Things sure are crazy around here!

We made it through our second household bout with COVID well: I was unscathed and Louie recovered quickly. We’ve been busy busy with the house, life, work, etc. I’ve been spending all my free time at the new house, or browsing the internet for ideas for decor, closet design, etc. We have our moving date set (ONE MONTH) and in between still lots to do: you might think this is taking a long time, but really, it’s moving as fast as we can. The paint is looking great, and the plaster cracks are getting fixed and will be basically nonexistent soon. We are getting the floors waxed and cleaned soon.

Basically I sound and feel like a crazy overwhelmed person! In between I’m teaching, playing entirely too many concerts, and oh, did I mention our washing machine at the “old” house broke so I can only currently do laundry at the new house?

But, it will all be WELL worth it in the end, when we move, when we get to live in this glorious space. The bedroom color is gorgeous, the couches are ordered and will be delivered at some point in the spring, and I’ve picked up a few new (to me) things on facebook marketplace.

Anyway, I’ve posted a fair amount on Instagram over the past month, so look for me there as well for more house stuff.

As I sit here on my couch typing, the weather app tells me it is -7 degrees fahrenheit. MINUS SEVEN. Just yesterday morning it was in the 30’s and then it dropped by early afternoon to the teens and then here we are. The predicted high for today is 6 degrees. We only got a little snow yesterday, thankfully, but the wind is crazy, and I’ll tell you, I am very grateful to be snug in my warm house.

I do have to go to the airport today to pick up Louie (Miles will be thrilled, he has been moping around the house all week) and then do a pick up of some baked goods at Union Loafers, but otherwise I plan to spend the day inside. I have two students this morning and then I am DONE teaching for the year, woo hoo!

It’s been a good week, but still quite busy. I finished up teaching at my schools and got my grades submitted. I only have Christmas Eve gigs left. I baked some cookies, enjoyed my own holiday decor, had lunch with a friend, read a bunch, wrapped some presents to take down to South Carolina, and messed around the house.

I keep thinking how next winter we will be in our new house! And much sooner than that, of course, but that the next time I decorate for Christmas it will be in the new house, and there will be more room for decorations and who knows what I will come up with! We are still sorting out the specifics of the move, such as when, but I have the painter booked (painting inside, we may also do some), haven’t chosen colors yet, that will be a first thing in the new year thing. We are trying to figure out what to do with the floors, if we do anything (wood floors). And then it’ll be couch shopping time, as we want two new couches. I hope that after Christmas is a good time to shop for couches. If you have any specific places to recommend, please do!

I didn’t do as much baking as I sometimes do, for all the reasons I’ve been doing less this year, but I decided to bake butter thumbprint cookies to fill with my homemade marmalade. I got into canning the other year and canned way too much jam for one year, so we are still working our way through it.

I got a couple of gifts from students that aren’t for the cats, so I had to put them up on a high shelf, which is the only place in the house where we can display things but Muriel can’t get to them. One student made a frog and she said after she made it, she realized she should give it to me. She’s the one who painted my 3d printed frog. (The violin bow has a “frog” and I often hold up frogs to remind my students to get all the way back to the frog on long bows.) I also received a lovely poinsettia plant, which are not good for cats. I read recently that poinsettias are NOT toxic to cats, don’t worry! They only cause vomiting and diarrhea. So, still good to avoid it (and yes, Muriel will definitely eat the plant if she can) but perhaps you don’t need to take your cat to the vet, just let it run its course? Not taking any chances either way.

We are still a multi-cultural household, so I like to light our electric menorah in the front to show that not everybody in our neighborhood is Christian (Louie is of Jewish descent and celebrates many holidays). He’s been visiting family in California (jealous, so much warmer I’m sure!) while I’ve been finishing up work here and holding down the fort in terms of weird new house things that have to be taken care of. The weather joke is on him though as he’ll be returning to single digit temperatures if not lower. HAHA!

Oh, and I joined mastodon, follow me there if you like. I’m definitely still finding my way around so don’t ask any questions 🙂

@hannahviolin@mastodon.sdf.org

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, so I wanted to pop in. Thanksgiving Break was fantastic, but I’ll tell you about that another time. Things since we got back have been go-go-go with students, performances, rehearsals and concerts!

