Updates

Things have been a bit busy for me, especially since I picked up a few more music students. I now have seven students on my roster, and I think for now, that's enough. I'm now having to figure out things like "how do I pay  my quarterly self-employment tax?" Thankfully, there's a lot of info online, and a friend of mine works for the IRS. I think I can handle it.

I recorded a few songs for some friends of mine, and both projects turned out great! I can only put up a link to one of them because the other isn't quite ready to go yet. So this recording is by Jacob Furr, and he plays guitar for me at church. I basically told him I wanted to record, and so I did. His album was just released, and you should purchase it. It's only $5, and you get to hear me play cello on one of the tracks. 

I decided to take the morning off this morning to get my piano tuned. This has been a long time coming. The tuner also fixed my pedal stand (which was unstable) and my lid (which was missing a screw) as well as my sticky keys. It sounds so much better, and now I actually want to play. I haven't played it in so long because the out-of-tuneness hurt my soul. I tried playing a bit of Beethoven today, and wow, I'm REALLY out of practice. My hands felt really stiff in terms of the stretchiness you need to play piano. Actually, I take that back. My left hand is fine (that's the one cellists use for fingering) but my right hand is very inflexible. I'm hoping to change that and/or take voice lessons, which requires the use of a piano. So yay!

Last week I had the following conversation after practice with a TCU freshman who sings in the church choir:
A: So when are we going to hang out?
Me: You mean like have lunch or dinner or something?
A: Yeah.
Me: Well, do you like to walk? We can go walking after practice. I don't live far from here...
A: Do you like, have a kitchen and everything?
Me: Yes...
A: Could we maybe make dinner & stuff?
Me: Sure... next week?
A: Yeah!
Me: What do you want to eat cause I know you're picky...
A's boyfriend: Spaghetti!
Me: Okay, I can make that, we can have some salad too, and maybe brownies and ice-cream for dessert.
A: I LOVE ice-cream! Can we actually make the brownies from scratch?
Me: Sure. I have a mixer.
A: That's totally cheating. You have to mix it by hand.
Me: No it's not. The mixer is awesome.
----------------------------------------------
Anyhow. That's how the conversation went. I had forgotten how great having food at someone's house can be when you live in a dorm, and eat in the dining hall.

So I made the sauce this morning. Had to call my mom for the recipe. I'm looking forward to this evening.

For Real?

Okay, I have been using an online dating website for awhile, and this is an actual message I got today:

u r beautiful and i just looked your tag to check if you were born in haven

This pretty much exemplifies almost everything that I hate about most of the messages I receive. First of all, this guy uses "textese," which I do acknowledge that most people use, but if you are trying to meet people, don't do that in an email, or letter. Spell things out, people. This just makes you look uneducated. Also, he uses a cliche pick-up line. I will not respond to that. Ever. Don't do that. Third, he misspells "heaven." Check your spelling. I understand typos here or there, but somehow I don't think this was one.

This message shows no effort to get to know me at all.

Don't you people read advice columns? Find something we have in common. Make a comment about it. Ask a question. Questions are the basis for most conversations you have when you are trying to get to know someone. Can't think of anything? Borrow a question from the Proust Questionnaire. There are some great conversation starters there. Seriously. Otherwise, just don't write.

I am personally looking for someone with intelligence. The person above might be intelligent, but my perception based on this message is that he's not really all that smart, or willing to get to know me.

I believe that art of conversation is dying. Let's revive it.

Thanks for reading.

/rant

Coming home

I really had a great vacation, it seemed almost too long toward the end. I was looking forward to coming back to Texas. But it is the third day I have been home, and I got really lonely. And I am sad tonight, and can't sleep. I am really going to struggle with the tiredness tomorrow.

Sunset

The sunset was really pretty tonight. I'm glad I got off early enough from work to get a few pictures.

Or maybe...

...this is my favorite picture from the day...

Christmas Shopping etc.

Yesterday, I decided to go Christmas shopping. Because of the general consumer crazyness that happens this time of year, I decided to ride my bike to University Village, a shopping center located about 4 miles from my apartment (by bike). The neat part about my apartment complex is that the back side of it is on the Trinity Trail, a series of trails that runs through Fort Worth. So there are lots of opportunities for me to ride in relative safety.

This turned out to be a fantastic decision. There was no car parking available, but plenty of room for bikes! It was a great day for a ride. However, I did not find anything I wanted to purchase. After looking around in all those stores, I decided to see if I could figure out how to get to the Target on West 7th via the Trinity Trail. Thanks to a smart phone with navigation, I was able to figure out that I only had to ride an extra 3 miles to get to Target. So I did that. This turned out to be one of the prettiest rides I have taken in awhile. I had to split off from the trail and take a road that bordered Trinity Park that was underneath a canopy of trees.

