Don't think about it, just do it

Last Monday at 12:35am PST I boarded a red-eye from LAX to MSP. At 6am CST I landed in Minneapolis, Ben drove me home and I showered, changed and I went into the office and Ben left for a three-day work retreat. Tuesday I had an after-work event, Wednesday I ended up at the doggie urgent care with Sidney until midnight (long story, he is fine), Thursday I worked at an event until 10pm and Friday I had a friend over. I went to Shannon's class on Saturday, and to the advanced practice on Sunday where we did a ton of arm balances and backbends at least 7 urdhva dhaunurasanas (I stopped counting at 5, but I know we did more after that). On Monday I went to Ali's class where we did...more backbends including five urdhvas at the end, with variations. Normally five urdhva dhaunurasanas is not a problem, but last night I was so wiped out that I finally reached that point where the tiredness pushes through some magical barrier to a land where exhaustion no longer matters. I call this point "don't think about it, just do it."

"Don't think about it, just do it" is kind of how I've gotten through the last week and a half, so I am REALLY excited for this weekend so I can put my feet up, marathon some netflix and get caught up on my YTT homework.

ANYWAY.
There is something I've been meaning to say here but haven't gotten the chance - this was probably pretty apparent to anyone who follows me on Instagram or Twitter but I should mention that I left my job about a month ago. I have a LOT more to say on that subject but that's another blog entry for another time. It was tough to leave, but I know deep down it was the right choice.

Since I did make a mention going into the office and working late hours last week, I obviously have a new job and it is AMAZING. Also more to say on that subject, also another entry for another time.

As a friend of mine said to me a few weeks ago, 2014 is apparently my year for shaking it up. Yoga teacher training, new job, all of it. I could not be more excited about where I am right now. So there's my update, hope you are having a great week and I know I say this every time but I REALLY REALLY am going to try to write more. I have so many backlogged entries about YTT and yoga philosophy it's not even funny. So hopefully I'll get around to finishing and posting some of them soon ;) But in the meantime - photos, because everyone likes those.

Early morning run at the lake

Art shopping with new coworkers at Adam Turman's garage sale

MN pride tank - courtesy of Adam Turman Garage Sale

Old yoga studio is now a coffee shop - it's very weird 

Visiting my sis in Chicago

Date night with Benjamin at the MN Orchestra

...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 

This one is mostly about music.

This post is light on photos, long on tangential randomness. Hooray.

1) Opera

Ben and I went with my parents to see Arabella at MNOp last Saturday. The music was lovely (I have a soft spot for Strauss having sung a bunch of his art songs in college) and the singing was amazing. The opera itself was basically 1.5 acts of exposition, followed by 1 act of stuff happening. I have constructed a plot summary to save you some time; you can thank me later.

ARABELLA
ACT 1
- Girl sees boy, girl falls in love with boy
- Girl's sister is pretending to be a boy because...being a girl is expensive apparently?
- Boy sees photo of girl, falls in love with girl
- Father approves of boy because he is loaded
- Father arranges for girl and boy to meet at party later that evening
ACT 2
- They are at the party, yay!
- Girl and boy finally meet, fall madly in love, become engaged. Girl promises to meet boy at door with glasses of fresh water every day because he will own her now. Yay?
- Due to a giant misunderstanding based on things he overhears and never bothers to verify, boy becomes convinced girl is cheating on him, gets completely blasted and starts macking on other girls at the party.
ACT 3
- Boy confronts girl. Girl insists she is not cheating on boy, but boy is unconvinced. Hilarious hijinx ensue.
- Misunderstanding is eventually cleared up. Boy is embarassed, as he should be. Girl forgives him for some reason. Love songs and sexual innuendos about glasses of water ensue.

At least we clean up well!

2) Movies
We went to see Thor: The Dark World last Sunday and I super loved it a lot. Just straight up entertainment which was exactly what I needed after seeing the *very* well done but also incredibly difficult to watch 12 Years a Slave last weekend. Also I think Loki is now my favorite character in the Marvel universe - morally ambiguous loose cannon with a some sass thrown in for good measure? Sign me up.

