Today I had two firsts:  my first visit to a "fro-yo" place, and my first blogger meet up! 

I know the blog world is abuzz about frozen yogurt places where you can mix all kinds of stuff together and top it with a variety of toppings and then pay by the weight.  I never had occasion to go before, because I am more of a "go out for coffee" kind of person. 

But then Clare organized a St Louis Blogger Meet Up, and I thought, why not?  I’m not really a food or healthy living blogger, so I wasn’t sure if I would fit in, but I figured worse case I would have wasted an hour or so.  We decided to meet in Kirkwood at Red Mango, which is (of course) a frozen yogurt shoppe.

The photo is courtesy of Clare at Fitting It All In.  She had her camera out and I suddenly got really shy about whipping mine out also (plus I was holding a cup of frozen yogurt).  I guess I’m not used to hanging out with other bloggers, as generally I have my camera out! 

That’s Clare, Rachel, Laura, me, and Stephanie.  We had a great time chatting and I hope we can get together again (though Clare is moving to Dallas).  It was funny meeting other bloggers, and especially meeting Clare since she really tells it all on her blog.  I felt both super creepy and yet like we were already friends. 

I would definitely go to another blogger meet up.  It’s great to meet new people who are interested in many of the same things as me, and ALWAYS great to meet new people outside of the music world.  I would go to another frozen yogurt place if other people wanted to, but I wouldn’t seek one out.  I’m just more of a gelato person, I guess 😉

Wow, the tops of my legs were really sore yesterday.  I’m told those are called “quads”.  I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know.  I did spend about 30 minutes during “Covert Affairs” using the foam roller.  That thing is painful!  But supposedly helpful.

Chris often asks what I do in my workouts with Mike.  The sad truth is…I usually don’t remember.  He’ll ask what muscles I am working out, and I’ll answer, you know, legs, or arms, or whatnot.  Even when I know what muscle an exercise is supposed to be working, often I feel it somewhere entirely different.  Usually in my right wrist or left shoulder…oh wait, that’s probably a problem (violin-related I’m sure.)  Oh, and sometimes I don’t remember because we goof off a lot and I am easily distracted.  Nonetheless I generally get an awesome workout!  Somehow.  Or maybe I don’t.  I could be totally wrong.  I’m not trained.

I guess that’s why I need a personal trainer.  I am completely unable to do weight lifting without being told what to do.  It’s as if my brain shuts off when my muscles start working.  Peter Sagal has the same problem (from Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me) and wrote a great article in the July edition of “Runner’s World”.  One could argue that I COULD do a proper workout on my own and I simply don’t have to, therefore I can’t, but I might disagree.  It worries me…what will I do when I no longer have a personal trainer?  Yes, in an ideal world I would ALWAYS have one, but I’m sure there will come a point when I’ll stop.  Or maybe at that point I will feel ready to move on?  Has anyone experienced this?  I’ve been working out with a trainer for about 1 1/2 years.  (Mike is my second trainer.  My first trainer left the gym to become a car salesman, but then came back.  I had already moved on though.  No hard feelings of course—Joe was and still is awesome.)

And no, I’m not rich!  I just think it’s important, because I have never felt better in my entire life.  Yes, I am lucky to be able to afford a trainer.  But I rent in a cheap area, have a fairly small place, wear clothes from Target and Old Navy, and do not have a huge TV.   Fiscal matters are often a matter of choice.  My TV is over ten years old.  Lucky too, because the thieves didn’t want it.

(that baby doesn’t need a trainer, he probably could train me!)

Okay, I AM rich.  But not in money.  In friendships and love and fat cats.  And I am rich in comparison to most of the world’s population.

Now you know if you are a millionaire or not.  I wasn’t sure before.  Now I know.  (I am not telling you the answer.)

How is your Friday going?  I am looking forward to my day immensely.  I don’t have any tremendous plans for the weekend, and Sunday I must wake up early and drive to Kansas for Suzuki Institute Teacher Training (can’t wait!)  Should be great 🙂

If you are coming here from Skinny Runner’s Blog, WELCOME!

You may have read a quick recap of me there:  basically I blog about nothing, running, violin, teaching children, going out to dinner with friends, and wedding planning (fairly new).  I play and teach violin for a living.  I also have an adorably fat cat.