I made it to Target, and guess what? I still didn't buy anything. I am not sure what my deal was. So it kind of turned out to be a fruitless shopping trip, but a fruitful bike ride. I rode about 14 miles total. I also did not get irritated about trying to find parking or getting stuck in traffic. So I think I'm even...

I also took some pictures from around my complex yesterday because although it is December, some of the trees still think it's September. The colors are lovely. Here's my favorite:

T-day break

I really have been feeling so isolated lately. I have been busy, and it has been hard to make time to try and be with friends. I am really thankful for the friends that I do have, both far and near. I don't even really share lunches with many of my coworkers. One of them asked me to lunch last week. I was so thankful for that. I guess I feel like I just don't have a lot of money right now to eat out a lot, so it has really inhibited my social life at work, since most of it revolves around getting lunch with people. I really do need to seek out people at lunch sometimes, but I have a commitment to paying off all my debts within the next two years. I am struggling with finding the balance between socializing by going out and eating in. It's important to me to do both.

Tonight was a good night too. One of my cello students made me pumpkin bread and then I had dinner with a friend of mine from church. I really needed the fellowship tonight. Combine that with the pumpkin bread and, well, it has been an encouraging evening.

Turkey Trot in the morning... plus a T-day party. It is going to be a good day, even if I can't spend it with my family.

Autumn weekend

I've been trying to take a picture of something from fall that I can hang on my wall at home. This is close to what I'm looking for. This is edited, and I'm bummed that the lighting wasn't a little better. But the color is still fantastic! The original is much darker, and I've tried to bring out the color a bit more on it.

So here's my story from the weekend:
Last night, I went to work out at the little gym at my apartment complex. I normally like going on Sundays because I can watch football while working out. However, I happened to go during an "intermission" when there weren't any games on. So I was channel surfing and found Twilight. I have not read the books, nor have I seen the movie, so I was curious because of how many teenaged girls love this series. Well, I was about halfway into my workout when this older guy comes in and starts working out. I felt bad about watching Twilight while he was there, but I didn't want to just arbitrarily change the channel. So I decided to leave and come back later when football would be on. I handed him the remote and I'm pretty sure he was quite relieved that I was leaving so he didn't have to watch Twilight. I'd like to think it was a graceful exit... I do have compassion on my fellow male apartment dwellers.

Life Balance

I've been back now a few weeks from my vacation and I find that it is hard to focus at work. I'm gradually getting better at it though. I have had two really great weeks of getting to bed early, and it has made a big difference in what I'm able to get done every day. The bummer part is that I haven't really spent any time with my friends here since I've been back. I am finding it challenging to find the balance -- get everything I need to get done for my jobs, get the rest I need, and exercise, and also make time to be social.

For example, I got invited to see a show on Saturday, and it sounds really fun, it's at this theater that produces melodramas and lets the people in the audience cheer and boo and throw popcorn at the actors. However, I work all day Saturday, would have to drive about 45 min to get to the theater, and then I have to be up early on Sunday morning for church. I hate showing up to worship really tired. So I'm torn. I'm actually probably not going to go to that show, but I feel like I'm missing out on a fun experience. My inclination is to go home and just chill out.

This is very typical for me. I make this kind of decision all the time, and mostly, I'm choosing rest over being social because I know how much harder things seem to be if I don't get the rest I need.

It's fall!

 I was on vacation. Just got back, and guess what? It's fall!!! You know what's also great? I didn't edit these pictures at all, they are as is:

One of these things is not like the other

Saw this in my cello student's front yard. I'm puzzled as to how it got there...

Distracted

I was so distracted today. I have no idea why. I think what happened is that my alarm clock woke me up out of a really deep sleep, and then I was grumpy the whole morning. I don't think my outlook improved until after lunch, which was late for me.

I had such a great week last week and yet I seem to be experiencing some anxiety tonight. For no reason apparently. At least it there doesn't seem to be a focus right now. That can be frustrating for me sometimes. Normally, if I can identify the cause of my anxiety, I can think about it, journal about it, and generally deal with it. When there's no focus, I have more difficulty getting back to a more peaceful state of mind.

Inspiration

My sister and brother-in-law came to visit this weekend.

My sister came in on Thursday night, and we spent Friday at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. I also introduced her to frozen custard. We ate at two of my favorite restaurants in town, the Love Shack (burgers) and Zoe's Cafe.