3) I like running to sad music?
Some people run best to fast club music because it pumps them up. I, on the other hand, seem to need a sweeping string section and some emotional torment to get me going which is probably why I listened to this song at least eight times on my Tuesday six miler. I can't explain it...it's kind of emo and sounds like something I would have loved in college, but I seriously cannot stop listening to it.



4) I like running
Speaking of running - even though I seriously question my sanity when my alarm goes off at 5am, by the time I am outside watching the sun come up I'm just excited and grateful, and remember why I do this to myself three times a week. It is 100% worth it.

This is why I get up at 5am. Right here.

Thanksgiving is almost here!! Time to start decorating for Christmas, I just bought about 60 feet of pre-lit garland from Target and two boxes of Candy Cane tea. In choir, we've started rehearsing for our Christmas concert which features the Bach Magnificat in D this year. If this doesn't make you feel  full of joy and the Christmas spirit, then you are wrong:

The end! Hope you are having a great weekend.

Randoms, and the joys of stress baking

Please observe the super healthy breakfast I made for myself and Ben on Saturday...and yes, we demolished half of the pan by ourselves in under an hour. It's cool, you don't have to tell me how awesome and impressive we are. We know.

APPLE CRISP! Favorite of fall baking

On Sunday, my mom came over after church/choir and helped us rake leaves in the backyard. There were a LOT of leaves...like, a whole lot. The maple tree on our neighbor's property (the same tree that is infested with carptenter ants that like to invade our attic) drops most of its leaves into our backyard every fall, and we rake and dispose of them. Delightful.

Ben and my mom, hard at work. Don't worry, I was helping too :)

The fruits of our labor

This has been a rough week at work. I don't really want to get into it (also, can't really get into it, nondisclosure and legality blah blah blah) but Monday and Tuesday were especially stressful. Luckily, Monday is was saved by some quiet reading time and an amazing yoga class. Most Mondays I head to my favorite coffee shop and relax with a book and a beverage (this time, mint tea) and then head to my favorite yoga class at 7. Currently I'm reading this book which is fascinating and also terrifying...I'm only about 1/4 of the way through but so far I highly recommend it.

Class was PERFECT and exactly what I needed. I do love to push and challenge myself in my yoga practice, "do the thing that scares you" and whatnot. But there is a time and a place for that, and there is a time and a place for...not that. There are poses that actually do make me feel fear, and I will pretty much only ever do them if forced (visvamitrasana, he full form of vasistasana with the leg up, and upavistha konasana), and also poses that are not scary but are definitely confrontational (urdhva dhanurasana, dhanurasana, pinca mayurasana...so basically backbends) and these are great and beneficial poses. But some days I'm like crap, this entire day has been confrontational; can I just do some hip openers and stretch my hammies and do my favorite arm balances? And on Monday the answer was YES. For the record, this is my favorite pose.

Tea + Book + Yoga = happy times

At some point during the day on Tuesday I consumed five mini Milky Ways in a fit of blind rage and sent Ben some very violent and probably concerning text messages about punching people in the throat. Luckily, I did not punch anyone and instead channelled all of my stress into a batch of ghost cookies which I then decorated with pink sparkles because why not. And I ate them while watching Sleepy Hollow and New Girl, so I immediately felt one billion times better about life.

The products of my rage

Today I worked from home (again! yay!) because I had a coffee meeting in the morning near my house. Since you've all now seen what I look like on a workday when I can't be bothered to put on real people clothes, I figure you're all dying to know what I look like on a normal day at the office. Ta da:

Blazer and Tshirt from H&M
Pants from J Crew
Shoes from Target
And no I'm not wearing socks, my ankles are actually that white
.....

If you're wondering what the heck is that thing in the bottom right hand corner of the above photo, the answer is obviously, a bust of William Shakespeare wearing my blue wig from Halloween. Duh.

Working from home is about 80% less stressful than being in the office sometimes. I get just as much done if not more, but it just feels easier to keep everything in perspective and remember what is really important in life. I think that right now, I need the occasional WFH day for my sanity, and because I have trouble keeping frustration and disbelief from showing in my facial expressions WFH days also keep my eyeballs from freezing permanently into this position:

This is the face I make after 1 hour calls with IT

May the best you've ever seen, be the worst you'll ever see

Fall has definitely arrived in St Paul - actually I think winter is well on its way to arriving. The trees haven't quite figured out what's going on yet, so some of them have already dropped their leaves and some are still green. It's very odd.

