We are having so much snow this winter. Yesterday ended up being another snow day—I was supposed to have a few students and an opera dress rehearsal and ended up having a day off. I’m trying not to freak out about the lost income and just go with the flow…the weather wasn’t nearly as bad as earlier in the month, but the roads were pretty bad for several hours. I drove over to a friend’s house after rush hour and it was pretty slow going…I didn’t have too far to go so it was doable though.

February is shaping up to be busy with all kinds of good stuff. There are tons of articles going around the internet about how “busy” isn’t a good answer for “how are you?” and how “busy” isn’t an answer, or a way of life, but the fact of being a freelancer and private teacher is: “busy” often means “making more money” and that’s certainly a good thing. “Busy” also often means feeling more worthwhile and getting a lot of great work done, so I’m not afraid to say “busy” when somebody asks how I am. I like “busy” when it’s for good reasons rather than just for “busy”’s sake.

Okay, I’m done with quotations, I promise!

This weekend:

Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi: Friday night at 8 pm, Sunday afternoon at 3 pm. We had to move our dress rehearsal but I think that will only make the show better! It’s cold outside and there isn’t too much to do: come see an opera. For those of you who think opera isn’t for them, I suggest you reconsider. If you like movies or musicals, you’ll like opera. It’s dramatic, beautiful, silly, and it has subtitles so you can follow the story easily. I’m in the pit, so come say hello.

And Saturday morning:

I’m running with a friend for sure, and possibly more people I know are doing it. Are you? This is part of a series of events all day allowing folks to be out on the new bridge before it opens for traffic. It’ll be cold, but I’ll be there NO MATTER WHAT. (This is a personal response to my chickening out of a race in December, but I’m feeling far more hard core these days.)

I know it’s only Wednesday, and I’m already talking about the weekend, but let’s not fool ourselves: the older we get, the faster time flies. Lots going on in St Louis this weekend and lots of rehearsals and teaching to get through before then!

Oh, and I went to the gym and did squats the other day. I hadn’t been for awhile, and I’ll tell you what. I’m sore.

And busy. Did I mention busy? 🙂

My fellow blogger Katie from Mom’s Little Running Buddy runs an event called Celebrate Fitness on March 8th.  I wanted to tell you guys about the event because I thought some of you might be interested– in addition to a 5k/10k race there are all kinds of great workouts being offered, and the proceeds from the event benefit the Siteman Cancer Center, which is fantastic.

Celebrate Fitness Beneficiaries

ALVIN J.SITEMAN CANCER CENTER at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital is a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Comprehensive Cancer Care Center and is an international leader in patient care, cancer research, prevention, education and community outreach.

THE YOUNG WOMEN’S BREAST CANCER PROGRAM at Siteman Cancer Center is dedicated to providing support, raising awareness and conducting research focused on the unique issues surrounding breast cancer diagnosed in women under the age of 44. Of the over 180,000 women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer, over 12% will be 44 or younger. These women experience higher recurrence rates and the lowest five-year and overall survival rates. There is little research focused specifically on young women with breast cancer and few support programs available to them.

THE DIRECTOR’S DISCOVERY FUND enables Siteman Cancer Center’s director to respond to promising new discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, providing the most advanced patient care in the region. Siteman Cancer Center is changing the face of cancer through personalized therapies, impacting the lives of its patients and those who love them.

I wasn’t able to attend last year, but this year I can! I’ll be doing the bootcamp class. I considered the run but decided it would be more fun to do something more unusual (and it starts just a little bit later, ha!)

Have any readers done this event in the past?

Okay, here’s all the basic information you need to know:

Date: March 8th, 2014

Location: Washington University Athletic Complex

Registration Fee:

• $30 in advance
• Junior Registration for ages 13 – 19 = $20
• Day of Registration = $35; Junior $25

Time:

• 6:30 am 5k/10k Check-in & Registration
• 7:30 am 5k/10k run begins
• 7:30 am Workout Events Check-in & Registration
• 8:30 am to 10:00 am Workouts Begin

Event Options:

• 10K Competitive Run
• 5K competitive Run
• 5K Walk
• 1 Mile Fun Walk
• Boot Camp
• Water Aerobics –Shallow
• Water Aerobics – Deep
• Yoga
• Zumba

See the registration form for more details.

Participants get to choose between a shirt and a goodie bag.  Katie tells me the goodie bags are filled with great stuff and that that is one of her favorite parts of the event.  I have tons of shirts, so I chose the goodie bag—I can’t wait to see what it is!

