Saturday, December 31, 2005

2005, the year in review

This was a most bewildering year. It started off nicely enough, with a January vacation in Florida for Doug and me, and a 4 month ship gig with an awesome itinerary to look forward to. Then the fire happened, but I was still able to do 3 months on the ship. Things were up in the air with the insurance company for the longest time. Our credit cards were maxed out from all of the stuff we had to buy. There was weirdness on the fall tour. The lack of decisiveness about what we were going to do with our house was scary. Then I had a really nice December full of interesting gigs. But I have to say that over all 2005 has definitely been the strangest year of my life so far.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

gigs, house plans

We got back from the tour and picked up Ted. He really seemed to enjoy staying at Nancy’s townhouse. She has lots of nice windows to look out of – not like this dark, dismal place we are renting until we get our house built.

I had a very busy and fun December. The gigs ranged from holiday pops concerts with several different orchestras, to jazz combo gigs at holiday parties, to Amahl and the Night Visitors, to West Side Story at the Lyric Theater. We finally had a chance to work on our house plans. At the end of the month we met with the owner of a design-build firm and he felt that they would be able to build our house within our budget. This company is known for their quality work and they seem to build in a style that we like. I’m very excited. Finally something is happening!