Deep Thoughts

Why I Blog

3 Comments

This isn’t going to be a long post, because I’m exhausted! It’s not an ongoing exhaustion, just that I took Louie to the airport very early this morning and then had a normal day afterwards.

Sometimes I question if I want to continue blogging. I’m not terribly regular, though I’d like to be, and then I worry I overshare, no one cares, I look like a narcissist, and more. Maybe everybody is out there laughing at me. (Maybe everybody is out there having fun without me.)

But blogging is enjoyable for me.  I enjoy sharing, I enjoy the community I gain from being online, and I enjoy looking back and seeing what I’ve written over the years. If that’s narcissism, so be it Smile

I don’t always want to sit down at the computer and write something about my life. Sometimes the thoughts I have are negative and I feel I should keep them to myself. Other times I have too many thoughts. Sometimes I have a lot of other things to do at the computer and I do those things instead. (I always have a lot of things to do at the computer, but I don’t always do them!).

It’s easy to become negative, to worry that nobody cares, that nobody values you or your time. Especially in my freelance career, it’s very easy to become negative! This month has been especially hard, because I see all my friends and colleagues (yes, ALL OF THEM, ha!) on facebook being overly busy and complaining of all the performances they are doing, and here I am, having less gigs than normal and struggling to get my students to show up for their lessons, and feeling like the end of the year is a real financial struggle…and it’s easy to feel rejected and overlooked. But the truth is, maybe it’s a light year for work. Maybe I need to network more (lunch/coffee anyone?) or put myself out there more. Maybe people think I’m overly busy and didn’t ask me to do stuff for that reason. My brain starts to tell me, oh, it’s because I’m not from here that nobody is calling, or because my ex is in the symphony so I’m quasi-black-listed, or because they read my blog and think I’m a little bit crazy…and who knows. Maybe some of those things are true, but I can’t change it! And frankly, probably the only true things are that I have to keep putting myself out there, and I need to not panic and know that October and November were great months and I’m doing just fine.

Sigh. This fall has been particularly challenging because of all the pet issues. I’m living in a house with THREE elderly pets, all of whom are now on medications, some more challenging than others, and I worry about the furry guys. So there’s lots of stress: pets, money, climate change (seriously, where’s the cold weather?), and there’s quite a bit of jealously and comparing my inside to everybody’s outside (ALWAYS a bad idea) and there you have it. That’s why I blog. Because it’s a journal, sure, but a journal that I share, about my thoughts, and I always feel better afterwards, AND I hope that other people reading it feel better too. I want to share in the hopes that other people feel like I do, or understand me, or have something in common. Because sometimes I feel so darned isolated, especially working from home, not having colleagues, and when twitter is messing with me and putting my timeline all out of order (this doesn’t sound like a real problem, but it’s been going on for over a week and I just want to see all the tweets in reverse order IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?)…and blogging makes me feel like there’s  a chance I’m not so unique, that my feelings are like other people’s. So tell me. How are you doing this holiday season?

Hiking, Running

Snowball Series Race and Rockwoods Reservation

2 Comments

After so much travel/busy weekends it was great to have a weekend that wasn’t too crazy! However, we ended up filling our time with activities and I missed my regular Sunday night blog time (I’m sure you missed me!).

To give myself a good reason to keep running through the winter, and to push myself, I signed up for the Snowball Series. The first race was Saturday morning at Queeny Park, a 3 mile race. It didn’t start until 9 am (this is early for real life, but late for a race) so I didn’t have to wake up until 7 am. I got there around 8:15 and had to pick up my race number and shirt…my number wasn’t there. After talking with the race director and searching my email to prove I’d registered, a woman came up and handed him…my race number. Evidently she had picked up for a group the day before and somebody had mistakenly given them mine as well. Problem solved! Since it was cold, I went back to my car until it was nearly race time.

