As you’ve no doubt noticed (well, there’s a doubt) I haven’t found the time to blog lately! Or made the time…time is what you make of it, right? That’s why I’ve decided that each day will henceforth have 27 hours rather than 24 to fit more things in, including sleep.

But seriously, I haven’t blogged all December. So much has been going on! We had our last Perseid Quartet concert of the year, at the Danforth University Center on the campus of Washington University (Wash U, as we call it) and it was a great success—full house, plus talked to some great people and might have gotten another interesting opportunity from it. The next week I played a concert with my newly formed piano trio in Illinois. It was a cold night, but we had a few in attendance and had a nice time sharing our program. It was a little stressful as rehearsals had been harder to schedule than we’d hoped but we pulled it off.

Through it all you know how December can be for musicians, lots and lots of extra concerts. Remind me next year not to commit myself to any serious performances in December that require practice…for instance, tonight I’m playing a solo performance to benefit some of my students, but AH I’ve had to keep up on practicing while going crazy. At least I’m done for the semester at Wash U now, grades are submitted…oh, and I got another adjunct position, at Lindenwood University, so that’ll be another thing to add to my schedule. Louie joked that I’m taking all the jobs, singlehandedly, and there aren’t any left for anybody else, but the truth is, to make this whole freelance thing work financially you have to work a ton. I’m having a good time with it though, and I honestly feel like this has been the best year, career-wise, in a long time. And the other truth is that I have hectic crazy weeks but I have time, it’s there, it just needs organizing. And I love doing all this. I thrive on being overworked.

It’s been a terrible year otherwise, and I’ve also been grabbing as much work as possible to try to save money for fear of what is going to happen over the next few years. Luckily I am now going on Louie’s health insurance rather than staying with the marketplace because that’s just a mess. I don’t know how our insurance will be impacted if and when the idiots in government repeal the ACA (without replacing, because they are the party of “NO” without any ideas of their own) but I know whatever happens will be better through his employer than through the marketplace. I am angry and bitter that I have to, that I cannot make this work in this country without a partner. But he is a good partner at least and is somebody worth depending on

I think I’m going to try to get a quick nap in before the day gets away from me (I was up really early and didn’t get enough sleep due to a late rehearsal) and I need the energy to perform tonight. I’m playing Prokofiev’s Solo Sonata—I’ve performed the first movement several times over the past 15 years, but never all three movements! Wish me luck!