All posts by hannahviolin

I am a violinist. I also enjoy running, working out, reading, and hanging with my friends and cat.

Whirlwind of a Month!

I have to say, this month has been the busiest in awhile. I think I say that every month, so I don’t even know anymore. I do know that I have 7 more mornings to wake up for class and then it’s SUMMMMMMMMMMMERRRRR!!!!

Last weekend was full. It started early with a Thursday night mini golf evening with Louie and a friend at nearby Magic Mini Golf. We were going to get dinner there, but the kitchen was closed (at 7:30pm?) so we went to Nudo House first and enjoyed dinner there instead. The weather was crazy, with heavy rainstorms all night long, and we definitely got a bit soaked going back and forth but we had a fun night with quite a few hole in ones. Holes in one?

I had two concerts Friday evening so I was busy working! I wasn’t super happy with my performance on either concert, but I suppose they were okay. I was really focused on getting my students ready for Festival the same weekend and hadn’t been able to practice as much as I might have, plus the constant weather changes were negatively affecting the way my violin sounded and bow felt, so I was a bit out of sorts.

Saturday was festival day #1 with 5 students playing, and afterwards we walked up to the Thurteen Carnival for a bit (before it was shut down), and then went to the Symphony concert that night. It was a nice concert with better seats than we usually buy because we got the tickets from some friends 🙂 They played a lot of Sibelius which was fun (and was getting us more excited to visit Finland this summer.)

Sunday morning I was at the festival all day, proctoring and grading theory tests. I didn’t get back until late afternoon (it was an easy job, but I just needed to be there for a long time.) I had 3 students perform that morning as well. After that we wanted to just do nothing, but Louie and I had made plans to do some work at our old house (someday this thing will go on the market but not yet) and then grab dinner nearby. We started watching Killing Eve that night as well, which is a fun show with Sandra Oh on Netflix with four seasons (at this time?).

Monday was back to work except that night we went to Louie’s mom’s for a Passover Seder, so it was another late night. It was just the four of us and we had a nice time.

And then the rest of the week just flew by: teaching, getting juries ready, getting performances lined for students, getting some things ready for four gigs this weekend, and keeping the house running (laundry and groceries are my main jobs). This is the last week of classes at Wash U: next week is juries and a few makeup lessons. I have 3 more weeks of private teaching but only 2 until the recital, and we are hard at work getting the school (my before school program) kids ready for their spring concert. I also have one student playing a concerto with his college orchestra (not Wash U, a local community college), and another playing with her school orchestra the same night as my own school that I hope to attend afterwards (she is sure it will be a longer concert and she is near the end, fingers crossed!). This weekend is mostly full of work for me: a wedding, a mass, a memorial service, and a concert, plus the Great Artists Series on Sunday night. If I can make it to May 13 things settle down tremendously after that.

It is not to say that I have been running around only working, but simply that I have been working enough that I haven’t had much bandwidth beyond that. I read a fun book this week: The 7 1/2 Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle (not to be confused with the 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which I am pretty sure I did for awhile). I’ve gotten in some nice walks and exercise, and listened to lots of podcasts. I have NOT done much cooking, but that’s fine, and I have done more practicing this week than last, as I didn’t care for the feeling of not playing as well as I would like last weekend. It makes me grumpy 🙂

How has your week been going? Any fun plans for the weekend?

Summer is getting closer

We did a lot last weekend! This made up for the previous weekend when we pretty much bailed on all the concerts we could have seen and instead just ate good food and did stuff around the house.

Okay, the last week has been quite eventful. Did I take a lot of pictures (am I even a real blogger?)? Not really. But: we went out to a lovely dinner at Esca, a new restaurant here by Ben Poremba, who was the man behind one of my favorite (and currently closed) restaurants, Olio. Esca did NOT disappoint. We shared a variety of dishes including the branzino and the fire roasted beets and everything was delicious and better than we would have expected. If you can get a reservation and have the budget for it, I recommend that you go. We are already planning our next trip.

