Sunday is the three month mark until our wedding!

Today we had a big tasting and planning meeting at our venue, Moulin Events. 

Absolutely the quality of paper we want for the menus.

Chris was super excited (as usual) when I whipped out the pink camera.

They asked if we were sisters!  (We’re not.)  Also, that was the BEST photo of me from today.  All others are worse.

Some appetizers that will be passed.  We enjoyed all of them but sadly had to narrow it down to three.

Some soup options…I love soup!

Entree and side dish choices.  Just a note:  cheddar polenta and cheese grits are surprisingly similar.

In any case, we were absolutely stuffed after the tasting.  We barely made a dent in the side dishes.  Everything was delicious, and it was a challenge to pare it down. 

After the tasting, Dave and Laura left and then we spent a couple hours going over room setups, timeline, and decor options.  It really feels like this is coming together! 

We still have a lot to do—but now we know what the food will be.  And the invitations go out tomorrow.  (Mom, so check your mailbox on Monday then, okay?)

I get so jealous when I see "Wine Wednesday" tags on twitter.  I WISH.  I suppose I could, but I don’t get home until late, and when I’m already tired, I don’t really feel like drinking wine.  I guess I’m jealous around 5 pm, which is when it seems the "normal folk" are done working, and when I have to leave for work on Wednesdays.  We violin teachers have the opposite schedule of normal folk, since you want your children to have lessons when you are free to drive them.

Nonetheless.  Wednesday is quickly becoming my favorite day of the week.  Tuesday is my busiest teaching day (soon to be over 5 hours of straight teaching, this, my friends, is actually exhausting), but then Wednesday I only have 2 hours of teaching at this time. 

What do I do with my time?  Well so far today I attempted a run—my hamstrings were still pulling a bit so I turned it into a walk.  I would have pushed through except that this weekend I am still hoping to run the Mo’ Cowbell Half.

I will run/walk it at least—it goes to show that the best laid plans don’t always turn out well.  Stupid injuries.

Next I got my hair done.  I have never had my hair dyed professionally, but I wanted to have it done for my wedding.  My hairdresser suggested we do it twice, once as a test, and then again closer to the wedding, so this was the test.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out, plus it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I thought it would be.

(yes, I know it’s completely unrelated.  but I’m giggling.)

Now I’m going to get lunch with a friend.  Oh, I also did a little practicing, and I’ll probably do a bit more of that after lunch.  Are you super jealous of my schedule?  I love it!  Would I like to work more?  Yes, actually, I’d love about 6 to 8 more hours of teaching over the week.  I’ll get there.  I don’t want to teach in the schools and I don’t really want to teach in the mornings, so that means I’ll have to be patient (story of my life!) and wait for my schedule to fill up more.  Remember I often work all day on Saturdays and more often than not on Sunday afternoons.  And often late into the evening.  So it’s not as amazing as it seems.

Who am I kidding?  I love my schedule.  Kids, if YOU give up your childhood to practicing the violin, someday you too can be like me.  Just spend 1 to 8 hours every day practicing, all day Sunday in youth orchestra, your summers to music camps, and your afternoons/evenings to lessons, driving to lessons, driving home from lessons…or like I said, practicing.  And by 1 hour, we really mean to average 3 or 4 every day in high school.  Some of that might have to be before school so you can fit it in.  (My point is:  I did my time so leave me alone.  And if I need to practice 3 hours a day, I can do that with this schedule.  That was not always the case in the past.)

Wow, this is probably the world’s most boring blog post!  Or borderline.  See, I’m driving YOU to drink (I bet…are you thinking about what sort of wine you have in the closet/cabinet?  Then my work here is done.)

I’ll just leave you with this picture of an "in-bread" cat. 

Happy Wine Wednesday!

In violin playing, pain is considered bad.  We’re not supposed to hurt when we play.  Granted, I hurt a lot of the time when I play, but I’m aware that that isn’t good.

Evidently I’m supposed to just deal with the pain, according to Mike.  Or the soreness.  My hamstrings have been really awful since last Thursday’s deadlifts, and my run Sunday really failed.  I told Mike today and he kind of laughed at me.  Especially after I told him I thought I had a high pain tolerance.  I suppose with my winning smile and ability to laugh at myself and everybody else it’s impossible for people to think that I am a truly hard-core individual.

 

Speaking of pain, here’s a link to my friend’s post about running a marathon over the weekend.

I do think I have a high pain tolerance though, for the most part.  Then again, maybe I’m not as tough as I like to think.  Who knows.

And Mike said he was kind of joking around.  Maybe I was being overly sensitive today.

As you know, my dad (@jerrydfrey) is still on his cross country bike trip.  He left South Carolina in late August, was in St Louis and left on September 10. 

He’s now somewhere in Texas (rumor has it he had plans to mess with Texas, but hopefully that wasn’t true.) My mother posted some pictures to facebook (which is shocking enough as is!) but I thought I’d steal them and post them here for your enjoyment.  Can you guess where these are taken?  Because seriously, we have no idea.

It appears to be some sort of campsite.  And yes, that’s how he’s been sleeping.  He carries that tent with him along with a sleeping bag and some sort of sleeping mat.  Along with everything else.  Solo bike trip, folks. 

