There's Something Different About This Year's Squad...

See if you can spot the difference in this year's South County Stallions football team:

One of these players is not like the others...

In May, on the heels of her debut in girls' lacrosse, Sarah announced that she wanted to go out for freshman football this year. While you can hardly imagine our surprise, we've been just thrilled to be able to support her making a run at it. So she went to mini-camp in June (picture above), and has been spending time in the weight room with the boys getting ready for the season. And now that it's August, she's been at practice at 6:30am each morning, learning how to play the game she's always enjoyed on TV.

For the present, she's training at cornerback; she likes the idea of being able to put the smack on someone without being the one to wonder when she'll get hit. And she's breaking all sorts of stereotypes. We *think* she's the first girl in the 10-year history of South County HS to play football. And one day after the mini-camp, the varsity head coach came up to her while she was talking with the freshman head coach, and said, "I hear we've found our kicker!" Sarah demurred, saying No, actually, I think Andrew wanted to be kicker. The freshman coach jumped in and said, "Oh, no, she's a DB. She's aggressive!"

I can't tell you how incredibly proud we are of her, for having the courage to break the mold and be the first girl at South County to play football. She's learning a lot--both about the game, and about what it's like for-reals on a football team (i.e., "they're rude," as she observed). But all the more, whether she becomes a starter or, like her brother, scarcely sees action all season, she'll have learned how to live out her convictions. She'll also put the world on notice that you can try to put this Baby in a corner, but she'll just take off your knees for trying.

Here's a video of the no-tackling walk-through the team did this morning, with Sarah at left corner, wearing blue. And here's the link to the 2015 Stallions freshman football schedule…come out and see her make history!

The Eight-Ball

This past Friday night was the eighth-grade dance, known to all at South County Middle School as the "Eight-Ball," which I always thought was a very clever name for it, having once been an eighth-grade boy at a dance and feeling very, very much behind the eight-ball when it came right down to it.

Here are some pictures of our Sarah and her friends getting ready for the dance.

Our beautiful young lady descending the stairs. Sharp eyes will note the broken finger on the left hand...

Saying goodbye to Fergie, who, on the whole, really wasn't impressed.

Preparing to board her coach for the ball. Note the footwear: in her words, "I'm going to dance, and I'm going to be comfortable." She commented afterward that within 15 minutes, there was a huge pile of heels by the side of the cafeteria, and there she was, still comfy.

Before the ball, one of Sarah's friends hosted a pre-party for everyone; there were over 20 kids there getting ready for the night.

Sarah and a few of her closest friends before the ball.

The ladies of SCMS eighth grade before the ball.

I'd like to report that she had a beautiful time at the ball, but she and her friends lasted all of an hour there before returning to the house of the pre-party. Reports are that the dance was in the cafeteria, with the full lights up brightly, and the DJ playing goofy music like the "Dora the Explorer" theme and the Chicken Dance. Not at all what a sophisticated group of young ladies wished to have for their evening. And as there were no sightings of any princes along with my princess, well, I'm fine with that too. But somehow I don't think this will be the last set of pictures like this in the next four years, as our young lady continues to grow and blossom.

Our New Living Room!

We'd told you at the beginning of February that the living room was finally up for renovations. With all the pre-work necessary to get the space ready, we thought this day would never arrive. But this week we took delivery of our new furniture from La-z-Boy, and Tanner was here to help us get things set up. Remember when it looked like this?

Gone is the beige, gone the 20-year-old couches, gone just about everything…and now, here's what you see when you walk in!

View from the front hall

The north wall, with our new storybook art: two lovers meet on a journey to France, and the story begins there! (Awww)

New couch, artwork, and you can really see the blue of the wall here.

View from the dining room. The rocking chair, Mary's grandmother's, is the only thing left in the room from before.

Looking towards the dining room and one of the new bookcases

Other side of the dining room entrance and the matching bookcase. 

So what do you think? Come visit and experience it for yourself!

