Giving Ourselves a Gold Star

A little spring in our step

Thumbkin didn't have a good day. (Thumbs are not cheese to grate)

A safer grater and a hello kitty bandaid. Gifts of love. . . 

Practicing with Spinny Wheel

Living and Learning. 

Cabin Kitchen Plans

February 5, 4:00 Advancing Recital, SPTG, at MacPhail

The Kotrba Gang

So proud of these kiddos. 

There has been so much piano! We had our parent dessert party, a lovely afternoon spent with parents chit chatting about music and kids and life. The next weekend we had an actual Suzuki Association of the the Americas class at my house. Kathy Wood gave an Every Child Can class here last Sunday. That worked out perfectly since this is one of five criteria left for my teacher trainer approval. Another day spent talking about talent education with a mix of brand new teachers and teachers with experience. I never get tired of talking about this philosophy--I do believe that every child can learn and grow and play piano or violin or basketball if that is the heart's desire. More on that later. It felt good to have teacher training in my house. When the time is right, I think teachers are going to enjoy coming here and learning about Suzuki piano. 

Next we had chamber music at our house. A Friday night spent listening to young and old rehearse their pieces with violin and cello accompaniment. Because I have parents in my studio who are professional string players, we have started and continue a very special collaboration. Studio kids will have had three chances this year to play with an ensemble. The little ones start pretty deer in the headlights, that's for sure, but by six years old--they are cueing and breathing together and picking up on nuances from each other. It's pretty amazing how a short rehearsal can open up their ears. 

Next day. . . the Suzuki Piano Teachers's Guild Recitals for Advancing Pianists at the MacPhail Center for Music. We had two recitals with virtually typo free programs. . . One year ago, I blogged about some quality issues in these recitals. I'm so excited to say that our "audition" process, dramatically improved the level of preparation. We required that students submit a video of themselves playing the piece from memory, by December 15. There will always be an occasional stress induced panic attack up there. . . but everyone was well prepared and it let us focus on the musicality of the children. Kudos to everyone involved!  

Here are some video links to Calvin and Mary's performances:

Link to Calvin's Chopin

Link to Mary's Benda Sonatina

This Thursday the Kotrbas are off to the People's Republic of Austin, Texas. For fun. Five days in my old stomping ground. We are staying, with the kids, (subtle difference) in the Renaissance Hotel where we spent our wedding night. We are going to see friends, and Doris, and maybe some boys in the band, and eat enough Tex Mex to kill a horse. This is our spring break, as school break is holy week this year we won't be making the pilgrimage to O'ahu. Every now and then I do have success with the iCal application and actually put the new event on as "mid-winter break." Good job, Sara. Gold star on knowing that by now you would be needing some sunshine. 

Back to the growth mindset. Y'all know by now, what a great fan I am of Carol Dweck. The growth mindset praises our love of learning and lifetime progress and celebrates everyone's potential. I'm totally subscribed. There's just one small precaution. 

Music and teaching are both disciplines with no ceiling. You could always practice more, polish more, learn more about kids, learn more about EVERYTHING! And you could love it. But are there ever moments when it's enough. When you are good enough? A good enough piano player? A good enough teacher? A good enough kid? And do we project this "a person could always do better" mentality unto our children and our students?  

Oh, it's a little rushed, oh there was that one note. . . oh, we're working on that wrist or those nail joints or that soft shoulder or WHATEVER!!!!  Can there be a moment when everything is good enough?

There are pieces built into the Suzuki repertoire that are purposefully easy. Doris taught me that sometimes, with those pieces we should just hear it, and put the gold star on it and turn the page. 

I tell the kids, the details of our pieces are like sprinkles and fancy stuff on our cupcakes. The cupcake was already good, but the frosting and the ice-cream and the glitter makes it even yummier. 

However, we do eventually have to eat the cupcake or it will rot. 

Today, I'm putting a gold star on my chart. I'm eating my cupcake as is. No further improvements necessary. And I'm going to try to give the people around me a gold star too. Do you know what happens when we let ourselves and those around us know that we are good enough--right here, right now? 

It's this love that bubbles up and holds it all--being good enough and also knowing that there is always room to grow. 

