Busy week! [and a long blog post as a result!]

What have I been doing?

* Played here. Julia joined in this week. She's good, and holds her own in front of a mic, especially for someone who hadn't touched her uke in a few months! Also test drove a Fluke, which has a really lovely, deep, strong tone.

* Successfully sold my flute to the lovely Amanda who was the first to put up her hand in the comments. We met at Lettuce Knit so she could take a peek and test drive and, despite some acting up on the flute's part, Amanda was confident that she wanted the flute so she took her home. I got a report a few days later that a misaligned spring was the cause of the acting up, and all is well now. I hope Amanda will be happy with her new flute!

* This meant I had funding to continue my obsessive browsing of sites like this. And narrowing down my choices.

* Drove to the local uke mecca [this means they have better stuff than the standard plastic cheapos, AND they have knowledgeable staff].

* Surrounded by skilled guitarists of all sorts who were test driving and intimidating me with their noodling that sounded good enough to record already, I tried the Fluke again and realized it was too big for my ridiculously small hands.

* Finally tried the Flea and realized that its more compact size [still providing big sound] was my solution. Meet Hurley:



He'll serve me well for many years to come. The Fluke I test drove last week was a 10-year-old one that the [really good] player still uses and loves and makes great music on.

I came home and found that, for some reason, I can play Hurley better than my little grape guy. Maybe it's my imagination, but the chords came easier. I sure did like practising on him.

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So that's where I've been all week. There was also time spent in my dentist's chair which resulted with a brand new $$$$crown$$$$ that has some of the metal showing through the enamel at the top after dentistman had to grind it down and down to fit in my mouth. Not impressed. Seems to me that the guy who made the crown screwed up. And yes, I'm going to get it fixed, as uncomfortable as that will be.

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Spring Knitty patterns were also finalized this week, and today is yes/no day when I send out the notices to everyone.

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There was also, happily, finalization on the question of the month: will I be able to go to Maryland Sheep & Wool this year, finally? The answer is yes!

I'm now figuring out how to arrange teaching gigs either at the festival or at a nearby shop. Advice welcome if you've done this before!

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Happy weekend, everyone! I'm going to recharge with a little tea and get down to the e-mails.