All posts by hannahviolin

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

It’s okay

1 Comment

Do you ever have periods of time where you just find it really difficult to get things done? You know you have a lot to do, but you just…can’t?

I’ve been like that for awhile. You work (and maybe practice too, in my case) but beyond that simple tasks can seem really overwhelming. Or you think, man I ought to go for a run, but then you just don’t feel like it?

It’s kind of like a depression, but it’s not.

I’ve decided to let myself off the hook. I’m tired of feeling guilty for what I am or aren’t getting done. As long as the bills are paid, the students are taught, the gigs are played, the rest, well, I’ll just do what I can. I think that’s good enough right now, isn’t it? If I want to spend the entire evening lying on the couch watching TV, that’s okay. If I want to stay up until 2 am and stay in bed until 10:30 am, that’s okay too.  I’m tired of feeling guilty and overwhelmed. The guilt is all in my head.

It doesn’t matter if my dishes are washed promptly, or if my bed is made, or if my apartment is smartly decorated. It doesn’t matter if I dry my hair or if it’s a bit wavy, and it doesn’t matter if I go a day without eating the US RDA of vegetables. If I want to cook pasta for every meal, that’s okay too. In the long run, yeah, maybe some of these things matter, but in the short run, no they don’t. If I have the chance to ask a friend how he or she is doing, that’s great. If I forget, or I just can’t, well, that’s fine too. Friends will understand.

It’s hard enough just keeping up with my work schedule! I feel so old and forgetful, though now that the school year is started and everybody is supposedly coming regularly it’s a bit easier. And it’s easy to get ready to go to a gig…it’s just doing anything else in the downtime that’s challenging!

But that’s my mantra going forward here. It’s okay. It’s my life, and I’m not going to stress myself out anymore by beating myself up.

Remind me of this tomorrow, okay?

photo

My friend April took this picture of me in the opera pit the other night. It was intermission so I had my violin away for the moment. I like to think of it as “me in my natural habitat.”

Cat

Caturday is the favorite day

Before we get into it: remember how the other day I railed against restaurants with small plates? Well today I went to brunch at Table with my friend Melissa. Here’s the thing about small plates: if you go with a friend with whom you share similar culinary tastes, it’s fine. If you’re with somebody who has dietary restrictions (vegetarian, gluten-free) or somebody who is a pickier eater…well then it’s just not good. Or if you just want your own meal.

But today’s brunch was great, because Melissa is my favorite small plates sharer. (Or at least one of, don’t anybody get offended). Of course we overordered because the server recommended 2 to 3 dishes per person, so we ordered five. I think we could have gotten by with 4, but it was all delicious.

I still maintain that restaurants need to consider going in a direction of having menus that a person can just order what they like and not have to share or come to an agreement. Sometimes I like to go out to eat with my friends who have various restrictions on their diet and this shouldn’t affect my enjoyment of the restaurant!

Okay, without further ado. CATURDAY time. I apologize for some repeat pictures.

IMG_7214

I interrupted her butt cleaning for this picture, I think.

IMG_7216

Her favorite morning hangout. The sun hits just right.

IMG_7220

I posted this on twitter and Jen said I looked like Voldemort because my nose disappeared.

IMG_7234

Another cat would make this a complete circle. The circle of cat.

IMG_7276

Why haven’t I learned? I can’t leave clothes out on the bed.

IMG_7283

At least here I have the outline of a nose. She jumped down right after this picture—you can see she was already considering it. I guess she got camera shy.

IMG_7296

This doesn’t look comfortable but evidently it was.

IMG_7305

This picture seems to defy gravity. I’m not sure how she was balanced.

IMG_7356

Hope you have a great Caturday!

Food

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

2 Comments

Today I taught, and my last student left after saying “That was a fun lesson!” I think I won today, at least a little bit. (And yes. Violin lessons should be fun.)

I could spend some time talking about my cat and her diet and how cute she is. But on second thought, I probably do that too much too. I should update my blog header to just pictures of her, shouldn’t I? Or rename the blog. Suggestions in comments please.

IMG_7350

And then I made dinner. Pork chops and sweet potato fries from Trader Joe’s. It was pretty darned good.

