If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans

Good morning! The show yesterday only went OK; it wasn't very well attended and it was our first show back after about three weeks so we had a few technical errors. But it makes me feel more confident about our show here in town tomorrow, so that's good! :) A few of you have asked about my new CD and I'll be e-mailing you privately about how you could get it. Again, I am just keeping relatively anonymous on this blog due to my work both in the classical music world and the non-classical world to which I am branching out. I think it would be weird for people to come across this food blog if they Google stalk us, which is starting to happen more and more as we play bigger shows and are starting to get a little press coverage with the release of our new CD. I will let you know that the CD (and my band's) genre is acoustic indie folk songwriter, and we perform all of our own original music. :)

I had an amazing HUGE sweet potato and black bean burrito at the show venue from a local Mexican food shop. I couldn't get a good picture unfortunately. I also had a few fun-size chocolates and I snacked on this in the car on the way home:


I got home around 1am and --ahem-- ended up hanging out with the boy just talking about everything until about 4am. Oops. The thing is, before I had a boyfriend I thought that whenever I was in a relationship that I'd still be more interested in my life (in an honestly pretty selfish way), but he's changing all that. In fact, I wasn't looking to be in a relationship for precisely that reason. (Neither was he, which I find ironic!) We were and are both super involved with our music and I didn't want anyone to get in the way of that. And he ISN'T, at all!! In fact, he's having a good effect on me as a musician, and as a person, which is always how I've heard it's supposed to work. We remind each other that we don't have to see each other everyday and we sort of bypassed the whole "awkward, going out on dates stage" altogether, which I don't mind at all. Anyway, quote of the day, since I wasn't planning on having a boyfriend:

"If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans!"

So yesterday I stopped into Starbucks for a Venti unsweetened iced coffee, light ice, which is my summer coffee drink of choice! I thought this was funny:


For breakfast today I had a fairly un-colorful bowl of oats, but at least it tasted good! :)

1/2 C oats
(*out of pumpkin!*)
2 tsps ground flax
1 chopped fig
1 TB (?) soy nuts
1 TB (?) peak protein granola
strawberry yogurt


I wanted a little more protein, so I only ate half the yogurt and switched it up with cottage cheese and AB half way through. I feel like a half eaten picture of breakfast is weird, but that's (one reason) why I love the blog world so much. I don't think any of you will find this weird.

One more serving in this guy after today! I seriously have *4* opened jars of nut butter in my cupboard!

• PB from Trader Joes
• PB Loco, Jungle Banana flavored
• Sunflower Seed butter
• the jar of AB pictured above

Haha! It wouldn't hurt to finish one! :)

By the way, speaking of Sunflower Seed Butter, you can request a free sample of it here. Use authorization code 0428 on the form. :)

And while we're on the topic of free samples, you can also request ZingiberRx, topical joint and muscle cream with this form. I am SUPER excited for this free sample because I have some fairly bad overuse injuries with the violin and I have a fair amount of upper back/shoulder pain (in my right, bowing shoulder) that I'm always trying to be super careful with.

And apparently this is the day for free samples of overuse injury products because Curamin is offering a pill that they claim helps support the bodies' natural defense mechanism against overuse pain. I don't know if I believe them, but I'd like to try it, especially considering my work as a violinist, with chronically sore shoulders. You can also request it here.

Here are two giveaways happening in the blog world:

Lauren at Ginger is the New Pink is giving away some great raw foods.

AnAppleADay at Blue Sky World is having a gigantic giveaway in celebration of Mother's Day!

Lastly, the amazingly cool Jess at Have Faith gave me this blogger award:


The Renee Award is one of the most meaningful awards in blog world because it honors someone who is incredibly inspirational in her intelligent and witty writing. And by doing so, this award celebrates women’s smart, strong and inspirational spirit! It honors women who spread joy and love like an Acorn……a small package growing into a tall and sturdy oak tree which gives more acorns…………..

Thank you Jess!!

I'm passing it on to Emily, Mi, Emma, Mariposa and Sarah. You girls are so great and I also love reading your blogs! :)

New York, New York, here we come!

