Well, so far it’s just a regular day for me because I don’t start teaching until 3:30. How is it out there? I’m safe and warm at home and enjoying a lazy start to the week…as usual.

Valentine’s Day Weekend was fun.  We went to the Missouri History Museum on Saturday to see the 250 in 250 exhibit (about 250 years of St Louis History) before it closed. I’d gone with my parents but Louie hadn’t seen it and I thought it was good enough to see again. It was freezing cold and as we power walked from where we parked to the museum, I tripped over a small bump in the sidewalk and fell. As I landed I bent my pinky and wrist backwards, hit my left shoulder and almost hit my head!

Walking is hard, evidently. More concerning was how much my pinky finger hurt (remember, I play violin, so that’s important.) I haven’t played since then…my pinky is feeling a bit better today but it’s still sore at the joint and it worries me a little. It’s definitely improving though, so hopefully by tomorrow I will feel confident practicing again, because SATURDAY is our first quartet concert of the year and I really want it to go well.  I’d had high hopes of doing a lot of practicing over the weekend, but what can you do? Playing on a hurt finger doesn’t make it better.

We went to Five Bistro for V-day dinner. We’d thought it would be pricey, but we had NO idea! (I suppose we could have called). The prix fix menu was delicious, but the weird thing was that when it was over we were still kinda hungry and wished there had been more food. Every course was delicious but tiny. We were glad we went out though, and despite the meal costing as much as a plane ticket enjoyed ourselves. We also enjoyed being in the restaurant with a ton of other people, all of whom were likely experiencing the same sort of thing..awkward sticker shock by the menu, deciding to stay anyway, enjoying the taste of their meal, noticing how little lamb chop was served, realizing they were paying this much and considering running through Taco Bell afterwards. We did the wine pairings too, and the one thing I will say is that I enjoyed ALL the wines, even the white wines, which I never have in the past.

Front and back of house scenes of a snowy day. The front steps will definitely need to be shoveled. I suppose that would be an excellent workout for today!

And check out this awesome picture Leslie sent me of my niece:

I should get a matching “I love my niece” onesie.

Scenes from the “zoo”.

How much snow did you get? I won’t complain a bit thinking of all the people who have just been getting hammered this winter! It’s pretty to look at, though I’m glad I haven’t had to venture out in it yet. Since it’s a holiday I suspect the roads are a little worse than they might be normally.

I’ve had a wonderful weekend. I’m not going to lie. It’s been awesome and lots of fun and I’m sad that it is nearly over.

The fun started Thursday night when I met April for dinner at Gringo. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned but Louie and I have decided to follow a vegetarian diet for about a month. So it’s been a fun challenge to see how to avoid eating meat. We are still eating cheese and eggs and all those delicious animal products but avoiding actual flesh.

So I read the description of my meal and I’m not sure what I expected but it was basically nachos with egg and avocado. Not too bad but not what I thought I was getting! We also split the guacamole which I love and had a few margs…well I did at least 😉

Friday was a busy day. It started with a trip to the dump and ended with dinner at Ranoush on the Loop and watching The Imitation Game. The movie was very good but I had a lot of questions afterwards about what was fact, what was fiction, and how a bunch of cryptographers failed to initially check for the most common word combinations when trying to crack a code. Turns out that part was fiction.

Saturday afternoon we took a hike, another from the book, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of St Louis. I picked a hike around Howell Island Conservation area, but we made a few mistakes with that. Firstly, it was incredibly muddy at the beginning of the hike…which was also the end of the hike. And we didn’t realize there would be hunting. I think I read the phrase “conservation area” and assumed that meant “not killing stuff” and didn’t keep reading. But we did the long loop anyway, didn’t get lost in a field where the trail went kind of cold, and had a great time.

It was kind of a bleary day, but was actually really nice for January. It started drizzly towards the end and we got a bit nervous but it never turned into much.

After the hike we decided to go out to dinner, so we hit up Stellina Pasta since they had a few good looking vegetarian options. I got tagliatelle with spinach, mushroom, and a garlic cream sauce and it was really delicious. I wouldn’t ordinarily order food with a cream sauce, but the beauty of not eating meat is that you can get your calories from other fatty sources. Or at least I tell myself that. It’s nice, by the way, following a diet that isn’t about ME and is about not eating meat. I don’t know how I feel about this sort of thing sometimes…it’s hard to know what the best thing to do is, but it does seem that eating less meat is probably a good thing. I haven’t missed it too much because I’ve upped my pasta intake. I also plan to return to eating meat, because I don’t want to WORRY about things.

Today we had a family brunch (well, Louie’s family) with delicious pumpkin waffles made by his brother! I think I ate about 100 of them. Or four. Also the grapefruit was excellent. Then I actually had to do some work (ugh, work!) on the computer for a variety of things and we did manage to get to the gym. One of the things we are both trying to do is get workouts in when we can, and if that means mostly on the weekends (this time of year my weekends are light and freer) then we do it then. It works for me. I’m trying not to stress over what I can’t do and focus on what I can.

Oh, and I’m NOT watching the super bowl. I didn’t get any party invites and I don’t watch football (possibly related) so I’m just at home, thinking about dinner and Dr Who. And my to-do list for the upcoming week, which is of course huge and much more than I will actually accomplish.

I considered waiting to publish this until tomorrow due to the game, but then I remembered 1) any readers won’t be watching either, they will be just playing with their cats and 2) I don’t ACTUALLY have any readers since I don’t blog regularly enough nor on any actual topic.