All posts by hannahviolin

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

Fall is the best time of year

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I love the change of seasons. I love when the cool weather comes, when the cold weather comes, when the flowers start peeking out again and it gets warmer, and when school is out. Every season has its good points.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to April!

April and I right before the pandemic!

It’s been busy, of course. As much as I talk the whole “ooh I want my weekends free” talk, I also enjoy making music and having more money! So I’ve taken some gigs of course, and then this weekend I ended up helping out a contractor by playing a last minute wedding as well, plus we attended another symphony concert. (We ended up going three weekends in a row due to wanting to see various concerts, but we don’t have anymore this month.)

We know the sound is better from the balcony, but you get more camaraderie and leg room on the main floor. It’s weird being with so many people, but they check vaccine cards at the door (or negative tests) and masks are worn pretty well.

I played on a real concert, real actual music with live performers and a masked/vaccinated audience. It was wonderful, and I had forgotten how performing feels so it was great to be back to that.

A picture of the rehearsal for said “real music” before I joined the stage.
A delicious weeknight meal: trout amandine, roasted carrots, and polenta. This was mostly courtesy of Trader Joe’s: polenta is a frozen meal, carrots from there, and frozen trout as well. Louie did the honors and it was delicious.

And now I’m into my week again, so much teaching, so many students, lots to do! I’m getting used to the schedule and making things work. I do a lot of planning: I use google calendar (which I sync with My Music Staff for private teaching) and have a few different calendars to plan personal things, time to work on various projects, catch up on business paperwork and things, exercising, appointments, etc. I enjoy seeing the various colors of my day (I also use different colors to keep track of which students are in person and which are online) and it helps me stay organized and make sure that things I need to get done each week get done. In addition to google calendar, I keep a few running to do lists on my phone (I just use the reminders app on my iphone) and anytime I have anything to do, I try to add it to the list (I will do this in the middle of a lesson, for instance) and then I check those lists often.

My running lists are: general to do list, which is pretty much anything I can do at home, Grocery list, food planning, gardening list (this one is being ignored as I just can’t do it all), and a curriculum to do list where I’ve been gradually solidifying my personal teaching philosophy and curriculum to really know exactly what it is I’m teaching my students and how to get them from beginning to advanced through all the steps they need. (That’s one of the projects I list above). I find the general to do list super useful for me because I don’t have strict boundaries between personal and business responsibilities, so when I have time at home, I will just work on that list, regardless. (The question of whether I should have strict boundaries is a different thought for a different day.)

A good portion of my day is spent petting various cats and such as well.

I also keep various documents for studio billing, financial planning and bill paying, travel planning, meal planning, etc, and work through those as needed. I use an app for keeping track of my expenses and mileage for tax purposes (Self-Employed through Intuit) which is a little more expensive than I prefer but I also find the app incredibly useful and I don’t use an accountant, so it probably works out in my benefit.

Anyway, this may be a boring blog post, I know, but I was just thinking about how I get things done. I’m not a paper planner person, though I do keep handwritten checking registers because I’m old fashioned in that way–I track my deposits, withdrawals, all payments for my checking accounts through my handwritten registers, but pretty much everything else is online. I’d been using handwritten teaching attendance books as well, but since I switched to My Music Staff this fall I may phase that out for next year as it’s redundant at this point. Some redundancy is good for record keeping, but too much is time consuming for no point.

Planning wise, I’m looking forward to doing some travel over the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) and I’m planning to make homemade fruitcake this year, as well as a variety of cookies as usual. I will likely not go quite as over the top as last year, but there are still some things I really enjoy making as well as always trying a few new recipes. It’s October, which means it’s not too early to plan holiday baking, as well as the fact that making fruitcake is something you evidently do early so the fruitcake can “age.”

I just laugh so hard at this.

Anybody have any great ways they plan or get things done? For those who are self employed/work from home: how do you delineate time spent on work and time spent on personal things, or do you do like I do and blur the boundaries?

Cat

Too Many Good Things

We’ve been watching Manifest lately, which I don’t recommend, actually. But now we’re sucked in and we want to see how it ends, and it’s taking forever since we’ve only been averaging 5 episodes a week. There’s a saying they keep saying about “all good things” so that’s where I got my title from.

I’ve been doing a lot of things on the weekends, and I’m already worn out! I got asked for this and that, and each time I want to do it for various reasons (enjoy colleagues, good money, love the music director, etc.) and as a result my weekend I just had was really busy. We did have some fun though: dinner out on Friday night and a symphony concert on Saturday night (yes, we are going three weeks in a row). The concert was really nice, and we ran into friends and went out after the show as well, which felt very “before times” (except that we were at a patio, the place was not super crowded and our friends barely made the cutoff for ordering food at a restaurant that used to be really “late-night”friendly.)