We played a concert of piano quartets at Washington University.

Part of getting older is saying, hmm, wasn’t it just Christmas already? I couldn’t bear the idea of packing up the tree again, so I figured I’d skip it this year. Next year maybe I’ll have two trees, haha!

Sometimes I am struck by how impossibly soft and adorable Miles is. And a little bite-y as well.

Okay, so random photo dump, random thoughts…Christmas will be here soon and then after that we close on the house, and I need to PACK. That’s the plan for after Christmas, get packed and get ready to move. We still have to decide when, but it’s over a month till closing and we aren’t in a huge rush so it’ll be fine. (it’s be fine is my mantra, we will see how it goes!)

I am excited about some stuff coming up this month, and I’ve already done some fun stuff. I have been having quite the fall of playing with some well-known popular artists such as the Who and this past weekend played with Harry Connick, Jr. It was a lot of fun!

It’s not always my preferred genre of music, but it is always fun to play with famous artists, regardless! And Harry is very nice and it is just plain cool to be so CLOSE to people like that. Practice your violin, students!

I’ll tell you about Thanksgiving and New Orleans another time. I am tired, and dealing with some annoying work things right now as I’m trying to blog, so maybe I’ll drink more coffee, exercise, and then try to teach this afternoon and play an evening rehearsal…it’s a busy week in a busy month, and I am NOT doing a good job practicing self care. 🙂

It’s funny not having any cooking to do this week! We are eating out for Thanksgiving, so I won’t be making anything.

I forgot in my last post to tell you about a fun adventure we had, so I’ll do that first. Louie and I went on a “Full Moon Float” with Big Muddy Adventures. We canoed down the Mississippi River at night! This might sound scary, but it was awesome. First we met up and loaded into vans and drove upstream a bit. We put two large canoes into the water and then boarded, sitting two by two with a guide in front and back. We paddled across to an island that was mostly made of sand and enjoyed a bonfire and lovely dinner (seriously, it was delicious, cheese and crackers, fresh guacamole, flank steak, butternut squash lasagna, salad, etc) and then once the sun set and the fire died down, we all loaded up again into the canoes and headed down to the Arch. It was a fantastic day and we would recommend the trip to anybody who enjoys a little outdoor adventure.

We’ve had a few little snows so far this winter, which have been pretty enough. I’m glad it’s just been a little bit…I’m not in the mood for snow.

I got a new violin case, finally! I ordered it months ago and it has been backordered.

It was a busy weekend of recitals. Saturday morning was a student recital at Wash U and Sunday afternoon was my studio recital. I was proud of all of the performances! I’ll have a few more student performances before the semester is over.

We went to a play on Saturday night. We saw Upstream Theater put on “The Good Ship St. Louis” at the Marcelle Theater. It was a nice production and we really enjoyed the evening. It’s nice to see small, more local companies doing things, and I would recommend you see the show except I believe the run has already ended. One of the actors was someone I had worked with on The Runaway Cupcake and with a production at St Louis University I did the music for and it was great to see her in a different role.

We are moving slowly with buying the house…inspections are basically done, painters are lined up for after closing, but now it’s mostly a holding pattern. We went under contract early with the idea that the tough things would be done before the holidays and then we would just wait until the current owner is ready to move out (the date is set for that). I haven’t started packing yet, but I am THINKING about it, and getting other things in order. I can’t quite wrap my head around the whole thing, but it is going to happen and we will be ready when it does.

I’m finishing up errands and getting ready for our trip today, doing some teaching, and that sort of thing. Tomorrow we hit the road for our Thanksgiving trip. As always, the cats are in good care with our sitter, and they will likely spend a lot of time sitting on the couch.

What are your Thanksgiving week plans?

It’s been a busy October as well. I think I thought after the show at the Fox (Ain’t Too Proud) finished I would be more free, and while I am, it’s really only an extra two hours a night! Life is busy, I have all the students, plus extra concerts (playing with the Who today, for instance), and additional appointments like physical therapy for my rotator cuff or the like. I’ve also mentioned in passing that we are house hunting and truthfully looking to buy a new house, and a lot that goes into it. It’s a big deal, and feels like a dream, and there’s just so much to do before it becomes reality, but I’m excited. I remind myself that people move all the time, and just because I haven’t moved in 8 years doesn’t mean I can’t do it again!