Friday night we went over the “old house” to do some work and discovered that the basement had flooded due to a clogged drain somehow. Louie got out the snake and worked on the drain in the backyard for 15-20 minutes (it was not fun) and finally got it unclogged. The sound of rushing water was glorious and then we had a bit of clean up to do. It was an unpleasant way to spend the evening so we consoled ourselves afterwards at the nearby Mexican restaurant, with tacos and margaritas.

Saturday I worked quite a bit and we went to a movie by the Italian Film Festival with a friend. It was a comedy and I really loved it! I laughed quite a bit, but not as hard as a trio of Italian women who were sitting near us.

Poster for the Film we saw: Grazie Ragazzi

Sunday we did something quite unusual: we saw a concert in a bunker. We went to the Tyson Research Center in West County and watched/listened to a concert of improvisation inside a bunker. Evidently there are dozens of bunkers that were originally used to store ammunition during WW2 but now are empty and some graduate students we allowed to use them for projects. One student put this concert together, with piano, violin, bass, and other things such as some accordion, foot stomping, humming, and more. The violinist was Marina from my sister Carrie’s quartet The Rhythm Method, so I was glad to meet her. Louie and I enjoyed the experience.

Later that day I played on a concert with the St Louis Chamber Soloists: unfortunately nobody seemed to get any photos of that.

Then the week began again in earnest, but it’s so near the end. In one month I am done teaching for the spring and we are heading out for our first summer trip (visiting a variety of family members in NY and PA) and then summer work begins after that. The year is just flying by, as always.

There was a time I was obsessed with taking cake pictures! This one was at the entrance to the Tyson Research Center, which is shared with the Endangered Wolf Center. I definitely want to take a tour at the Wolf Center sometime soon.

What else have I been up to lately? Teaching and practicing, of course, getting ready for some students to perform this weekend at the Music Club Federation Spring Festival (playing piano with one, this is not a good idea, but it was the best idea at the time), continuing to plan things for our upcoming travel, reading some books, watching tv, going on long walks listening to a variety of podcasts, doing a little cooking, trying to keep up on everything around the house (we are low on milk), and looking forward to another weekend of activities. This weekend I’m busy with the festival and proctoring theory exams, but we are going to the symphony one night and probably working at the old house another day and maybe going to the Thurteen Festival, but it might depend on how busy Louie is. He’s got one more week of classes after today and he is BUSY BUSY with it. There are more things to do than time to do them, that includes fun things that we want to do as well as not as fun things that we need to do, and it’s always a choice!

Here’s a photo my mom posted of the dome house in spring. Spring is here, both in St Louis and in South Carolina. Summer is probably here soon too.

And here’s what the cats have been up to.

Miles has been getting friendlier in his middle age. The students are shocked and always tell me things like “Miles was just sitting there and he let me pet him twice before running away”. It’s so fun to hear!

Monday Musings and Happy Eclipse Day!

I have to say, I have not been great about taking pictures. Me: I have some time to blog right now, let me look at my pictures from the past few days. Hmm. There’s nothing there!

Maybe later today I can get some crescents.

The weekend ended up being a relaxing weekend. We had a few things we were going to go see, but ended up just chilling out at home more and getting some things done around the house. I really needed that, because I have been feeling burnt out and ready for the semester to end, and I think this weekend gave me the energy I need. (Hahahah not really but I will make it through!)

We saw the total eclipse in 2017 in our backyard and it was a neat experience, but I didn’t think driving anywhere to see another one was necessary and Louie agreed with me, until yesterday when he panicked and worried he was missing out and so he made arrangements to tag along with a friend to see it but I’d already made too many plans for the day to switch (was worried about getting back for some students but particularly an evening rehearsal.) Truthfully I was annoyed at Louie because we had talked about it before, but I am happy to do things on my terms and let him enjoy it with his friend, and who knows, maybe I’ll have sun and they won’t! I will either go to my backyard or walk over to the park or to the university campus.

I feel like there are two camps, the “oh, yeah, we had that in 2017 it was cool” and the “oh my god you can’t miss the eclipse, nothing but a total eclipse is worth it and you are a total loser if you don’t take the day off work!”. I fell into the first one, and while I’m sure seeing it again would be cool, I also wanted to just see at home or close to home and experience whatever was happening here. I’m also happy Louie is getting his experience, though I will keep trying to get him to be a BIT more of a planner.

