This week has been a little more settled than previous weeks. Despite the stress coming from the election news and the constant nagging worries, it was a relaxing enough weekend. I didn’t have as much work as usual: Saturday I had the morning off so I slept in a bit. I had a studio recital at a nearby church in the afternoon, with 23 students performing. It’s always a little bit stressful, though I’ve gotten more used to running them over the years. It went well enough, and the location was perfect.

The weather was rainy all day: it was a great day to just stay in and watch movies, cuddle up under a blanket, maybe eat popcorn. But we had tickets for the symphony that night, so we braved the rain (but not the metrolink–the blue line, the one that goes by our house, didn’t go downtown this weekend and transferring would have added about 20-30 minutes each way, so we drove) and went to see them play Mozart’s Requiem. It was a lovely concert, though I had to laugh when Stefane Deneve (the conductor) said that they were celebrating Mozart this week and next–that guy just never gets any love, does he?

Sunday was another student recital, this one at Wash U and all I had to do was show up. I also taught a makeup lesson and then had the rest of the day off! Louie and I had plans to go over to the old house and do some things, but I think the depression of the last week set in and we ended up deciding just to relax, cook dinner, and then watch “Will and Harper” for our movie club this week.

And this week is back to “normal”. Teaching, some rehearsals, and Louie’s dad is visiting this weekend. Nothing too terribly stressful except if you accidentally read a news article about the national politics and all the horrible things they are planning/already doing, plus all the gaslighting going on “they never said that/they won’t do that/January 6 wasn’t an insurrection/he didn’t rape those women/etc.”. But otherwise, life goes on, and as some pointed out, hey look at our investments, going way up. Because as we all know, lower income people who can’t afford groceries always have a lot of investments, right?

Sigh.

I never thought it was for certain than Kamala could win, but I did have some hope. However, I also knew that this country was full of the sort of people who thought it was more important to own guns than to protect elementary school children from being shot, and that misogyny runs very deep…so here we are.

I titled the post Grief, but really I pre-grieved. I spent a day being sad, and a day being angry, and now I’m just, I don’t know. We’ve been keeping busy. It’s hard, feeling like you are surrounded by people who hate you, and blame you for everything. And yet, I have so much gratitude. Gratitude for my job, that I am surrounded by children and kind adults. Gratitude for my “bubble” where I am surrounded by people who want to make the world better AS WE ARE IN THIS LIFE and who support progressive policies and think that women are as or more capable than men in every way (with the possible exception of opening jars, but there are tools for that.) And fully support people who are different, who are LGBTQIA+, who support people who want children and who don’t want children. And read newspapers, and magazines, and listen to a variety of news, and study history and read literature. And I am so grateful to my partner Louie and my family for being the same way. If you voted the other way and all of those things are also true for you, I apologize for making you feel less than, but know that when your vice presidential candidate said that women without children didn’t deserve to vote it did far worse than making me feel less than.

Louie and I have decided, of course, that the best medicine is to attempt to continue to live our best lives, which of course means completely overscheduling ourselves and over working, as usual. So that means that on Tuesday we got up very early to vote, then worked all day. Miles (the cat) had a check up at the vet: he’s lost one pound since last year but this is good news not bad news. And he didn’t care for the experience and was very happy to get back into his crate to go home, thank you very much. The vet did say that he was perfect though, but we already knew that.

Wednesday I wanted absolutely nothing more than to sleep in and wallow, but I teach Wednesday mornings so I had to get up and get at it. I am not always sure of my student’s families political beliefs so I didn’t talk about politics for several hours and it was actually quite lovely. I know that all of my families are kind and lovely and treat me with respect–that may seem like a disconnect from what I wrote earlier in the post, but that’s really what it’s about. I live in an urban environment so most people are used to being around all sorts of people. And teaching violin to kids is just such a positive thing and my Wednesday morning students are some of my favorites.

So that was okay, and then I had the afternoon off because a college student canceled her lesson (I think she just couldn’t deal) and I grocery shopped and talked with my sister Leslie and just wallowed a bit. Then more teaching until late.

Thursday: day 2 of grief. Haha. I had to get up quite early to play for a wedding (yes, really!) which was very sweet and was small. Then I had teaching at the college (where a colleague I ran into joked that she assumed I was wearing black because I was in mourning…), a nice lunch with a friend where we talked about politics but also not politics, because it’s just too stressed to worry about things that haven’t happened yet and who knows what will actually happen: it will likely be both worse than we could imagine and also not as bad in other ways.

Then more teaching, and capping off with a little recording session in the evening which was a lot of fun: I did a recording where I played two different violin parts, plus a viola part, and we recorded 4 takes of each with some different mic setups, ending up with an entire string ensemble which was…all me. I joked to Louie that I’m not used to playing with musicians of such a high caliber, so easy to blend with 😉

Today I got to sleep in a little bit more, which was greatly needed as yesterday I had a migraine all day long. Usually getting more sleep helps a bit, and today was no exception. I have teaching and a wedding–I got annoyed because I had my schedule all set up for the wedding and then yesterday they moved it one hour earlier, which surely somebody knew before yesterday…so I had to cancel a student which I hate doing last minute. And I will have to make that up and I wasn’t able to get my schedule to end any earlier so it’s still the same amount of working hours…annoying. I could have backed out of the wedding of course, but I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch.

