Do 43 things i've never done before!

11. Learn to play pool. I mean I’ve played before, but I was actually taught how to do it.
12. Go on a real first date. All the guys I dated in high school I knew before I went out with them so I consider this a new experience.
13. Attend some sort of baking competition. My roommate competed in a cupcake contest, and I helped her. And I got to judge… soo good! and fun!
14. Drag Ball. Haaa fun. I dressed as a boy, didn’t really look like a boy. Very fun though

Our new church gets together just before Thanksgiving every year with a few others for a joint Sunday night service, and people from each sing in the choir. Our area is unfortunately still very segregated, and this is a great way to blend the “black” and “white” congregations. There are 2 Saturday afternoon rehearsals to learn the music beforehand, and hubby and I went to the first one last weekend. I used to be a soprano, but can’t hit the really high notes gracefully any more, so I spent my first time as an alto on Saturday. Learning to usually sing harmony rather than melody will take some adjustment!

The best part, it was for my oldest daughter!!! How proud and lucky I am to have a child who works and studies hard and keeps her eye on her responsibilities and future, without being distracted by others and situations that would slow her growth and wreck her potential.
It was a wonderful celebration with 144 new inductees. They had a nice procession and a bunch of speeches. Really a great pat on the back and celebration for all the students, family, and friends.
By the way this is the type of entry I thought I would fill this goal with. Hopefully, as my health improves and I increase my exercise this indeed will be the type of positive accomplishments and adventures I hope to share. Peace.

41. Visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum: Udvar-Hazy Center.
This is the new building out by Dulles airport. I’d been to the one on the mall a few times, but they opened this big airplane hangar since the very nature of planes limits the display capabilities of the downtown museum.
It was pretty amazing! Some of the most famous planes are still downtown (Spirit of St. Louis etc.) but they had tons of interesting things. I was very moved seeing the Enola Gay.
The impetus for this visit was that I was hosting my nephew Noah’s Flat Stanley, and I thought 6-year-olds would like seeing planes and space ships etc. In the picture you can see Stanley with a WW2 fighter plane.

Our friend Mary Etta brought over a delicious homemade quince paste to our poker night last weekend. She sliced it and added it atop sliced Monterey Jack cheese served on a cracker. The flavor combo was delicous.

I bought a house plan. MY HOUSE plan. It was fun receiving and unwrapping it. Very emotional.

Friends hosted a Beatles Rockband party (complete with “Gouda Day Sunshine sandwiches”!) on Sunday evening. It was such a fun game with great animations and sound clips between songs. We weren’t able to play for as long as we would have liked, but we got through a lot of songs, and I made a lot of progress with my drumming, even scoring a 99% on “Get Back.” Fittingly enough, I’ve got blisters on my fingers from my mad drumming skills.

Joel McHale has been at the tops of my celebrity crush list for quite awhile now so being in the same room with him took my breath away! Our seats were pretty good, about half-way back and to the right. We weren’t close enough to make eye contact or be included in any jokes, but we were close enough to pick out all the glorious little details of his clothes, hair, etc.

I’ve seen very little stand-up comedy in my day, but I thought both Joel and his opener were great. I was laughing the entire time, especially when Joel joked about his sons who just happen to be the same ages as Audrey and Clara. The show was sold-out to a varied audience. It was Parent’s Weekend at the local college so there was quite a mix of college kids and their 50-something folks. I was hoping he’d do a signing, and I’d have the chance for a close encounter, but I was out of luck.

I have a feeling Joel McHale might be getting more and more famous now that he has a sitcom and has started working in movies so who knows, this may have been my only chance to see him do his stand-up. I’m glad I was there.

Don’t have a horse, but I have a friend who’s an equine chiropractor, so we went over to visit with her since it’s near our house.

I fell in love with Wicked when the soundtrack first came out, and have wanted to see it ever since. Wicked has been touring for some time now, and, unfortunately, as soon as I heard that it was coming to my town in the next year, it was announced that we were moving. Sure enough, there was a set of performances near where we were moving to, and as soon as the tickets became available, we bought tickets for a performance that was last week. I took a two hour car trip to Des Moines and saw the show I’d been waiting to see for upwards of two years. It was definitely worth it.