All posts by hannahviolin

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

Figuring it out

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and bullet journaling lately and really trying to figure out my next steps. I’m not talking about anything drastic (or am I) but more like, how do I keep the good stuff from this pandemic time of life? In other words, do I want to return to the gigging life that I was doing before, or do I want to just focus on my teaching?

So many of my colleagues have expressed their sorrow and dismay at missing playing music together, and maybe I’m just already so jaded and dead inside (half kidding), but I don’t miss it. I miss seeing people, oh for sure, but I don’t miss the supposed joy of music-making.

I have always been a great lover of playing in a large ensemble/orchestra, and I can remember the feeling of being onstage for my first youth orchestra rehearsal, and my first All-State Orchestra rehearsal, which were my earlier orchestral memories. And so many times since then, I loved playing some fantastic pieces for orchestra, and I had so many wonderful opportunities to perform with terrific musicians and loved so much of it!

But the drudgery was also there, and what was supposed to be a dream job, playing in an orchestra full-time, just wasn’t. It was drudgery, it was something I didn’t look forward to and ultimately, something I dreaded. But I continued seeking great experiences and while freelancing in Cleveland I found some of the joy of playing orchestra again, but also so much of the drudgery.

I’d thought when I moved here to St Louis that I would have a similar experience with orchestra, where it was a lot of fun but also not as fun, but it turns out that instead it was too far to drive to play with a group, and the local group wasn’t interested in me because I had the wrong teacher, and then after that because I was divorced from a member of the group, and so then here I just sat. I played a lot of chamber music, which was often rewarding enough, but it has never been my great love. It’s too dependent on personalities, and I often feel like it’s just an extension of what I do with kids all day long…I teach so much that I’d love to just make music instead of having to convince people how to do something or spend too much time figuring out what’s going wrong and having it be so dependent on me.

I think, perhaps for string players, some of the appeal of orchestra is NOT having to figure out the problem, to just being able to show up, do your best, and let somebody else tell you what to do. Granted, the appeals of orchestra are the same things that cause the difficulties and the drudgery, but it is nice, as an adult, to have a time where things are just not your responsibility. Chamber music never has that, and while that’s also a net positive, it’s tiring.

I have spent so much of my adult life pushing myself to work longer, to work harder, to hustle, to network. And then the pandemic hit, after I felt I was really getting somewhere here, and all the playing work disappeared. And then I just waited, and I taught, and then I realized, oh, no, plenty of people are doing outdoor work, but not me. It didn’t matter, absolutely none of the things I’d done over the past years mattered, and I was absolutely alone in my career. There was nobody who had my back or cared if I ever worked again.

That might sound harsh, but it really is true. There are some musicians who recommend me and call me for this or that now, and some excellent church music directors that I am glad to work with, but nobody really cares. Why should they? If I never perform on violin again, I don’t think anybody apart from my mom will miss it.

So where does that leave me? One, it tells me there is no point is trying to take a whole bunch of jobs in order to end up with the ones you enjoy. No job seems to lead to another job, it’s all negated here in St Louis by the fact that I am not from here anyway, so I might as well only take the specific jobs that I want in the moment and say no to any others. I’ve tried taking all the jobs, and that made people angry. I’ve tried being loyal to certain groups, and that didn’t earn me any points, and I’ve tried taking only the jobs that don’t conflict with other jobs…and it all ended up with nothing. So I think I’ll take jobs I want to do, and mostly not take anything that conflicts with my current teaching schedule.

As far as teaching, I have a busy but manageable schedule as it stands. I don’t think I should take any new students at the time as I’m adjusting to my new morning schedule, haven’t lost any students yet going into January, and don’t know how many college students I have. I may be teaching an ensemble in person at one college, and I’ve added two group classes in improvisation/Creative Ability Development per week, which I’m looking forward to. I have enough going on, probably more than enough, and I need to consider getting back into a practice routine again.

I’m also continuing playing with my band and we are looking to replace Meghan (who moved to Germany) with somebody else, and fingers crossed that continues to be fun. I don’t always love it, especially  not when I’m tired and overly busy, but I’ve enjoyed the music making and the improvisation that I’ve been pushed to do, so it’s a good thing to keep doing. I’m also happy to play some more serious concerts, and I would love to play some shows at the Fox again if and when traveling shows start traveling again (it makes me crazy busy but the pay is great and I really do enjoy it.)

