I am a schedule person. I like having a schedule, and following it, and scheduling things, and knowing exactly how my day and week will unfold. To some that may sound rigid, but honestly, it’s what holds my life together. You can’t be a successful freelance musician and private teacher without being good at scheduling!

Of course, sometimes things change, and I have to be flexible. That’s sometimes hard for me, because like I said, I love scheduling and planning. And I often feel that it’s not fair that I should have to accommodate those that don’t—shouldn’t they accommodate me? Isn’t this why the calendar exists??

In any case, summer time is always a little more relaxed. I looked at my schedule for this week, and next, and realized I have 3 days each week that only have 2 or 3 students. Every summer I’m unhappy with how teaching works out, and I THINK that next summer I will consolidate, and only teach 3 days or something like that, rather than having 5 days of teaching but only 1-2 hours for some of those days. It’s always hard to figure out, because nobody wants to schedule, or because nobody wants to schedule as early as I do…except for the few students that ask about summer lessons even before I’ve starting thinking about it. Really I am not even the most schedule-y of all schedule-y people I know!

(played in a new-to-me orchestra, the Gateway Festival Orchestra. I had the honor of sitting concertmaster!)

I haven’t blogged as much lately because I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff…that perhaps isn’t that interesting. I’m working hard to get everything organized for teaching in the fall. Right now that means scheduling a recital and some other things that are kind of new for my studio (fall contest and group/studio classes) and there’s lot of thinking and emailing and planning involved. I’m still processing everything from the workshop, practicing tons of rep and etudes, and brainstorming new stuff for all my students to play. All of this is happening now because in TWO WEEKS we will be in Colorado…on day 2 of our road trip, and we are going to be gone for nearly 3 weeks. (I’m comfortable telling you that because we will have a house-sitter, so don’t try anything, but also, the house-sitter doesn’t teach violin so don’t stop by for a lesson!).

Road trip plans…it’s a crazy trip. Colorado: Aspen, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado National Monument. Utah: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion. Arizona: North Rim Grand Canyon, Page (Antelope Canyon). Home through New Mexico. There’s more driving and moving than last summer, but I think it’ll be very do-able. I’m worried about how hot it will be in Utah and we are mentally prepping to be HOT, and physically prepping by being outside a lot here and making sure we have good hats, sunscreen, and loads of water.

After we get back, the fall should be fun, even though there’s a lot of stress between mid-August and mid-October.

Good news: right now Mackenzie (the dog!) is doing really quite well. Some of her hair has grown back (on her head and ears) and I’m hopeful that the new medicine will continue to help her improve. It’s been a hard year in so many ways, and having some good news is so very welcome.

We’ve been working hard planning how to make this road trip happen. We are tent camping, and we are going in Louie’s Corolla, which means space is at a premium. The goals for the trip are to keep the car organized, and to get our campsite set-up and tear-down as quick and efficient as possible! We plan to cook most of our meals at the campsite, and hope that we can manage an occasional shower and laundry—most of the campgrounds we are staying at are renowned for their locations and natural beauty but not their amenities. We do have reservations for each and every night, and most days there is only 1-3 hours of driving so we will be able to get some good hiking and sightseeing in!

Totally random post here, I know, just my thoughts. I always like to get the words down so I can look back, and you the reader can see at least what level of crazy I’m dealing with right now I’m sad because my friend April is going away in the fall for an internship of sorts…she will be gone when we get back so we have been trying to hang out a lot! My youngest sister Carrie is coming to visit for a few days though, which will be delightful, and my parents might stop by at the end of their summer road trip. (They are beating our itinerary in terms of awesome and crazy by spending nearly a month on the road in ALASKA. Another time!)

(April took these pictures last Sunday night at Wash U-Gateway Festival Orchestra. I’ll be playing again this Sunday—the weather will hopefully be nice and you can picnic in the lawn, which my friends did last week. This week Louie might bring Mackenzie so she can enjoy an orchestra concert.)

Anyway! I’m off to grab lunch with a friend/colleague. Free food from Panera, due to our having an abundance of gift cards from students.

And by that I mean it’s been really hot. Though, technically, yes, it is officially summer. And as usual, it’s flying by.

Every summer I have loads of ideas in my mind of things I want to do or accomplish. Every summer I get through many or some of them, but mostly time just flies by and honestly, I forget how HOT it gets (how quickly we forget).

One of the life goals Louie and I have is to make sure to take advantage of opportunities to experience new things. This ranges from taking hikes, taking trips, going to shows and concerts, and whatever else pops up. Sometimes it costs money (concerts, operas, mud runs), sometimes it’s free (hiking) and sometimes it is fairly inexpensive (camping, road trips). 

Friday was the final concert for the music camp I’d been helping out at. I wasn’t required to attend the concert, but I thought it would be fun to see the kids play, and also wanted to catch up with some colleagues. I had a couple of private students playing and thought I might run into their parents as well.

This was the youngest orchestra playing. All the groups did a wonderful job. For one of my students, this camp was his first orchestral experience, and I think he loved it. (I should have encouraged him earlier! I’m trying to do better with encouraging my private students to participate in outside orchestras-some have them at school, but others don’t.)

