This is the Title of an Uncreative Violinist.:)

I was so hoping I could go for a run today, but my knee is still feeling a little "tweaky"; I bent down to refill my dogs' water bowl, and it hurt even doing that, so I'm going to have to lay off of it for awhile.  In the meantime, I need to do something, so I've been thinking about lifting weights.  Weights intimidate me, but I desperately need them!  I'll have to go into our garage and dig out some 5 & 10 lb. weights, then pick some lifting reps from my Women's Health magazines.  Have to start somewhere! If I'm feeling empowered and energized after that, I may have to keep the party going downstairs on our rowing machine, if that's not a problem for my knee.  Other than that, catching up on emails, putting laundry away, watering plants, and possibly taking the dogs out for a walk if they can handle the heat.  Also, practicing a little violin as I'll be trying my hand out on some jazz improv w/ a fellow music teacher and his jazz band to...

Okay, I'll try to sum this up with the least judgment and bias as I possibly can...I'll save that for the end of my recap, lol: Several months ago, my husband's co-worker (former boss)--who is a former Marine--asked both of us to join a relay team for a relay called "100 Miles for Lima"; the Lima Company suffered heavy losses in the last several years and in 2010, when a bunch of men found out that one of their own had died in 2005, they wanted to do something to raise money for the kids these men left behind.  The first relay was held last August in D.C.  This year, it started in Mariemont, OH and ended in Galloway, OH. Our team started out with 5 people--four men and myself, the only female.  By the time the date arrived, most of our team had dropped out (plus, my husband had a leg injury and declared he couldn't run at all beforehand), so we found 3-4 new people to join in.  One of these women was the sister of a Marine who died.  Before we met her (leav...

Just wanted to write a short post to assure everyone that, yes, the 100 mile relay did happen over the weekend and I WILL write about it in more detail later, but in all honesty, it did NOT go as well as I had hoped, nor was it as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be.  Some things happened that left me in a bad mood; as a result, I'm dragging my feet on writing about it.  I'm also trying to allow a few days for my bad moody-ness (that's not a word, I know!) to dissipate.  I don't want to write/say anything that I'll regret later on. That being said....I only ran 8.5 miles for the relay:( I know...BOO!  I hurt my knee in between my first and second leg.  I don't even know why, but I was stretching while standing around at one of the gazillion check points, and just did some stupid second position ballet stretch that must have tweaked my knee, and from there on, my left knee HURT. Stupid. We returned home on Sunday morning and spent the day with my parents, wh...

Sorry for the negative tone last post!  Wow, I guess I was just fed up.  It happens, and sometimes I just need to vent. The rest of this week finds me teaching the next few days, and then I'm off this Friday to head out early for the 100 mile relay that begins at 6:00AM Saturday morning, and ends around 9AM Sunday.  It's going to be a long weekend:( And, of course, while the rest of society has Memorial Day off, I will be teaching (I suppose I don't really need to, but I'd rather get everyone's lessons in now so no one is bugging me later when I go off to Aspen, CO later this summer).  When I think about it, it's actually not that bad.   Honestly, the only real thing that makes me feel worse about teaching on holidays is that the hubby is usually off, and it'd be nice to spend it with him. But it's okay--in a couple weeks, we'll be in Kentucky for a reunion, I'll be getting most Fridays off this summer, and then a highly anticipated vacay ...

It's funny--whenever I lose a student (and I learn to expect it at some point throughout the year, it's just inevitable), I get the overwhelming urge to drop everything and go bust out a serious run.  Other than praying and meditating, running is seriously the most therapeutic activity I know of. I know it's ridiculous--and I've talked about it several times in the past--but a small part of me dies whenever I unexpectedly lose a student...especially when I know it's because they were sick of me correcting their form and being a stickler for good technique.  I've lost a LOT of students to fiddle playing--or at least, the claim that they would rather study fiddle playing (although before quitting or moving on to another teacher, they would never express that desire to explore it with me--just a ton of gloomy faces whenever I'd crack out the Kreutzer or work on their bow holds!).  I'd always offer the opinion to the parent that good technique would be the...