Anyway, it has been a fun and super full week over here! We finally started rehearsals for our Christmas concert/service; this year we're singing the Bach Magnificat in D. I first sang this piece a few years ago, also for Christmas I think and it remains one of my favorites largely because it has a rockin Soprano II part. I am selfish :)

Thursday I did my usual early AM run followed by coffee - I usually go to Rustica because it is sort of on the way to the office and they have AMAZING coffee.  They also have yogurt/fruit/granola cups with greek yogurt and their homemade granola...they are super good and I basically dream about them. Since it is usually pre 7am when I swing by, they may or may not have the yogurts out yet, so whenever they do have them I get irrationally excited.

A little bit of heaven in a cup

That night we went to a Laphroig event at the St Paul Hotel!! I have been looking forward to this for SO LONG. In case you were not aware Ben and I are both huge fans of single malt scotch whisky. Ben actually gave me a bottle of scotch as a wedding gift. What can I say, the man knows me well. Laphroig is actually the scotch that started it all for me. I first tasted it my senior year of college - my friend offered me a sip of his, so I took one and proclaimed "huh. This tastes like a cigar". And then I immediately demanded to know where I could get more. Thus began a beautiful friendship. I would not say it's my favorite anymore but it was definitely my 'gateway scotch'... I do not mess around.

So anyway when Ben got a notice in the mail from St Paul Grill that there was a Laphroig EVENT taking place with a legit Laprhoig rep from Scotland, he asked if I wanted to go and I responded YES ARE YOU KIDDING. And he was like dude settle down. Sometimes I think I scare him with my exuberance.

(p.s. I really hope this doesn't make me sound like an alcoholic. I actually do not drink much at all, and when I drink whisky it is only in very small amounts...hence why Thursday night was...ineresting.)

Bounty of gift bags!

I was Ben's 'plus one' ...for some reason I found this deeply amusing

Starting the evening off right with a cocktail!
This would have probably been fine, had it not been followed by six pours of whisky

Bagpipers to usher us in to dinner and to...set the mood I guess?

After we had all finished our cocktails and appetizers, we were herded by bagpipers (I am not kidding) into the dining room, where we were given more food (bread, cheese and some preserved meats/sausages/etc) and five varieties of Laphroig to taste while we listened to the presentation Simon, the Laphroig rep, tell us about the history of the distillery and the island of Islay.

From left to right: 10 year, Quarter Cask, 18 year, Cask Strength, and Triple Wood

After a cocktail and five scotches, I was feelin pretty good when SURPRISE they brought out a sixth scotch for us to taste. The Cairdeas was aged in bourbon and finished in a port cask for 15 months. Port  aged or finished are my favorite - it imparts a deep flavor and sweetness to the whisky that I really like.

Love this photo

As it turns out, the appetizers and bread/cheese plate were not nearly enough food to soak up six scotches...plus fancy places make me somewhat uncomfortable so I demanded that we swing by Falafel King to even things out. Nothing rounds out a classy evening of appetizers and charcuterie quite like some fried chickpea deliciousness eaten on the couch while giggling uncontrollably.

The next morning I...did not feel awesome. Lucky for me, literally my entire team was on PTO (my entire team now being me, my manager and one other person and an open rec. Long story.) so I worked from home in my PJs for a couple of hours while drinking tons of water. At 9:30 or so, I decided I should probably wash my face and put on real clothes, and roll into the office for some afternoon meetings. P.S. how much do I love casual Friday...

Sorry corporate America, this is all you're getting from me today.

Don't worry, I put shoes on eventually

As I was heading out the door, I went to grab my favorite scarf only to find that it was already in use. This is what I get for leaving my hats and scarves on pretty much any flat surface in our house.

So, guess I am wearing a different scarf today.

After all meetings for the day had wrapped up I headed BACK home to finish a few things...it's kind of amazing how much you can get done when everyone you work with is out of the office. I heated up some leftover butternut squash soup for a late lunch (made from this recipe) and watched Pitch Perfect while I worked on a presentation.

