Category Archives: music

Football dinner and a little music, please.

Dang it feels like Friday.  Not so, unfortunately!  I slept in a little later this morning, which was quite nice.

Pixie says “Don’t just sleep in, sleep all the time!”

Today is to be a grain-free day.  The challenge will be dinner out – for my football winning dinner!  😈  Poor John.

I made up a banana bread pudding for breakfast:

Topped with coconut butter and orange marmalade.  Yummy!  This is quite filling.

Doing well on my monthly goals.  I did my 3 miles yesterday – all outdoors because of the 54 degree day! Of course, it is always easier at the beginning of a challenge when motivation is high.

I continued working on the goals with lunch.

Two different veggies per day, which in  my world likely is broccoli and *insert other veggie here*

Since I wasn’t sure what veggies would be available for dinner, I made sure lunch included something.

I really put my head down and worked.  Super productive, which is great – so I finished up early!  John had made lattes:

(Does my thumb look weird, or is it me?).

Then I loaded up my mp3 player and headed out for a walk.

This is on my player currently:

Hot Club of Detroit – All 3 albums! (although the first album is my fave).

If you have 6 minutes, listen to this tune.

Hot Club of Detroit – Noto Swing from Mack Avenue on Vimeo.

Awesome!

Also on the mp3: Journey – Greatest Hits, Sweeney Todd Soundtrack, Gaelic Storm, Dirty Dozen Brass Band – 2 albums, Harry Connick Jr,. 25, New Nile Orchestra.

A bit eclectic, eh?

Some scenes from my walk.

Yum! Even if there is a grammar problem with the sign.

Burning bush with berries:

Looks like a murder at the old Scarecrow house!

Personally, I think  it is this guy:

He looks creepy enough.

Then it was off to my winning dinner!

This is a new restaurant.  They are supposed to have local smokehouse products there.  I chose the pulled pork.  It came on a bun, but I didn’t eat it (no grains today)

Good thing I said sweet potatoes counted as a veggie for me this month!  :mrgreen:  These were sweet potato fries.  I had a couple bites of coleslaw as well.  There might have been some kind of starch in the BBQ sauce, but I will just be on faith there.  Good dinner!

Afterwards, there was an early concert here:

It was a free concert by the Air Force Wind Quintet!  A short program, about an hour and quite enjoyable.  It turned out to be a date night!  Really does kind of feel like a Friday  😀

 

What’s blooming today and Irish Fest

Welcome Friday. Welcome, welcome – I am so glad it is the end of the week.   :mrgreen:

It was soooooo cold overnight.  We dipped down to the upper 30s  😯

That won’t stop me from biking just yet, though.  It was 42 when we got up, so still good to go.  Just needed to bundle up.

I put those little stretchy gloves under my biking gloves to keep my fingers warm.  I decided to have John take me out to breakfast today for my football meal this week.  The first of the 16 I will be winning, I might add.  :mrgreen:

We went to Maudes.

Now we have been to Maude’s before, but the building they were in got sold and the owners booted the restaurant out to make room for their own (nice, eh?). So Maude’s had to find a new location and it is very cute! They brought along all the old decor:

And they brought all their old salt and pepper shakers as well.  There is a different set at each table.

Udderly hilarious, no?

As per usual when we come here, I had my cheese omelet, which came with way more home fries that I could eat!

Winning tastes so good!

The garden is in almost full autumn swing now.  Just waiting on my planted mums to bloom.

I have perennial asters on the side of the house:

The Autumn Joy sedum is getting darker and darker:

Interesting story. The sedum is 3 plants.  In the spring, I dug them up and literally used a hacksaw to cut them in half.  I gave 3 plants to my mom and put the other 3 pieces back in and they grew just as big as the year before! You can’t kill them.

Green envy coneflower got a bunch of new blooms on it.

My 100 pound rose bush also sent out new blooms this week! I think this is the 3rd flush of blooms:

And the knockout bush – absolutely covered!

That’s with the four o’clocks in front.

Lots more color left for this garden!

I will skip food to get to the other important events of the day:

Irish Fest is a 2 day event that features many Irish/Celtic bands from local to world famous.  There are vendors there, and on my bucket list some day is to get an authentic Irish sweater.  There were quite a few kilts to be seen.

