Food, Running

Shrimp n’ grits

I had grits leftover from the other weekend, and as I am such a southern girl, I wanted to have them again as soon as possible.  So, I made Shrimp n’ grits!

I loosely followed this recipe.  Ever since purchasing my cast-iron frying pan the other month, I’ve been trying to use it as often as it makes sense.  This was a great time to use it!  The changes I made to the recipe:  I made more grits than suggested because I was also making more shrimp.  I used turkey bacon rather than regular bacon, and I added spinach to the crumbled bacon/green onion mixture at the end.  The whole thing turned out really well.

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from the eatliverun website

Today is a very windy day—windy, warm, and full of pollen.  I wanted to do a six mile run, but I was struggling too much and had to cut it short at 4 miles.  I was annoyed.  Guess I need to purchase some antihistamines. 

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I am at 74 miles!  I will get there.  Even with the pollen (I hope.)

So today I’m being a girl and am going shopping instead of attending the Rebecca Skloot Lecture.  Oops. 

And I haven’t started on the taxes yet…though that is actually Charter’s fault (cable company) as I spent 1 hour yesterday dealing with the slow internet and attempting to talk to somebody on the phone who could help me rather than starting on the taxes.  Seriously—they spent 20 minutes telling me it was my computer’s fault the internet was slow.  Finally they noticed that there were reports of outages in my area.  GAH.  I hate the cable company, and I think it might be time to change to another internet service provider.  In any case, after all of that I was out of time for doing taxes on that day.  Today I slept in rather than start.  I looked at the calendar and decided there is more than enough time left, in any case, EVEN assuming that much of that time will be spent yelling at Charter on the phone.

*breathes*

All right.  Time to make sure there is nothing super-pressing on my to do list, and then it’s shopping time!  (For a friend, not me, I plomise!)

Random thoughts

Percussion Recital FTW

That’s “for the win”, if you didn’t know. 

I attended my first percussion recital tonight.

Tuesday March 22, 2011 7:30 PM Joint Recital with Peter Henderson, piano and Will James, percussion at Forest Park Community College – Mildred Bastian Center

I mentioned to my trainer I was planning to go to my friend’s percussion recital tonight and he said, oh cool!  Then he paused, and asked, what does that mean?

In plain language: It means that Peter played the piano and Will played a whole bunch of different xylophone type instruments and various drums.  And it was REALLY fantastic!  They even played some Piazzolla. 

Great job to Peter and Will!!

Teaching

Coffee Day

Funny how quickly I lose my good attitude.  I was ready to teach…and then I just didn’t have enough patience today.  The kids were annoying me to NO end.  I ended up giving them a variety of lectures (different lectures for different groups/kids) involving a) not talking while I am talking and how RUDE that is b) how I want them to have good posture or c) how hard I am working for them to refer to notes by NAME and not “1” or “3”.  I was also tired…so I was happy to have a chance to grab some coffee…

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I ordered a “red-eye” which is coffee with a shot of espresso (naughty, I know!) and when I got up to the window the barista asked if I would like another shot for free.  Evidently the machines only make two shots at a time, so they have an extra on occasion (when it’s not going to be used for the next order, for instance) and he said if the person seems nice enough when they aren’t too busy, they ask.  I briefly thought about it (would it make me shaky?) and said, YES.  I have a serious caffeine problem.

I made it through the day though, and then my home students were delightful.  I have two new adult students (off the waiting list, yay!) late on Monday and I was a little concerned, but they are both going to be easy to teach and interact with.  I love it when I am comfortable with students and can just enjoy giving a lesson.  Plus there just aren’t THAT many school Mondays left (less than 8) until summer…believe it or not.

