All posts by hannahviolin

I am a violinist. I also enjoy running, working out, reading, and hanging with my friends and cat.

My blog in China

Today is my brother’s birthday—Happy Birthday Jesse!  He is currently in China for the summer. 

Monday night I was under the impression it was July 10th, and I thought China was 12 hours ahead, so I dashed off a quick HB email to him.  A little bit later I realized it was actually July 9th and I was early, so I sent a quick "oh, hai, I messed up but HB anyway" email.  Oh well, better early than late, right?  Anyway, Jesse responded and mentioned that he reads my blog there too, but can only see the text, not the pictures.  I suppose he doesn’t mind—he’s really only missing out on a bunch of cat pictures and the occasional bloodied or bruised leg or foot. 

I don’t see Jesse very often, but of course he was at my wedding.  However, I barely got a chance to talk to him—I thought I would have more time the next day but I didn’t realize he was leaving early.  Oops.  Hopefully at Leslie’s wedding I’ll have more time. 

Now I’ll post some pictures of Jesse, and he won’t be able to see them.  *evil laugh*

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Mom and Jesse

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Jesse, Mom, Dad, me, Chris, Leslie, Carrie. 

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Carrie, Jesse at our rehearsal dinner the night before…

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Oh, and here we were.  I’m guessing Christmas 1980, since it seems to be pre-Leslie.  We used to be natural blondes.

Statigram

I just found out about Statigram.  It tells you about your stats on instagram (follow me @hannahviolin, or don’t, because I totally post my "best" work here on the blog).  I think this photo pretty much sums up everything about me.

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Yep. One sarcastic text convo with Sarah, two pictures of my cat, my dad on a bike, and me in my wedding dress, laughing.  What else is there?

Statigram actually suggested I should open the email this was sent in on my iPhone and then instagram the photo.  That may have been the greatest suggestion ever.  Here’s the result of that.

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Now it looks OLD and even more awesome!  You’re welcome.

Cat in a bag

This happened while I was on the phone with Leslie the other day.  It’s her cat Albergo.

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I presume that Leslie has not allowed the cat to remove itself from the bag.  Hilarity and destruction would likely ensue in that scenario.

Things Leslie and I discussed via text message yesterday included what Chris should wear for her rehearsal dinner in October and what shoes I will be wearing for her wedding.  I’m not sure if we are getting ahead of ourselves, but the one thing I appreciate about my sister is that she likes to be ready for things ahead of time as well.

Chris got back into town last night (he had been visiting his family).  The cat was most appreciative.  I was less so because he came home with a bad cold and ended up passing out before 10 pm,  poor guy.  At least I was able to watch three episodes of True Blood (Season 3) before going to bed.

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You would think that I completely ignore the cat when he’s not around.  This is simply not true.  I don’t know why she likes him better.  Maybe I come across as too needy and desperate?

Last Tuesday of teaching for several weeks.  I am excited for vacation!

Pool Day

How was your weekend?  Mine was wonderful.  I was hard at work packing up my house, oh, and I spent Saturday at the pool.  Friday was a fun night as well, had some fun with the girls and hit up every restaurant and bar on Maryland Plaza in the Central West End.  (This is only a slight exaggeration.  I think we went to five different places before I really had to get home.)

But Saturday was for lounging by the pool.  Don’t judge.  You know I usually work hard.  (Okay, you don’t know that, but I swear I do.  Usually.  On occasion?  At least between birth and oh, 23 or so.)

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Firstly, I had to take this picture or you wouldn’t know that I was at a pool.  Those are my legs.  And my feet.  If you look closely you can see the blister on my right foot from the day before.  Note to self:  don’t wear new shoes for hours when you plan to walk or stand a lot.

Oh, and before I really talk about the pool, let’s talk about various self-inflicted wounds that I have happening. Friday night I bumped into a glass table and cut my knee.

