Category Archives: Random thoughts

Cat, Random thoughts, Running

It’s beginning to look a lot like fall

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I won’t bore you by discussing the weather for too long, but it’s been really nice here this week and looks like it will continue to be. It’s been great for running…and as far as races go, now I’m considering running the half tomorrow AND the following weekend, just for the heck of it. When I picked up my bib yesterday I asked the woman about switching to the 10K and she got really confused, and so I thought, well, yes, and I can just run it, but my bib says half marathon, so doing the 10K seems like that would be failing…but yet…I just don’t know. I’ll decide this evening, or tomorrow morning when I arrive. I asked Louie if he thought that was crazy and suggested that for some people it would be very common place, to run two half marathons in two weekends, and for other people it would be utterly crazy, and he wasn’t entirely sure where I fit into that comparison.

This past week seemed to fly by. I wasn’t horribly busy, but kept having various things that took up my time. Thursday I agreed to take Chloe to the vet for a follow-up appointment, and then discovered I needed to also bring Mackenzie in for a follow-up in order to refill a prescription for her (sometimes I think the vet doesn’t communicate well enough with us, but it’s possible that we just dropped the ball on keeping track).

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Taking care of the pets is time-consuming, AND expensive! These visits and medicine add up. I spent over two hours dealing with everybody on Thursday, and then administering all the medications is no small feat. Poor Chloe needs to wear a cone for awhile so she stops picking at this thing. The good news is that we found out a little more about what might be wrong with her, and ran some more tests on Mackenzie, so by early next week we’ll know more stuff. Things are looking up, I think.

Yesterday we went mattress shopping. We ended up at Mattress Firm and figured we’d just look, not buy, and then the salesman was fantastic and super-helpful, and convinced us to buy a higher end mattress than we’d planned, but I can’t wait to sleep on it. Delivery is tomorrow. I’d never chosen a mattress before, so it was both exciting and wow, such an odd experience. Lying down on a bunch of different beds while a salesman stands there telling you about coils and foam and whatnot. He was telling us about their delivery process and I was thinking, hmm, I could totally just take a nap right here. I’m pleased with the purchase though, and like I said, really looking forward to a new bed!

So yeah, what would you do if you were me? Run two halfs? My original fear of being too slow is still there, but this cool weather has given me confidence and maybe I can break 3 hours…I used to be a faster runner, and I know that I have it in me to be a faster runner again, but will my training allow for it? I know I trained pretty cautiously because I trained to finish strong and not to finish fast. Sigh. I feel like I’m definitely leaning towards REALLY challenging myself and doing the half tomorrow and the half next week, and hopefully feeling really awesome about it.

Some bloggers do a link love round up weekly…maybe I should do that too! I won’t promise it’ll be a regular thing, but here are a few links I’ve enjoyed this week.

From the Onion: loved this because I get so tired of women being criticized for well, everything

My sister Carrie shared this on Facebook: Two Monks Discover How Tall Women and Horses are: VERY Lol-worthy

The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland: “Those things you learn without joy you will forget easily.” I love this.

Happy Weekend, readers!

Random thoughts

Halfway through the week

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Well, more than. Or less than. Who really knows.

(edited to add, thank you for your cat-related comments on my last post! any more advice is necessary…)

Wednesday nights are a late night for Louie and me. He has class until after 10 so I wait until then to eat with him, usually…we are on this weird schedule of eating dinner after I finish teaching/he finishes classes, so it ends up being pretty late. Right now I’m blogging, and then I’m going to make some salmon and veggies and maybe have a glass of wine. I’ve never had a dinner break while teaching—I’d rather eat late and have dinner be my last thing for the day. I also never used to teach as late as I do! I think going forward I’ll try to cut it off at 8 pm, or maybe earlier some days and later others…some day Louie won’t have class and then maybe I won’t want to work so late every night. Then again, I have to work sometime, and before school gets out is hardly an option. Sigh. These are not actual problems though.