I'm gonna put my growth mindset on hold for just a weekend. It will be okay, stopping for awhile at Taco Cabana for a $3.00 margarita. 

We don't have fast food like this in Minnesota, or any good food really. . . . at least not like Austin. . .but maybe someday. . . Minnesota will be just as good as Texas. . . okay. . . stop. . . . stop.  

Minnesota, you get a gold star too. But don't stop working on your Tex-Mex restaurant choices--definite room for growth there. . . 

Have a good weekend. 

God's Time

Butterfly Wonderland

This would be the species of cactus that attacked Calvin's hand

True confessions

Stacey and Casey's Visit

To everything there is a season. This is the season of bronchitis and sinus infection and tailbone pain. It's a season of overextension.

I'm getting back to the routine of accompanying. Just when you have about had it with getting up on Sunday mornings, the choir finishes the anthem and the whole church applauds. As you walk back to your pew, you see a father figure dabbing his eyes and you see Henry and his family in the third row and you think, my God, maybe, just maybe, it's all worth it. Maybe our contributions have an impact on actual real people. Maybe music is an actual gift that actually speaks to people's actual hearts.

The rest of my family played hooky from church Sunday morning. That turned out okay, because sometimes sitting in church by yourself, without looking for pens and tissues in your purse, and without listening to adolescent voices flutter between soprano, alto and tenor, you can actually experience a moment of worship.

Sometimes and more often than not, it's the children's message that hits home. Pastor Sarah is talking to the rug rats about her broken wrist watch. She's pulling out coloring sheets of clock faces. What would the face of Jesus's wrist watch look like? One coloring sheet has a giant heart in the place of the twelve numbers.

Maybe God's time is different than our time.

I grew up believing that our material possessions are all gifts from God and ultimately belong to God and that makes it easy or hypothetically easy to give back.

Maybe our time really only and truly belongs to God as well.

On the micro level, this means moment to moment our time is not our own to begin with. I'm not saying that I'm not going to work for more balance and set some limitations as we go here. . . but for this season, right here right now, with the present commitments, the question becomes--what should I do with God's time today.

It works on the macro level too. How else is the sharp knife of a short life even remotely palatable? Our Pastor Bolhman used to say after every infant baptism, "I give you back your child, for as long as God has loaned him to you." Ultimately we are all just on loan to each other.

Our time is not our own. It is a resource that we are not entitled to. And we are only on loan to the people we love. That doesn't mean we don't beg for an extension. . .and grieve when we don't get it.

This tangled web of high school commute (160 minutes on activity days) and family life and studio life and church life and music teacher organizations is a recipe for burnout. It's clear, but this is the season we are in. I'll keep you posted on how we unravel it.

I ordered a book -- there is always a book to fix us--Susie Larson's Your Sacred Yes: Trading Life-Draining Obligation for Freedom, Passion, and Joy. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0764213318/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=82400740693&hvpos=1s1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8101280907197288531&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4ww0xgifgr_b
I'm sure there will be a blog entry hiding in there. . .

In the meantime--it's meant a lot to me to take an hour of God's time and sit here with my coffee and write.

Thank you God for the gift of time. Help us appreciate each moment with our loved ones and the hours in service to you in all the forms that takes. Heal our coughs and colds and tailbones, and also heal the bigger pain of the world and the people we love. Amen. 

Some Live and Learn. . .

And. . . some just live.

We go and go and go and sometimes limp along a little. . . until there comes that moment when we have to give it up. So that was me Wednesday night. I had been fighting the cough since 12/12 and the tailbone incident was no small injury and so a sinus infection coming on was the last straw. I give. I cancelled lessons for Thursday, went back to the doctor and settled into a four day break.

I'm feeling better--not sure if it was the antibiotics, the mucinex, the pseudoephedrine, the steroid nasal spray, the inhaler, the ibuprofen, the prescription cough medicine or the allegra. Could have been the hot lemon water or the apple cider vinegar or the steam shower. Or it might have been two nights of ten hour sleep.

By the end of day two, alone in my own house (kids and Bill off to Arizona), I settle back into equilibrium. Train of thought. It was on the calendar for me to teach down in Austin this weekend. By the flukey grace of God, they ended up with fewer kids this year and didn't need me. I'm sad to miss my Austin gang and the kids--but all things work together for good and this time--I needed a break.

