And so the hiatus ends...

Hi everyone!

I am so sorry for being gone SOOOO long! It's been over a month since my last blog! Wow, talk about negligent. What have I been up to? Well, I've played 3 weddings and prepared for 5 more coming up in August, played 8 shows, taught more lessons that I can count (~50, maybe?), moved to another house and mostly unpacked all my stuff, went camping with my boyfriend and his parents, finished three books, and started some others. There's been some other stuff of course, but that's most of it.

I'm mostly going to catch you up on a few blog-worthy meals that I've had on my camera for a while now.

Cold Uncle Sam's cereal with strawberries and raisins. So good!



I also had several amazing bowls of oatmeal. Here's a popular one:

-oats
-one chopped fig
-raisins
-cottage cheese
-P B (you can't see it, but I always have some kind of nut butter with most meals. I'm discovering how much better I feel consistently with a fairly high fat diet. Who knew?!)

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Some sort of ww pasta, zucchini combo topped with feta cheese. I make wonderful "bachelorette style" meals...aka, throw together a bunch of healthy ingredients that I like and I'll probably like the finished product! :)


With an apple.

One of my more favorite snacks. :)


Tuna and spinach salad. Kind of plain, but delicious. I mixed the tuna with light Italian dressing.


And had these on the side. They are SOOO good; quite addictive actually. They are a new product and come in many different varieties including almond, cashew, mixed nut, and the honey roasted peanut shown below. Sorry about the blurry picture. I REALLY wish they were slightly less expensive because even on sale they're $2.50 a bag and the bags are small (I.e. no where near 5 servings that it says it has!)


As a self-proclaimed chocoholic, I had to try this when I found it at an out-of-town market.


It was quite good, and yes, I ate the whole bar.

I went to the Warped Tour, mostly to check it out (and my ticket is tax-deductible because I'm a full-time musician (job perks!) I unfortunately missed actually seeing Flogging Molly perform (the reason I went!) but I snapped a few pictures afterwards at their autograph table. They are an Irish punk rock band and I love them! They are one of my favorite bands ever and their music has powered me through more workouts that I can count.


Here are a few of the books that I've read or I am reading:


Purple Cow is an EXCELLENT book on marketing one's self especially in today's economy where a traditional advertising approach doesn't work. The premise is that if you're driving along and you see a cow by the side of the road, that's kind of cool. But if you keep driving they just start to get boring or even annoying. But if you suddenly, in the midst of the brown cows, saw a purple cow, well that would be remarkable. Even though I don't have a traditional job, it made me look at my profession in a different light and to try and brainstorm ways to be different and more exciting than all the other violinists out there.


I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone under 30 or 40, especially if you don't have a great knowledge of all things financial. I really don't know much at all, and it's been so helpful to me! It's written in plain, down-to-earth English, with helpful and easy-to-understand definitions and graphs. I've only gotten to the first 3 chapters, but I'm excited to read more.


And Complications was so interesting! I loved it! Told from a surgeon's point of view, it describes the learning experience, the medical mysteries that still remain, and most importantly, it treats all of the patients' stories with an element of humanity and compassion. It's also really easy reading (no heavy medical terminology) and I really enjoyed it!

More book reviews to come in future blog postings.

Lastly, I got to go through the lovely experience of a finger staph infection. It hurt quite a bit! It got infected on a Friday, and by Monday and Tuesday it hurt so much and was so swollen that I had to call the doctor. It started oozing pus while still at home and when I got into the office they lanced it (to keep getting the pus out) and gave me a 10 day antibiotic. Warning, gross pictures below!



I PROMISE that I will update this MUCH MORE frequently than this past month! PLEASE don't give up on me just yet! :)