Renovations 2015 Update

For us to accomplish the renovations of the living room we talked about before, the infamous "home renovations onion" has made its appearance. Nothing is as easy as it ought to be.

For us to be ready for the new furniture and accessories to be delivered in late March (Tanner's current estimate for when everything will have arrived), we wanted to have the wood floors sanded, stripped, re-stained, and finished in polyurethane instead of their current 27-year-old wax. Well, for the floors to have cured enough to put rugs down, we need to have the floors redone by the end of February--and so we've set it up that the week of February 23 we'll have that accomplished. Thanks to the Kuehns for the tip on using Hatcher's Floors--we look forward to seeing the results!

HOWEVER, to have the floors ready for Ed and company, we have to have the rooms emptied. That means the massive china cabinet and dining room table need to be moved, plus everything else that was in the room. We've already donated the two old couches and moved three bookcases down to the rec room; I'm not looking forward to this last bit, though. As you can see, the living room looks sparse as we're readying to paint!

Goodbye, beige!

HOWEVER, one of the things to move out of the dining room was the wine cellar. Mary had had the idea of knocking out her "desk" in the kitchen--it had never really been used as anything more than a landing pad for clutter--and moving it into that niche. So first up was demo-ing the desk, patching the wall, repainting the niche--then finding a cabinet to install in the leftover space and creating a mini-bar area--each of which took time, and precluded our getting to the main event.

I think you'll agree, the new wine niche is a great addition to the kitchen:

Our new wine niche, bar cabinet, and wine rack.

Remember how this used to be a desk?

We also are taking advantage of the floors being done by painting the walls in the living and dining rooms first…that way, won't have to worry too badly about drips! HOWEVER, whilst doing that, it emerged that a lot of trim work in the kitchen and foyer hadn't been done, so that's now on the to-do list.

So, to sum up: to install our new living room furniture, we have to redo the floors. Since we have to redo the floors, we ought to paint first. Since we have to empty the dining room, we ought to move the wine cabinet. Since we have to move the wine cabinet, we have to demo and rebuild a space for it first. Since we're making the kitchen nicer, we should take care of those hanging chads of undone trim work. See how the onion just keeps peeling?

At least this morning I got to put one of the colors on the wall in the living room. Here's a taste of what's to come--more later!

No longer beige! See, there's a difference with the air return duct!

The New Springfield Mall--er, Town Center

Wednesday evening, Mary and I had our first chance to explore the newly reopened Springfield Town Center (don't call it a mall!), nearly a month after its grand reopening festivities (no one ever accused us of being early adopters). Here's some of our takeaways after strolling through most of it:

Hits

• The grand entrance on the Loisdale side is really pretty sharp. The broad staircase and chandelier made me think of a Vegas casino entrance. Well done.
• We both think they widened the hallways, and I think in some cases, pushed them closer to the outside of the structure--making what was a l-o-n-g walk to Macy's much more appealing. And the tile floors are much nicer than the terra-cotta tiles that were there before.
• They created a "neighborhood" on the lower level near Macy's that's a dream world for the 4-6-year-old set. Clothing and toy stores for that age group are all colocated. Nicely done.
• Similarly, the H&M is right across the hall from the Forever 21 and right next to the shoe stores, meaning I can just park in a chair in the middle and watch Sarah run to all three.
• The lighting is so much nicer inside now. Hallways and foyers are brightly lit and much more inviting.
• They definitely went for more upscale eating choices.
• More than one elevator! Yay!
• $4 valet parking? If it stays like that through the holidays, that could be well worth it.