IMG_3903

The race wasn’t chip timed—it just started in the parking lot and headed down a hill. I hadn’t checked the course ahead of time, but soon realized we basically ran down a steep hill, around a bit, back up the hill…and then did that again, to make  3 miles. On the one hand, I live at the top of a steep hill so I’m used to this, but on the other hand, I still hate running hills. My goal for the race was to the run the whole time, and I did that, with the exception of the water stop. I didn’t really need water since it was cold, but I thought, in all honesty, that’s not a good reason not to drink water, so I made a short walk break just to drink a little bit and then ran again.

I finished in 37:34, just in time to get to the snack tent to see people taking the last of the cliff bars and doughnuts, but not in time to actually get one myself. Race directors, even the slow runners deserve food, and parents, don’t let your kids have the snacks that are for the runners unless you are sure that all the runners have had a chance.

After the race I went home and had second breakfast (oatmeal, better than doughnuts anyway!) and then Louie, Mackenzie (the dog) and I headed out to Rockwoods Reservation for some hiking. It was a little chilly but sunny which made it the perfect day for hiking!

From my book 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles the author recommended the Lime Kiln Trail so we decided that was our best bet. One thing that the book said was that dogs aren’t allowed at Rockwoods Reservation but a little internet research told us that policy had changed a few years ago so now they are.

It’s hard to write about hiking. Well, honestly, it’s hard to write anyway, but hiking can be especially boring. We went up and then around and finally back down. There were leaves and trees and rocks and more leaves and trees. Mackenzie had a great time smelling everything and Louie and I had a great time being in nature and getting fresh air.

There was a llama and alpaca farm near the trailhead. What strange and fascinating creatures!

IMG_3914

The hike was a good one and we’ll go back to the area to try out some other hikes as well.

IMG_3917

Louie took a picture of me at this creek crossing but he hasn’t shared it yet (clears throat loudly).

So that was Saturday. Other notable weekend activities include some light Christmas decorating and going to a Korean Restaurant called Joo Joo.

IMG_3928IMG_3929

We are in the home stretch now. Only two more full weeks of teaching until Christmas break (I’m taking two weeks off). It’s a busy time, as times are, but the holidays are approaching…

IMG_3930

IMG_3897

And on that note: off to work I go. Practice, teach, rehearsal, sleep, rinse, repeat Smile

Random thoughts

Giving Tuesday

Leave a comment

So today is Giving Tuesday. Which I think is a pretty silly name…just as ridiculous as Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. First off, small businesses should have Black Friday too—it’s like saying Friendsgiving to mean Thanksgiving with friends…Thanksgiving should already be about friends! And Black Friday can be a shopping day for all kinds of stores…and then Cyber Monday? I think there were probably a few years when people had better internet connections at work than at home and that’s why they shopped on Monday? Or alternately (my pet theory) nobody actually works at work—they just pretend they do in order to cover all their internet time? But really. So that brings us, logically and clearly, to Giving Tuesday. I think giving to charities and nonprofits is great, and we should do that, throughout the year, at the end of the year, really whenever you have “extra” money. But that money you are wasting on buying gifts for friends and family members who don’t need anything…that could ALSO be given to nonprofits. People are constantly complaining about how much junk they have, how much simpler they want their lives to be…are these the same or different people who run out to the stores on Black Friday to get great deals on a bunch of junk nobody needs?

TL: DR version: Holidays are stupid. Give money to nonprofits.

So the week is going well. I put “write a blog post” in my calendar for this time so I thought I’d just sit down and do that. I told you guys in my last post that I was experimenting with scheduling tasks that I do, and this is day 2 of that. So I made a few different colors of calendars in Google Calendar (my organizer of choice) and added things like “Important Paperwork”, “Cleaning”, “Practice Violin”, “Run/Shower” and “Write a Blog Post.” I thought maybe I’ll be able to get a handle on where my time goes better this way too, and be more productive, and as a result (hopefully) have more meaningful downtime, where I’m not fretting over what I should be doing, because I either already did that, or it’s on the calendar. Between that and a very detailed “to-do list” on my phone, this is the time for organization. I could have waited until January, but there’s no time like the present, is there?  I figure better to start right away and by the new year I’ll have more of an idea how much time I really need to schedule for things and I’ll just be a supreme organizational machine!