Bet they were cold.

Also a lot of the usual fair food.

Now that just sounds gross!

We watched some of Seven Nations, good – but too loud! We had to move out of the tent. That sure makes me feel old LOL!

Then the reason that I really wanted to come was to see Gaelic Storm. They are a fun group to watch.  Here is a snippet:

John decided on a fried dough to eat:

I decided on a beer:

This was Harp, which is a pale lager made by Guinness.  I liked it and it doesn’t knock your boots off like Guinness draft.  I didn’t wear green like a lot of people.  You don’t need to wear green when Irish is in your blood.

More Gaelic Storm

It’s hard to stay still when the music is going. Yay fun! And what goes with beer?

That’s right – kettle corn!  It was fresh made and tasty!

Had a great time last night. I think I am still trying to warm up, though. Next musical stop this weekend is the Lake George Jazz Fest!

Pianos and productivity

It’s Monday, right? I woke up feeling a little groggy today. When I got to the gym, nobody was there! That was weird. Then about 15 minutes later more people came in. Usually Monday is the day when it is the most crowded, but it could be people just tired of this cold weather. It was 10 degrees when I headed out this morning. Ugh!

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Deadlift 3 sets of 12 at 55# Lower Body
Straight Arm Lat Pull Down 3 sets of 15 at 40# Back
Incline Chest Press 3 sets of 12 at 45# Chest
Plank 3 sets of 70-second holds Core
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 140# Calves
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 15 at 80# Low back
Lying hamstring curl 3 sets of 12 at 35# Hammies
Upright Row 3 sets of 10 with 30# bar Shoulders

I used a machine for the hamstring curl for something different and now I remember why I really dislike the machines. I just cannot get comfortable on them and feel restricted.

Came home to coconut flour waffles!

I keep forgetting to add a little oil and see if I can get these to crisp up.  I have also been eating a platoon of fresh and frozen berries lately.  Surprised I haven’t turned a little bit purple.

I happily settled in to work this morning.  Pixie settled into a sun spot.

She looks all melted.  Like a melted peanut butter cup.

Lunch time included more berries.  I made more magic rolls, but I didn’t quite cook them long enough.  Still tasty, though.

Egg sandwich.  And that is broccoli slaw on the side that I sauteed up in a little coconut oil.  A nice veggie change up for me!

The afternoon brought a delivery.

Our new addition.

It is pretty out of tune, but it is recommended to let it acclimate for a month before having the tuner come in.  I think my ears may disintegrate by then!

We had lattes after the movers left.

I am uber productive with work now.  More than I expected because I have enough work!  Before I would do the work until it was gone and then wait for more, so I could never really be sure of my true production rate.  Remember I am paid by the line. The more lines per hour I can do, the more money I make.

I finished up my day for dinner time.  I cooked up some pork and made  salad with greek dressing and feta cheese on it.

John barely finished chewing dinner before he was practicing.

I love this shot because you can see all the Pixie hair on John’s office chair.  She loves to lay across the back of it until he chases her off.  Pixie is less than enamored of the new pianer, so maybe she will stay off the chair.

I decided to go up and ride the trainer while he played 😀  I did 10 miles.  I like doing the lifting in the morning and a bit of cardio in the evening.  Just to kind of bookend the day.  All of that done and it is only 7 pm.

Now I have settled in with a snack:

Have a great night!

Life is grand, a baby grand, that is!

Dang these weekends go by fast!  And how many of you could see the moon?

It was soooo bright!  I took this at a little before 6 am.

We spent Sunday early morning at Panera for breakfast (later than 6am, though).

We were up early.  I was up at 5 am on a Sunday.  How sad is that?  I know it is because I didn’t make the best food choices on Saturday (too much chocolate) and I have found that I sleep poorly on those nights with constant waking and overheated.  You would think that is incentive enough to not do that, right?

We then went to our home away from home (aka Home Depot) to pick up this weeks’ workings for the half bath. We should be able to have the inspector come this week to laugh at us and tell us to start over check out our plumbing.

Made up some lunch.  I did some coconut flour bread, which I will post the recipe for this week.  Kind of like a cornbread biscuit, really.

