Yesterday was the first snow of the season, unless you count flurries…the band was in Marion, Illinois doing our first show and luckily the drive home was easy enough. I want some pictures or video of the show to share with you, but I don’t have anything good right now. Suffice it to say that I rocked out.

Other than this fabulous shot of us messing around in the dressing room pre-show.

Oh, and this selfie from sound check. Yes, we as a band have to set up all the lights and everything. The advantages of playing acoustic instruments and not having lighting to distract the audience abound in untold ways!

And nothing says rock like a floral sweater. You’re welcome 🙂

Today the Illumine Ensemble had our second (last for now) show of Fractured Fairy Tales. Here’s a link to a video clip—Friday’s show was great fun and today’s was nice though the crowd was small. We could blame the snow but I think we didn’t have enough marketing either. It’s a tough show to market, because it’s sort of geared towards kids, but then aspects of it might be better for adults…but it was a fun show and I think with some tweaking we can really make it one way or the other. (Tweaking, not twerking. Please don’t get confused.)

Tonight we are checking out a new Mexican Restaurant and seeing a movie at a film festival. I know, it’s cold and snowy and really I should hibernate, but it’ll be nice to have an evening to NOT work. Though an evening hibernating on the couch would be lovely too, but I’m determined to not become a potato.  Unless it’s a sweet potato, and then I’ll consider it.

Stay warm my friends! Sweaters, boots, snow, hot drinks…winter is here!

I’m not dressing up this year. I have in the past but I didn’t feel like making the effort this year to find a costume. Maybe all my creative juices have been sapped!

I had a great trip to Phoenix to visit my niece Athena. She’s a darling, must be the genes…

Why yes, I was wearing shorts. It was nearly 100 degrees in Phoenix. How people live there I don’t know.

We also got to see Cheyenne Jackson perform with the Phoenix Symphony. It was so not my cup of tea but I suppose it was different. The audience seemed to love it though. And we had a lot of good take-out from various places around Phoenix. They have great Mexican food there.

Since getting home it’s been business as usual—I have a few more concerts coming up that require rehearsals, plus new music with Jen (we are looking at a bunch of French Sonatas) and new music with the Quartet. Oh, and Jen and I are working on the details of producing a CD of our recital—we want to sell copies of it in order to raise money for a charity. I’ll tell you more about it later, but basically as a breast cancer survivor she wants to give back to those who helped her and as a friend of a breast cancer survivor I’m all for it. Currently I’m debating over how many memory slips/mistakes are acceptable on a live CD…I know I’m not perfect, and performing is one thing, but I’m trying to decide if I want everything on the CD.

This picture cracks me up. I look like I’m playing side-saddle or something..and while I WAS it was as part of a short demonstration of the opening chord of Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet. I was standing to talk and then sat down briefly to play the chord.

Side note: I currently have ANOTHER cold. I guess all the stress, traveling, and germy students are catching up to me. On the bright side, this year I won’t be getting the flu since I got my first flu shot ever a few weeks ago!

Target knows how to put on band-aids! That sucker stayed on through a run AND a shower. Another side-note: I haven’t quite gotten used to having health insurance that actually pays for things. I couldn’t believe my insurance covered the flu shot!

Plans for the weekend include hiking, maybe a bike ride, and lots of work around the house. This is the last weekend before my band tour really gets going and I want to take advantage. Of course, being sick is putting a damper on things but I’m trying to ignore it for now.

What are you doing for Halloween?

It’s amazing how much time you have when you decide to take a day off practicing the violin. I’m taking the next few days off because I’m traveling and it’s just lovely to be able to do other things. My house is a disaster…how DO people other people keep up on life with full schedules? But this morning I’ve managed to deal with some trash, recycling, kitty litter, vacuuming, quick trip to Target, short run, and I’ve painted my toenails. It’s supposed to be hot in Phoenix so I’m bringing a pair of sandals and figured I’d better paint my nails. The things we ladies do…now I’m letting them dry and then it’s time to finish packing. I feel like I’ve done more this morning already than most bloggers do in a day 😉 and yet it really isn’t that much.

She has an uncanny ability to find any amount of clean laundry and sit on it. It’s one of her favorite things.

I find it difficult to go to Target these days being a new aunt. All of the baby stuff looks so cute! I had to get a few things of course…heaven forbid my carryon bag not be packed full of adorable baby clothing.

I’ve been collecting these things for the blog for awhile, but hadn’t had the two minutes required to blog. (It is more like 5 minutes. I’ve said it before but the trick to writing a blog post quickly is to not proofread, edit, or do anything fancy with your pictures! This tells you how busy I’ve been over the past few months, I didn’t have those 5 minutes.)

And don’t get too excited. I’ll likely be too busy again, but I’m so thrilled that last night’s concert is both over AND was a great success. I had a wonderful time playing Schumann Piano Quintet (I’m not a huge Schumann fan but that piece is just so much fun) and Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet. We have a lot of plans for the spring but things are settling down for the group, and mostly because my band is getting into full swing.

Okay, I’d better get lunch and get going. Have a great weekend, readers!

I’ve been under a lot of pressure the past few months. Granted, it’s all my own fault for accepting 8 million gigs, students, and taking on a ton of extra performances, and it’s been a whirlwind of work and fun, but MAN I could use a break.

I thought I’d take this post to just touch on a few things I haven’t talked about awhile.

1. I’ve been working on losing my “divorce weight” as I think of it. I moved and it took forever to unpack my scale, and when I finally did and finally found a place for it (which isn’t entirely true, there’s actually not really a place for it) the number is lovely. Not that a number matters, but one can’t help but be delighted that attempting to eat a regular diet of real food, eating in a rather intuitive manner, allowing myself to eat what I want without guilt or judgment BUT with keeping dietary guidelines in mind and considering what makes me feel good…all this to say, yes, eating normally pays off. And running and walking the dog. I am within 15 pounds of my so-called goal weight, which is where I was a few years ago when I thought I was doing really well, so I’d be more than thrilled to be back there. Incidentally I gave away most of my smaller clothes, SO that means I’ll need to do some shopping. And I fit into my purple pants that I loved so much a few years ago, which is a total shock, because I remember at that time I was keeping a very strict diet and beating myself up a lot then every time I ate something that wasn’t “clean”, and working out insane amounts, and here I am simply trying to be a normal person who cooks and eats good food and doesn’t hate herself for it. It’s delightful, and I plan to keep it up.

2. Cats. I now live with two cats and a dog. The fatness isn’t thrilled about it, but I think secretly she likes the attention. She is evidently the meanness cat ever. I never knew this about her! She is the SWEETEST cat to humans, and she just detests other animals. It’s hilarious in a way…

How could this delightful creature hate the other so much?

Thought that smug white face might be part of it…you can tell she is just sitting on me to make the other cat angry or jealous, right? Hmmm…

This cartoon makes me laugh, because I often feel this way:

3. What else haven’t I mentioned in awhile? Besides perhaps, a social life? HAHAHAHA. MY VIOLIN IS MY ONLY FRIEND. Just kidding, I’m not actually having a mental breakdown…this weekend I am taking a much needed trip to visit my sister and her husband and their new baby, who they haven’t announced technically on social media so I don’t know that I should say much here, but she is a cutie with a full head of hair, and I can’t wait to hold her…she weighs LESS than my cat but is an actual human, how crazy is that? Then again…I probably weigh less than my cat. Let’s just say Fatness regained any weight she lost after I moved, and possibly her strategy for living with a dog is to try to be bigger than the dog. (The dog weighs 90 pounds so this is no small feat, but rest assured, my cat is trying.) But I digress. It’s funny being an aunt to somebody who lives very far away, because on the one hand, my life is changed forever, right? But on the other hand, it’s exactly the same. I think the trick is to bring gifts though, and later progress to cash?

And with that, it’s time to cook some carrots and heat up leftover pizza for lunch, before teaching and a concert tonight at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

And I don’t mean the weather. I mean, mostly, finally getting my schedule finalized, and not having to send a million (exact, not approximate) emails about lesson scheduling every day. Finally my students are simply showing up for their scheduled times, learning violin, and being sent home with practice assignments. I feel like I have a handle on my email inbox, and have mostly returned emails and phone calls, and it feels GREAT.

So that just means practice, rehearse, teach, run, and make attempts to clean and continue to unpack from my move. Yes, there is still a lot to do, but I’m having a great September.

The weekend was a lot of fun. In fact the past two weekends have been, and during the week too. Sometimes I pinch myself (not literally) and can’t believe how good I have it right now. *knocks on wood* I couldn’t have predicted my life today a year ago, and going through all the pain and heartache I’ve been through only makes it better now.

I don’t have too long to blog though, because for all my “free time” I’m really buckling down on practicing. Just over a month until my recital, and then fall doesn’t settle down performance wise NOR can I only work on that repertoire now…I’m also really trying to analyze my teaching methods, my organization for teaching, and try to improve. I have some students that are making good progress and others that aren’t as much, mostly due to lack of practicing, but I have to take some blame (and perhaps it is my fault they aren’t properly motivated to practice) so I’m working on some ideas to improve my teaching. I figure I’ve been teaching off and on for about 20 years, and for about 13 mostly full-time, and I still have another 30 or so to go, hopefully, so I don’t want to get bored OR boring. Plenty of room to grow and learn, and really be a top notch teacher, right?

The following pictures are out of character for my blog, but let’s face it, cats don’t swim. I went to the Maplewood Dog Swim over the weekend. Mackenzie, technically my dog now, had a wonderful time. It was actually quite fun watching all the dogs swim. I imagine a cat swim would be far less entertaining…or not…might be pretty violent at least?

Afterwards there was an opportunity for ice cream due to Eliana celebrating a birthday.

A vanilla malt. DELICIOUS.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but it’s important to note that at the Fountain on Locust they blow bubbles at you on your birthday.

I stole this picture from Eliana’s facebook because it is the greatest picture of me ever. I haven’t even approved it for my timeline yet, so you are seeing it here first. But let’s focus on the fun that was had and how delicious the ice cream was. Louie and I couldn’t eat too much though as we had dinner plans with his family, so we had to share the vanilla malt 🙁

That’s enough updating for me today. I think I need to write more often because I feel out of practice on 1) sharing my life and 2) forming complete sentences. Certainly there is no cohesiveness in this post, but that’s life, isn’t it? If life isn’t random, what is?

Ask me questions in the comments! I’ve been getting a ton of spam comments on old posts lately, and I miss real commenters. Tell me what you want to read about on my next post!