So there are my thoughts on a Sunday morning. I’ve learned over the years that a career is everchanging, and often I think I’ve got things figured out and it turns out either than I don’t, or maybe I did and then things changed. I also find that things tend to work out well enough if you are willing to work hard, and that has continued to stay true throughout all my career changes.

This isn’t a career change, but a mindset shift. I don’t need to operate my career from a scarcity mindset anymore. I’m not desperate for cash, I just need to maintain a steady income like most people, and want to do that in the most fulfilling way.

The last thing I really started thinking about recently was that I have spent too much of my career worrying about what other people think and letting what they think about my career dictate my choices. Nobody cares, except when they are judging what you do, right?Musicians always think their way is best and that people going a different way are wrong or inferior. I’ll just do my thing.

Things are always changing. Every year things look different, and I’m always adding and subtracting. The title of this post says “figuring it out” but of course I haven’t figured it out, but I’m always trying to Smile

Quarantine

Year in Review

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It’s been a year, for sure. I don’t know that tonight will change anything, but 2020 will be behind us, and we will be that much closer to January 20.

I was looking back through my blog this past year, and I was really struck by how much life changed in March. Everything just stopped and hasn’t started back, and might not for months and months more. It’s really weird, and awful, and stressful, and we are all experiencing it in our own different ways.

There have been some bad things that happened this year, and good things. I want to reflect on the loss first, and then the good things.

We’ve all experienced loss this year in one form or another. I had a few personal losses: my friend and colleague Tracy; a friend of my family and one of my best friend’s dad’s growing up Mr. Pitts.; my friend Roz’s dad who I never met but felt like I had; Louie’s late wife’s stepdad who I had met several times, Bill; my mom’s good friend Ramona. How much of this was COVID, how much would have happened anyway…how much is just from growing older and more people you know die? At least two of those were directly from COVID, that much I know. It’s not too hard to wear a mask. It’s harder to avoid seeing friends and family, but it’s better to avoid them for a year than forever. My thoughts are with closer friends and family members of everybody I mentioned and I hope they are all finding peace.

There are and were many other losses: losing a trip to Paris, to Colorado, missing seeing Hilary Hahn play live for the first time, losing an opportunity to perform Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, and Brahms Piano Quintet, missing seeing friends for a whole year, having students graduate and move away without seeing them in person, missing seeing my students in person for nearly a year, missing hearing live violin other than my own playing, missing having my birthday with friends, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, etc. (Some of those things might have been able to happen but since everybody has their own idea of what’s “safe” in the pandemic, what is truly the safest is just to do things within your own household, since Louie has been teaching in person all fall. )

There are losses I’ll never know, of things that might have happened. And I may be lamenting my performance career, though who knows, but for better or for worse, teaching has brought me through this pandemic, and missing all my performances showed me that I don’t miss that many of my performances.

These losses are mostly surface losses, but worth mentioning in a personal blog. We all lost so much, and some lost so much more. I feel so lucky to have made it through this pandemic as well as I have, and I hope my luck continues.

Which leads us into the good and interesting parts of the year:

I got to see my sister Leslie and her family several times over the summer, before things seemed entirely too risky to even leave the city. Our cat Miles got returned to us, because of his microchip. We managed to pull together a camping trip to Yellowstone in late summer. In March right before everything went bad we visited my friends April and Charlie in Atlanta and got to see their new house. My dad visited briefly in February en route to Yellowstone and points west.

I learned how to make and can jams and pickles. I did a series of livestream concerts, both alone and with my friend Michael and our band. I put in a garden and harvested ridiculous amounts of zucchini and delicata squash. We did a lot of hikes nearby and walks around Forest Park. I read a ton of books and watched a lot of TV shows, many of which were good.

I had a business logo made and added Creative Ability Development classes to my schedule. I successfully moved all my students online during the pandemic and took online pedagogy classes. I started a new school job teaching beginning violin. 

My family started having a weekly zoom meeting and have kept it up all year long, communicating and bonding more than ever during this difficult time.

Before the pandemic we went to many concerts and jazz shows and hope to do that again someday. I took some time off practicing and spend a lot of time reflecting on how I want my career to look post-pandemic. I sent Christmas boxes to my family members, and all but one have arrived. I got better at cooking and tried dozens of new recipes. I planned and executed various fun holiday menus for the two of us, and kept eating healthy and interesting meals. I kept up a regular exercise routine.

I lived through a pandemic so far, and continue living through an attempted coup by the losing presidential candidate. I am hopeful that things will get better, and that the pandemic will come to an end worldwide in 2021.

