I don’t mind the pumpkin spice thing. I enjoy the spices involved. That’s the thing though, they ARE spices, not pumpkin. The spices you use to make pumpkin pie! Which evidently if it comes from a can isn’t actually pumpkin, but is squash…and as if there’s a big problem with that? I’m just beyond caring about these things. I like pumpkin pie. Maybe I’ll make one soon. I even have a little can of something called “Pumpkin pie spice”. I won’t be angry to learn it isn’t full of pumpkin pie.

It’s easy to get worked up about things these days, isn’t it? And there’s plenty of important and terrible things to get worked up about. I feel like instead though often people get worked up about little things, like pumpkin spice lattes or straws, that aren’t as important in the big picture. I went out to dinner last night at a place that didn’t provide straws for their drinks except by request. Great! Sometimes I don’t actually need three straws per meal. They did provide unlimited paper napkins though, and also my drink was so full of ice that with every sip the ice uncomfortably hurt my nose. Not a huge problem, no, and I definitely could have asked for a straw but I didn’t. I don’t eat meat for environmental reasons (though I do eat seafood, which is probably not great) and I don’t have children…my personal impact on the world is less than many. It’s hard to know what to do, isn’t it? I know what NOT to do: vote for people who don’t care about the climate or who think man-made climate change isn’t real. But I don’t know what actually to do. Was it worth my annoying drink? Should restaurants use less ice in their drinks?? And I’m not going to carry around a straw…I know I probably should, and I should carry a small container for leftovers when eating out. It’s hard to do all the right things…and many of the wrong things…and then still feel like nothing matters.

That’s not why I sat down to write, but I think a lot of us feel the same: we aren’t sure what to do. We recycle, then evidently we are recycling wrong. We want to buy local, but we can’t find what we need and we don’t have the time. So we use Amazon, oh, and look, you can have everything shipped all at once on one day, great! and then oops, they decide to ship it all separately anyway, so each item is individually packaged. That’s okay, you’ll recycle the boxes, besides the cat loves them…and we just constantly feel like we are failing. I know we are just failing in our impact on the world, and I feel helpless to stop it. Maybe I need a support group!

So, lately I’ve been pretty darn busy with work. I’m playing a broadway which started last week and goes through this week, so that means I’m burning the candle at both ends. I had a variety of early morning activities last week as well, and a few later this week. My teaching load isn’t too bad generally, but I have three mornings I have to get up early to teach. It isn’t bad, and I know many people get up early for various jobs and then work out before as well, but how many of them then work until 10:15 pm? Would you believe some people think musicians and artists are lazy? (Well, to be fair, some are, but not the working ones). Monday was great because one of my colleges was on fall break so I got to sleep in a bit, go  for a long run, and then catch up on all the home and work related things I hadn’t been able to do for about 5 days. I also had time to read and do a bit of crafting and talk with my sister Leslie and niece over facetime.

I’ve been working on a few projects with cross stitch and needle felting lately. I got a needle felting project last Christmas as a gift from Leslie and had been avoiding it because I didn’t know how. I finally dived in a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I am planning a few more things after I finish making all the hedgehogs. I am trying to spend my random bits of free time during the day more productively than simply scrolling on my phone. I find I’ll have 15 minutes here or 30 minutes there and I would like to have more hobbies than simply “read” (which I adore and is my favorite thing). I have spent time in the past by practicing, but sometimes I don’t want to do that either or my body needs a break. We’ll see how this hobby lasts…I am often picking up and dropping new hobbies but in the meantime, I’m enjoying myself, and stabbing a small hedgehog all over with needles is rather satisfying.

Since I’m used to working on things on a slow scale, that didn’t take very long at all: two weeks maybe? But I thought it was funny enough to start with. I’m doing a Halloween stitch right now, and have two more on order, one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. I’ve been getting kits from Etsy for now.

I do feel like I mostly come here on the blog to sort of clear my head and complain about random things. The truth is that right now I’m feeling pretty good about my life and how things are going. I don’t have too many things I want to change overall, and I feel good about the direction my career and finances are going: I am teaching fun students, many of whom have been with me for years. I’m playing interesting jobs with many colleagues who I genuinely like, and though I’d love to have more time off, my schedule right now works with Louie’s schedule as he is also very busy during the school year. So down the road I will look to downsize and to cut back, but right now I’m working hard, saving money, and staying organized.

And can you believe it’s October already? The Arch Cup is almost here for my students…I was a little hard on one of them yesterday and feel a bit bad about that. Louie’s birthday is at the end of the month and we have some fun stuff planned, and then it’s Halloween and all. I love fall and (honestly) pumpkin stuff and so I’m happy.

In the spirit of 9/11 I am reflecting on how our nation and ourselves have changed since then. I wrote a few more paragraphs about this all, but I deleted it, because everything I wrote sounded angry.

That’s how I feel about my country right now: angry. Gun violence is out of control. We are headed towards a recession. White supremacy terrorism is on the rise. We are locking up immigrants and immigrant children in cages and refusing them basic care. If you’re not angry, as they say, you’re not paying attention.

