Category Archives: Teaching

Christmas, Food, Teaching

Ice day

We had a bit of freezing rain…and no school today!  I am still teaching at home today, though a few students have canceled.  My “inclement weather policy” for my home students is that they can decide whether to come or not, with no penalty.  Most of the roads are pretty good by now, though the sidewalks are still slippery in places.  I really hate ice—give me a foot of snow ANY day.

I was glad they canceled school last night rather than waiting until this morning because I got to sleep in with no worries!  I do miss the students though—I won’t see them until January now.  I’ll also have to mail home some things I was going to hand out, but that’s probably better anyway because then the parents definitely get the memos.

Tonight we are planning to go to a friend’s holiday gathering.  I wasn’t going to go because I thought I would be exhausted after a long day of teaching, but I’m down to four students now (and we’ll see if they all show) so my energy should be high! 

I’ve decided to make a nice Christmas dinner for Chris and I before we go to Long Island.  I love making/planning big holiday meals and I don’t get to do that when I visit the “in-law’s.”  I don’t want to go overboard, but I have planned a menu of Ham  (not Ham Solo), Corn Pudding, Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli, Smoky Cheddar Loaf, and for dessert, Egg Nog Tres Leches Cake.  Sounds good?!?

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Ham Solo

After the meal we’ll exchange our Christmas gifts (and open any that were mailed as well).  Should be fun! 

HBBC:  5 mile run: 5 points

Teaching

Cookies for students

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I brought two kinds of cookies today to my students at Child of God.  Originally I had made these cookies in a hurry over the weekend for my Good Shepherd students…but then school was cancelled–

Last night was the Good Shepherd Orchestra concert.  We had missed our last rehearsal on Monday due to the weather, but I knew the students were ready.  The only thing we hadn’t been able to rehearse (as much) was exactly how to act onstage, i.e. getting set up, bowing, etc.  So that was a bit of a mess, but they played great!  We also had a cellist join in, who hadn’t rehearsed at all, but he was advanced enough that he definitely added a nice touch to the group.

The one problem was that I should have double checked tuning before we began.  I had tuned everyone before, but after we got onstage we just got started, and one of the student’s violins was somehow completely out of tune.  He noticed as soon as we started and became very upset.  I felt awful, but there was nothing we could do until the end of the piece.  Two things I learned:  remind the kids not to freak out if their instrument is out of tune and just to remain calm and get my attention in between pieces, not DURING, and secondly, to double check tuning right beforehand.  Nonetheless the students did very well, especially since we missed the last rehearsal day.  Congratulations to them!

Back to today:  I needed to have all the Child of God students meet together and I wanted to run through the entire program, which is all of the pieces they know, from Pre-Twinkle Express to Perpetual Motion plus Jingle Bells.  (Obviously not all the kids play them all, but several do).  Behavior is an issue with several of the students, so on Monday I told them the plan:  IF they could be quiet and practice the run through with 10 minutes to spare, THEN we would have cookies.  If not, then no cookies…

I also threatened if anybody forgot their instrument they would not be allowed to perform on Friday.

We almost didn’t make it.  One of the girls forgot her instrument, and was crying (it’s not a teaching day if somebody doesn’t cry).  However, she was one of the students who always remembers…this was her FIRST time forgetting!  I told her IF she played the program five times between class and Friday she could still participate—I wasn’t wanting to punish them especially a first-time offended. (Yes, I’m soft).  Then her violin showed up anyway!  One student’s bridge fell over—he claimed he had no idea how that happened (I saw him and another student collide…).  The instruments were all badly out of tune.  Three children claimed bathroom emergencies.  Everybody had questions about where to stand, when to play, what song were we playing, etc.  BUT somehow we soldiered through and played all the songs with ten minutes to spare.  I was so glad as I did not want to take home these (less than) homemade cookies.

I made two kinds—gingerbread and sugar cookies. (One of the students has a peanut allergy, so no Monster cookies or anything super-fun like that.) Both were from cookie mixes to save time, and both were iced.  The students preferred the gingerbread, but then again, the sugar were slightly burnt.  And yes, they asked to trade for not burnt ones…and returned the burnt ones to the tin rather than tossing them out.  They also asked why I didn’t bring the pumpkin ones from before. But they all said THANK YOU and I know they will be good on Friday night for the performance.

Whew. One more student performance to go before vacation!

Edited to add HBBC stats:

HBBC:  30 minutes cardio/strength: 2 points

Teaching

One more week!

It’s the last week until Christmas break, yippee!

And what an auspicious start—but let me back up.

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Inside of St. Clare Catholic Church, where I performed with the Masterworks Chorale (is there one of those in every region?) over the weekend.

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The outside of St. Mary and St. Mark’s in Madison, Illinois.  I performed at a mass last weekend, on Saturday, and will perform next weekend as well.  The picture doesn’t do it justice—it’s ROUND.  I’ll try to get a picture next time… the people are very nice and appreciative of our music, which is always a treat.