Plus buffalo style chicken breast with just a drizzle of blue cheese dressing on it.  I am almost out of hot sauce!

Yesterday brought a new addition for our home that was kind of spur of the moment.  A little background here: John and I both have music degrees, but we don’t play our original instruments anymore.  John started playing piano a few years ago with an electronic keyboard.  (We were going to wait until we moved into what will someday be our permanent home to get a real piano.)  He then bought a very nice full span electronic keyboard, which started having issues one year after buying it.  He contacted the company and they replaced the keyboard, and the same thing started happening with the new one.  Obviously a defect in manufacturing.  Now the company is of little help.  Lame.

So, he stopped playing.  He really misses it and especially with me playing the guitar a lot, he was going to buy a new keyboard for $300.  Well, I figured why not get an upright to have in the house, as many of them are for sale for not too much used.  I checked out on Craigs List and sent John some links.  Lo and behold – there was a baby grand piano for $200 a few towns away.  Friday we contacted the guy and looked at it yesterday.

It needs a serious tuning, but it is in awesome shape and a complete steal at $200!  Even with the cost of moving it will be awesome and John can play. The man who owned it needs to room and just wanted to recoup his costs to move this piano.  What a deal!

Now we just need to get the piano movers out to retrieve it. My real ulterior motive for getting this is that whenever we do move out of  our current house, we will now have to pay for movers to do everything instead of doing U-Haul and doing it ourselves like we have always done in the past (which I keep saying I will never do again).

Latte love this afternoon:

Almond milk.  I use the unsweetened, plain almond milk.  I added some whey protein and it almost tasted like milk that way.  I have sort of thought about trying a dairy-free challenge just for kicks, but I don’t know.

Dinner time!  These are apple chicken sausages that are quite good.

Tonight is some relaxing!  We can’t do much more in the half bath until the inspector gives us the okay, so we can goof around now :mrgreen:

Did you do anything spontaneous this weekend?

56 miles to Ireland and back

Absolutely gorgeous day.  Again!  Our Saturdays have just been amazing all summer and into fall (although it technically is still summer).  The plan was to bike down to the Irish Fest for the early afternoon.  You do know it is halfway to St. Patty’s Day, right? Started off the day with some pumpkin oats.  These were made with fresh pumpkin that John cooked up the other day with a pie pumpkin I brought home.

1 tsp of molasses, 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 cup fresh pumpkin, topped with apple cranberry jam (that I made last month) and almonds.  Pecans would have been better, but we are out.

Nice relaxing morning waiting for the fog to lift and the temps to warm up some before heading on out.   After 11 miles, it was a stop for a quick snack. Pear power!

22 miles to lunch. Avoiding the festival $food$, we stopped in Saratoga at our favorite Cupcake lab!  I had a breakfast burrito that was super yummy.

It really helps when you are hungry.   Of course, that was just the prelude to the real reason we stopped in:

This was a green tea chai cupcake, which John and I split.  Needed more cardamom flavor.  I actually think this cupcake would be good as is with an apple filling.

I had my own Pistachio cupcake.

I love pistachio gelatto, so I quite enjoyed this one.  Lot of frosting, which is always a good thing.  The cupcake itself was green 😀

Gratuitous cupcake shot.

This was John’s Almond Joy.

With a tummy full of cupcake goodness, we headed on another 6 miles to the fairgrounds.  We actually biked this last year for another reason and using Google, it said it was 25 miles there.  Using actual odometer this year and it was actually 28 miles there.  Longer ride than anticipated today!

Lots more fest happening today and a lot more people. 3 different music stages for different types of music:  Traditional, up and coming, and rock/contemporary

Many imported Irish things:

Plus the usual fair junk.

And some alpacas.

Biker dudes in leather and kilts:

What does a complete dork get?  Porridge!  LOL.

I can’t wait to try these  (aren’t you all surprised).

We listened to some more music and then the real reason we came – Lunasa.  If you don’t have a CD of theirs, you should get one.  Go now.  I’ll still be here.

One of my very favorite things to have at any kind of fair is the fresh squeezed lemonade.  I don’t know why I love it so, but I do.

