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Day 327: Not a Fool



Happy April 1st!  Today is my beautiful daughters 26th birthday. When she was young she used to say "April 1st is my birthday, but I am not a fool!"  :)

So, I do not pull April Fools pranks on her.

Today is another glorious spring day in Portland. Unbelievable really. The high is supposed to be around 76 degrees.

I woke up feeling pretty good. Better than usual. I had a wonderful time with my musical group last night. We played a concert for a retirement home. I did not practice much, but I did hit the gym and the hot tub before our concert. My daughter had put one of our prepared freezer meals in the crockpot in the morning. So when I got back from the gym, I had a lovely chicken taco on a corn tortilla. I was feeling quite relaxed. I have noticed that I perform better when I feel good. When I am tense and in pain, it does not matter how much I have practiced, my performance will suffer.

I knew the music pretty well. So I just floated down to the Max and got to the venue quite early. I visited with some of the residence. I was getting a little concerned being the only one of our group to arrive, when they started trickling in. Everyone looked a little ruffled. They told me traffic was horrendous.  Must be the sunlight, I said. No one knows how to drive in the sun in Portland!

Yet again, I am grateful for public transportation.

The audience was one of our best yet. Very appreciative, and quite sophisticated in their musical tastes!

I caught a ride to Fred Meyer with our cellist afterward. We always have nice chats about family, music, life...I wanted to see if they had carrot cake. My daughter had asked for a carrot cake for her celebration dinner last Saturday, but my mom was not able to find one.

I scored! Set in the back row, behind the strawberry cheesecake was a lovely carrot cake.

I felt very happy going home. It was dusk, still warm and I had a carrot cake in my bag! My daughter was very pleased. I even had a slice of cake, minus guilt as I sat with my little family and watched the Blazers play the Celtics. (We won!)

This morning I hopped on the Max to the gym. From my stop to the gym, the ride was 4 minutes! I had to get a quick workout in because I teach this afternoon. So I went straight to the weights.  It felt great. I feel stronger. I increased the weights by 10 pounds!  I did bench press, shoulder press and lat pulldowns. I ended with 35 crunches and some stretching in the sauna.  Then I ran out to the Max stop and got home in time to make a lovely migas:  sauteed corn tortillas, spinach, mushrooms, onions, eggs, a bit of cheese and hot sauce were the ingredient today.

Now I am running off to teach.

I am still meditating on psalms 20 and 21 today. And listening to old broadcasts of Mother Angelica. She was something else! I downloaded her biography on my Kindle.

But now, I must be off.

Happy Friday!

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