The more students I have the more work it takes to keep everything running, and while if you’d asked me 10 years ago if I’d want to be a full-time violin teacher I’d have said no, it looks more and more like that’s where I’m ending up. The money in teaching is better and more regular than freelancing, especially here in St Louis, and while I enjoy playing gigs and weddings and will always continue to do so, I am happy to have the bulk of my income from teaching. I also love performing, and will always do that as well. Of course, that makes it sound like I have several full-time jobs, but as I’m really considering myself a full-time violin teacher, it’s that job (small business!) with additonal work here and there, rather than more evenly divided.

That probably doesn’t even make any sense, but I never promised you that this blog post would. In any case, I have some emails to return before I teach, and while I’d love to put them off, I know not replying will stress me out, so I’m off to do that. You might be seeing more regular blog posts if I stick with this organization thing, though no guarantees on quality. Practice may or may not make perfect!

Thanksgiving, Travel

Thanksgiving Travels

1 Comment

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you have a wonderful meal with friends and family?

Louie and I headed to visit my grandmother, my parents, and other various and sundry relatives in NW Ohio. It was about a 7 hour drive each way, and we stayed for two nights. We had Thanksgiving dinner and a birthday party in honor of my grandmother’s 90th birthday.

IMG_3860

I often forget how beautiful it is where my family lives. My dad grew up there also…it’s farm land, small town, but very beautiful, especially on the land where my grandparents lived for years, because they worked hard to make it so.

Anyway, dinner was delicious. Salad and rolls to start, turkey, mashed potatoes/gravy, stuffing, corn, sweet potatoes, and baked apples. For dessert we had pumpkin, mincemeat, or pecan pie. I had mincemeat which is my favorite, and also some of Louie’s pumpkin, and a bite of pecan too. My relatives are great hosts!

IMG_3861IMG_3864

The nice weather only lasted one day—the second day we were there it rained the entire time. Boo.

We took pictures of the cousins who were there, plus a picture with significant others.

I should have taken more pictures, but the rest that I had turned out pretty horrible! Lots of pictures with eyes shut or blurry. Maybe my mom got some better ones Smile

tree

This was at breakfast in the hotel. We stayed at the Heritage Inn in Archbold, Ohio and one of the defining features is a giant fake tree in the breakfast area.

Anyway, today I’ve been puttering around the house, catching up on email and calendar scheduling (constant!), running various errands, and generally getting ready for the next few weeks. It’s been nice to have a day to get ready—I hate traveling and getting back at the last minute. I think that’s one of the things that made November hard was having a trip and not being able to have a day to recover. Or maybe I’m just a bit lame?

All my relatives seem to think I work too hard. I think people imagine violin teachers as people who teach a few hours a day, handing out candy while covered in cat hair. The reality is that if you want to make a decent income you have to really hustle and cram those students in! There is only so much time each day that people can come for lessons (unless they are home schooled, retired, or have flexible work schedules) so it means eating dinner late and working into the evenings. And I don’t think I work too hard…or if I do, at least Louie works hard too. We aren’t the sort of people to sit around, and I want to be making a difference in the world..and be making a decent living teaching violin!

I’m trying something new this week and scheduling some tasks that I normally do unscheduled. I’ve been reading Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before (I finished Happier at Home recently too) and got some ideas about how to improve my life. Sometimes I will sit down at the computer to send some emails and before I know it several hours have passed. I’m going to try to have specific wake up and get to work times, and really make sure I’m using my time wisely. The goal is to have free time where I am truly free rather than constantly working or feeling like I should. Self-employment is not for the faint of heart.

