On hold until futher notice... in the meantime, cookies

The Aspen update, that is. Not because I'm lazy and putting it off, but because for once I'd like to include pics with my post... and since I don't have a camera (lame, I know) I rely on stealing my friends' pictures from Facebook... so until the rest of the Tour crew posts their photos on their respective Facebooks, no Aspen post. Hopefully they will load them soon.

In the meantime...

Yesterday kicked me square in the arse. It was just a bad day all around... I was exhausted, classes were terrible and nothing was going right. I was ready to blow a gasket by the time I got home last night around 10. So as I drove home from work tonight I decided to take advantage of a rare occasion - an entire evening open, gasp! - and play in the kitchen. Cooking and baking are huge stress relievers for me. I love being in my kitchen. I rarely get to cook these days and I really miss it.

Tonight I baked oatmeal cranberry cookies and the process was the perfect antidote to yesterday. I don't think I've been this relaxed in a long time... and I mean both physically and mentally. Sometimes I think that the mental strain of my schedule hits me harder than the physical. That thought occurred to me last night while in my last rehearsal of the day. I was fighting with my body to just move, as I had been fighting with it all day long. My body checked out during my first class yesterday, which made for a v-e-r-y long day... hello?? arms? legs? you guys want to join me today, do some dancing maybe?? I didn't understand what was going on, as I had slept fine the night before (or so I thought) and I didn't dance throughout the day as much as I usually do on Mondays. Then it hit me - I think the mental stress of the preceding weeks (Student Dance Concert prep, Tour, the trip to Aspen) was finally catching up to me physically. I thought, crap, if I don't calm the eff down, I'm going to get sick or injured. And then I thought, I need to get my arse into the kitchen.

And so I did.