So, I had originally planned to run the Go Halloween Half this weekend, but I got nervous about the time limit—not that I shouldn’t be able to make it, but that I would be right at the end, and I worried that most of the course support would have ended. I decided to drop down and run the 10K this weekend, and then I found a deal for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon NEXT weekend. That one is more encouraging to walkers and has a much longer course time limit, so I figure it’ll be easier to be slow and still have support (i.e. water stops, maybe some folks cheering) along the way, plus…another week to train, ha! I also have a less busy day afterwards, which is entirely my fault, but I imagine finishing the race and then going and eating hash browns and pancakes and whatnot, and I don’t want to be rushed. So the fun thing is, two races, two weekends in a row! I’m excited!

2015 Festival Graphic copy

Another fun thing I’m doing this weekend is playing some “World Chamber Music” written by Michael Hagmeier, who also plays didgeridoo and guitar. We are playing at the Artica Festival around 3:30 on Saturday, and I’m pumped. I am also a little terrified because at least half of the songs have “solo” sections where I have to improvise, but I’ve been doing ok in rehearsals…so maybe I can do okay in front of a crowd. Oh, and hopefully there WILL be a crowd! The weather looks lovely for the weekend, hopefully not too chilly for outdoor playing on Saturday, and awesome for running on Sunday.

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(It’s important to leave a clean, folded towel out for the cat to sleep on.)

I’ve been stressed out for no good reason this week. I think I feel like I should be getting much more done than I am? And the house sometimes overwhelms me: between the animals making messes/shedding, too much stuff, some needed home repairs…sometimes it gets overwhelming. Then I try to remind myself we are making progress, and nobody is judging me and who cares if they are, and it’s not my fault…and I’m getting lots of great practicing in, and I even got my email inbox down to ONE page, meaning, no scrolling necessary to see all the emails, and I’m taking an Edx course on Opera, and… I type these things and I always feel a little neurotic. Do I come across that way?

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Practicing selfie! I need to get my violin cleaned again…don’t look at how dirty my fingerboard is. That IS my fault.

On a pumpkin related note, I went to Trader Joe’s this morning. I thought when I went the other week things were out of hand, pumpkin-wise…but today was ridiculous. I don’t think I was ever out of arm’s reach of a pumpkin product. I did purchase pumpkin ravioli (already had it once, pretty good) and a pumpkin yogurt, but otherwise resisted. I wonder where the pumpkin tipping or breaking point is?

Random thoughts, Teaching

Past and present

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Somehow the other night I ended up reading through a few months of old blog entries. It was interesting, because they were from several years ago. I wrote a lot more often, but shorter and with less pictures, and while I was basically no more neurotic than I am now, I was overly concerned with my diet and exercise…now I’m eating well and exercising but not stressing over it (it’s delightful!) and mostly trying to enjoy being active and healthy! I wrote a lot about class teaching—at the time I was teaching at a variety of different places and totally stressed out, but still creatively full of ideas, which sometimes I feel like I lack today—I have spent this week so far trying to be fully committed to my students in their lessons (I’ll explain more in a bit). And lastly, I baked more often than I do now, which I really should change…I have a few old bananas in the freezer to make banana muffins with and I should just do it.

Being fully committed to my students: after teaching a student for awhile it’s easy to get a little lazy about technique points or allowing them to get away with things that at first I might have been very picky with. Part of that is how the students SIGH and roll their eyes, or worse, get upset, when I correct them. Sometimes after correcting the same thing (i.e. bow hold issue) over and over without it really getting fixed I feel like I need to give the student a break or they might murder me. But then sometimes that break becomes more than one lesson, or two lessons, and I realize wow, I haven’t bugged so-and-so about his-or-her bowhold for a long time, and it’s really holding them back, but I’m hesitating to do it because I know that it won’t be fun for them in the moment, or even for the next few weeks or months. But in the long run, it WILL make them a better violinist. And so this week (and last, too, and for many in the future) I’ve been really dedicating lessons to do those painful things, making the students work on their difficulties, and I will continue to do so, to be a more annoying teacher than perhaps I have been.  I’ve been thinking long and hard about my long-term teaching and studio goals, and while I appreciate that most of my students enjoy their lessons and enjoy the violin, I want them to enjoy it more the way I do. The better you can play, the MORE enjoyment you get from it!

