Home from a great conference!

I'm home and I had a very exciting past four days at a music conference! It was an incredible time of networking with other musicians, booking agents, record labels, concert presenters, and so on. I really enjoy meeting new people, and talking to like-minded musicians so it was a lot of fun for me! I passed out our CD and business cards when people asked for them. There was a great exhibition hall that many companies and musicians had tables at to promote themselves, and there was literally music happening all day, every day! There were musicians all around the hotel (lobby, rooms, etc) who would gather randomly and make music with people who they had just met! I got to play with some guitarists and mandolinists and it was a great experience! Each night musicians would perform for each other in their rooms until 3 or 4am, sometimes later. There were also afternoon panel sessions with topics ranging from songwriting, to public relations, to humor in music and a lot of other things! Very educational! In general, the entire conference was so inspiring of my desire to continue doing music and to make a successful living while doing so! It was such a joy to be there!

I don't have a lot of of food pictures from it, but the hotel we were staying at served AMAZING meals buffet-style, with several options for main courses (on Friday night I remember: chicken masala, trout with baby shrimp, beef something, noodles with Bulgar wheat, and a macaroni dish; on Saturday night I remember: eggplant Parmesan, Italian sausage, ziti, and some chicken, beef and fish dish--I don't remember all very well!), a reasonably well-stocked salad bar with rolls, and MASSIVE amounts of dessert tables, ranging from chocolate cake, to cookies, to pastries, to apple crisp! Additionally, every night we would inundate all of the hotel rooms with live music, and each one offered beer, wine, liquor, CHOCOLATE, cookies, and candy that anyone could snack on.

We also had a great cocktail hour on Friday afternoon, where I snagged about four of these plates (in my defense, I was starving because we had stayed in a friend's room on Thursday night, but we weren't officially checked in to the hotel, so we didn't get dinner on Thursday night or breakfast on Friday morning; I had survived on some almonds and protein bars I packed!)

(Plus random bites of egg rolls, quesadillas, quiche, and pigs-in-a-blanket that servers were bringing around!)

And don't forget the free drink ticket vouchers. Because 3pm is definitely NOT too early for a cosmopolitan:

I might or might not have also had a Bay Breeze, after this drink, because I had another free drink ticket and I didn't want it to go to waste! *That would be tragic!*

I also may have been tipsy after them.... ;-)

Of course, being the foodie that I am, I HAD to try almost all of everything and I exercised VERY POOR judgment in portion control! Hah! I'm pretty sure I'm about 5 pounds heavier than when I left, but there's no way that can all be "real" weight, so I think I should be fine if I watch my sugar for a while, and exercise this week. (And just for the record, I don't regret anything! Yes, next time I might have tried to stop eating when I was full, instead of packing more and more chocolate into me--my stomach hurt MANY times this weekend--but my taste buds are incredibly happy with me!)

I did have a FANTASTIC workout on Friday morning; I went for an hour long jog/walk ("wog") through the golf course that was in back of the hotel. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I wish I had taken pictures for the blog! I also did a legs workout, with a lot of jumping lunges, which is the most intense leg workout I know, and left my legs throbbing (in a good way!) for about 3 days afterward! (They are still quite sore, on Sunday night!)

Anyway, here are two delicious breakfasts that I had before I left:


-oat bran
-cottage cheese
-cashews (love the super saltiness they add!)
-1 chopped fig
-carob chips
-almond butter


-oat bran
-ground flax
-cottage cheese
-freeze-dried bananas
-carob chips
-PB

My goal this week is to do less mindless eating, but here are some of the mindless snacks I munched on in the past week or so:



I ate some string cheese while baby-sitting one morning. Protein + calcium = yum!

On the way to teaching last Tuesday (I know! Sorry, travel throws off blog posting!) I made an EXCELLENT omelet sandwich with sauteed spinach and melted some cheese, added seasonings of curry powder and cumin and then through the omelet in between two slices of bread to take in the car. I also added some organic ketchup and it was reeeally delicious!


And another Amazing Green bar on my way home from a rehearsal late on evening.

I LOVED this flavor! It even has a chocolatey coating! Woohoo!

Speaking of Amazing Grass, the winner of my contest never contacted me, so I'll be doing another random drawing tomorrow. (I'm pretty tired, and trying to get into bed early tonight to recover from the trip!)

In continuing the week-long chocolate binge (OK, not a binge--a poorly judged eating experience!) that was this week, I had a couple bites of this bar:

And this:

(However, I think my period may be showing up--I'm not really sure, thanks to being HIGHLY irregular--yet another great benefit of anorexia **did you catch that sarcasm?!?!** But I do think that that has something to do with the immense cravings, and the unexplained weight gain. Whatever.)

I tried to get back on the healthy eating track today with an omelet that I made with:

-1 egg, 1 egg white (with cumin and curry powder)
-broccoli
-mozzarella cheese
-avocado
-salsa


And earlier I had a bunch of Kashi crackers--my absolute favorite cracker, EVER, hands down!! Specifically this flavor with the nutty sesame seeds and the crispness to it! If you haven't tried these crackers, I highly encourage you to do so, because you will love life a bit more!

(I ate a lot more than one serving. Oops. Portion control is not my forte.)

And some bread with hummus and cheese as a quick afternoon snack. Nothing like a little carb-loading, even though there won't be any race tomorrow. ;-)

OK, I'm sorry this post is so long and random! I'm off to read in bed and try to get a good nine hours of sleep in tonight! My latest book is the brilliant and hilarious "Bridget Jones' Diary." I have found it incredibly entertaining so far, and I highly recommend it!

I promise to catch up on blog reading and commenting tomorrow! I hope you're all doing super well! Good night!