This might be him crossing the Mississippi…I think he mentioned crossing by ferry.  Then again, I could be wrong.

 

Odd looking building.  There’s definitely a bench though.  Don’t know if that helps.

Have you seen this man?!?

Sunday afternoon was our "healthy living blogger" meet up at Pi in the Delmar Loop.  Real Fit Mama organized it, and there were going to be about 6 people at one point, but it ended up just being 3 of us (Kara was the other one) and ended up being really fun! 

I’ve mentioned before that while I certainly fraternize with the healthy living blogger community I don’t really consider myself a healthy living blogger per se.  That said, I obviously try to live in a fairly healthy way (key word TRY) and that can certainly mean different things to different people.  They always say that moderation is key to a healthy life, and moderation is probably my biggest struggle in life.  Nonetheless!  LUNCH.

First off, I love women who can put away their diet coke.  We all ordered it (arguably NOT healthy, but calorie free right?!) and I have to congratulate Kara for drinking perhaps four or five of them.  I could be wrong, but that seems about right.  Basically we talked about life, the universe, parenting, the symphony, blogging, and you know, just whatever we could think of.  Naturally it turned out that RFM and I already knew someone (in the symphony no less) and were already only two degrees apart.  I think everybody in St Louis is just two degrees or less from each other.  (Is there a way to study this?  Or was that the original concept behind Friendster?)

Inside the Delmar location of Pi—I’d only been to the one in CWE so this was a treat.  It seemed like a more casual feeling location.  Not terribly crowded for Sunday lunch either.

Forgot to take a picture from the outside…we sat inside as it was just a bit chilly for the outside.

We all ordered salads and split a small pizza.  I was STUFFED.  The deep dish pizza has this amazing cornmeal crust that occasionally appears in my dreams.  And their salads are gigantic and fantastic.  I had been nervous about meeting them (after all, I don’t have kids, how could I relate to somebody with two?  Turns out it’s highly possible!)

Me, Kara, and Maria . No, I wasn’t squatting down in any way.

I feel so lucky that in the past few months I have met some great people through my blog.  When I originally started writing I never intended to use it as a vehicle to meet new people, but as things have evolved its been a fantastic experience!

I hope that doesn’t mean I start using the word "blends".  Please shoot me if I do.

What is that from?  I don’t know, it just popped into my head.  I know it’s from something though.

I’m writing this post from the past (Saturday) because Sunday is pretty busy.  Jen and I are planning two loops of Forest Park tomorrow and Vanessa will join us for one.

(Probably not what we’ll be wearing.)

After that (assuming I live) I will be meeting Real Fit Mama and some other bloggers at Pi for a blogger meet up.  This is my second blogger meet up and I’m excited.  I think the pizza will taste really good after the run as well.

Then it’s wedding time.  Oh yeah.  Wedding at the Jewel Box.

Let’s talk about my blog briefly.  I always like to see how people are finding my blog.  There are two main ways:  from facebook, or from searching for the word “Cheese.”  Really.  Number one search for my blog!  ALL THE TIME.

Looks GOOD, right?  *wants*

Some other popular searches the past month:

Funny stretches in headband and tight shorts

Let’s assume they found one of these pictures:

I hate my trainer

Great post:  Five reasons I hate my trainer!  In fact, Mike really enjoyed that one as well.

Violin Cake

Deep Thoughts to Hannah

Sitting around eating bonbons (new name of my blog?)

I can has insurance

I’m being adorable and no one can stop me

Caturday unhappy (how can you be unhappy on Caturday??)

Couple on their shoulders some (what?)

Anyway, those are some of the most amusing searches.

 

What else?  I know I haven’t been that interesting on my blog lately.  I’ve been wrapped in a bunch of stuff that I can’t talk about here, and then frankly I’ve been a bit creatively challenged.  Friday night I taught, and then I made pumpkin bread.  OH I was going to add in chocolate chips but I only had a tiny bit left, so I made the BRILLIANT decision to add in butterscotch chips (about half a bag, maybe a little heavy handed) and they turned out to be amazing!  Amaze-balls, in blogger speak.

Saturday:  slept in (hamstrings and back still recovering from deadlifts on Thursday, let’s not talk about how little I have run this week because it will just depress me), taught, wedding/reception…plans with friends at night.

Took some pictures at the wedding/reception…Botanical Gardens and then at the Artist’s Guild in Clayton.

 

 

 

Here’s something weird:  I didn’t know Maddie when this picture was taken.  I used to think the music world was a small world, but now I know that it’s just a small world.  I think there’s a song about that.  And yes, Jen and I were laughing.  People are always laughing around me.

Also:  my dad (@jerrydfrey) is STILL on the road, heading to Phoenix.  He’s somewhere in Texas.  He tweets things like “near JR’s ranch” and “Saw a huge hog dead by the road,” and “Ready to mess with Texas.”  (Hope he didn’t actually do that last one, that would be NOT GOOD.”  He’s been on the road about a month!  He’s probably tired…

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

P.S. I stole this from Rose of Eat, Drink, and be Meiri.