Outside of teaching, this has been an excellent week musically. My quartet is busy rehearsing Beethoven Op. 59 #1 and that’s been wonderful, and the past two evenings have been full of Bach for this weekend’s concert with Bach at the Sem. It’s so wonderful to play such beautiful music, and I love playing with the Bach group because the conductor is very demanding and insists on very particular phrasing. I enjoy the challenge! (Things to remember while teaching.)

Though…part of my ongoing blog theme is writing these posts acting like I’m opening some new door or doing something different, when I really just keep doing the same things! Life goes in phases, and when I’m in a new phase things seem fresh and new. That being said, I feel like I’ve been in a little bit of teaching rut, so I’m trying some new things to get out of it. My other thought is that I really should try to do some writing and get something else published in one of my association journals. Or work towards becoming an MTNA certified teacher? I know, I’m always pondering things to do to make myself busier and less stressed out, but I don’t want to be stagnant in my career.

I know, reading about me pondering my life goals and decisions is probably not the most interesting…but it’s interesting to me, and perhaps to you if you are a musician or simply spend too much time pondering and wonder if you are abnormal. In my opinion, you are totally normal!

I miss being in the woods. Is that weird? And honestly, my current mattress is so terrible that sleeping on a camping pad isn’t that much worse…plus I just really loved going to sleep and waking up hearing all the outdoor sounds. I don’t even recognize myself since evidently I’ve become one of those outdoorsy people, but I’m embracing it, and having gotten out of town for a bit of the weekend is definitely helping my mood, my ambition, and my mindset. (Maybe I’ve changed more in the past few years than rereading old blog posts made me realize?)

So tell me about your life. How have you changed in the past few years? Is there anything you can look at and say, yes, this has stayed the same, but this has changed? Am I asking you questions in summary as if this blog post made cohesive sense, when we all know that isn’t true? Leave your answers in the comments 😉

Practicing, Random thoughts

September was flying by but now it’s not

However, this week is going decently fast, as weeks tend to do. This morning I was pretty lazy but thus far I have at least washed and dried a load of laundry (fascinating!) and practiced. I also ate half of a grapefruit and it was delicious. (That wasn’t all I ate.)

I woke up feeling really stressed out, but things are better now. Sometimes I get stressed out when I have to send emails that are basically just me sticking up for myself. Sigh. Everything turned out great, because all of us women ARE told that we need to stick up for ourselves more and stop using vocal fry and saying “sorry” and “just” and then our lives will be great just like the men’s lives. I do find, however, that when I stand firm that people tend to respect that, so maybe some of the articles are correct. And the rest should stop telling women how to act more like men and consider that maybe, just maybe, we like the world that we exist in and want the whole world to be like our world, and why should we have to change when men don’t have to? But I digress. As usual. Sorry.

All that being said, I am often afraid to stick up for myself, for fear of making people angry. And when I do, and it turns out well, I feel like a real person, a real adult. And then I think, hey, gimme another 37 years (that’s my age, FYI) and I’ll have this whole adult thing DOWN.

Wednesday is my lighter teaching day this fall. I have only 4 hours of students and there’s even a 30 minute break in that segment, so that’s mostly why I was lazy today. I was tired and needed a day to relax a bit. I’m on my third cup of coffee and it’s simply fantastic. I wrote just fantastic first but then edited it since we ladies aren’t supposed to say just anymore. (I’m assuming we still need to be pretty and smile in public though, right?)

This is where ordinarily I would insert a cat picture! But I don’t have any available to me that you haven’t already seen.

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Oh whew, there we go! Old cat pictures that you’ve forgotten that you’ve seen!

So, tonight I am going to make tacos. I have tofu, sweet potatoes, onions, and queso fresco, plus Trader Joe’s Green Salsa. I can turn that into something delicious enough, I’m sure. Taco Wednesday!

I had a million thoughts when I sat down to blog, and I still do, but most of them are even more boring and unsuitable than what I’ve already typed! It’s a hard balance between writing enough that my blog feels somewhat personal, and sharing too much (for a variety of reasons.)