Misses

• I'm a little disappointed they opened with so many unfilled storefronts. They have several on-the-come, which look to be opening within a few weeks or couple of months. But there are long stretches of hallway still in their generic "Springfield Town Center" wrapping, no indication at all that they'll ever be filled. It will be tough to bring me back to a half-empty mall--er, town center--which was the problem before the previous Springfield Mall closed to begin with.
• There's nothing really there for me, or David, in terms of clothes. No A&F, no JCrew, nothing for the teen boy--and nothing I'd shop at either. Mary reminds me the Nordstrom Rack will probably be good for me, but that won't open for quite awhile yet.
• The food court. Not only are there only two things open right now, but of the six announced offerings, four are some form of Asian cuisine (Thai, Viet, Chinese, Japanese), with a Chipotle and a fast-food Italian offering. That's it. Can't get a burger (Zinburger will be outside, and isn't open yet). Can't get any chicken fingers for the kiddies. And, as Mary pointed out, there's no place to get a decent salad.

Jury's Out

• Biggest question mark is around the sit-down restaurants. They're all on "the plaza," which is what they're calling the Loisdale Road side, with only one that I know of (Maggiano's) having an entrance to the inside of the mall--er, town center. So when I'm inside shopping but it's pouring and I want to get to Chuy's, or Zinburger, or any of the others, I have to dash outside to get to it?
• Not sure how I like having the Regal Cinema tucked away like it is. It's a little bit of effort to get to it from within the mall--er, town center--itself, but it's got its own entrance/exit to the parking garage, so people coming to the movies can make a direct entrance.

What has your experience of the new Springfield Town Center been?

The Next Adventure: Driving

As I've said before, the theme of this year is "adolescence," and one of the most significant adolescent rites of passage is learning to drive. We've now begun that phase of life, with David passing his learner's permit test last week, so there is now a new driver in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I took him by on Tuesday in the early afternoon, and the Lorton DMV station was practically empty. He was immediately called up to the window, and began the initial processing, including the charming DMV photo. After a brief wait, he was called up to go on in to the computer testing lab, and my waiting began.

There was another boy there, who was called into the testing room moments after David. The minutes ticked by, and I have to confess, I didn't look to see how long it was--maybe five minutes? But it felt much longer. Then the other boy emerged, beaming--but not David, not yet. He took a little while longer, then I saw him come out, trying to motion me over as cooly and nonchalantly as possible, but I knew, just knew, that he had passed it--he couldn't hold it in, he was so happy.

I told him how proud I was of him, and after collecting the final paperwork, headed out. He refused to take a celebratory photo outside the DMV, naturally. We then headed home.

Entering our neighborhood, I drove up about a block and a half, so we would be pretty much alone, and pulled to the curb. "Switch with me," I said, and he did, to drive the last block and a half home. He learned in a hurry that it doesn't take a lot of pressure on the accelerator to make a car go, nor does it take a lot of pressure on the brake to make it stop. But he stopped at the stop sign well, and he drove right down the center of the street, making doubly sure he wouldn't hit anything. We turned onto our street, and he spotted neighbor Mark's car parked on the street next to our driveway.

"I'm gonna hit him," he said, and instead from an abundance of caution came to a stop at the entrance to the cul-de-sac proper. I told him he needed just to turn into the driveway, but he took the long way around the cul-de-sac, avoiding hitting anything except the brake pedal in the driveway, leaving two very short skid marks on the blacktop.

Our first chance to drive, and I liked what I saw: he brought a very healthy about of fear to it. There was no bravado, instead just a very, very cautious approach to piloting a car for the first time. He wanted me, when I bragged about it on social media, to use #beafraid or #beveryafraid to describe the fact that he was now on the road. But y'know, I won't. We have a lot to do over the next 45 hours of driving together, but if he can keep that healthy respect for what he's embarked upon, then I think people won't have anything to be afraid about when he's behind the wheel. If anything, the fear I have is more the fear of the idiots out there driving in NoVA who pose the greater risk to him. And so as I posted on Facebook, "To my son, I am very proud of you, and I look forward to this new adventure. To all the yutzes driving badly in NoVA, I love my boy, and if you hurt him I shall hurt you. That is all."

Requiem for the Pavilion

The first of this month, a downtown DC landmark closed, and with it closed some of my first memories of Washington.  The Pavilion at the Old Post Office was a downtown shopping mall and food court set in the first two levels of what had once been the main post office at 12th and Pennsylvania Ave NW, its iconic bell tower looming in many famous photos of the avenue.