I learned that I enjoy having weekends free from work, and that I didn’t miss playing weddings and some other gigs. I did miss playing Christmas jobs, and I’m not sure if I missed playing regular concerts or if I miss the adrenaline rush. I definitely like the lower stress work I do now, but that might be because I have enough outside stress.

I don’t want to pretend to guess or know what 2021 will have in store, but here are some hopes and plans I have:

I’m greatly looking forward to our new president, and new leadership on dealing with COVID and the vaccine. We need competence in government, and I am so eternally grateful to other Biden voters for saving our country from the brink, and hopefully bringing us back into the world and getting through to the end of this pandemic.

I hope to continue to feel positive about teaching and grow my CAD/improv teaching. I’m loving that aspect of my job right now. I also want to continue to feel like my schedule isn’t too out of control and that I can continue to have weekends more free with the exception of things that are fun and enjoyable to do.

I hope to start being able to attend concerts and shows again by the end of 2021 at least. I hope to be able to start visiting family again this year and I hope to be able to resurrect some friendships or cultivate new ones.

I hope to continue to be healthy and happy (enough) and I hope that 2021 is a better year and will end on a more positive note than this year.

Happy New Year to you! May 2021 bring better things.

Random thoughts

Vacation Time

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I decided to take two weeks off from teaching, which coincided with the days off from my school job. It’s not the same as all the schools, of course, and some students are very conscientious about life and don’t want any weeks off at all, but I think I needed the break.

It’s weird being IN the break, in a pandemic. I’m not used to having so much time off at home. Usually I go places when I’m off work (why wouldn’t you, with limited vacation time, of course you travel if you can afford it) so this is probably the longest I’ve been at home with nothing to do in a decade or more.

I’m glad I’m taking the break though. I could have taught some these first few days of the week, I’m sure, as most students are simply around, and the weather isn’t so great that people are dying to get out of the house. But I think taking a little break is good, and important, and soon enough we’ll be back to having lessons every week and school and that will go all the way through May, which seems like a few very long way away, but will likely fly by.

I am returning to “in-person” teaching for my school job. I say returning, but since it is a new job, I have never taught in-person there, so I’m a little nervous but excited about it. I’ll only be seeing students two mornings a week and the other two are online still. I feel reasonably good about the school’s precautions: I’ll be teaching a very small amount of students and the students stay in their classrooms. In school, they have only been staying with the other students in their classrooms, so we will teach the students in their classroom. The other thing that is good is that I’ll be there early, before school starts, so hardly anyone will be there and by the time all the students in the school are arriving, I’m leaving. And the school has done a good job keeping the numbers low and they don’t hesitate to quarantine classrooms as needed, which would involve me if necessary. I’m sure some of my in-person days will end up being online or canceled due to this sort of thing, but I am feeling pretty good about returning, and I’m looking forward to it (except for the cold, early morning commutes).

Teaching online for my private students will continue though, because it’s just too much, obviously, to have anybody come to the house, and I see too many kids spread out across various districts. I’m not sure when this will end…I needed a break from hearing violin over the internet though…it doesn’t help my headaches, being on the computer all day long.

We went to the Missouri History Museum on Saturday morning. We were probably two of about 10 total people that were there, so it ended up seeming like a good thing to do. I wanted to see the exhibit “Beyond the Ballot” which was about various women from St Louis or living in St Louis who helped or encouraged women’s rights over the years. I learned quite a lot, and then promptly forgot a large swath of it. One thing that stuck with me was that when St Louis become part of the United States (after the Louisiana Purchase) women lost a lot of rights they had previously had, such as the ability to purchase and own property. It’s amazing how horrible the United States has been in terms of white male supremacy for its entire life, and that as much as we are taught that it was same everywhere, I keep learning that it wasn’t.

After that we walked around Forest Park for awhile, which was lovely.

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After that we watched entirely too much TV and that was it for the day. I did start getting back into cross-stitch after taking off from it the entire pandemic! I was really gung-ho about cross-stitch last fall, and then did too much over last Christmas break, and hurt my hand a bit, so I took a break, for evidently about a year.

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I finished this little ornament which I had just barely started before. I also started on another project and have taken stock of what I’ve got on hand and what I want to do next.

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Sunday we went out to Greensfelder County Park and hiked the Eagle Run Trail, which is a really nice trail for the area, about 3.5 miles, nothing too steep but not too boring. It was a bit muddy in places, but nothing too bad. We did run into another couple who said there were places that were practically impassable, but I think we lucked out on a different path than they had been on. IMG_7473

This creek had frozen and then the ice was all broken up when we saw it.