It only takes a little solitude and time and space for that deep calm to return. That peace that passes understanding. And as soon as we feel it we wonder why we let it go for so long.

I guess the question is, why we don't ask for help and call time out sooner. Bill was happy to let me sleep in the basement and he got up and got both kids to school albeit without piano practice but clean and fed. And my sub was happy to play on Sunday even though it turned out I could still be in town. And I didn't hear any tears on the phone when I cancelled a day of lessons.

Most of the time all we have to do is ask. We are not so important that the world will stop spinning if we are not at the wheel.

Gratitude sinks in and we tell ourselves we won't ever let this happen again. I'll never overdo it and take on this much again.

But I will. And probably you will too.

All we can do is try to obey that law of the sabbath. To be instead of do. And take that long breath that you are reminded you need, only when you are too sick to take it.

We must trust that we are right where we need to be. Sometimes it's too much. But sometimes the gratitude, peace, and love fill in the space, the little space where the sabbath leads us.

Tonight my friends are flying in for a girl's stacation. I'll pick them up in a couple hours. My home is clean. There is food in the fridge. There is firewood on the porch. The house is silent. I'm back to my very best self.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I probably should be wiser for my age. Some live and learn, and some just live.

Even so, I know I'm right where I need to be. All the pedals of the flower are important. Every mom is the hub of a complex wheel. I do like the flower metaphor a little better--see my mind map from the last entry.

I don't need to run away to Colorado, I don't need to change my life or become a monk, I just needed to catch my breath--and I waited a little too long this time.

Remember the sabbath. To keep it holy. To keep us holy. To keep us whole. Amen

Off to a Rocky Start But Not Too Late for a Fresh Chance

Morning Coffee and a New Year's Mind Map

Kids Like a Fresh Start Too

There are two things I love. Clarity and the chance for a fresh start.

Clarity can take many forms, for example a recent ex with a new girl friend. Or, the obvious overbooking of the holiday season. Or, when the child is off the rails. Or. . .

...actually feeling the broken tip of your tailbone. On New Year's Day I got the year off to a rocky start. . . ha ha ha. I broke my tailbone. Me, the snow, a tube, and my very own landscaping rock. Whose idea was it to put a rock there anyway? Bill concurs that the bone feels broken and wasn't that a romantic moment?

Clarity is good, I hate it when things are grey. Like my mom being in the hospital for four days with the doctors kinda shaking their heads and ordering five millions tests to scare us and then ultimately landing upon a diagnosis of viral pneumonia. Poor Janel. She spent the latter half of the Fall preparing food for our visit and decorating her house for Christmas and we spent the better part of our visit eating hospital food with a loud and strange roommate at the University of Iowa Hospital.

So here's to 2016. A fresh chance.

In spite of the rocky start, I do love a new year. I spend the actual day (for me this was 1/3/2016) listening to Oleta Adams and letting in the deep meloncholy of the passing of time and the putting away the Christmas tree and thinking about the kids getting older and our folks getting older and actually everyone getting older and shed a couple tears on that account and come across a couple photos of my dad and my grandparents and listen to a couple more sad songs. Bill and I used to call it "mope fest" in college.

But then, really, it's time to recommit. To everything. My family. My studio. My church. My piano teacher organizations. My health. And my limitations. The tailbone is helping with that.

It starts with some simple no's. No, we can't go to the library after school today. We have to get into a routine. It starts with some new charts. Then we can move onto the bigger picture of being mindful of what we do. That's might include some bigger no's down the road. That is clear. I love clarity. But it's gonna take some time to clear the board.

When Calvin was little, and like all children, he would go off the rails, we would send him to his room, ocasionally kicking and screaming but always in a funk. Ten minutes later I would go visit him and he would be back to his very best self.  Ready for a fresh start.

Everyday a fresh chance.
Happy New Year!

The Perfect Christmas

Santa's Stash

Don't Stop Believing. . . 

