BIRTHDAY!

I had such an amazing Birthday weekend last week! My beautiful friend Lindsey was in town from California...arriving just in time for a heavy dumping of snow (sorry Linz!). Luckily she missed the really terrible weather of this past weekend....in case you don't live in MN here's essentially what happened: it snowed a crap ton, and while it was snowing the weather was relatively warm so it was that delightful wet snow that packs down really easily (as in, when cars drive over it...or people walk on it...etc). Then the temps plummeted again, which meant that now all of the roads that had been covered in wet, packed snow (even highways) were now basically a skating rink. No kidding, I have never seen the roads this bad - the highways were literally coated in 1-2 inches of ice for several days...scariest driving I have probably ever experienced.

Annnnyway.........birthday!

Here are some photos from my birthday weekend :) Linz, Ben, Chris and I made cupcakes at our place, then met a bunch of friends for dinner and margaritas at La Cucaracha, and then back to our place for scotch, cupcakes and Cards Against Humanity.

Ben found this pirate hat in the kitchen and then requested that I wear it while baking.
OK. If you insist.

Then we started our own pirate band and kidnapped the Clark

Probably the most stylish I have looked while baking, ever

Linz selfies are my favorite selfies

It was time for a wardrobe change

Post-dinner game time

Yes

Face time with J :)

Whisky + CAH = yes

Friends

More selfies

More friends

When you've known each other for 13 years....

Yes

at the end of the night, the cat sweater comes out

OOOoooook. Well, time to get some SLEEP. Things are about to get very interesting over here...it's gonna be a long next few months haha. I'll fill you in shortly, all good things but man. This year is going to be insane.

You are here for life

So I've been keeping myself fairly busy lately...all good things, but things that take up a lot of my time. Work obviously, and yoga, choir and running, so the usual. Plus I'm joining The Singers Anniversary Chorus for Mozart's Coronation Mass on 2/22, the winter session of Asana Junkies is in full swing, my dear friend Lindsey is coming to town this weekend for my birthday, I'll be spending the following weekend in a workshop with Noah Maze (and that's the weekend of the Singers concert), and the weekend after that, Ben and I are road-tripping to Madison. And I'm subbing for Laura the first two Wednesdays in March. Oh and I'm also legit working part-time(ish) for Minnesota Bach Ensemble now, doing marketing/website/event planning shtuff. So you know... in case I didn't have enough going on already.

It does feel like a lot, but it's also helping me to compartmentalize my life more. When I get home from work, I have to TURN OFF work...and turn on whatever else I'm doing (MBE, yoga, choir, what have you). I know I have a tendency to take on too much (as my friends are constantly reminding me), but this time I'm approaching it as a conscious choice. I'm tired of living out of fear - avoiding taking on things I really want because I tell myself I can't or I don't have time. Bullshit. I will make time. You only get one life, and if you don't fill it with the things you love then what is the damn point.
End rant.
I guess this is my version of leaning in.
And I honestly think what will happen is, my vision of where my life is going and what I want to fill that space with will become clearer and eventually some things will start to fall off. It's already started, at least mentally.

Oh hey, also it is really cold here in Minnesota. My dad keeps saying it's "just like the olden days of winter, back when men were men and we walked to school both ways through 80 feet of snow bla bla bla"...ok so obviously those were not his exact words, but you get the general point. That statement is in fact FALSE. This is officially the coldest winter we've had in something like 30 years, so no, every winter did not used to be like this. Turn off your selective memory.

In a related story, here is the view out the window of my office building...delightful:

Welcome to MN, where the people are tall and...
the snowdrifts are even taller

Continuing on with random photos of my life...Ben and I went to Macbeth at MN Opera a couple of weeks ago!

excitement for the scottish...italian...play...opera? thing.

Also, this was in Rice Park. Worth posting, I thought.

And here is me, working from home. These are the days...when anything goes.

Someday, I will forget how to dress professionally and will wear holey jeans into the office..

I've been doing some quality reading lately, as well - John Eliot Gardiner's biography of Bach, and the third installment of The Lunar Chronicles. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite young adult series - basically, it's fairy tales set in the future, in space. Each book adds a new major character, and manages to cleverly re-tell the fairy tale for that character (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel...and the final volume is Snow White), while still keeping the overarching story rolling and looping the new characters into the existing main cast. Plus, the female protagonists are quite bad-ass: Cinder is a cyborg mechanic who ends up basically leading a revolution, Scarlet is a pilot and Cress is a technology prodigy. Yes, I realize you probably had trouble taking this recommendation seriously after the words "Cinderella is a cyborg mechanic"...or possibly "fairy tales set in the future in space" and yes it sounds totally weird, but I am really loving this series.