This weekend I have my student recital (so much fun!) as well a recital at Wash U (only one student playing on that one.) We were going to be attended a neighborhood event tomorrow but it was canceled due to a variety of factors including the predicted all day rain. It’ll be a fairly relaxing weekend I think. Life goes on, and we will do what we can when we can and need to.

This week has been crazy in its own way. Monday Louie tested positive for COVID and that means I had to mask and be stressed about whether I would get it or not. I let my students know and a lot have been virtual or I’ve been wearing a mask (CDC guidelines). I haven’t tested positive nor do I feel sick but I don’t know if I will over the next few days. We are not making a particular effort to isolate as we might have in 2020 or 2021. Thankfully his illness has been quite mild, more like a cold (which I was convinced was what he had, not covid!) and he is on the mend already (fingers crossed it doesn’t backslide). I have a concert Friday evening and I am still hopeful I can play rather than suddenly having to stay home from it. I did turn down a church job this weekend out of the fear that I would end up positive and need a last minute replacement: better to have somebody else do it when there were several days left to plan it (it was already a last minute job). Sigh. Better to be sick at home than in a foreign country, right?

The other thing was that we had a snow day yesterday…oh wow it was so lovely to sleep in yesterday and then again today (Thursday is a morning off every week.) The snow was a sort of bust: they were predicting 4-7 or 5-11 inches, and we got around 1, but it was still pretty.

I should have gone over to the new house for snow pictures, but that will wait. I ended up mostly teaching online yesterday with a few brave souls coming for lessons in person.

I think we are getting close to setting our moving date. Painting is still happening (I haven’t been to the house in a few days, so I’m excited to stop by this morning, and then more work this weekend from our ends), and then we have the flooring guys booked for a few weeks from now. It’s looking like the move will happen over Spring Break, probably Wash U Spring Break, which should work really well.

Wish me good health and negative tests!

We had a few days of cold weather but otherwise are having a really great fall.

It’s been a busy time, and I haven’t blogged recently, sorry about that! On the one hand, there’s not much new going on, but on the other hand, there is and it’s so busy. I’ve been working like mad, forgetting all those things I said during the pandemic about me time and balance and just saying yes, yes to gigs and playing so much. I’ve played with The Who on a big show at the Enterprise Center, I’ve played countless church services, several weddings, and have some really fun stuff coming up as well. I’ve been teaching so much as well, and in between it trying to work out, hang out with friends, take an improv class (on violin), read, clean and declutter the house, and deal with all the things that go with the fact that we are yes, moving, though the details haven’t been worked out (re: timing and such). I have to do so much and let so many people know and I’m waiting on just a few more things to know before that.

We are also planning our Thanksgiving trip to New Orleans, which should be fun, and trying to enjoy this fantastic weather. We haven’t been able to get outside as much as we’d like, but Louie and I did enjoy a nice hike the other weekend and we’ve had some nice walks in the neighborhood. We went to the Lucky Accomplice for his birthday and to the Symphony last weekend (oh, and saw a coyote on Southwest Avenue, what), and this weekend we are doing a moonlight canoe trip with Big Muddy Adventures.

I’ve also been doing physical therapy on my shoulder (rotator cuff). I’m fully recovered from my surgery in August (unrelated) and feeling really great about that, but I have had a nagging shoulder problem since early spring. I also fell over a curb and really busted up my knee the other week, so I’m kind of a mess…but I’m on the mend. Honestly, things are looking up, and we are walking on air around the house thinking of the future and what our new house will be like and how to make it all work. It is a dream I never even had and it feels like a dream! I am excited, and worried, and all of that in between. (And like I said before, to any students reading, don’t worry, I’m not going too far and I will let you all know soon and it won’t be until late winter or spring.)

It’s August, and I could say, August already, but I do feel like I’ve been feeling the time passing pretty well in July. (June flew by).

It’s been a busy few weeks of actual violin playing, which has been fun. I joined up with a local group, the Gateway Festival Orchestra, for 3 concerts, which was fun, and then some chamber music, plus opera. And teaching! I’ve had plenty of time to relax and read as well. We haven’t done much outside as the weather has alternated between being super hot and flooding, but there were some nice days this past weekend and we got out for some walking.

This month I have surgery. I won’t go into details here but, it’s a big deal, but not a big deal, all at once. It’s a common surgery, mostly for prevention, and I’m feeling pretty good about it, but yet I’ve also been exceedingly stressed out at times and very emotional. I imagine now that this is how many people feel leading up to surgery, but since I have never had surgery before as an adult, I didn’t know how I would feel. Anyway, the date is August 17 so think of me then, and I’m taking two weeks or so off to recover, and hopefully that is enough. If not, I’ll take more as needed. I find that having this hanging over my head at the end of the summer has made everything more difficult, so I’ll be glad to have it behind me when I’m at that point. Sorry for being vague!

You can tell when I haven’t been doing much when I don’t even have any recent pictures on my phone. The cats have been boring (haha) and just sitting around sleeping most of the time. Louie is preparing to defend his dissertation, and I’ve been working a lot of evenings so we haven’t done too many interesting meals. But I figured I’d pop in here to say hello!

Assuming my surgery goes well, I anticipate doing a lot of reading and watching Netflix (and the like) during my recovery time. I have stacks of books and I’m sure plenty of shows to watch, but more recommendations are always welcome.