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The last two weeks have been the GOOD kind of crazy, which is much nicer than the bad kind. There's so much to talk about I hardly no where to start.
First, I found out the job I was hoping to apply for was reviewing candidates a week earlier than I expected. I'd given myself an assignment to boost my portfolio cred for this job (which deserves it's own separate post) and suddenly I had to finish it fast, on a day when I'd already committed to be somewhere else. 'Somewhere Else' was my friend's ranch, where I spent the afternoon playing pretty ponies. I took two mares from mudballs to shiny, and in the process I got to lead them around on strings, which is basically all eight year old me wanted in life.
The next day I went for a bikeride. It was 28 miles, which used to be only middling for me and is now quite long. My legs and lungs were fine, but my back was horrible for the next two days. Apparently I lost all my core strength over my illness. "Do boring core exercises" has become a more urgent task on my list.
The back made driving up to and enjoying Fiddle Tunes more difficult, but I did it anyway. First time I've gone up in three years, and wow, I don't think I'd realized how much I missed it. It was made even better by the fact that friends of mine are now living three minutes from the fort, so I had a bed to sleep. It's also more time than I've spent with those friends since they stayed at my place for a week a few years back, so it was great to catch up. I played music with lots of people, chatted with even more, basked in the sun, sketched, and generally had a marvelous time. I could only stay up for two nights, but when I came back down I had the best 're-entry' into 'normal' society I could hope for -- I called my dad round-about Shelton and found out he and some of our musicker crowd who weren't at camp were just about to sit down to dinner downtown, so they saved me a seat and i joined them. The crack was so good, and I was so hyped to play more, that I invited everyone back to my place after dinner, so we had songs and tunes around the fire pit in the back yard (in between fireworks and the neighbor repeatedly mowing the same patch of lawn, because it was national explode things day).
Later that week I had overnight guests from France by way of Quebec, whom I'd never met (kids of friends of friends sorta thing, possibly with more layers than that). I had to get the guest room cleaned out for them, which is GREAT, because next week Erik's mom is coming to visit. He's lived here over 14 years and this is the first time she's come out. It's also her first travel without his dad, and just a big deal all round.
This weekend I had a ton of energy and unexpectedly had my folks' extra vehicle while they were at the Oregon Country Fair, and I ended up getting a ton of stuff done on my house. Lots of little things that I've been meaning to do for ages but hadn't gotten around to:
Just in case all that isn't ENOUGH, my friend Tom started work on my retaining wall out front, Anthony & Kiyoko joined us for dinner somewhere in there, and I got a phone interview for the job I applied for way back at the beginning of all this! The phone interview was this morning, and I think it went really well.
The world may be going to hell, but with some health-related exceptions, my small corner of it seems to be doing pretty dang well.
First, I found out the job I was hoping to apply for was reviewing candidates a week earlier than I expected. I'd given myself an assignment to boost my portfolio cred for this job (which deserves it's own separate post) and suddenly I had to finish it fast, on a day when I'd already committed to be somewhere else. 'Somewhere Else' was my friend's ranch, where I spent the afternoon playing pretty ponies. I took two mares from mudballs to shiny, and in the process I got to lead them around on strings, which is basically all eight year old me wanted in life.
The next day I went for a bikeride. It was 28 miles, which used to be only middling for me and is now quite long. My legs and lungs were fine, but my back was horrible for the next two days. Apparently I lost all my core strength over my illness. "Do boring core exercises" has become a more urgent task on my list.
The back made driving up to and enjoying Fiddle Tunes more difficult, but I did it anyway. First time I've gone up in three years, and wow, I don't think I'd realized how much I missed it. It was made even better by the fact that friends of mine are now living three minutes from the fort, so I had a bed to sleep. It's also more time than I've spent with those friends since they stayed at my place for a week a few years back, so it was great to catch up. I played music with lots of people, chatted with even more, basked in the sun, sketched, and generally had a marvelous time. I could only stay up for two nights, but when I came back down I had the best 're-entry' into 'normal' society I could hope for -- I called my dad round-about Shelton and found out he and some of our musicker crowd who weren't at camp were just about to sit down to dinner downtown, so they saved me a seat and i joined them. The crack was so good, and I was so hyped to play more, that I invited everyone back to my place after dinner, so we had songs and tunes around the fire pit in the back yard (in between fireworks and the neighbor repeatedly mowing the same patch of lawn, because it was national explode things day).
Later that week I had overnight guests from France by way of Quebec, whom I'd never met (kids of friends of friends sorta thing, possibly with more layers than that). I had to get the guest room cleaned out for them, which is GREAT, because next week Erik's mom is coming to visit. He's lived here over 14 years and this is the first time she's come out. It's also her first travel without his dad, and just a big deal all round.
This weekend I had a ton of energy and unexpectedly had my folks' extra vehicle while they were at the Oregon Country Fair, and I ended up getting a ton of stuff done on my house. Lots of little things that I've been meaning to do for ages but hadn't gotten around to:
- Replaced 30" hall closet door that blocked almost the whole hallway with two french-opening doors from a bifold door kit with all the hardware removed. I had to chisel two new hinge mortises into the door frame, which was new for me.
- Replaced the hall light, because as long as I was working on the hallway I might as well, and because the replacement was a fixture I took out of the laundry room and had stored for three years and I was tired of moving it from place to place.
- Replaced the non-functional, noisy-when-functional, and incredibly ugly living room ceiling fan with a nicer looking, quieter, more powerful fan. Turns out the old fan was just wired waaaay too loosely -- one neutral was floating free in the box, and the wire nut pulled right off the hot leads. \o/ I'd never taken a look at 'fixing' it before because it was so dang noisy and had so little airflow that it wasn't worth it, but now all these problems are solved
with the power of consumerism. - Since I spent all this time up near the ceiling, I also destroyed huge amounts of cobwebs. \o/
Just in case all that isn't ENOUGH, my friend Tom started work on my retaining wall out front, Anthony & Kiyoko joined us for dinner somewhere in there, and I got a phone interview for the job I applied for way back at the beginning of all this! The phone interview was this morning, and I think it went really well.
The world may be going to hell, but with some health-related exceptions, my small corner of it seems to be doing pretty dang well.