(sidebar - one of my yoga friends joined goodreads recently, and after looking at my shelves is accused me of never reading anything light. Clearly he has not seen my extensive shelf of childrens and YA lit.)

Bach was one sassy cantor

Sometimes...you just need this in your life. YA lit FTW.

Also last weekend, I went to Wits for the first time! I sort of describe Wits as...Prairie Home Companion for a younger audience. I've listened to it a bunch on the radio but had never been to a live show before. This installment featured Andy Richter, with musical guest Neko Case. There was a recurring bit with Abe Lincoln's Ghost, Tom Waits and Morrissey doing commercials and it made me legit laugh out loud. Multiple times. Highly recommend.

AND Theoroi got to go backstage! So fun.

Had to take this photo - brick at Wits signed by one of Ben and my favorite bands (Storyhill)

Hmmm OK. Well, I have a 7am call tomorrow so I should probably get some sleep.  Hope you are having a lovely week!!

we are all connected

"In daily life, we are often lost in thought. We get lost in regrets about the past and fears about the future. We get lost in our plans, our anger, and our anxiety. At such moments, we cannot really be here for ourselves. We are not really here for life." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

...and a valuable lesson was learned

Heeyyyy friends! Well, it has obviously been a while since I've written anything here. I'll try to get through this catchup business so we can get to the good stuff like concerts I've been to, musings about teaching yoga and other stuff that's been on my mind lately.

Before we go any further though can I just say, this winter is straight up ridiculous. It's either -30 or snowing...there is no middle ground here. 

Also I broke my car about a week and a half ago...and by 'I broke it' I actually mean 'dude ran a stop sign right in front of me and I couldn't stop in time'....so my lovely little Honda is now in the body shop, sans front bumper. Thankfully no one was hurt, and my stop sign-running friend was actually a decent human being who stopped to make sure I was OK, exchanged insurance info with me, and hopefully learned a valuable lesson about traffic laws. 

I did drive away, and went straight to my favorite yoga class. Good times. [Sidebar - it's possible that I should not have actually driven away nor should I have driven to the body shop a couple of days later. Dennis (the shop owner) gave me the extreme side eye and was like 'yeah...this is borderline driveable...' ) but you know, everyone is alive and OK so all's well that ends well]

In a related story, Facebook has identified the following as the defining moments of my life in 2013:

That last one is probably the most representative of my life

Here's a little somethin somethin from my Weather Puppy app. This basset hound is not pleased about the -41 windchill, and neither am I.

Nope. Do not want

A couple of weeks ago, I volunteered selling tickets for the Minneosta Bach Ensemble's winter concert which was fun times. MBE was founded last year by my former choir director (he left us to move to Boston...le sad), another former choir colleague and friend is the managing director and I know most of the musicians and soloists so I always enjoy working with them. At one point, we ran out of tickets so I started tearing up small pieces of paper and writing 'ticket' on them. Profesh.

Real tickets

Also real tickets?

That same night, I went to Hilary Hahn and Haushka's concert at Aria in Minneapolis. Aria is in the former Theatre de la Jeune Leune space in the warehouse district, and I hadn't been there since it was Jeune Lenue so it was fun to see a classical concert there. Well, classical-ish. New classical. Hauschka plays a prepared piano, which I will link to a video of in case you haven't seen this. You should...it's awesome. He also de-prepared his piano towards the end of the night and just started tossing the random objects all over the stage - fascinating and hilarious at the same time. And to top it off, the show was almost entirely improvised.

These two have an album together, Silfra, which is gorgeous and atmospheric and I definitely recommend checking it out.

Hilary Hahn and Hauschka at Aria

Last Sunday we went to Piccolo for Ben's birthday - Piccolo does very creative preparations and small plates, and it's one of our favorite spots in MSP. We shared roast carrots with fennel and bleu cheese (pictured below), lamb loin with brown butter gnocchi and mushrooms, and an oxtail terrine...and a buttermilk panna cotta for dessert which was heavenly. Favorite dessert of 2014 so far.

Yumm

And for good measure, here's what my car looked like after Thursday night's incident. Stop signs are not a joke, friends.

Yup.

