Happy Epiphany!

Time marches on. Christmas is over, and we are well into Epiphany. We had a nice trip visiting family on Coronado after Christmas, and then resolved to lose some weight in the new year. One of the side effects of my surgery in August was weight gain, and I was up 15-20 pounds from where I had been previously. I didn't worry about this too much during my recuperation - I figured that my body needed to heal, so it was not a time to try to lose weight, but we are far enough along now that the timing seemed right. It is harder this time around, but I am making slow but sure progress, and am down nearly 10 pounds from my high. At least I was this morning!

I am continuing the substitute teaching, and this week was particularly nice in that I was able to fill in for music teachers three days in a row. Some of the kids are pretty amazing, and we were able to bring some good musicality to their playing. This morning I had a beginning band with about 10 kids one period, and one of them came up to me at the end of class that he really felt they had learned something. Moments like that are really wonderful.