Today is my last day before vacation (for two weeks, mostly…one gig)!! I’m thrilled.

Christmas has snuck up on me this year. I think this year has been a tough one, as I’ve said, and honestly, I won’t be sorry to see it gone. Not that years matter because a calendar year is an artificial construct. But I’m ready to get away for a few days and hopefully get to relax a bit and then to come home and start up again fresh.

It’s never really fresh—the house needs a lot of work and is constantly a mess and it really starts to bother me. I can’t do enough about it though to get to where I want it to be. Sometimes I feel very helpless in life!

This time last year we were struggling with a large variety of pet health issues. Now we are single pet owners and while the medicine schedule is crazy sometimes, Mackenzie’s illness is well under control and it’s a wonderful thing. Her fur is thick and she has been shedding her normal, fairly obscene, amounts all over the house.

I haven’t done any baking this year. Really I haven’t baked much in awhile. Part of it is my current kitchen situation: it isn’t as conducive to wanting to bake! Another part is how busy I’ve been, and when I’m not working I’ve wanted to just read or sleep, or lie very very still. But yeah, the kitchen is in the basement, and it’s not my favorite place. I got ingredients for pumpkin bread and jam-filled butter cookies but never made them! The ingredients will keep though (maybe not the eggs, but otherwise) and maybe when I get back I’ll make a few things. I am planning a sour cream apple pie for Christmas dinner though

I feel like I’ve been posting when I’m overwhelmed and stressed and not enough other times. I’ve been thinking about goals for the new year and one is to write more. It helps me think through everything and helps me keep track of where I am.

So, did I tell you? We are going to California: to San Francisco, Berkeley, and the Sierra Nevadas (near Bear Valley). The good thing about Bear Valley is that it is winter so there shouldn’t be any bears. Though I remember learning from an old computer game that bears don’t hibernate, they actually just sleep, so they COULD get up and walk around in the winter.  (I tried to find what the name of the computer game was and couldn’t but then fell down the hole and am reminiscing about the game “Lemonade Stand” that we used to play a ton until we figured out how to beat it and then it wasn’t quite as fun. Does anybody know this trivia game? I recall we played until we memorized all the answers…)

I hope you have a great rest of the year. I’d say Happy Holidays but I hear that now we are required to wish everybody a Merry Christmas because it’s in the Bible and there is a War on Christmas (very evident as when I go to stores there is not sign of the holiday!).

Happy New Year too. Am I allowed to say that?

Last night didn’t turn out as planned. Louie and I were planning to go to the benefit concert after he finished at work. It was freezing raining a bit (freeze-raining, freezing rain?) and the traffic was bad…we got in the car and headed out and the roads were bad. After it took us 15 minutes to go one block, and then Louie had to brake to let a car back up, and we slid slowly for a long time and only by sheer luck and excellent, gutsy driving into the center lane did we avoid yet another $500 deductible on the car this year…we decided to give up and go home. Another few blocks, some sliding, and home safe.

I feel like St Louis wants to pretend the city doesn’t need to shut down due to inclement weather but doesn’t want to put in the street treating required. I know some people said the ice was a surprise but I had heard it as the forecast in the morning. Sigh. I sound grumpy, don’t I? It was an abrupt end to my year of performances, and while I’m not on vacation yet, I’m on a practicing vacation until after the holidays! I hope things don’t get too bad overnight because I have a wedding gig in the morning (I know, weird) and then a reception and then an evening concert, so it’s a full day of doing stuff…either way it’ll be really cold. Today I’m just at home—I had two parties to go to, and even got an amazing “ugly sweater” for the second one, but I am calling it, and staying in, in the warmth and safety. Our front steps iced over by 3 pm and as much as I love seeing friends (I swear I do) I don’t want to risk the auto damage.

So here we are. Blogging again.

Honest question: do you think I worry and/or stress out too much? Sometimes I feel like I’m very high-strung. Other times I feel it’s the nature of this profession, and yet other times I feel like I’m too laid back and need to be more organized and procrastinate less. Perhaps the fact that I’m asking this question gives me the answer.

I have to say: I’m really looking forward to vacation. But I’m also really looking forward to next semester. It should be slightly less intense than this fall was, but still lots of fun and challenging.

