All posts by hannahviolin

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

Packing

I’ve been on vacation for a few days here (glorious!) but there is a ton to do. I have to say: you can get a lot more done without having to work!

I did spent a little time this morning responding to emails, but mostly I haven’t even had to do that. And since my lesson scheduling is fairly automated, I don’t need to worry about sending out reminders when lessons start up again: the program will take care of that. (Though I did send a fair amount of reminders about vacation…maybe they were unnecessary, but I had gotten a lot of questions, so things aren’t as automated as I’d like!)

In any case, I’ve packed a fair amount of boxes. We close on the new house next week, and while we aren’t moving immediately (getting some things done on the house first, painting inside and a few other small things) I realized we should move some boxes. I was getting overwhelmed figuring out HOW to pack, as in, the house is crowded here already and how would we pack and where would we put the boxes? And it occurred to me, pack some, and take those boxes to the new house and put them out of the way, and then we will have room in the house to continue packing. So that’s the current plan, to pack as much as we can now with stuff we don’t need for at least a month or maybe more, and then make more room to continue packing. Ultimately we are hiring movers (I am really hoping to get that date set soon or our options will be more limited) but we are still trying to figure out if we are getting something done with the floors, and we now have to wait until we close to get any more quotes.

Sigh. I would love to just have it figured out, but I think it’ll be fine. We can be flexible with our moving dates and February isn’t a prime moving time so the companies shouldn’t be super booked up. I’m assuming it’ll be in February.

I’ve also been working on picking paint colors, and I think we have our decisions made, at least as far as we need to be now–the next step is putting some samples on the walls to see in the space, and that will also have to wait.

Anyway, home buying is exciting but stressful! And January isn’t totally empty of work: I start back Thursday with some teaching and sort of ease into things: first a makeup week so not everybody is coming, then a full week and college starts up too. There are a couple of chamber music concerts coming up in the next few months (St Louis Chamber Soloists and Perseid Quartet) and I’ve been easing back into practicing as well.

I used to get email notifications of comments on this blog, but haven’t been lately, so if you’ve been commenting I’m sorry I haven’t been responding! One question awhile back had been about the catio and if we would have a catio in the new house, and the answer is: maybe! We’d love to but haven’t figured that out yet. There is also a sun room there so probably in nice weather we can open up the windows and the cats will really enjoy that, though not a specific space only for them.

Grand Ideas

And a Happy New Year!

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Can you believe we are saying goodbye to 2022 already?

It’s been a decent year overall. Some ups, some downs, but mostly good. If you have had a worse year, then I hope your next year is better!

It has been nice to have some downtime over the past few days. I went to SC to visit my family: everybody but my brother was there (and Louie, he had to work.) It was a nice time. I drove all the way to SC and back by myself, which nobody seemed to think I would be able to do, but I did manage.

I’m thinking back on the year: there were a lot of good times! Visiting Norway, Austin, New Orleans, and more, playing with the Beach Boys, seeing Augustin Hadelich play (and I get to do that again this spring), playing some good chamber music with friends, reading so many books, almost buying a house (we close soon!), seeing family, seeing friends, seeing many concerts and some plays, taking a canoe trip on the Mississippi…it’s been a fun year.

Looking ahead to 2023: the plans are to move, to fix up the new house and decorate, buy a few new things, repurpose what we already own to make the house our home. Travel wise we are planning a trip to New Mexico and Colorado in the summer. I’ve got some concerts on the books already, but we’ll see what the year brings in that regard. Work wise, I really need to find a better balance so I don’t feel so burned out all the time.

I’ll share some pictures of the week in South Carolina with captions: enjoy!

Family Christmas Brunch. Carrie and I were a day late so we missed some things, but we did a nice celebration anyway.
My nephew Luca and I. I asked him to come closer for a picture and he said “I’m in the picture.”
Luca does enjoy posing though! This was a new toy of his.
We went to Musgrove Mill State Historic Site. Athena picked up some ice there.
Getting organized for a family picture at the Waterfall
Not terrible?
We switched out photographers and included my sister Carrie’s boyfriend Brian instead of me.
The waterfall. It was very nice to see.
We made dinner one night for my parents’ wedding anniversary. It was hard to just get my mom to sit down and relax!
Luca helped by making Mom read books over and over to him. Yes, he did wear that rainbow sweater the whole time.
My dad and Athena on the tandem bike.
All the men got the same shirt. Louie has one as well.
Ringing the bell at Presbyterian College.
The dome house at twilight.