Just a teeny update so I'm not completely off the radar: - Haven't run since the Cincy half marathon.  No real excuses, except that I'm feeling slothful. - Tried the rowing machine we own after watching the movie  True Blue and getting pumped, only to get bored and exhausted after 15 minutes of doing that.  Plus, I got annoying blisters from the handle bars.  I'm not giving up on the rowing, but just haven't found the motivation to go back to it just yet.  I would like to incorporate other forms of physical activity other than running.  Maybe tennis or rock climbing? -This sweet weather we've been having is giving me serious "senioritis", which is kinda silly considering that I don't actually get any kind of break during the summers since I'm a private music teacher and therefore, must keep teaching all year 'round in order to pay the bills.  I have re-organized my schedule, however, so that I get Fridays off this summer.  I'm ho...

After a hectic weekend last week, it was nice to just take it easy this weekend.  We got up around 9:45am, I made some lattes with my aeropress, and called my little brother to see if he was interested in getting some pizza for lunch.  We drove 30 min. south of Columbus to Grove City, OH where there's a pizzeria that has some amazing deep dish pizza.   We could each only handle one slice, so we have a lot left over to last for the next few days.  I also got some cheesecake to go (which I'm enjoying now!), and Ryan popped into a bakery we spotted driving not too far from Tristano's, and got a strawberry milkshake and some cookies.  We didn't want the fun to end there, so we then drove to the Eddie Bauer outlet.  I usually never see anything I like there, but today I found a black maxi dress that I liked--and it fit perfectly!  Usually dresses are too long on my vertically challenged frame, but this was just right. Dropped my bro...

Here is what's for breakfast this morning: Ezekiel 4:9 french toast w/ sliced bananas + the usual cup of Joe. Legs are still a little sore today, but it doesn't hurt as badly to walk down stairs:)  I was going over the pictures I had taken during my weekend in Cincinnati, and there were only 7 or 8 of them, and I was in none of them!  I really regret not being more on top of that or asking someone to take pictures for me.  I need to remember how sad it is to not have any pictures next time I hesitate about asking someone to "please take my picture".  I always feel self conscious...like I must be vain or something....but it's really not that at all.  They preserve precious memories, and I'm going to try to be better about doing that! Teaching until 8pm tonight--successfully shifted all students at the one school into Mondays and Tuesdays--now, if only my Friday students would cooperate and find a dang slot on Wednesdays, so I could have Fridays off!...

We arrived home last night, but I didn't feel like writing much since I was feeling sore and crampy; today, I'm feeling a little better, but my legs are still VERY sore (probably should seriously stretch). Well....I did it!  I finished a half marathon, and that was pretty much all I could handle yesterday.  My finish time was 2:25.  I was slightly disappointed in not being faster, but then again, I stopped several times to go to the bathroom and there were HARD hills as well, so at least I still finished under my goal time of 2:30. On Saturday, we drove down to Cincinnati to pick up my race packet.  I was hoping to explore the expo, but since we had both our dogs in the car, we decided to skip it and just continue up to Middletown where my in laws live.  We had lunch with my MIL and then did a lot of sitting around the table chatting and deciding where to go for dinner.  Sadly, I took hardly any pictures this weekend.:(  So I can't show you the spe...

We really like fish around here.  But when we have it, I tend to get the same thing over and over again, which happens to be salmon.  I LOVE salmon--I could almost very well eat it every day....to a certain extent.  But the hubby, on the other hand, can only handle salmon once in awhile.  He prefers white fish.  So I bought orange roughy the other day.  It's very delicate and flaky. I prepared it simply, with s & p, butter and paprika and it was enjoyable.  I served it with roasted brussels sprouts and mashed sweet potatoes. I know salmon has its wonderful benefits, but it's nice to change it up once in awhile.  Any other kinds of fish you would recommend?  How do you usually prepare it? It's getting HOT around here.  Temps in the 80's...and of course, our central air had to stop working!  I feel terrible for our poor, non-shedding dogs:(  I was going to try to run today, but it's too hot; I'm going to wait until ...