The building is now being emptied, as Donald Trump has purchased it and will be turning it into a hotel.  But it had been on life-support for years; its heyday was a full two decades ago, and of late has been only a motley collection of souvenir stands and the last hangers-on in the food court.

I remember being wowed by "The Pavilion" as a freshman at AU in 1985, and it's been a part of my life pretty much for the last 29 years.  After college, on coming to work two blocks away, it became a place to find lunch--and for a couple of years, its expansion into the IRS building meant indoor mini-golf in the evenings.  That expansion didn't last long; I think it probably closed in the mid-1990s, and nothing's happened with that wing in nearly 20 years.  I've often wondered how many inches of dust have accumulated in there.

When I moved back to DC in 1992, there were two restaurants on the ground floor; one whose name I forget in the northwest corner (more casual), and the more formal Fitch, Fox & Brown in the northeast corner.  I remember taking my mom there for dinner one time; the waiters were presumptuous and pretentious at the same time.

The tower tours were free and self-guided, which was great.  I remember one time the various co-chairs of the Director's Advisory Committees were in town for a meeting.  We all walked over and took the tour, up to the bells and the views across the city.  Now, I'm sure, The Donald will charge for the privilege of the view.

Since 9/11, the mostly ineffectual security guards placed at the doors (to protect the Federal tenants on the upper floors, like the National Institute for the Humanities, from terrorist attack) likely contributed to driving down foot traffic and thus the closing of some shops.  One of the best cobblers I ever knew worked in the downstairs lobby.  I cannot remember his name, but he was Australian, and there wasn't anything he couldn't do with my shoes to restore them.  He packed it in about 11 years ago.  I miss having a cobbler nearby.

The "philately" post office was another reason to stop by.  It only sold stamps and similar basic postal materials--wouldn't handle a package for you, for instance--but I could always see the newest ones without waiting in the lines at the Franklin station across the street.  Briefly, there was a half-price tickets place next to it, selling same-night seats for various theaters around town (National Theater, Warner Theater, etc).  That also died years ago.

The food court downstairs was largely unchanged for most of the last three decades.  The "international side" to the west, with the Chinese, Italian, and "foreign" cuisine, and with the opposite side of the food court stocked with hot dogs, burger places, and the like.

My favorite place to go in there was actually tucked away half under the stairs in the back: Temptations.  This tiny place had a double display case of baked treats (double chocolate cake, pies, eclairs, etc.) and an espresso machine behind the counter.  But that's not why I went.  Temptations was run by the same family the entire time I was there, and they made the best lemonade ever.

Order a "fresh-squeezed" lemonade and the guy would open up a food-service bucket of halved lemons, and--always using a plastic fork--spear a half lemon and place it into the juicer on the counter.  A rotation of the handle, and fresh lemon juice would flow out the bottom into the clear plastic cup.  He would then put the drip cup back under the juicer, and pop the squeezed lemon off the top and into your cup, to which then was added two scoops of sugar, ice to the top of the cup, and then water--always bottled water from a gallon jug.  A cocktail shaker was produced, and the water, lemon juice, sugar, and lemon husk were then vigorously shaken awhile before being poured triumphantly back into the cup.  Add the plastic top to the cup, then a straw and precisely one napkin, and for $1.89 you had the best lemonade you could ever want.  Perfect on a spring or summer day in the mid-afternoon, especially with a snickerdoodle from Larry's Cookies across the way.

The closure of the Pavilion is, of course, a long time coming--we've seen this particular train coming from well down the tracks.  But its passing means more than just the inability to find the best lemonade, the best cobbler.  It's a little piece of my own story of life in Washington coming to an end, a story that now reaches nearly 30 years itself, and so its absence leaves a little ache.

But one I'm looking for a new lemonade stand to help me fill.