After I finished teaching, we loaded up a little picnic and went to meet April at Shakespeare in the Park. Each year, there are several weeks of a free outdoor performance of Shakespeare in Forest Park. This was the first time I’d managed to go, and I’m so glad I did. The play was Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I thought I’d seen, but realized, after it started, that I was thinking of Much Ado About Nothing. Anyway, the weather was really fantastic, breezy and not too humid (it had been really hot all week, so we got lucky) and we enjoyed some snacks and drinks while watching a great performance.

Saturday I had to work: two weddings. That somehow took up the whole day! In the evening I just realized and read—Louie was hanging out with a friend from out of town, but I felt I’d been running around all day and just wanted some downtime rather than trying to socialize.

Sunday morning we got up early and took two dogs (we were dogsitting Banjo for the weekend) and met April, who had her dog and another dog, and went for a little hike in Forest 44 Conservation Area. It’s near 44/141 and is a nice place to do a little hiking. We’ve been a few times, and this time we tried a hike we hadn’t done before. It was pretty neat, except for one place where a bridge was out! Luckily we were able to backtrack, as there were a few loops, and we ended up deciding to cross a creek to get to a part of the trail we hadn’t been on yet. The dogs loved it, we were sweating but not too bad, and everybody except me found ticks on themselves afterwards.

I had my selfie stick with me so we got a picture of the whole gang! It’s hard with the dogs because they don’t understand what we are trying to do.

Sunday evening Louie and I had tickets for Shalimar the Clown at Opera Theatre. This was our other show for the Young Friends Subscription. We had some friends who were attending as well, but first we went to get our buffet dinner.  We sat and chatted with people for a few minutes, and this time there was a really friendly “host” sitting with us. She was awesome and made me think, gosh, I should join the Young Friends board. And then I thought, yeah, they probably meet during the week after “normal” people work, like at 5 or 6 on a Tuesday, you know, when “everybody” can make it. But maybe not.

After dinner we hung out with friends (Opera Theatre sets up this whole area with chairs and tables and tents for people to picnic and hang out before and after the shows) until it was time to take our seats for the show. This time our seats were further away, but more center.

Another pre-show picture.

I have to say, I absolutely loved the opera. It was gorgeous: the music, the costumes, the set. It was deep and dramatic, and the story was so tragic, but so good. I love modern opera best, I think. I wish I could see it again, it was that good. I want to watch it again and see what I missed (for instance, that the main female lead played both herself and her daughter, something I didn’t notice until the bows), and to enjoy it again. I just loved it.  I am going to read the book (it’s based on a Salman Rushdie book, Shalimar the Clown) and I hope that other opera companies will perform it, and maybe we will travel to go see it somewhere else . In any case, I have my memories, and my thoughts.

Now we are back into the regular work week. This is a 19 student week, though it’s possible it’ll be a 17 student week. Or less, you just never know. Leslie and Athena are visiting on Thursday and I’m very excited about that, and worried about whether the house will be in proper shape. (probably not, but I’ll do what I can.) We don’t have many plans for the weekend, but I think the zoo is in order, and some restaurants, lots of chitchat and hanging out, and probably reading some books over and over and over, as one does with a toddler

Oh, and I finished “Eligible” by Curtis Sittenfeld. Not my favorite of her books, and I pretty much knew how it would end (it’s a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice) but it was fun and I enjoyed it. I still think Prep is the best of all her books, though American Wife is a close second.

Woo hoo, there are some pictures from the Mud Run last Sunday!

Things I learned:

1. There’s a lot of waiting in line. For this race, it seemed particularly bad. There was nearly a 30-45 minute wait for one of the obstacles, and probably 10-15 for practically all the others.

2. Mud isn’t so bad. You just have to accept being muddy and dirty. And keep your mouth shut when crawling in the mud.

3. I have no upper body strength and cannot lift myself up. Some of the obstacles I wasn’t able to do because of this. And while maybe I could have gotten a boost from my teammates, maybe it wasn’t quite enough. I need to work on this!

4. I love swimming and I am not afraid of falling in the water. One of the obstacles was crossing a small river/large creek on a rope. There was a rope over and a rope under and people tried to hold out to the top one while walking. It was the scariest thing ever to get started on, as the start was muddy and over an embankment, but I kept telling myself, make it over the water and then it doesn’t matter. I fell in. It was lovely.

5. Running around in a cornfield isn’t that fun. Since the mud run was a 5k, we did a bunch of obstacles (stuff floating in the water, going under ropes over the mud, going through muddy tubes, etc.) but still had to get some running in. I am the worst at running. I can run for a long time, but I’m just so slow. Add to the things I need to work on.

6. It was fun! Mud is fun! We had a great time as a team. Wear old clothes, but they will likely be able to get clean again. Wear old shoes, but don’t assume you can’t wash those either. It’s just mud. After the race they had fire hoses to rinse off, which we thought would be cold but actually were really nice. Bring lots of towels and definitely bring a change of shoes!

