All posts by hannahviolin

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

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

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I thought I’d get a post up earlier, but I just haven’t had the time. I rarely sit down with my computer these days. I do most of my emailing even at my phone, or I do a quick email if I want to use a keyboard. But here we are!

Thanksgiving went by quickly. I had one actual day off, and my parents came up for a quick visit and to see Aladdin. I had double performances on all the other days around Thanksgiving, and this was the third week of the show, so I’d been pretty busy! I love playing these shows, but it’s 8 shows a week on top of my regular 45 ish student teaching schedule…life gets very busy. This was my last one this season, so the spring will be much less busy, though I always have extra gigs and such.

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Anyway! It ended up being a gorgeous day on Thanksgiving, so first my Mom and I made pies (apple crisp, pecan pie, pumpkin pie), then we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park to walk around. Louie’s mom was hosting us for Thanksgiving and we were grateful not to have too much to do.

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We found a large eyeball. Any giants missing one?

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We went and walked around Washington University as well. We thought of getting four bikes to rent, but didn’t have enough phones with the app on it to rent them (you needed one phone for each bike rental). Dad is the more experienced biker so he did the riding.

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It was good to see my parents, even for a short visit, so I’m glad they made it up. If we’d have the snow storm from the week before they might not have come! I didn’t take any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, but it was delicious. Then I was back to work the next day, and finished the show on Sunday.

It’s nice that college teaching is winding down. The semester is an odd thing: you work really hard for like 15 weeks and then you have a month off, or more in the summer. I have a few students doing various performances but mostly people are simply winding down and focusing on their other classes and projects. Lessons are only 1 credit mostly, so it isn’t a huge commitment unless they are a performance major.

I’m hoping to put up my (fake)Christmas tree this weekend. I thought I’d put it up and see how the cats react, and then if things seem okay add the ornaments a little later? It’s been suggested to put only soft ornaments down low that they can be “naughty” with and think they are getting away with something. I don’t know how much cats think like that, but it’s probably a good idea either way.

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Louie and I have a few festive activities planned for December, including a few concerts, a house tour, and we are hoping to finally hit up the Garden Glow at the Botanical Gardens (we’ve never been) this season. I was thinking to myself that I didn’t have many gigs in December, but I added things up and I do have 12 different gigs in December, so that probably is enough!

How was your Thanksgiving? What holiday activities are you planning to do this December?

Deep Thoughts

Clara. Grandma. Mom.

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I always loved my grandmother’s name. I think it’s such a beautiful name, and you don’t hear it THAT often these days. (I’m thinking Dr. Who, Schumann…but do I know any other Claras in real life?)

My Grandma passed away October 30. I hadn’t seen her in over a year, at my uncle Sam’s funeral the summer before. I could say it’s because it is hard to get away and visit people, but I could have made more of an effort, I suppose. When I lived in Cleveland it was only about a 2 1/2 hour drive so I visited my relatives in the area more often, but since moving to St Louis, and then getting divorced, not having children, and feeling like I didn’t quite fit into my extended family…I guess I just didn’t visit quite as often.

My parents were there with her, and my aunts and uncles, and I know that she knew she was loved, and we knew that we were loved as well. One of my aunts shared that one of the last things Grandma said to her was “I love you all.” My heart especially goes out to all my aunts and uncles, and my parents, for their loss. They had her in their lives for so long and she will leave a large hole, but hopefully that hole is filled with love and all the memories.

I wrote this post on facebook, so I’ll share it here, along with a picture of my grandparents with me and the quilt that Grandma made me. I don’t use it, because of the pets…it’s too beautiful and they would destroy it!

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I think this was in 2006 or 2007?

Here’s her obituary.

I feel like some connection to the past has been broken, and that now I am suddenly older and my childhood is so much more in the past. Isn’t that weird? I am so lucky in that both my parents are still alive and healthy, and so of course I still have that connection, but I guess now that they are the oldest generation I feel like I am that much closer to being so…it has made me do some soul-searching and thinking about life, and what I want out of it.

I had a thought recently that I had been seeing my life as a linear path, and realized that all along I’d been making choices, just not quite as consciously as I realize I am now. I keep getting distracted by what other people want, what I think other people want, and what society wants, and not listening so much to what I want. Often I’m not even entirely sure what that is…do I want to lie around in bed and read, or do I want to go out and explore a state park, or see a concert or museum? I don’t want to work all the time, but I do enjoy the feeling of a job well done, and I enjoy earning and having the respect of my colleagues and my students. I guess soul-searching is always a good thing, isn’t it?

I will miss you, Grandma. Thanks for being so warm and loving to your grandchildren, and thanks for all the cookies. I will always carry a part of your legacy in my heart.

Random thoughts

Busy and Tired

I’m overly busy, and I’ve had so much going on, not all good. But I’m here, and I’m getting through it, and Thanksgiving will be lovely!