So that was Saturday.  NO WEDDINGS.  WEIRD!

Sunday I woke up to about 2 inches of snow, and it was still coming down.  Not a blizzard or even much of anything by Cleveland standards, but pretty bad for St. Louis.   It was also really windy.  I decided I just couldn’t brave the storm to go to the Metro East concert that afternoon—I was disappointed, but I knew most everybody else involved lived very nearby and I would have had close to an hour commute…just too risky with the weather, and when I was not necessary.  I hope the students weren’t too disappointed I wasn’t there Smile  Next time, I promise!  I just hate driving in the snow here…the roads are SOOO slippery.  I miss Cleveland roads.

I DID brave the elements to get to the Masterworks Chorale concert but by then the roads were a bit better.  I was still terrified the entire time.

Monday:  One of my schools was canceled due to the weather.   (VERY VERY cold as well…5 degrees when I set out in the morning) Half-snow day!  Except our orchestra concert is tomorrow night—the students are ready, but I don’t know the details, and I had hoped to know by rehearsal…oh well!  I guess I will find out on a “need to know” basis?  I did enjoy the afternoon off, especially as I had (again) postponed my long run.  8 miles on the treadmill this afternoon was very boring.

I then taught three private students.  They were all great fun!  I can feel the week ticking by towards vacation…sorely needed vacation…

Wish the Good Shepherd Orchestra luck on our performance tomorrow night!  We are playing Good King Wenceslas, O Come All Ye Faithful, and We Three Kings.

HBBC:  Sunday:  90 cardio/strength workout: 6 points, 7 f/v: 1 point, Monday:  8 mile run: 8 points, 7 f/v: 1 points, total for both days: 16 points

Christmas, Running, Teaching

Christmas ornaments

Let me tell you a little about some of the ornaments on my Christmas tree.  I have been collecting ornaments for a long time!

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This was a gift from my very first violin teacher!  I saved this for a long time until I had my own tree Smile

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This one was a gift from my very first violin student (I was in high school!)  She decorated it herself.  I love it!

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A gift from my “host mother” when I was at the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado for two summers.

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Got this in the Cayman Islands on my FIRST trip there.  I was fortunate enough to spend almost a week on Grand Cayman and just had to play a few orchestra rehearsals and a concert.  Wish I could have done that again! But I did return to the Caymans at least.

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I got this one in Mazatlan, Mexico on my second cruise (with my sister Leslie and good friend Sarah).  Yes, it’s an adorable cow.

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A gift from my sister Leslie.  Unfortunately it sustained some damage when the tree fell over last year.  I’m happy to report that so far this year the tree has remained standing!

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Another gift from my sister Leslie!  It’s a sock monkey. 

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Got this cutie at World Market this year.  Or at least I think it’s cute!

I’ll do another round of ornaments soon—there are several violin ornaments from my mother along with some other sentimental type. 

I am QUITE nervous about tomorrow afternoon’s concert at Metro East Lutheran School.  It’s a joint concert with students from a variety of Lutheran schools in the area, and I wasn’t able to attend the rehearsal today to see how my students did and meet the other teachers (due to my other gigs…I had thought the rehearsal was in the morning), so that means that tomorrow I will be doing that.  I always get nervous on behalf of my students (especially because technically they could have used more time on this music, even though they did work really hard!) plus I get nervous meeting new people.  Basically I’m afraid that my students are ill-prepared and it’s my fault…you know, the usual Winking smile  (Wow, I sound like a basket case describing myself!)  I didn’t hear any bad news from parents though so I’m hoping that means today went just fine.  Nonetheless I’ll feel better when it’s over.

Woke up this morning at 8:15 and it was pouring rain.  Figured if I was going to do a treadmill run, I’d do it on Sunday, the normal day.  So I hope it doesn’t snow too much overnight to get to the gym!!  There is a treadmill with my name on it wanting 8 miles…

HBBC:  20 minutes weight-lifting: 1 point, 20 minutes stretching: 1 point, total: 2 points.

Random thoughts, Teaching

Quick recap of week

I’ve been so busy these past few days I’ve just been doing the reverb10 posts.  So what have I been doing?

Well, less working out that in the past, but that’s okay.  I’m still on track, and the holidays are just tough.  I ended up having two days off this week plus I’ve been dealing with leg soreness from Mike-related exercises.

I have done most of my Christmas shopping!  I’ve gotten people some really awesome gifts and I hope they all love them (or at least find them useful.)  I probably spent too much, but it’s fine Smile I just hope my family and Chris are happy with their gifts!

I got a few new decorations for the tree.  I’m really pleased with the tree this year, it just looks really beautiful.  Yesterday one of my students came in, looked at the tree and the presents underneath (I wrap my gifts and set them out), and asked “are any of those for me?”  I had to laugh—I absolutely remember that feeling—you would see gifts and hope (and hope) that one was for you…but I don’t recall ASKING!  Sometimes you would be disappointed, but sometimes you would get that surprise gift you weren’t expecting.  Isn’t it great being a kid??

