It’s too soon to be overly excited for Christmas, isn’t it? I’m hosting my family this year and I’ve been doing the planning…I am trying to figure out what to cook/bake and YES I know it’s quite awhile away, the time will really fly. I have never regretted planning ahead.

I thought I’d pop in a write something more fun and lighthearted than yesterday’s diatribe. I think as I’ve gotten older I’m more serious (or boring, as my niece Athena would say) and I end up not sounding very fun on the blog. Maybe, at some point, I stopped being fun?

I’m sure that’s not entirely true. It’s also possible that I was never that fun, and I just faked it better. I am perhaps a more genuine person now. I do work too much, but so do we all, or at least, the other people that are at work with me do (last night..at work… I had a conversation with a few others colleagues about how we all work too much…yet, we take great pride in it, and look down on musicians who think working a few hours a day is hard). I don’t know: you hear all these things about how one shouldn’t be too busy or pride oneself on being busy, and that’s all fine and good, but as I repeatedly say, somebody has to do the work, and a lot of this stuff doesn’t pay that great, and I would personally rather work a little more (it takes time, but rarely is this back-breaking work) and do a few more things I enjoy and not stress over bills.

Speaking of bills, I didn’t get my monthly paycheck from one of my college jobs. I usually get paid at the end of the month, and I went to look online to see why I hadn’t gotten a direct deposit notification from my bank, and lo and behold, nothing. Well it turns out somebody made a mistake, and then they asked, are you okay just waiting until the end of this month to get the back pay or should I ask for a special check for you? I realized, nah, I can wait. That’s a good feeling, and to me, money represents security. Working a lot means security, and it also means self-worth. When I work, I feel good about my skills as a musician and teacher, and that makes me feel good about myself overall. It may not be how you operate, but my identity as a musician is so wrapped up in my personal identity, and the two are hard to separate.

It’s not that I don’t have a bunch of other things that I do. In fact, I find that the more I work, the more I am drawn to do more things. I have a bunch of hobbies, nothing crazy like rock-climbing (apparently all the 20 to 30 year olds are into rock-climbing these days), but when I list the things out, there are a lot. I had to write something the other day and I listed reading, cross-stitch, running, hiking, going to concerts, and baking. I should add also taking on volunteer positions with music associations, writing music reviews, almost organizing my music, playing with a very needy cat, writing this blog, decluttering (not a hobby exactly, but an ongoing project when you and especially your boyfriend have hoarding tendencies), and of course, practicing violin. Since writing the other week about how I hadn’t been practicing, I’ve been doing a little better. Etudes are often my go-to when I don’t feel like doing anything else. I think my love of practicing etudes really helps my sightreading!

Anyway, I’ve got some things to do other than be at the computer, so I’d better go. I’ll just leave you with a few cat pictures! Oh, and we finished the Handmaid’s Tale. I felt that seasons two and three were a bit more…well, season three seemed improbable. I don’t want to spoil anything for you. It was good, but seemed like, okay why and how is June still alive? Glad we watched it though!

I need another weekend day! One with nothing to do…then again, today was already almost one of those days. And it was amazing!

I slept in, did some cross-stitch (my new thing), read, and took a walk. We went to look at a black cat in another neighborhood that we had heard about that looked like it could be Miles. And we found it, and here’s the thing…will we even know if we find him? I didn’t think this cat was him, but Louie just didn’t even know. And I could be wrong. We got kind of yelled at by a rude neighbor—we were petting this stray cat in front of her house and she came out to ask what we were doing, which okay, fine, but then she was super rude and said, that cat belongs to someone across the street, which is where the woman who messaged me on nextdoor about the cat LIVES. Sigh. I don’t know why people who hate other people live in cities, honestly. If I came out of my house to yell at everybody who stopped in front of my house to do something (pet the neighbor’s cat, pick up their dog doo-doo, pick up litter, tie their shoe, etc) I guess I would be pretty cranky too, as that would be time consuming.

Nonetheless. I don’t know. And we didn’t feel comfortable at that point taking the cat in the car and going to see, but I think maybe we can always go back another time?  Part of me says, of course I’ll recognize my own cat, but honestly, it’s been over 6 months and we only had him for 10 months and he was tough to get to know. I don’t know.

This weekend I have done a fair amount of Christmas planning. I know it’s early, but since I’m hosting my family, and I know December can be really busy, I want to be on track. I don’t know what we are doing for Halloween or Thanksgiving yet, but I know what we are doing for Christmas, AND I went ahead and made photo cards over the weekend. Snapfish was having a big sale (they have them a lot, to be fair) and this way I got the cards I wanted at a steep discount (I wouldn’t have bought them otherwise, at least not with the paper I did). So I’m a little crazy, but it’s also almost November, and soon I won’t feel too ahead of things!

We’ve watched more of The Handmaid’s Tale. I don’t want to spoil anything for you but I’ll just say I’m finding it more unbelievable, plot wise, and things are actually easier to watch because of that. We are only starting Season 3 now. I’m also listening to various podcasts (lately into Ben Franklin’s World), reading some mystery novels, rereading the Outlander series, and working on my turkey cross-stitch. I haven’t run this week as much as I planned to, but this coming week I will be. I haven’t been doing much practicing this semester at all…I just haven’t been feeling motivated, and I think it’s probably okay to take a break. I certainly play practically every day and I often play scales with my students and tons of demonstration, so even without practicing I probably play 30 to 60 minutes a day, and plus gigs. I should be doing more though, I suppose, but I’m more interested in doing hobbies and reading right now and I’ll just relax a bit more I think. If I felt my playing wasn’t good I’d practice more, but I feel like right now I feel just fine! Don’t tell my students…(then again, I’ll tell them, you too can take a break after 36 years of playing! As long as you keep playing your scales slowly.)

