a music theater intensive program that can be facilitated by community theater organizations teaching basics in acting including preparing for the audition process, dance (basics of tap, jazz and ballet) and voice (singing). The main Prodigy Project is a week in NYC immersing the students in "what it's like to be on Broadway." One of the founders of the project with my boss is an actor who will be on a new Disney sitcom called The Wannabes. You can Google that and it will come up. He will play the school principal. So I'm busy and I've heard through the grapevine Houston Center Stage would like me to direct Annie for mid-Feb. but I'm not convinced I want to do it.
Eli is not quite officially potty trained although he knows how and will do it on his own if he's not too busy. You know it's time when he asks me if I'll change him if he poops and goes and gets the wipes and pull up on his own. He still goes to Esmeralda's now every day when I work and so I know he's well taken care of. Last week we went to the Halloween Express store and bought him a new Batman costume. His other two are way too small now and so now he has an official "Dark Knight" costume...this would be #3.
Okay, so that's it in a nutshell! I'll be back to write more...there are a lot more adventures on the horizon...and remind me to tell you about being stuck in the elevator at the Westin Galleria (swanky hotel in Houston) for 35 minutes!
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