Yes, she’s judging you.

I wrote a post last night to post this morning about wedding planning because I did want to keep people up to date on what was going on…but it only has one photo…boring.  I had more photos to share, but my camera battery was dead and I was recharging it.

It’s a brand new camera for me, a bright pink Canon PowerShot Elph, and I love it!  It was a birthday present from my dear fiancé Chris, and so far has made one man practically vomit (funny story:  my friend Jen asked him to take a picture of a group of us, he agreed, I handed him my camera, and in a funny, nauseous sounding voice, he said, oh my god it’s a pink camera.  I just smiled.)

That’s my fiance, Chris.  He thinks he’s bad at taking pictures, so we’ve been practicing.  I mean, after all, I have a WEDDING coming up and he will be on camera all the time!  Our photographer says she has lots of tips and she will really work with him to help out.

We went out the other night to celebrate our friend Kyle’s birthday.

I’ve been working on my candid shots.  I took that picture and afterwards a few people looked up and wondered where the lightning came from.  I like the picture though, really shows the seriousness of the situation.  Birthdays are serious business.

Other than the fact that I seemingly have no eyelashes, I like this picture.  I remembered to put my arm away from my body—that’s another tip from the photographer.

Last night I met up with my friend Laura and her in-laws to take a walk up to the Compton Hill Water Tower.  It’s a cool looking water tower that you are able to climb up, but it’s only open on occasion Saturdays and evidently on the evenings of full moons in the summer.  We noticed that was last night, so decided it was an excellent activity for out of town folks.

Views of the tower at night and at day.

View of Grand Boulevard from the top of the tower.

There were 198 winding steps up to the top.  Since I am a super hard core exerciser (if you read previous posts you’ll know this 😉 ) it was NO problem for me, but I did start to get a little freaked out by the heights.

Today my legs are really sore.  I don’t know if it’s from that, from my run yesterday, or from all the lunges my trainer made me in our workout yesterday.  (Yes, I have a trainer.  If you’re new you should know that.  I have lost over 40 pounds in the past 1 1/2 years, and I workout with a trainer twice a week.  He’s awesome, and we ran a race together last month.  He beat me.  He also beat almost everybody else.  His name is Mike and you should train with him too.  Then you can look like me.)

That’s me and Mike (it was an 80’s themed costume race, I don’t always dress like that.)

Anyway, that’s everything so far in a nutshell.  I’m debating if my legs are too sore for a run this morning…

Thanks for stopping by and come again soon!  Every post is different and random, but I try to keep it entertaining.  What do you think?

Also, here are some other recent posts you might like:

If it isn’t posted on the internet, has it really happened?

Summer Retreat Day 5:  Body Image

A Night at the Circus

I haven’t written about my wedding recently, so I thought I’d give you a little update.  I believe the last time I really talked about was after we set our date.

We’ve made a lot of progress, and I’m enjoying the planning.  Chris has been wonderful (of course) and super helpful, and we’re enjoying planning an event that will showcase our relationship and our love, yet also be fun for our friends and family (hopefully, and please try not to vom after reading that.)

Here’s what we’ve done so far:  We set the date of 1/2/12 at Moulin for the ceremony AND reception.  Our reception will be a sit down dinner, and there will be a cocktail hour in between.  We’ve hired an officiant to marry us, someone we have worked with in the past, a woman that will write a ceremony for us that we will be happy with.  We found awesome invitations online that just need a bit of tweaking to make them more special, and the woman who does them lives locally!  (We are super close to sending out save-the-dates…).  And most recently we hired a photographer who is the mother of one of my students who gave us an excellent deal plus we really love her style. 

What’s next on the agenda?  We are currently working on the music end of it—we want a band for the reception (let’s not go there yet for the ceremony…I can’t…I just can’t…  Also we are working on the registry, hotel accommodations for the guests, and starting to think about flowers, cake, and of course…my dress.  I also have generally figured out hair and makeup for myself and the bridesmaids.  When I get back from Kansas I need to do some dress shopping though, and I have two friends here I plan to bring with me to be brutally honest.

So that’s pretty much what’s going on with wedding planning.  I don’t want to give anything away, so I don’t want to give too many details!  For instance, I’m super excited about our save the dates, but I don’t want to post anything here yet.  And the save the dates are part of a greater theme for our invitations, and likely for the programs as well.  It all works together, plus I realized that I just love paper.  

