Where Have I Been?
I like to ask myself that every now and again. Finishing up my work year, for starters. I am entering my "very little pay" portion of the year. Luckily, I'll only have two very tight months instead of three this year since the church year was so long. I'm still not sure how money is going to work out next year. I officially resigned from my administrative duties at the orchestra, though no one has been hired yet and I'll probably be paid at least for July, if not also August. After that, I'm not really sure. I don't think Corpus Christi pays me enough to be my only regular job while I'm at school and I'm going to have more expenses in the fall because of all the extra gas I'll be using to commute to Princeton every day. Of course, I don't know for certain that the loan money is going to come through for school this year. It should, but it's not completely positive yet. Ergo, it's possible that I'll be delaying my enrollment yet again!
I have a piano now, though it hasn't been tuned in 5 years and I'm waiting for it to settle from the move (and for my funds to be more secure) before I call a tuner. Nonetheless, I've been practicing every day. I've also started singing again, pulling out old repertoire that I haven't looked at in years. I also joined a fitness community site that monitors my calorie intake/outtake, what exercise I do, and how much water I drink. I had kind of gotten complacent about what I was doing for my health, so the accountability this creates, as a few friends of mine also use the site, has been really great for me. I always said I didn't want to get obsessed with dieting, since being overly focused on food - whether it's just eating everything in sight or concentrating ferociously on what NOT to eat - doesn't seem like a healthy approach to life, but just getting to see in front of me how calories add up during the day and how even a little bit of exercise makes a difference has been fascinating. Best is the feature that tracks if I drank enough water during the day. I swear that after three days of diligently drinking the proper 8 glasses of water, my skin looks amazing. Even my KP seems better than usual.
I finally got to camp out in Manassas, VA for the Memorial Day living history event with the Civil War re-enactors of the 14th Brooklyn. Drew and I took the dog. It was a little crazy in the camp, especially since his younger sister and her boyfriend brought their energetic white husky. (The two dogs didn't exactly get along.) Kramer was a little on edge because of the crowds and the noise and the heat and lunged at a little girl up at the battlefields. We aren't sure why exactly and I didn't stick around long enough to find out, since I grabbed him by the scruff and marched him away. Sleeping in the tent with the dog was pretty interesting, too, since he was so thrilled to get to sleep with his people that the first night he just wanted to crawl around on us and lick us constantly. He also migrated during the night, taking turns laying on each of us instead of just curling up in the corner on his blanket and sleeping quietly. As much as I like camping, I was actually really grateful for my bed and no dog when we got back. I thought about kicking Drew out and just sleeping spread-eagle, taking up as much room as humanly possible, but decided not to.
July has some vacations coming up. We're visiting Arlington to see Ashley and co. We considered trying to hit up everyone like we did last year, but that got pretty busy, so we may not. No puppy with us this year! We've got reservations at a B&B in Asheville and a two day pass to the Biltmore, which I'm so excited about. I really wanted to take a horseback ride through the grounds and pretend like I'm back a hundred years ago, but Drew can't hack (nor am I sure what their hacking rules are) and the guided trail ride in Western saddles is $70 a person. HAH. NOT HAPPENING. There also is the trip to VA Beach for me and Kramer, though depending on how crowded things are down there determines how long I'll stay. I'm driving Jo and Lucy down, since they're doing a chamber music workshop that I'm involved with, so the fact that they will want to stay as long as possible will also be a factor.
I have a piano now, though it hasn't been tuned in 5 years and I'm waiting for it to settle from the move (and for my funds to be more secure) before I call a tuner. Nonetheless, I've been practicing every day. I've also started singing again, pulling out old repertoire that I haven't looked at in years. I also joined a fitness community site that monitors my calorie intake/outtake, what exercise I do, and how much water I drink. I had kind of gotten complacent about what I was doing for my health, so the accountability this creates, as a few friends of mine also use the site, has been really great for me. I always said I didn't want to get obsessed with dieting, since being overly focused on food - whether it's just eating everything in sight or concentrating ferociously on what NOT to eat - doesn't seem like a healthy approach to life, but just getting to see in front of me how calories add up during the day and how even a little bit of exercise makes a difference has been fascinating. Best is the feature that tracks if I drank enough water during the day. I swear that after three days of diligently drinking the proper 8 glasses of water, my skin looks amazing. Even my KP seems better than usual.
I finally got to camp out in Manassas, VA for the Memorial Day living history event with the Civil War re-enactors of the 14th Brooklyn. Drew and I took the dog. It was a little crazy in the camp, especially since his younger sister and her boyfriend brought their energetic white husky. (The two dogs didn't exactly get along.) Kramer was a little on edge because of the crowds and the noise and the heat and lunged at a little girl up at the battlefields. We aren't sure why exactly and I didn't stick around long enough to find out, since I grabbed him by the scruff and marched him away. Sleeping in the tent with the dog was pretty interesting, too, since he was so thrilled to get to sleep with his people that the first night he just wanted to crawl around on us and lick us constantly. He also migrated during the night, taking turns laying on each of us instead of just curling up in the corner on his blanket and sleeping quietly. As much as I like camping, I was actually really grateful for my bed and no dog when we got back. I thought about kicking Drew out and just sleeping spread-eagle, taking up as much room as humanly possible, but decided not to.
July has some vacations coming up. We're visiting Arlington to see Ashley and co. We considered trying to hit up everyone like we did last year, but that got pretty busy, so we may not. No puppy with us this year! We've got reservations at a B&B in Asheville and a two day pass to the Biltmore, which I'm so excited about. I really wanted to take a horseback ride through the grounds and pretend like I'm back a hundred years ago, but Drew can't hack (nor am I sure what their hacking rules are) and the guided trail ride in Western saddles is $70 a person. HAH. NOT HAPPENING. There also is the trip to VA Beach for me and Kramer, though depending on how crowded things are down there determines how long I'll stay. I'm driving Jo and Lucy down, since they're doing a chamber music workshop that I'm involved with, so the fact that they will want to stay as long as possible will also be a factor.