One of the things that Louie and I enjoy doing together is going to concerts, mostly classical or jazz (he’s introduced me to jazz, before that I was strictly a classical girl!). This month has been kind of crazy…I think because last fall was busy with shows for me, and then there was December which is mostly just Christmas, we have a lot of jazz and symphony concerts.

We subscribe to the Symphony here, which means we get 6 concerts a year chosen for us, but we can trade them for anything else (it’s very generous). For the jazz shows, we’ve been doing a pick-your-own series at Jazz at the Bistro, which means you have to choose at least 4 concerts, and this year we chose 6…two of which are this month and one next month. We also subscribe to the Great Artists Series at Washington University (highly recommend) and then try to attend other concerts there as well as I like to attend my friends’ concerts when I am able. All this to say, we’ve been attending two concerts a weekend all month and it shows no signs of slowing down!

Friday night we saw Jean-Ives Thibaudet play a concert at Wash U with members of the St Louis Symphony. Saturday afternoon I attended a show of Peter Pan, junior, that some of my students were in. Saturday night we saw Jean-Ives Thibaudet play with the St Louis Symphony. It was a busy weekend! Last weekend we saw the Bad Plus and next weekend is the Delvan Lamarr Organ Trio and Winter Opera.

But as much as staying in and watching tv can be appealing on a cold, rainy night (especially Friday night was like that…freezing rain!), I always enjoy the concert, and it is definitely adding to a more memorable life. We often get dinner with friends before the jazz shows and occasionally before other concerts too. I get tired sometimes, and don’t always want to go, and I’m a little worried we’ve over-committed ourselves with concerts over the next month (it does seem like everything good is happening this month and next) but I think we won’t regret it.

All that being said, I do regret overscheduling sometimes in advance of the things I’ve overscheduled, but we always enjoy cultural events. I would love to get to more museums and such as well, but it’s easier to make yourself go to a concert you have a ticket for, isn’t it? I think I’ll try to get to a few art museums this year though…it’s hard to do it all, but I’m so glad I live in a place with too many things that I want to do!

My own performances are ramping up as well. There is Winter Opera coming up, a Perseid Quartet concert, a Third Millenium World’s Fair benefit concert, and another chamber music concert at the Gatesworth (a retirement home), all in the next month. I feel like I sufficiently got over being a bit burned out with my week long staycation, and now I’m ready to make music (which means practice) again.

I’m also trying to read and work on my hobbies as much as I can…I have almost finished a few of the cross-stitch projects, and I have a bread-making project planned as well as a jam canning thing I’m planning…I ended up with too many cranberries and I thought that might be the thing to push me to try some small batch home canning. Wish me luck! It’s all really too much, but I love having a bunch of things going, and I think I’m really leaning in to some of the more traditional “at home” things to do. I should probably learn how to do more actual home improvement projects, but we’ve got to eat too.

We’ve got some potential travel this summer, so I’m also reading to learn and be inspired. Work-wise I’ve mostly only been doing the scheduling side of things, so I have some work ahead to prepare and cajole students for April’s festival, and I have a few things to do for my SLAMTA board position as well as a review or two to write for another volunteer position I’m on. I like being involved, except when I prefer just to sit on the couch.

All of this is sounding a little overwhelming to me right now I never know if I come across as sounding a bit crazy on the blog for having too much going on, or if it’s all fairly small stuff. I feel like on a weekly basis I usually have plenty of downtime, but not always on a day-to-day basis. Some weeks are busier than others, and though busy is such a bad word these days, the truth is life is always a bit busy for me. “People” say you shouldn’t use busy as a badge of honor, and that being busy isn’t a good thing, but…as a freelancer, (I’ve said this before) busy pays the bills. Busy means a nicer vacation down the line. Busy means more money in the bank. And busy means I have a lot of interesting things in my life…I get more done when I have slightly less time, and I enjoy most of what I do, so it’s a win-win.

Maybe I’m trying to convince myself, and not you! In any case, I’d better wrap up this post. We are going to brave the bitter cold to go for a nice walk in Forest Park before I have to work again today. I am looking forward to the week ahead… my weeks this semester get busier towards the end, so Monday through Wednesday are much lighter and Thursday/Friday are jam packed with students. Every semester is different!