John also picked up some Irish soda bread so that we could get few carbs for the ride home.  So much for not eating at the fest…

Unfortunately, Lunasa got moved back in the schedule, which meant we could not stay for the whole performance as we had a 2-hour bike ride to get home with no real stop for any kind of dinner.  And we left at 5:00! As it was, we really pushed it past the lightness buffer.

We did stop around mile 45 for some coconut water and dates.

I felt so rejuvenated by the coconut water.  I don’t know if Gatorade does the same thing, but it is amazing to me.

Pushing home and my legs really felt good.

Can you see my odometer? The garage light is on.  That is how dark it was for the final mile or so.  Kinda scary. We don’t ride at night for safety reasons – even if I had lights on my bike, I don’t trust the cars.

Ride stats:

56.9 miles (damn close to 57!)

Top speed:  29.9

Avg Speed:  13.2 mph

Calories burned:  1720  (sweet).

This is the kind of long ride I like.  Leisurely with stops and yummy food in the middle.  Riding with my buddy:

I felt like I could have ridden for another 10 miles.  A lot different than the charity ride last week!  My legs are so awesome – I just love them! 😀  It’s one of those times where I am feeling in great shape (last 10 pounds be damned!)

As you can imagine, we were ready for food when we got home.  It was way past dinner time and that was quite a calorie burn.  I was totally craving veggies, as my diet has been deficient in them the last day or 2.  I made up a stirfry of cauliflower, broccoli and chick peas sauteed in coconut oil and some ginger stir fry sauce.

It was really good and cured the veggie need.  However, still deficient in calories.

The cure for that?

John made pumpkin donuts.  He had the dough rising for the last 2 days and I made him do them so I could take advantage of the long ride 😀

With some decaf coffee it was delicious.  Who doesn’t want a fresh donut (or more) at 10 pm?

This was a most excellent day.  I am going to miss these long rides in a couple months.

Snippet of the Irish Fest

I thought I would give you a bit of last night at the Irish Fest.

We are biking down there again today on one of our long, more leisurely rides so I will recap that tomorrow.

Blurry pics tonight LOL!

There were a ton of food vendors:

How many times can you see the word “fried” in one picture?

Note the coats.  It was pretty chilly last night.  I think the temps were probably in the upper 50s by the end of the night.

I hardly ever drink beer anymore, but John and I decided to share a Guinness draft.  When in Ireland Rome, right?

I know Guinness has a bit of an old-fashioned rep, but it is mighty tasty.

Look – I hadn’t even had 1 sip of beer yet, but this picture looks like it.

This is probably how a lot of people saw last night….

There was a lineup of bands, but we really wanted to see Gaelic Storm:

Most people know them as the group that played in the movie ‘Titanic.’  (To which I must confess that I have never seen the whole movie).   We saw them in concert once before.

John enjoying some lovely beverage…

Another clip. Not the best sound, but it was better there LOL!

Ended up with 2 instrumentals and no vocals.  Bagpiper = hottie. 😳

This is really a good deal to go to the fest because of the number of groups you can hear.

I did not eat any of the food there.  None of it was really that appealing (and $$$).  I had a bite of a zeppolli, but it was not very good.  What I really wanted was a hot coffee!

Saturday is more music, dancers, and vendors to shop at.  I’ll have another post up on Sunday.  Maybe with a cupcake picture in there, too.

Question:  Do you ever go to music festivals?

Status quo?

It’s a beautiful morning!  Sing it!  Actually, it is very nice today.  Still a little cool, but the sunshine is out!  It feels good to be done (pretty much) with the real estate deal.  It’s funny, but whenever a firetruck would go blaring by in the direction of my old property, I always had a thought it could be going there.  Today a firetruck went by and I realized that I don’t have to worry about that anymore!

I slept really well last night.  Fell asleep around 11 and woke up at 7, which is a *lot* of sleep for me.  😀   Decided that I wanted some banana pecan custard oats for brekkie today.  I put 5 pecans in the microwave for about a minute to toast them up.

Topped with marshmallow fluff.  This was a very tasty bowl indeed.

Got right to work.  It’s funny how work gets slow and busy, and you just never know when that will be.  I need to decide whether to stay with this job or not.  The main reason I took this job was because of the investment property and needing extra money to cover it while I waited (spinning wheels, so to speak).   John and I were talking about what I should do next.  I always feel like I have to be doing something, but I think it is okay to tread water for a little bit (which is pretty much what I did the last year).  There is nothing wrong with the status quo, at least for a while.