Tonight we are having dinner with Louie’s family and then likely heading home before midnight. Louie is in the middle of a very intense period at work where he has to teach every morning for 12 days, so we opted not to do anything more social and instead just see family and relax. I have been packing today, collecting boxes, and choosing paint colors. I can’t believe we are buying a house soon!

If you are reading this and the holidays are hard for you, I hope you are hanging in there! While things are going okay for me, of course nothing is ever as good as it seems online, and things are always more difficult in the moment than they seem looking back at it. I know the year had some difficult moments such as health concerns for me and for family members, as well as the major stress of getting COVID while in a foreign country…but looking back it all seems okay. Funny how that works, hmm?

Random thoughts

Man, it is COLD out there!

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As I sit here on my couch typing, the weather app tells me it is -7 degrees fahrenheit. MINUS SEVEN. Just yesterday morning it was in the 30’s and then it dropped by early afternoon to the teens and then here we are. The predicted high for today is 6 degrees. We only got a little snow yesterday, thankfully, but the wind is crazy, and I’ll tell you, I am very grateful to be snug in my warm house.

Gnome or Norwegian/Swedish nutcracker? The LED lights are VERY DIM, but it’s cute.

I do have to go to the airport today to pick up Louie (Miles will be thrilled, he has been moping around the house all week) and then do a pick up of some baked goods at Union Loafers, but otherwise I plan to spend the day inside. I have two students this morning and then I am DONE teaching for the year, woo hoo!

Lumberjack nutcracker from World Market. You could choose white or black, so I chose black for more diversity in my nutcracker collection. Hoping for more of that in the future!

It’s been a good week, but still quite busy. I finished up teaching at my schools and got my grades submitted. I only have Christmas Eve gigs left. I baked some cookies, enjoyed my own holiday decor, had lunch with a friend, read a bunch, wrapped some presents to take down to South Carolina, and messed around the house.

I keep thinking how next winter we will be in our new house! And much sooner than that, of course, but that the next time I decorate for Christmas it will be in the new house, and there will be more room for decorations and who knows what I will come up with! We are still sorting out the specifics of the move, such as when, but I have the painter booked (painting inside, we may also do some), haven’t chosen colors yet, that will be a first thing in the new year thing. We are trying to figure out what to do with the floors, if we do anything (wood floors). And then it’ll be couch shopping time, as we want two new couches. I hope that after Christmas is a good time to shop for couches. If you have any specific places to recommend, please do!

Butter cookies with orange marmalade filling

I didn’t do as much baking as I sometimes do, for all the reasons I’ve been doing less this year, but I decided to bake butter thumbprint cookies to fill with my homemade marmalade. I got into canning the other year and canned way too much jam for one year, so we are still working our way through it.

Poinsettia plant and crocheted frog

I got a couple of gifts from students that aren’t for the cats, so I had to put them up on a high shelf, which is the only place in the house where we can display things but Muriel can’t get to them. One student made a frog and she said after she made it, she realized she should give it to me. She’s the one who painted my 3d printed frog. (The violin bow has a “frog” and I often hold up frogs to remind my students to get all the way back to the frog on long bows.) I also received a lovely poinsettia plant, which are not good for cats. I read recently that poinsettias are NOT toxic to cats, don’t worry! They only cause vomiting and diarrhea. So, still good to avoid it (and yes, Muriel will definitely eat the plant if she can) but perhaps you don’t need to take your cat to the vet, just let it run its course? Not taking any chances either way.

We are still a multi-cultural household, so I like to light our electric menorah in the front to show that not everybody in our neighborhood is Christian (Louie is of Jewish descent and celebrates many holidays). He’s been visiting family in California (jealous, so much warmer I’m sure!) while I’ve been finishing up work here and holding down the fort in terms of weird new house things that have to be taken care of. The weather joke is on him though as he’ll be returning to single digit temperatures if not lower. HAHA!

Holiday socks. I got a few new pairs this year to replace some that I’d thrown out due to having holes.