I’ll write more later, but I just wanted to pop in in case you are a loyal reader and wondered what happened to me. Louie and I went on a lovely hike one day at Buford Mountain, that I’ll share with you more later, but then I found out less than two days later that my grandmother passed away and that just threw everything into a whirlwind mess of figuring out how to get to Ohio and how to cancel or reschedule things. Then I came back and now I’m playing three weeks of a show at the Fox Theater here and things are just crazy. Oddly (for a musician especially) December looks way better, and I’m planning some fun holiday activities for us to relax and enjoy ourselves more. It’s been a bit too much, honestly.

But I’m still here. Things are okay!

Hiking

Pere Marquette State Park

Louie and I had Sunday off, so we decided to drive up to Grafton, Illinois to hike at Pere Marquette State Park. I’d been there before to play a couple of weddings, but never to hike. I knew the drive would be beautiful as well-after you go through Alton you drive along the Mississippi River on the Great River Road.

The weather was sunny and a little bit cool, so perfect weather for hiking. We parked by the visitor’s center (which was closed even though the parking lot was practically full—make a note of that if you expect to pick up a trail map at the visitor’s center) and headed out.

If you look at the trail map, we went up the Dogwood to the Ridge Trail, (to the highest point,McAdams Peak) to Hickory, to Hickory North, and then back around on Hickory South. We debated the Fern Trail, but decided to go head for lunch instead. We’d hoped to hike the Goat Cliff trail, but it was REALLY muddy/looked flooded at the beginning so we decided against it.

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The fall colors are here, though not super strong, and it was just really pretty.

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It’s worth pointing out that the river was pretty high all along the road, and on the river side of the park we saw a picnic shelter which was partially under water. After our hike we walked over to check out the Lodge, which was built by the CCC in the 1930’s. It’s worth checking out if you are in the area.

Next, we headed back towards Alton to visit the Old Bakery Beer Company. I’d heard good things about the brewery, and when I saw they had an Impossible Burger and a vegetarian Reuben on the menu I knew we had to try it. It was good! We split a flight of beers and had sandwiches.

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All in all, it was a really nice day. Nothing too strenuous, but just fresh air, good food, and good company.

When we got home I of course had a headache from (probably) the beer. Afternoon drinking is never good for me, even though I enjoyed tasting the beers. I had thought to go to a concert at Wash U that evening, but I just didn’t have the energy and thought it would make my headache worse, so I just relaxed and lay down while Louie did some work.

We both have this Sunday off again too so we are planning another Sunday Funday! It’ll be the last one before Christmas, so hopefully the weather is good enough to get some outside activities in. My backup plan had been to go to IKEA, so that’s always an option Winking smile

Deep Thoughts

Finding Joy

I sometimes wonder if I’m having a mid-life crisis. I am just busy enough that I do occasionally have time to reflect on how busy I am and wondering if I’m doing this wrong. I think that other people are able to make time to see friends and do things in the evening other than collapse into bed. Then again, based on the memes people put on facebook, I’m not sure if that many people do!

I have a little downtime now. I have students in about 45 minutes, so I thought I’d blog before then. I thought I had a student this morning, but I guess not. I got some practicing done and some errands though, and got a pretty intense workout done before that. I have been listening to the podcast, The History Chicks, while I drive around, and right now it’s about Louisa May Alcott. There was a bit where they talked about how much she loved the outdoors and running around, and such, and I thought to myself that in all honesty, my greatest pleasure is reading a good book. But I do enjoy the outdoors, and I always feel good after I exercise, but those things still require a mild struggle. There is no struggle to sitting down with a book! Louie is the opposite—he totally loves going out, he loves going for a hike or a run. I enjoy seeing new things, I enjoy getting out into the woods and the mountains, and I especially enjoy taking pictures and planning things.

It’s funny, isn’t it, what brings us joy? My cats don’t question these things. We got a new, larger, cat tower, and they don’t worry whether they are enjoying the tower enough. (The answer is, probably not enough yet but I’m hopeful they will use it more once they are used to it). They just are. They scratch, they meow, they sleep, they groom, they don’t seem to worry about anything.

Not that I can be like a cat, because the cats have a me, and I don’t have a me unless I am me. But that I can take some ideas from them: one is to try to enjoy my downtime. Yesterday morning I woke up and was really stressed out, even though I really had the morning free! I ended up not getting to enjoy my downtime as much as if I’d said to myself, yes, you have the morning off, so let’s drink some coffee, let’s read, and let’s not stress out about what comes next.

I don’t want to cut back on my work schedule right now, for a variety of reasons. But I do want to find more joy and enjoyment in my life. Sometimes I feel like the only thing all day that I look forward to is eating and having a drink at the end of the day, and that doesn’t seem quite right. I want to enjoy what I’m doing as I do it (…some students make this easier than others for sure!) and I want to have things in my life that I enjoy, that I look forward to, that I can just do and have fun with.

