parties

So – since last I updated you on this crazy life thing I’ve got going on here, so much has happened!

On Tuesday evening, I hit up the track w/ my good friend Alisa & her husband. I ran a mile warm up & then did 4×400 (with 400 recovery jogs) & closed with a half mile cool-down. I didn’t bring my garmin, so I don’t have any idea how long/how fast/etc. that drives me bonkers, by the way. My spreadsheets are incomplete.

Wednesday morning, I woke up & felt decidedly not right. So I stayed home. I did get some homework done, but overall, it wasn’t a super productive day. Which is okay when taking a sick day, right?

Wednesday evening, my left foot started to hurt. This is the non-surgery foot. I didn’t think too much of it, and just went to bed. I woke up 3-4 times in the night with some weird foot pain.

Thursday morning I woke up and my left foot (specifically the big toe joint area) hurt excruciatingly bad. I was pretty sure that something was broken. I went to work & called the orthopedic clinic.  They told me they could fit me in for an X-Ray in about a week. That seemed a bit long to wait to see if I’d broken a toe or a foot or something. I called my Primary Care & although she wasn’t in, another doc in her group was able to see me “as soon as I could get there.” Which was about 15 minutes or so (sometimes it’s handy working in a hospital). I saw the doc, had an X-Ray, and then saw the doc again.

He thought I had a stress fracture. The radiologist disagreed. So – the official diagnosis? No stress fracture. (Other things it isn’t include the plague, schizophrenia [probably], and cataracts. Things it is include who knows?!)

I was referred to PT (which I love – I will always go to PT) and told to ice, elevate, & ibuprofen it up. And so I did.

Friday was a pretty busy day for someone with a not-broken toe. I volunteered at Growing Gardens (I put starts in individual pots and counted tomatoes), finally took my kick-ass prints to get framed (do you have any idea how much framing costs? holy crap is all I can say), and then, stopped by Classic Pianos to scope out the wares.

I had a very specific budget in mind (read: CHEAP) but also had a specific quality in mind (read: not CHEAP sounding). They were so nice to me! I told the sales guy my budget, he took me to the area of the store with those pianos, left me alone to pound on the keys for awhile, and then when I picked out my favorite piano in the store, told me it was twice my price rang (of course) and helped me find one with comparable sound for half the price.

You all! I bought a piano. It is not the nicest piano in the world, but it is so much better than the one I have now! (I don’t have one now, and it is not working for me.) AND AND AND for as long as I own this piano, if I ever want to trade it in for a better, nicer, grander (in my dreams) piano, they will credit me the full price I paid for this piano towards the purchase of the new one! The piano does not depreciate!

This, even more than buying a house, makes me feel like a grown-up.

This is not my piano, but is a reasonable fascimile there of:

(I do not have ugly blue carpet.) As soon as my piano comes to live with me, I will post a picture of the real actual piano (I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of it last Friday!) and you can all be jealous! It is having its hammers refelted, and will come live with me on 5/27/11. YAY!

After piano-ing, I headed out to Zenger Farms for a tour. So awesome. I was so jealous of the tour guide. Her job is to work on an urban farm! And hang out with wealthy donors like me! (I kid about the wealthy part; I am just a regular donor.)

Finally, after a long day of too much walking, I headed back home. The architect & I toured the estate and then headed out to dinner.

Saturday was another busy day. I finalized the gin tasting notes and cocktail menu, made the awesomest cake in the universe, and cleaned up a bit for the gin tasters.

I had such a great time Saturday night imparting my gin passion to others. We did a formal tasting (well, maybe semi-formal) with tasting notes and information and voting, and then had gin cocktails (or, in the case of some people, beer).

The big gin hit of the night was the Bardenay (from Idaho) in the more traditional London Dry category, although the cucumber & spruce Rogue gin was also quite popular.

I introduced a number of people to the awesome French 75 and am looking forward to a lot of warm summer afternoons sipping French 75s on the patio.

Sunday there was a wee bit of clean-up (not too much; must be getting old when the last straggler is gone before 11 pm and the clean-up takes less than 1/2 hour) and then Sarah came over for asparagus pickling! We each made 8 pints of pickled asparagus, and I can’t wait for them to get properly pickled so that I can crack open a jar and make some awesome bloody marys.

The rest of Sunday was devoted to school work and work work. (Boooo…..)

Today my foot is feeling pretty decent. I’m even considering going for a wee little run tomorrow. My first PT appointment is next Wednesday, and I’m positive they told me to run 3 times before the appointment, just to see how it’s holding up.

This is another 5-day work week, but the big pressure should be off after tomorrow, and then we can return to the regular stresses of my job and figuring out how to integrate all of my new responsibilities.

Happy Monday!