(I made this picture for a friend who gave me the cross fit T- shirt. I do not do cross fit, I lift weights, but it is very soft.)

IMG_7351

Dinner and a selfie, what could be better? Don’t tell that’s not a great smile. That’s the face I make when I’m lifting heavy stuff. Or lying on the couch wearing a crossfit t shirt after eating dinner. One of those.

A friend gave me two very ripe peaches so I thought I’d wing a peach crisp for dessert.  Note to readers: I am not actually a good enough baker to wing these things. I did not include butter in the topping (granted the internet recipe I loosely followed didn’t either) so it was kind of a fail until I worked with it a bit after 30 minutes.

Finally it looked like this in my bowl, and I did add milk. It was pretty tasty but next time I’ll do better.

IMG_7346

Yeah, it looks pretty much like cat puke. That seems right, doesn’t it? There’s leftovers if anybody wants to try it.

I went to Central Table the other night with my friend April. It was pretty good, though in my opinion the menu was a bit overwhelming. So I just ended up ordering a salad and a pizza, which were tasty. A good friend of hers worked there and sent over dessert as well—the peanut butter pretzel gelato was a favorite.

IMG_7314

Caesar Salad. It had little chopped up anchovies in it which were excellent though I could have handled a lot more!

IMG_7315

Gooseberry and Lamb Pizza: gooseberry, lamb bacon, goat cheese. You had me at bacon. And goat cheese. And I learned about a new fruit. This was an excellent choice.IMG_7316

The aforementioned gelato. I actually typed vibrato first and had to edit. The peanut butter pretzel flavor was amazing (bottom right).

Last but not least: There’s been a lot of internet talk lately about introverts and extroverts and how to tell if you are one or the other, and I’m so glad I saw this today. Warning: a little bad language if that might offend you.

15 signs that you’re neither an introvert nor an extrovert, you’re just a human being with largely the same responses to social situations as everyone else.

Happy Friday, dear readers!

Cat, Teaching

Hump Day

Many of my students started school this week. As a result the lessons have been less effective because the poor kids are exhausted. (My argument is always that they should drop out of school to focus on violin, but rarely do they take my advice.) One student dropped her bow no less than three times (it is important to always teach over carpet for this reason) and another kept getting lost in a passage of a piece that she had played perfectly well many times before. Another hurt his pinky finger in P.E. and claimed that was why he was unable to play his scale very well in tune.

12240071_web

But I saw some of my students for the first time since the end of the school year so it is nice to get back into the swing of things with them. Ideally they wouldn’t take the entire summer off, but I can’t control these things.

Music wise it’s been a decent week. I’ve got some stuff that I’m practicing for which is good because it’s always good to have goals and to keep busy. After playing the violin for 30 years, I’m amazed how easy can be to stay in decent shape (still hard to stay in top notch shape, but decent shape just gets easier and easier.) Two days ago I pulled out some music I hadn’t played since mid-February and it felt like perhaps a week or two had passed. This is good because it means I can hopefully get the music to an even higher level than I had had it before (always the goal!) and I have time for that. (There’s an audition coming up for the extra list for the St Louis Symphony—doing well on the audition would be I might get to substitute more often than…just a bit for one month back in 2012.)

Otherwise, I’m just keeping my head down and trying to stay busy. My life has changed in ways that I’m not quite ready to announce on the blog (and for the love of all that is holy I am NOT pregnant, and the next person who asks me that AFTER LOOKING AT MY STOMACH will seriously get punched in the face, and I’m not kidding one bit) but it’s been an incredibly difficult summer…though in retrospect I suppose it’s been difficult for a longer time than I cared to admit. *shrugs*  Life goes on though, doesn’t it?

I won’t end on a serious note, because I’m not actually feeling that way right now.

Here’s a funny link that my sister Leslie sent me today about equal dining rights for cats.  It’s worth a read if you are a cat lover (and goodness, if you aren’t, why the heck are you reading my blog?)

Schaefer Demands Equal Dining Rights for Cats

Dln66[1] (1)

 

(oh, and I believe this is my first gif on my blog–hope I did that correctly.)

Cat

I tried to think of something to blog about that wasn’t just about my cat’s diet so I ranted about small plates for awhile

2 Comments

 

photo

A friend drew me this. I LOVE IT.