Christmas Eve in Eagan

Christmas Day Spaghetti with Bill's Folks and Ann and Dave

Christmas Continues in Iowa

Here I am, sitting at my mother's kitchen table. Outside there is a genuine Iowa ice-storm. We are on the other side of Christmas. Well--around here we extend Christmas pretty far--yesterday we celebrated with my sister and Savannah and there are many meals to come before we head back to Minnesota on Wednesday.

I asked my friend, why do I get so high and so low around Christmas? Is something wrong with me? Maybe something is wrong with me. I felt like Charlie Brown at Lucy's nickel stand. She thought about it for a moment and finally said, "maybe you are just human."

I'm human. And I'm greedy. This season is so full. So full. Every year seams to get fuller than the last. I'm greedy. I want it all. I'm not talking about my own Christmas wishlist, I'm talking about my greed of Christmas traditions. I want Thanksgiving in Nisswa and to decorate my house and make cookies and have the church tea. I want the recitals at our house and I love the choral service and how my family is growing up participating in church music. I love a big Christmas. I love a tree full of presents with unique bows and paper picked for each person. And everybody in the five state area has to get a card or package. That's the kind of greed I'm talking about.

But this year--instead of wrapping my mother-in-law's presents with amaryllis paper and my brother-in-law's gifts with paper with stags and Mary's with angels or bunnies and Calvin's with trains or puppies--I found myself embracing the recycled gift bag.

And I had more than one fight or flight moment. There was more to be done than can ever be done.

I asked a gal at the check out counter, what are you doing for Christmas? Her response? "Oh, I think I will sleep in and play some video games."

What? Are you fricken kidding me?

Sleep in and play video games?

What about the homemade caramels and fudge?

What about the third church service on Christmas Eve, in between Santa and waffles and family gifts and appetizers and Maggie and turning the house around for more company the next day?

The sermon at the candlelight service, given by that same friend, was about the perfect Christmas. Or lack thereof. All those nativity scenes portray Mary looking like she just came from the spa. Probably it was not like that.

To be honest, I quit with the advent devotions about December 9th. The pressure to achieve some spiritual high while clinging to this Christmas roller coaster was too much pressure and too much guilt. I gave in to the self pity of the moment.

Maybe something is wrong with me.
Maybe I'm an ungrateful spoiled brat.
Maybe I'm human.

That same friend gave a sermon ten days ago. I guess I did have a small spiritual moment, because I opted to sit through it twice. The theme? Simultaneous joy and grief. Haven't we all felt that?

I translated it also to the simultaneous loving of each and every Christmas moment and complete Christmas burnout. We can embrace it all. My Christmas greed and my Christmas gratitude. And it's all holy and God is in all of it.

Emmanuel.
God with us.
Even during those moments when I couldn't fit Christ into Christmas--he was still there.
And it was. . . the perfect Christmas.

Calvin's Media Presents: All is Bright

Calvin's Media Presents:  All is Bright

https://householdpost.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/the-2015-christmas-cd/

He worked really hard on his CD this year, along with Mary and Annika and Amelia. There are some very beautiful tracks! He's selling CDs for $10 and 100% of the proceeds go to Feed My Starving Children. Last year he donated $700 which fed ten children for a year. Of course they weren't eating Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt and cantaloups. . . but I think his contribution is remarkable. Contact Calvin for your 2015 CD. He has a couple leftovers from the last few years if you missed out before.

The Christmas train has left the station. It actually wizzed by the fall SAM workshop and never really stopped. The coal box is dirty and fuel is low and the steam is building but we've been down this track before. The choices are to try as hard as you can to put on the breaks, which will certainly cause derailment, or stay put in your seat and enjoy the view as we barrel down a frighteningly steep mountain. These tracks are sturdy and well maintained. The train should be able to handle the speed--if and only if the engineers gets more than five hours of sleep on any given night. Yesterday Bill flew to Chicago and we were both up at 4:00 a.m. which put a significant amount of stress on the cargo box car--almost causing a roll over. The little engine that could was ready to take a siding to Montana and never come back.

But today is a new day, which includes making graduation recordings and prepping kids for Saturday's recital, some kind of dinner between 6:15 and 6:30 and Mary's first band concert!

The snowplow car is revved up and pushing all the debris into closets and basement crevices in preparation for Saturday's recitals.