Our New Bathroom

After about five weeks of work, and about five weeks of living out of the kids' bathroom, our new master bath reached a state of "done"ness that allowed us to move back in.  There are still a few things that need to be finished off, but that first shower in our new space left Mary purring and very, very glad we'd made this investment.

Here's some of the before-and-after!

Old 3x3 shower replaced by an angled 5x3.5 shower.

The tub took up too much space in the corner like that, so it's now a smaller tub and tucked against the outside wall.

Goodbye soffit and Laura Ashley stencil and ginormous mirror; hello gorgeous!

 Some last adjustments need to be made, but overall we're very pleased with how this turned out.  You can't see the wireless Bluetooth speaker we installed in the shower so Eric can hear music or the radio in the morning.

Now the debate begins: Mary favors moving on to do the kids' bathroom, while Sarah desperately wants the kitchen redone next.  And me, I just look at the checkbook and wince…  But seriously, it needed to happen, and we're very pleased with how well Daniels Design did on the job.  Come by and take a look sometime!

Bathroom Remodeling: Progress, Just Past Halfway

Over the MLK weekend, we began the renovation of the master bathroom and started tearing out the 25-year-old relics.  At this point, we're more than halfway to our new bathroom, and despite the two days lost to the snow this past week, we're in pretty good shape to wrap up at the end of the month/beginning of March, as planned.

The new shower pan and the framing for the new shower and tub hint at how the closet door on the left has shifted a couple of feet to accommodate the new space.  This was about a week in; you can see the plumber has been by to set up the new tree for the shower.

Demolishing the soffit overhead of the vanity made plenty of room; the electrician has pre-wired for the new outlets, including one within the tower where Mary can store the hair dryer tucked away.

Tile has now begun to go down, and by this week tile is largely finished: the floors look great, and the tub-surround is beginning to take shape.

The scope of the shower is really beginning to emerge now that tile is in place.

A close-up of the tile in the shower, and the niche.  Still to be added are the accent tile throughout.  But on the whole, we're very pleased with how it looks, and at this point, are incredibly anxious to get into out (and out of having to traipse down to the kids' bathroom instead)!

Bathroom Remodeling Kickoff

Almost exactly one year to the day after the Home and Remodeling Show where we first met with Ted Daniels of Daniels Design and Remodeling, work began today on what will become our new master bath!

I've chronicled before the torturous path it took to get us here: the process of finding a contractor, then setting up financing, then having the closets redone first…and then the planning, the drafting, the selecting of fixtures and tile and marble…it's all been a long time coming.

But this morning, Bobby and the crew were here just after 7am, and we took one last look around what had been the master bath at Overlake Manor for the last 25 years:

The shower, about to be expanded another couple feet;

The tub, no longer to occupy so…much…floor space!

 The too-low vanity, the soffit, and the Laura Ashleyesque stenciling, all to be gone…

The plain 4x4 tile, the carpet in the bathroom (!) and the to-be-relocated closet door…all to be changed!

Over the coming weeks we'll chronicle more about how this project is coming along, but at long last, the first sledgehammers have been swung, and the work has begun!

 This…is a puzzled Pums.  What happened to the room?

Everything old is…gone!

2013 vs Goals: How'd I Do?

A couple of weeks after 2013 began, I posted some thoughts on how this year would be different.  Before it ends, a quick check on how well those plans came about:

• Item 1, get a puppy: Huge Furry Check.  As you know, Fergie has been brightening our home since early February.
• Item 2, renovate the master bath and/or kitchen: Kinda Check.  After all the back and forth and side distractions, the contracts have been signed, and work begins next month on our new master bathroom.  The kitchen will have to wait.
• Item 3, redo living room etc.: Kinda Check.  The scrapbooking materials have indeed been moved downstairs, and David has chosen to make it part of his Family Life merit badge for Scouts to (a) clear out the train stuff and make a space for Mary's scrapping downstairs, and then (b) help us paint the living room a new color.  He's taken apart one of the now-extraneous train sets; we need to finish with the others and then move onto the painting (once Mary selects a color).
• Item 4, drumming: Big Check.  Not only have I my own kit now, but I've had several more opportunities to play, both with my home church but now also with Burke UMC's LifeSign service,the latter of which I never would have anticipated at the start of the year.  As 2014 begins, I'm sharing lead drum duties in both places, it would appear….
• Item 5, writing projects: Ummm….  In reality I've begun collecting materials for two projects, one of which is further along than the other, but neither is done this year, and if I'm honest with myself, I'll be lucky to finish by the time I'm 50.

