Nearly Thanksgiving Break

You guys! It’s Tuesday, and I am nearly on vacation for three days. It will be glorious.

Well, it will be busy. I have some work to do around the house, getting some areas organized. This is a constant battle, mostly because when I moved into this house it could have been on hoarders…I say that will all due respect to Louie…and then I brought my stuff too. And both of us like to have our things, and Louie is one of those never throw something away because it might be useful people, and I enjoy saving paper things…and we both have a lot of books. I do try to cull and give things away, but the reality is: I can only give away my things and I can’t decide what of his things to give away, and this can cause issues, because there are areas of the house that are his things. I’m not trying to air our dirty laundry on the blog, but just to say: you can’t Kon Mari somebody else’s stuff. And when that person works full time and goes to grad school, time is a premium.

But I’m hopeful to get a few more things gotten rid of over the break. I have a list and a plan of attack. I’m also hoping to do some holiday baking (cookies and breads), get some good exercise and get outside, watch a few tv programs, and finish at least one of my cross stitch projects. Oh, and decorate for Christmas! This is likely too much to fit into three days, but I’ll try. Three days, you ask? Why, don’t you have 3 days, plus the weekend? HAHAHA you must be new here. I don’t have weekends off, I’m a musician! I work again starting Saturday noon, and then until Christmas. Not constantly, of course, as college is winding down and therefore I have much more time during some days than before. Oh, I love the holidays though…I love baking, and I love having a fat bank account from all the gigs. And I got all new wrapping paper this year: I’d forgotten until recently that some of my old wrapping paper got wet in the sewer backup in the spring and it was for the best—that stuff was too thin anyway. I splurged and got some thicker paper.

Last weekend was a lot of fun. I played two shows for Mannheim Steamroller on Saturday, really getting into the Christmas spirit. It’s a little early still, even though everybody is going crazy and decorating—for me the Christmas season officially starts after Thanksgiving and not before, though if I have to play some music before, fine. I just feel like if the festivities start taking up too much of the year, then it isn’t special enough when it does get here. This is not to say I haven’t spent the past few months planning for Christmas: planning and actually decorating/celebrating are entirely different.

Sunday Louie and I got up early to run the Hot Chocolate 5k in Forest Park. It was fun, but I was disappointed in my time. I will just have to keep at it and get faster! (I have been running more regularly only since May of this year, and one goal for next year is to keep at it.) I was annoyed by the crowds of walkers and those who enjoy walking in horizontal lines 3 or 4 across…even as we approached the finish line and the road was narrower!

After the race I didn’t have too much time to relax as then it was Studio Recital time. I had 18 students play on this one and it was a great success. I suppose I might try to hire a pianist for the next one, as some of the parents ask about that. Others are perfectly happy to have less to worry about, which is why I don’t bother! I play a lot of duets with them in the lessons, but for the recitals, with a few exceptions, I tend to let the kids stand alone. They were mostly Suzuki book 1 to 3 level, with a few in 4 and 5 (and a few O’Connor tunes) in case you are a teacher reading this. Oh, and I have one viola student, who played a book 5 level piece as well. I do have a few more advanced students, but I didn’t get any of my high schoolers on this recital…they are just too busy, and I don’t require recital attendance though I strongly recommend it.

And then yesterday I was at my one college all day, and had a string ensemble concert at night. I coach the string ensemble class there, and this semester has been challenging. They managed to pull off a decent performance, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for the semester. It’s a small class, and when one student doesn’t pull their weight it brings everybody down, and we had some attendance issues. But nonetheless I was pleased, and they did something hard! To me this is the essence of performing when younger, to push yourself to do something hard that you might be dreading…it makes you so much stronger! As I get older the more I realize that such struggles as a younger person are so important…it’s a balance between pushing them to challenge themselves and setting them up for failure though. Oh and sometimes they enjoy performing and realize it can be fun, or they love the accolades after, and those are the ones that really get into music.