Hiking in Missouri is, as always, mostly just wandering in the woods, but after spending most of the day in your own house, it’s a nice thing to do, wander around the woods.

After hiking on Sunday I did some things around the house and then did the weekly “roll call” zoom meeting with my family. It was my parent’s anniversary (52 years!) so we all had a nice time chatting about Christmas and seeing all the gifts we and other people had given my 6 year old niece. My nephew has learned how to say “bye-bye” on calls, so at the end he gets really excited and yells it a lot and it’s hysterical, I guess ending the call is his favorite part.

Oh, and yesterday my aunt’s box of cookies was delivered, yay! Only one more to go, with no word on it.

Today I have a dentist appointment: I called up yesterday to make my next appointment and they had one the next day, why not! And my jury duty I thought I had next week is now postponed a year (I started worrying and sent a concerned email and they just postponed it a year) so I just have a small handful of things to do: get grades in for my school job, write one thing for another job I’m doing, and at some point I have some things to do for an online pedagogy class I’m taking, but I think I’ll put those off until after the New Year. Otherwise, more needlepoint, cooking, working out, and reading. I could be doing a lot more things around the house, but that all just seems like NOT vacation to me. I did clean out one closet, and perhaps I’ll do one more closet that needs it before school starts up again, but also, maybe I won’t.

How are you doing? What are you up to over the holidays?

Christmas

Boxing Day

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! We had a lovely day off work and today we are going to do some outdoor activities and visit a museum briefly before holing up inside again.

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I didn’t blog earlier because I got into “holiday” mood which meant after I finished teaching I didn’t want to do anything on the computer. The whole month of December felt like just treading water getting to the end of the semester, and while no, things weren’t as busy as normal years, I was so tired of teaching online and really needed a break. I’m glad to be here, and I’m also glad I had a few Christmas gigs to play, either recorded or livestreaming in front of no congregation at the church.

December flew by, didn’t it? I was extra busy with some things at work, an online class and a writing gig I picked up. I also did a lot of baking, as you know, and then put a bunch of goodies into boxes for my parents, my siblings, and my aunt Connie who has been coming to our weekly zoom calls.

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The postal service was destroyed by DeJoy though, and this meant that I couldn’t send “de Joy” before Christmas to my aunt or my brother, since they live too near Philadelphia. My parents, in small town South Carolina got their box in 5 days, my sister Carrie in New York in 1 week, and my sister Leslie in Phoenix in 9 days. The other two are “delayed” and sitting in processing centers. Priority mail flat-rate, y’all, and I worry this Christmas will be the final nail in the coffin as an excuse for the GOP to destroy the USPS for good. Just ask yourselves, why didn’t they hire more workers? They still could. They hired 50,000 extra seasonal workers, but why not more? There are millions upon millions out of work who might have loved a seasonal job for the USPS. Obviously that wasn’t enough people to do the work. I only hope my packages arrive in the next week or so, but I don’t know. I was pleased that the ones that were delivered arrived in good shape, however.

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We finished celebrating Hanukkah and made latkes from scratch twice. I teach late, usually until 8 or 8:30 each night, and it gets dark here at 4:30-4:45 in December, which meant that we didn’t light the candles until I was done working. It was a nice ending to the night, and I also lit an electric menorah in the front since our candlelighting wasn’t able to be in a good window due to the house setup and the cats.

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I kept teaching until the 22nd, mostly because 1) my school job went until then and 2) I have jury duty starting Jan 4 and wanted to start back teaching on the 6th and give two weeks vacation. Nobody was going anywhere really, though more students were traveling and seeing family than I would feel comfortable doing, but what can you do? Also I have my worries about jury duty and it was already canceled before and I feel like it has more reason to be canceled in January than ever, but I also don’t have a good doctor’s excuse to cancel it and I really just want to get it over with.

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I played a livestream service on Christmas Eve and then had a late dinner of appetizers with Louie.

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Shrimp cocktail and a cheese ball. I enjoyed this cheese ball but wished it were more cheddar-y, so I probably won’t make this exact recipe again. We also had some homemade (with alcohol) eggnog I’d made the night before. I fell into the aged eggnog rabbit hole on the internet and may be trying that next year…anybody do aged eggnog?

Louie and I decided not to exchange Christmas gifts (this is our general tradition) so that meant Christmas Day we had literally nothing to do… and it was glorious! We had a late brunch of bagels, smoked salmon, and french omelets, then watched TV all day while Louie worked on putting together a 3D printer for the house. We watched a few Christmas shows first, Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life, then watched a few episodes of the Great British Baking Show. We also talked with some family members and sent a lot of text messages.

