As one does with holidays, I was thinking about Thanksgivings in the past…lately I haven’t been overly sentimental. Life goes forward, and while looking back to make sure one is growing and on the right path is good, looking back with rose colored glasses might be detrimental.

Can I take a few minutes here to complain about the term Friendsgiving? And no offense meant to a certain friend who invited me to one the term annoys me though! The holiday is Thanksgiving, not Familysgiving…therefore it stays Thanksgiving no matter what. If you celebrate it with a bunch of strangers, if you celebrate with family, if you celebrate it with friends (or a mix) it’s still the same. The whole idea is that you get together, enjoy a big meal and feel grateful that you are able to do that. We could get into the politics of Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, but I think it’s fairly easy to agree that we as a country treated Native Americans really badly and continue to…but what can we do about that? I don’t ask that rhetorically either. (Then again it’s also fairly easy to agree that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, race, nationality, sexual preference…but yet here we are, fighting so hard for that. I think that MOST people do agree, and those that don’t are either really loud or really soft…and I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving with them, and I’m frankly glad about that.)

Rant over

Last day of teaching until next Monday! My flight to Phoenix tomorrow is REALLY early, which is one of those “seems like a good idea at the time” things…it will be good because we get to attend a luncheon at my niece’s preschool upon arrival, and then the whole day can be dedicated to making Martha’s Mac and Cheese and pies and such. And then several days of relaxing and enjoying the warmer weather (it has been chilly here for a few days and I just can’t take it anymore!).

Time to finish getting ready, practice, teach, and pack. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Random thoughts: (as always)

I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving! The weather has been so warm (hot, almost) that fall still seemed to be somewhere in the distant future. Between that, stress, being overly busy, suddenly I’m two days away from traveling and feel like I’m forgetting a million things.

This fall has been a unique time. I know everybody thinks they are super busy and stressed out (and if not, congrats!) and I’m no exception, but I think I’ve overdone it. I also think the added political stress hasn’t helped. I’m trying to work with that. Humor helps, as always. Alec Baldwin on SNL is a life saver to counteract it all, for instance.

I seem to only be blogging once a week, which isn’t great. It’s fine, but writing is a little bit of an outlet for me and I think I need to make a point to do it more often. I’ve been getting overwhelmed and frankly probably been a little depressed. I haven’t been running due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to hurting my other foot somehow (I came home from the August trip with a hurt right foot from a fall).

We did manage to get a lovely hike in yesterday at Greensfelder State Park though! One commenter asked me to rate my favorite hikes in the area, and I’ll have to think about that further, but I love Castlewood State Park, the Lewis and Clark Trail (must return and do the longer loop!) and we find ourselves at Greensfelder a fair amount too. There’s not a whole lot of gorgeous scenery there, but the fall colors are still nice, and now that the bugs are gone (fingers crossed at least, are they gone?) hiking in the woods is much more pleasant.

I have three more solo/chamber music performances this calendar year, so I’m practicing hard for those. I also have quite a few choral/orchestra performances and various other gigs, of course, as the holidays are here or at least approaching, and that means extra work (!!). I’m looking forward to having a little downtime over the winter holidays, doing some traveling, doing some relaxing, maybe some de-cluttering in the house, check shredding (this is an actual thing I have to do occasionally), who knows what else.

One thought: as a freelance musician and private teacher, I often feel like my fancy conservatory education has gone to waste. I see former classmates doing amazing things, playing around the world, playing with major orchestras, and then there’s me. But when I wipe my eyes, I see other classmates doing what I’m doing…it may not have the glory, but it is still a successful career in music. We are in the trenches so to speak, teaching the kids, playing for the people, and while our paychecks might be small (and many), we are still making the world a better place through music. This is my goal in life. I want to make the world a better place, and I must not let the lack of glory and public acknowledgement stop me from continuing to help kids love the violin, to make a newly married couple happy, to play to a small crowd at a local venue…

Music does bring us together. We attended a very full symphony concert Saturday night. The program was very emotional: a piece by John Adams written after 9/11 and Mozart’s Requiem. One of my students was singing in the choir for the Adams, which was really neat to see. I definitely was very emotional during the concert. It’s been an emotional time.

I am trying to make a dentist appointment but I guess shortly after open on Monday isn’t the best time. I was on hold for over 5 minutes before giving up. I gave up mostly because every few seconds there was a long beep. I can’t believe I made it 5 minutes, but I felt bad hanging up. My insurance is changing at the end of the year so I wanted to get another appointment in since I’ve paid for it! I’ll try again shortly.

Does anybody else keep a to do list on their phone? I put everything on there, and make sure to check it several times a day. I realized I went about a week without doing that (back the other week, post-election blues) but I’m crawling out further now, step by step. Life goes on, the resistance is not futile, and hey, there’s evidently a new Harry Potter movie? Is it good?