Starting up again

I guess it's about time to start writing in my blog again.

Jack and I are living in a really nice house in Washington state. It's in a neighborhood with a playground in it and a wildlife preserve next to it. The house has a fenced yard--albeit a small one--for the puppy dogs, and the kitchen and living room of the house open onto each other and have a big vaulted ceiling, which makes the house feel even bigger than it already is. Jack's adopted sister Sarah is living with us, and she has her own bedroom and bathroom with a skylight.

We just moved in Monday, so a lot of our stuff is still boxed up, and we're in the process of acquiring furniture. For me, finding a job is more important than unpacking, but I can't find anything that I qualify for and that will interest me for three years (that's how long we'll be here). Even a lot of entry-level jobs seem to require experience working with customers, which janitorial work never really covered. I've considered just taking on a bunch of piano/trumpet/french horn students and advertising for freelance editing work, but I don't think that work alone will keep me busy enough.

Speaking of music students, my parents gave me my (are you ready for this?) dad's sister's husband's father's old trombone, which was given to my grandfather and put into storage in his shed out back for a few decades. The case is falling apart and covered in mildew, and the trombone was tarnished almost completely black. When grandpa died, apparently the trombone was going to get either thrown away or sold on eBay for twenty-five bucks, so I rescued it and polished it up last week. Turns out that except for some tiny age spots, the trombone cleaned up really really really nice. I didn't even realize until I'd spent almost half an hour with silver polish that the bell is a different color from the rest of the trombone. The outside is silver, and inside the bell is a pale brass color. Really nice for an instrument that looked like it was made out of patchy hematite last week. I greased up the slide and played it, and the sound is beautiful too. It has one tiny dent in it, but is otherwise in near-perfect condition. And they were going to just throw it away. Sheesh.

So now I'm going to learn how to play the trombone.

Also, I got that new flavor of Altoids, Creme de Menthe. They're addictive. Yummyyyyy. Maybe I'm just guzzling those because I've been cutting back on chocolate and I need SOMETHING to be addicted to. Mmmmm, Altoids. Plus they last forever because they pretty much have to be eaten one at a time. Om nom nom.

I never blogged about the other puppy we have, Blitzkrieg. He's mostly beagle, and he's really cute. So when I make reference to Blitzy, if you didn't already know, he's our other puppy that isn't Akela the husky. He turns one in April.

That's all for now.