Nursing and Hiking

My break ended with a bang back in to real life.  The last few weeks of the semester were always hectic and rushed for me as a student, and they feel the same way now as a teacher.  Dance is also in full swing, with our first competition in Minneapolis creeping up in a few weekends.  In the middle of all of this, I ended up spending a long Easter weekend in the cities taking care of my brother as he recovered from ACL reconstructive surgery!
We stayed at his girlfriend's apartment, which is probably good, since she cooks.
Really well.

Especially omelettes. :)
She's also incredibly talented artistically, and it was really cool to check out her latest work on the easel!

I got to play with her kitty Raja, a poofball of a cat around the same age as my black kitties at home.

She helped me miss my kitties a little less when she snuggled up next to me on the couch at night, purring away. :)
We basically hung out and helped Kyle when he needed to move around, brought him whatever food he seemed hungry for, and kept him company while he watched several movies and began Arrested Development.

He has to be off his feet for at least 5 days, which doesn't bode well since on day 1 he told us that he was already bored.
I used the time watching movies to get farther on the Dude Sweater, which is over halfway through the harder colorwork on the back.  It took awhile to get used to doing colorwork on the wrong side of the fabric, but I'm finally getting the hang of it and getting in a good groove.  I'll update with some pictures later!
I definitely caught some sort of bug as the week started up again, and felt really out of it the last few days.  Lots of naps and time on the couch cut into grading time.  I finally felt a little better yesterday in the morning, and when my friend Alex let me know that she was in town and looking for an adventure, we set off for an afternoon hike at Gooseberry Falls!

It was a beautifully day, if not a little chilly.  The river was still mostly frozen, but the sections that weren't pulsed with movement.

Most of it was still gloriously frozen, even right next to Lake Superior with waves rolling up to the pier!

I felt great for almost the entire hike, but got chilly quicker than I expected.

Getting in the warm car at the end of the hike felt good, and by the time we rolled back in to Duluth, I was so zonked I ended up crashing on my couch for most of the rest of the evening.  Scott treated me to some stir-fried veggies on quinoa for dinner (gotta love a guy that cooks), and I managed to get through a little bit of grading before heading to bed early.  I'm a little lightheaded today, but I'm still glad I pushed it and got outside.  After all, it's not very often I can get outside on a nice day with a friend!
Lots more projects to end the week and start the weekend, and hopefully I can finally kick whatever has been keeping me zonked.  If I slow down.
::snort:: We'll see how that goes...