Let me take a moment to address something important about new restaurants and restaurants in general. How many of you are tired of the “small plates” concept? At first, it was fun. Now everywhere is doing it, and to me it just seems like I end up spending more money and leaving hungry. I just want to go to a restaurant and order a meal that contains a protein, vegetable, and starch that the chef has lovingly chosen to coordinate together on one plate! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? I just want to leave a restaurant feeling that I’ve had a delicious, balanced meal, and not stare at the menu helplessly, having no idea what the portion size of a dish might be and finally, simply order a pizza, because you figure, even if it’s left over, you know it’ll still be good the next day.

Also, I think tacos are the new small plates. Everywhere you look, there’s a new taco place popping up, serving all kinds of tacos. Don’t get me wrong. I like tacos. (I also like small plates, when they are at a restaurant where the entire idea is small plates and so you know exactly what to expect and you GO there with the idea that you will split a few with your friends, not with the idea that you will get to order a meal that you will enjoy on your own and then you get confused.) Tacos are so trendy right now though. I think it’ll pass. Like food trucks.

Other pet peeve of new restaurants: that they say, oh, do you have any questions about the menu. Now seriously. If you have too many questions, isn’t it possible that the menu is really poorly laid out or written badly? I can understand if you have a restrictive diet (which, don’t get me started on people’s overly restrictive diets)…but really. Write the menu in a way that it makes sense. We aren’t new to restaurants.

image

She’s judging all of us. She would be happy to eat small or large plates of food.

image_1

It seems she is losing more weight on her left side than her right. I hope this isn’t a huge problem.

So, tell me, what’s something that annoys you lately?

Random thoughts

Opening Night

The best part of playing an opera is when you finally get to the performances. For the Union Avenue Opera, we had five straight days of rehearsals.

I get a lot of questions about how this all works, so I figured I’d explain it. Basically, for the first couple rehearsals (these are 3 hour rehearsals, with a 20 minute in the middle) we go through the opera without any singers. By the third rehearsal we are rehearsing with the singers, usually just them singing without any staging. We had three dress rehearsals, which are like the performance—the singers are in full dress and makeup, the lighting and staging is all being rehearsed as well, and we try to just run the entire opera through. We had three in a row, Monday through Wednesday of this week, so it was EXCELLENT last night to have the night off from playing Wagner.

IMG_7244

Anyway, the performances are tonight, tomorrow night, and the same next weekend. (And no, we don’t rehearse in between.) If you have never seen an opera before, you should! It’s an absolutely gorgeous one (Die Walkure) and is the sort of opera that all other operas strive to be.

And you don’t have to dress up fancy—people always ask me what to wear to performances—you’ll see men in suits as well as men in jeans or khakis, women in cocktail dress and women in jeans or skirts. If I attend a concert or opera I generally wear the same sort of thing I would going out to a decent restaurant on a Friday night, but honestly you could be even more casual and NO ONE WOULD CARE. Wear a t-shirt and sneakers if you prefer.

(Before the first rehearsal with orchestra, the singers have usually been rehearsing for several weeks with a pianist, and we ourselves have usually been practicing our parts at home for hours and hours as well.)

IMG_7257

This was delicious. I decided to be a good blogger and go shopping at Trader Joe’s. I bought a bunch of stuff there and felt very excellent about it.

IMG_7223

I try not to eat this stuff very often but it’s a challenge.

IMG_7237

I drove by here on the way to rehearsal the other day. (Don’t worry, I was stopped in traffic when I took the picture!) I really need to investigate this further.

IMG_7258

I actually thought this cupboard had all glass panes until the cat climbed in. I like to think that a few weeks ago she wouldn’t have fit through. She’s not happy on her diet and whines for food a lot, but, to be fair, she did that a lot before! At least I am having success with my cat’s diet, if not doing so well on my own 😉

Note to local readers: I am trying to get the word out that I am currently seeking more private violin students—all ages.  Since my school closed in June I am only teaching privately and still have some openings. I’d love to have a fuller studio, so if you or anyone you know is looking for violin lessons, please pass my information on! Tower Grove Area, more information available upon request! (hannahviolin@gmail.com).