Things I remember from 2017: the way the bugs started “singing” and the birds got quiet and the streetlights came out, and then the birds starting singing like it was morning. I also remember being in my own backyard with some friends and how neat that was. Life is full of choices!

Are you getting the eclipse where you are? Have you seen a solar eclipse before?

Other things going on: we are hosting our movie club tomorrow night. We watch the movie ahead of time and get together to discuss it, just like you would in a book club. This month’s movie was Poor Things, which I enjoyed but also have very mixed feelings on. I also already finished my book club book for the month: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, and I would recommend it. I finished The Hunter by Tana French last night and enjoyed that as well. I am still stuck on how much I loved In the Woods and will never quite get over that and enjoy another book of hers the same, however.

We also have a reservation this week to eat at a new restaurant by Ben Poremba, Esca. One of my favorite restaurants was Olio, which recently closed, and hopefully this will fill the hole a little bit. There’s a good restaurant scene here, but there’s also always a lot of places that close. I guess it’s the way of it, but sometimes it feels like a game of whack-a-mole: a new place opens somewhere, but another one closes leaving an empty building in its place. But with all of us doing so much shopping on the internet and grocery shopping at huge supermarkets, what can fill up all of these little storefront and restaurants? This is something I ponder as I walk down Delmar in the Loop (local readers will know what I mean at least). On the east side, things are hopping and growing more than ever, but the west side there there are dozens of empty restaurants and storefronts. It seems like, at least in St Louis, that new and “hot” places open but leave other places empty, and we just keep switching around where the happening place is, rather than growing overall. It’s a bit sad!

But I hope to have a fabulous meal, and by then it’ll practically be the weekend again. My goal for this week: take some pictures!

So, again, tell me: have you seen an eclipse before? Are you in the “path of totality” this year?

April Showers, starting strong

Last night was the first time I was at the “new” house when the tornado sirens went off. Louie was still at work so I headed to the basement alone. Luckily the storms passed by us without trouble.

I thought I should write something, because I’m a blogger, and that’s what bloggers do, but truthfully, there’s not much going on. I have abandoned (for now?) many of my fun goals from the beginning of the year (cooking, crafting, baking, etc) in order to either read, scroll (bad!), or simply to spend time researching travel on the internet. I guess planning trips is actually considered a hobby, so I shall embrace it. We have a trip to New York and Pennsylvania planned in addition to our “big” trip of going to Sweden and Finland. Now, I’m still flossing and doing my DuoLingo, so I haven’t abandoned my goals entirely, but the year is as usual knocking me on my behind and I feel like I am just keeping my head above water.

The Lamb Cake Louie’s mom made for Easter

We’ve been working on the old house a bit, getting it ready to do something with, but this is easier said (well, not terribly easy to say either) than done. Louie is still torn on what he wants to do and we get a lot of rude and disparaging comments from people around us (hey, we actually did live there for a long time, so cut it out) about the house. It’s amazing how rude people can be, knowing or unknowingly, and how much unsolicited advice they like to give. Do you feel like people are constantly telling you what to do with your life as if you are a complete idiot? I hate to think we are special.

I do find that when I have larger chunks of time free, I don’t want to do anything except read a book. Some days I simply embrace this, other days I wonder, is this a sign of burnout? It’s not that I’m not getting things done, because I am, but I’m not getting things done beyond the things that really do need to get done. Summer is approximately 6 weeks away, and probably if I just get done what needs to be done between now and then we are fine. If I get anything extra done, wonderful. I have managed to get rid of a few things on the Buy Nothing Group, but I’ve been annoyed by some of the people there for not picking up and leading me on about it. I need to be stricter about timelines, I think.

