show a little faith, there's magic in the night

it's been snowing pretty much all day. around 8:30, the words "early dismissal" were buzzing all through the halls, but it just never started sticking to the roads and we were stuck there all day with crazy snow on the brain kids. my landlord is outside getting a start on the shoveling (right, NOW it starts sticking) and i'm just too tired to help him tonight. after work, i went grocery shopping, came home and did 40 minutes of tae bo, took a shower and then cooked myself a feast of a dinner - multigrain pancakes (in my new cast iron!), turkey bacon and scrambled "eggs" with cheese. this all happened because today's lunch at school was french toast sticks and sausage and i could NOT get breakfast food out of my brain for the rest of the day.

the grad class i'm taking right now? oh, it's awful. i sort of knew it would be going into it, given the professor and the topic (research, ugh), but it's even worse than i expected. in three weeks, i've taken maybe 4-5 complete lines of notes. the rest of my papers are covered in the crazy doodles i have to constantly draw in order to keep myself awake as he rambles on and on about anything OTHER than research.

i'm in my pajamas and i've got my violin out on the couch. i've been working on learning how to play the violin parts in random horse feathers songs. so far, i've got all of "finch on saturday" learned and have made a dent in "hardwood pews". i keep getting distracted by various torrents i'm downloading (more springsteen and the current seasons of big love, the l word and flight of the conchords). junior orchestra starts back up again tomorrow morning at 7:30 and i'm just not ready to be in a room with all 50+ of my beginning string students at once again. my left thumb is so torn up from the constant tuning in the crazy up and down weather we've been having lately.

oh, and i have big news! yesterday morning, while teaching a violin lesson, i somehow managed to get through the wachovia center's ticketing website and purchase two tickets to see BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN on april 29. every time i remember that it actually happened, i get giddy all over again. it almost doesn't feel real. this is one of those things that i've been promising myself i would do before i died since i hit my "adult" years and it's going to happen in less than three months! i'm going to take mom as her belated 51st birthday present and it's just so perfect because the first (and only time) she saw him live was with my father back in 1981 when she was pregnant with ME. oh, i cannot wait. and in the meantime, there's ben kweller at the tla with suma and laurel on february 27, solas at world cafe with sara on st patrick's day(!) and girlyman at world cafe with tracy and sarah on april 5. i feel like i'm in college again, with all these shows!

ps. official weight lost so far = 22.8 pounds!