I had a morning off on Wednesday where my stomach was really acting up.  I think the stress was getting to me a bit…or I had a bit of bug/food poisoning.  Who knows.  I managed to make it through the rest of the week.

I realized I messed up a bit for the weekend—I forgot to forward a memo to my students who are performing on the Metro East Lutheran joint school concert on Sunday.  I guess it’s really impossible to do everything!  I made a list on Wednesday of all the things I needed to do until December 19 (vacation) and have kept up pretty well since then…but it’s hard to keep up with the things you forget to do OR forget to put on the list.  I’m making cookies for my class students this week for mini-parties and we have three performances ahead of us—hopefully they will go smoothly, or at least, well enough!  In the past few months I’ve worked my butt off on these new school jobs and I don’t always feel I get enough back from them to make it worthwhile.  But as always, the kids are wonderful Smile

Today was a workout with Mike and a rehearsal for a choir concert.  It was my first orchestral experience in a long time, and it was quite fun!  The workout was great too—the gym has been expanding and now has a large back room with a new line of treadmills.  The disturbing part of the workout was where a creepy guy from the gym was evidently staring at me while I was doing squats.  Mike was pretty pissed—he had us move to another part of the gym (He didn’t say anything to the guy, but I think he wanted to?  I don’t really know, I kind of missed the whole thing.)  I guess that’s the problem when you lose weight and look awesome when you work out—gross balding creeping guys might stare at you.  Then again, seriously gross balding creeping guys, we women need to work out too.  If that happens again, be sure that me or one of the trainers will report you to gym management for creepy staring!

I haven’t been nearly as flexible as during my Bikram Yoga weeks…maybe I’ll need to attend another class.  I will, I think…plus, it is very warm in the class, and it’s cold outside, good reason, right?

Wish me luck tomorrow—I am planning to do my long run in the morning because Sunday is supposed to be really cold and tomorrow isn’t quite as cold.  I would prefer not to run 8 miles on the treadmill…then again, it might rain tomorrow.  So that’s why I need luck.

Chris and I went to Dressel’s for dinner.  It was wonderful!!  We split the chips with rarebit and I had pasta with a mushroom sauce.  I also had the green goddess salad because I felt guilty about not having enough veggies with my dinner—I love green goddess dressing.  (Is that a St. Louis thing?)

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this somewhat random post!  I have a busy weekend ahead of me, but I’m looking forward to some good times and great performances!

Christmas, Random thoughts, Teaching

Another performance done!

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Tonight at Good Shepherd Lutheran School we had the Christmas concert for K-2.  I have three students in that age group, but only 2 elected to perform, both in 2nd grade.

They met me in the practice room where we usually have lessons to get tuned, run through their pieces, and then I asked them to pack up so I could take their violins up to the sanctuary where the concert was being held.  They returned to meet their class.

I got up to the front of the church and unpacked the violins to get set up… and realized one of the girls no longer had her bow.  She also hadn’t zipped up her case, merely velcro-ed it…which I didn’t notice until I got to the church.  (I guess she was nervous, because she certainly wasn’t thinking clearly!).  I went back downstairs but couldn’t find her bow.  I had her play using the other girl’s bow.  I asked her what happened to her bow, and she said, “oh, it’s on the second piano.” (which is an organ that needs to be plugged in, though the practice room has no plugs.  don’t ask).  Okay…why? Why is it on the organ when I asked her to pack up?  Ugh.

Anyway, the girls played very well, and afterwards I found her bow right where she said it was.  Wow.  That story is very confusing, huh?  I am too tired to fix it, but I really wanted to tell it Smile

Suffice it to say, I was proud of their performances!

In other news:

I bought a beautiful tree skirt today for the Christmas tree!  Last year I didn’t have a skirt for the tree, and the year before was just a cheap-o one that looked pretty raunchy by the end.  I was perusing Christmas decorations at Target and I saw one I really liked, so I bought it.  I’ll put up a picture later, it’s too dark now to get a good one.  I also bought a few new ornaments for the tree (it’s nice to get a few new ones each year).

I’ve done a bit of online shopping for gifts over the past week or two—and packages have been arriving at the house!  I did Christmas cards tonight (at least phase one) but tomorrow I hope to do some wrapping and really make the tree look nice.  I may need to buy more Christmas cards—I got some nice ones, but I thought I had some left from last year and it turns out I did not.  Exchanging Christmas cards seems very old-fashioned in today’s “digital age” but I really enjoy the tradition.  I think it’s important to keep that going.

Alright, I’m going to post-date publish this entry and go to bed.  Happy Wednesday, readers!  (I have been rereading the Harry Potter series and am working my way through Goblet of Fire right now.)

HBBC:  dec 7: 7 servings f/v:  1 point, 1 hour workout with Mike: 4 points, 1 mile walk: 1 point, total: 6 points

dec 8:  7 servings f/v: 1 point, 3 mile run : 3 points, total : 4 points