Arches National Park and the Gateway Arch had a funny trade for April Fools Day

Book wise I’ve been reading the Mistborn books lately, in the fantasy genre. A colleague recommended them and I thought it would be a nice change. I go back and forth on how much I am enjoying them but my latest one has been a lot of fun. I am also looking forward to Tana French’s new novel which I just got from my library. My book club read Anxious People last month and I also started watching it on Netflix. TV wise we watched the Gentlemen (okay) and Beef (good, but ridiculous) lately. We are hosting Movie Club next week and still need to watch the movie (Poor Things) so we will probably do that later this week or over the weekend.

Once I get writing I realize I have likely been more productive than I think: sometimes I feel like I need to be constantly DOING rather than allowing myself time to rest, is this capitalism or a personal problem? It’s not to say that I don’t rest, because I absolutely do, but that I also have so many things that I need and want to do. This week, thankfully, is a little easier than some: a few students are gone and I don’t have anything extra going on during the week. We even got this morning off from school, which was amazing.

How’s your April going so far? Did you get any damage from the storms/did you experience any storms yesterday or last night?

Last Day of Break

My title is a bit of an exaggeration as I’ve been working plenty, but this morning was my last day of Spring Break at my early morning job. I believe there are 26 more days of getting up early, starting tomorrow. This post will be interspersed with pictures of the cats, taken by our lovely cat sitter while we were gone.

This month has been a challenge! We had a nice break and a good time visiting with my parents in Tennessee, but otherwise it’s been a lot. You’d think Spring Break would have allowed for some catchup but it went by too quickly and there was too much to do. I’ve had a lot of frustration with trying to give things away on the Buy Nothing group and so I’ll probably just have to do a large donation elsewhere. I did get my taxes mostly done, which is always a big thing, and I’m still mostly up to date on all my teaching responsibilities and paperwork. I’m waiting for festival dates and times still so I can hire the pianist, which is also always a stressful thing. But I can choose NOT to be stressed about it, and say, there will be somebody. (deep breathes)

The end of the school year is near though! And summer is upon us soon, and I’m so looking forward to it. We are trying to work out a trip to visit various family members in NYC and Philly and it has been a challenge, but I’m sure we will get an itinerary worked out eventually. It’s starting to feel like herding cats. Except minus the cute and cuddly part!

Summer work will include three shows at the Muny, I’m excited to say! Plus I’m sure weddings and lots of teaching, as always.

But there is plenty to do before then, and it’s always a balance between looking forward to things and wishing away time, right? I have fallen down on the job of getting anything done other than getting through the days, and maybe that’s okay. We did go to a show at Jazz St Louis Thursday night, but didn’t manage to get ourselves to the Great Artists Series concert last night due to a variety of factors…I think the series is terrific, but maybe there are too many concerts all in a row. Or I was just having a bad weekend.

I’ve got a lot going on this week, with services to play on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for various churches. Most are places I play every year, which is always nice (I feel old saying that, ha!). Anyway, it’ll be a good week, hopefully.

Is this a typical thing to say in Finland?

How is your March going? Does it feel like it just started but yet, it is almost over? What a time to be alive!

Quick Trip to Chattanooga and Nashville

Since we didn’t get to see my parents on Thanksgiving (thanks COVID!) we wanted to try to get together over Spring Break. We met in the middle in Chattanooga.

We rented a lovely Airbnb. I didn’t get any pictures but it was this one and it was very nice, just like you would expect from the pictures. It was easy to find and easy to get around from it.

The first night after we arrived we went to walk around downtown. This wasn’t actually the best idea, but it wasn’t the worst either. We may have picked a less interesting area to walk through, and we got to say hello to a variety of homeless people. We worked up an appetite but nothing we saw appealed, so Louie found a place to drive to, and we enjoyed it. It was called Sluggo’s and served all vegan food. We ate on the balcony and it was a lovely night.

We all sat on the couch and started watching Killers of the Flower Moon after that. It is the world’s longest movie, so we watched a little more than half before turning in for the night.

The next day the weather was nice and sunny so we opted for more outdoor activities. We got tickets for the Incline Railway and headed out. One thing to note about Chattanooga is that all the places you go require you to pay for parking. I used the Parkmobile app since I use it here and it was already set up for our car and everything. It was a little annoying to get to a large parking lot where we paid for tickets and to have to pay again for parking, but thankfully it was only a few dollars. But I digress.