Come on March 8 and get your workout on to Celebrate Fitness!

At least for now. I just finished quartet rehearsal and I have the rest of the day off. I’m thinking I should start teaching some students on Friday but that means having 1) more students 2) those that want to come on Fridays. I don’t want to teach late on Fridays though, as it’s nice to occasionally have a social life.

Oh hey! I just dove right in there, and forgot to say Hi and welcome to my blog. It feels new, doesn’t it, since I have barely blogged recently. You are all probably wondering what on earth I have been doing.

(That’s not me, that’s my friend April)

The main thing I’ve been doing (besides teaching, of course) is getting ready for my quartet’s upcoming concert. Here’s the link to the facebook event page. We are playing Beethoven and Grieg at the Tavern of Fine Arts on January 31 at 8 pm. If you can make it, I’d love to see you there! If you can’t, we will be having more performances as the year goes by (we are busy making plans). 2014 is shaping up to be a great year of chamber music, between my quartet, playing sonatas with my friend Jennifer on piano, and who knows what other opportunities will come up!

We’ve been dealing with crazy weather here, like everywhere else. Extreme cold, tons of snow, oddly warm weather, extreme cold…January is hitting hard and flying by, and I’m happy about one of those. I’ve been doing some running, but it is just SO hard to get out the door when the wind chill is 5 degrees. I’m running fairly regularly these days, (albeit slow, I’m slow, I know, forgive me) as I’ve signed up for a couple races, some with friends. The soonest one is going to be a lot of fun: it’s the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge Run on February 8. The race goes over a brand new bridge they have been building here, and it’s a 6k so for me, automatic PR (ha!). I’ll DEFINITELY be there—I signed up with a friend and we have decided we are taking no excuses—we will run in the rain, cold, sleet, what have you– (Barring broken legs and that sort of injury of course)—so I’ve got that looming, and a half marathon in April, and all of that is getting me out the door. Well, mostly. I’ve been skipping the gym for a few months, but I’ve gotten back into home workouts as well, and have been enjoying a ton of body weight exercises in addition to whatever I can come up with with the hand weights I own. I’m feeling pretty good!

Last weekend was really busy with a few work things, including a Suzuki Teacher Workshop on Sunday covering all kinds of scale and advanced technique ideas for students. I love getting ideas on how to be an even better teacher. Teaching is such a solitary activity (well, just me and the students) so it’s wonderful when teachers gather together to learn from each other and bounce ideas around, or when a more experienced teacher gives a workshop. I try to attend as many of this sort of thing as I can, but my schedule doesn’t always permit.

I got this fun little Vegan Cuts Holiday Beauty Box in the mail as part of being a Girls Gone Sporty Ambassador and was asked to write a short review. I thought I’d share it with you guys too, in case you are into little subscription boxes.

I was really excited to open the box, because I love these kinds of boxes. I don’t always love paying for them (ha!) as I have to be careful what products I spend my money on and often end up with tons of stuff I don’t use much of. I really liked the collection of products. The variety is really nice: nail polish, lip balm, cleanser, soap, face powder, eye shadow, and a cute little change purse. I also love the concept that no animals were harmed and that makes me feel good about the products, even though I’m not a vegan. 

I would consider subscribing to the service for a reasonable rate ($10 or so, and unfortunately the subscription is twice that…) but wouldn’t want to get so many nail polishes again! I like the colors, but I generally only paint my toenails once a month or so (and not my fingernails at all) so it will take me a long time to even try them all. I love the face products and they are the perfect amount, or perhaps even more of the powders would be great. The change purse is adorable, like I said, and I enjoy getting a little something that you hang onto after trying the products.

This cat tricked me. I thought he was indicating that he wanted me to pet his belly, but I was incorrect. I did not correctly determine if there was empathy or murder in his eyes. I managed to escape unscathed, but it could have gone very wrong.

I feel like the time period between Christmas and New Years is like a lame duck session of Congress. People might be back to work but they’ll just be off again. You can try to eat better and get back in a routine but it’s just going to get messed up again. One almost says why bother?

Unrelated: I didn’t get these shoes for Christmas but I wish I had.

I’m heading home tomorrow. I guess I will be getting back on a bit of a schedule. It’s been a good few says but I’m ready to get back to my place. Visiting my hometown makes me feel like my life isn’t quite real and I’m ready to get back to my reality.