Woohoo! I'm so excited! I have 3 days in a row coming up with no gigs or teaching (which is highly unusual for me! There have been streaks where I've taught at least one lesson and/or played a gig for over 50 days in a row!) and my boyfriend was able to request off from work. So we're going to go to NYC for a mini-vacation! I'm so excited! We're driving up there and planning on seeing all the "tourist-y" things because I've only been there twice and both times it was to play a show, so there was really no sightseeing time. So we're going towards the end of May and I'll let you guys know all about it! I'm so glad my boyfriend enjoys traveling because so do I and I really want to be able to do more of it!

What's your favorite place you've ever traveled to? How long were you there for? What was the coolest thing you saw? What was the best meal you ever had while traveling?

I had a great breakfast today:


With Komodo Dragon coffee:


-1/2 C oats
-1/2 C pumpkin
-2 tsp flax
-2 tsp noni juice
-1 TB trail mix (finished it)
-3 cashews (finished them--must buy more soon!)
-sprinkling of soy nuts
-4 strawberries (plus many more eaten plain! One of the absolute best parts of summer! Fresh, relatively inexpensive strawberries! Woooo!)
-Chocoholic strikes again, AKA chocolate covered espresso beans and carob chips
-small spoon of PB

Hah! Does anyone else go a little overboard with oatmeal toppings?

I didn't get to the gym yesterday, but I really want to go today and fairly soon! I have a busy afternoon with teaching from 2:45-6:30pm and then driving roughly an hour to play a Cinco de Mayo gig (on ses de mayo--haha!) from 7:15-10pm tonight! (They know that I'll be running late and they're OK with that.) So this morning I need to workout but I also need to get some good practicing in. Yesterday was productive in the I caught up on some blog reading (*wink*), tried this new product from WFs (which was a little too runny for me, but it smelled great!)

did laundry, and set up an escrow account at my bank for my taxes (since everything I do is independently contracted, I have to make sure I'm basically withholding taxes from myself.) before I taught all evening. I made this for dinner/snacks:


Tuna sandwich with Miracle Whip and avocado on amazing whole grain bread! I ate one of these on Monday night also and it's INCREDIBLE! I've always loved canned tuna! :)

Seriously, are you jealous yet?

Tomatoes and brussel sprouts.


I ate this before I left my house. It was about 1/2 a carton of Greek yogurt with maybe 1/2 C MixMyGranola.


On my way home I also ate an apple, several chocolate rice cakes that I picked up at the grocery store and I had a Clif Z bar. My grocery shop was mainly for fresh produce and I got:


-strawberries
-hummus
-kale
-green onions
-1 cucumber
-green cabbage


-4 sf/ff yogurts
-ff cottage cheese
-whole grain pretzels (these Herr brand are THE BEST pretzels I've EVER had and they have flax seeds and lots of fiber in them! Seriously, if you find them in a store near you, BUY THEM!! Maybe I'll have to do a giveaway of them, because they are THAT good!)
-chocolate rice cakes (made with brown rice, at least!)
-gum!


-hair gel
-hair spray
-deodorant

Almost too exciting for words. Haha, not really, but at least my deodorant smells pretty! ;-)

In the world of giveaways, there are a couple going on right now.

Don't forget to enter my PB Loco and bars giveaway!

Megan is giving away some Mighty Maple and Dark Chocolate PB plus some dark chocolate and two bars. Umm, this is SOOO my kind of giveaway!

Danica's Daily is giving away Annie's Mac and Cheese! I love Annie's! :)

Jen at Prior Fat Girl is giving away Holey Donuts! I want to try these so badly but they don't fit into my budget!

You can also request some free Playtex Sport tampons here. Hey, free is free!

I haven't posted a gymnastics video for a while, so here's one of my favorite gymnasts from the 1996-2000 era, Yelena Prudunova from Russia. I love how strong and powerful she is! She has some great tumbling in this routine from the 2000 Olympics team finals. Enjoy!

MIA blogger has returned!