The Incline Railroad goes up the mountain about a mile. It is at an incline, some places more than others. When you get on you are leaning back a little bit but at the top it is much steeper.

We enjoyed the ride up and there is a lot to see at the top: there are two different viewing platforms, a place to see the machinery and some museum like signs, and of course a gift shop. You can’t leave the little station though, even though you can see some nice grassy areas, you can’t get to them.

After we rode back down we were hungry, so we looked on google and there was a restaurant right nearby with high ratings, so we headed out. The Purple Daisy Picnic Cafe was a hit with us, and we would recommend it. I ordered the Rainbow Sandwich because it seemed unique, and it was! I enjoyed it, though I’m not sure that putting chicken salad, cucumber salad, and pimento cheese salad today is better than eating either one of those things separately.

It may look large here in the picture, but it was just slightly smaller than a normal slice of bread, since they cut the crusts off. It was perfect though.

After lunch we had considered going to Ruby Falls, another tourist place, but we decided to just drive around instead. We drove up Lookout Mountain and stopped a few places to walk around and take looks: one place was a college with a lovely grounds and some nice views, and another just on the side of the road. We also stopped at a NPS site called Craven’s House which was part of a Civil War battle at one time.

We stopped by the old Chattanooga Choo Choo building where Louie and I had stayed some time ago –it had been completely changed and was now restaurants and a boutique hotel out back.

Still had the train though!

After a few hours of sightseeing, we were all ready to go back to relax at home for a bit.

We refreshed and then headed out to dinner. My dad loves german food so he found a place called the Brew Haus. It was a nice place to have dinner and had a terrific soft pretzel! We shared that and then each had our individual meals as well. We ended up participating in a little bit of trivia at the place as well, which was a new experience for my parents. After dinner we realized we were right by the Walnut Street Pedestrian bridge, so we walked up over the river a bit and enjoyed the start of the sunset.

After dinner we went back and finished the movie (Killers of the Flower Moon) from the night before. It was good, though it definitely could had been shorter.

The next morning after breakfast my parents headed home. It was raining and they were worried about the drive. It was great to see them and very enjoyable to spend a few days together! Louie and I had decided to stop in Nashville on our way home, so we didn’t head out yet as we didn’t have our hotel there until later. We visited the Museum of Towing and Recovery.

The museum covered the history of the tow truck, which was invented in Chattanooga. It was really interesting–both from an engineering standpoint for Louie and for me: I enjoy seeing old cars and such. One of the tow trucks you were allowed to get into, so we did. I am unsure why it is so small!

After that it was lunchtime, so we got some tacos at Taqueria Jalisco Ania and then coffee at nearby Velo Roasters. We headed to Nashville after that.

We made a quick stop at Stones River National Battlefield en route, but didn’t stay long: we saw the movie and museum, but their bathrooms weren’t functioning and you had to use porta potties and this made me grumpy. We decided just to go to the hotel at this point, so we checked in and relaxed a bit. We stayed at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel, which we stayed at before: nice location not too far from downtown (an easy lyft) but it was a little run down and in need of some updating. It was fine though, and I don’t regret it. We had dinner at Husk: we’d eaten at the two other Husk restaurants (in Savannah and Charleston) and figured to go for the trifecta. It was delicious.

Trout with grits–not a super photogenic picture, but my mouth is still watering.

After dinner we walked down to Broadway to check out the scene. It was a mass of humanity! We walked a bit, and then popped into a bar and got beers and listened to a bar play some music, including Freebird, which one guy tipped them $100 to play.

We decided we’d had enough of crowds then and headed a few blocks away, where the streets completely empty out (like, where does everybody even come from?) and enjoyed more music at a bar called “Loser’s” before calling it a night. I get tired early due to years of teaching early morning classes, so we didn’t make it much past 11.

The view of downtown from the hotel window, very nice!

The next morning we packed up and headed out for brunch at Audrey’s. We ate, took a short walk around to move a bit before getting in the car, and then we hit the road for home. It was a lovely but short trip, and I’m so glad we did it!

A mural near the restaurant.