Today was my studio recital! I do one recital in the fall and one in the spring. We had it at a nearby church that has a lovely facility and are easy to work with.

Today I showed up and it was dark and the organist was practicing though, and the woman I usually meet there wasn’t there! Luckily, I was able to get in because I arrived at the same time as a church employee…I started worrying that I had messed up the scheduling. I frantically looked in my email for the contract which showed the correct day, and then trying to find the cell number for the woman who was usually there.

I was so thankful to learn that she was the one who forgot, and that I hadn’t messed up, ha! I feel so forgetful lately, like I have a bunch of balls in the air and then I don’t necessarily drop them, but I simply forget they are there. But it wasn’t my mistake so I felt so much better, and then it was just no big deal, we got the right doors unlocked and the lights on, and it all worked out.

People showed up, we tuned, they played, it was a good day. What a lovely group of students and families I teach, honestly. Some students did a really good job, some surprised me in a good way! And others did how I expected, and it was all good.

After the recital we always do a little reception, and the parents bring drinks and snacks and we all get to chat a bit. Usually random families and students will realize they know each other outside of lessons, it’s a pretty small world here in St Louis.

And now I’m going to relax and read for a bit before we go to dinner.

I realized I’d been in a little bit of a reading funk. I mentioned that I started two or three books that I didn’t finish. Yesterday I was looking at my books and I realized what I really wanted to read was the new Jasper Fforde Thursday Next book, so I started it, and then I thought, I don’t remember these people too well. So I am starting the series ALL OVER, with the Eyre Affair and I will refresh my brain on all the characters and then I’ll read the latest book and enjoy it all the more and catch more of the references and humor. If you love reading, you might love the Thursday Next books.

Do I still have a whole bunch of other books I want to read? Why yes, I do, but I’m putting all of that on pause until I do this. Except one book I need to read to write a review of, but really that’s work then.

Yesterday was full of outlook outages and Jensen Huang jokes. It looks like for me Outlook IS back (and I really don’t use it much, but still) but not for everybody. We’ll see what the day brings, as more people in the US get to work. Fun fact: not everybody in the US lives on Eastern or Pacific Time.

I am typing this post quickly and early, because I have to get to the gym before a Loooooong day of teaching at the college. Then one home student. Also there’s a zoom meeting over my lunch break. SIGH. The good thing is that tonight we are going to the aforementioned play (in my previous post, so you can look back) and then tomorrow I ONLY have a studio recital for work related things.

I would say, yay, I can sleep in, but no, I have made plans to meet a friend for brunch. Which is worth it, plus would I really sleep in? Who knows, I haven’t tried in a long time. Maybe over Thanksgiving.

For the recital, I just printed a draft of the recital program. I’ve got 19 students performing, which is a good number. I’ve had recitals with more or less, and honestly, this recital snuck up on me. Some students are well prepared, others will be flying by the seat of their pants, some because they don’t practice and others because we tried to learn the pieces in a shorter amount of time (less common). It will be a fun day nonetheless! And then I can relax for a few hours before we go to another play, which is also still relaxing.

Sunday morning I have a church job, and then we hope to do a hike in the afternoon before we lose daylight, which happens quite early this time of year (sunset starts at 4:48 pm) but still gives plenty of time. Sunday evening is gloriously free. We have plans to prep some food for lunches this week, I got sweet potatoes and beets and they will need roasting (thinking of having them over rice with a few other things and a tahini dressing).

Do you have weekend plans? Do my plans make you exhausted or invigorated, or both? I’m off to gym, but love reading your comments.

A big part of what I write about here is how overworked I am…I feel like everything is on or off. For instance, I took two trips over the summer for approximately three weeks each. But then in the fall I’m so busy and overworked. I don’t know if it evens out, but it’s the way things are, no matter if it is a little bit self-inflicted, but it’s self-inflicted for good ways.

This is to say: this week has been busier than I thought. On the bright side, I finished up teaching at 6:30 last night, we did open enrollment until around 7 and then made a lovely pasta dinner (lemon pasta from trader joe’s with lemon pesto sauce from trader joe’s, adding kale sauteed in garlic and a can of cannelini beans, so tasty!) and watched a few episodes of “Murder in a Small Town.” But tonight I teach until 8:45 pm which I am not super excited about, and tomorrow night until 9 pm. I have a few extra appointments this week that is making today busier: one is for fun (treating myself to a facial), one is annoying (driving 30 minutes round trip to pick up music for a gig) and then doing a grocery pickup. I have discovered that it’s so worth saving the time to just do grocery pickups instead of shopping in person.

(Again I get the warning from wordpress that long sentences are harder to read, and that shorter sentences are “easier to read and scan.” Well, not everything needs to be easy, wordpress! Like, if you can’t read a long sentence, then that is a YOU problem, not a me problem. I’m writing for me. I’m also not just producing “content” for seo and the LLMs, if I were, I would be in big trouble. Maybe we ARE in big trouble.)

This “blogging everyday” thing has actually been really fun. I don’t wait to blog until I have something interesting to say, I just start blogging, who cares if it’s interesting, right? I mean, perhaps it IS the mundane that matters.

Let me tell you what I’ve been doing at the gym, because I’ve been having fun. Yesterday I went, for upper body day. I have a list of exercises I keep on my phone and I track the amount of weight for each one, and then I select that day’s workout based on 1) what I want to do and 2) what machines are open. So yesterday I walked there (15 minutes warmup) and then did the lat pull-down machine, cable row, bench press (this one is so fun, I feel powerful as I bench press the bar with 5 pounds on each side, haha!), shoulder press with free weights, and bicep curls with free weights. I considered doing a triceps exercise, but the weights I needed were being used and the triceps machine was also busy, so I called it there, and walked 15 minutes on the treadmill with a 9-12 percent incline. Then I walked back home (15 minutes) and that was it! I usually do 3 sets of each weight workout with 1-2 minutes rest in between (I keep an eye on my watch).