Looking out onto a pond from under a tent: last weekend’s wedding location.

But nonetheless, things are going well. The weather is starting to be really nice, not too humid, cooler, etc. I spent this morning digging up a garden bed of irises: we got a new back porch and now one of the flower beds doesn’t make sense anymore. (If you want some irises and are local, let me know.) I’m not sure if I’ll replant some or not, for now they are just spread out on the remnants of a garden bed.

The new stairs! Our friend Jim did them and they are gorgeous.

I’ve played a couple weddings and have a few more in October. I have enjoyed playing some things, especially one where I got to improv a bit more (catholic masses are fun for this reason) and I do enjoy focusing on sound quality as I play. I also played the same piece at two funerals, Arvo Part’s Spiegel Im Spiegel, and I found that oddly coincidental, is this piece really hot right now or something?

Kitties!

I guess that’s it for now. How is your week going? Are you slightly less tired that I am?

Random thoughts

Concerts

We are going to a concert tonight! It’s Kishi Bashi with the Symphony and we are excited. The Symphony is requiring either proof of vaccination or a negative test, so I feel like this is going to be okay. I believe they are at lower capacity and have spaced people apart, though we’ll see when we get there…

My fall schedule is shaping up really well. I managed to group my college students onto two different days, and I have most of my mornings free after my early classes which is great for doing work. I don’t have any days that are full from dawn to night, which is something I haven’t managed in the past. I miss seeing my students at Lindenwood, but something had to give, and that was my farthest drive. My early morning job is doing well so far, one week down, many more weeks to go, but I’m enjoying seeing and working with colleagues.

Our friend Jim is working on the back of our house, redoing an old wooden deck that needed serious replacement. I’m thrilled to be able to use the back door again safely when he is done. I’ll share pictures as well, then.

It’s been busy though, getting the year started, staying up on emails, billing, scheduling, etc. I have been trying to really limit my business work to during the week, though of course that’s impossible (well, it’s impossible for me, because if a student contacts me over the weekend and I can respond quickly, I usually do…why add it to a list of things to do later if I can do it right away?).

Anyway, just thought I’d pop in and do a quick check in. I’ve got some more things to do on the computer before setting off to teach college students again. Changing my system this fall will (I hope) save time and admin work in the long run, but until then it’s added a lot of work just getting it all set up. Every time I get something figured out, it seems like something new pops up.

Hopefully the weather turns out nice on Sunday as I’ve got the day off and would love to go for a hike somewhere. Right now the forecast looks good but it keeps changing.

Books, Random thoughts, Teaching

Time Marches On

I thought I’d just pop in so you all knew I remembered I had a blog. I know blogging is dead and all, yet I still read blogs and have a blog, so it’s probably sort of like classical music in that sense.

College started up, and I have several wonderful new students as well as my returning students. I absolutely adore some of the students I teach and I’m looking forward to a great semester. I’m sorry I had to leave some students at the other school I’d taught at for 4 1/2 years, but my schedule is much more manageable without that job…it’s hard to quit things, isn’t it? In any case, it was super weird and a bit emotional returning to my studio there for the first time since before the pandemic: I distinctly remember leaving and being excited for Spring Break and visiting my friend April in Atlanta, and then…never returning.

My early morning school job officially starts up next week, and while I’m a little nervous about the early mornings, especially as the days get shorter (it’s so hard to wake up and drive to work in the dark, for instance), I’m excited to get back to it. My overall schedule is easier than it was last year, even with actually commuting to my college job, and I think it’ll be a good semester.

Wednesday night: My parents stopped by overnight on their way home from a road trip. They were here for about 12 hours total as they wanted to get back on the road and get home. They ended up having some car trouble along the way home and the part their car needed might have been a year long wait or more, so they ended up buying a new car, which seems a bit crazy, yet, they didn’t have any better options at that point. We were able to admire their new car and chat a bit.

The weekend was fun: pizza and wine with friends on Friday night, and then most of the day Saturday and Sunday I spent at a Suzuki Workshop (Suzuki Principles in Action) in person at SIUE (in Edwardsville). It was a good learning opportunity, a course about HOW to teach, not what to teach, and I learned quite a bit. I have a follow-up assignment to do over the next two months, which involves recording myself as well as answering some questions/short essays. I’ve spent most of the pandemic trying to further improve and educate myself as a teacher, and it’s been really fun, learning. The more I know, the more confidence I have that I’m doing the best I can for my students.

