Brahms

I met one of the new freshman cellists last week. She brought her cello into the library, so you know, it's kind of hard to NOT notice it. She had a question and we started talking. She asked me what my favorite piece was, and I said "Brahms Em" and she says, "Oh my gosh, I love playing that piece on a rainy day." So true!

This picture is of me playing this piece at a talent show. One of my best performances. It was a great night.

Random sketching

Sometimes I draw stuff. I made this for a friend awhile back and sent a version of this in some actual mail...

Wildflowers

My photography skills do not do these flowers justice. They were all over the place in spring, and now all the grasses are dead, brown, and dried up. It's a drastic contrast between the green and splashes of colors in the weeds in this picture.

Sleeping in! and cookies.

I am pretty excited tonight. "Why?" you might ask? Because I finally get one morning to sleep in! I really hope the gardeners aren't going to be mowing my section of the apartment complex tomorrow.

Also, my cello student made cookies with her mom today and made sure to save me some. It pretty much made my day.

Letting go

Sometimes you gotta just let things go

Pressure

I'm noticing today that I am feeling a lot of pressure about several different things in life. I've been thinking about how I normally deal with this, and normally, I get really overwhelmed to the point where it is difficult for me to focus and get anything done. I get overwhelmed by the "vastness" of projects... if something seems big and impossible, I don't even want to try. But what happens when it's a part of my job? Well, I have to start somewhere. Breaking big things down into smaller pieces tends to help me get going.

So the things that seem sort of impossible right now:

• Getting ready for school, as in actually doing all the things I need to do for my job
• Putting a set list together for church and make copies for binders
• Finding one more member of the church band by the end of this month
• Organizing my schedule (extra panic here, I'm always afraid I'm going to forget something)

A little bit of this pressure is external, for example, the music director at church sent me a text message today to see if I had found anyone yet, but most of it is internal. I put the pressure on myself.

Mantra:
It's never as big as I think, it just requires planning, and then taking action.

Weekend Update

I had a weekend that felt really good. I actually felt pretty balanced between spending time with people, taking care of business (like cleaning my house) and resting. Tried to take a nap today, but read half a book instead. Then I had one of those moments where my life felt totally surreal. Like I still can't believe that I live in Texas (which is still a really hot place to be right now) and that almost my whole house is clean. Who am I???

I went to the batting cages yesterday for the second time in my life yesterday. I talked a friend of mine into going with me, though in all honesty, I didn't have to do a lot of talking. The batting cages are really close to my house, and I will probably go back again.

I have been up to a lot lately. Right now, I am at a Starbucks for the second Sunday night in a row, waiting for my orchestra peeps to show up. It is so busy tonight, I don't think we are going to be able to pull together enough seating. Last week, this place was empty. It makes me wonder what shifted in the world...

I have been trying to get out and meet more people, so I started going to a meetup group once a month. It is mostly a bunch of guys who sit around and jam on guitar. A few of them are really good, and I bring my cello and play along. It was my second time going on Saturday, and already I gave and have been given homework. I am supposed to learn "Night Swimming" by REM. This will happen.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I felt like doing some personal practice on cello... so I did. I started learning this really cool song. It's fun, fast, and jazzy... I foresee myself playing this piece at one of the meetups in the future. It is really challenging and I can only play 1/3 of it right now, mostly because it has a lot of rhythm patterns that I have to figure out. Reading rhythm has always been a weakness for me. But I know that I'll get better at it if I practice.