Isn't that always how it seems to go with my goals? Some things done completely, some things under way and moving in the right direction, and some other things I just haven't been able to move the ball on as much as I had hoped.  Candidly, I doubt 2014 will be much different: some things I may deeply want to accomplish, I will probably look back in 365 days and say, Well, that didn't work out.  That doesn't mean we don't keep trying: which, if anything, is probably the best or even the only lesson I can take from any New Year's resolutions.

One (Renovation) Step At A Time

Progress on the home renovations onion has been slow, but it has been made.  Consider that so far this year, we have:

• Renovated the laundry room,
• Negotiated the financing to tackle redoing the master bath and the kitchen, and
• Arranged for new closet systems to be installed

To that list we can now add, re-carpeted the entire upstairs: last week we completed that effort with the installation of new carpet throughout the upper floor, and even in the study--the only carpets not done were the entire basement level, which can certainly wait another decade as far as I'm concerned.  

But now that the carpets are done upstairs, we can proceed with the installation of the new closet system, which will be done on August 15.  That will mean some more demo and repainting work beforehand, but things that I should certainly be able to knock out beforehand.

We are, after all, making progress on our plans for the year.  And I am also proud of the fact that (as best we can tell) Fergie has not yet "christened" the new carpets, although she certainly does enjoy snuffling in them for all the wonderful new smells.  And it is a wonderful change to have springy carpeting underfoot, as opposed to what we had had for at least the last nine years (and who knows how long before that).

Over our Vermont week I hope we can come to consensus on the contractor for the master bath, which we've agreed will be the first project.  Then perhaps we can begin setting that up, and make that happen within this year.

Our New Laundry Room

When we last left our story, we had two things: a dryer failure, and consequently, the excuse we'd been waiting for to get a new laundry room.

The previous laundry room had been what the builders had installed, and it was unwieldy (and always a bit of a mess):

Side-by-side appliances, no place for the kids to drop backpacks, overhead cabinets that were clunky and beige walls with 1988 lineoleum floors...all just begging to be tossed out.

We pulled out the old appliances and the old laundry sink (which had no underneath storage to speak of), tore up the old lineoleum floor (both satisfying and frustrating), pulled down the old cabinets, and left a shell of a room.

Putting it back together, we put in the new floor, arranged for the dryer power and vent duct to be moved (which also surfaced the fact that the duct hadn't really been connected anymore--now that's fixed), painted a new color of slate blue, and added wainscoting and trim (she had always wanted wainscoting somewhere in the house).  New cabinets and the bench went in.  Here's how it came out:

We did everything ourselves but for the connecting of the appliances, the rerouting of the duct and power, and the connecting of the new sink.

In the end, it cost us about $3,350 for the new laundry room (fully half that is the appliances), plus whatever hours we spent scraping up linoleum glue and putting up the new walls.  We even had a chance to learn more about drywall repair in the process.  Is it worth it? Sure: we finally have a room Mary is happy with, that works well, and that we can be proud of.  I'd call that a good investment.

Our Family Ski Weekend

This past weekend, the four of us drove to wild, wonderful West Virginia to the annual Troop 688 ski weekend at Canaan Valley.  This was the first time that the ladies had joined David and me; Mary is not a skier and doesn't enjoy getting cold, and Sarah had not previously been interested, but this year announced she wanted to try to learn snowboarding.

