A Very Productive Day

Today was a very productive day.

Two items of note:

1. I made it to a specific building in Washington, DC, and then back home without getting lost - ALL BY MYSELF! I am really rather proud of myself about this. I took a bus to the Metro, and then the Metro to an area in DC I hadn't yet experienced. And then...I made it back home.

The returning home thing is what keeps worrying me. Arlington isn't quite as much a grid design as Salt Lake City, and I barely know my surroundings. I know my bus stop and 1 or 2 other neighboring streets...so I can't ever miss my stop, or I'll be completely panicked. But I will do just fine if I get lost on my way to the City - you ask people for help, you look at a map. The Metro only has 4 lines, and maps are posted everywhere, so I wasn't too concerned about that. It's the buses that are kind of all over the place. But I think my worries originate mainly from my friend M., who freaked me out about them the 1st time I rode the bus, as he constantly inserted the reminder of, "but you WILL get lost, you WILL get on the wrong bus, you WILL get 30 minutes in the wrong direction before you realize your mistake..." But it wasn't that bad. I take my bus to my metro station, and I'm totally fine. The bus route times are posted nicely all around the Metro, and the buses are actually quite punctual, so I think I'll be just great with this public transit system. I feel so chic and downtown-ish riding the Metro.

It makes me feel rather powerful, knowing I can handle the city all by myself. And I did handle the city by myself today. Today was the 1st time I was alone in DC, and I was just fine. Luckily, DC just isn't that big of a city, so I recognized the National Mall 5 minutes after walking away from my original destination. I also found myself right in front of the White House. Barack was out in the yard, playing with Bo the dog and his little girls, while Michelle worked in the garden. I waved over to them in a friendly, neighborly fashion, and Barack smiled and invited me over for a game of bocce ball, which Bo kept nudging at with his nose, wondering why they weren't moving. I obliged, and then quietly creamed them, much to their surprise. But once they understood my strong background in the game, they laughed at the coincidence and we all went inside for ice cream - it was a hot day out there. Then I shook my daydream out of my head and continued walking past the gates which kept me very, very far away from that beautiful estate.

2. I built myself a dresser for my room - ALL BY MYSELF! I ordered a dresser from IKEA and it arrived today - this morning, where I noticed it on my porch as I was leaving my house. I was in a skirt, and the box was heavy, so I spent most of the day praying it wouldn't be stolen from the spot on my porch where I couldn't move it. And when I came home, it was still there! And it was almost there much longer, but I put on my strong arms, I and pushed and pulled until it was somehow sitting on the floor of my living room. Then I pieced it all together, the sounds of "Project: Runway" reruns playing in the background - it made me feel like I could create cool things, too, as I built my dresser next to the designers building their dresses. Then I switchd it over to Jeopardy, to show that I'm both street smart and book smart. Then I lost Jeopardy to some girl who took home $18,000 in 1-day and I began to think of the really nice dresser I could've bought with that much money...

I was really excited, though, to make this. I feel so accomplished when I get things from IKEA, like I'm competent at something, and that I have still some sense of logic when I figure out how something should logically be built when pictures alone don't express any sort of sense to me. And to say I did it all by myself, how personal this dresser suddenly feels to me.

Aside from the one step where the picture showed me needing the "assisting person" tool, I honestly built it all by myself - but when an extra person is a required tool, it's kind of hard to skip that - even though I really tried to. Cue an hour of my making frustrated sighs and gasps, and dropping the corner of a small slab of wood onto my foot. That was fun. But I'm really excited about my new dresser. Hopefully my craftsmanship is good, and it doen't fall apart on me...

I promise to get pictures of my cute little room soon. I've just been waiting for the final touches, and I think once I get everything in the right spot or tucked away - like in my new dresser - then I will get you some great pictures, promise!