Practicing wise, I’ve been working on: Beethoven Opus 59 #1, Bach Partita no. 1 for Solo Violin, and a variety of Etudes, including Gavinies and some stuff I’m going through to review for my students. I also practice scales regularly enough—I have a system where I play all the 3 octave scales in a row, going up chromatically, and then all the arpeggios (Flesch) going around the circle of 5ths. I learned to do this at CIM while studying with Linda Cerone, and it’s a valuable skill. If I ever have students advanced enough I will make them do the same! After performing last Saturday night one of the guests asked me how much I practice each day. I’m ashamed sometimes to admit that it’s often closer to an hour than it is any more than that…some days none at all, other days closer to two hours, but that’s where I’ve been for some time. In the past years I’ve practiced much more, (and also much less), and I find that this is a good amount generally for where I am and the amount of repertoire I need to be learning. If I have more performances/pieces to learn at once I make the time for more practicing, but for general maintenance and only a few performances coming up, 1-2 hours is plenty. How about the rest of you? If you are a professional or semi-professional musician reading this, how much do you practice these days?

And on THAT incredibly boring note about practicing, I shall go. I need to practice a bit more before my first student!

Random thoughts

Dogs and Cats Living Together

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Lately I’ve mostly been taking pictures of all the animals…I guess that means I’m not traveling and I’m just hanging out at home working. And that the animals are adorable, when they aren’t being really annoying and yelling at me for food.

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How cute are they all?

Okay, maybe you aren’t here for the cat pictures (are you crazy?)…oh, but one thing about Oistrakh, aka Dr. Oysterman, the cat formerly known as “fatness” who has successfully lost a few pounds…okay. So in the middle of the night I’ll wake up and hear her just YOWLING away, sounding like she’s trapped or in trouble, and I go to see what’s wrong, and there she is, sitting near a couple of ponytail holders. Cats are crazy.

I had been avoiding lifting weights at the gym for…several months…and yesterday went to do a bit of a full body workout. So I’m really sore today and debating if I’m going to go for a run in a bit or just take the time to stretch and foam roll and run on Friday (tomorrow is too busy). It might be wiser to do the first.

Wednesdays I only have 4 hours of teaching, so I feel like I have lots of time to get things done. Monday I spent 2-3 hours working on a newsletter for my studio. Seriously, that long. I was working with a new system and using MailChimp, which was recommended by a colleague, and now I’m finally probably in 2009 as far as technology goes. I think the finished product was a definite improvement to my typical “block of text” emails (that hardly anybody reads) so I hope that this will improve studio communications. After all of that it still had an incorrect date…I should get somebody to proofread things before I send them out, I guess. (Would this also apply to blog posts?) The other neat thing about MailChimp is that I can see which of my students have opened what I sent out! And which haven’t, though I don’t know if that means it went to junk mail or they just haven’t checked their email yet, or what.

Are you an “inbox zero” person? As in, do you try to get your inbox down to no emails? I’m never that extreme, but I try to stay on top of my emails and always read them. I love when my inbox all fits in one screen, without scrolling. I use Gmail, and I tend to leave the emails in the inbox until the conversation is done or if it’s about an upcoming gig, until the gig is over. I could archive those things, but I find that it’s easier to bring up information on my phone if I leave the email in the inbox rather than another place. (Sometimes it seems like my phone is unable to find archived emails at all). But that means when I have a lot of “unfinished” conversations going and several upcoming gigs or concerts, I have more emails in my inbox than I’d like.

In contrast though, I’ve seen friends log onto their email and they will have hundreds or THOUSANDS of unread emails. That would drive me completely bonkers! But I assume that a certain percentage of my students are like that, and that’s why it’s hard to communicate with people. (This particular newsletter was about a policy reminder and the date for the fall recital). I know everybody is bombarded with lots of emails, plus I imagine all the activities your child is enrolled in send emails about important dates and things…and it seems like email and mass communications don’t always make things easier. But in the past I probably would have mailed important information to people, and they might not have read that either, so I’m sticking with what I’ve got!

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How many of you use timehop? I added the app a few months ago. Each day it shows you pictures and things you posted on the same day in past years for instagram and facebook. Sometimes I get a little sad seeing posts (and remember how much BETTER my life is now!) but mostly it’s a real delight, especially seeing photos like the one above!