Confidentially, I had low expectations for her snowboarding adventure; I thought that despite the 90-minute lesson, the repeated face-plants into the snow, and a little snow down the parka, would quickly turn her interest into tubing or just watching TV at the lodge.  How little credit I gave her!  Sarah gamely strapped into her snowboard, and I caught up with her at one point during her lesson, as she was maneuvering quite impressively.  After her lesson, over lunch she enthused about the experience; after lunch, she and I headed to the bunny trails and lift to ski/snowboard together.

During our first run together, she impressed with how long she was able to stay up before catching an edge and tumbling over; I managed to catch this particular run on video:

We then made a second run together, to the two bunny trails that make the long loop from the top of the bunny lift to the bottom.  Not only did she stay upright coming off the lift, but she completed the top leg of the trail without falling, and nearly made it to the bottom of the second without falling as well!  This with only one 90-minute lesson: color me impressed!

However, the next time wasn't as fortunate.  She elected to try the broad trail that runs directly underneath the bunny lift; it turned out to be a bit steeper than she had expected, and she lost control and fell nearly at the bottom, bruising her left knee and taking her out of snowboarding for the rest of the afternoon.  Before the weekend was over, though, she did say she thought she'd be back next year, and I certainly hope so, as it was a special time skiing with my daughter.

David, of course, continues skiing and trying to win races among his fellow Scouts.  Their favorite trail to do so winds from the top of the mountain to the bottom, and is called Timber Ridge.  Once, I tried to stay caught up with him on Sunday, and this was the result:

David is the skier principally in the frame, but several times his speed takes him far off or around his friend John on the snowboard; once, he soars up through a wooded cut-through onto the bottom part of a black-diamond trail, Gravity, that I finally mastered this weekend; he is next seen as the rocket shooting through the frame in a tuck, and well off into the distance for the final sprint to the finish.  By my rough back-of-the-envelope calculation, he's averaging about 18 mph on this run...not Olympic speed, but fast enough for his little 14-year-old heart to get a thrill.

Despite Sarah's injury we all enjoyed the weekend.  It's nice to get away as the four of us and to try new things, again continuing with the theme of 2013: there's gonna be some changes!

There's Gonna Be Some Changes

Twenty-odd years ago, a good friend and I would greet each New Year's with the same promise: this year, we said, "there's gonna be some changes."  One year it was when I got married; another year, she promised she was going to get a new job.  The dreams of each new year sounded big, and impressive, and maybe just a little scary at their immensity.

The first 31 days of 2013 suggest the old trope will actually be coming true this year: there's gonna be some changes, in 2013.  As the shine of New Year's resolutions fades and we confront in February the gritty realities of the year to come, there's still quite an extensive list of things we're planning to do this year:

• Tomorrow we go to visit the Fairfax County Humane Society's dog farm and look at doggies.  After months of "I wanna puppy I wanna puppy I wanna puppy," we're actually going to do it.  We've bought the food and water dishes and baby gates (to mark off space in the house so Doggy can get used to it gradually instead of Whoomp all at once), and we have our eye on one dog we're hoping to meet and who might come home with us later in the month.
• In mid-January Mary and I went to the Home and Remodeling Expo and began, formally, the process of spending tens of thousands of dollars.  The hope is to be able to redo the master bathroom and some portion of the kitchen; we've already contracted with one outfit do redo Sarah's and the master closets, and we've already met with three contractors (fourth is coming up) to see what they can do and how large a bag of money we'd need to come up with.  But one way or another, one room or another (if not both) will be done in 2013.
• After years of inaction, we're beginning to redo the living room: scrapbooking supplies are moving to the rec room, which brings us to...after years of inaction, work (of a sort) is starting on the train set, too!  I'm making the executive decision that some parts of the train won't ever be set up, and so I'm repurposing parts for later use.  The scrapping station will go where those unused train set parts are stored.
• I bought myself my own drum kit, which is now also ensconced in the rec room.
• And, perhaps inspired during my time at Harvard last month, I have started some writing projects, one of which I want to see through in the coming year.

And that's only the first 31 days! May the good starts begun in January bear fruit throughout the year and into the years to come...