I've missed you all (shout out to Mariposa, with your adorable comment! Thank you!), but I had a fantastic weekend and VeggieGirl had the right idea in her great video post on blogging about when you want to, versus out of obligation and I totally agree with her. I love you all, but I also enjoyed being out and about this weekend (and yesterday!) and spending time with my friends, mainly my boyfriend. *Roll eyes at me here* :)

As such, I am going to have to re-cap the weekend fairly quickly since I have a lot to do this afternoon before teaching all evening. Let's start with my amazing breakfast today.


With coffee. Currently drinking Komodo Dragon Bold roast from Starbucks, given to me by my wonderful boyfriend, who knows just how important coffee is to me! I had specifically mentioned to him that I had tried this roast and really liked it, so he brought me an entire pound!


The usual oats, pumpkin, flax, and noni juice topped with:

-goji berry trail mix (from WFs--this stuff is amazing!)
-soy nuts
-0% Greek Yogurt
-chocolate covered ginger!!! (From TJs; if you like ginger, this stuff will greatly contribute yumminess to your life! So incredible, melted over hot oatmeal!!)

(I have been snacking on small handfuls of this stuff all weekend! It's so addictive! Let's just say that I finished the container almost entirely by myself in about 5 days, which has 11 servings. Haha, oops.)

My breakfast yesterday was similar, with added blackberries, and no trail mix:

I went to TJs and WFs on Friday night while waiting for my boyfriend to finish a show he was playing. (Yes, he's another musician and composer! And he wrote a piece and dedicated it to me! It's a fantastic piece and I'm not biased at all! ;-) Anyway, I picked up quite a few things but only got pictures of some of it.
Most of it's pretty self-explanatory. I bought the feta which I'm excited about, but I'm coming up short on suggestions of what to do with it. What are your favorite ways to eat feta cheese? Any recipes you love with it?

I made a bunch of veggies on Saturday as they were starting to go bad in my fridge. I just boiled some green beans and brussel sprouts and sauteed a pan of red kale, white onion, cilantro and red pepper.


I also baked a sweet potato and ate a bit of it before I remembered to take its picture. :)

So now that you've seen my healthy food, here are the treats from this weekend. Only some of them! There were actually quite a few, unphotgraphed things, mostly eaten while out with friends! I think you all know my food philosophy by now, of never denying myself yummy food simply because it's not healthy. In fact, during my years with DE, I'm pretty sure I would have qualified as orthorexic (an obsession with healthy food) as I NEVER ate ANYTHING made without 100% whole grain flour, anything with more than 4 grams of sugar per serving, absolutely no fried foods, and quite a few other highly restrictive rules placed upon myself. Like I've mentioned before, I missed out on quite a bit of life, and I don't want to do that anymore. The treats I had all in the past 4 days included: 2 slices of chocolate cake (on different occasions), 3 martinis at a swanky martini bar downtown (I had a blueberry martini, a tropical martini and a blackberry-ginger martini! Yes, I know they were probably 300 calories each! Oops!), a couple random beers here and there, and a couple pieces of unphotographed chocolate here at home. I had an amazing dinner on Saturday night with my boyfriend after the wedding I played, which went really well! I got to play with my first choice violist which made it a pleasure, knowing he was so solid musically and my cellist is great, too! We went out and I had a grilled chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomato pesto on a whole grain ciabatta with rosemary fries on the side. And a Yuengling to drink! What a great meal!

So on a related note, here's some chocolate that did make it onto the camera, all of which was mightily enjoyed by MOI! :)


A couple random bars eaten to and from teaching on Saturday:

Plus I dumped this into a bottle of water.


And some snacks from way back on Friday, since they were on my camera:


This is a small piece of ww bread topped with a soy sausage link, FF cheese and homemade hummus!

Broccoli topped with more homemade hummus!

These were blooming in my back yard! I love them!


OK, I've got to go do laundry, go to the bank, get gas, workout and shower before teaching, so I've got to end here. I'll try to comment on your blogs tonight after teaching. Hope everyone's weeks are going fantastically well!