All posts by hannahviolin

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

Deep Thoughts

Too much to do and thoughts on phone calls

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It’s amazing that sometimes things can feel overwhelmed and go go go, and then you get a morning to sleep in and relax and suddenly all is right in the world again.

I’ve been entirely too busy–a thing I keep returning to in my life due to my workaholic tendencies and the fact that a musician really can fill the entire week with work if you aren’t careful…but it’s been going well, and aside from a few moments last week when I was wistful about the time I spent 10 days in bed recovering from surgery in August, and secretly thinking getting COVID again might be nice because then I wouldn’t have to go anywhere…aside from those moments, things are going well.

Fun things: Louie and I went to dinner again at the Lucky Accomplice. It was us really wanting to eat the Missouri Rice dish again (so good!) and a few other things. We agreed that we need to not go there for awhile. We also went to the Symphony last night, which I didn’t want to do because I was tired and the idea of staying home and watching Deadwind on Netflix instead was so very appealing, but we had tickets and so we went. And enjoyed it. Leila Josefowicz played a concerto by Helen Grime, and it was an intense experience. I would say that half the audience was blown away in a good way and the other half was blown away in a bad way, but there is no way to walk away not having had an experience!

Other fun things: the Election results weren’t so bad, so that was okay. And that was a gorgeous day, weather wise, so Louie and I were able to spend a little time walking around the neighborhood. It is becoming a bittersweet feeling, and we will really miss this neighborhood.

Work things: I had two lovely weddings yesterday: I love working with good musicians who are relaxed about weddings. I’ve had some stressful experiences the past few years and it’s nice to just show up, play, and be told calmly what the plan is. Yesterday was great.

I have gotten better at making phone calls again. Over the course of my life I’ve had mixed feelings about calling people I don’t know (as many do, I’m sure!). I got over my fears in college when I worked for the Box Office at my school and often had to make and answer phone calls. At some point in my life I grew wary again, and a few years ago really got bad at it after getting yelled at by a potential student’s mom. Well, not a potential student. I had kind of forgotten this, but I remembered recently and wanted to share because I realized it made me stressed about phone calls for a long time afterwards and now I feel like I can face it again and that yes, it’s okay to pick up the phone, because that wasn’t my fault and most people are kind and decent.

What happened was (at least in my recollection) I got a voicemail from a person looking for violin lessons on a Friday. I was busy. I was busy all weekend, and besides, it’s the weekend, right, there’s no law that you have to make business calls on the weekend? and then I called the number Monday morning, and they YELLED at me for not returning their call sooner. It took me several years now to realize WHY I was stressed when I got voicemails and to feel like I needed to call them back right away, because getting yelled at by strangers is for me one of the worst things. And I am reminding myself, I didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, I can return a phone call weeks after and anybody who yells at me about that is the one in the wrong. So when I have phone calls to make, I am trying to just relax, and say to myself, they may or may not answer, and if I leave a voicemail and they call back later and I can’t answer, that’s okay too. Because my work schedule is such that often answering the phone is hard.

That’s my Sunday navel-gazing 😉 but seriously, with all of the stressful things going on, trying to get in touch with people about house and moving stuff, it’s nice to pinpoint why phone calling is so stressful because then I can move past it, which I did pretty well with last week and made like, 6 phone calls to people I didn’t know, and every single person was totally great!

Okay, one more full week until Thanksgiving week, isn’t that crazy?? What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

Hope

If the weather were like this all the time, nobody would be able to afford to live here

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We had a few days of cold weather but otherwise are having a really great fall.

It’s been a busy time, and I haven’t blogged recently, sorry about that! On the one hand, there’s not much new going on, but on the other hand, there is and it’s so busy. I’ve been working like mad, forgetting all those things I said during the pandemic about me time and balance and just saying yes, yes to gigs and playing so much. I’ve played with The Who on a big show at the Enterprise Center, I’ve played countless church services, several weddings, and have some really fun stuff coming up as well. I’ve been teaching so much as well, and in between it trying to work out, hang out with friends, take an improv class (on violin), read, clean and declutter the house, and deal with all the things that go with the fact that we are yes, moving, though the details haven’t been worked out (re: timing and such). I have to do so much and let so many people know and I’m waiting on just a few more things to know before that.

Onstage with The Who

We are also planning our Thanksgiving trip to New Orleans, which should be fun, and trying to enjoy this fantastic weather. We haven’t been able to get outside as much as we’d like, but Louie and I did enjoy a nice hike the other weekend and we’ve had some nice walks in the neighborhood. We went to the Lucky Accomplice for his birthday and to the Symphony last weekend (oh, and saw a coyote on Southwest Avenue, what), and this weekend we are doing a moonlight canoe trip with Big Muddy Adventures.

I’ve also been doing physical therapy on my shoulder (rotator cuff). I’m fully recovered from my surgery in August (unrelated) and feeling really great about that, but I have had a nagging shoulder problem since early spring. I also fell over a curb and really busted up my knee the other week, so I’m kind of a mess…but I’m on the mend. Honestly, things are looking up, and we are walking on air around the house thinking of the future and what our new house will be like and how to make it all work. It is a dream I never even had and it feels like a dream! I am excited, and worried, and all of that in between. (And like I said before, to any students reading, don’t worry, I’m not going too far and I will let you all know soon and it won’t be until late winter or spring.)