Oh, and I joined mastodon, follow me there if you like. I’m definitely still finding my way around so don’t ask any questions 🙂

@hannahviolin@mastodon.sdf.org

Performing

Storm predicted

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This month, you guys. This month has been insane.

It’s been absolutely nonstop since we returned from Thanksgiving. I’m not sure where things went wrong. I mean, on the one hand it’s been great having so much to do, but on the other hand it’s been stressful and I’ve had to spend more time than I would want to dealing with some difficult people (professionally.)

I look back to all of my COVID thoughts of, let’s do less, isn’t this great! And then I got back into things, and I just didn’t feel like a professional performer anymore, and I realized I wasn’t happy with that either, I didn’t want to only teach, and so I have been doing other things too, but only adding them on, and not taking away from any of the teaching I’m doing. The issue I run into is that I CAN do this schedule, mostly, and that the playing work is irregular and the teaching work is regular, and I want the regular income during the times without as much playing work. Sigh. I expect I will spend the next 20 years trying to figure this all out, but I’ll tell you, this past week almost did me in.

I tried to take a picture of my Christmas displays in the dark but my phone made it look kind of crazy!

I was supposed to do a few social things on Friday night and I told Louie I just needed a night in, so I did that (he had something to do and went without me) and I enjoyed dinner in the quiet and read all evening. That helped me get to yesterday in a better state and I really enjoyed all the activities I did yesterday, and I’m looking forward to today.

It’s been a lot. I was thinking about the last week, what did I do in addition to my normal teaching schedule? Well, I played for a funeral, had my last physical therapy session for my rotator cuff (it’s doing MUCH better), I had 3 additional lessons at Wash U to teach to finish up the semester, I had a jury to attend at St Louis Community College, I had a rehearsal and concert with The Beach Boys (super fun show, so energetic!), a rehearsal for this morning’s church service, some errands including picking up my violin from being cleaned and fixed up, and then a holiday party at work (which was super fun, but still an extra thing). Then yesterday was Saturday and I had a morning rehearsal, afternoon makeup lessons, and then drove Louie to the airport for a trip he is taking to visit his family (we are doing different things over the holidays due to work schedule issues).

You can find me onstage with The Beach Boys in this picture if you look carefully.

Last night I was exhausted and would have just crashed, but I’d bought a ticket to go see two of my students in Elf with Insight Theatre, and I’m so glad I went. It was fun to see the production, which is all young people, and it was delightful to watch my students onstage doing something different than playing the violin. Their dad played violin in the orchestra too, so it was a big family thing for them, and I had a great time. Today is a church service, then I’m stopping at a friend’s for his birthday party, then a church choir concert, then I am relaxing tonight and possible baking cookies. My mom said not to bring anything down to SC, but I haven’t baked any cookies this season and wanted to do at least one batch! It’s the first night of Hanukkah but since Louie is out of town I won’t be doing anything until he gets back, but Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate!

Oh, and last weekend Louie walked in a recognition ceremony for his doctoral degree. He is still eligible to attend the big graduation ceremony in May with the hooding by his advisor, but he thought it would be fun.

I feel like this blog post is a bit overwhelming to the reader, but that’s where I am right now. I have another week of fairly intense craziness and then I’m driving home to SC on Christmas Day. It looks like we’ve got some potential snow messing up plans here on Thursday, so fingers crossed everything gets worked out with that. This week’s agenda: 3 more days of early morning classes, regular private student teaching (finishing up this week for the year of course), hair appointment, dermatologist appointment, a lunch date, a coffee date, seeing my friend April who is visiting from Atlanta (!!!), rehearsal for Christmas Eve, three Christmas Eve services, and that’s about it.

Oh, and one of my rehearsals yesterday and the concert today, I’m playing viola. I was a little stressed about it, but the rehearsal was a lot of fun, and I’m sitting with a colleagues who I really like and I’ll tell you what, playing with another violist is very different than playing with another violinist. The vibe is just more relaxed. I can’t explain it, but it’s there. And the conductor just pays no attention to you at all and it’s wonderful 🙂 Hopefully I will get to do more viola stuff in the future, as I enjoyed it, I have a viola, and the best way to get better at it is to do things under pressure, like in front of other people.

Anyway, I’m off to start my workday. I am playing this morning at Ladue Chapel, which I love doing: the music director is unbelievably kind and wonderful and the people are also so nice.

Random thoughts

December

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It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, so I wanted to pop in. Thanksgiving Break was fantastic, but I’ll tell you about that another time. Things since we got back have been go-go-go with students, performances, rehearsals and concerts!

We played a concert of piano quartets at Washington University.

I did a little Christmas decorating. I decided not to do a tree this year.

Part of getting older is saying, hmm, wasn’t it just Christmas already? I couldn’t bear the idea of packing up the tree again, so I figured I’d skip it this year. Next year maybe I’ll have two trees, haha!

Sometimes I am struck by how impossibly soft and adorable Miles is. And a little bite-y as well.

Fun with friends last week. Trying to make a point to go out and support other local musicians when I can.
Yes, it’s December!

Okay, so random photo dump, random thoughts…Christmas will be here soon and then after that we close on the house, and I need to PACK. That’s the plan for after Christmas, get packed and get ready to move. We still have to decide when, but it’s over a month till closing and we aren’t in a huge rush so it’ll be fine. (it’s be fine is my mantra, we will see how it goes!)

I am excited about some stuff coming up this month, and I’ve already done some fun stuff. I have been having quite the fall of playing with some well-known popular artists such as the Who and this past weekend played with Harry Connick, Jr. It was a lot of fun!

It’s not always my preferred genre of music, but it is always fun to play with famous artists, regardless! And Harry is very nice and it is just plain cool to be so CLOSE to people like that. Practice your violin, students!

I’ll tell you about Thanksgiving and New Orleans another time. I am tired, and dealing with some annoying work things right now as I’m trying to blog, so maybe I’ll drink more coffee, exercise, and then try to teach this afternoon and play an evening rehearsal…it’s a busy week in a busy month, and I am NOT doing a good job practicing self care. 🙂

Random thoughts

Thanksgiving Week

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It’s funny not having any cooking to do this week! We are eating out for Thanksgiving, so I won’t be making anything.

I forgot in my last post to tell you about a fun adventure we had, so I’ll do that first. Louie and I went on a “Full Moon Float” with Big Muddy Adventures. We canoed down the Mississippi River at night! This might sound scary, but it was awesome. First we met up and loaded into vans and drove upstream a bit. We put two large canoes into the water and then boarded, sitting two by two with a guide in front and back. We paddled across to an island that was mostly made of sand and enjoyed a bonfire and lovely dinner (seriously, it was delicious, cheese and crackers, fresh guacamole, flank steak, butternut squash lasagna, salad, etc) and then once the sun set and the fire died down, we all loaded up again into the canoes and headed down to the Arch. It was a fantastic day and we would recommend the trip to anybody who enjoys a little outdoor adventure.

Watching the sun set on our private island.
Paddling by the Arch
Paddling under the Stan Musial Bridge.

We’ve had a few little snows so far this winter, which have been pretty enough. I’m glad it’s just been a little bit…I’m not in the mood for snow.

I got a new violin case, finally! I ordered it months ago and it has been backordered.

It was a busy weekend of recitals. Saturday morning was a student recital at Wash U and Sunday afternoon was my studio recital. I was proud of all of the performances! I’ll have a few more student performances before the semester is over.

We went to a play on Saturday night. We saw Upstream Theater put on “The Good Ship St. Louis” at the Marcelle Theater. It was a nice production and we really enjoyed the evening. It’s nice to see small, more local companies doing things, and I would recommend you see the show except I believe the run has already ended. One of the actors was someone I had worked with on The Runaway Cupcake and with a production at St Louis University I did the music for and it was great to see her in a different role.

A picture at intermission. It was the premiere of the play, which was really neat!

We are moving slowly with buying the house…inspections are basically done, painters are lined up for after closing, but now it’s mostly a holding pattern. We went under contract early with the idea that the tough things would be done before the holidays and then we would just wait until the current owner is ready to move out (the date is set for that). I haven’t started packing yet, but I am THINKING about it, and getting other things in order. I can’t quite wrap my head around the whole thing, but it is going to happen and we will be ready when it does.

Two cats sitting on the couch.

I’m finishing up errands and getting ready for our trip today, doing some teaching, and that sort of thing. Tomorrow we hit the road for our Thanksgiving trip. As always, the cats are in good care with our sitter, and they will likely spend a lot of time sitting on the couch.

What are your Thanksgiving week plans?