May I just put onto the "things we've learned" list. . . who's really, really, really ignorant idea was it to have all the Suzuki Piano Teacher's Guild Advancing Recital videos and the Suzuki Association of Minnesota graduation recordings due between the day of the studio recitals and the church choral service? Who is running this show? Some live and learn and some just live. There are some very beautiful mountain views in Montana. . . that's all I have to say about that.

In case you are a fan of the Kotrba Piano Studio and family. . . here is a list up upcoming events for you. . .

Tonight: Mary's band concert at Deerwood, 7:00 p.m.

Saturday December 12. . . Kotrba Piano Studio Christmas Recitals at 1:00 and 3:30, thank you to Linda Erickson for helping me host them! Stop by if you can! 

Sunday Choir at church services as usual.

Monday December 14, Easter's Christmas Tea where you can hear Calvin provide the entertainment, with maybe a couple special guests from the CD as well. At the Hill. 

Insert. . . those above deadlines, choir practice, seeing our friend's high school musical, and a sledding slumber party and our first trip to a real professional Nutcracker with Mary's ballet teacher. . . 

December 19 & 20 Easter's Choral Service where you can hear the choir and the handbells and Bill playing clarinet and Calvin playing percussion and synth with the orchestra and a little help from me. 

December 24, kids sing at 3:00 and senior choir does the candlelight service.

December 31, Bill's New Year's Eve Gig with the Jerry O'Hagen Orchestra, at the Shakopee Ballroom, rumor has it that Jerry is retiring and this is the last gig. Bill has been playing with Jerry off and on since 1987 so if you are a fan, you won't want to miss this one. You have to get tickets from the dance hall.   http://www.shakopeeballroom.com

January 2, 7:00 Cassy Erickson's run-through of her junior college recital at our house, come see Cassy play some Beethoven and Chopin. And eat cookies. 

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Season. If your train is running a little out of control like ours. . .may you stay cosy and safe and perhaps make time for a couple gentle detours where you can actually look out the window and enjoy the view. We will try to do the same.

When Our Own Voice Isn't Big Enough

This angel reminds me of cousin Stacey

Heavenly Angels are Singing

And these are praying

A multitude. . . 

The Greek reads: and when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it. Luke 6:48

And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.
These by Kirsten Malcomb Berry

Henry got good news. Check out the caring bridge link in the last entry. Successful surgery. Pathology report benign.

Yesterday, if I was crying tears of joy, and my mother was crying tears of joy, and my friend from Texas was crying tears of joy, and the three little girls from Henry's class who were playing wizards upstairs when they got the news had tears of joy, I'm sure those closest to Henry must have experienced a flood.

With all the C.R.A.P. crap in the world today, I wanted to shout it from the mountains. How can I keep from singing?

Here is the Deerwood Da Capo choir singing those exact words in November. (Click here to see the kids singing)

There aren't really enough words are there?

At home spending a precious free evening decorating for Christmas, praise and joy were spilling out all over the place. I was putting my angels everywhere and imagining their voices. I wanted to sing too, but my voice was not big enough for my feelings. I needed a bigger voice. A really big voice. Like Josh Groban.

O' Holy Night will do. Cece Winans "All is Well Tonight" was second on the list.

That my friends, is why we need music. And art. When our own voice isn't big enough. When our emotions spill out into the world we crave something to express them.

I looked around my house as I was putting up the Christmas folks, and I remembered how much art I have that I overlook each day. Art I created or purchased when I was really high or really low.

I put on Beethoven's 9th and thought about hearing the Minnesota Orchestra perform it at Orchestra Hall December of 2000, when Bill and I announced to our parents that we were having a baby. It took a full orchestra and hundreds of voices to express it that evening.

And yet, Beethoven created that art when he was deaf. Our joy and our sorrow flow from one to the other almost seamlessly.

Our prayers continue, for all good things for Henry as he heals.

I have to confess that I looked at my own children a little differently this week, and every child that walked into the studio door. Precious. Each one. Each moment.

This music that we are working so hard on, for the recital next week? This is what it's for. To get out what boils up inside us. Joys and sorrows.

Today it's joy. God bless Henry and all the children. How can we keep from singing--even when our own voice is not nearly big enough?