Lunch time!

Tuna salad and FSTG sweet potato chips.  These are good, but most of the bag was all busted up.  Boooooo – these are too pricey for that to happen.

I wanted to share a super cute picture of Pixie.  Even though she is several years old, she will suckle on her own toe (guess I would call it a thumb if she actually had one).  I don’t know why she does it, and she only does it when she is on one of our laps.  I think it was because she got weaned too early as a kitten, but we will never know.  So, here she is doing that:

She kneads with the other paw while she is doing this.  Everyone say “awww….”

Latte time!  Plus an Attune bar.

We won’t mention the cookie dough ball I snuck in there as well.

Note how I balance the latte on my laptop which is balanced on my lap.  One of my less endearing traits is the risks I take with my electronics.

Dinner time is a fast one.  Baked crabcake topped with hot sauce!  I am almost out of my hot sauce, too. These are called Smart Option crab cakes (I wrote carb cake LOL) and are 170 calories each.  The smart is because they are inexpensive, I think.

Posting early tonight, as John and I are going to a symphony concert and it is a bit of a drive.  Haven’t been to one in so long because they are pretty pricey, and not all orchestras are worth the $$.   ( I am a former musician who played in orchestras, so I can say that 😛  )

Have a great night!

Question:  Do you feel the need to always be “doing”?

Lazy Saturday

Had changes of schedule today, unplanned.  I woke up after 7, which was nice again.  Still can’t seem to sleep too late.  My gym opens at 8, so I had a balance bar to fuel for a planned 5 mile run.  I got to the gym at 8:05 and it wasn’t open yet! 👿   I sat there until 8:15 (there were some other people waiting, too) and then I decided to go home.  No telling how long it would be before someone showed up.  Not sure what was up with that.  I was really annoyed because I had eaten a balance bar already.  I gave 2 thoughts to run outside, but it was 20 degrees and I wasn’t feeling it.  So, I had breakfast instead:

brekkie1212

Country Choice steel cut oats. Those are those little dehydrated marshmallows you get in hot cocoa!  I scored some on the internet, as I thought they would be really good in my chewy granola bars.  Of course, I needed to try them out.  Fun!  Some of them may have ended up in my coffee cup as an experiment.  It might have been a mistake to get these…..

John and I got some errands done including grocery shopping, then he started making some things to send to his family including my very favorite candy in the whole world!

praline1212

Pralines!  I could seriously put these in a feed bag and just hook it to my face.  They are so easy to make, too.  I told John these need to be up really high to keep me out of them, like up to the moon!  Good thing they are leaving the house on Monday.

We decided to head on to a free concert down in Saratoga.  I caught Pixie looking decidedly suspicious near the tree before we left:

pix1212

But, she was good and didn’t bother it.   The concert was good.  It was a string quartet.  I was bothered a bit by the audience behavior, though.  First off, some people brought children under the age of 5.  It really isn’t fair to bring them to a concert like this and expect them to be able to sit still.  There are so many family orchestra concerts to go to, why choose this one?  It really spoils it for people trying to listen, not to mention the performers themselves.  Then there was the gentleman that decided he wanted a picture of the quartet and just walked up the aisle until he was about 30 feet away from them (it was a smaller room), his digital camera beeped *and* it was a flash photo while they were playing.  He did this twice.  Unbelievable…..  Having been on the receiving end of stuff like this as a performer, too, so I know how they felt.

Cold day today, so it was a nice comforting dinner:

dum1212

Chicken and dumplings!  I’ll talk more about these on Monday for the giveaway post (big tease…)

We went for a walk tonight, and I am really glad we did.  It was cold, but still 10 degrees warmer than this morning.  I was feeling out of sorts because my exercise routine got bumped.  I definitely let calories get a little out of control today.

Ornament of the day:

PC110015

My sister made this for me, probably 15 years ago or so?  It’s been a long time.  She was really into cross stitch at one point and made this for me.  She used to do wildlife rehab and would do fawns, so it was a theme for her.

This ornament showcase has been really interesting for me, because I am really and truly looking at them this year and remembering.  🙂