Those are pronounced the same.

Today I only have 4 hours of teaching. I slept in a little bit, worked out, did the usual emailing and checking to make sure I’m up to date enough on things, and prepped some for my weekend activities. I have a little bit of time before I have to go teach a student, so I thought I’d pop in and say hello here!

I’ve been a little down lately—being so busy with work and feeling like I don’t have any time to spend with friends has been difficult. Sometimes I worry I’m working too hard and I’m missing out of some aspects of life that I’ll regret, but I don’t know. I saw a fellow musician on twitter asking others how to deal with work-life balance, and I didn’t weigh in, because the truth is, as I’ve said here lately, I’m choosing to work more rather than life. I’ve tried it the other way and that didn’t really make me happy either, so *shrugs* here we are!

It’s not than I’m unhappy either, it’s just the general blahs. I think the election and the news and all of that are my starting place of mild depression and then everything piles on. I’d love to just ignore what’s happening, but I can’t do that in good conscience, and I can’t do it as a woman. I can’t believe that 41.5 percent of people approve of what our government is doing. Making 5 year olds sign away their rights. Being okay with a reporter being killed. Being okay with women getting raped and assaulted on a daily basis. Being okay with hundreds of immigrant children, many who were here to seek asylum, being locked up in camps, where they are often molested and raped. You can argue that the previous administration also allowed these things to happen, but you would be putting up a false flag, and you would also be saying that you are okay with these things. I am not, regardless of who is committing these atrocities, to be clear. I would link to all of those things, with reputable articles from reputable sources, but google would work just fine for you, and I work 80 hour weeks because I’m worried about my health care, my retirement, and the future of our country.

I hate getting so political, but politics are life for so many. It’s political to be upset about children in cages! It’s political to be upset that women are assaulted and yet the word of the man means more than the word of dozens of women. It’s political to feel that my body should be my own. It’s political to think that my friends should be able to marry the person they love. It’s political to want our planet to have a future! (This, this climate change is something that I can’t even think of, because it seems like we have known for years and decades and nobody freaking cares!)

Enough ranting. It’s a lovely rainy fall day. I always write more when I’m annoyed. This weekend should be lovely, with two concerts to attend, one to play, a festival, a wedding, and festival event for my students. Monday I get the daytime off due to a fall break, and we might go to Shaw Nature Reserve, or something like that. If the rain isn’t too much more—I hate mud!

My cats are adorable, my niece is having a birthday soon (though I can’t attend the party, but I’ll see her in a few months), I have new purple shoes…life is mostly good. Isn’t it funny how I feel the need to convince you that I’m okay? I’M FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE.

I’m trying to decide where to take Louie for his birthday dinner. Any new amazing places with excellent pescatarian options in town?

How’s your day shaping up?

Two more teaching days until vacation!

I am apparently a mean teacher for making my students come until Friday, but that’s the best way I found to then take two whole weeks off. And, hey, everybody agreed! I don’t actually think I’m mean, because violin lessons are pretty fun, and I have chocolate to give out.

I love this time of year. All the decorations, the anticipation, the candy and baked goods…I also love holiday music, and all that goes with it.

I have been feeling tired and overwhelmed more often than I’d like this semester. I know I’ve been working a lot, but it’s what I both need and want to do. It’s hard, because other things go by the wayside. Friendships are a bit harder to keep up on, unless it’s friends I also work with, and household tasks are hard as well. This week I’ve been relaxing on the practicing front and finishing up at my colleges (I’m DONE with the semester on both of those jobs) so I have a bit more time for other things. I’ve also been wrapping gifts, finishing my shopping, and getting ready to go out of town next week.

I’ve been contemplating growing old and my mortality as well. Not to be THAT guy…my extended family has had a tough time as we lost my uncle Sam in August and my uncle Gordon recently. My heart goes out to my aunts and cousins and everybody, and I’ve been thinking quite a lot about life goals and future goals and aging and all of that. I don’t have answers, but I do have a lot of thoughts, and want to make sure that I’m doing what I want to do with my life and not simply going through the motions and doing what other people think is best. (And I’m sad, it comes in flashes, even if I pretend I’m not.)

It’s hard, because I haven’t made that a huge priority. I often do what comes up, I do what people want me to do, or what’s expected. And while none of those things are bad, I haven’t asked myself lately, what exactly do I want? I read an article recently where the author was asking musicians to outline their 20 year career plans…and then you work backward from there. I’ve been spending a little time thinking about where I want to be in 20 years, and I haven’t solidified anything. There’s a bit of “being afraid” to dream, but there’s mostly, not being sure where this freelance/teaching thing GOES because I never expected it to turn into my full time career, even though all the decisions I made were heading that way.

The thing is, I’m quite good at this. I enjoy juggling my schedule, and I like the mild uncertainty—it occasionally stresses me out, but mostly I like the different things I do, I like feeling like I’m spread out so no one thing is that important and I like putting it all together and planning.

I just need a few more hours in the day. I have students on my waiting list that I need to squeeze in, and there are always more concerts and shows to play! I’m working on getting better at the viola too, and thinking after the holidays I’m going to start a #100daysofpractice with it to really push myself.

But until then! I’m taking it easy after Christmas Eve, for two weeks. I won’t actually go that whole time without working as I’ll have some scheduling to do, and some practicing, but mostly it will be relaxing downtime, oh, and maybe doing some home projects. I want to declutter the kitchen a bit and clean up some other spaces, and do some planning for spring teaching stuff that got squeezed out (festival, recital?). Perhaps my real 20 year plan is to figure out how to keep this going for 20 years, and then retire. (Here’s a link to the article I mentioned, which actually goes into some good specifics, and makes me think that really I also ought to write me, as that’s another thing I both enjoy and am relatively good at!)