Sunday night I cooked this: Skillet Shrimp and Orzo. I really liked it! I had been getting tired of cooking before I made it, but I think sometimes when I’m tired I just don’t want to cook, not that cooking is in itself tiring. I made myself put together a meal plan for the next two weeks.

And then yesterday was off, Labor Day! We were going to go for a hike, but ended up getting lazy and just hanging out around the house more. I sort of regret that I didn’t get out and about, but it was a bit hotter than originally predicted and I’m just so ready for fall weather. I think I was run down from the workshop in addition to just not wanting to deal with people or hot weather. It was a nice relaxing day and I didn’t work at all, other than a couple tiny things.

I do belong to two unions, and have mixed feelings about my union membership (one union is great, has gotten me raises, the other…not so much) but firmly believe that collective bargaining is on average, a good thing, and that workers make the world work and deserve way more than they and we actually get.

I haven’t mentioned books in awhile, so let me end with some books I’ve read recently:

Books I’ve loved: The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré, People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand, The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley, The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

Books I’ve liked: The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst, The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave , Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge, House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Nonfiction I enjoyed/learned from: The Pandemic Century by Mark Honigsbaum, A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls Lanier

Travel

Getaway to du Quoin

Oh, the beginning of school, such a glorious time! It feels like summer just started, and it is already gone. In any case, at some point in July, I started worrying we would get the end of summer and wish we’d done more, so I figured I’d plan another weekend trip. I wanted to make it longer, but Louie couldn’t get away from work enough, so I found a cute airbnb about 1 1/2 hours away that would have opportunities for relaxing, swimming, hiking, eating, and just not being at home.

We found a lovely place in Du Quoin, Illinois, a town neither of us had heard of before. It was a cottage with a full kitchen, screened porch, and lake/pond access, and it had terrific reviews. We booked three nights for the weekend before my teaching semester started up again.

That was last week. Things went well, but life is getting busier and busier. I have a whole new calendar and billing system, and it’ll take people a little time to fully get used to it, but I think it’ll make my life easier and better. We had two party invites on Saturday, which was a lot of fun but exhausting…both mostly outdoor events and mostly/all vaccinated folks. But I digress!

We packed up the car and headed to Du Quoin on late Friday afternoon after Louie finished work. We found the place easily enough and got unloaded. There were wild turkeys and lots of big flies saying hello. We met up with our hosts and learned about the pond and some other important things (they require that you meet with them if you want to use the water). We had decided to cook dinner the first night, so we did that, and just relaxed. There wasn’t any wifi in the cottage, but there was phone service. It wasn’t a hardship, and the place was just really comfortable. The hosts even left us homemade granola, and fresh local eggs, milk, and butter.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then we actually had a thing to go to in Bonne Terre, a friend’s sister’s memorial service. We had decided to go, but decided to keep our trip to Du Quoin anyway, so we drove about 2 hours to Bonne Terre. It was a lovely drive, through rural farmland and corn and over the Mississippi.

We attended the service and visited for awhile and then headed back. I will say this: very few folks there wore masks, and we knew it was probably one of the riskiest activities we’d done in awhile.

We drove back and on the way stopped at Scratch Brewery in Ava, Illinois. I didn’t care for Ava, because there were two houses with signs out front advertising “Trump 2024: F**k your Feelings” except they wrote it out, and I found that incredibly offensive and distasteful. Both houses were along main routes, and while I imagine that many of the residents of Ava also dislike those people, I am happy to not return to the town. I would go to the brewery again though, but avoid anything else.

We had a sampler of beer and some bread with various spreads. Their beer is very unique and unusual, with things like Strawberry Sumac and Dry-hopped Sassafras. We enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing. It was another 20 minute drive to St Nicholas Brewing Company in Du Quoin which our hosts highly recommended. We had dinner there, and enjoyed their beers as well, though we realized we were actually still pretty full from the bread! St Nicholas was more of a standard brewery with a full menu, but we had a nice time. It was indoor seating, though we got a nicely distanced table. We figured at that point we were at the mercy of our vaccines and immune response.

I enjoyed the picture of Krampus on a nearby wall. German children are so lucky!