Getting divorced and ending a 14 year relationship isn’t easy. Though it’s been a few years now, sometimes things still hit me from my previous life. One of things that I struggle with the most is feeling like what I do is important…I’ve lately realized (and I’m not trying to lay blame here, just to analyze) that for years I felt that what I was doing with my life was less important, that freelancing wasn’t satisfying or something to be proud of, that I was wasting my conservatory education. I think of the number of times my career and jobs were mocked, both by my previous partner, and various friends and colleagues…and it’s no wonder I’ve had a hard time feeling good about myself. It’s unfortunate how I let people make me feel so worthless.

I thought of that because  I had a rehearsal last night with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St. Louis. We were playing Beethoven’s Symphony #6. I used to play in orchestra all the time before I moved to St Louis, but I remember so many conversations where anything I missed about living and freelancing in Cleveland was ridiculed and mocked…and I apparently had internalized that enough that I was okay with it! I let other people project their own insecurities onto me to bring me down…it seemed for awhile that it was a really common thing for people in my age group to do!

So, yeah, I’ve come a long way. Last night’s rehearsal was fun. And teaching is so worthwhile, (even though politicians doesn’t think so) and playing in my quartet and playing with various pianists like my friend Jen and others…this is all worthwhile stuff, and I do have things to offer the world, even if I no longer am a full-time orchestra musician. Who said that was the only respectable job? 🙂 And why would I let people demean me so much?

So there’s me being a bit introspective…thanks a lot timehop! But in all seriousness, mostly I’m appreciating how much I’ve grown and how much stronger I am today than in my “3 years ago” posts.  And how appreciative I am that today the people who are important in my life build me up rather than tearing me down! And I hope that I am doing the same to them.

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And that no matter what life brings, I will always wear ridiculously large sunglasses.

Random thoughts

Heading Towards Fall

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All over Facebook people are lamenting today as the end of summer. It seems like yes, we are heading towards fall, but I consider that summer ended when I went back to work after vacation, or for kids it’s the first day of school, or for bloggers it’s when pumpkin hits the store shelves…today is simply September 1.

I’m still trying to work out my teaching schedule. I’d had it worked out but then a few people asked to switch…it’s tough because there just aren’t times to switch to. I want to accommodate people, but I’m not entirely sure this will all work out for everybody. I’m doing my best, and the thing is, I still have several hours of openings scattered throughout the week, they just aren’t the most popular hours…I’ve had to turn down some multiple child family student requests because I only have random 30 minute lessons scattered about though, which I hate doing. I hate turning down students, but time is finite and a weekly schedule can only fit in so many students.

Of course, my mornings are basically free. Sometimes when I get stressed over finances I start to think about trying to find paying work for the morning—maybe a part time job, maybe I should learn how to teach some of those group music classes for little kids?? Or should I be doing volunteer work, or trying to find something at a school? Though I like having my mornings free for rehearsals and practicing…it’s a tough call. I go back and forth. I usually teach for 20-22 hours a week, spend anywhere from 2 to 6 hours on phone/email/paperwork for that. I’ll have anywhere from 2 to 8 hours of rehearsal, usually 2 but that just depends and then maybe a wedding gig will take up 2 to 3 hours, or maybe it’ll be two that take up 8  hours in a day. Low end I’m at 24-26 hours of work, high end well over 40 hours. Then add in practicing…this totally ranges, but I shoot for 1 hour a day, and sometimes it’s much more. (And let’s not pretend I can do what I do without practicing at all, because I can’t.) Obviously I have extra time on some weeks (this week for instance) but other weeks I am totally swamped. Sometimes I think a more regular schedule must be nice—that’s when I daydream about only teaching and playing serious music at my leisure!  But the other thing about me is that I can get bored doing the same thing over and over. I love the variety of freelancing, though this year seems like I’m more of a private teacher than a freelancer…but I definitely have gigs on my calendar for the future.

And there you have it. My super interesting random thoughts for today. I’m off to get a haircut now and then teaching and hopefully squeeze in some practicing, since that hasn’t happened yet today. Priorities!