Team Gray!

You have no idea how happy I am that Narnia is over. Mind you, probably not nearly as happy as I would be had Yanni had a part!

So, I’m not going to try to take credit or anything, other than I know that somebody from the production has visited the blog, but in the end, Yanni got a lot more employment in the make-up room.

This time, when I arrived with camera in hand, girlfriend was still working on a face. I got some action pictures of this.

Yanni was still working on this boy, (a dog face), when the Phoenix she’d already worked on came and asked her for help. She was busy, and he asked her if she minded if he tried it himself.

And here’s a leopard face Yanni designed last week. The actor does his own face now.

It almost makes me wish I’d seen the play more than once. The performance I saw awakened the theater critic within. But in honesty, I fell asleep on the show, so I couldn’t be objective in my review. Suffice to say, I was more unhappy with the play itself and the directing than the performance. The children poured their hearts into it, and had a great time in the process. That would make it a great success, no matter what.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted desperately to be a cheerleader. Her mother had a problem with the whole thing because of her own issues. The little girl’s father had none of the same problems, and set out to do what he could for his little girl. When she asked for a cheerleading costume for Halloween, he set out to get her a real costume, not the flimsy pajama-like costume you can find at the store.

He found the cheerleading company online, and set his reluctant wife to work to order just the right costume. She ordered it in their homeschool colors, of course, with the homeschool name emblazoned across the chest. The kind cheeleading company representative counseled her on the trendy pompoms of the day, and suggested getting them in purple and white instead of the purple and green colors of the homeschool.

The young girl got many years of play out of her costume, and was very content.

Fast forward several years, and the little girl had two little sisters. One day, the older of the little sisters asked her kind father if she and her little sister could get cheer costumes. She had just the thing in mind, something she had seen at Target. But the kind father asked the mother, (less reluctant this time, much more mellowed out after having birthed several daughters) to order identical cheerleading costumes for the little girls.

She ordered them in December, and the little girls have been dutifully checking the mail ever since, hoping to spy their clothing. Their pompoms arrived at the end of December, but the costumes were promised on January 21. Today, with a shock, the mother realized that the 21st is a federal holiday, and that would mean that *gasp* the costumes might be delayed. . . unless, that is, they would somehow arrive early.

The children arrived home from a late lunch with their grandfather to find a package on their front stoop! Could it be. . . from the cheerleading company, the mother hoped against hope. Yes! It was! There was jubilant cheering from the car by all except the almost teenage boy. It looked like a small box for two suits. . . but one was so impossibly small, it was easy to see that they could fit in that one box.

The little girls were so beside themselves that they insisted their 16 year old big sister put on her identical suit that was bought for her when she was 10. It still fits width-wise, if not lengthwise. She felt bashful, but was a trooper for her sisters. Their little brother was already dressed in matching colors, and knew his role–basketball player (for the girls to cheer on). Even the 12 year old obliged by shooting a few hoops and encouraging the girls to really cheer hard.

Many happy days of play to ensue.

Yesterday I felt like my day had been cut up with scissors. I’d no sooner get home to settle into something that needed to get done than I was out the door dropping someone off or picking someone up. Yanni had rehearsal for Dolly in the morning and a call for makeup for Narnia in the late afternoon. In between these trips I had to drop something off for Curtis and pick him up. And it was grocery day. I am glad that only happens once a month now!

But I was dragging little children with me all day and feeling quite tired and drained in the midst of it. Driving is more tiring to me than walking.

So, when I picked Yanni up from Dolly, and she thanked me for praying for her, I gave her a blank stare. She reminded me of the quick prayer I’d said when I had dropped her off. I had prayed that everything would go well for her that day. And she had a good day. And she linked it to the prayer.

Talk about redeeming the day.