Granted, my philosophy for life isn’t centered around my own happiness as being the number one, but you read a lot of stuff about “self-care” and how you can’t help others if you aren’t doing okay yourself. And while I don’t think I’m dealing with any real depression right now, I have been feeling a little bit down, and feeling a little bit lonely in the world. I often feel like whatever I do is letting somebody down or upsetting somebody else. I know that that’s probably not quite true, and that I shouldn’t worry so much about other people, but…it’s always easier said than done!

But on the bright side: Louie’s birthday is coming up and we have some fun activities planned. We are heading into the fun part of the year with holiday after holiday. I’m making progress on a variety of home projects. I’m not managing to lose any weight, but I’m getting in much better shape, which is the true goal anyway. I should reevaluate some aspects of my diet, but I’m happy that I’ve gotten into a regular exercise routine again. I decided to treat myself and ordered a few actual paintings from Etsy that I really loved, so I’m looking forward to seeing those in person. And tonight will be pizza at Union Loafers with Louie and a friend (yes, I’m looking forward to food, but also seeing friends). I haven’t been able to get to Union Loafers for pizza in months, so I’m super excited! (It’s my favorite pizza place in town, currently.)

I know I need to focus on the positive. I’ve always struggled with feeling satisfied and finding joy in my life. I’m lucky that I have a full studio, a fairly full gig calendar, a loving partner, two adorable cats, some good friends even though I don’t have time for them, and family around the country that will always be there for me. I’m also lucky that the library lets you borrow ebooks for free, that I paid off my student loans over a year ago, and that the cost of living in my city is low enough that I can make a decent living as a musician. (It helps that I get my health care from my partner, because that is an expense that is MUCH cheaper through his employer.)

That is a lot of good things! So glad we had this talk. Also, I’m wearing a velvet top, which is a great thing about fall—fuzzy tops and sweaters. Related to fall: Louie has never had a pumpkin spice latte. I might have to have us make a stop over the weekend to indulge. He might hate them, but I won’t.

Hiking

Shaw Nature Reserve and more

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Yesterday we got some of our concrete steps redone in the front of the house. It was a bit of a wait to finally get to this point, but today they look fantastic! We also had to deal with our furnace not working over the weekend—we bought a brand new furnace last winter, and since then we’ve had to replace the circuit board twice and something else once. It’s not promising for a long life for the furnace, but we will make sure that the company is the one with the problem. You think that if you throw money at an issue it means you won’t have to deal with problems, but that’s just not true. I guess if you throw enough money around you can pay somebody else to wait at your house for you or something?

Louie and I had off during the day on Monday due to various Fall Breaks  so we decided to go out for breakfast and then for a hike (before having to be back at the house to meet the heating repairman). We went to Southwest Diner for breakfast—one of my favorite breakfast places, I think, and then decided to go to Shaw Nature Reserve. We hadn’t been for many years—they don’t allow dogs so we never went with Mackenzie. But seeing as how the weather is lovely for hiking and sadly Mackenzie is no longer with us, we thought it would be a great idea.

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We did one longer hike and one shorter hike—we started with the Rus Goddard River Trail. Part of it was closed, but this one did take us down to a gravel bar along the Meramec River. It reminded us that we never got on a canoe trip last summer and that this summer we shall try harder for that.

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The hike was relaxing, the air was brisk, and we only saw one other person while we were there!

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We had enough time for another short hike after that one, so we went to the Wetland Trail.

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This one wandered around a pond with lily pads and had two small buildings to observe wildlife from. There was also a stretch of boardwalk to walk along.

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We only had a short period of time to explore, but we enjoyed our trip. Admission is $5 per person, but if you are a member of the Botanical Gardens it is free. We talked about joining, because we’d like to belong to things like that, but we really don’t have time to go very often. Maybe if we joined we’d make the time?

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I do find that buying tickets to things makes you go. Does a membership do the same or is that not a specific enough purchase?

Over the weekend we went to two concerts—one at the Sheldon: Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and then to the St Louis Symphony the next night (we subscribe so we go to 5 or 6 concerts a year). My weekend was busy but pretty good—I have been having a hard time with my work schedule and needing some downtime, but I made it through. Barely. I may have have a series of small breakdowns but I did make it through as I’m still here.

One of the cool things about seeing a concert at the Sheldon is there are art galleries to browse beforehand or at intermission. There was a display of musical instruments.

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I liked that one and imagined it would be even more amazing if the little man carved on the scroll were playing an instrument with him carved into the scroll, and so on.

I played at the Artica Festival with part of my band. It was chilly but fun.

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And I managed to get some time to hang out with the cats, of course.

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