 

It’s really my own fault I was tired today because I overbooked myself yesterday.  The day was to end with a viewing of Lord of the Rings with friends to prepare for the upcoming “live” performance, but that started late because dinner ran about an hour late (went to Market Pub House in the Loop with Joe and Michelle…the food was fine, but the service was super slow.  I guess they were busier than anticipated).  Before than I had plans to go to the Art Museum with Melissa, but evidently doing that on the nicest day all year means that everybody and their mother PLUS their entire family was in Forest Park and there just wasn’t anywhere remotely close to the Art Museum to park.  We were planning to attend the special exhibit about the Mayans (I actually haven’t been at all yet, so special exhibit or not, it was a good idea), but after looking for a place to park, we decided getting coffee would be a nicer way to spend the afternoon.  We ended up at Benton Park Café, where I had been before.  It’s a very cute little place.  In any case, we’ll have to return on a weekday perhaps to try the exhibit.  Or on a hot and humid or rainy day.

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from the Benton Park Café website

Tomorrow I will be more rested and will have less need for coffee.  I have two days off from teaching, so hopefully by Thursday my patience will have returned (ha!), and perhaps I’ll have even scheduled a haircut by then.

There are two events the next two days that interest me, and lucky for me I am on quasi-spring break or I would not be able to go to either of them:

Tuesday, March 22 at 7:30 pm:  Recital: Will James, percussion and Peter Henderson, piano.  Will is principal percussion of the SLSO and a friend of mine.  Both he and Peter are fantastic musicians.

Wednesday, March 23 at 4 pm:  Rebecca Skloot gives a lecture at Washington University.  Awesome!

Oh, yes, lots of culture coming up!  (to make up for my failed Art Museum attempt…and in case being a full time musician wasn’t enough culture.)

Random thoughts

Beautiful Day!

1 Comment

I can’t believe that one week ago it was was snowing, and today it is going to be almost 80 degrees. My legs are still tired from Saturday’s run (and yesterday I was RAVENOUS…hint to those reading: training for a half marathon and losing weight doesn’t actually work very well) and I’m tired from staying up too late to finish Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring last night (research for upcoming concert.) Oh well, another week is here and spring has sprung! I’ve got a full day of teaching ahead of me, and I’m looking forward to it.

Running

Weekend Update

Do you like my titles?  It’s hard thinking of good titles.

Friday night some friends came over for drinks, snacks, and *evidently* video game playing.

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What?  Company? (She spent much of the day on this chair)

We had wine, cheese, and veggies with hummus dip.  Then the boys got tired of chitchat and decided to bust out the Wii and play some games.

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Note the concentration in their faces!

 

I wanted to let you know about a few things that I am super excited about that are coming up soon:

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Yes, that’s the movie with the orchestra playing the music.  I can’t wait!  It’s the event of the year!!

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It’s not till June, but this could be amazing!  I say could, because while I was super excited about it, I reread the description and see that the symphony is NOT playing…so that means it is simply a sing along movie?  I suppose still fun though…

Other upcoming events: 

March 26:  Chamber Project St Louis plays at the Chapel, and if I’m not too exhausted from that morning’s race I plan to attend. 

April 2:  St Louis Ballet:  Tribute to New York.  This is the company affiliated with the ballet school where I teach violin, and I’m finally able to see them perform.

Then…April 10:  The half-marathon I‘ve been training for:  Go! St Louis.  I can’t wait to run the streets of St. Louis with a ton of other people.  After that I think I will tone it down a bit on distance and work towards improving my speed (over the summer, as it will be rather hot) by the time the fall “season” rolls around. I would love for the St Patrick’s Day 10 minute miles to be an easy mile by then.

What are you looking forward to most in the next month or so? (I know people are reading this—don’t be shy, come out and comment!)

Running

Almost spring…

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Flowers on the tree!  There was a row of trees like this in the park. 

So, I am officially a “hard-core” runner (shout-out to Jen for the phrase)—about 5 miles in today, a bird pooped on me.  It hit my forehead and my sunglasses.  I had to stop and clean it off (by wiping it on my jacket and using a bit of my water to rinse…) and I debated heading home but decided to be hard core and continue my run. 

Has this happened to anyone before?  I don’t think I’ve ever been pooped on by a bird…by a younger sister, well that’s a different story.

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.