My arms are very long.

I look like I’m having fun. I’m not sure if that was actually the case.

Writing your number on your arm was optional, but seemed hard-core. I’m always obsessed with trying to seem hard-core, aren’t I?

Tunnels are hard. I couldn’t crawl anymore so I was pulling myself.

Louie climbing over the wall like a boss. Do the kids still say that?

(April had enough upper body strength that Louie’s boost really helped! TEAMWORK!)

We got mugs at the end of the race. They had also had pint glasses but they only had mugs by the time we finished. At the time we were annoyed, but after drinking out of my mug a few times, I’m happy about it.

The team! Oh, another thing I learned, looking at these photos. I should wear lighter clothing next time so the mud shows up more in the pictures!

Have you ever done a mud run? Would you?

Sigh.

It’s already been a typical summer week. Lots of students missing, some that I knew about, some that I didn’t know about. It’s not that I even have much more time, because the lessons are spread out, it’s that I’m more bored waiting around and have less money coming in.

Summer is always stressful like that. Will I meet my budget projections…will all of my students quit and never return.

I had a new student yesterday though, who was really fun to teach. I’ve lost a few lately, including a few that I’m really sad about who are moving too far away to continue with me. But I’m trying to stay positive!

I found out that I can take a private lesson at the Retreat for Violin Teachers that I’m going to in July (at Indiana University). At first I thought, I don’t need lessons, then I thought, woo hoo, lesson! And there’s a masterclass, which gave me similar feelings of disgust, dread, and then possible elation. We’ll see how it all goes. In any case, I’m working on the Bach C Major Sonata (unaccompanied) for a recital in the fall and my goal is to have it all memorized and performance ready BEFORE our trip in August. The recital is in early October, which means that if I have it ready then, I’ll take 3 weeks off and then get it all back in time for the recital. Now the Retreat is giving me extra incentive to get at least the fugue fully memorized by then. It’s possible. I’m having a lot of fun practicing it. It’s one of the more difficult pieces I’ve playing recently but I feel like I’m getting a handle on it. (I also fear that if I don’t show a proper fear and respect the piece will attack me.)

Somehow I am running two races this weekend. One is a 5k on Saturday for Domestic Violence Prevention. The other is a mud run on Sunday. I must be crazy!

We’ve been trying to get rid of some things at the house. Mostly cat stuff, it feels like. It’s amazing how many cat supplies one accumulates over the years. We’re keeping the cat carriers and maybe a few litter boxes, but getting rid of everything else. (You never know when somebody will have an emergency kitty that needs a home…the fatness fell into my life that way and I assume my next cat will too, but not yet.) It’s sad.

Things are different without cats. In some ways, it’s nice. You can shut doors without worrying about whether a cat has snuck in. You can leave something on the floor without worrying whether a cat will pee on it. No cats are around to steal your ponytail holders or knock your glasses on the floor from the nightstand. No cats getting in the way while you are reading or trying to use the computer.

But they are missed. No snuggles from a tiny warm creature, who acts like she doesn’t care. Sigh.

Anyway, there’s plenty of blogging to look for: still have to tell you about the Grand Canyon trip and I will, I promise, there are just so many pictures to deal with…and we took an epic hike up and around Bell Mountain.

But for now, I must go for a run, do laundry, practice, and teach. How is your summer going so far?

Am I a bad person if I prefer the cashews? I like to pick out the other nuts first so that all that is left is the cashews. I’m a firm believer in saving the best for last.

I feel like I’ve spent hours trying to organize my teaching schedule for this month. It’s probably only been around an hour (which is actually still a lot, in my opinion). I’m missing some lessons and other people are missing and I’m trying to fit in as many lessons as possible on those days I can teach. I’m starting to get ridiculously excited about our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon, but before that I have a lot to do…as always!

I am a planner, as I’ve said. And I have students that already know exactly which days this summer they want lessons and they are on the calendar. I have other students who don’t even know what they are doing yet, and think I’m crazy (this is me extrapolating) for trying to get them to pin something down that is over a month away. This is one of the challenges of being an independent music teacher: you spend a lot of time scheduling and collecting money and herding cats. (Not literally). I couldn’t do this job as well as I do if I weren’t a planner, but I also have to be able to work well with people who don’t or aren’t able to plan as far ahead. It’s a challenge!

Sometimes I blog while doing other things—I almost forgot I was blogging right now because I got distracted by my email. I tried the whole “check email less often” for about three hours one day and realized it just didn’t work for me. I like people knowing I am quickly reachable by email because it’s a better record of conversations than texting (longer, more searchable, can archive but find again later) and I definitely don’t want people feeling like they have to call in order to do something that can be done via email. Texting is fine too, for last minute things and for quick questions, but for longer conversations and for groups, I think email is easier and clearer. Plus I can type (on the computer) far faster than I can type on my phone. Call me old-fashioned.

Anyway, I’m just rambling. Random thoughts. Does this still count as creating content? (Inside blogger joke). I went for a run this morning. The weather is amazing this week—60’s and low 70’s with sun. May is shaping up to be all right!