The next time I go I’ll do legs: I usually do a combination of squats with the rack, romanian deadlifts, either using the rack or barbells, leg press, lunges, and the leg curl and leg extension machines. Again, this sometimes depends on what machines are free, but I’ve never had trouble getting a squat rack when I go, so I can count on that. I also often do some amount of time on the stairmaster at the end, though usually just 5 minutes because it’s hard and so boring.

So there you have it! Honestly, some part of my busy-ness is things like the gym, but that’s allowed right, I’m not supposed to work all the time? And then fun things like concerts, and writing blogs, that doesn’t take zero time. (This is an expression I will use, that doesn’t take zero time, meaning, even if it is something easy, like putting on your shoes, it doesn’t take zero time, and you need to allow time for it.)

A pet peeve of mine is waiting in lines that are not actually lines and are just arbitrary. Maybe this is me being rude and impatient, but for instance: at the wedding there was a long line for the cocktail hour snacks and drinks, but instead of people being in one line for drinks which takes a certain amount of time, and one line for snacks, which takes a different amount of time and can accommodate more people at once, we all waited in one line, and then people who didn’t want drinks DIDN’T try to accommodate that in any way by moving forward a little but instead just stayed in the way. But apparently of my small friend group, nobody but me was bothered by this.

Last night we attended a well sold concert at the school building where I teach several days a week (so it’s my home turf, as I see it). We were going to go in the front door, which is a double doors that goes to the lobby and then you can go left to get to the auditorium, or right to the box office and bathrooms. There was a line from the left side getting in the door, but we were from the right. Louie wanted us to walk all the way to the end of the line on the left, and I thought we could just merge in, since 1) nobody had even bothered to open more than one door, which I thought was stupid but I also thought maybe I would do that, since I felt like this was my home turf and I know how doors work and also 2) the line was simply for getting in the door and was there a real reason we should be walking to the opposite side of the building to wait in line rather than merge? And also, why should I wait in a line that I don’t even know what it is for? What if everybody on the left was trying to pick up tickets and I was ready to go straight in? Or what if I desperately needed to use the bathroom?

This really annoyed me, especially when I heard a student tell somebody, the line is over there, and I’m like, this isn’t a real line! So we walked around the building to a card access only door and then got to the lobby a different way. I asked Louie did he think we should then go outside and join the line, which I could see for sure was then breaking off into various places, some of which was also caused by random people just standing around.

I’m blogging about it here because I want to know what you think, was I being impatient (well yes) and rude (I don’t think so, I think the person insisting on the line was being rude)? I do want honest takes. Louie said it was like everybody was in one line for a counter and then a new one opens up, it should be from the original line, not a random newcomer, but I would argue that is completely different!

Another comparison to me is where there is a buffet and everybody is only going down one side but you notice there are two sides when you get there so you start the line down the opposite side, which has utensils and everything. Or is that different?

Different cultures of course have different rules on lines. I actually quite enjoyed being in Morocco where lines aren’t a thing and instead you have to use your self to just get there. It makes people stay involved in what they are doing and not be passive: I also hate when people are supposedly in line but so busy talking to their friends they don’t notice the line moving up.

To be fair, I have probably been guilty of all the line behavior I purport to dislike, but in the case of last night, I firmly believe I am correct, with a little bit of “this is where I work and I should get some perks anyway because what if I am actually entering the building to work instead of see the concert, and I don’t get paid that much either.”

Thoughts? Please engage in the comments, I am so enjoying the results of NaBloPoMo.

It’s not as if my entire blog isn’t musings, mostly, but you know. Alliteration is cool.

It was nice to hear how many readers also suffer from the problem of being behind on practically everything. I often feel like I am the only one in my family who can’t get things done properly, and spends too much time daydreaming and reading, but truthfully, it’s probably pretty normal.

I did accomplish the following: folding laundry, running the dishwasher. And I fully unpacked from my night away, which took very little time but was very satisfying.

Granted, that leaves me with a pretty long to-do list, but also, how much of it is important? Or that is, how much of it is important to do this week? I ordered new cat food to try for the cats, some wet food. I haven’t taken it out of the box yet because I’m’ not ready to start dealing with it. The same with a new duffel bag I ordered (way in advance) for a trip in the summer, though I’ll probably use it earlier too. And then there are some clothes I ordered from Old Navy that I need to try on. I’ll have to unload the dishwasher as well. Louie took care of the trash and some yard work last night, lest you think all the house stuff falls on me. If I’m lucky he might empty the dishwasher too, we sort of take turns and whoever is in the kitchen might just empty it.

Work wise, the most pressing thing this week is the student recital on Saturday. I need to make a program order and get some music to the pianist. That needs to be done today or tomorrow, probably.

This is a very boring post, I think? Let’s see, what would be more interesting. Meal planning? I’ve got nothing right now, but that’s also something I should do before getting groceries this week. I’m so tired of cooking and meal planning, honestly. Maybe we will do some grain bowls with veggies and chickpeas. I’ve got some kale in the fridge that I planned with pasta and lemon pesto sauce (a jar from trader joe’s) so that should be Tuesday. Tonight there’s no time to cook or eat, I finish teaching and then straight to a concert, so we will do something afterwards, maybe some ramen from the local international grocery store, and maybe add some eggs to it? In Japan, we had ramen where there was a bowl of raw eggs that you could add to your ramen as you saw fit, as many as you desired.

Maybe this is all boring. Or perhaps it’s just mundane. The mundane day to day that we all deal with. I feel like my brain is just on Monday mode, thinking of the week ahead and how to make it work. So I’ll leave you there today.