The next morning we headed to the Little Grand Canyon to hike. It is a hike in the 60 Hikes Book I’ve always wanted to check out, but it’s about 2 hours from home. It was only 40 minutes from Du Quoin so that seemed like a good plan. We loaded up and headed out and enjoyed the first part of the hike. There’s a point where the trail heads down some rocks, with steps chiseled into the rocks, into the canyon, and when we got there we realized it was basically just a creek. We started to try it, and then Louie slipped and fell and it was like a slip and slide! We decided to head back up. The hike was a loop, however, so we figured we’d hike the other side instead, and at least see a scenic look out and see how the other end looked. All in all, we hiked both sides up until you go down into the canyon but decided though the other side looked slightly less wet and dangerous, it wasn’t for us on this day.

After the hike, we went home and got ready to hit the pond! The pond/lake/whatever was a former strip mine that is now filled with water. One thing our hosts emphasized was that it was deep right away, and very deep: 25 to 100 feet! A little terrifying, but I just tried not to think about it. First we took the rowboat out to explore: there is a creeky old rowboat you can use. It was fun to ride while Louie worked hard (hah!) and we went some ways, to the end of the pond at the long end (it’s a wavy T shape) and then back. We were hot and sweaty then, so we hopped in the water for a bit. There is a ladder in and out, and plenty of floats to use so you don’t have to swim/tread water more than you want. The water was warm at the top but cooler down below.

After we got out of the water we chatted with our hosts a bit: they told stories of giant catfish and scuba diving! Then we went up to cook our dinner again. We figured we’d taken enough COVID risks the day before. We also managed to download a couple episodes of TV to watch (you can hook your phone up to a TV if you have something to watch) and enjoyed relaxing and watching tv before bed.

We got up early the next morning and headed home: we were both working after lunch and so we needed to get back. It was a lovely weekend getaway!

One of my pandemic thoughts was that I wanted to do more things nearby when we can rather than just waiting until summer to do longer trips. We’d like to still do a longer trip next summer if possible, but it’s been really nice exploring nearby this summer: Arkansas, Hawn State Park, Du Quoin. Maybe we’ll be able to do a few more short weekend trips over the upcoming school year.

Random thoughts

Staycation isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

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I’ve taken this week off from teaching in order to rest and recuperate before school starts up next week and my new teaching schedules goes into order. In typical fashion, however, since Louie was still working and we couldn’t go anywhere, I ended up signing up for another online training course, which I thought was 3 hours a day (it is) but then had 8 hours of video observations on top of that. Between that, getting things ready for next week and a few other little things here and there, I don’t feel like I’ve had any sort of break! I suppose I never planned it to be a fun vacation week, simply a week off from my normal schedule.

I have had a break from teaching, which is nice, and means I’ll be happy to see everybody again next week. I hope the schedule works out well, and I’m especially excited to start my Creative Ability Development (Improvisation) Classes up again.

Unrelated, I have a few new potential students and some who have been wait-listed. I do turn students away as well, usually with a recommendation if possible. I realized that sometimes those students will find their way back: I’ll turn them away one year, and a few years later they will contact me again, and I don’t always remember until I am searching for their email for some reason and come across the original one! Then I wonder what if I could have fit them in a few years earlier, how would our relationship and their skill be different? I can’t take everybody though, there are only so many viable teaching hours in a day!

My early morning teaching job starts up again in early-mid-September and I am both looking forward to it (we’re in person, it’s back to normal which I’ve never taught in, masks ARE required) and dreading it (it’s really early, COVID fears, I don’t know what normal is so I’m a little nervous about it). I’m sure once it gets started it will be lovely: getting up so early has changed my wakeup time throughout the summer—7 to 7:30 am is now my normal, and while that’s still usually with an alarm, without an alarm I might wake up anywhere between 6:30 am and 8 am. The truth is it has also changed my normal bedtime, which is now around 10 pm, sometimes staying up reading after that, and I’ll have to bump that up a little if possible during the year. I don’t know how much of my sleeping pattern changes are due to aging, and how much are due to having to change, and I never will.

When I was in my 20’s people always told me once I had kids I wouldn’t be able to sleep in anymore. While I’m sure that was true, for me I never was able to sleep in again after the election of 2016…the stress got me up early for months after that and then I just couldn’t anymore. I do usually wake up much like I did as a kid, ready to go and get doing things, though sometimes things means checking email and doomscrolling a bit in between writing emails, and drinking coffee. Anyway, so people without kids will never know if they would have lost their ability to sleep in as they aged, or whether they would have enjoyed continuing to sleep well and long.

I’m rambling a bit, so maybe I’ll let you go now. Do you find yourself able to sleep more or less as you’ve gotten older? Do you get up the same time on non-work days as you do on work days? Do you get enough sleep on a regular basis?