Better than the office, fo sho

I still managed to make a hot yoga class in the evening, came home and quickly showered before heading to Overflow Cafe for a gig my friend Keith was playing with the band Flowerstalks. I had never been to Overflow before but I really like it! The space was big but still cozy, with a fireplace and tons of comfy couches, and a half second floor. They had great food and the coffee drinks looked delicious (I did not have one because if I drink coffee in the afternoon/evening I cannot sleep...).

Thai chicken wrap from Overflow

They also had board games so Ben and I played a round of Scrabble. I probably beat him ;)  

Anyway, moral of the story is don't drink on a Thursday. I will leave you with this lovely Scottish toast:

May the best you’ve ever seen

Be the worst you’ll ever see;

May a moose ne’er leave yer girnal

Wi’ a teardrop in his e’e.

May ye aye keep hale and hearty

Till ye’re auld enough tae dee,

May ye aye be just as happy

As I wish ye aye tae be.

Things! Also Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween!!! I can't believe it's been over a month since I've posted...so just to get up to speed, here is a random list of what we've been up to for the last few weeks:


1. TWIN CITIES 10 MILE
If you'd have told me two years ago that I would one day run 10 miles in a race, I would have laughed in your face. Actually a year and a half ago, I probably would have still laughed in your face. Until recently I was convinced that I hated running...then some coworkers talked me into running the Warrior Dash and the rest is history. Anyway, here's a photo of Ben and I before the race (hopefully I will not get sued for snagging this proof...it does have PROOF written all over it....)

Aaaand one from after the race (courtesy of Ben's dad) looking SUPER AWESOME and not at all tired or sweaty.

Unsurprisingly, Ben smoked me by about 10 minutes...I finished in 1:26, he finished in 1:16. Speed demon, that man. Anyway I spent most of the rest of the day eating, including a delightful feast of poutine, burger, and more fries at The Happy Gnome. "But wait," you say. "Isn't poutine also fries? Why did you order fries again after you already had them?" You know what...stop. Just be quiet.

I've also become a fan of the early morning run. Occasionally I'll drag myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5am and drive to Lake Calhoun or some other picturesque location to get in a few miles before work. The best parts of this are 1) the sunrise and 2) getting coffee afterward...plus occasionally some granola and yogurt from Rustica. 

Totally worth it

3. DYED MY HAIR

I've been blond for 12 years, but have been thinking about going darker for at least 4-5. The only problem is, I chicken out as soon as I get to the hairdresser but this time I DID NOT CHICKEN OUT. My stylist was nervous about making too drastic of a change right away though, so she took out most of the blond but otherwise pretty much left it alone. I love it. Next time I'm going all the way.

Plus, nobody can make blond jokes at me anymore.

4. YOGA AND LOTS OF IT

Desiree Rumbaugh was in town last weekend for a three-day workshop and it was amazeballs. One of the things I love about Desiree is that each of the three times I've studied with her, she focuses on one key principle that you can apply across your practice. The last two years it's been an evolving approach of integration before expansion (last year 'RIBS BACK' this year 'INFLATE THE SERRATUS') and it's been so helpful for me. I tend to get lower back stuff in certain backbends, and in standing crescent oddly enough...but not last weekend so now I have some additional tools to integrate into my practice. Super amazing. One of these days i'm going to go on a yoga nerd tangent on this blog...watch out. 

Lovely

4. FALL THINGS

Some leaves

Some more leaves

Carving pumpkins in Chicago with Kristin

PUMPKINS

5. HALLOWEEN
Ben had his costume planned the day we saw The World's End in the theatre. Or rather, I planned it for him as soon as I saw Simon Pegg's character. "Hey," I said. "You have a coat like that! And you have a scruffy beard like that! And you could slick your hair back and wear aviators!"

Gary King rides again

Ben as Gary, and our friend Chris as ...a G-man? I think?? Basically he went as himself but with a fedora.

I had no idea what I was going as until literally 10 minutes before walking out the door. All I had to go on was a blue wig spontaneously purchased at Target about 1 hour before the party, and...yeah that was pretty much it. So I decided to make our evening an homage to Edgar Wright and went as Ramona Flowers.