If I don’t talk to you again beforehand, Merry Christmas to you, if you celebrate! If not, Happy Holidays to you, and Happy whatever you celebrate, and Happy New Year, and all of that! And maybe I’ll pop in again soon…

Well, I’m taking a few minutes to blog, so there is SOME downtime. Today I got to sleep in…I’m going to be honest, I’ve been having a hard time not feeling overwhelmed. I think it’s more than just my overly busy schedule, but I think after my solo performance with the MOSL in early November I’ll be much more relaxed. I hope. Or I’m doing too much, but although that’s possible, my schedule isn’t something I can’t handle. It might be that it’s the additional stress that I’m having trouble with.

Enough complaining though What have I been doing? Well, besides teaching my nearly 45 students (something like that, though of course statistically I’m always missing a few each week), I’ve been rehearsing for various concerts and such, practicing, trying to answer emails…oh, do you mean for fun? Well, does going to the symphony concert on Friday night count? No? (It does, a little…)

Not much, which is the other reason I’m having a tough time…(Oh, I said less complaining). I feel like I used to have a more active social life, but gosh, life is just so crazy! I do have fun in rehearsals with my friends and colleagues, but lately by the end of the night I’m just beat and want to lie down and read instead of talk to people. I think that I need to grab this busy-ness while I can though, because I know January/February will be less so and the summer too, and my work is cyclical enough that I really need to take advantage.

Especially since our country’s future is so uncertain, and who knows what retirement will look like, I feel like I need to work and sock away as much as I can. I’m sure social security will be on the chopping block soon. Speaking of, did you know that self-employed people pay a higher percentage into social security that people who have employers? This is ostensibly because people’s employer’s pay on their behalf, but it still boils down to more of my money going out of my pocket, into the social security fund, and then I’m told that it’s an entitlement? HA. I’d be happy to take that cash back, with the growth it would have had while in my IRA though. And then we can call it an entitlement.

Politics is definitely tough lately. People want to yell at each other rather than listen. I had a few interesting facebook experiences lately, actually, nothing to do with politics, but it made me think. The first was when my coffee maker broke the other week. Oh, this was a sad time! I have a little tiny coffee maker than fits under a shelf in my kitchen. I don’t have a ton of counter space, so being able to fit the coffee maker under this shelf is important to me. However, I went to look online and there were sparse options for small (under 10 inches!) coffee makers, so I thought I’d try a bit of crowd sourcing. Most of the responses I got weren’t about coffee makers; they were people telling me to get a french press. Now, I love my friends and I appreciate them responding, but I already have a french press. I have a stovetop espresso maker too, a pour over thingy, and an espresso maker. I wanted a coffee maker, something I can use to make coffee, something you fill up with water, coffee, hit a button, go do something else (this is key for me, as you know) and then you return when you have a minute to pour the coffee.

My next experience was when I was changing my strings the other night. I was trying to change the G and the string kept slipping out of the peg hole (violinists know what I mean, the rest of you are going to be confused, and for that I’m sorry). What was supposed to take 5 minutes ended up taking over 20! Every time I’d get the G up past an F it would slip, making this horrible sound and making me stressed and frazzled! I finally got it to stay by using a different hole in the peg than before, making sure to wrap the string around the end a few times, and then I went and laid on the couch. But not before posting a little blurb on facebook because I was curious if this was an experience others had had. And I got numerous responses (again, if you are reading, thanks, and I love you guys!) about how to keep my pegs from slipping. Which is not the issue I had!! (I still don’t know why this was such an issue, and I will be asking my luthier next time I see him). In any case, my new strings sound great.

But what I thought was: how often does this happen? We don’t read what the person wrote, or we don’t write precisely enough, and we end up having a huge misunderstanding, or end up feeling that nobody cares or understands us, when it is simply a communication issue. Maybe social media really isn’t the best way to interact. And yet, I love seeing vacation photos, I love keeping up on my friends who live out of town and seeing what everybody is up to. So social media is wonderful for some things, and it’s just hard to figure out what’s good and what isn’t. And honestly, crowdsourcing can be really helpful! But not in the above mentioned cases.

Oh, and I did get to have lunch with a friend last week and we tried a fun new Chinese crepe place in the Loop called Bing Bing. So I’m not totally without social engagement, though it might feel like it at times. You know I tend to get overly emotional and am prone to dramatics. I’m having a GREAT time preparing for a large variety of concerts; it’s just the stress. And I’m trying to do my best for my students too, and this weekend there’s an event several are participating in, and I’m hoping that I’m giving them what they need to succeed. I’m loving teaching college students, I’m loving all the chamber music I get to play, and I’m looking forward to playing in a full orchestra concert this month…I’ve dearly missed doing that, and too much time has passed. I hope I remember how!

I’m still plugging away at the #100daysofpractice challenge on Instagram. It’s been a great motivation and a really interesting experience. It’s possible the challenge adds to my stress levels, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

And as I said to a colleague on the phone the other day (probably sounding a little insane at the end of the week!), the trick to being busy is finding somebody else MORE busy and then you don’t feel like you are taking on too much. There’s always somebody working more, there’s always a bit more room in the schedule (especially for random gigs!) and there’s always more to learn, to experience, and to play!

And there you have it. My tired Sunday night ramblings and diatribe. But one of my personal goals is to continue to blog, at least shoot for weekly, because as I always say, I enjoy it. It helps organize my thoughts as well, and I enjoy making the record. Even if blogging is “dead.”