I made a nice Christmas dinner for us of a Ground Beef Wellington, except with Impossible Beef, creamed spinach, a roasted vegetable salad, and a cranberry mostada. It all turned out really well except the spinach was super bland, which was disappointing as the recipe had looked really promising to me.

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Then back to 3D printer assembling and I started watching Schitt’s Creek, which Louie had seen some of but I had only watched one episode. I think I must have watched 8 more episodes before going to bed! Somewhere in there we had dessert.

I don’t know what led to this, but Louie and I had been talking about fruitcake at some point, and I had been searching the internet and found there was this supposedly delicious fruitcake made by trappist monks in Missouri. So I bought one and it had been waiting until this moment.

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You may have an idea of fruitcake being really bad or bricklike…this fruitcake wouldn’t have appealed to me as a kid, but it was delicious! Full of nuts, fruit, moist cake, and the aroma of rum or brandy or some combination. I thoroughly enjoyed my piece, and there will be more eaten in the future. Perhaps this is a new Christmas tradition.

Anyway, the next week stretches ahead. There isn’t much to do, is there, due to the pandemic. I have a few things I want to do around the house, and of course take down the Christmas decorations before school starts up, but I think I’ll leave them up through the New Year now, and continue enjoying the lights and such. I did do a little needlepoint yesterday and will likely do some of that again.

Happy Christmas to you, if you celebrate. Do you have some days off of work? What are you doing over the break? Did you celebrate the holidays in unusual ways this year?

Christmas, Love

December Flies By

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I remember when I was a child my mom would say, oh I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas again! And I would think, what are you talking about lady, it’s been FOREVER since last Christmas and this is the slowest month ever! (I wouldn’t actually call her lady, I’m taking a little poetic license here.)

In any case, I definitely  understand her sentiment now. Didn’t we just have a Christmas and now there’s another one? I’m so glad I had a huge family gathering last year and that we got to spend a few days together, since things look…a little different this year.

But things are good. I’ve done a fair amount of baking, and I added some decorations. We’ve also been celebrating Hanukkah in the household here since that’s also part of Louie’s background, and I figured we should celebrate his background as well as mine. I’m sure our holiday celebrations offend equally, but I’m also sure there are plenty of households out there who have reason to celebrate both holidays, and this year is definitely a year to find celebration where one can. It’s good to sit and reflect, and (in my viewpoint) consider where you’ve come from and what you can do in your life to make the world a better place. I hope my violin lessons and classes do that, help each student to have a better day and to be a better person through music.

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I had bought a cheap tree topper star a few years ago at Target and it broke this year. I was looking online to see what to have and found an awesome and gaudy light up star that you just plug into your existing light plugs (which I happened to have on top of the tree.) It did require a mechanical engineer to get it to stay on top of the tree, but it brings me great joy.

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I’ve been doing a “series” on Instagram with an ornament a day. This violin was a gift from my first violin teacher and I love it.

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The cats enjoying each other’s company. Or something!

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This little fellow is happy even without one of his arms!

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The first night of Hanukkah. Latkes, beet salad, a bit of caviar (we are fancy like that). We even played a bit of dreidel as we watched the candles burn.

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I made a delicious orange chocolate chip ricotta cookie that will go on my “make again” list.

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I remember reading a book in which the Gingerbread Man was a dangerous serial killer but no one could catch him. What book was that? Jasper Fforde?

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Louie mentioned that eating blintzes was something he had done as a boy during Hanukkah so I made some one morning. They were great!

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I got a new nutcracker from World Market. They do a limited edition each year and I’ve gotten in the habit of buying it (at least I have the past few years.) Each year it’s a different Santa, usually something from around the world, and this year was Mexican. He is a cute little guy.

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A few more nights of lights. We don’t have a good place to light the menorah safely in front of a window (cats, cats, cats) but I have a delightful electric menorah in the front window that I turn on each night of Hanukkah.

Louie isn’t a real “plan for the holidays” sort of person, but I realized after a few years of decorating for Christmas that he was feeling like it wasn’t exactly right for his traditions without including Hanukkah. Since doing so last year, I could tell it meant a lot to him and that he enjoyed feeling more a part of the celebrations. He’s not a religious person, but he has his own traditions and sense of self, and holidays are such a part of that, aren’t they?