The other thing people always suggest is to check email less often. I did set my phone so that it only pulls email every hour. I wonder if looking at email less often truly does save time? Will people just call instead (this is absolutely what I don’t want, nothing takes more time than phone calls, or causes me more stress) if I don’t respond to emails quickly? I would probably prefer texts in some cases, but emails are often easier to keep track of. Anybody have thoughts?

I’m off to practice for a bit before dinner now. I read a friend’s facebook status recently that referred to his violin practice, and I’ve been thinking about that lately…practice as a constant, something you do, rather than practice as something result-oriented. I should go more into depth with that thought in a future blog post!

Performing, Random thoughts

An Evening Off

Leave a comment

It’s amazing to have an evening off. I got home from my fall student recital, put some laundry in, practiced scales for approximately 1 hour and now I’m relaxing. I figured I’d better write a blog post before I fall asleep…even though it’s only 5:20 it’s pitch black outside (well, except for street lights) so I feel like it must be nearly bedtime.

This fall has been out of control. I can’t believe I’m looking forward to the holiday season because things will be less busy. It’s also possible I’m totally wrong on that prediction.

Let’s work backwards. This afternoon 14 students played on my student recital. Today was the first time I’d organized a fall recital for my private students and I’m so glad I was able to get it together. I know the kids learn so much preparing for and performing on recitals. I was particularly proud of a few of my students, one with cochlear implants playing his first recital, another who surprised me by playing from memory when she’d planned to use the music, and two adults who had the nerve to play on a recital with a bunch of kids! But I’m proud of ALL of them, and was so happy with everybody’s performances. I was proud of the students who made mistakes, the ones that stood tall and focused better than they do in the lessons, the one who lost his nerve and had to sit down (especially him, and I hope he doesn’t give up on recitals!)…everybody learned something, and accomplished something that few people in the world are able to. How many of you have played violin on a recital?

Last night the Perseid Quartet played at the Tavern of Fine Arts with Diana Umali. We played Beethoven’s Quartet Opus 59 #1 and Dohnanyi’s Piano Quintet. This was our second performance of the program, and I was glad to have had the first one under our belt. This program was no joke and was a big challenge to have undertaken, but I think we really pulled it off. I believe we are growing as a quartet, and even though we aren’t able to rehearse or practice as much as we might if we weren’t all full time violin/viola/cello teachers as well, we really made some great music! I was pretty stressed about the performance but part way through I really started enjoying myself.

IMG_3846

Many thanks to the Tavern for providing a fun place to perform and watch concerts. I’m sure it’s the case in many places, but Louie and I are constantly struck by how many concerts and performances one can attend practically every night, and especially on the weekends. Mostly we are sorry to miss performances, but when we do get to see them we love it!

Friday night we managed to get to Jazz at the Bistro to see the group Omaha Diner.  I taught right beforehand so we decided to make a night of it and get dinner there. The food was alright—it’s catered by Catering St Louis and I think it’s an improvement over the food they used to have but nothing to write home about. However, being able to eat while enjoying excellent music is a real plus!

IMG_3833

We initially had seats in the balcony, but for the second set (you can stay for no charge if there is availability) we sat on the main floor really near the stage. Both sets of seats were great!

IMG_3838

We ended up sharing our table for the second set with a nice young couple and had a great time chatting with them while waiting for the band to go on again. So, not only great music, decent food, but excellent socialization opportunities? And while I’m not a giant jazz fan (Louie is) I really enjoyed this band—I think it was my favorite concert I’ve attended at Jazz at the Bistro.

Thursday night was our usual Taco Thursday. We’ve ended up going with our friends Ben and Roz quite a few times (they are great to humor our late night dinner schedule! The main issue we have with the event is finding places that serve dinner until 10 pm on Thursday, which is more difficult than you’d think here in STL) and Thursday we did again. We tried Chava’s in Soulard, where I had been years ago but not recently. I had the fried fish tacos and they were pretty good. I’d go there again.

