We made a rosemary/apple pie with a cheddar crust last night, Brian and I. When I asked him if he would let the dogs in while I was peeling the apples, he said that he was much too busy and important to do such a menial task. Later, when I asked him to roll out the pie crust, once again, he was much too busy and important to assist (even though, in this instance, he did roll out the crust). So, for the rest of the night, we were all much too busy and important for... well, whatever. Of course, once the pie was out of the oven, we were all free and fully available to enjoy the pie, which was, quite tasty.
Chords have been giving me the biggest amount of trouble with my guitar practice. That, and the fact that I can't seem to keep the guitar held comfortably or still. Today's lesson focused on those two things. Danny, my instructor, gave me some really helpful tips on chords, including a tip to build the chord from the 4th finger to the 1st finger, rather than the other way. Who'd have thought it would make such a difference. He also gave me several positions to try out for sitting with the guitar. It turns out that if the guitar slips around while you are (I am) playing it, your (my) fingers lose track of where everything is. Once I had the guitar situated snugly, my fingering instantly improved. Go figure. I left today's lesson feeling really good.
The other fun thing about today's lesson was learning yet another new technique. It is called hammering and is accompanied by something that might be called a pull off (might not... I learned a lot of new things today and now my brain is unsuccessfully trying to recall all of them). Anyway, you use just the hand that is on the neck of the guitar (left hand) to make the sounds, rather than strumming with the right hand. I pretty fully suck at it at the moment, but practicing it should help my fingers get stronger, which will help with, oh pretty much every part of my guitar practice.
In other news, Portland is still in the grips of a massive winter crazy season. I know, our weather doesn't compare with anyone else in the country (except that we're super cold) but it is monumental to Portland-ites. We had snow drifting in banks up to 1/2 an inch. Ice forming impassible lakes in the gutters of the streets, and even a flake or two that fell in the middle of the day. Literally, I saw two flakes fall yesterday afternoon. We Portlanders have a real concern because so often, the precipitation that falls in frigid temperatures is not snow, but ice. I don't care where you live, ice is really dangerous. But luckily, the ice never showed and our light dusting of snow made the roads pretty, not messy.
Happily, the frozen tundra-like conditions did not cancel water aerobics today. I did shallow water again (for the second time since I started) and really enjoyed it. The workout is very different, and my body hurts in all new ways. Woo hoo. Actually, my arms have been aching since Saturday's massive arm workout, then the class yesterday and today were both all about arms, too. Yowza. They want a break.
Speaking of learning new ways to be more effective, the instructor gave us a new visualization to help with abdominal work. Instead of simply focusing on the movement of legs and chest when doing crunches in the water, she had us imagine that there was a large sponge on our stomachs and that we were squeezing the water out of the sponge every time we did a crunch. Holy cow! That was MIGHTY effective and my muscles are aware of their workout.
In other news, Monday was my second phone interview with Kaiser and it turns out that I'm back in the running for the manager position, as well as the consultant. The manager is more about strategy and the consultant role is more about implementation. I enjoy both parts, although given the choice, I'd pick the more strategic role if offered. Either way, the more I hear about the jobs and the team and their plans... the more I'd like to be a part of it. Wish me luck.
One final thing. I forgot to publish the blog last night, so I can add a line from this morning. We experienced "freezing fog" here today. The fog descended while we were in the pool and when we came out, the parking lot had a layer of frozen fog on it. It was slightly slippery to walk on, with no impact to driving, but it looked really cool. I don't remember ever seeing anything like it.
Be happy and healthy!
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