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Blue crinkle cookies in honor of our shared traditions. I started making these…last year..and I took a recipe, made it vegan to share with Louie’s brother, and they tasted sort of weird and like playdough. I made them again this year but a different way and they taste like weird cookies with a fake banana flavor, which is crazy because I used real bananas!

How is your month going? What unusual or strange traditions do you have in your house?

Hope, Quarantine, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Break

I still have the rest of today, but it has been a wonderful and refreshing Thanksgiving Break.

One week ago today I had an online recital for my students and they were awesome. I was so proud of them for continuing to rise to the occasion.

Then I took off private teaching all week, which was a fantastic decision. I had a few things to do work-wise but I got to have my afternoons and evenings free AND I got a break from hearing violin over the computer. It was absolutely the best thing for me.

I did a few new to me things over the week, one of which was taking a short online workshop on “self-care for creative types.” It was amazing. I had forgotten to think about what I actually enjoyed doing as I have been so focused on “getting through the pandemic” and “keeping my students happy and challenged”. So I spent Tuesday after the workshop doing some brainstorming and starting to work through a book I’d bought a few years ago but never used called “Your Best Year Yet!”.

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Wednesday was lovely as I was able to sleep in a bit, exercise at my leisure, and spend some time cooking. For Thanksgiving I ended up making a cranberry-rhubarb sauce (which was delicious, absolutely delicious) with some rhubarb I had in the freezer, and Smitten Kitchen’s Corn Pudding, which was good but drier than I like (Louie absolutely adored it.) I picked up bread and rolls at Union Loafers and Louie picked up our dinner for the next day from Treehouse, a vegan restaurant we really like. (We decided not to eat a real turkey this Thanksgiving.) That night we went to the Garden Glow at the Botanical Gardens—it’s a light event they do every Thanksgiving through the New Year, and I’d thought of trying to go many years but we never did. This time the weather suddenly looked okay and I snapped up the last few tickets for the night. The crowds were capped at 25 percent of the original capacity, and it felt fine walking around with people wearing their masks and lots of space.

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Thursday morning I made an egg and potato casserole to go with one of the breads and then we met up with some of Louie’s colleagues (when you work at a college, you end up being invited to do things on Thanksgiving day!) and we took a nice long (masked) walk in Forest Park.

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After that we popped over to his mom’s house and visited on their porch for a bit and had some tea, before heading home to relax. We had some appetizers his mom had given up (prosecco, caviar and blinis!) and then after a few hours, started heating up our Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner was a delicious and we were pretty stuffed afterwards. We watched TV for a bit, and then managed some dessert as well.

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Friday we went to Rockwoods Reservation and hiked the Lime Kiln Trail to another trail and then across the road to the Rock Quarry Trail for a little over 5 miles. It was the most crowded we had ever seen it there and that didn’t surprised me as it was a gorgeous day outside! Louie had some work to do after that so we went home. I got all of my holiday decorations out and started putting up the tree. The cats really loved having a tree inside to climb, and I guess I am just fine with that.  At night we had Thanksgiving Take 2 and it was just as good as Take 1.

Saturday was an entire day spent at home, and it was glorious. I was able to again sleep in a bit, exercise, and finish decorating the tree—I ran out of hooks before I was done, so I’ll finish the rest in a few days after I get some more hooks. My trick with cats is to not put up my most breakable ornaments, and otherwise to shrug and laugh. The tree seems sturdy enough for them to climb up without it falling over. We put it in a slightly more central location than previous years since I won’t have any students coming and going, which meant I ended up being short on ornaments—I was used to having one side against the wall! I also went ahead and worked on Christmas cards and got those mostly done. I’m still collecting addresses and don’t plan to send them for another week or two.  We had Thanksgiving for the third time for dinner and managed to finally finish off a few of the dishes. There’s still corn pudding, salad, and cranberry sauces left, but otherwise we did a good job.

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And that brings us to now. I ended up waking up quite early, so I’ve already done quite a few things…I actually have realized it’s nice to be awake as the sun comes up since it sets so early (4:41 today, for instance). I thought having a teaching job where I had to get up so early would be a terrible thing, and while it’s awfully hard some mornings, it has been kind of fun. I’m trying to focus on the good things, and on some of the ideas that were brought up in the Best Year Yet book and the Self-Care workshop and between that and you know, a vacation, I’m feeling much more like myself than I had in awhile: more focused, relaxed, and enjoying life. This pandemic is still hard, and I believe some of the worst is yet to come, but we will (hopefully) weather the storm…

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Back to work tomorrow for just over 3 weeks…