Random thoughts

Nearly Summer

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Can you believe it’s May already? What does May mean to you? For me May is the last month of school (this matters when you teach school children, even though I’m self employed and aren’t tied to a school schedule exactly) so that means recitals, missed lessons, lots of rescheduling…and USUALLY hot weather.

Not today though. I went for a run this morning wearing shorts and a long sleeve shirt! It was around 60 degrees, which is honestly beautiful weather for running—but strange for May. At least in my recollection. Then again, maybe it’s perfectly normal. In any case, it was a nice day for a run, and I’m glad I got it in before any rain.

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So, the weekend was a busy one—I actually had some rehearsals and a performance, plus a cocktail hour. It was a lot of driving to Illinois and around, but I suppose there’ s a good sense of accomplishment Winking smile Honestly, it’s nice to play with people rather than simply being at home practicing and teaching, so I’m always really glad to have work!

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The storms on Saturday were pretty amazing—there was a complete double rainbow. My view from the car wasn’t as nice…but it was still pretty gorgeous. Unfortunately this view meant we were driving directly into the storm!

Let’s see: just a bunch of random stuff. Saturday night Louie and I ate dinner at Sapporo 2  and then went to the second show at Jazz at the Bistro to see a saxophone player named Melissa Aldana. Dinner was really good—we split a few things including Bibimbap with Sashimi, which was unique and delicious. The show was good—the crowd was pretty chill and quiet (I was exhausted so maybe everybody else was too) but Melissa played well. She looked a bit like April from Parks and Rec and had a unique weirdness about her, but it only added to the charm and the fun of the show. I’d definitely see her play again!

Other happenings mostly include hanging out with and taking care of these ridiculous pets.

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The next two weeks are pretty busy, and then it’s a week of family and hiking in Phoenix, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon. I can’t believe I’m really looking forward to camping, but I am. We are staying with my sister for a few days, camping for a few days (reread this blog post to see what I daydream about some days), another few days with Leslie (and my NIECE) and then home. This coming weekend Louie and I are planning a big hike in order to “train”.

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I’m one of those people who loves planning. I love grand, elaborate plans, excitement, and breaks from routine. It’s part of why the freelance life appeals to me—every day can be different! But teaching can be much the same: every Monday might be the same. So it can get me down a little bit, and I think the past few months have been a bit of slog for me. Nothing against ANY of my students, but it’s more when you put it all together. I think I’ve been doing a bit more complaining here than I should, and I need to embrace things as they are, and I do indeed realize how lucky I am Smile . 

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(Lucky that is, if you like the smell of cat urine and enjoy giving twice-daily insulin shots to a cat Winking smile)

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And with that, I’m off. Things to do before I start teaching, as always! Looking forward to a good week.

Practicing

My Violin Practice

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Before I start, in case you were worried, Mackenzie (my dog) is doing much better! She came home Monday evening and was still a bit swollen in the face, but by last night most of that swelling was down.

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Onto the topic of this post, which occurred to me AS I was practicing.

There are always articles being written on practicing. How to practice, how best to practice, practice mistakes to avoid, how not to practice, and more. We are told to practice with a purpose, to have a plan, to have accomplishments and objectives. I posted an article on facebook just yesterday about how to “optimize your practicing.”

Lately, however, I’ve just been making violin practice a thing that I do during the day before I teach. I pull out music I’m trying to learn, music I’d like to learn, etudes to sight-read, music I’m teaching, and I just start practicing.  Sometimes I’ll play a piece I hear on the radio, sometimes I’ll spend a hour on scales. I just do what I feel like and make sure that if there’s a piece I definitely need to work on, that I get to that one enough.

I have made decisions over the past few years to include practice time into my daily schedule. I don’t practice every day, and I take weeks off over vacations, but I no longer overschedule myself with work to the point where weeks go by without proper practice. Once you know how it feels to be playing well, you don’t want to lose it, and in fact, you want to continue to improve.

I’ve been thinking practicing quite a bit. Many of my students don’t practice often enough. And the fact of it is this: it’s generally not that they practice inefficiently, or wrong, or badly. It’s that they simply do not practice regularly. A student who practices regularly will be better than one that does not.

And that’s the attitude I started taking to my own practice in the last year or two. Oh, and did you see what I called it? My own practice. I read a friend’s Facebook status once referring to “his violin practice” and I thought of it just like people refer to their yoga practice. It’s not about goals or accomplishments. It’s about the process. The process of getting out the violin, tuning, and then beginning to play. And doing so regularly.

Here’s my general advice: if you are struggling to get into a practice routine, don’t worry about doing it right or wrong. Simply do it. Start. There is no wrong way to practice, except NOT to practice at all.

Sure, starting at the beginning of your piece and playing through to the end, up to speed, totally ignoring mistakes…might not be the most efficient use of your time. Unless you have the issues of making mistakes and stopping all the time. For every list I read of how not to practice, I can often think of a reason to ask a student to practice that way! (I’m a contrarian, and I detest people giving expert advice which is actually just advice from their personal experience.) So go, get your violin out, and practice.