So that’s the highlights of the week. Otherwise it was just teaching, practicing, and rehearsing, with some running (3 times a week pretty consistently), reading (enjoying Gretchen Rubin’s Happier at Home recently) and of course, lots of pets…

IMG_3817IMG_3820IMG_3823IMG_3814IMG_3841

Now it’s nearly dinner time—sweet potatoes and red peppers are roasting in the oven, to be added with beans to tortillas for tacos!

Food, Hiking

Laumeier Sculpture Park and ELaia

Leave a comment

Since mostly I blog when I’m overwhelmed and tired (apparently!) right now I’m trying to blog while I’m spending about an hour purposefully relaxing. Why yes, writing my blog IS relaxing!

This weekend has been full of activity, but mostly fun activity. I’ve had a few students and a family issue (nothing to worry you about!) but otherwise Louie and I have had fun together. Friday night we went to the symphony concert…it was a little stressful coming right after what had happened in Paris, which I almost hesitate to even mention, since we ignore mass killings in non-European countries so often, but David Robertson did mention it at the concert…it seems fitting that I acknowledge it, and acknowledge how horrible things can be, and that all we can do is to continue to try to bring joy and music to the world.

So, the symphony. We are subscribers but this was a trade from next week which didn’t work for my schedule. It’s super easy to trade concerts if you buy a subscription, by the way. It took about 3 minutes on the phone. My one complaint about the symphony concert was that they had a little screen up with some words and moving animation in the back for various parts, and I found it very distracting and awful. I find supertitles to be helpful when there are singers, but other than that I don’t want quotes or pictures to “enhance” the performance. The music should speak for itself, and usually does, and definitely would have in this case. I know I can be a fuddy-duddy with classical music (using that world probably makes me one for sure!) but in this case I really think I’m right…

Saturday Louie and I walked around Forest Park enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. It was seriously around 70 degrees and sunny! And then for dinner I’d made reservations to take Louie out for a belated birthday dinner at Elaia. Wow. We had an amazing meal—it was not cheap, but I’d been planning on it for awhile, and it was a great experience. We both got a 4 course prix fixe dinner and shared each course. My favorites were a mushroom dish called “Hen of the Woods” and the Beet and Salmon Salad (totally strange combo, but it worked magnificently). It was a great evening—good food, drinks and conversation. I would say I’ll be back, but not for a long time due to the price. Right next to Elaia is Olio, which is also great and a bit more affordable, depending on how much you eat.

This morning we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park with friends. I had originally thought I’d sleep in a bit, since I’ve been complaining of being tired, but decided it was worth it to do something new with people. It was a lovely morning to walk around in the woods, the grass, and see some interesting art.

This was made by an artist using a chainsaw, if I recall. One tree trunk.

IMG_3784

A tree covered in aluminum. It reminds me of that tree from Lord of the Rings. Gondor?

IMG_3787

I liked this one with the lady playing the piano. It was a piece of art in memory of somebody, and I thought it was really nice. I hope somebody makes some art for me when I’m gone. Or maybe before that?!

IMG_3795

A chair made from a tree trunk. There wasn’t a sign not to sit on it.

IMG_3800

A cat mosaic sculpture. It was gorgeous to look at with all the different kinds of materials. Very shiny.

IMG_3802

I’m glad I got to do some exploring this weekend and enjoy some new activities. It definitely helped my mindset. It’s easy to feel like life is just on repeat, and that each day is the same as the day before (or in my case, each Monday is the same, each Tuesday, etc…) so seeing a new park and eating a great meal at a new restaurant were great activities for me. Even if I’m still physically a bit tired, I am mentally and emotionally a bit more satisfied, which is good.

One more full week until Thanksgiving! This week will be a bit stressful too, as I’ve got another quartet concert AND a student recital, among other things but there is light at the end of the tunnel and that light is a bright one Winking smile

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.