Well that's all I've got for tonight! Time to 

Holidays, con't

Back to work tomorrow unfortunately, but this has been a truly relaxing and delightful week off. I've been lucky enough to spend the majority of my time either curled up on the couch with a book, in a yoga class, or spending time with my wonderful husband, friends and family. I've watched a few of my favorite films, re-read Harry Potter books 1 - 6 (yay!) baked several batches of cookies, and even managed to squeeze in a few outdoor runs before the temperature inexplicably spiked to 50 before shooting back below zero, causing all of the snow to melt, then freeze into a treacherous sheet of ice over all the roads and sidewalks. Welcome to Minnesota.

Last night we went to our friend Tyler's girlfriend's place for a night of drinks, gaming and comraderie. The gaming didn't really get very far ~ everyone was too busy chatting so we managed one round of Cards Against Humanity before it was time to toast the new year. Then we devolved into pushup and pull-up contests and I answered the long pondered question of "how many pull-ups can I do while hanging off the edge of the woodwork in my friends' dining room" the answer being 2.5. This was obviously followed by a long and in-depth discussion on Neil Gaiman's novels, which quickly expanded to literature in general. And then goofy photos. Perfect night.

Skype sesh with Julianna on Christmas Day

Sinking Titanic Cookie - courtesy of Nasty Christmas

Bedecked dog, also courtesy of Nasty Christmas

Sleeping Cat

Annual family spritz bake

Double rainbow in the dining room

Re-visiting old favorites

New Years friend times

Tyler and Dani our gracious hosts

Brief but successful game of CAH

Goofiness ensues

...and continues

Happy New Year :)

Here's to a happy and wonderful 2014 ~ let's make the most of it.

Helloooo there!!

Well hi!  Long time no chat, so to speak.  It's been pretty busy around here for the last week or so what with Valentine's day and all the birthdays, and the british soap operas which required my undivided attention.  To quickly summarize:

What I have not been up to:

- Blogging

- Reading nearly enough

- Following the Republican primaries

What I have been up to:- A lot of yoga

- A LOT of work...

- Celebrating my mom's birthday

- Celebrating my dad's birthday
- Celebrating my birthday
- Wasting time on facebook
- Baking cake
- Eating cake
- Watching squintillions of hours of Downton Abbey while consuming said cake

Internet time suck strikes again

And oh yeah... last Thursday was my 29th birthday!  It was totally not a big deal, but some of my work friends were mad that I didn't say anything, so we're going to celebrate together next week when we travel to the thrilling locale of north Texas.  

After work, I hit up a hot yoga class, and came home to find a freshly-baked batch of cookies and a home cooked meal courtesy of my wonderful husband :)  Mini decided to help with some chores, and even Sidney somehow found the time to make me a card, despite his lack of language skills and opposable thumbs.

I help u.

Happy B-Day!  I didn't pee on the floor today!

Pasta Carbonara

On Friday, we went out to dinner with my parents and my mom's friend Pat, who was visiting from Portland.  Pat and my mom have been friends since before I was born - she was like an aunt to me growing up, and is definitely an honorary member of our family.  It was really a joint Birthday celebration - my parents and I all have birthdays in the first half of February, and over the years we've moved towards more of a joint celebration than celebrating them all separately.

We went to Blackbird, which was fantastic as usual.  I had the celery root and mushroom risotto, which was amaaaazing.  Ben got the Walleye Po Boy, my parents both ordered Orichette, and Pat had the Cassoulet - definitely my favorite dish at the table besides my own :)  After dinner we walked back to our place for coffee and cake.

All of us at Blackbird

On Saturday, I had some friends over for drinks and more cake.  Amanda brought a delicious chocolate mocha torte, and the makings for Blood Orange Gin Sparklers, which were fan-tastic.  And gin-tastic.  Amanda was quite generous when she poured mine.

A few friends brought beer and various snacks, and I baked a second cake - Dorie Greenspan's French Apple Cake (via David Liebowitz's blog).  It was a lovely night and we had a great time just hanging out and chatting.

In other news, it finally snowed!!  And I am obsessed with Downton Abbey and wish I could be BFF's with Dowager Countess Violet.  And that I had all of Mary Crawley's dresses.  And this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother almost made me cry.  WHAT?!?

Also the most exciting part of my day was re-entering some numbers into a spreadsheet.  They were cost-related numbers and they were much lower than expected.  It blew my mind.

My life is super exciting.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Happy Tuesday!  The worst part of the week is over!!!