This month, you guys. This month has been insane.

It’s been absolutely nonstop since we returned from Thanksgiving. I’m not sure where things went wrong. I mean, on the one hand it’s been great having so much to do, but on the other hand it’s been stressful and I’ve had to spend more time than I would want to dealing with some difficult people (professionally.)

I look back to all of my COVID thoughts of, let’s do less, isn’t this great! And then I got back into things, and I just didn’t feel like a professional performer anymore, and I realized I wasn’t happy with that either, I didn’t want to only teach, and so I have been doing other things too, but only adding them on, and not taking away from any of the teaching I’m doing. The issue I run into is that I CAN do this schedule, mostly, and that the playing work is irregular and the teaching work is regular, and I want the regular income during the times without as much playing work. Sigh. I expect I will spend the next 20 years trying to figure this all out, but I’ll tell you, this past week almost did me in.

I was supposed to do a few social things on Friday night and I told Louie I just needed a night in, so I did that (he had something to do and went without me) and I enjoyed dinner in the quiet and read all evening. That helped me get to yesterday in a better state and I really enjoyed all the activities I did yesterday, and I’m looking forward to today.

It’s been a lot. I was thinking about the last week, what did I do in addition to my normal teaching schedule? Well, I played for a funeral, had my last physical therapy session for my rotator cuff (it’s doing MUCH better), I had 3 additional lessons at Wash U to teach to finish up the semester, I had a jury to attend at St Louis Community College, I had a rehearsal and concert with The Beach Boys (super fun show, so energetic!), a rehearsal for this morning’s church service, some errands including picking up my violin from being cleaned and fixed up, and then a holiday party at work (which was super fun, but still an extra thing). Then yesterday was Saturday and I had a morning rehearsal, afternoon makeup lessons, and then drove Louie to the airport for a trip he is taking to visit his family (we are doing different things over the holidays due to work schedule issues).

Last night I was exhausted and would have just crashed, but I’d bought a ticket to go see two of my students in Elf with Insight Theatre, and I’m so glad I went. It was fun to see the production, which is all young people, and it was delightful to watch my students onstage doing something different than playing the violin. Their dad played violin in the orchestra too, so it was a big family thing for them, and I had a great time. Today is a church service, then I’m stopping at a friend’s for his birthday party, then a church choir concert, then I am relaxing tonight and possible baking cookies. My mom said not to bring anything down to SC, but I haven’t baked any cookies this season and wanted to do at least one batch! It’s the first night of Hanukkah but since Louie is out of town I won’t be doing anything until he gets back, but Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate!

Oh, and last weekend Louie walked in a recognition ceremony for his doctoral degree. He is still eligible to attend the big graduation ceremony in May with the hooding by his advisor, but he thought it would be fun.

I feel like this blog post is a bit overwhelming to the reader, but that’s where I am right now. I have another week of fairly intense craziness and then I’m driving home to SC on Christmas Day. It looks like we’ve got some potential snow messing up plans here on Thursday, so fingers crossed everything gets worked out with that. This week’s agenda: 3 more days of early morning classes, regular private student teaching (finishing up this week for the year of course), hair appointment, dermatologist appointment, a lunch date, a coffee date, seeing my friend April who is visiting from Atlanta (!!!), rehearsal for Christmas Eve, three Christmas Eve services, and that’s about it.

Oh, and one of my rehearsals yesterday and the concert today, I’m playing viola. I was a little stressed about it, but the rehearsal was a lot of fun, and I’m sitting with a colleagues who I really like and I’ll tell you what, playing with another violist is very different than playing with another violinist. The vibe is just more relaxed. I can’t explain it, but it’s there. And the conductor just pays no attention to you at all and it’s wonderful 🙂 Hopefully I will get to do more viola stuff in the future, as I enjoyed it, I have a viola, and the best way to get better at it is to do things under pressure, like in front of other people.

Anyway, I’m off to start my workday. I am playing this morning at Ladue Chapel, which I love doing: the music director is unbelievably kind and wonderful and the people are also so nice.