Tanglewood Concert Tonight on the Internet.

Our son David is playing in the Tanglewood Music Festival Orchestra tonight. The program in Verdi's opera Don Carlo, which is considered his best opera. Every year the Tanglewood Festival puts on an opera, and for the past two years, the fellows orchestra is featured. DAvid is a fellow for the second year. The cast, which includes stars from the Metropolitan Opera and international stars, is made up of the best from the opera world. This is a one time performance, so tune in on your computer at www.wcrb.com at 7:30 edt. (eastern daylight time)
This is an audio only broadcast.

Is Fall Just Around the Corner?

It is the end of July, beautiful sunny weather, temps in the 80's. But...my syllabus is finished and my first class at Oakton is August 21, only a month away. I stopped over at the school to pick up some free tickets to Ravinia, then stopped in at the office to talk about duplicating my syllabus and other class materials.
To me, the year starts when school starts--in a way it is a more significant beginning than New Years Day. So, even though the weather says summer, and will for another few months, fall is definitely in the air.
On another subject, yesterday was our 26th wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate at Topobolampo, the fabulous Mexican Restaurant in Chicago. My review: it was better than ever. We had the tasting menu, 5 courses of exceptionally prepared food, each matched with a very appropriate wine. We were there for almost 4 hours, eating away. None of the portions are large, but plenty of food was consumed. If you want to have some magnificant food, go to Topobolampo or its more casual partner, Frontera Grill. The chef, Rick Bayless won a big award as chef of the year.

Filter out the negative, Choose to be Positive

Today, I got up on the wrong side of the bed. I woke up several times during the night and couldn't get back to sleep. So, I really didn't want to get up. I did, but didn't make the bed, got dressed and went to my meeting. Weigh in wasn't good either, but the meeting was good. My Weight Watchers leader is so creative and really puts together a good presentation. Today, she talked about counteracting negative ideas with positive ones. We got a coffee filter with the saying in today's blog title. On the way out, one of the meeting members told me that my skin looked great. Boy, did I need that. I thanked her and told her that I wasn't feeling too great. That's what so good about going to meetings. After many months, I do feel supported because everybody at the meeting is on the same journey.
So, choosing to be positive, in the past 10 months, I have lost 40 pounds, gone from a size 16 to a 8 or 10, depending on brand, have greatly improved my fitness and flexibility, gone down a shoe size, added 1/2 inch to my height, reduced my cholesterol, blood glucose, improved my hdl and ldl. I guess that wipes out a momentary weight gain.
To conclude, my leader gave us a card today that said"
You Choose...Whether to give up at the first obstacle or give it your all, to speak up or stay silent, to change what you don't like or let it change you. With every work, every step you take, you define who you are and create your future.

On Track Again

Monday is Weight Watchers. I planned to track everything this week, and got through to Wednesday. I did, however stay on program for most of the week. On the scale, I went down 1 pound, less than two pounds to goal. Now I'm off to the gym.

Enjoying a Tanglewood Concert at home

Yesterday my husband and I enjoyed our son's Tanglewood concert live in our home in Illinois. We tuned in our computer, set up the speakers, and listened away. This happened over WQXR.com which broadcast the TMI concert live from Lenox MA. This was quite a thrill for us, since David was playing principal cello on the first two pieces. The first piece, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin suite was quite spectacular and was very well received by the audience. The two other numbers, Le Tombeau de Couperin by Ravel and the Planets by Holst were also well done. There is another live concert coming up later this month, and we will be listening.

Stuck on the plateau again

Monday is weigh in day. So, how was it? Today's topic was beating the plateau, which is where my weight is located. I did cardio 5 times last week, went to the gym 3 times, but...I wasn't very good about writing down all the food. It seemed to me that I was careful about what I ate, but I did slip up a bit. The answer to getting off the plateau is to write down everything, eat enough, which means using all the bonus points. I will cut down a bit on cardio. We will see what happens next Monday.

Take me out to the Sox game!

Beautiful US Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox
on a Beautiful day!

He took me out to the Sox game and we had a good time. My wonderful husband was given 2 tickets to Saturday's White Sox game vs. the Minnesota Twins. We decided to take public transportation, the CTA, which took us from our house to US Cellular field with only one train change. The day was just perfect, the weather was hot and sunny, the seats were great and the Sox won! I had some pizza and diet pop, he had hot dogs and beer, we both shared a bag of peanuts. It was beach towel day, so now we have a new beach towel to add to our collection. The next time the Sox win the world series, we will hang the new towel next to the old towel to celebrate the victory. I hope that it comes soon--by that I mean within my lifetime.

Good bye Cicadas

I found this lovely card in town yesterday. It is based on a watercolor by Evanston artist Brian Bourke. It will be my memento of the 2007 brood of cicadas.

The Cicadas are gone, back in 17 years

Yesterday I noticed that the noise is gone. The dead cicadas on the sidewalk are almost gone. I assume that all the eggs are deposited on the tree branches, and the cycle begins again. We'll see the bugs again in 2024. I don't know why, but these insects really interested me this year.
I tried something new this week, I really didn't record my food at all. Well, since I slacked off, my weight was up over a pound this morning. So, I'm back to recording again. Since I have am so close to my goal, I have no idea why I didn't record anything. So, I live with the consequences.