A musical interlude

The last couple of weeks have been a blur, with hardly any knitting done at all. We've been swamped at work, plus I had my cello recital on the 17th. I was actually able to learn enough in 4 months to have a few pieces to play. Practice was going along pretty well and things were sounding ok a couple of weeks before the big day. Then I woke up with a sore back two days after the Mother's Day adventure, and got virtually no practice in that last week before recital. At one point my back hurt so bad, I could hardly get up and down, roll over in bed, or sit in a chair for very long. Thankfully I had a scheduled day off on Wednesday, and was able to get a massage which helped quite a bit. Then I was able to make it through Thursday and Friday at work. Then on Friday, as I went out to leave, the dog car broke down. So it's 95 degrees and humid, and I'm feeling pretty cranky at this point. Luckily, James was at the track and was able to come down and try to start it. He surmised that the engine wasn't getting any fuel, so we went back to the track to get a trailer to tow the car. Ended up getting home about 6pm. That took care of the good practice session I had planned, but I did run through things just to keep them in my head.

Saturday arrives, and the car that the cello rides in is DOA at the track so off I go with it riding in the passenger seat of the convertible. What a sight! All this time I've been telling myself that I'm not nervous, no one knows me anyway, they're only there to hear their kids, etc. But when the program starts, those knees start to knocking! I did manage to get on stage without incident, which was a blessing in itself. When we planned the order of my pieces, I decided to do the hardest one first. Originally it was because I didn't want to be tired when I got to that one. But it worked out well in other ways. It took that whole first piece for my nerves to settle down so I could breathe and steady my bow. Then the second piece and my duet with my teacher actually sounded pretty good. Ending on a good note kind of pushed the rocky start into the background. I thought I did pretty well for a beginner! Hopefully next year won't be so stressful! Sorry, no pics.