One more week of teaching…

I tell you. This December has been the busiest. Maybe because of work, maybe because in between working I’m getting ready to host my whole family (minus my brother) for Christmas…time is flying by, but I’m having a good time preparing, playing a ton of fun gigs, and teaching my students. It’s just…hectic and there’s a lot happening, and my life is full of lists and online shopping.

I’m probably buying too many gifts for people. And baking too many cookies, and having too many decorations, and all of that excess. I know that we are supposed to slow down and have experiences and spend quality time, but the truth is Louie and I work entirely too much for that—he with a full time job and working towards a doctorate, and nobody who hasn’t done that truly understands how much he works outside of work, and me with a variety of part-time jobs that usually add up to about 1 and a half full time jobs, and we are just too busy. I don’t say that to brag or to make you think I’m overwhelmed…it’s just the truth of the matter. So I lie in bed at the end of the day and sometimes just scroll on my phone, and find things online to buy that will make our lives easier in the short term, or something that I want my niece to have, or a little something new to decorate for the holidays because my holiday décor (Christmas mostly, but we are celebrating Hanukkah this year too for Louie) brings me great joy. I sent out photo cards this year, and still have a few to send but most are out, and that brought me joy as well. In fact, most of what I’m doing is bringing me joy because this is my favorite time of year.

I’m not stressed, really. I’m exhausted, and I’m full of thoughts and to-do lists and music and making sure that each night I know what to wear and what to bring for the next day, but I’m not stressed or overwhelmed. I’m just getting it done. I feel grateful I have the opportunity to play so many concerts this month, and I honestly love holiday music. So I’m feeling good, though you are saying, yeah, lady, but you’re writing about this on a Friday night. True. I’m at home, and I didn’t go to Ikea with Louie’s family to celebrate whatever the name of the event there tonight is because I was teaching late, but I also hate crowds, so I’m fine with that. We had the holiday party at my college job today which is my favorite work event of the year (okay, it’s the only work party all year, but it’s great fun to see everybody) and then taught, and now I’m just relaxing and probably going to bed early because tomorrow I have three different things happening from 9:30 am to 10 pm, so it’s a big day!

This isn’t the most recent picture of the décor, so I’ve added a few things: stockings and a star for the tree.

The crowd at Thanksgiving. We went to Louie’s mom’s house and it was a lot of fun, with delicious food.

Anyway, time to relax! And…there’s only 11 more days until vacation…I’m doing a few gigs between Christmas and Epiphany, but I think it’s like two weddings and that’s all. It’ll be a nice time.

I tell you what, if anybody tells you they want to be a musician or self-employed, ask them if they like working all the time. There’s probably another way, but I haven’t found it.

Thursday and Friday of this week were tough. I felt like I was teaching from the wee hours of the morning (8:45 am) until late at night (8:30 am). Well, I was, actually, on Thursday. And Friday wasn’t much better. I had some time off, an hour here, an hour there, lunch, but it was still exhausting. I keep thinking I’d like to try to do a solo recital in the next year and then I wonder, can I manage with my current teaching load without being crazy? (I have been on a more relaxed performing schedule this year, but I would like to do a bit more and push myself in the next year or two or I’m worried I’ll lose my edge.)

I just want to get ready for Christmas and bake stuff, but it’s still too soon, I think. I never get around to all the organizing and decluttering I want to either…my music library is still not done being organized and I think it’s been over a year (or more?) since I started. The truth is I have too much music for the shelves, so I need either more shelves, or less books, and neither of those things are terribly appealing, so I just sit in limbo. We have to get rid of a few more things in the lower level of the house too, large speakers and old files, and who knows what, but that is also a daunting task, and not one one wants to tackle after a long day of work. We do have to make space for Christmas time though, and all the guests we are having, but that’s on the docket to work on during the Thanksgiving break.

I had taken a break from my bullet journaling but started up the other day. I had been using it to work on growing my business and my life, and then this year I just got tired and relaxed, and while it’s actually been quite nice, I’ve started feeling restless, like others are doing things and I look at them and wish that were me. So I’ve been thinking about my next steps and brainstorming. Of course, I’m also still tired…perhaps not as much long term as simply right now. Then again, sometimes I dream of having a few weekends off in a row, or taking a summer off, or having a week of vacation but not spending it hiking and camping…and I don’t know. Am I doing life right or am I wasting it away trying to force small children to play the violin when we’d all rather be doing something else? Then again, I’ve got a studio recital next weekend and they are always fun and inspiring!

It’s not that I’m feeling particularly down or anything. I’m just pondering. I feel like this is a tough time of life for doing things other than working or hanging out with Louie…everybody else is busy with their own careers, partners, children, etc, and sometimes it starts to feel a bit lonely, I guess. Private teaching can be isolating, and since my quartet is on whatever sort of hiatus we are on, I no longer have that weekly interaction. I see other people still doing things with friends and playing chamber music and such and I get a little jealous. But I will remind myself of the cool stuff I’m doing, and just relax and enjoy myself in this time of life.

I don’t even have any good cat pictures to share with you today. How lame am I?

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!