big day today

This morning I had to get up super early so that I could attend the music department's graduation ceremony at 9AM. It's hard to believe that this school year is over. It went by pretty fast. I am so grateful for having been given the opportunity to finish my M.M. degree with the help of a teaching assistantship. I definitely wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. And I loved the teaching part at least as much as I did the learning part. I am also grateful to all of my teachers who I learned so much from during all of this. They inspired me to work hard enough to graduate with straight A's! So yay them and yay me!

Now that I'm finished with school I can finally get back to building my house. So maybe that goal will also be accomplished this year - who knows? I got called for another ship gig (in the Mediterranean) yesterday, but I can't do that again until my house is finished, which is a bummer. But for now, finishing our house and moving back in is my number one goal.

However my more immediate goal (for the next hour) is to rest up for two back to back gigs this afternoon and evening. Have a great weekend!

She's thinking "Wow, I finally finished something!"

It doesn't take much

Here are ten things that have made me very happy recently:
1. The weather has warmed up to a somewhat normal temperature.
2. Doug has put most of the floorboards down on the back porch and has finished nailing most of what he has put down.
3. Yesterday we finished putting up all of the Tyvek inside the back porch and we put up most of the rest of the siding inside the porch. It will look even nicer when it is finished
4. Today I put up most of the rest of the siding on the outside of the back porch. I'm just waiting for Doug to cut the final piece. It will look even nicer when it is finished.
5. Today we took down most of the scaffolding on the south side and some of it on the north side. It will look even nicer once it is all down.
6. Today Doug finished putting up the soffit trim on the north side so the north side is almost finished. It will look even nicer when it is finished.
7. Today we loaded up the truck with a huge amount of construction trash and I drove it to the dump and they didn't make me go in the truck part which is great because I forgot my dust mask.
8. We might actually finish most of the outside of the FoamCoreFantasy before we start working on the inside. Maybe. But I'm not holding my breath.
9. Most of the things we've done recently are much closer to being actually finished than usual.
10. I was able to accurately use the word "most" more often than the word "some" for a change, in describing our recent accomplishments on the house. I'm happier than usual about our progress because "most" is much closer to "all" than "some" is.

Blueberry Fields Forever...

Since we seem to be living indefinitely at our temporary home in the outer boondocks of Silver Spring, we are becoming well acquainted with nearby Ashton and all it has to offer.

Dempsey's is a great place to get excellent breakfast all day long. After our breakfast for lunch Doug wanted to go pick blueberries since Blueberry Gardens was just down the road on Route 108. At Blueberry Gardens they offer pick-your-own organic blueberries, massage, acupuncture, and yoga and QiGong classes. How handy is that? Very handy if you live in Cloverly, Sandy Spring, or Ashton.

Since I am somewhat immobile these days I decided to stay back and take some pictures of my foot on the hood of the car. At least I can still do that. It's just wonderful having to hobble around on something that looks and feels exactly like a ski boot.

The last time we went blueberry picking was about 15 years ago in Oregon, near Mt. Hood. We picked quarts and quarts of them and ate them all that day. The next day we both had green pee.

Doug was back in about 15 minutes with these yummy petite organic blueberries. It's the end of the season now, but they still taste good!

The other good thing about today is that our real house, or fantasy house depending on how you look at it, is starting to somewhat resemble a house at the beach. I kind of like that.

Dupont Circle

I have been seeing way too much of this image recently. We have nearly finished covering our house with Tyvek this week. Then we can finally put up the siding and Foam Core Fantasy will finally begin to look like a real house that might one day actually be finished.

" FOAM CORE FANTASY "