Come on Summer

Multitasking Mother

A day without rain is like. . .
Well. I don't really remember.

We seem to be stuck in another weather pattern. Cold and rainy. Please, God, don't let it snow on the last day of school.

This is the last week of my teaching semester. It's really bitter sweet. I'm taking a sabbatical this summer. I'm looking forward to that. I'll still be teaching at MacPhail's Suzuki camp and I'm taking the teacher practicum with Caroline Fraser in California, but besides that. . . and practicing with my kids everyday, I'm not doing any music. Period. Well, except the listening. . . I made new playlists on the itunes. But nothing else. . . unless you ask. . .

It's a bitter sweet week because all these little kids are graduating from high school. They really shouldn't let such little kids graduate. It's just they they got so dang tall so fast.  Once they are 18 they are harder to boss around too.

It's bitter sweet because I feel like a haven't spent enough time with my own kids lately. Yet, next week we'll be together 24/7 and it doesn't take long for the giant three month wrestling match to ensue. This summer I'm hiding the ukulele and the recorders. Some live and learn . . .

The bottom line is that I do best with a routine. I love routines. I'm not easily bored. The lifetime challenge it seems, is to find the right routine. One that make use of our talents but doesn't strip us down to the bone. One that has margin for good food and family and music and mental health.

This year the routine just about left me without an oxygen mask. Between Bill's new job and SPTG and the list of stuff that you are not even interested in me typing. . . it was too much.

Press the reset button. Here are some ways we are changing. . .

Mary has decided not to pursue the 2020 olympic gold gymnastics all-around medal. Instead, we are going back to the gym .5 miles from our house and she's going to take recreational gymnastics twice a week and basically bounce her butt off on the trampoline whether she points her toes or not. Instead of making a car payment toward the gym every month, turns out the second rec class each week is half off. When she made the team at the elite gym, we got the schedule and she started to cry. Really cry. It wasn't just because she realized we had spent the money for her high school dream car on a lost cause. She knew in her heart she didn't love gymnastics nine hours a week. So. We are all happy and she starts next week with her old friends and teachers. It's an open door. If she changes her mind later we will simply refinance the house.

Second item of change. No more downtown "extracurricular" music lessons. There are two separate stories here, of Mary's guitar lessons and Calvin's jazz piano classes. Long story short, for the moment I need a break from paying a babysitter to take them there and gas and parking money and tuition (above my hourly rate for exponentially less commitment and preparation. . . I must add) and the fast food that they have to eat because the long drive is over dinner. Full stop. Reassess later. Those were a very, very expensive three notes that Mary learned on guitar this year. As it would go, after I told the teacher we wouldn't be coming back he let her just "play some chords" the last four lessons and she learned four songs that she is singing and jamming to and having a ball picking up the guitar on the hour. . . PRIMAL SCREEM. . . .

I thought I was a pretty good communicator. . . but I see that I still have A LOT to learn. And I have some work to do on my anger graph.  Dr. Suzuki would not be proud of the comments I made on the teacher evaluation.  I'm sorry.

My role in the government of the Suzuki Piano Teacher's Guild has come to an end.  I'll still be chair of the graduation and be on the board as past president, but it should be a little less. We are working toward complete online graduation registration next year and that is going to ROCK!  No more late night data entry.

There are other changes too. I'm starting a book by Jen Hatmaker called "7." I'd like to get a group of smart, cool, awesome woman to read it together.  If you are interested in being in a email "book club" where we just read the book together and comment back and forth without ever actually meeting, please email me and I'll put you on a list. I'm really excited. The book is about fighting suburban excesses, with a Christian focus. Her opening mantra is, "Lord, let there be less of me and my stuff, so that there can be more of you." Or something like that. That is how I feel much of the time. I don't know if I'll actually make any radical changes, but sometimes just thinking about changing is almost as good. Please join me if you are interested.

Summer routine?

There is no such thing. Every week is different and unique. Plus,we are having construction in the basement and backyard. So far, it's just a master's thesis project Bill and I have been preparing together the last year or so. We have the whole thing planned out and the plumbing and design elements. We have drawn and redrawn. Picked faucets and carpet samples. Fought and made up. We are hoping to turn in the project and get an A+ on our design. No one has actually shown up to do any work, but hope springs eternal. They should start next week, which is just as well, since I wasn't really looking forward to concrete dust in the whole house before the two remaining senior recitals this weekend. I know that seems like common sense--making them wait--but what is it with contractors--when they say jump we jump, as though their time was some sacred gift that we could never get back if we said we needed to wait another day?  Lucky for me the folks at the City of Eagan building permit place are running behind and I didn't have to die on that bridge.


Tomorrow is Mary's last day of school and it will be the first ever last day of school picture in a snow suit. Well, at least two layers of sweatshirt and wind-breaker. The teachers are getting wilted lilacs because none of the usual flowers are blooming yet. C'est dommage.

Cabin game of choice, yes, I am the railroad tycoon.  You might notice that the other player has mortgaged Boardwalk and is low on cash. . . 

Grandpa's chicken

Copyright Bill Kotrba--I love this photo

It's colder than it looks

Come ON summer.

I've used up my time. My hour of therapy is up. I have to let you go. Thanks for listening. If you want to join the book discussion and you don't know my email--you can contact me through the link to the studio website above and I'll get the message!