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Do you see?  I was wearing shorts, I promise.  (It was over 105 degrees, shorts are perfectly acceptable going out clothing.)  This really stung, especially in the chlorine.  I like to think that the pool water helped clean it out.

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This one is a little harder to see, but those are bruises on my knees from burpees.

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Is that any better?  Yes, I know they aren’t dark bruises, but STILL they exist, and they hurt.

One last thing is that there is a lovely bruise next to my pinky toe on my right foot (same right foot with blister) from dropping a jar of peanut butter on it earlier in the week.  To sum it up:  I’m a disaster area.  It’s a miracle I’m still alive.

Okay, I promised to talk about the pool.  I went with my friend Jen to the Cheshire Inn.  They have a pool you can use if you spend $20 on food and drinks.  If you plan on lunch and a couple of drinks this is not a problem.  (Honestly, I feel uncomfortable telling you all that, because I don’t want it to get overcrowded.  So don’t tell everybody you know, okay?)

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I made Jen take this picture for the blog.  I am not sure why I was making a maniacal face.  Perhaps to distract you from my stomach?

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The Cheshire Inn is near the really large Amoco sign.  This is an actual thing.  If you say that in St Louis, people really know what you are talking about.

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Self Portrait. 

You have to get there early to claim the good chairs.   We had planned to arrive by 10:30 am.  I was exhausted when I woke up Saturday morning, and I was worried it would be too hot to go to the pool.  As in, I texted Jen whining that I thought I might be too tired and too hot to…lie around by a pool. Yeah.  These are not actual problems.  We decided to man up and go, since we’d been planning it for weeks (I am not usually that free on Saturdays.)

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Lunch!  Chicken salad and fruit.  I’m not a huge fan of the green melon (honeydew, I believe it is called), but the berries and pineapple warmed my heart.

All in all it was a wonderful day. 

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Saturday night I met some friends at Pi, my favorite pizza place in all of the world.  I made them order a deep dish because I am obsessed with it.  Then I was asleep by 11:30 I think. 

Sunday morning Jen and I "ran" Forest Park.  Even though it was approximately 20 degrees cooler than it has been…it was STILL too hot to really run.  The last couple miles were primarily walking as I thought I was going to pass out.  Lesson learned:  90 degrees is still hot, and I am stupid for not carrying water.

Sunday afternoon I packed a bunch of boxes, and then Sunday night I finally finished watching True Blood season two and started on season three.

I’m not sure why I felt like sharing all of this with you all, but hey, super exciting stuff, right?

And now it’s Monday.  Busy week ahead of packing and getting ready to move, as well as my last week of teaching until mid-August.  What are you up to?  HOW IS YOUR DAY SO FAR?

Packing and Steak

That’s yesterday in a nutshell.  Chris and I are moving to a slightly bigger place in less than two weeks now, so it’s getting to be serious packing time.  Since we were both off work yesterday we decided to dedicate some serious time to packing.

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The cat was, naturally, of no help at all.

I managed to pack up all of the books and music from the middle room.  We still have another medium sized bookcase to pack, but this was a big project.  I also packed up my desk, which was a disaster area.

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Some of the carnage.  Lifting heavy boxes is a wonderfully functional use of my hard earned muscles.  Though Chris is a gentleman and usually won’t let me mess with them too much.  Also there’s that nagging shoulder injury that likes to hurt after awhile.

After our hard work, it was time for dinner.  Steak, corn, cole slaw, with leftover brownies for dessert.

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Raw meat!

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Meat that is less raw.  We split these steaks.

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Brownies, with peanut butter chips in the batter AND on top.  YUMMY.  Though next time I need to add the chips on top earlier so they will melt a little. 

And movies.  It was a nice relaxing day with my family.  (I occasionally get confused when Facebook includes Chris as my family and then I remember that’s what being married means.  I’ll be more confused when Peter is included in that category, I think…or does it work that way? Either way I suppose I should stop saying I don’t have family in town, because I do.)

I’ll end with my favorite tweet from myself so far today.

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