Blogging Slowdown

You may have noticed a downturn in posts the past week. It will probably continue a while longer, for several reasons. Number one, I am in my busiest piano season, playing for various school competitions (and the requisite rehearsals) in addition to normal practices for the ensembles I accompany. Number two, it is Lent, which means more time spent attending midweek services and extra rehearsals for Easter. Number three, my mom continues in rehab, so I am still making multiple trips each week to the facility that is caring for her (we recently moved her and are much happier with her new accommodations). And number four, I have been sick. I don't know if I had one cold, started to get better and then relapsed, or if I got a new and different cold on the heels of the first one. Either way, I have been dragging through all of the above for a couple of weeks now and still don't feel anywhere near my normal level of energy. I am supposed to be going to therapy for my foot but haven't had time. Luckily my foot seems to be doing okay. I have been almost exclusively wearing athletic shoes with custom orthotics ever since I got out of the boot.

Last night I went to bed at 8:30 and slept until 6:30 this morning. Thank you for enabling that, family! I needed the sleep--even being sick I have had my share of insomniac nights. I would like to blame something that happened earlier this week on fatigue and illness rather than on general stupidity. I filled in as accompanist at Caitlin's community youth choir rehearsal and ended up having to play the rehearsal with my bifocals rather than my prescription reading glasses because, I assumed, I had left the reading glasses at home. (My readers are preferred for playing piano because the bifocals require that I throw my head back to get the necessary magnification, a posture that causes neck and back pain in short order.) Anyway, I discovered later that no, I didn't leave the readers at home but rather switched them out with my bifocals in order to drive to rehearsal and left them sitting in my lap, whence, gravity being what it is, they fell to the ground when I stood up and got out of the car. There they lay for about three hours until I sorted out the mystery and drove back to retrieve them. By that time, they had been irredeemably stepped on or driven over, take your pick. Bummer. I now have a new $7.99 pair of readers from Target. The insurance plan does allow for me to get new glasses this year but I would like those to be a new pair of bifocals.

Ah, well. It all pales when I think about next week. In eight days we will be driving to Nebraska to see Trevor play with the UNL Symphony Orchestra! Here's a preview showing the orchestra in rehearsal, first with the graduate concerto winner and then with Trevor (the undergraduate winner). I can't wait!