I just can’t.  This is one of THOSE pictures.  My friend Katie and I kept flashing it at each other last night on our phones and groaning because it is just too cute.

From his (my friend Laura and Jon’s new baby Benjamin’s) newborn shoot with Stephanie Cotta.  More down below.

Vanessa held him tonight at our house.  She must have smelled funny because he had to cover his nose.

Embarrassing for him that he’s wearing the same pants I last saw him in…

Are those the fingers of a violinist?  I guess he got used to Vanessa after all.

Lucky for us he slept long enough that Mom and Dad could eat dinner and visit with friends.  He’s still very small.  We wondered if my cat would find and try to sit on him, but she kept her distance from everyone (she hates noise.)

Chris manning the grill.  This was before he hurt his ankle playing Nintendo 64 Mario Golf.  Don’t ask, because I honestly don’t know what happened.  The brats were fantastic though!  Too bad it was actually really cold.  Oh well, we’ll try again another day.  The bowling team represented in full force.

My man and his best man (if he’s the best man, why didn’t I marry him?  shouldn’t he just have been a really good man?)

Another beautiful picture.  If Laura weren’t my friend, I’d totally hate her because she is so beautiful! 

Happy Monday, friends!  I’ve got a full day of teaching children ahead.  What are you up to?

I had thought I might go for a run (or a walk) outside today but the weather doesn’t look that cooperative.  I suppose I’ll head to the gym—might as well use my membership for something!  I know they say you don’t lose all your fitness in a week, but I really feel like I have…I will probably be huffing and puffing no matter what I do.

I was asleep by 11:30 last night, which  is unusual for me on a Saturday night.  Is that a sign of getting old?  I was out with friends for dinner beforehand at the Royale—I tried just about everything on their menu that had ginger beer in it and of course had the fish tacos. Later, after his concert, Chris was over at our friend’s house with the new baby but I just didn’t have the energy.  Probably by the time I see him again he’ll have doubled in size. (That would put him approximately the same size as the cat, if you are comparing.)

I was too tired to do overnight oats, so I just made three eggs (with some cheese) for breakfast.  It was a nice, but not enough food.  I’m still hungry.  I’ll probably just deal with it.  I don’t feel like making anything else.  I accidentally spilled a container of blackberries on the floor getting the eggs out of the fridge, and debated washing them but decided against it and just trashed them.

We are having Chris’s bowling team plus a few extras over for a barbecue this evening.  The orchestra has another concert, which I had considered attending, but I think I’ll have too much to do.  I’ve got to buy food for the barbecue and maybe make a side dish and a dessert.  One thing I’ve been doing lately is trying to clear out our freezer—I froze a bunch of goodies over Christmas and I’ve slowly been thawing them.  Yesterday I took out the extra part of our wedding cake (NOT the top tier, we’ll still have that) and thought we’d better eat it sooner rather than later.  Maybe that’ll be on the menu tonight.  Or maybe it’ll be too gross?  (I definitely didn’t open the container and stick my finger into the icing last night.  I wouldn’t do something like that.)

Though I’m still a little disappointed in the lack of purple-ness in the cake, it is a good looking cake and it was delicious. 

Update on the shoulder (especially as my mother reminded me via twitter yesterday I had said I’d been going to the doctor if it weren’t better in a week):  I really do think it’s improved a bit.  It’s not where I’d hoped, but I’ve unfortunately been unable to completely go without playing—there’s just no way to teach the classes at City Academy without playing and I hate to go without in private lessons as well.  I’ve been trying to not overplay during the lessons and I don’t think it’s truly bothering it.  I think it just needs more time.  Unfortunately Wednesday through Friday of this week I will have to play for the upcoming encore performance of our Chamber Project St Louis concert (if you didn’t come the other week, you should come to this one if you can!).  But then I’ll be back to resting it, and perhaps for even longer if necessary.  If it sounds like I’m just avoiding the doctor, well I am.  But what are they going to say?  Rest and ice.  Stop playing the violin.  I am not in constant pain and it’s not broken.

How are you spending your Sunday?

I have a few wonderful things to share with you today.  Some of this stuff you’ve probably already seen if you active in the internet world, but it’s possible you’ve missed some of these, and they are well worth a read or watch.  Especially if you are stuck in the office until 5 pm but don’t want to work because it’s Friday.  (I have no idea what that even means, starting with the word "office" as I am a musician who generally STARTS work Fridays at 5 pm, but I’m making an attempt to relate to the rest of the world, who have jobs during the day, and also, as my dad pointed out, live in Eastern Time.)

Video of "The Best Workout Ever"  (really, very funny)

I posted it on facebook the other night and this happened.  (Sorry Vanessa but now you are internet famous!)

Other funny stuff you should check out:

I Re-Watched Titanic So You Don’t Have To.  You’re Welcome.

33 Animals Who Are Extremely Disappointed In You

The Most Hilariously Depressing Cat Video on the Entire Internet

I hope you have wonderful weekend plans.  I have some teaching tomorrow morning (ugh, makeup lessons, and that is violin lessons that have been missed and must be made up) and then a wedding at the Jewel Box…but then I’m free until Monday morning!!  I didn’t think I would make it through this week, what with teaching the children and all, but things look promising at this point.

I’ll leave you with another facebook "gem" that includes Vanessa again.

Born April 17, 7 pounds, 7 ounces.  I think he is possibly the smallest baby I’ve ever held.  I think Carrie weighed more than that?

Mommy and baby.  (My friend Laura and her husband Jon, this is their first baby.  He’s adorable.)