Unrelated to wedding planning:  My facebook free week is going pretty decently.  I had to log on the other day to verify addresses, and YES I post my blog there but that doesn’t require logging into facebook.  I am glad I’m doing it.  People doubt my ability to go facebook free, but seriously, it’s the best week ever 😉

Last but not least:  What do you think of this?

http://www.pottermore.com/

Try not to pee yourself with excitement. I may have.

Okay, I’m a BIT dramatic.  You all know that already.  I had a glorious weekend, and now I’m exhausted, sore, and plan to spend the night at home making dinner, watching a movie, helping with the laundry (I have a ridiculously awesome laundry situation), and perhaps dyeing my hair.  So there’s no real “blues” happening…especially since this week is pretty darned easy, and I no longer work Monday mornings.

*cue blues music*

*turns off blues music*

It’s just that the weather today is SO beautiful, and I’m worried it’s going to go away.  Maybe I should check.

Hmm…that doesn’t look GREAT, though at least the temperatures are reasonable.  I probably shouldn’t have looked.

Okay, so how WAS my weekend?  It was great.  I’ll share some random pictures and later I’ll tell you about St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival, okay? (Later, as in, another blog post)

In a nutshell this has been my weekend (in case you are behind on my blog, or we haven’t talked recently, heaven forbid!):

Thursday:  Hot Concert  (aka Chamber Project St Louis concert followed by the Three Monkeys)

Friday:  Klinghoffer (aka afternoon opera, teaching, dinner at Basil Spice and drinks at Frazer’s and Yemanja Brasil)

Saturday:  Two weddings, St Louis BrewFest, party in the backyard with the new upstairs neighbors.

Sunday:  Run around Forest Park (so EASY in this delightful weather), Recital at St Louis Ballet School (students played GREAT!), gym workout, and now doing stuff at home.  Just got “True Grit” for the tivo…anybody seen that?

What are you doing tonight to regroup?  I love having easy Sunday nights at home sometimes.

The concert yesterday went well, with one caveat:  the air-conditioning was broken!  They did their best to have fans and such, but seriously, it’s hot here.  I know people existed for a long long time without air-conditioning, but not anymore.

Thanks to all of you who came out though!  It was a full house, even with the heat.  I only played on the last piece, so I got to watch the first half.  Chamber Project St Louis did a fantastic job!

Afterwards we hit up the Three Monkeys where I decided to test out my new camera.  I need to play around with it more.  Plus, since I’ve been trying to be a good blogger and take more pictures, my friends are getting annoyed at me.  EVIDENTLY some people don’t just love getting their picture taken all the time.  But that is not my problem.  I don’t take pictures of people I don’t like (well, unless they are really funny looking 😉 ) so please consider it a compliment rather than a punishment.

Does anybody else find it strange that I have the exact same expression in both of these photos?

Melissa and me, Todd, Katie

Vanessa, Kyle (who played on the concert with me).

Some of the other pictures I took were terrible.  Oh well, you’ve seen the other people before.

Anyway, a quick public service announcement:  if you have pizza and beer late at night, chances are you will hurt in the morning when you go for a run.  Plus the self-hatred of having eaten pizza when you are supposed to be trying to lose weight.  Grrr.

Today:  First I am attending the dress rehearsal of The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams.  It’s performed by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis with the symphony, and (naturally) I have a comp ticket (yes, they evidently sell tickets to the dress rehearsal as well.)  Then I go teach, my last day of maternity leave teaching at the St Louis School of Music.  I’ve had a wonderful time teaching some fabulous students and will miss them.  Tonight I’m getting together with some of my girlfriends for a quasi-ladies night, meaning, all ladies, but we may not do anything more crazy than simply gossip.

Tomorrow:  Two weddings, and then I’m going to St Louis Brewers Festival in Forest Park.  Likely Jen and I will simply camp there overnight and then wake up early to run…saves a lot of trouble.

Sunday:  My last student recital of the spring!!  Two of my students at St Louis Ballet School are performing on the recital.  I will be accompanying on piano…which means today I need to take advantage of the piano in my studio.

Do you have big plans for the weekend?