Not my real hair.

Ben and I at the party

I also did some karaoke to the Backstreet Boys, which Ben took a video of but I think I will spare you...


5. HAVE YOU BY ANY CHANCE SEEN...A LITTLE LEMON...?
If you are a decent human being, you have hopefully listened to Cabin Pressure by John Finnemore. If not, you are probably unfamiliar with the game Traveling Lemon. Basically, one player hides a lemon somewhere and the other person has to find it. When the second player locates the lemon, they re-hide it and the first player has to find it and then re-hide it. Ad infinitum.

One day, without warning I put a lemon in the shower, and sent Ben an email informing him that the lemon was in play. He thought I was joking...I wasn't. He found it pretty quickly, and re-hid it in a new location. One of the rules of Traveling Lemon is that the lemon has to be in plain sight (not in a drawer or cupboard or anything), and after a couple of days I grew suspicious that he was cheating because I had looked EVERYWHERE and had yet to find the lemon.

Well.

On Monday afternoon, my mom came over for tea. The first thing she said when she walked into the dining room was "Um...did you know there's a lemon on your chandelier?"

Well played, Benjamin. Well played.

I think that's all I have for now. Hope you're having a wonderful week and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Stripes 2: Revenge of the Stripes

So on Monday, I was planning on my normal routine of work --> latte and reading at Bull Run --> yoga --> sleeping. I blocked my free time during the day to finish up a presentation for Tuesday, so that I could easily get out of there by 5-5:30 with plenty of time to have a luxurious reading and coffee hour before class. As usual though, work had other plans and there was a dire emergency requiring me to write up several pages of training materials before 4pm. I whipped them together pretty quickly, but this still meant that the presentation I meant to start working on at 10am, was not started until 4:30.

I forced myself to stop working just in the nick of time, booked it out to my car only to remember that I was almost out of gas. But as we all know, Yoga > safe driving, so I rolled into Uptown 20 minutes later on fumes and the wings of angels, and miraculously made it to my 7pm class.

In other news, Lululemon keeps making stripey things. I saw this hoodie online and immediately knew I needed to have it. IT HAS STRIPES ON THE SLEEVES. AND THE HOOD. WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS.

This photo provides a better view of the hood

But this one has a great cameo by Mini in the bottom left, so I had to post it too
Also, I've decided that this phone case is totally an appropriate work accessory. If
people are going to judge me for having a phone case that looks like it
belongs to a 4-year old Japanese girl, they need to find better things
to do with their time.
End caption.

Stripes layered over EVEN MORE STRIPES
META STRIPES

Last night I subbed for my friend/teacher Laura's class, and thus have now taught my third class ever. I am still not certified.

[Sssshhhh.....]

So I sat down over the last couple of days to do some hardcore planning and sequencing, using YJ home practices, old notes, and an awesome book I'm borrowing from my teacher that includes basic cues for all of the major asanas.

Right now, I'm just working on sounding like I mean what I say. Also on not constantly mixing up left and right. Or 'leg' and 'arm'. It's a process.

Sequencing like a boss

Yesterday I discovered that Birthday Cake Oreos exist. Problem of how to fuel for 10 mile training runs = SOLVED.
OK I lied this was never a problem, but let's just pretend I have a deep and meaningful reason for eating these, because they taste like the laughter of baby unicorns and I am having a really hard time restraining myself from going to the pantry and inhaling the entire package.

BUY ME NOW AND EAT ME

And a final word for the day - Ben and I went to a free MNOrch concert on Saturday at the Lake Harriet Bandshell and it was very emotional. If you're not from Mpls or if you are not aware of the lockout and ensuing conflict that has developed between the musicians and management over the last year, go read up on it and then immediately donate to Save Our Symphony MN or Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra. They are planning to put on a fall concert series without the support of Orchestra Management and MNOrch and they need some financial help in order to do so. DO IT. We have a world class orchestra and I really hope we do not lose them.




That's all. It's Thursday and I have no plans after work other than dinner, cookies and binge watching season 2 of New Girl so I can start Season 3 ASAP. Have a wonderful day!!