Or whatever it is. If you want to create a habit: running, eating healthy, being kind to strangers, don’t worry about the best way. Just start doing it regularly. The rest will fall into place.

Hiking

It’s a beautiful day

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Mackenzie started having a severe allergic reaction to something this morning so I had to make an emergency trip to the vet. She’s there now and got a variety of shots and is on an IV for fluids (her temp was quite high). They are keeping her for observation since it was pretty bad and evidently she was starting to have trouble breathing. I’m hoping she’ll be able to come home by evening. What caused it is anybody’s guess—is it related to her normal allergy issues or did she get a bug bite or something?

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We did go into the woods over the weekend. We did a long hike at Greensfelder Park. My phone said it was 9.55 miles, Louie’s said around 7.5, the trail said less than both of those. Who knows. My phone ALWAYS shows a longer distance than Louie, though usually his says he has more steps. This is a great mystery—I often have my phone in a bag and he often has his in his pocket so we’re guessing that’s the reason for the disparity but it doesn’t make that much sense.

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The trees are pretty.

We ended up skipping the Farmer’s Market in the morning in order to go hiking instead. We want to really be in shape (well, the best you can going hiking once a week, ha) for our upcoming Grand Canyon trip.

Saturday night we went to the symphony. Karen Gomyo played the Sibelius Violin Concerto and it was breathtaking. Her sound, intensity, and clarity were amazing! It was one of my favorite performances in some time.

Sunday I got to see a student play with her orchestra at the Community Music School, which was really fun, actually!

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And then Louie and I went crazy at REI and ended up each buying a pair of hiking shoes. So we both own good hiking boots AND good hiking shoes. I think this gear thing is starting to get out of hand, but it makes sense to have both, we think.

So now it’s Monday and things are a bit thrown off due to the vet run, but I’m trying to have my normal routine: email, practice, blog. I’m listening to some of the pieces we are learning for the Perseid Quartet for fall concerts and having a lovely time. The weather is beautiful, not too hot, sunny, and I’m just hoping Mackenzie is doing okay.

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These guys keep me busy! And yeah, it’s been a hard year with the animals. Losing Oistrakh in January, dealing with all of Chloe’s issues, and Mackenzie’s allergies (which seem less serious but still undiagnosed and causing problems.) It’s been a theme for this year.

Teaching

And another week bites the dust

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These weeks. They fly by.

It’s so easy to get angry about things you see, and so easy to expend energy being angry. And maybe being angry is worth it, but mostly just living my life and doing my best and staying out of it makes me calmer and happier. (I’m referring to both politically and a professional situation.)

I remind myself this is why I’m happy teaching at home. I teach the way I want to, and don’t need to let anybody else tell me how or what to teach. It’s freeing, and I love that aspect of it. I also get to charge what I want (within reason, of course) and don’t have to give anybody any of my pay (except taxes, of course). It’s pretty great! And now I can also have good health insurance, and go to the doctor when I need to and get things covered by this health insurance. I’ve never been healthier or happier, or had more money in the bank.

And that’s why I have to just keep plugging away. I can’t worry about other stuff. I can’t worry about what people think. This is my life. I love playing the violin, I like teaching (I don’t love it, it’s not my favorite thing, but I like it a lot!), I love traveling and taking pictures and reading, I like getting out and hiking, I love food, I love music, I love doing races and events with friends.

Anyway. Now that I have that off my chest! I am SO glad I did the Festival for my students. I got a wonderful note from one of the moms that just made me smile, and I am looking forward to even more students playing next year! We have a recital coming up that I’m trying to get organized—it’ll be right before Louie and go to Arizona for a week—so there’s a fair amount of organization required. (And packing lists! What to bring to visit Leslie, attend a symphony concert, and hiking/camping?)

My thoughts are scattered.

On deck for this weekend: a Passover dinner (Seder?) tonight, Farmer’s Market and perhaps Yoga outside tomorrow, Symphony tomorrow night. Probably we want to get a hike in to prepare for our vacation in May. The weather is beautiful today and the weekend looks amazing. After this weekend I’ll have a few weekends with work so I want to take full advantage of this one!

Cat, Random thoughts

A lovely spring weekend

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So FINALLY the weekend rolled around and I was feeling better. Still mildly congested and sneezy here and there, but SO much better.

Friday night Louie and I went to what is possibly (at this time) our favorite Mexican restaurant, Lily’s. We had decided to postpone our now traditional Taco Thursday until Friday and met some friends for dinner. I had the shrimp diablo (camerones, which evidently I completely mispronounced while ordering and Louie thought it was very funny) and while the dish was spicy, it was good.

Saturday morning I had volunteer orientation/training at the Clowder House. This is the place with all the cats. Wow. It was totally overwhelming but amazing. There are cats EVERYWHERE in the building. Every possible place where a cat could be, there is a cat, possibly more than one. And it does smell like a lot of cats live there—mostly volunteering seemed to be cleaning up cat messes! I got a tour of the place, met a million cats (the director knew most of them by name, which I found very impressive) and then went to work on a few of the rooms. Litter boxes to scoop, blankets to shake out or replace with clean ones, water to refill, etc, etc. It was hard work but all the cats were adorable (well, mostly) and friendly. I saw a cat that really resembled the good doctor Oistrakh, and another cat who has to wear a cone because of a skin issue (not the same one as Chloe.) Mostly though, there were just cats everywhere. Did I mention that? The cats live there, and mostly seem to have a pretty good time.  I think I’ll be back!

