It seems ridiculous to do my monthly goals post, but I’ll do it anyway.  As you all know, this month totally sucked.  My race sucked, we got robbed, basically the whole month sucked and I’m really glad it’s over. 

Monthly Goals:

Books: one classic, one related to teaching violin or children, one non-fiction.  Great Expectations, The Social Animal, and Moonwalking with Einstein.  Yeah, well, my kindle got stolen halfway through The Social Animal.

One or more new restaurants: Frazer’s

Weekly activities with friends:  I did a lot of activities with friends

New recipes (three): I’m sure I tried some recipes.  I didn’t do three, but I did a new stuffed chicken or something.  I don’t feel like looking.

Race:  April 9 Go! St Louis Half Marathon.  Goal:  2:30 or bust. Ha!  Follow that link.

Mileage:  90 miles (run or walk). Is 64 the same?

Lose a couple of pounds:  under *redacted* by April 30 or bust. (I do have a number in mind, and this month I will meet or beat it). Might have lost a pound.

Career: Schedule Student Recital for Early June.  Plus some other stuff that will happen in April.  You’re on a need to know basis.  Check!  My student recital will be happening.

Fun: Did a lot of fun stuff, mainly to try to distract myself from the awful-ness that was the rest of the month.

Financial: Well…I did MY taxes.  But I promised Chris I’d do his, so that’s this month. Check!

Fingernails/finger biting: Must continue trying to stop…gah, so difficult as I usually don’t notice I’m biting until it’s already been going on for a little while. Hmmm…this is not working.

I posted a widely successful post:  Orchestra Auditions for Non-Musicians.  Over 2500 page views (quite a lot for me).

Okay.  So that’s April.  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I am waiting in best buy after a great 5.5 mile run. There was a shower before, of course.

I went with Jen and the weather was perfect. We didn’t see any larpers today, unfortunately. The best thing is that I feel like a runner again!

Now we are dealing with Chris’s broken computer and then I am going to buy a new laptop. The insurance settlement is on its way. State farm is really a great company!  It’s likely that Chris’s desktop was damaged though and hopefully we can prove that….they didn’t steal it but it hasn’t been working right all week and today wouldn’t turn out at all. Grrr. So a beautiful afternoon is spent picking up the pieces from jerk criminals.

Last night I met a friend for dinner at Frazer’s. After dinner a few more friends showed up and we were there until midnight or so. For dinner we split chorizo stuffed dates, a tasty bottle of malbec, and then I had a brie, pear, and arugula salad, and shrimp and scallop pasta. I will definitely go back there!

Ok, time to shop for a new computer!

Okay, I’ve declared this evening the end of my pity party.  Well, not exactly, but we’ve moved on today into…

strange gym injury party time!

That’s my left pinky.  Suffice it to say it feels much worse than it looks.  What happened?  Well, it happened really fast.  In a nutshell, v-sits holding a 10 pound weight to press up while moving legs forward (I need to start taking pictures during my workouts, huh?).  At the end I was exhausted so I leaned over to drop the weight first, and proceeded to somehow drop it directly onto my pinky finger…which hurt A LOT.  Then I spent a minute or two lying on the floor holding my hand in agony, while Mike either laughed at me or debated calling 911.

Summary:  I am really clumsy.

Other summary:  Mike had a tooth infection.  Evidently he needed a root canal.  He thinks I need to start foam rolling my legs.  His ex-girlfriend wants to get back together but he claims he doesn’t want to.  I also mentioned my blog today, maybe he’s reading this (probably not).

Then I headed off to my ocarina trio rehearsal followed by another lunch at Panera (started reading Water for Elephants, love it so far!) and 3ish hours of teaching.  Finally my day is done! 

Things that are uncomfortable:  trying to play violin with a wonky pinky.  Let’s hope tomorrow goes better since I have TWO weddings to play for.

Next Saturday, May 7:  I am playing for a live internet concert.  6 pm Central Time. Go to this link and it is advertised as “Heather’s Free Live Concert.”  I am playing with Heather!  If you want to catch it from the beginning please visit the link a few minutes early as evidently you are required to watch a couple minutes worth of commercials. 

  Yesterday one of my students brought a “friend” to observe her lesson.  After the lesson we had a bit of a photo shoot!

Watching from the piano

Sitting on the floor

Sitting on my lap!

Posing for a picture!  My student thinks I’m crazy now 😉