When her husband arrived on Friday night (late) we all decided to sleep in  on Saturday. Thank goodness. I needed it. I told them we were going to get Texas Barbeque before the football game, which we did, and we ate ourselves sick practically. We were really full. And funny... about an hour after that, my sister's husband asks when we were going to eat dinner. Seriously?

We didn't quite make it through the whole football game as it was hot, and my sister started feeling sick. So we made the decision to leave. When we got back to my apartment, I turned the game on the radio, and we all napped. After the game was over, and after our naps, we decided to go downtown and get creative. Christian, you inspired us! We went downtown and started our own alphabet mosaic and just tried to take some fun pictures too. I really enjoyed getting creative with those... I might even start joining in on (photo) scavenger hunt Sunday!

After our creative session downtown, we decided to cook dinner. So we went to my favorite grocery store, Central Market! It is the Ikea of grocery stores. Anything and everything you can imagine. A whole room of produce! A whole room filled with wine and beer! Loose leaf spices, tea, and cereal!

So we baked salmon and asparagus for dinner as well as some zucchini and onions. And what dinner would be complete without dessert? We got a selection of cheesecake, cupcake, and a chocolatey seven layer bar, and ice-cream of course.

It was delicious, and I have left-overs.

I took them to church, and we went to lunch after with another friend of mine. After I dropped them off at the airport, I taught a cello lesson and went for a bike ride. I took my camera though, and I think I got some good shots.

It was a great weekend. I feel rested and ready to start the week.

"A" -- is for alphabet photo scavenger hunt

Sunday -- Section of stained glass at my church

"D" -- my favorite letter so far

Lonely Sunflower -- was the only one in this patch of (mostly) dead grass

Spotted on my bike ride today

The Scots

I find it interesting that I met a guy from Scotland right before I did a presentation to the Scottish Clans of North Texas. He needed help with a research project from one of the other librarians who brought me in on it for some advice. Since then, I have seen this guy everywhere. He's a non-traditional student here, meaning he is not a typical 18-22 year old student.

Well, tonight, he stopped by the desk (where I was working) and informed me (in his delightful Scottish accent) that I am one of the two most adorable people he's met on campus. He wasn't trying to flirt, he meant it sincerely. And I gotta say, I don't hear that very often, and it was kind of nice.

Rain

I worked a lot last week. Too much in fact. My boss even noticed and asked me point blank when I was going to take some time off. So I did today. Coincidentally, it rained. For those of you who don't live in Texas, we have been experiencing the hottest summer since 1980. There is an extreme drought in Texas and it is impacting the ecosystem. Fish are dying, birds are dying, the deer are abandoning their young, and there's not enough water to support the cattle. The beef industry in Texas is large, and though beef will be cheap for a little while (because the ranchers are having to sell them off before they die), the prices will start to increase, drastically. All that to say, we really need the rain here in Texas. It hasn't rained like this all summer.

So this is a rare occasion. So was my decision to go home early this afternoon.

I realized why I don't like taking time off... when my mind is relaxed, it wanders, and though I really need the rest, I am reminded of my loneliness. It would be really nice to have someone else to share these quiet moments with. You know, eat a few muffins, watch the game together. Laugh a little. Maybe go walk in the rain, because that's today's blessing.

September sunset

This sunset caught my eye tonight...

Missing

I had one of those kinds of weeks that just really had a lot in it. Every day seemed long and challenging. I have to work tomorrow, and most of the day on Sunday as well, so I am feeling a little stressed out. One of my friends is having a rough time. We talked a little about it, and it made me realize that often, the little things I worry about in my week are not as significant as I make them out to be. Sometimes I look at my life through this lens of stress, overwhelm, and "I'm too busy." But when I am able to step out of that a little, and look at my life without all that emotion, it just becomes a "to do" list, and all I have to do is work my way through it, without all the stress and drama. I had those moments this week. I was busier than I have ever been, but I felt really grounded. I may or may not have gotten more done in those moments, but I know that I felt more productive, which probably means I was.

Perhaps the long weekend helped... I got a lot of rest, and got to talk to ALL of my best friends. It was amazing. It is challenging to be away from all of them. I really, really, miss having people to do stuff with on a regular basis. That's the hardest part about moving away.

Texas Heat

This has been the hottest summer I have ever lived through. So many days over 100 degrees. The heat has finally broken (a little). Still in the high 90s, but it feels cooler. So, I give you "the heat breaks in suburban Texas." I have come to appreciate cloud cover, even if only for a short time.

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...