Bananas, Sequins, and Raffia

I am once again in charge of sets and props for the elementary play. This year it's the Jungle Book.  I always have fun with it.  Yet it's a huge amount of work and each year I swear that I'll never do it again. This year was especially fun, and also especially challenging.  I had a big group of kids to work with, which in some ways made things go very quickly, and in other ways caused a great deal more work.  Yet the kids are really proud of their creations and contribution to the play.  That makes it worthwhile.

Now that the show is only 2 weeks away, it is getting really crazy. Much of the craziness is my fault.  I'm very scattered when it comes to working on any big project.  Call it being a global thinker, call it being ADD, call it not enough storage space, the end result is I have literally hundreds of tissue paper flowers, real and paper leaves, cloth vines, stuffed bananas, and other sundry things cluttering my classroom, the conference room, various closets around school, and my apt.  Only a tiny bit of it is on the stage or back stage.  This week I need to remember where everything is, stick velcro on the back of most of it, and turn the stage into a jungle.  

I also need to complete a couple of big projects--a coconut tree and rocks that will flip up on hinges.  I've put these off partly because I am a total procrastinator, and partly because the school's wonderfully patient head carpenter recently died.  I could always count on Poresh to get one of my requests for something like hinged, flipping rocks, ambush me daily with a smile to ask questions and clarify my insanity until he had made exactly what I had pictured in my head.  I miss Poresh.  

I'm ready to have a clean classroom and apt. again.  All my surfaces are covered with wire, bags of stuffing, paint bottles, cartons of poster board, stacks of newspaper.  My apt looks like it was hit by a raffia and sequin hurricane.  My bearer (maid), Paul, will not be happy tomorrow.

For the record...I will not be in charge of sets or props for next year's elementary play!