And maybe that’s the best way to cope. It’s too easy to get overwhelmed by all the bad news. It’s much easier to just focus on our own lives and our much smaller problems, and deal with those. I waffle back and forth…do I spend time calling and contacting my representatives? How much money should I give to this or this other cause? How much should I just focus on my own relationships and family?

I don’t have a ton of free time, as you know. In some ways I’d like to be more involved, but so often that seems to be a weekend thing for various groups and I am either working on the weekends or it’s the only time Louie and I have had all week to hang out. People talk about self-care and such, and it really is an important thing to do.

(cats don’t worry about self-care)

I guess I’m saying, I wish I could do more to change the world. I am settling for what I can do: teach people to play the violin, one person at a time. Sometimes I feel guilty because I’m teaching people of privilege to play: private music lessons are something that people really struggling to pay bills don’t do. (I have a facebook friend with a non-profit who works with kids from less fortunate areas on violin lessons, and I think that’s really cool.) But that doesn’t take away from the importance of music lessons, and how I can impact their lives, and I tell myself that this is important. We musicians always like to overstate our importance to society, but society always likes to understate the importance of teachers to society.

I’m rambling now. I should drink a bit more coffee and go for a run. I am perhaps currently the world’s slowest runner and people might say, just run faster, but you know what, that’s really hard. 

(We have another CD release concert this weekend. Follow this link to hear some of the music. )

I’m getting a flu shot this morning as well. I feel like it’s maybe too early, yet I had a student telling me that she had the flu during the week, and whether or not that’s true (she wasn’t officially diagnosed by a doctor or anything) I don’t want the flu.

And truth be told, sometimes I don’t know if violin lessons matter or anything. But mostly the kids enjoy them, and that’s probably enough!

Does anybody else feel like there are dozens of elections each year? Since I’ve been living in the same place now for 4 or so years, I actually get all the little cards telling me when an election is coming up. I usually do a little research, and then BOOM I go vote. It takes about ten minutes round trip from my house, and even on presidential election days I have never experienced a wait. Sometimes Louie has to wait, but that’s only if we go together and he insists on adhering to the rules of voting chivalry.

Did you have an election today? I suppose we don’t actually have dozens of elections a year, but we do have perhaps half a dozen? I often think of this when people talk about making Election Day a national holiday: what about the other elections? I do agree that it would be a good idea, and I’m all for more people voting. It’s just that I think people need to vote more often, and not just once every four years. Every step of the way your vote is important, and if you worry your vote doesn’t matter, then go vote in a tiny election when you walk in and the people working the tables are standing up chatting with one another since so few people are voting. When I put my ballot in the machine around 2 pm the count was 85. I don’t know how many have voted electronically (I will never again do this, due to my fears of hacking, even though we do have a paper trail here), but either way, that not very many. Therefore, my vote counts much more!

You better hope I voted correctly. I was torn, but I made a decision on the moment, and I hope I don’t regret it. I know I won’t regret voting. They gave us different, cooler, stickers today than in the past. I am wearing it proudly. Or confusedly.

I’m loving the look of my hair in that photo, but the length has been annoying me lately. I might get it cut off…I experience wearing my hair more than I look at it.

How often do you vote? Do you vote early and often? Do you only show up occasionally, or do you think that your vote doesn’t matter and you are too busy to deal with it?

This winter has been gloomy lately. I suppose that’s normal, and in all honesty, it reminds me of living in Cleveland (you’d think that was a bad thing, but it’s not!). But as most midwesterners, I’m prone to wish for weather we don’t have…right now I’d love the sun, but I’m sure in July I’ll regret that wish and long for a cold, rainy day like today.

Life is chugging along. I found out last night that one of my dad’s good friends for many many years passed away, and I’m very sorry for him. I had a moment of “oh my goodness everybody I know is going to die or just get old” and then I passed it, and just felt sad for the specific death, because there’s no good in dwelling on the enormity of loss.

I have been feeling a bit “what am I doing with my life” lately though. Along the lines of, why do other people seem to enjoy teaching so much more than I do, and why do students even bother taking music lessons, and are music lessons worth it in a family if it just causes more arguments between parents and a child? Combine that with the stress and drama of freelancing and I’ve been feeling kind of blah about it all.

I’ve been escaping by reading cozy mystery after cozy mystery, and by diligently planning and making camping and other reservations for our big summer road trip. August seems far away, but the National parks book up fast. I’m hoping our government is open in August, and that the forest fires out west aren’t as bad as intelligent people worry they will be. I am also trying to focus on the positive in each day (and this is a real struggle for me, I am not good at living in today), and trying to be a more positive person (another struggle!).

In any case! The cats are adorable, I recorded with my band over the weekend and that was fun, and this Saturday is a day off. I feel constantly burned out, so I just need to allow myself time to relax and regain some strength and motivation. I’m often torn between my extroverted tendencies (let’s have lunch, dinner, go for a hike together!) and my introverted ones (no, I think I’ll just stay home and curl up with a book) and as a result I end up making plans with friends, and then kind of dreading them, but then having a wonderful time.

I think the weather is affecting me more than I realize. In the meantime, I’m going to read about hiking in Yellowstone and get myself pumped up to workout!