This winter we have certainly had a lot of snow, ice, and sleet! Tuesday night my quartet had a concert at the Sheldon Concert Hall, and while we ended up having a nice crowd, it was definitely smaller than we’d hoped for, and I assume a big part of that was the winter weather that was predicted. The gloom and doom of the newscasters “stay home, stay off the roads” kept people at home, and then the snow ended up starting right after the concert was done, so we got home no problem.

It’s hard to judge, isn’t it? If we cancel things every time they predict bad weather, you end with things canceled and nothing happening a certain percentage of the time. Other times, you don’t cancel and things are worse than expected!

Our concert was a lot of fun. Sometimes I forget how fun performing is. One of the things that I enjoy about playing with the quartet is that generally things go better in concert than in rehearsal—or at least, they rarely go worse. I’m not sure exactly why that is, but I think we are much more focused in performance.

I have been feeling like I haven’t been doing enough performing over the winter. Yes, it’s winter, and the weather, and the cold, and nobody comes out. But I often worry that I’m wasting my so-called talents when I spend most of my days cajoling young children to stand up straight and watch their bows. Then again, that’s important too!

I dreamt that I decided to drop everything here and move back to Cleveland and teach/freelance there. After arriving, I realized it had been a huge mistake and that I’d left all the things I’d gained here.

In any case, I think that the constant barrage of horrible news involving today’s political situation doesn’t help my frame of my mind. I feel stressed about so many things completely outside of my control and it just gives a low level of stress and feelings of failure. Sigh.

We have a drawer in the new bathroom that I’ve been keeping the extra toilet paper rolls in. Yesterday I needed one so pulled open the drawer, and found this. I actually screamed first! Then I closed the drawer.

We are taking a short trip to Branson in March. Have you been? What do you recommend?