The big news: I am going with Louie’s family on a trip to Italy in May. I am so excited! We will be going to Rome for sure and the rest is TBD. I’m so thrilled to be going to Europe again and feel so lucky!

Until then, life is crazy as usual. Thursday my quartet played a concert at the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University. I had been really stressed out about it because we were playing about 7 pieces by student composers and they ranged from difficult to exceedingly difficult. We also played Shostakovich’s String Quartet no. 8 (again) after all of that. The concert ended up feeling like it went really well, and the crowd was appreciative.

As you can see it was a really neat space to play in, and we had a full house.

The less good thing happening is that our white cat, Chloe, has been diagnosed with diabetes. Poor kitty. She has to have twice daily insulin injections, which has been a challenge. I’m sure it will become part of the regular routine (wake up, get attacked by loads of overly hungry animals who were sure they were going to die, feed animals, give Chloe a shot?) but it’s been one more added stress. She doesn’t seem to mind the shots other than an initial discomfort, and I’m sure that she must be feeling better than ever with the medicine!

So I’ve been doing an instagram challenge, taking/posting one photo a day. I’d read that it makes people become better photographers, or that it will change your life. Well, I’ve definitely become a worse photographer, because sometimes I’m at the end of the day and realize, oh no, I didn’t take a picture yet! Plus the added stress…did I get a picture today? Does stealing one from somebody’s facebook count? I guess I’m learning something about myself (that I mostly like to take pictures of my food and cats) (or that I’m pretty boring) and it’s a good challenge. I imagine I’ll look back on the year and feel super accomplished.

I did finally recover from my cold (look at me, following up on things) though I have had low-grade congestion all week. I’m thinking that it is allergies at this point: I feel mostly good, except a little tired still, but that gets better each day. This weekend I was able to do a fair amount of relaxing and sleep in one day. I’ve got some really fun performances coming up and so much to do before Italy, but I’m walking around in disbelief (something awesome happening to me!) and with lists in my head—I have been trying to stay on top of things by using my to-do list on my phone a lot, plus I totally made a packing list for Italy. I want to fit everything in my smaller suitcase and not overpack for once in my life, but I also don’t want to miss anything. And generally I don’t mind overpacking—for instance, if I’m flying to a destination where I will be picked up from the airport in a car, and then spend the whole time somewhere, I’d actually rather have brought too many clothes than not enough. I’ve often been in Phoenix and regretted not bringing more clothes or shoes. But this is different because it’s international travel, it’s possibly five people squeezing into a car with five suitcases, and that means to pack as light as possible.

Did I mention Rome?

I was there in the summer of 2001 for a couple of days. It was on a tour of Italy with the Erie Youth Symphony (speaking of lucky and amazing things happening to me—I just got asked to go along to fill out the section!). I just found these photos online at Snapfish and wondered at first why my albums only had 24 pictures in them…haha! That was back when photos cost money to see. I’m lucky I have them online! I remember trying to figure out how many rolls of film to bring along. What a wonderful trip though. I wish I’d been a blogger then or kept a better journal so I could reminisce more…well, things have changed now! You know you’ll be hearing all about Italy after it happens!