July is looking to be a super lazy month for me.  Today I spent two hours at the gym, and then the rest of the day at home.  I did SOME housekeeping, but primarily I have spent the past few hours researching for my upcoming (August) cruise to the “exotic western caribbean.”  I was just refreshing my memory on all the activities I originally wanted to do this summer, and so far have fallen painfully short.  Nonetheless it has been a nice summer so far, even though I will end up doing only two more trips.  One is the cruise and the other a family vacation in South Carolina (my home state).

I am making plans with another couple for a Cardinals game and still want to hit the science center and zoo, but the other things on my list might not be happening.  Several of them were June only events and I just ended up being too busy!  July is quickly becoming my lazy month, plus there are a couple of interesting movies (Eclipse and Inception) that I really want to see in the theater.  I have a lot of running and workouts ahead of me, and also want to try some yoga.  I have a coupon for a week of bikram yoga that I should use this month and another coupon (one is a Groupon, one is from Living Social) for five sessions of yoga from another place.  Yoga and violin seem to go really well together, from what people say and what I’ve read.  Perhaps I should consider practicing the violin as well.

My pottery “journey” is finished for now.  I ended up with a couple of nice, almost round bowls!  I don’t know what to do with all my stuff–I have 20 or so containers of various sizes.  I don’t really feel most of them are nice enough to give away, and the ones that are nice enough I want to keep for myself!

It looks like I will be teaching violin classes at two new schools in the fall.  I’m taking over from a colleague who seems to have done an excellent job and is super organized!  They are both private Lutheran schools, one in St. Peters and one in Collinsville.  I look forward to a new challenge, and I know that I will need to do a bit of preparation to be ready.  I am not as experienced in class settings as I am in private lessons, but I am always improving.  I also have been reading quite a bit about classroom management and various learning styles and all that good child education stuff that I didn’t get as a performance major.  It seems that each year of my adult life I take on a new challenge in my career, and this year is no exception.

I’d love to hear from any readers with advice on Violin class teaching or any advice on cruising!  This is my third cruise so I have the basics down, but any port advice or thoughts would be more than welcome.