If I weren’t a musician I could have a relaxing weekend every weekend. Yet, that thought doesn’t motivate me to change careers, so I guess I’ll stay where I am. I do appreciate my relaxing weekends though!

This week looks to be pretty decent. I have social plans on Wednesday (as well as a standing weekly lunch date with a friend)plus there’s Halloween, and I’m not teaching at home that day. My teaching schedule this week is pretty busy on Mondays, Fridays, and every other Thursday, but otherwise Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and every other Thursday are decent. I used to wish I had more morning activities, but now I wish I had more mornings free to play catch up! Be careful what you wish for because you may get it! (I could still use more Sunday morning church jobs, as I find them fun and easy, but I won’t be worried about it).

I realize this blog post isn’t very interesting. I should have had a better theme before writing..I guess mostly it was about Miles. Did we see him today and just not know? I feel weird about that, but like I said, I didn’t really think it WAS him. But it could have been, I don’t know. The cat seemed sweet and friendly.

Sigh.

I should also really start working on my pile of “to be read” books rather than just adding more of them. I will make it a goal for November to read at least one more serious (aka nonfiction) book from the pile. Well, after I finish my library books

I have been busy in my free time! I started a cross stitch project for Thanksgiving and I realized it’s much more time consuming than I thought, and now I’m struggling to put in the hours needed to finish in time. I’m not sure if I will, but I am making the effort. I’m even cutting down on my reading. It’s fun, and that’s what matters.

My legs are healing, though slowly. I went on my first run since falling and I felt fine, although I was very aware of the ground and probably got a crick in my neck from looking down too much, ha!

This weekend is Louie’s birthday and we have a few things planned. I don’t have much work this weekend—honestly I should have turned down the wedding I’m playing yesterday in order to spend more time with Louie on his birthday, but he has work anyway, so I don’t feel bad about it…I just regret that I’m giving up what could have been a full day off. I find myself saying yes to all gigs I’m available for whether or not I actually need to do them…then again, it’s hard to decide you don’t need to do a gig for budget reasons when your pay is so variable and heavily seasonal. I just accepted another gig for December—I was shocked it fit into my schedule and since it did, I said yes. That’s my motto for the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, if it fits it sits, or something like that. And then I said no to a Christmas Day job and a couple right after that because I have family coming, so I think I’m managing to balance okay. Did I mention Louie has work to do anyway and I might as well make the money?

The good thing is that Saturday looks rainy, and that’s the day I have work, and Sunday looks nice and that’s the day I don’t, so I think it is lucky! Today is bleary as well, and I guess the good thing is is that fall is finally here.

We’ve been watching the Handmaid’s Tale. I’d seen Season 1 awhile back but was hesitant to start Season 2. I realized there’s also a Season 3 now (do I really need to capitalize Season, probably not) which means we’ll have more to watch. I am not finding it quite as difficult as I was: there are a few more ridiculous things in this season that don’t make sense and bring you out of the story a bit more, but the other thing is that I’m not watching it worrying about what might happen, I am watching it thinking about how our country was FOUNDED on slavery and white men thinking they were superior and had dominion over everybody else, and that is the exact premise of this show, and it ALREADY HAPPENED. So instead of thinking, this could happen, I’m thinking, this DID happen and how dare anybody FORGET that and think that this is unique, only because what, a white woman is enslaved? We can be better than that.

I’ve got teaching now, so I’m going to run and hit publish. Friday is a busy day!

Today is a bleary overcast day…it’s perfect! Unfortunately I’m stuck in the pit playing two shows today and can’t be inside looking out the window and appreciating it.

Yesterday was supposed to be a few things that it wasn’t. I did manage to get some good rest and “self-care” in and then had some stomach issues plaguing me the rest of the day. I took this morning off as well to make sure any lingering effects were gone, and I’m feeling pretty well back to normal. I’m sure you wanted to know that (then again, maybe you do!)

This weekend is incredibly busy as we finish off the second week of Hello Dolly. I’m glad that next week will have some earlier evenings and some breathing room…I’ve been managing to take some time for things that I enjoy, but I haven’t been able to spend much time with Louie or other friends, and that’s always something that gets pushed aside when work is really busy (as evenings and weekends are when many people are free to hang out). I also miss having a dinner where you cook something and then sit down and eat it off of a plate! Okay, I know, it’s only been about two weeks, and it’s been a fun show (I always wake up with tunes in my head) and I’m just saying…I’m a bit tired is all.

It’s not as if my schedule is totally free after this—as we head into prime season things are heating up. I don’t have any particularly noteworthy events happenings, but there’s opera, random concerts, more weddings, and then we get into the Christmas season. I also have various student events. You know, the usual. Running around, feeling a bit stressed, making it all work somehow. As one does. I know it’ll all work out and I like to think that with experience I get better at it, but I’m not always sure.

This isn’t a terribly interesting blog post, I know. Life is often just a series of mundane events, isn’t it? And if a blog reflects life, perhaps many of the blog entries would be mundane. Paying bills, cleaning, trying to stay organized (my music collection is always out of control, for instance), laundry, meal planning and cooking, exercising, returning emails, phone calls, preparing for the next event, invoicing students, etc. The list goes on and on!

Book wise I’ve been reading Deborah Crombie’s books. I’ve finished the Outlander Books but want to re-read them as well (and I’m hoping to start the TV show when I have a little more time, ha!). I have been watching Succession and I’m up to date on it, great show! Maybe it’s intended to make us all feel glad we don’t have the issues of the super-rich . What are you reading and watching lately?