Yes, I know I skipped a week.  But it’s time for week two of Oatmeal Madness!!!

(For part one, go here).

Last night Chris and I were discussing the grocery list (yes, it’s a discussion when I go shopping because I hate to bring a list unless I am making a big and important meal—I feel like trying to remember the list is a great mental exercise, so we talk about what we need) and I asked him if he wanted me to buy him more cereal.  He still eats cereal for breakfast, even though it is evidently THE WORST THING EVER.  He said yes, even though he admitted it was definitely the reason he was so fat (Chris likes to say he’s fat a lot.  For the record, he is one of the least fat people I have known.) Later that night I was changing and I admired my emerging abdominal muscles in the bedroom mirror.  Chris may have rolled his eyes at me, but I know Chris is totally jealous of my abs—abs that are starting to show SIMPLY because I no longer eat cereal.

Because that’s not a six pack.

I am so much tanner.  And my abs are more defined now than in this picture from our honeymoon, but possibly only in my head.  I feel like taking a picture of them right now would be borderline pornographic, and that’s just not the sort of blog I’m running.  I’ll get a picture later, when it seems appropriate, like at the beach.

Boy do I wish we were on a tropical vacation now, that would be awesome! (pictures from here and here)  But I digress.

What was I talking about?  Oh right, oatmeal.

It’s been two weeks since my last post.  Since then I’ve eaten a fair amount of oatmeal.  I haven’t taken pictures of all of it though.  I had a bit of a blogger fail while I was at my parent’s house and didn’t take enough pictures.  Rest assured I have been eating either oatmeal or protein/fruit smoothies for breakfast.  My parents have a microwave so I decided to take advantage of it and make oatmeal in the microwave—quaker oats, water, microwave, stir, add protein powder and fruit on top.  Maybe a little milk to add a bit of creaminess.  Why yes, I am actually giving you a “recipe” for oatmeal.  Should I make a tab at the top for these recipes?

I got a few questions from my last post which I shall address now.  Leslie asked, what if I don’t want to cook in the morning, OR prepare my oats the night before?  That’s an excellent question.  My suggestion would be to try to get somebody else to do it for you.  That’s the best life advice I can offer you as well:  “Don’t do something yourself if somebody else can do it for you.”  It’s the opposite of what my friend Laura once said, which was “I prefer to do things myself rather than have somebody else do it wrong.” 

If you have any other oatmeal related questions (and I’m sure you do) please tweet, text, email, facebook, IM, google plus, or friendster message me.  You may also phone, telegram, mail, or send a passenger pigeon.  I’ll use some of the most popular questions in my next oatmeal post! Or I will make some up.  Either way, right?

*drumroll please*

Without further delay, here are some of my oatmeal pictures from the last two weeks!

This looks to be regular oatmeal, yogurt and blackberries.  Always with protein powder, I’ve got a lovely cake batter flavor happening right now.  That looks really delicious!

This is similar but it looks like I used a bit of peanut butter (or cookie butter, I’ll admit, I’m not above putting a dab of that in my breakfast even though I highly doubt Mike would approve) AND it looks too watery.  I only measure the protein powder and the oatmeal and then I add yogurt or milk or water to get what I think is the correct consistency.  This doesn’t look quite right.

I decided to try steel cut oats again.  I love them conceptually, but they are so chewy without cooking them.  It makes a pretty satisfying breakfast though.  This looks like I just added water, no yogurt, and those are indeed blackberries.

This looks like a winning breakfast, in my opinion.  And tons of delicious berries on it.  I would eat this all day long if I had enough.

Overnight oats in a jar!  BLOG WIN.  (OOIAJ)

We finished off a jar of peanut butter.  Oatmeal, protein powder, milk, and some chia seeds because I added too much milk.  Oh, and if you are fruit blind, those are blackberries.   This was absolutely delicious.  Probably because it contained massive amounts of peanut butter.

This made me gag a little when I took it out of the fridge.  Note to readers:  do not add chocolate peanut butter the night before.  It will look like poo the next morning.  Steel cut oats and strawberries rounded off this so-so breakfast.  And the strawberries were still a little frozen.  Not my favorite.

I didn’t have enough strawberries here.  Rolled oats and yogurt.  The strawberries were nice and juicy though, and that added awesome flavor.  I love strawberries after they have been frozen and then thawed.

There you have it!  Any questions?  (In addition to the other ways I listed of asking questions, and I think I left Google Buzz and Myspace off that list, you can naturally leave your questions in the comments, please do so!)

That concludes week two of Oatmeal Madness.  Thanks for reading!

So…I wrote about our concert with Chamber Project St Louis this Friday here.

Then I went to rehearsal and our saxophone player, Adrianne, was upset by the line “and some other stuff too.”  I should have mentioned the other stuff too!  (I hope she wasn’t actually upset and was only a little ticked at me, because I certainly meant no offense…)

Anyway.  I’m a violinist.  Of course I love the Brahms and Martinu most.  And I’m not even on one of the pieces.  But Adrianne is an amazing classical saxophonist, a rare breed really, and if you like saxophone, or, frankly, if you DON’T like saxophone, you’ll love her performances.  She does some amazing stuff with the instrument.

Friday night, 8 pm.  Last big concert of the season, and you won’t want to miss it!  Besides which, Chris and I are playing together, that’s a rare enough occurrence!

We’re all rehearsing like mad.  Please don’t ask how my shoulder feels.  We’re just putting everything on hold until after this Friday the 13th.  But I went to the gym tonight and it was great to be back.

Question:  is it okay to wear the amazing polka dot dress again or is it too soon?