It’s too soon to be overly excited for Christmas, isn’t it? I’m hosting my family this year and I’ve been doing the planning…I am trying to figure out what to cook/bake and YES I know it’s quite awhile away, the time will really fly. I have never regretted planning ahead.

I thought I’d pop in a write something more fun and lighthearted than yesterday’s diatribe. I think as I’ve gotten older I’m more serious (or boring, as my niece Athena would say) and I end up not sounding very fun on the blog. Maybe, at some point, I stopped being fun?

I’m sure that’s not entirely true. It’s also possible that I was never that fun, and I just faked it better. I am perhaps a more genuine person now. I do work too much, but so do we all, or at least, the other people that are at work with me do (last night..at work… I had a conversation with a few others colleagues about how we all work too much…yet, we take great pride in it, and look down on musicians who think working a few hours a day is hard). I don’t know: you hear all these things about how one shouldn’t be too busy or pride oneself on being busy, and that’s all fine and good, but as I repeatedly say, somebody has to do the work, and a lot of this stuff doesn’t pay that great, and I would personally rather work a little more (it takes time, but rarely is this back-breaking work) and do a few more things I enjoy and not stress over bills.

Speaking of bills, I didn’t get my monthly paycheck from one of my college jobs. I usually get paid at the end of the month, and I went to look online to see why I hadn’t gotten a direct deposit notification from my bank, and lo and behold, nothing. Well it turns out somebody made a mistake, and then they asked, are you okay just waiting until the end of this month to get the back pay or should I ask for a special check for you? I realized, nah, I can wait. That’s a good feeling, and to me, money represents security. Working a lot means security, and it also means self-worth. When I work, I feel good about my skills as a musician and teacher, and that makes me feel good about myself overall. It may not be how you operate, but my identity as a musician is so wrapped up in my personal identity, and the two are hard to separate.

It’s not that I don’t have a bunch of other things that I do. In fact, I find that the more I work, the more I am drawn to do more things. I have a bunch of hobbies, nothing crazy like rock-climbing (apparently all the 20 to 30 year olds are into rock-climbing these days), but when I list the things out, there are a lot. I had to write something the other day and I listed reading, cross-stitch, running, hiking, going to concerts, and baking. I should add also taking on volunteer positions with music associations, writing music reviews, almost organizing my music, playing with a very needy cat, writing this blog, decluttering (not a hobby exactly, but an ongoing project when you and especially your boyfriend have hoarding tendencies), and of course, practicing violin. Since writing the other week about how I hadn’t been practicing, I’ve been doing a little better. Etudes are often my go-to when I don’t feel like doing anything else. I think my love of practicing etudes really helps my sightreading!

Anyway, I’ve got some things to do other than be at the computer, so I’d better go. I’ll just leave you with a few cat pictures! Oh, and we finished the Handmaid’s Tale. I felt that seasons two and three were a bit more…well, season three seemed improbable. I don’t want to spoil anything for you. It was good, but seemed like, okay why and how is June still alive? Glad we watched it though!