I had a period of time where I moved every year or every two years. My 20’s were a time of moving a lot, changing cities, changing apartments, etc, and moving wasn’t a big deal then. When I moved in with Louie I was in my 30’s and it was my 3rd move in as many years! So I was happy to sit and I honestly thought I might live here for the rest of my life. But as it turns out, it seems that’s not going to be true, and while I don’t like to get ahead of anything, I can say with certainty that I won’t live here the rest of my life: we have decided no matter what happens with this particular house we are looking to buy (and it’s looking promising) that we are moving.

Of course, interest rates are through the roof, and things are uncertain in the world, and perhaps we don’t even want to be in Missouri or the United States anymore, but we live here now and there’s no reason to make yourself suffer more than needed, ha! I remind myself that people buy houses all the time, that people buy houses even when they are sad to leave their current house and its memories, and it is okay to have mixed feelings about things, when mostly those feelings are that it’s a good thing to move. It will change things for my students a bit, though I’m not going far, but in case any are reading: I will let you know when things are certain and you’ll have plenty of time to work things out.

Anyway, the cats are snuggling more lately as the weather cools down, which is of course adorable. And we got out for a nice hike last weekend at Greensfelder Park. We took the Eagle Owl Trail and got a bit lost at one point, but we were always on a A trail, just not the Eagle Owl, and we found our way back. I think that has happened before as well, so who knows what the deal is. Perhaps we will go the opposite way on the loop and have slightly better luck next time. The fall leaves were beautiful, though I didn’t take many pictures, and the weather and temperature were absolutely perfect.

I have a busy weekend ahead: I had thought I might be able to take Sunday off but I needed to do some makeup lessons for things I missed, so I’ll work in the afternoon.

I did have time to read a fantastic book: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Highly recommend! (I love all of her books, especially Station Eleven, but this might be my new favorite).

I read an article yesterday about all of the admin work that we need to do in our lives and how to cope with it. It is sometimes ridiculous how much there is to do outside of work: you’d think you’d have work and then free time, but it’s work, more work, paperwork for work, and then all of the household stuff, and then hardly any free time at all. Granted, I do too much of the “work” part, but the household stuff tends to expand to take up as much space as possible!

Nonetheless, I am mostly keeping my head above water. I’ve had a good first week of the shows, and I love the show I’m playing (Ain’t Too Proud, it is great!) and we start week 2 (the last week) tonight. I’ve been teaching otherwise, and even managed to watch the latest episode of Rings of Power last night. I haven’t done much outside of work, but I’m keeping up with everything…life will get more back to normal next week. I scheduled a grocery shopping delivery for tomorrow because I didn’t want to spend precious time grocery shopping when I could blog instead.

One of the nice parts of waking up really early is getting to see some beautiful sunrises. I don’t mind getting up early so much, but it’s been a little bit of burning the candle at both ends. There’s only a few more days of that and then I’ll be “back to normal” next week. I’m sure the cats will appreciate having me around more, as well as Louie.

Unfortunately, soon it will just be dark when I leave, and then also cold. But in the meantime I can appreciate the sun, and the lovely fall temperatures.

Sometimes during busy times, it’s easy to start looking forward too much, but I am trying to “live in the moment” and appreciate what I am doing. I forget sometimes how unusual it is to spend my life trying to teach people how to play the violin, what a weird thing to do! And to get paid to play the violin as well, and the viola, and get to experience two weeks of a Broadway Musical up close and personal. I got an email recently from my alma mater about a potential meetup reception in a few months, and my first thought was, ugh, I don’t want to meet up with all those symphony musicians because I am a failure compared to them. My second thought however, was, my career is more of an interesting thing that students should know about, because not everybody can get a job in an orchestra, and not everybody wants that, and perhaps a career path like mine would be interesting for young people to know about. And I shouldn’t feel bad! (I don’t, normally, I just imagined the event in my head briefly in a certain way.) As a high schooler, I didn’t know there were options like what I do, and there is a lot to know about how to run a freelance and teaching career like I do! (And things NOT to do, as well.) Then again, perhaps high school me would have run screaming 🙂