How many colds do you get a year? I think I usually get two, one around NOW and one in October. I turn into a whiny mess, sometimes going around the house uttering, why me? I thought I had gotten away with a mild cold over the Easter weekend, but I was mistaken and by Saturday evening last I had a horrible sore throat. That night I slept very poorly, kept waking up drenched in sweat, even had dreams about running with sweat poring down my face! Anyway, that nixed our ideas of going south to hike at Pickle Springs and Hawn State Park (soon!) and instead I spent the day at home…but had enough energy to do my taxes. Yay.

So that’s where we are. Still recovering, feeling kinda lousy, trying to soldier through as best as I can, while having at least finished my taxes (and I overpaid, which means I overestimated my income last year, but whatever, still winning in some way!)

I haven’t taken too many pictures lately, so this will be a text only post. There are now TWO dogs at the house (yay, Mackenzie’s brother from the same litter Banjo is here) and things are a bit crazy in that sense!

On a personal note, I’ve decided to do some volunteering, or at least, signed up for a training session at the Clowder House. It’s a place where cats live, lots and lots of them, after their owners can no longer take of them (there is a charge for this service) and I’ll learn more about it in a few weeks.

Professionally it seems I will be joining the board of a local music teachers association. I’ve had a little more time on my hands during the day that I wanted, and I find if I practice more than 2 hours it can be counterproductive, so when I got an email about looking for people to serve, I responded. It’s that easy, I guess! I am looking forward to some new challenges and experiences with my volunteer positions. Of course I’m always looking for more work, but it is harder to fill my daytime hours than my afternoon/evening and weekend hours…always my complaint. Then again, I suppose other people have the opposite problem? I never know!

This weekend I am, assuming I feel slightly better, running the Go St Louis 7K race. I had been signed up for the half (I got a discount registration quite some time ago) but dropped down when I found myself more interested in hiking on the weekends than doing long runs. So a 7K seems perfect, and it’s a course I haven’t run before—it goes across several bridges and should be a lot of fun.

In any case, that’s pretty much it for now. I thought I’d just pop in in case you guys thought I forgot about you

Oh, and we got takeout Friday night from Lona’s Li’l Eats in Fox Park, YUMMY, so much vegetarian goodness (and was a gift certificate from a student, excellent) and leftovers the next day two. Thursday night we went to Publico for the second time—it was delicious and we split an entire fish, which was quite fun, but it is pricey and less filling than you’d think, plus so many dishes have meat. I am really becoming one of those people, aren’t I? (It took becoming a 95 percent pescatarian to understand how being on a restrictive diet feels, sometimes you want CHOICES, not just limitations and one dish to choose from…and sometimes you wonder if people could cook with less meat if they gave it a bit more effort. This is not a criticism of Publico so much as a criticism of MOST restaurants in St Louis.)

Anyway. Not going to lecture, because I still eat meat on occasion. But just thinking out loud!

I voted again this morning. We here in St Louis had another election today, only a few weeks after the primaries. Civic duty starts to feel like a real job sometimes!