I’m thinking about this year in review. I suppose it’s time to really evaluate the good and the bad. It’s been quite a ride, and overall a really difficult year. But that’s life: it goes on, things are hard, you have moments of clarity and wonder.

Time to veg, watch some Man in the High Castle, and who knows what else. How is your weekend on this, the last weekend before Christmas?

I had a conference call this morning. For some of you that might be really normal, but it was definitely outside the norm for me. It’s for a committee I’m serving on for the American String Teachers Association, and I mostly listened—it was really interesting hearing from some “big name” teachers. Hopefully they won’t regret allowing me on the committee! I have been trying to get more involved lately in the  “community” of string teachers/private music teachers and this is part of it. I suppose I am also a somewhat experienced teacher and have things to offer as well, but I still feel like I know nothing (like Jon Snow) and that I have SO much to learn.

Then I practiced, taught a student at Wash U and now I’m about to teach a whole bunch of students here at home. If I reflect on it, I am really enjoying my college teaching and hope to have a few more students in the spring. I still love my home teaching, but it’s been pretty nice to get out of the house more often (it pains me to say that) and it’s nice to have to wear shoes. Though it’s also nice NOT to have to wear shoes, so I think it’s the variety that interests me.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not giving anything enough of my time, but I suspect most people feel like that, and so I’m in good company. I’m trying to focus on not getting stressed out and just staying focused and making sure I know what day it is. (Just kidding. Well, sort of. At work this morning I did have a moment of worrying I had shown up a day early.)

The thing is, I really enjoy most of the work that I do. It just has been causing me a lot of stress, for whatever reason. I feel like performing has been extra stressful lately, maybe because I feel like I’ve been holding myself to really high standards. Which sounds ridiculous, but the farther I get from making a living playing music (I’d have to run the numbers, but it’s definitely closer to 1/4 than 1/2 or more that it’s been in the past) the more I feel I’m playing violin better than ever. It either feels like a big irony of life, or that I should be taking auditions. To be honest, the more I talk to people with orchestra jobs, I’m glad I’m not taking auditions. Often they are just complaining or acting like they are loads better than everybody else (sorry guys, that’s how you are coming across to a lot of us freelancers) and it doesn’t make me wistful. I am wistful for more money, but I think that that is a normal human thing

Probably I sound jealous, but I’m not. I’m happy with how things are going, and I’m looking forward to knowing that the future isn’t going to be as planned, and that’s okay! Whenever I start to feel stuck, life has a way of throwing new opportunities at me. Or I run after them. Is that enough ridiculous metaphors/vagueness for you? I’m not even talking about anything, I’m really ONLY being metaphorically vague.

Please keep reading

As one does with holidays, I was thinking about Thanksgivings in the past…lately I haven’t been overly sentimental. Life goes forward, and while looking back to make sure one is growing and on the right path is good, looking back with rose colored glasses might be detrimental.

Can I take a few minutes here to complain about the term Friendsgiving? And no offense meant to a certain friend who invited me to one the term annoys me though! The holiday is Thanksgiving, not Familysgiving…therefore it stays Thanksgiving no matter what. If you celebrate it with a bunch of strangers, if you celebrate with family, if you celebrate it with friends (or a mix) it’s still the same. The whole idea is that you get together, enjoy a big meal and feel grateful that you are able to do that. We could get into the politics of Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, but I think it’s fairly easy to agree that we as a country treated Native Americans really badly and continue to…but what can we do about that? I don’t ask that rhetorically either. (Then again it’s also fairly easy to agree that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, race, nationality, sexual preference…but yet here we are, fighting so hard for that. I think that MOST people do agree, and those that don’t are either really loud or really soft…and I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving with them, and I’m frankly glad about that.)

Rant over

Last day of teaching until next Monday! My flight to Phoenix tomorrow is REALLY early, which is one of those “seems like a good idea at the time” things…it will be good because we get to attend a luncheon at my niece’s preschool upon arrival, and then the whole day can be dedicated to making Martha’s Mac and Cheese and pies and such. And then several days of relaxing and enjoying the warmer weather (it has been chilly here for a few days and I just can’t take it anymore!).

Time to finish getting ready, practice, teach, and pack. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!