Insomnia

So, it's 11:00 pm on Tuesday night and I'm still awake. I went to bed over an hour ago, but sleep has been elusive. My mind keeps whirling with thoughts of people I need to call or email and things I need to do tomorrow. This is one aspect of myself that I don't particularly care for. Sometimes my brain refuses to shut off. I have a small arsenal of mental tricks to try to help me focus on one thing for a period of time, thereby shutting out all the extra mental noise and allowing sleep to creep in. Unfortunately, not even those are working tonight. So, on to blogging and Tylenol PM. I just took some and now I'm waiting for it to kick in. The blogging helps to rid my brain of the to-do list that's forming in my head. Here it is in no particular order. Tomorrow I need to email or call Mr. Duke and Mr. Sandford about one of my violin students, email (or more accurately, message on Facebook) Regina, email Shawna, call back Keith at the Academy and confirm the time for my new student, call the mother of my new student and touch base with her, call Monica, practice, talk to Nancy about this weekend, and make it through the day without falling asleep or throwing my work phone against the wall and stomping it into a million tiny pieces.

On a different note (ha ha), I now have nearly all of my music for my audition for the Spokane Symphony. Three more pieces came today via UPS. The remaining two pieces should (hopefully) be arriving in the next week or so via postal service. Last night I counted and I only have about 20 more weeks to go at my job before I can quit and get ready for grad school. Yay!!

Saturday at the Symphony

Michael made it to see the Spokane Symphony last night. He'd been taking ibuprofen and it wasn't helping much, but we found some Naproxen with our medicines and switched him to that. It seems to be helping more, so he went with me last night. It was really good. The soloist was amazing. It was all 20th century music, and I loved it. We also went to the pre-concert lecture given by the conductor Eckart Preu, and he had the soloist come out and he asked her a few questions. It was fun. Today we haven't left the house, which has been nice. We've both gotten some much needed rest. Always good for gearing up for another week of work.

Keeping up

I've been trying to be better about blogging. I try to write at least once a week. So, here it goes. We'll start with today and go backward. This morning I was awakened by my husband standing at the end of the bed calling to me in a rather loud voice (I sleep with earplugs in, and I was dead to the world). He had decided to go inline skating this morning at the local skate park. And fell. Pretty hard. He caught himself with his hands, but hyperextended both elbows. This makes it difficult to do things like feed oneself or pretty much anything that requires the bending of an elbow. So, it's been an interesting day. We went to the doctor just to be sure it wasn't anything worse, and they x-rayed his elbows and said that nothing was broken and it would just take time to heal. I'm hoping he'll feel better in the morning. Things have been pretty consistently busy, though. My week days consist of working for ten hours, eating dinner, practicing, then maybe going somewhere because Michael doesn't really like sitting around the house a lot. Plus, we've disconnected the cable from our TV so we actually will do stuff, not just sit like lumps for hours on end. My newest project that I've decided I would like to undertake (in addition to preparing auditions and all) is a patio vegetable garden. Doesn't it sound nice to just be able to open your sliding glass door and pick fresh tomatoes and zucchini and whatever else you might wish to grow for your dinner? I think it does. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Last Saturday we went to one of the Spokane Symphony's special concerts. It featured Doc Severinsen, a trumpet player, and his group. He apparently "retired" to Mexico where he came upon these two guys who'd been playing together for a long time on guitar and violin. Throw in a percussionist (primarily hand percussion) and a symphony and you've got a concert! It was really cool, actually, and we had great seats. Although, at the Fox there's not really a bad seat in the house. Tomorrow we have tickets again for their classical series concert. Anne Akiko Meyers is the featured soloist for Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1. They're also playing Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, and Sibelius's Symphony No. 5. I'm not sure that Michael will actually be able go with me, so I might have to find myself a date. It'll be fun either way.