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After lunch (fresh eggs from a wonderful student!) Louie and I went to the Highway 44 Conservation area with the two dogs to do some hiking. I didn’t take any pictures for some reason (it actually wasn’t that scenic, which is likely the reason) and we just meandered around. We realized after we set out that we didn’t have a map of the area, so we just kept making a few turns and did eventually end up back where we started. It was a pretty warm day for once! We had a really nice hike, maybe 3-4 miles, and the dogs particularly loved it. Afterwards we went home and did some stuff around the house—laundry and stuff like that. We decided to get dinner out and went to a Vietnamese place we’ve gone a few times called Kim Ngan. Might I recommend the crepes (hold the pork for this one) and we also had tofu with lemongrass which was pretty good.

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Sunday we met up with April to go the Thurteen Carnival at Washington University. We walked from her house which was a nice long walk (figured we’d burn up the funnel cake calories in advance.) The carnival was nice—lots of little rides, stands, snacks, etc. There were tons of families there. We decided to ride the Ferris Wheel, but they wouldn’t allow single riders, so we ended up doing it twice—once April and I went, and then after making the circle around the carnival and eating a funnel cake, Louie and I went on the Ferris Wheel. I was a little nervous at first but it was fun and a great view!

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The rest of the day we worked more on house stuff and then finished watching the first season of Better Call Saul. It was a wonderful weekend!

Now I’m getting ready for a nice week of teaching. I was feeling a little negative in a previous blog post, and feeling like maybe I was complaining too much about being a teacher. It isn’t exactly where I saw myself, but honestly, most days the time flies by and the students are just so much fun. Sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes it’s a big challenge, and sometimes I just don’t even know what to do, but other times the students get so excited to learn and achieve new things, and it’s just delightful. I’m trying to embrace my life as it is rather than stress over what could be, what might have been, and what SHOULD be, which is certainly the worst one! I have certificates and ribbons to give to a few students this week and I know they will be happy.

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I should try to blog more often than once a week! On the one hand I don’t feel like I have much to say, but I have so many fun pictures to share.

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We are still dog-sitting—the dogs are ridiculous and huge and adorable.

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I got my hair done. I love the color—the gray has been harder to cover than in the past so I decided to get it done properly.

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It’s hard to see exactly what’s going on here. That’s Chloe sitting on Louie’s lap but also sort of sitting on Mackenzie’s head. No concept of personal space, that one.

I’m finishing this up while reading blog posts about various National Parks in Utah and listening to three animals snore, at various volumes. Life is pretty good Smile

Running

Go St Louis Mississippi River 7K

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Quick recap! I’ve done the Go Half several times in the past, but this year I just hadn’t been getting in the long runs so I changed to the 7k, which was a new race.

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I woke up and felt horrible (coughing, bloody nose) and it was cold outside but I’m tough and all so I headed downtown anyway. I parked in the same lot I always park in for these races, which ended up being further away from the end that I would have preferred. The 7K started near Market and 14th just like the other races, but then the course goes across the Eads Bridge to Illinois, through East St Louis, back over the MLK Bridge, and then ends with a WONDERFUL downhill to Laclede’s Landing, after which you can hop on the Metrolink back to the Civic Center stop, included with your race bib. What I wasn’t sure of is if I’d get in trouble going to the next stop (closer to my car) since the materials implied that it would both be okay and not be okay, so I got off and walked quite a ways. Anyway. The race?

Did I mention it was cold? And rain was predicted. I met up with my friend April who was running the marathon relay with some friends of hers.

(We took a great picture, but it’s upside down. I’m totally sick of this—if the iPhone can take pictures any direction why can’t I move them to be right-side up on my blog? I swear, it’s things like this that drive me totally bonkers!).

The race started in waves—the marathon, marathon relay, half marathon, and 7k runners were all together. I thought this was more fun since I’m slow and ended up near people the whole time which I’m sure I wouldn’t have been as much otherwise! The race was FUN. The new course (well, new last year, I think) was great, at least the first 7K of it, and I felt pretty good throughout (other than the whole, having a cold thing).

The finish was the best—you saw it coming back across the bridge! And then you ran downhill all the way. The only hard part was that the last part of the course was a brick (cobblestone?) road and I felt I needed to do some easy stepping. And I got a medal anyway, and only had to run, well, approximately 1:04:38 for me, which is really slow, but whatever. (Seriously, I need to just run faster, but it’s hard when you can’t breathe through your nose, so I’m going to accept it this time. And I’m faster than anybody NOT running, unless they are a speed walker or something…Winking smile

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Car selfie, post race. Woo hoo! And then I went home and took loads of cough medicine and did very little the rest of the day. I’m not entirely sure that running in the cold and wet was the best idea, but I’m not sure it wasn’t! I would do this race again though—it was a fun and unique course, and well run.

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.