I have so much to tell you guys! If you are still reading…I know my posting has been sporadic, but life has just been absolutely crazy, and is finally (famous last words…) settling down a bit. This has been a ridiculous summer. I’ve been waiting since June for things to settle down and they just haven’t. Part of that is me saying yes to possibly too many things, but honestly, it’s been a fun time, and I’ve worked a bunch and done so many interesting projects! In between all of that, I moved…again…which meant packing and packing, actually moving, and now unpacking and working on some house projects. It’s been a really fun summer, but I’m exhausted and looking forward to the next few weeks: just a bit of teaching, a week of vacation, and then back to regular teaching schedule WHICH after the weeks I’ve had will be a relief.

Note to everybody: moving is harder than it seems. Try to avoid scheduling as many things as possible during the time leading up to, during, and immediately thereafter a move. Unless those are awesome things like quartet concerts, recording sessions, opera, family visiting, etc, and then you just have to do it, and hopefully come out stronger on the other end. I learned that I can do it all, but that I can’t do it all as well as I’d like.

I can’t possibly fill you in on everything I’ve been up to since I last visited this space, so I’m just going to dive right in.

Last night my boyfriend Louie (yes, I have a boyfriend now, that I’m mentioning on this here blog, which is possibly big news for you all, and possibly you’d already picked up on that…) and I rode our bikes in the Moonlight Ramble. The Moonlight Ramble is a ride, not a race, so there’s no timing. It is evidently the oldest nighttime bike ride and this was the 51st time it was held. The ride started at midnight, with two options, a short (9 miles) and long (19 miles) course. We definitely wanted to do the long course, even though I was pretty nervous as that was longer than I’d ever biked before! An additional challenge for me was that the ride was right after my last performance with Union Avenue Opera (in the pit, of course!) playing “A Streetcar Named Desire” so I had to go directly from a three hour opera to a two hour bike ride. The advantage was that I didn’t have to wait up for the ride since I was working!

There we are getting ready to go. We ran into our friend Matthias as we were figuring out where to go (tried to post a picture with him but it was upside down and I can’t fix that for whatever reason) and then ended up waiting until around 12:30 to finally get going on the ride. It was a tough ride (for me at least!) with lots of rolling hills, but the weather was amazing—cool and clear—and the ride was well marked, busy enough throughout, and so much fun! I finished and felt really accomplished and proud of myself.

I miss blogging regularly, and I hope to be back to it. I feel like if I stop writing now, I’ll have more to say soon! That is, I have so much to say, and so much that I’ve been doing and plan to do, that it’s hard to sit down and write about it. But I love having this little space of me on the internet and I love sharing my life (to an extent) with you all, and I love keeping a journal, so here’s hoping I’m back to it!

Oh and: