It’s October! To be fair, it’s been October for awhile, but I’ve been busy doing stuff other than writing.

Life is going well, if you ignore the dumpster fire that is our political climate which affects every aspect of our life these days.

My morning classes are going well. Waking up at 6 am has been easier than I thought, as long as I make an effort to also go to bed early. I’m not sure if my schedule will be changing in the next few weeks or staying the same, but I suppose if I need to wake up at 5:45 am I’ll make that work too.

I’m still enjoying not doing as much performing. My anxiety in that regard is obviously lower, and I read about people doing things that I sometimes first feel jealous over, and then I think, hah, good for them. I’m also not sure I want to take the risks that some people are okay with (COVID-wise) which makes me feel better.

I had a wonderful time teaching my first improvisation group class last weekend—the kids were great and I made it through some but not all of the activities planned. Better to have too many class activities planned than not enough, of course. If you are a violin teacher and reading them and want more info, let me know—it’s technically open to other students as well though I haven’t been advertising too much as I don’t want a huge class either  

I also attended my own first Creative Ability Development Teaching Training class this week, and also I have lots of videos of the teacher’s classes to watch. It’s been wonderful seeing the kids respond. I’ve gone a bit crazy with my schedule the next few weeks and I’m treating myself to a variety of courses to improve my teaching and become somehow more inspired. One good thing about this pandemic is that I have been able to totally revamp my teaching thoughts and really put my ideas in order and into practice. I hope my students are benefitting as much as I think they are.

So it’s been busy but fun enough. The weather was lovely on Sunday and Louie and I took a nice walk in Forest Park. We had to wear masks a decent amount, since we were hardly the only people with this idea. I’m hoping we will have opportunities for more hiking and walking in the future, and I’m sure we will. Louie was feeling a bit under the weather over the weekend so we didn’t do anything extensive (in fact, we were avoiding people entirely as he did end up taking a COVID test to make sure he wasn’t sick, and until his results came back negative we didn’t want to spread it!) He’s feeling better now, and I feel confident my slightly runny nose is from allergies and the change of seasons. With that in mind, we ordered a no-contact pizza delivery from Pi on Saturday night, and then on Sunday I had a nice zoom chat with my family and we cooked a delicious dinner.

This was a Blue Apron week…it ended up being delivered on Friday so that meant fancy cooking over the weekend.

Panko encrusted tofu with roasted broccoli and a radish salad.

Cod with a mustardy panko topping, kale, and delicata squash. We certainly haven’t had enough delicata squash lately! (This is a joke because the garden has been producing a lot of the squash, and we didn’t even plant it!)

This was an awesome one: couscous with capers and golden raisins stuffed into a poblano pepper on a bed of yogurt garlic sauce.

I’ve been trying to really do meal planning and having a good time trying new recipes in addition to sticking with some of our favorites. We don’t eat meat, so usually there is one or two fish meals a week and then the rest are vegetarian. My latest favorite website for recipes is Budget Bytes and I linked to a recipe there I’ve tried and enjoyed. Today we are trying white beans with mushrooms and marinara, which looks like delicious comfort food for a Wednesday night.

I must be hungry…I guess I’ll go make some lunch. Louie got a bunch of tomatoes from a colleague so maybe I’ll slice one up with a toasted cheese sandwich or something like that.